Six Guardians of the Underworld

Chapter 45

he yawned. "I'm a little weary, I guess. It was a long night. "

"Well, take care. "

"You worrying about me now?"

He shook his head. "No, I'm worrying about myself. You could fall asleep, run us off the road. "

he yawned again. "Never happened before. "

He looked away. Found himself fingering the airbag lid in front of him.

"I'm OK," he said again. "Don't worry about it. "

"Why don't you know how they died?"

he shrugged. "You were an investigator. You saw dead people. "

"So?"

"So what did you look for?"

"Wounds, injuries. "

"Right," he said. "Somebody's full of bullet holes, you conclude they've been shot to death. Somebody's got their head smahed in, you call it trauma with a blunt object. "

"But?"

"These three were in bathtubs full of drying paint, right? The crime scene guys take the bodies out, and the pathologists clean them up, and they don't find anything. "

"Nothing at all?"

"Nothing obvious, not at first. So then naturally they look harder. They still don't find anything. They know they didn't drown. When they open them up, they find no water or paint in the lungs. So then they search for external injuries, microscopically. They can't find anything. "

"No hypodermic marks? Bruising?"

he shook her head. "Nothing at all. But remember, they've been coated in paint. And that military stuff wouldn't pass too many HUD regulations. Full of all kinds of chemicals, and fairly corrosive. It damages the skin, postmortem. It's conceivable the paint damage might be obscuring some tiny marks. But whatever killed them was very subtle. Nothing gross. "

"What about internal damage?"

he shook her head again. "Nothing. No subcutaneous bruising, no organ damage, no nothing. "

"Poison?"

"No. Stomach contents were OK. They hadn't ingested the paint. Toxicology was completely clear. "

Gina nodded, slowly. "No s****l interference either, I guess, because Loveth was happy both Callan and Cooke would have slept with me if I'd wanted them to. Which means the perpetrator was feeling no s****l resentment, therefore no r**e, or else you'd be looking for somebody who'd been rebuffed by them, one time or another. "

Jackr nodded. "That's our profile. Sexuality wasn't an issue. The nakedness is about humiliation, we think. Punishment. The whole thing was about punishment. Retribution, or something. "

"Weird," Gina said. "That definitely makes the guy a soldier. But it's a very unsoldierly way to kill somebody. Soldiers shoot or stab or hit or strangle. They don't do subtle things. "

"We don't know exactly what he did. "

"But there's no anger there, right? If this guy is into some retribution thing, where's the anger? It sounds too clinical. "

Jackr yawned and nodded, all at once. "That troubles me too. But look at the victim category. What else can the motive be? And if we agree on the motive, what else can the perp be except an angry soldier?"

They lapsed into silence. The miles rolled by. Jackr held the wheel, thin tendons in her wrists standing out like cords. Gina watched the road reeling in, and tried not to feel happy about it. Then Jackr yawned again, and he saw him glance sharply at her.

"I'm OK," he said.

He looked at her, long and hard.

"I'm OK," he said again.

"I'm going to sleep for an hour," he said. "Try not to kill me. "

WHEN HE WOKE up, they were still in New Jersey. The car was quiet and comfortable. The motor was a faraway hum and there was a faint tenor rumble from the tires. A faint rustle of wind. The weather was gray. Jackr was rigid with exhaustion, gripping the wheel, staring down the road with red unblinking eyes.

"We should stop for lunch," he said.

"Too early. "

He checked his watch. It was one o'clock. "Don't be such a damn hero. You should get a pint of coffee inside you. "

he hesitated, ready to argue. Then he gave it up. Her body suddenly went slack and he yawned again.

"OK," he said. "So let's stop. "

he drove on for a mile and coasted into a rest area in a clearing in the trees behind the shoulder. he put the car in a slot and turned the motor off and they sat in the sudden silence. The place was the same as a hundred others Gina had seen, low-profile Federal architecture of the fifties colonized by fast-food operations that lodged behind discreet counters and spread their messages outward with gaudy advertisements.

He got out first and stretched his cramped frame in the cold, damp air. The highway traffic was roaring behind him. Jackr was inert in the car, so he strolled away to the bathroom. Then he was nowhere to be seen, so he walked inside the building and lined up for a sandwich. he joined him within a minute.

"You're not supposed to do that," he said.

"Do what?"

"Stray out of my sight. "

"Why not?"

"Because we have rules for people like you. "

he said it without any trace of softness or humor. He shrugged. "OK, next time I go to the bathroom I'll invite you right inside with me. "

he didn't smile. "Just tell me, and I'll wait at the door. "

The line shuffled forward and he changed his selection from cheese to crabmeat, because he figured it was more expensive and he assumed he was paying. He added a twenty-ounce cup of black coffee and a plain doughnut. He found a table while he fiddled with her purse. Then he joined him and he raised his coffee in an ironic toast.

"Here's to a few fun days together," he said.

"It'll be more than a few days," he said. "It'll be as long as it takes. "

He sipped his coffee and thought about time.

"What's the significance of the three-week cycle?" he asked.

he had chosen cheese on whole-wheat and was pecking a c

rumb from the corner of her mouth with her little finger.

"We're not entirely sure," he said. "Three weeks is an odd interval. It's not lunar. There's no calendar significance to three weeks. "

He did the math in his head. "Ninety-one targets, one every three weeks, it would take him five and a quarter years to get through. That's a hell of a long project. "

he nodded. "We think that proves the cycle is imposed by something external. Presumably he'd work faster if he could. So we think he's on a three-week work pattern. Maybe he works two weeks on, one week off. He spends the week off staking them out, organizing it, and then doing it. "

Gina saw his chance. Nodded.

"Possible," he said.

"So what kind of soldier works that kind of pattern?"

"That regular? Maybe a rapid-response guy, two weeks on readiness, one week stood down. "

"Who's on rapid response?"

"Marines, some infantry," he said.

Then he swallowed. "And some Special Forces. "

Then he waited to see if he'd take the bait.

he nodded. "Special Forces would know subtle ways to kill, right?"

He started on the sandwich. The crabmeat could have been tuna fish. "Silent ways, unarmed ways, improvised ways, I guess. But I don't know about subtle ways. This is about concealment, right? Special Forces are interested in getting people dead, for sure, but they don't care about leaving anybody puzzled afterward about how they did it. "

"So what are you saying?"

He put his sandwich down. "I'm saying I don't have a clue about who's doing what, or why, or how. And I don't see how I should. You're the big expert here. You're the one studied landscape gardening in school. "

he paused, with her sandwich in midair. "We need more from you than this, Gina. And you know what we'll do if we don't get it. "

"I know what you say you'll do. "

"You going to take the chance we won't?"

"he gets hurt, you know what I'll do to you, right?"

he smiled. "Threatening me, Gina? Threatening a federal agent? You just broke the law again. Title 18, paragraph A-3, section 4702. Now you're really stacking up the charges against yourself, that's for sure. "

He looked away and made no reply.

"Stay on the ball, and everything will be OK," he said.

He drained his cup, and looked at her over the rim. A steady, neutral gaze. "The ethics bothering you here?" he asked.

"Are there ethics involved?" he asked back.

Then her face changed. A hint of embarrassment crept into it. A hint of softening. he nodded. "I know, it used to bother me too. I couldn't believe it, when I got out of the Academy. But the Bureau knows what it's doing. I learned that, pretty quick. It's a practical thing. It's about the greatest good for the greatest number. We need cooperation, we ask for it first, but you better believe we make damn sure we get it. "

Gina said nothing.

"It's a policy I believe in, now," Jackr said. "But I want you to know using your girlfriend as a threat wasn't my idea. "

Gina said nothing.

"That was Loveth," he said. "I'm not about to criticize him for it, but I wouldn't have gone down that road myself. "

"Why not?"

"Because we don't need more women in danger here. "

"So why did you let him do it?"

"Let him? He's my boss. And this is law enforcement. Emphasis on the enforcement. But I need you to know it wouldn't have been my way. Because we need to be able to work together. "

"Is this an apology?"

he said nothing.

"Is it? Finally?"

he made a face. "Close as you'll get from me, I guess. "

Gina shrugged. "OK, whatever. "

"Friends now?" he said.

"We'll never be friends," Gina said. "You can forget about that. "

"You don't like me," he said.

"You want me to be honest with you?"

he shrugged. "Not really, I guess. I just want you to help me out. "

"I'll be a go-between," he said. "That's what I agreed to. But you need to tell me what you want. "

he nodded. "Special Forces sound promising to me. First thing you'll do is check them out. "

He looked away, and clenched his teeth to keep himself from smiling.

THEY SPENT A whole hour at the rest stop. Toward the end of it Jackr started to relax. Then he seemed reluctant to get back on the road.

"You want me to drive?" Gina asked.

"It's a Bureau car," he said. "You're not permitted. "

But the question jogged her back on track. he gathered her purse and stood up from the table. Gina took the trash to the receptacle and joined her at the door. They walked back to the Buick in silence. he fired it up and eased it out of the slot and merged onto the highway.

The hum of the motor came back, and the faint noise from the road and the muted rush of the air, and within a minute it was like they had never stopped at all. Jackr was in the same position, upright and tense behind the wheel, and Gina was sprawled on her right, watching the view flash by.

"Tell me about your sister," he said.

"My stepsister. "

"Whatever, tell me about her. "

"Why?"

He shrugged. "You want me to help, I need background. Like where did he serve, what happened to her, stuff like that. "

"he's a rich girl who wanted adventure. "

"So he joined the Army?"

"he believed the advertisements. You seen those, in magazines? They make it look tough and glamorous. "

"Is he tough?"

Jackr nodded. "he's very physical, you know? he loves all that stuff, rock climbing, biking, skiing, hiking, windsurfing. he thought the Army was going to be all rappelling down cliffs with a knife between your teeth. "

"And it wasn't?"

"You know damn well it wasn't. Not back then, not for a woman. They put her in a transport battalion, made her drive a truck. "

"Why didn't he quit, if he's rich?"

"Because he's not a quitter. he did great in basic training. he was pushing for something better. "

"And?"

"he saw some jerk of a colonel five times, trying to make some progress. He suggested if he was n***d throughout the sixth interview, that might help. "

"And?"

"he busted him. Whereupon they gave her the transfer he wanted. Infantry close-support unit, about as near the action as a woman was going to get. "