Pieces of the Puzzle (8 page)

Scott buried his head in his hands. “If anything happens to her, I don’t know what I’ll do. I can’t think. I can’t sleep.
I can’t eat.”

Glen reached out to Scott. “That’s exactly what they wanted.”

Scott shot back, “What do you mean?”

“You said yourself you were close to something.” The phone rang. Glen ignored it, continued. “They wanted you off the trail
and brought you all the way back to Baltimore. They’re good, indisputably good. We can’t let this go on. This is our only
lead.

The connection to Munich has to be obvious to you now.”

“Munich?”

“Yes, Munich. What did you think? Why do you think I need you? You’re the one, Scott. You got closer in this than anyone—and
you came back. You’re the one who can put the pieces together. I’m counting on it and so are a lot of other people.”

Scott jumped up. He’d known there was a connection, but if this was connected to Munich, Munich was connected to Paris and
Paris to Berlin. “How far back does this go?”

Glen knew that the pieces were coming together for Scott. “Been chasing this ghost my whole career, so have you and a dozen
like you. I knew in ‘87 we were close to something but Black Monday happened anyway.”

“Why me?”

Glen walked to the table and unrolled a map of the world. “Teams and operations. Positive identifications and links. A lifetime’s
work, the whole of their network. The magic question remains—”“Who’s at the top? Who’s pulling the strings?”

“Exactly.”

Scott rubbed his eyes. “Glen, I don’t know what to say. I’m not thinking straight. I just made an ass of myself. Do you want
some ice?” The phone started ringing again. “Do you want me to answer that?”

“Could you pour me a scotch? Nice and stiff. I’ll get the phone.”

Glen waited until Scott was on the other side of the room, then answered the phone. He didn’t say anything immediately. His
desk phone took a little longer than the video phone in his office to verify the line. “Hello?”

The voice on the other end of the line said, “I did it.”

“You closed the deal?”

Silence greeted him.

“Did you close the deal or not?”

“Yes. He enjoyed it. I enjoyed it. We did it all night if that’s what you want to hear. Does that make you happy, you sick—”

Glen clamped a hand over the receiver. He said to Scott, “I’m sorry, I have to take this. Pour yourself a drink. You look
like you need it.” Into the receiver he said, “And the records?”

“Let me talk to her.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Glen saw Scott pour straight bourbon into a glass and gulp it down. “Deliver them, then you’ll
get what you want.”

“I want to hear her voice. I have to know—”

Glen waved and smiled as Scott poured another drink for himself then started putting ice into another glass. “One word, one
more word, and I’ll send something back to you that you’ll swear is a jigsaw puzzle and not a human being.”

He heard sobbing on the other end of the line.

“Deliver the records!” Glen slammed the phone down. He walked back to the couch. Scott was staring blankly at the wall. He
picked up the drink Scott made for him and held it against his jaw.

Scott looked him straight in the eye. “Let’s level the playing field. You tell me everything you haven’t told me about John
Ellis Wellmen. Everything.”

“There’s a lot more than you can handle, and sometimes when you know too much, you wish you didn’t know anything at all.”

“I’m not going anywhere until you tell me everything.”

Glen walked to his desk, unlocked a drawer, and removed it from the desk. A large manila envelope was taped to the bottom
of the drawer. “Ever heard of the People’s Armed Police?”

“Extremists. Isn’t there supposed to be a link between them and the importing of weapons into the U.S.?”

Glen smiled. Scott wasn’t an expert on arms, but he understood the playing field. “No supposedly about it. It’s a multibillion-dollar
industry, and it’s all very legal.” He handed Scott the envelope. “These documents date back to the early ‘80’s.”

Scott was hesitant to open it. Glen indicated it was all right. Scott thumbed through the thick stack of documents. “What’s
this? Everything anyone’d ever want to know about the arms business but were afraid to ask?”

“Not everything, and only the dealings we’re tracking.”

Scott gulped down Glen’s drink. Glen didn’t comment. Scott said, “Just how does all this relate? This isn’t about weapons.
This is about something else entirely.”

“Are you so sure?” Glen eyed the photograph in Scott’s hands. He tapped the map, didn’t say anything more immediately, then
stood. “You want another drink?”

“Just bring the bottle.”

Glen knew Scott meant the bottle of bourbon. He made himself a drink and brought the bourbon for Scott. He sucked at his drink,
dug his fist into the couch. “Billions weren’t enough for our Mr. Wellmen. He wanted to control an empire in the heart of
the United States of America, and we let him.”

“Meaning?”

“He saw a way to make billions, simply and all very legal. Our government has known for a very long time of companies with
ties to extremists. The extremists conduct business through these companies. They use the companies to recruit, to set up
more businesses, the more legitimate the better, and then use these businesses as cover.”

“Skip to the part where you tell me about Wellmen. You think he’s the one?”

“I am telling you about Wellmen. Profits and greed are the order of the day, as it’s always been. Nothing’s changed.”

Scott held up the picture. “And this?”

“Pretty, isn’t it? I always liked a picture of an explosion and there was none better than a perfect mushroom cloud…” “How
does this relate to Wellmen?”

“Seismographs all over the world picked it up moments after it occurred.”

“The box in Florida’s a bomb?”

Glen knew every word in the document attached to the photo. He’d read it hundreds of times late at night. He said quietly,
“We knew the day, the hour, the instant it happened, but we couldn’t do anything about it.”

Scott shouted, “This is about a nuclear bomb?”

Glen laughed. “Compared to Wellmen, bomb-toting wackos are amateur hour. Why use a bomb when you’ve got a better weapon? A
weapon that leaves no trail, doesn’t harm the innocent but can topple governments.”

“Damned booze,” Scott cursed as he threw the bottle of bourbon across the room. It shattered the glass mirror behind the bar.
“Do I have your attention now?”

Glen was wide-eyed and more than a little irritated. First the front door and now this. “You’ve had my attention. Don’t forget
who’s in control here. I give the orders. You follow them.”

Scott picked up Glen’s glass and dumped the contents on the floor. “If you say so.”

Glen knew he was being played right then. “You want to know about the box. I’ll tell you. Don’t blame me if it comes back
to bite you in the ass.”

“The box.”

“High-tech, next generation, A.I. fuzzy logic heart. It’s the next piece they need.” Glen hurled his empty glass at the bricks
above the fireplace.

Scott smiled. “Maid’s gonna love you.”

“Get this bastard, Scott. Find the box. Follow the trail. Trace it all back to Wellmen. Let us take care of the rest.”

Scott leaned forward, pursed his lips. “Is Wellmen the one?”

“Have you been listening to anything I’ve said?”

Scott nodded. “Spell it out for me. I want to hear you say it.”

“Scott, get back down to Florida. Get these sons of bitches. Get them for me. Get them for Cynthia. Get them for yourself.
Get them.”

Tampa, Florida
Friday, 7 January

No one answered.

He continued pounding.

Scott stopped when he thought he heard a voice. The door opened a crack.

He saw the chain was on, didn’t care, and kicked the door open. He backed Helen into the couch with his eyes, put his hands
around her throat and squeezed.

“Now we’re going to have a conversation,” he said. “I ask the questions. You provide the answers. Do you understand?”

Helen bobbed her head. Scott liked the terror in her eyes and the fact that he liked it surprised him.

“Have you seen Jessica?”

Helen sucked at her lip and shook her head.

“Where is Jessica?”

“I don’t know.”

“How can I reach Pattie?”

“I don’t know.”

He smacked her backhanded across the face. “Where is Jessica’s date book? Where are the files?”

Her eyes darted around the room. “I don’t know.”

He smacked her again. For an instant, it seemed the room moved.

She tried to kiss his mouth. He pushed her away.

“How much did they pay you to lie to me?”

“No one paid me to lie.”

He let her go. Her eyes widened. He staggered toward the door. “I don’t need you. You need me. Remember that when they find
Jessica floating face down.”

She ran after him. She grabbed his hand and pulled him against her.

The room shifted under his feet. Scott wobbled and started to fall. Helen supported him. The room had a ceiling fan, he saw
suddenly. It was going round and round and round.

“Scott, stay with me,” she said. She draped his arm around her shoulder and helped him into the other room.

Everything was moving. A door opened. There was a bed. He fell onto it face first. Everything went black.

Hours later, he smelled something, opened his eyes, tried to sit up, found it difficult. Helen was standing over him in her
underwear. He rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. He was lying in bed with a sheet over him. His clothes were in
a heap on the floor. She stuck a plate of food into his hand.

He took the plate, set it next to him, then looked under the sheet to see whether he was really naked or not. “We didn’t?”

She handed him a cup. “We did.”

He took a sip and spit. “Bourbon.”

“Water.”

“Bourbon, get me a bottle. I’m not going to do anything today sober.”

“You’re an angry, mean S.O.B. when you’re drunk. You’ll get no booze from me.” She threw a bottle of pills at him.

He looked at it. “Midol?”

“Maybe it’ll cure more than your hangover.”

He tugged at his hair. “We didn’t really, did we?”

“Eat. It’s getting cold. You should be hungry.”

He collapsed back on the bed, set the cup on his forehead.

The cool oozed out of the cup and into his aching head.

He was famished, hated the fact that he was, hated the thoughts running through his aching brain. There was no denying the
fact that Helen aroused his sense of curiosity. But if he had slept with her, he should remember something. He remembered
nothing, nothing since Baltimore. Frustrated, he screamed, “Put some clothes on!”

He winced, tried to hold his brains in as his head started throbbing, but nothing worked.

“Take the Midol,” Helen recommended.

He tried to open the bottle, but his hands just wouldn’t work. Helen opened the bottle and gave him two pills. He wanted three
or four, but she said two would work just fine. Afterward, she fed him while he lay on his back.

He asked her later, “What happened yesterday? I don’t even remember this room.”

Helen said, quiet and firm, “If you ever hurt me again, I’ll find a way to kill you. I will.”

She had a fork in one hand, a knife in the other. He edged away from her. “That wasn’t me yesterday, Helen.”

“I think it was, especially when we got around to it.” His eyes showed disbelief.

She used his confusion and kissed him on the mouth. She crawled up on top of him, peeled off her bra, placed his hands on
her breasts. “You like the feel of them, don’t you? Want to try to get it right this time? I can tell you’re a real ladies’
man.” He put his hands to his head. The room was spinning. She kissed her way down to his belly. He tried to push her away.
She held on and went at it with even more vigor. He grabbed the mattress with both hands as she moved faster and faster. For
a few moments, the pounding in his head went away.

When it was over, she giggled and worked her way back to his mouth. She said, “Now it’s the truth and not a lie, and no one
will hurt Jessica.”

“What the hell is that supposed to, to—” he stopped tried to think of what he was going to say, “to mean?”

“I did, you didn’t. You did, I didn’t.” She wiped her lips, put her bra back on and left the room.

He wanted to chase after her, but found his shoulders were too heavy to lift off the bed and his eyes, he just couldn’t keep
them open. He used one hand to hold the other while he forced his droopy eyelids open. “Did you put something in that?”

“Night night,” Helen shouted back at him. “Sleep tight. You were marvelous, baby, marvelous.”

Tampa, Florida
Sunday, 9 January

She whispered, “You hurt me.”

“A truce,” he repeated. “I’m not a good drunk, usually not a bad drunk, but never a good drunk.”

“Never touch me. Never touch me.” She buried her face in her hands. “You promised you wouldn’t hurt me. You promised you wouldn’t
let anyone hurt me.”

Scott sucked at the air. He wasn’t sure if he should put his arms around her to stop her shivering, but did anyway. “If I
could take back what I did, I would, but I can’t. We need each other, Helen. You want to find your sister. I want to find
what was in the attaché case. We need each other.”

“May’s dead. Jessica’s next. It’s my fault.”

He put her at arm’s length. “Because of the money? How much does it take to sell out someone you love these days?”

“Enough to keep the Symphonic from bankruptcy for a long, long time.”

“Who paid you?”

“‘It’s all very simple,’ he told me. I give him the box. He gives me the money. I never see him again. Nothing ever happens.”

“Tell me how I can find him?”

She heaved a gym bag onto the bed. “I want you to give it back to him. Tell him all I want is Jessica.”

He looked her straight in the eye. “It’s not that simple anymore. You want to see Jessica alive, right?”

She nodded soberly.

“You have to tell me everything. Everything. I want to know when the first time he approached you was. I want to know what
he was wearing, what he looked like, what he smelled like, what he told you his name was. I want to know about every time
you saw him after that first time. I want to know every word he told you. Whether it was raining or the sun was shining when
you met.

Everything.”

Helen brought him back to last summer. The orchestra was having serious financial troubles. Their audience was shrinking.
There wasn’t enough money to pay the musicians for a third year in a row. A fifty percent pay cut was rejected by the musicians.

They tried to raise funds, couldn’t raise enough. And then he came with a suitcase full of hundred-dollar bills.

She unzipped the gym bag and handed him a stack of hundreds. “I just want Jessica back. That’s all. Is that so terrible?”

He threw the wad of bills at her. “You don’t know me well enough to buy me.”

She appealed to him with her eyes. “Ten million. Ten million dollars.”

“Go on,” he told her.

The man didn’t give her the money then, at least not all of it.

He asked her how much she needed to keep the Symphonic running till December. She told him. He gave her the money, told her
she owed him. She didn’t see him again until January, when things were again desperate. A handful of musicians walked out,
more were threatening to leave. They needed money. He took her out, wined and dined her and then attacked her. The next morning
he was gone, but there was ten thousand dollars in the bed beside her.

In two weeks he came back, persuaded her that she was mistaken about the attack, told her that she was drunk at the time and
didn’t know what she was saying, told her she owed him and that she had to go with him right then. He took her to dinner at
a fancy restaurant, got her drunk and then attacked her. It happened over and over and over, and always he left money. One
day in early April, he came back with a suitcase full of money and told her how she could make him disappear forever.

She was trembling so violently that she couldn’t go on. Scott held her, reassured her. This was the part he needed to hear.
He pressed her to go on, to tell him everything. She did. Afterward, they sat on the bed for what seemed hours. His stomach
was in knots. His hands were in fists. His fingernails were biting into his palms. Her tears were dripping down his back,
but he hardly noticed as he gently rocked her back and forth, back and forth.

As evening set in, she sat in a chair and solemnly conducted Pachelbel’s Canon in D. She said it was soothing. He said after
four hours of listening to the music and watching her, it had surpassed annoying. In one end of the living room, there was
a computer occupying a corner of a desk. He eyed it with a sense of longing. He asked her again, “No Newsnet access?”

She looked at him, didn’t stop conducting. “No connection, no connection, no connection.”

“Why would anyone have a computer and not have a connection?”

“Not my computer.”

He tugged at his hair. “I have to get some fresh air.” She dropped her arms and ran to the stereo. “It’s off. It’s off.

Don’t leave.”

“I’m just going to get some fresh air. Maybe I’ll buy a newspaper. Is there a newsstand around here?”

“Mini-mart two blocks up, but it’s late. They’re out of papers by now.”

Scott opened the door. Sunset was sprawled across the heavens; smog and ever-present humidity did nothing to dampen its beauty.
It was a sunset Cynthia would’ve delighted in. He went to the railing and stared out over the glut of buildings to the distant
horizon. Helen came up behind him. “Beautiful,” she said.

He walked away from her touch.

The mini-mart was three blocks up the street, not two, or maybe Scott went in the wrong direction but at the moment it didn’t
really matter. He wasn’t daunted by the thickness of the Sunday
Tampa Tribune
. He bought the last one, a several-day-old
Wall Street Journal
, and a news rag that caught his eye. When he asked the man behind the counter if he still had yesterday’s newspaper lying
around somewhere, the man’s face lit up with a smile. He produced a Friday and a Saturday edition. Scott bought both and a
twenty-dollar phone card.

A few moments later, he was dialing Glen’s number. Glen answered on the third ring. “How’s Cynthia? Has she come around yet?
What are the doctors saying?”

“Scott, you worry about the weather in Tampa. I’ll worry about Cynthia for the both of us.”

“And her condition?”

“She’s getting stronger every day.”

Scott closed his eyes, sighed.

Glen repeated, “Worry about the weather in Tampa.”

“Is it going to rain?”

“I think there’s a storm coming your way. Can you handle it?”

“A hurricane?”

“Could blow over in a day or two. Still, maybe you should stay indoors.”

“I will.” Scott hung up the phone, reached for his holster to reassure himself, found he wasn’t wearing it. He looked around,
picked up the newspapers and started back to Helen’s apartment. He walked as briskly as he could without running. He set the
papers down at the base of the stairs, looked at them for a moment like he was parting with an old friend, then crept quietly
up, one stair at a time. He stopped a few steps below the second floor landing. The door to the apartment was wide open. He
could hear music coming from the stereo, but it wasn’t Pachelbel. He snaked up the last few stairs and into the apartment.
The living room was empty. He smelled something faintly. Cigarette smoke. Helen didn’t smoke, did she?

His gun was in the bedroom, somewhere. The question was how to get to it if someone was waiting for him within the shadowed
apartment. He pulled at his lips as he considered his options, not surprised that the possibility of danger excited him. Glen
told him once that the thrill of the game was in his blood and for a long time he didn’t know what Glen meant. One day, in
a single instant, that changed. U.S. warplanes raced overhead. The city trembled as B-52s delivered their payloads. He hunkered
down beside a wall that seemed to run forever along the banks of the Tigris and waited, waited just like he had outside the
walls of Enieshkey and Serseng palaces in Amadiya, only things were different now. The push was on, the hunt was on, and he
the hunter sought a more elusive quarry.

There was smoke then too, not faint but puissant and stinging as it rolled along the wall. He slipped into the bedroom, using
the shadows as he moved. He groped along the floor beside the bed. He grinned as he touched soft leather and cold steel. He
slipped the gun from the holster and was rising from his knees when he heard something not far off.

Abruptly, the bedroom light turned on. He squinted as he spun around, slipped his finger over the trigger and started to squeeze
even before he saw what he was aiming it.

“No, Scott, no!” Helen screamed. She jumped in front of the woman who had turned on the light. “This is May. Scott, May. May,
Scott. It’s her apartment! Don’t shoot! Please God don’t shoot!”

He lowered the gun. Helen ran up to him and kissed him full on the mouth. Scott didn’t shy away but it was only because of
May. He whispered as she wrapped her arms around him and led him into the kitchen, “Knock it off.”

Helen made coffee and put biscuits out. May watched, eyeing Scott without saying a word.

“Can I ask you a few questions, May? I need to know about Pattie.”

May puffed on her cigarette, finished it, lit another. Scott swore a cloud was forming around her.

“Have you ever met Pattie?”

May didn’t say anything.

Scott nodded to Helen. Helen said, “He’s a friend, May. I vouch for him.” Helen kissed him again, then sat down on his lap.
“He’s here to help. I asked him to.”

“I really only met Pattie that once, at the airport.”

“Go on.” Scott sipped his coffee, wished it was something else and not only because the thin ceramic mug felt like it was
burning his hand every time he touched it. May lit another cigarette, her fifth. Helen nibbled her thumbnail more intently.

May finally said, “It’s mine and it isn’t, really my ex-husband’s. We’re sort of trial and erroring it. Well, mostly erroring
it right now if you know what I mean.”

Scott said, “That’s not what I asked. I asked you about Pattie.

You said you met her at the airport once. Where did she fly in from?”

“Well, I’m trying to think. Sometimes it helps just to blab and then it just sort of comes in from the blue… See, now.” May
smiled. “One of those East Coast cities. You know, the big ones that start with a B that most of us folk down here don’t rightly
care about.”

“Like Baltimore?”

“Baltimore, Boston, Boise. One of those.”

Helen took May’s hand. “Boise is in Idaho, dear.”

May wrinkled her nose.

Scott reached for a biscuit and spilled his coffee in the process. Helen jumped off his lap, grabbed a handful of paper towel
from a double-roll dispenser and was about to mop up the mess when May said, “No, that’s the good stuff,” as if she were talking
about her best china.

Helen’s face flushed red. Scott knew she was embarrassed for May but shouldn’t have been. He also knew Helen thought he was
angry, but he wasn’t. He was starting to like May. Someone else might have thought her simple, but sometimes simple was refreshing.
Helen put the paper towel back and slowly unrolled a few sheets from the other roller while May nodded her head.

Scott took the paper towels from Helen and started cleaning up the mess.

Scott sat back down. “Tell me about Pattie.”

“Pretty thing. Pretty eyes. Long black hair—well, used to be. She didn’t like it that way, so one day Pattie up and chops
it all off. Pattie was good for her though, real smart. Meant for each other but I guess that’s in the past now.”

“Did she ever talk about friends and family back home?”

“She’s real quiet, you know. Most times.”

“Her job. Did she ever talk about her job?”

“She flew first-class. Did I tell you that? Like a regular V.I.P. The type that brought my daddy to Boca Raton. It’s not like
it used to be. Nope, not no more. Getting sucked right into that giant cesspool in Miami.”

Scott tensed again. Helen grabbed his arm and whispered in his ear, “She’s having a rough time right now. Just leave her alone
for a while.”

“You two look good together,” May said.

“I’m married.”

May’s eyes darted toward the bedroom. “How married?”

“I love my wife.”

May sipped her coffee. “Too bad. You’d be good for each other.”

Helen frowned and turned away.

“Back to Pattie,” Scott said. “Was she going to fly in the weekend before last?”

“It was the first of January, right?”

“And?”

“It’s a special day, you know. One year, one year. They met at some big conference in Miami last December. Some big to-do
at one of those fancy hotels. Loves those fancy hotels. She’d find an excuse to spend the night in one just because she had
a doctor’s appointment and there was one a mile away. Surprised you don’t know that by now.”

“You’re talking about Jessica, right?”

May rolled her eyes.

“This fancy hotel. Was it in Miami Beach, the Ritz-Carlton?”

“Like the cracker. That’s the one. How’d you know?”

Scott eyed Helen who still wouldn’t look at him. “Lucky guess. Does she always carry a lot of cash with her?”

May laughed like she was remembering a private joke that she kept hearing over and over. Helen got up and walked away. She
went into the other room and turned on Pachelbel’s Canon in D. Scott said, “She paid for the room in cash, for a week in advance.”

“I was her father’s secretary for a while before he passed on, you know,” May said, whispering now. “She came straight from
the big college with that bee degree. You know B-E-E like in bumblebee. Anyway that’s how I remember when I have to tell someone
over the phone. ‘Yes, she’s certified,’ I say. ‘She’s very good. The best, even better than her father.’ That’s a compliment.”

Scott nodded. “And?”

“Well, just so you know. I’ve known her for a long, long time, you know. I was there all those years when no one else was.
Anyway, she’s the Queen of Credit. That’s what I call her when she floats the bills from card to card to card. Last year she
didn’t come back for a week after that big to-do. Oh we had the police out looking last year. This year, I asked her, ‘So
you’ll be back on Monday?’ She laughs and says, ‘Fred’s in the Keys, right?’ I nod.