Hard Fall Part 3

A thin-boned woman of fifty-two, with straight black hair cut and curled at her shoulders, Gloria labored behind sad brown eyes and a rigid posture that helped knock a dozen years off the truth. She patted her hair self-consciously. At this hour of the morning, she and Daggett owned the place.

Gloria came over with a cup of coffee. "I can help you pack, if you want." He recognized the words she had spoken, but they lost form inside his head, the edges of the consonants made round and smooth by his ruptured eardrum. He had learned quickly to answer the phone with his left ear, to try to keep people to his left when he spoke to them, and to consciously avoid talking loudly. Not only was his newfound deafness an annoying and occasionally embarra.s.sing disability, but it was unnerving and disconcerting as well. All sound to his right had died, as if he were suddenly only half a person.

He hesitated. "I'm not moving, Glo. I turned down the offer." Before she could object, he added, "Taking a promotion because of Backman's stupidity is not my idea of earning it. Pullman is next in command he has to be b.u.mped up. I don't." He leafed through a stack of pink memos. "I'm off to Seattle this afternoon. The field office out there invited me to have a look at something."

"Be reasonable, dearie."

"Reasonable? If I take the promotion, then I lose my field status, and this investigation along with it. I move into Pullman's old job. They park me permanently behind a desk, Glo. Me? Leather-soled shoes and three-hour meetings? No thanks."

"You're being selfish."

"Undoubtedly. I'm reminded of that often enough, without hearing it from you as well." He said it, and then regretted both the content and the tone. Not surprisingly, Gloria ignored the offense; she would not be swayed from her purpose. If Gloria was anything, she was determined. "You can't change what's happened."

Bitterness boiled over repet.i.tion had a way of doing that to him. "If you put a melody behind that, you and Carrie could sing it in harmony." He tossed the memos onto his desk, suddenly more angry. Armchair psychology from an aging den mother he didn't need. The truth, he needed even less. "You'll be going through Backman's stuff. He was a secretive son of a b.i.t.c.h. If there's anything in there I could "

"He isn't even in the ground yet, and you're picking at his bones."

"I'm not picking at his bones. I'm trying to find a detonator Bernard may have built." He checked his in-box and sorted through his memos. He tried a different subject. "What about Meecham's report?"

"There's a message here for you. He wants to meet with you at his office."

"Today?"

"Yes. Right away. He said he would be glad to get you out of his hair."

"He, and everyone else."

"Aren't we pleasant."

"Pleasant? I stay at home, I get the third degree; I come into work, it's deja vu all over again." He hoped he might get a rise out of her, that a little humor even borrowed humor might provide an opportunity for a truce. But his attempt went right over her head, which wasn't hard, given her diminutive height.

"It's safer behind a desk."

"Do you and Carrie collaborate on these lines, or am I supposed to put this down to coincidence?"

"Can I help it if you're so d.a.m.ned consistent? So pigheaded? You're supposed to listen. You're supposed to learn something not only from your mistakes but from other people's. Bob Backman didn't learn. If he had stayed behind that desk he'd still be alive."

"Bob Backman was a fool," he said soberly. Sadness, like the warmth from a strong drink, surged through him.

"Your son is in a wheelchair, I needn't remind you." She was red-faced.

She shut up then, but her expression acknowledged it came too late. The words hung in the air like fruit flies. There was no getting rid of them. "No, you needn't," he said, filling the resulting silence. The fruit flies flew into his eyes. He felt the welling of tears and attempted to fight them off.

It's not a dream, it's a memory, and though it comes down like a heavy curtain, it holds moving images like a projection screen. It's transparent enough that he can see through it to the boy beyond, the boy coming down the ramp; but substantial enough that he can't will it away. He knows that it's triggered by certain things: a smell in the air, a sound; for a while, just touching wool brought it on. But there seems no trick to get rid of it. No cure.

He's in the high school gymnasium the Germans have set aside for the identification of personal belongings. Most of it is now in clear plastic garbage bags marked with tags that indicate how far from the point of impact the item was found. The imperfection of the plastic clouds what's inside. After several minutes his eyes begin to hurt. The quant.i.ty of the belongings the rows of clothes, bags, cameras, briefcases, papers, walking canes, baby strollers, golf clubs, computers overwhelms him and he begins to cry. He's been crying off and on for the last three days. Sometimes it is simply the sight of a family that does it to him; sometimes it is something said at one of the briefings. He had seen a deer in a field the day before, and that had made him cry. He's vulnerable. He's not sure he'll hold up under the pressure. He worries he may start crying and not be able to stop.

Bag after bag; he pushes the plastic around to get a better view of what's inside. A doll, its head missing, holds his attention. Driving into town the morning after the disaster he had come across a dead woman in the very top of a tree, hanging by her feet. Her dress ripped off her, arms hanging down like she was diving into the water. Bloodless.

It was his first impression of the disaster in an otherwise pastoral and richly German countryside. Now he wondered if the child who had mothered this doll had been mothered by that woman. They would figure it out eventually. But for now, all he can do is wonder.

Total number of survivors: four. All children, one of whom was his now paralyzed son. Like the three hundred and twenty-seven who had perished, all four children had free-fallen from sixteen thousand feet. All four had hit a bog to the west of the village. Still, it was anyone's guess how or why they had survived. One, who was in critical condition from a staph infection, had become the focus of the media: to survive a sixteen thousand-foot fall, only to die from an infection picked up in a hospital.

He moves beyond the doll, beyond the Samsonites, the Larks, the Land's Ends. Beyond the toilet kits with their exploded cans of shaving cream, beyond the blow dryers and the hair curlers, the ca.s.sette tapes and the magazines. It looks like a sanitary landfill.

He stops cold. He reaches out, but his right hand is shaking so badly he stuffs it back into his pocket. It's not in a plastic bag. Not yet. It will be as soon as he identifies it. Someone will tag it and scrawl a name onto the tag. It will be placed on a list, the list fed into a computer as it is every night. Eventually, the various, seemingly random items in the database will be connected with a particular pa.s.senger, and bit by bit a story will unfold.

It's Duncan's shoe, completely covered in caked mud and gra.s.s from the bog. A single shoe. A shoe that belongs on a foot that will never walk again. A shoe amid a pile of someone else's clothing: some bras, some panties, a bloodied blouse. Duncan's shoe. His boy.

He signals one of the men wearing a camouflage uniform and jump boots, a man who looks as tired as Daggett feels. Some of these men have gone without sleep for seventy-two hours now. Daggett sees the man approaching, tag in hand, and he begins to weep. Not because of the shoe.

Not for Duncan. Not for himself. But because he feels so deeply moved by the efforts of everyone involved, this exhausted uniformed boy among them, aware that none of the people here on the outskirts of this village, not one, will ever be the same again.

The LAFO explosives lab, located in the downtown Hoover Building, was cluttered with cardboard boxes, microscopes, and display cases housing every conceivable kind of explosive device. He wasn't comfortable around explosives.

Two technicians wearing white lab jackets continued working without looking up as Daggett entered the lab and crossed into Meecham's office.

Chaz Meecham had dark hair, intense blue eyes, and a thin, knowing smile. He talked fast. "Listen, we finally know a little something about what Bernard was up to in his hotel room. But with Backman getting it, the Bernard stuff is going to be moved down the list for a while. I thought you might want to hear some of this before it gets buried. Don't look at me like that, Michigan. It's just the way it is."

Daggett bit his tongue.

"Almost all of this stuff was caught by the vacuum filters, which shows you the tiny sizes we're dealing with. It's bits and pieces microscopic, mostly that fell from his working surface and were caught in the carpet. Bernard was thorough in his cleanup. We can tell that by how small the pieces are. But no one can clean up everything not even a guy like Bernard.

"First, and of special interest, we've got some solder clippings with real high silver content. Quality stuff. That means one thing: He was building a sophisticated device, or devices. The biggest of what we've got," he continued, "are some plastic fragments." He slid a photograph in front of Daggett. The plastic fragments were set alongside a ruler in order to size them. To Daggett's untrained eye, they looked like nothing. "You see those when you're in my business, your p.e.c.k.e.r twitches. The surveillance schedule had Bernard going into an auto parts store, right? Our boys never did find out what he bought in there, but now I can tell you exactly what he bought. At least some of it. Dashboard altimeters. Barometric devices. Two of them, on account of the fact we've got six of these plastic nubs." He handed Daggett some graphs. Daggett glanced at them, not understanding a thing about them. These guys lived in another world.

"Two?"

He nodded enthusiastically. "There's the point of all of this: two. That's what makes all this so interesting." As Meecham continued his explanation, Daggett was imagining Bernard leaning over a hotel room table, constructing his detonator device in infinite detail, a soldering gun smoking at his side. "We've also got some platinum-plated silver wire. That's not good. It means he got hold of some mini-dets miniature detonators. They're less than an inch long and pack one h.e.l.l of a punch. They won't trip a metal detector, and they're very tough to pick up in X ray a terrorist's dream. Hot enough to light any plastic explosive you can name. Hot enough to melt aluminum, bronze any of your soft metals. Regular detonators are much more bulky and nowhere near as hot. What it means to us is that his devices are very, very small, or very complicated, or both. A mini-delis a lot more versatile than your standard detonator. You also have to go out of your way to obtain one, and that means he had a reason for wanting them."

"Where's it leave us?" Daggett asked. The room didn't have any windows. He felt claustrophobic.

"Now listen to me. Sometimes you put a pair of baro-switches in a row. Set them for different alt.i.tudes. That gives you a double-dipper. First time the air packs are charged, the first baro-switch opens. The plane takes off, goes higher, and the second baro-switch opens. That plane is guaranteed to be h.e.l.l and gone from the ground. Depends what effect you're going for."

"But .. ." Daggett could hear it coming.

"But my instincts tell me differently. You get a feel for this kind of thing, Michigan. Probably the same in your line of work. What do I know? A guy like Bernard he's a pro. He's efficient. Careful. He didn't leave a lot behind, but he left enough. Too much, in my opinion.

"We've got too many wire clippings for a single construction. Too much silicon, two altimeters. It all adds up." He flipped through a pile of black-and-white photographs shot through a microscope. "Too much for a guy as careful as Bernard," he repeated. "If I had to guess and I'm only guessing I'd say he built two detonators, Michigan. We know he had enough for two baro-switches, and as you just said, we know he bought two Casio watches. I'd say that makes the detonators nearly identical to one another as far as I can tell." Meecham paused, allowing it to sink in.

"Maybe he screwed the first one up, had to build another," Daggett suggested hopefully.

"Maybe. But then why did he buy two of everything up front? That doesn't jibe."

"So he made two bombs. Is that it?"

"Two identical detonators. Yeah. That's what I think the evidence tells us."

"And these baro-switches "

"Mean they're both intended for planes," Meecham said, interrupting. "There's little doubt about that, I'm afraid. Whoever your operative is, he has enough hardware to drop two birds."

Daggett waited in the backyard for Duncan. The boy braked the wheelchair and rolled down the plywood ramp and came to a stop without a sound. A jay laughed from a nearby crab apple tree. The gra.s.s needed mowing. The ramp needed painting. The windows needed cleaning. Mrs. Kiyak poked her head out the door, looked at father and son, and smiled. She went back into the house, presumably to fix the boy some supper. Daggett worried the boy didn't spend enough time with kids his own age. There had to be something he could do about it.

Duncan was pouting. Daggett had promised long ago that, along with Carrie, they would rent a cottage on the Maryland sh.o.r.e and spend the upcoming weekend canoeing. A promise he was about to break because of Seattle and a plane he had to catch in ninety minutes.

Carrie was on her way over. He cringed at the thought. As much as he wanted to see her, as much as he loved her, and missed her, he didn't need a lecture. His devotion to the investigation she called it worse than that had caused them many a heated "discussion."

Here was a woman who had literally walked into his life, in the form of a property management representative, and had rescued him and Duncan from the difficult early days of starting over. A woman of tireless energies, she had taken immediately to Duncan. By the time the s.e.xual relationship developed, Carrie had already been running their household and working with Duncan easing him through the difficulties and obstacles that he faced daily. It only seemed to make sense that she would eventually become Daggett's lover. But now, looking back on it, it all seemed more of an arrangement, a convenience, than a relationship. With each pa.s.sing week, Carrie a.s.sumed more control over their lives. By nature she was both fiery and domineering; the qualities that had initially made her so invaluable, and so attractive, now threatened to undo all that she had created.

He walked behind the chair to push the boy over to the chin-up bar, but Duncan didn't want his help, and hurriedly palmed the wheels, pulling away from Daggett, glancing furtively over his shoulder to a.s.sure his lead his separation. He reached the low chin-up bar his father had built out of some old pipe and a pair of four-by-fours, slapped his small hands around the smooth metal, and struggled to lift the limp weight of his body.

"I'll help," Daggett said, walking more quickly to reach him.

"I can do it," the boy said. But he couldn't. He struggled, arms quivering, barely able to lift himself. He pulled, his face red from the effort, and shook his head violently as his father stepped forward. "No," he grunted, "let me." He tried again and then slowly sank from the minor success he had obtained and slumped back into the wheelchair.

Duncan wanted desperately to partake in an outdoor canoeing camp for the handicapped sponsored by ADD Adventures for the Disadvantaged and Disabled but a primary requirement, regardless of age, was upper body strength. Even at its lowest entry level, the weekend camp required five una.s.sisted chin-ups. Duncan had yet to make more than two. Daggett wanted this camp for his son as badly as Duncan did.

"What's in Seattle?"

"A body. They found a body."

"I don't get it. I thought you were after that bomber."

"I am. But the body was found at an airplane manufacturer, and this guy's bombs go on airplanes. We want to see if the two might be connected."

"You think they are?"

"It's possible. I wouldn't be going if it wasn't super important."

"I know that."

"I mean it."

"I know you do. It's okay." He reached up again.

Daggett slipped his strong hands beneath the boy's arms, hoisted him, and said, "Let's try that again." But he hurt inside. He knew he was letting the boy down. Duncan lifted and, with his father's a.s.sistance, managed a chin-up. They had been working this way together for weeks now, Duncan's progress painstakingly slow. Daggett agonized over the process, pained to see his boy's lifeless legs dangling like a rag doll's. He had put on some weight during recovery and his arm strength had yet to develop. A few weeks earlier, Duncan had begun using free weights after months of Daggett's applying subtle pressure. Today, it seemed to Daggett, the boy showed some new strength, and he told him so.

Duncan said, "Again." Together they ran a series of five chin-ups, and then Daggett eased him back to the chair. "The only way there is through," he said, quoting what his father had told him for many years. He figured a good fifty percent of this was mental.

Carrie came around the side of the house, her chestnut hair pulled up in a simple bun because of the heat, her white Egyptian cotton sun dress revealing dark skin beneath. Sandals slapped on her heels. It bothered him when she wore something like that, because she looked too d.a.m.n good. He knew she knew it, so he had to wonder why she would come over looking like this. He decided it was just a further extension of her recent independence. She had her own agenda for where their lives should be, and Daggett's FBI work especially his dogged pursuit of those responsible for 1023 didn't fit into it. She wanted him to take his talents into the private sector, where security management offered two to three times the pay. She wanted them to marry, have children, and leave Washington. She had made all this quite clear on a warm moonlit night not three weeks earlier. When her plan met with resistance, she stiffened, and went off on this independence jag, determined to have her way. In the last six days, she had spent the night but once. They hadn't made love since the argument.

As she approached, confident and alluring, he noticed but wasn't aroused by the lightness of her step, the summer darkness of her skin. Her power over him, her control, diminished with each pa.s.sing night. With less time together, they had grown farther apart; Daggett was no closer to entering the private sector than he had been when all this had begun. As she reached him, he actually feared her.

Duncan craned his head back, looked up at him, and said, "Be nice to her, Dad." Daggett smelled a conspiracy. It mixed with her perfume.

"Hi there," she said to both of them. To Daggett, "What's this about Seattle? I thought we were going to the sh.o.r.e." Impatience gnawed behind her eyes.

"So did I," said Duncan.

It was a conspiracy. Now she was using his son against him.

"Duty calls," he said, fighting back his anger.

"No, it doesn't," she contradicted. "Each field office handles investigations in its own region. You've explained that a dozen times. Maybe duty volunteers?"

"Hey, yeah .. ." Duncan chimed in.

"Have you two been practicing?" Daggett asked. He recalled his encounter with Gloria earlier in the day. He felt cornered.

"You promised us this weekend. Doesn't that mean anything?"

"What would you like me to say?"

She went red in the face. "Keep practicing," she told Duncan. Clamping her strong fingers around Cam's elbow, she led him away. "You can't do this. You set up this weekend where he can finally get some time in on the water, you get him all worked up over it, and now you pull the rug out. What is it with you? You know what kind of damage that does to a kid?"

"Wait a second," he said, removing her hand. "You're telling me about my kid?"

"Somebody had better. He keeps company with a seventy-year-old who can barely keep her heart going with all the black tea in China. You think he's growing?"

"It's temporary."

"It's B.S. is what it is. Temporarily forever, right?"

"A man was murdered. It's important."

"You requested it, didn't you? You probably had to fight to be sent, didn't you? They don't need you out there, do they?"

"Yes, yes, and no, if you're scoring by inning." He hated being caught by her. He resented her att.i.tude, her approach, everything especially her being right.

"The sh.o.r.e, Cam. You don't want me along, that's okay. But skip Seattle. Please. Take Dune to the sh.o.r.e and spend some time with him."

"I was spending some time with him before you arrived."

That accomplished what he was after. She shot across the backyard like a wildfire with a tailwind. He felt like running after her, but he stayed where he was; he took note of that.

"Nice going, Dad." It was Duncan, hanging from the bar.

"It's a murder, Dune. It's important," he said from across the lawn.

"So go," the boy said to the father.

Only a few minutes later, he did.

FOUR.