Текст книги "The Forgotten"

Автор книги: David Baldacci

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Текущая страница: 9 (всего у книги 28 страниц)

CHAPTER

27

BULLOCK STOPPED when he was within five feet of Puller, who had stepped out onto the front stoop. “You want to tell me what the hell you’re doing here? And then try to give me a reason why I shouldn’t arrest your ass right now.”

Puller held up the keys to the house. “Got these from my aunt’s lawyer.” He slipped the copy of the will out and held it up for Bullock. “She left me the house. It’s all in here. You can call the lawyer if you don’t believe me or what the document says.”

Bullock lurched forward, snatched the will out of Puller’s hand, and read it under the porch’s exterior light. He folded up the will and handed it back to him.

“I’m no lawyer, but it looks like you got yourself a house. Of course if your aunt was killed I guess that gives you a first-class motive to kill her.”

“Except that I wasn’t in Florida when she died.”

“And you can prove that?”

“If I have to. And if I knew I was going to inherit the place, why would I come down here, kill her, and then show up here and get arrested so you’d know I was down here at all?”

“Maybe you’re stupid.”

“You’ll have to take that up with the Army.”

“I’ll take it up with you anytime I want so long as you’re in Paradise.”

“Can we call a truce here? If I rubbed you the wrong way, I apologize. It was not my intent.”

Bullock rocked back and forth on his heels, let out a loud exhale of air, and said, “Forget it. Much my fault as anybody’s. I tend to get the hair on the back of my neck up too quickly.”

“No problem. I can understand that.”

“You still think your aunt’s death wasn’t an accident?”

“I don’t know. I’ve talked to the ME and I saw her body. Nothing has jumped out at me.”

“But you’re still not sure?”

“I guess you can never be sure. Maybe I’m looking for something that just isn’t there.”

“Folks do that sometimes.”

Puller put out his hand. “Look, I know you’re busy. Whatever happened on the beach today looked pretty important. I’m going to head back to where I’m staying. Thanks for not arresting me.”

Bullock shook the hand and then said, “Yeah, it was pretty bad.” He stared at Puller. “What we found on the beach.”

Puller took this as an offer from Bullock to talk about the case.

“Drowning?”

“No. Both shot in the head.”

“Both?”

“A couple actually. The Storrows. Nancy and Fred. Like you remembered hearing at the station. Well-known folks around here. Been here longer than me. They took walks on the beach every night. They did the other night and never came back.”

“Any witnesses? Clues?”

“Bodies were pretty badly decomposed. Nobody has come forward saying they saw anything.”

“Motive? Robbery?”

“Mr. Storrow had twenty dollars in his pants and a gold wedding band on his finger. Mrs. Storrow’s diamond ring was still on her finger.”

“They have any enemies?”

“Not a one that I know of. They were retired. They grew up together in Fort Walton Beach. High school sweethearts. Moved to Paradise a long time ago. He owned a string of businesses, small stuff, gas station, Subway shop, mobile phone store. He sold all of them quite some time ago and he and the wife were spending their golden years in pretty comfortable style.”

“And the couple who reported them missing and who were at the beach today?” said Puller.

“The Storrows’ son, Chuck, and his wife, Lynn.”

“Not making any accusations, but any motive there?”

Bullock shook his head. “Son is a banker here in town and makes a great living. Doesn’t need a dime from his parents. They were very close. Played golf every weekend. Had parties at each other’s homes. Genuine affection there.”

“So maybe it was a random thing. Wrong place, wrong time.”

“That’s what I’m thinking.”

“Can you tell from where the bodies washed ashore where they entered the water?”

“Having some guys who are good with the tides and currents around here doing that for me. Might narrow down a place to search. We already have a time frame for when they left the house for a walk.”

“I know I’ve got no jurisdiction in this, but if you want another pair of eyes to look over stuff while I’m down here, I’d be glad to.”

“Okay, Puller, depending on how things go I might take you up on that. You have a good evening. Glad we worked things out here.”

“Yeah, me too.”

Bullock trudged back to his car and Puller closed and locked the front door, then walked to his car and headed off. He drove to the spot where the Storrows’ bodies had washed ashore.

Wrong place, wrong time, maybe. Which meant they might have seen something or run into someone and that had cost them their lives.

Mysterious happenings in the night.

He gauged the distance he had driven from his aunt’s house.

My house now. And what do I do with it?

The distance was 2.2 miles. This was not where his aunt had driven to. Whether or not that meant the Storrows’ murders were unconnected to what had happened to his aunt was not a question he could answer right now.

I don’t know enough. I may never know enough.

He was out of his element. He had no powers of investigation down here. His official duffel with all the equipment he typically needed to solve crimes was all the way back in Virginia. Then he had an idea. He picked up his phone and called USACIL, or the United States Army’s Criminal Investigation Lab, at Fort Gillem, Georgia. He had a contact there, Kristen Craig, whom he had worked with on many cases. He knew the hour was late, and Georgia was actually an hour ahead of Paradise, but he also knew that Craig often burned the midnight oil.

Tonight proved to be one of those times. She answered on the second ring. He explained to her what he was doing and what he needed.

She said, “I have a shipment going out to Eglin tomorrow morning. I can put the duffel on the plane. You can drive up and get it around noon your time.”

“You’re a saint, Kristen.”

“Just remember to call and tell my boss that around review time.”

She gave him the necessary information to retrieve the duffel. Before ending the call she said, “Are you really in a place called Paradise?”

“I really am.”

“I take it that the fact that you need your investigative duffel means the town is not living up to its name?”

“Your deductive skills are exceeded only by your ability to work miracles.”

“You keep talking sweet to me we might have to get serious.” She laughed and clicked off.

Puller slid the phone back into his pocket and put the Corvette in gear.

His work was not over yet tonight.

Not by a long shot.

CHAPTER

28

PULLER HAD ALREADY SPOTTED the place before, a Hertz rental outlet that stayed open until eleven. He pulled to the curb and got out. It only took a few minutes before he had turned in the Corvette and driven off in a GMC Tahoe. The man at the counter seemed surprised that Puller would want to trade in the Vette for a glorified truck/van, especially in a beach town, but he smiled and handed him the keys.

“Have a terrific time in Paradise, sir.”

“Yeah,” said Puller.

He next went to a beach clothing store and purchased a baseball cap that read “Paradise Is Forever,” sunglasses, and sneakers. Flip-flops or sandals were more typical of beach attire, but one could not run in flip-flops or sandals, at least not very far or very fast. He also purchased some T-shirts and cargo shorts with big pockets that could hold big things, like weapons. He changed into the shorts, T-shirt, and sneakers in the dressing room, put the ball cap on, slipped the shades into a pocket along with his M11, and walked out.

He was physically imposing enough that it would be hard to miss him in a crowd, but most people’s observation skills were poor. Dressed the way he was now, he could probably walk right past White, Black, and Latino and they wouldn’t even look at him twice. At least he had to hope for that.

He parked two blocks from the Sierra, but on the same street. It was well past dark by now but not quiet. There was a lot of activity around here at night, and not just on the beach. Cars gunning up and down streets, people yelling. He heard footsteps running. Whether they were heading to trouble or away from it he didn’t know and didn’t really care.

Diego had said his casa where he lived with his abuela was down the street and to the left.

Puller checked his watch and then scanned the street. He figured that White, Black, and Latino had all awoken by now, made sure their brains were still in their heads, to the extent that they had any, and were now on the revenge path. He further speculated that they would have done some recon of their own and found out that he was staying at the Sierra and drove a flashy Corvette. Thus the transfer to the Tahoe. Plus the Tahoe had a lot more space and Puller figured he was going to need it. His investigation duffel would be pretty big and the Vette’s trunk wasn’t that large. They might have recruited more muscle to help them enact that revenge, seeing as how three of them were not enough. And they were also now spooked and suffering from concussions.

It might come to bullets this time instead of fists.

But before he confronted that, Puller wanted to check something else out.

He walked down the street, slipping past the Sierra, and nearly ran into a boy coming the other way. Puller caught him by the arm to keep him from falling.

“You okay?”

The boy’s small face was all bunched up in anger. He cursed at Puller.

“Can you tell me where Diego lives?”

He cursed at Puller again, the expletives coming out in a mishmash of English and Spanish.

Puller slipped a five-dollar bill out of his pocket. “You can either take this or a bar of soap in your mouth.”

The boy pointed down the street. “The blue one. On the second floor.”

Puller gave the boy the fiver and he ran off.

The blue one meant the little building with the blue awning. It seemed to be a rooming house composed of two stories and what looked to be about eight rooms, four up, four down. There was a wraparound deck on the exterior of the building and Puller made his way up the stairs. He knocked on one door but there was no answer. He was about to knock on another one when the door opened and Diego stood there.

He looked up at Puller and right away Puller could tell something was wrong.

“What is it, Diego?”

There was movement over Diego’s shoulder and Puller was able to answer his own question.

Isabel was standing there with Mateo next to her. Her face was bruised and so was Mateo’s. Someone had used them for punching practice. Mateo was sniffling and coughing. Isabel said nothing. She just stared at Puller with unfriendly eyes.

But Diego said, “Isabel told me what happened. I want to thank you for helping her and Mateo.”

“Are they your brother and sister?”

“My cousins.”

Isabel stepped forward. “We all live with our grandmother.”

“Where is she?”

“Working,” said Diego. “At a restaurant on the water. The Clipper. She works in the kitchen.”

“As a cook?”

“No, as a cleaner,” said Isabel.

Puller motioned to their injured faces. “Who did that?”

“Who do you think?” said Isabel.

“I’m sorry but I had to step in, Isabel. I couldn’t just let them do that to you.”

“Why not? It’s happened before.”

“You’re not a puta,” retorted Diego. Mateo began to cry.

“Maybe I am a puta,” said Isabel.

“No, you’re not,” said Puller. “It’s not a road you want to go down.”

“Oh, right. I’ll just go to college and become a doctor or something.”

“Why not?” asked Puller.

She looked at him pityingly. “What planet do you live on?”

“You are not a puta,” Diego said again and she looked away, gently stroking Mateo’s head to make him stop crying.

Puller refocused on Diego. “Did you see the car?”

Diego looked over at Isabel, who was watching them closely. He stepped outside and closed the door.

“What happened to your and Isabel’s parents?” Puller asked.

Diego shrugged. “One day they were here and then the next day they weren’t. They might have gone back to El Salvador. I do not know.”

“Doesn’t your grandmother know what happened?”

“She does not say if she does.”

“And your parents would just leave you all here?”

“They must think this is better than to go back there. They wanted the best for us. Now I am the man of the house. I will take care of things.”

“Okay, I like your guts, but you’re still just a kid.”

“Maybe I am a kid, but I found your car.” He paused. “And you said there would be more money.”

“Did I?” But Puller had already pulled out a twenty. “Give me the details.”

Diego gave him the license plate number first.

“How’d you get that? It was covered up.”

“The men they have to eat, right? When they do, I take a rag and wipe the dirt off. Before they come back, I put the dirt back on.”

“Describe them to me.”

Diego did so.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

Puller handed him the twenty bucks.

“Isabel and Mateo. Did someone come here and hurt them?”

Diego shook his head. “Not here or I would have looked like they do too, because I would have tried to stop them.”

“Tell me about the men I knocked out. Are they part of a gang?”

“They want to be, but they are so stupid that no one wants them. They run some drugs on their own, but nothing much. Then they hassle people. And get money for that. They are scum.”

“Do they have friends?”

“Anyone here has friends, if they have the money to pay for them.” As he said this, Diego carefully folded up the twenty and placed it in his pocket.

“Think they’re waiting for me back at my place?”

Diego shrugged. “I think you must be very careful.”

“Thanks for your help.”

“I just do it for the money.”

“I admire your honesty.”

“Don’t trust anyone in Paradise, mister, including me.”

“At some point, Diego, you have to trust someone. You need any help, you can come to me.”

“If you are still alive, mister. We will see.”

“You can just call me Puller.”

“Okay, Puller. Buena suerte.”

“Yeah, you too.”

Puller walked off. Part of him was thinking about having to deal with the three stooges again, and possibly their paid help. But part of him was thinking about the descriptions that Diego had just given him of the two men in the Chrysler.

Lean, fit, buzz cuts. They fit the description of men who had the same employer he did.

The United States military.

CHAPTER

29

PULLER WALKED TO THE TAHOE, climbed into the back, stretched out, and thought about what he had just learned.

If the guys in the Chrysler were former military, then that changed the balance of things. They might very well see through his disguise and change rides. They might be able to fire at him faster than he could fire back.

And if they were still in the military he wondered why they would be here following him.

If they weren’t in the service he wondered the very same thing.

After what had happened to him in West Virginia it was possible that the military had put a tail on him. He decided to see if that theory held any water. He called Kristen Craig back.

She must’ve recognized his number because instead of hello she said, “Miss me already?”

“Always.”

“Seriously, don’t you ever sleep?”

“Look who’s talking.”

“Yeah, but I heard what happened in West Virginia. Not the official story, because there is no official story. But just scuttlebutt, stuff between the lines. I think you could probably write your own ticket right now. Even take a vacation if you wanted to.”

“I’m on vacation. Well, sort of.”

“I have my iPad ready to take down your next assignment, boss.”

Puller chuckled to himself. He got a kick out of the lady, he really did. If she weren’t married, he might have even asked her out.

“I need a license plate run down.”

“Okay. Not usually something I do, but I know people.”

“Do you know people who can get it done sooner rather than later?”

“You know the drill. Somewhere in the world there are DoD personnel awake and on the job.”

“And there are two of them on this call.”

“I’ll turn it around as fast as I can. Now, can you tell me a little of what you’re involved in?”

“Why?”

“Just in case you get killed and I have to explain my billable hours. Is it even related to the military?”

“Five minutes ago I didn’t think so. Now I’m not so sure. It all started when my aunt sent a letter saying things were not quite right in Paradise, Florida. Then the next thing I knew, she was dead under suspicious circumstances.”

“Jesus, Puller, I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, me too. Anyway, I got down here and things got even funkier.”

“And the license plate?”

“Two guys making my business their business by following me. And from their descriptions they sound a lot like dudes who either wear or wore the uniform.”

“I don’t like the sound of this.”

Her voice had clearly changed. Gone was the playfulness, replaced with legitimate concern.

“Me either.”

“Do you have any backup?”

“Like I said, I’m on vacation.”

“You need to stop taking vacations, then, and get back to work. Seriously, Puller, get somebody to watch your back.”

“Good advice. I’ll start looking. In the meantime, get me what you can. I’ll pick up the duffel tomorrow as planned.”

“Just make sure you get to tomorrow.”

“I’ll do my best.”

He clicked off, set his internal clock to wake in two hours, and closed his eyes. His hand gripped the butt of his M11 and he knew it would take him three seconds to wake, aim, and fire at anyone trying to do him harm. If that wasn’t fast enough then he was dead. That’s just how it went.

At the end of two hours he woke in the backseat of the Tahoe, refreshed and ready to go. It was one a.m. now and he believed that the time was right for things to happen. Both military and cops liked to strike at night. Targets were tired, in their beds, with weapons often conveniently out of reach.

Yet even stupid criminals could grasp the concept of coming for you in the dark.

Ten minutes later Puller’s theory turned into a fact.

White, Black, Latino, and three of their best friends were heading down the street, marching with purpose. It seemed like they had worked out the optimal ratio at six to one. To Puller, their math was a little fuzzy, but maybe his standards were higher. Actually, there was no maybe about it, his standards were higher.

All the men’s features were grim. White was perhaps the most grim-looking of all, largely because it seemed his mouth was wired shut.

I must have hit him even harder than I thought I did.

They passed the Tahoe without even a glance. On the battlefield this negligence would have resulted in their immediate deaths. But this was Florida and not Afghanistan, so Puller refrained from drilling them all in the back with rounds from his M11.

He could see gun bumps under their shirts, front and rear. Two of them carried baseball bats and another was clasping a metal bar. They were loaded for bear. Geared for war. Ready to kill.

Of course probably none of them knew what being in actual combat was like.

Puller did.

And for those who had experienced combat, they never wanted to experience it again. It was not really a situation sane people tended to embrace. But Puller, who was sane, had embraced it countless times, because he had signed up for the job. It had changed him completely and irreversibly. It had made him a killing machine. He could slaughter people in ways unimaginable to most folks.

He debated whether to let the night pass without this encounter, but then decided it was best to get it over with. Otherwise he would always be looking over his shoulder. And he didn’t have time for that.

He did make one phone call, relayed certain information to the person on the other end of the line, and clicked off. He waited ten minutes and then got out of the Tahoe.

It was time to go to work.

CHAPTER

30

THE STRETCH OF BEACH was isolated and thus deserted. That was why he was here tonight. He had ridden a small scooter over. With his great size he looked slightly ridiculous on the little machine. But he didn’t care. It beat walking and the helmet hid his face.

He stood near a dune and behind a palm tree and observed the sandy rim with a pair of night-vision optics that had been in the welcome package he had received on arriving in Paradise. The ocean was vast and black, nearly impossible to distinguish from the sky above. The conditions were hazy and the featureless horizon blended with the water to seem like one solid mass.

The sea captured his interest for a good reason. What was coming tonight would definitely be arriving by water.

He checked his watch. He had been given parameters of time, and that’s all they were, parameters. But his patience was nearly infinite. He had spent years of his life waiting for relatively insignificant events to occur. Those were lessons that never left you. They were mental scars carved on your brain and your soul.

He drew in a breath and scrunched up his face. The smell was foul and it apparently always was here. He looked at the sand with his optics.

The Emerald Coast did not live up to its name here. The sand was marred by black rocks jutting out everywhere, like soft skin pulled back to reveal the hard, charred bone underneath.

There would be no sun worshippers here during the day.

And no one at night for any length of time unless they wore a gas mask.

Forty minutes later his patience was rewarded. It was a wink of white light, nothing more. He saw no red and no green. The boat was not using its running lights, which was highly illegal and highly dangerous under all nighttime marine conditions.

But he could understand their reluctance to announce themselves in such a way. He knew it was not the same boat that had carried him to the abandoned oil platform. He had heard the gunfire. He had seen the men riddled with bullets, their bodies hurtling violently into the water.

But it was another boat, though probably far larger than the one he had been on. It was one in a long string of such vessels carrying precious cargo from one place to another. And this place, this landing, this beach tonight was just one more stop in that string. The ride forward from here would be by land, in a vehicle that was not built for the comfort of its passengers. Nothing about the trip was built for their comfort. But the trip itself would be far more humane than what would happen to them at the end of it.

The boat would not come all the way in to shore, of that he was certain. They would offload onto a smaller, more versatile platform for the final approach.

He turned his attention to the road behind him as he crouched farther down in the native foliage that grew next to the dune. He heard the application of brakes and then doors opening and clunking closed. An overhead door was pulled up.

He crouched still lower, moved to his left, and then lay flat in the sand as he eyed the large box truck and two SUVs that were parked on a small section of asphalt off the roadway. Three men stood next to the truck, its rear door open. Two other men were striding down the path leading to the beach. He assumed they were armed and prepared to use their weapons. He followed their movements down to the edge of the water.

One of the men signaled with a flashlight. A return signal could be seen from farther out on the water. A few minutes passed and then the sound of a small boat engine could be heard. As it drew closer to shore the outline of the vessel became clearer. It was a thirty-foot-long RIB, or rigid hull inflatable boat, which military special forces often used during their missions. It was painted black and was nearly invisible as it made its approach.

It came to within several feet of the beach and the pilot cut the engine, allowing the RIB to gently glide until the bow hit the sand.

The men on the beach hustled forward and started grabbing people off the RIB, one by one until twenty were assembled on the beach. They were tied together and their mouths were taped shut. Even from this distance he could see that many of them were children.

Some had on blue shirts, some red, some green. This was not by accident. The colors designated the purpose and ultimate destination of the prisoners. There were more green shirts than the other colors. He was privy to the meanings the colors represented; thus he was not surprised by this. The choice of green had not been by happenstance either.

To be sure, there was strong cash flow in blue and red, but green was where the real money was.

Two of the men on the beach took the line of captives and led them up the boardwalk, where they were quickly loaded into the box truck.

The RIB’s pilot put his boat in reverse and pulled away from the beach, then turned and headed back out to sea. At the same time another RIB pulled in, cut the engine, drifted to shore, and the same transfer of captives took place. This happened twice more. After the other two RIBs departed and the last group of captives was herded into the truck, the rear door was closed and locked, the men jumped into the cab, and the box truck pulled away with the SUVs following.

He sat alone on the beach watching the vehicles for a few seconds until they disappeared into the darkness, heading west. Then he looked out to sea. He could barely hear the whine of the last RIB; a few seconds later, it was gone too.

He counted in his head. Four boats with a total of eighty captives. The entire transfer had taken less than ten minutes. Ten minutes for eighty human beings to be pushed from point A to point B. Forty green, the rest split roughly equally between red and blue.

He had just seen potentially millions of dollars of illegal commerce march across those sands.

He had no idea where the truck was taking them. He knew that the RIBs would go back to the larger ship lurking out there like some great white shark, be loaded on, and then the ship would power its way back to base. Tomorrow night the process would likely start all over again. This was a business, after all. A big one. And like most businesses, the primary motivation was profit. And to be profitable you had to sell product, as quickly and efficiently as possible, getting good prices and making and thereby keeping happy customers.

The purposes for which the prisoners were being used were all insidious, but the fact was that much of the world simply didn’t care enough to do anything about it.

Well, he wasn’t “much of the world.” He was simply one man. And he did care.

Tonight had been merely a scheduled run for the sellers of human beings. For him it had been a dry run to learn valuable intelligence. Soon there would come a time when the valuable intelligence would be translated into action. He wished it could have been tonight. But that most likely would have ended up with him killing all of the guards, freeing the captives, but destroying any chance he had of achieving his larger goal. Or else with his being gunned down and thrown into the ocean.

He walked a mile down the beach, retrieved his scooter, and headed back to the Sierra. He would sleep for a bit, but he doubted his sleep would be restful. He would keep the images of the captives in his thoughts for tonight, and then for far longer. They deserved to have someone care about them. He did care. But he wanted to do more than care.

He wanted to stop it.

He wanted to stop it all.

But most of all he wanted to find someone.