Instead, she just reached out and took Amber’s hand.
And Amber let her hold on.
“Okay,” Lien-hua said, “sat comm with the ELF station broke off a couple hours ago, but the Navy received a web-based encrypted audio message that everything is okay.” She paused then added, “Yeah, unlikely. I know.”
I’d heard Lien-hua’s side of the conversation with the admiral’s aide but hadn’t been able to decipher all the specifics. “Who was the message from?”
“A chief warrant officer named Dickinson. He said the storm took out the satellite communication and landlines and that he’d come to the surface to check in. Because of your suspicions, though, the Department of Defense did a voiceprint analysis on the audio, and it was him. It’s confirmed.”
Could he be working with someone? With Eco-Tech?
“That’s not enough to convince me.”
“Me either. But it seemed to reassure them for the time being.” Her voice stiffened. “They’re closely monitoring the situation.”
“Closely monitoring it.”
“Their words, not mine.”
That phrase “closely monitoring a situation” really means “not taking any immediate action,” and that was the last thing I wanted to hear right now. I wished Torres and the SWAT team were here. I could sure use their help, especially if there was something going down at the base.
“Pat, I’ll look up those statutes in a sec, but I never told you what I was working on at Sean and Amber’s house earlier-doing research, trying to pull together a preliminary profile on Valkyrie.”
“What’d you find out?”
“Unfortunately, not a whole lot. Valkyries are found in Norse mythology and were originally goddesses who flew over battlefields and determined who would be slaughtered and who would survive. Basically, angels of death. Eventually, the myths turned them into beautiful, alluring spirits who waited on slain heroes in Valhalla.”
“Quite a transformation.”
“Well, beauty and death are central themes of nearly all mythic systems. Very Jungian-if you buy into that. Anyway, psychologically, the code name draws from images of death, eternity, beauty, marriage. Maybe even judgment or eternal rewards.” She paused slightly. “Code names by high-level operatives are rarely chosen indiscriminately.”
I thought of the Bible reference to the bride of the Lamb and the seven last plagues: images of death, eternity, beauty, marriage.
It seemed like more than a fluke to me. “Anything else?”
“Our guy will be experienced in law enforcement or involved in the intelligence community. Midforties. Computer science training. High intelligence. A history of international travel. Multilingual. Male. Nationality at this point is still too hard to call.”
“But a Valkyrie is a goddess. Why are you thinking we’re looking for a male?”
“Female criminal masterminds might make good villains on the big screen, but they’re almost unheard of in real life. For the most part, spying is a man’s game. We should also look for possible religious idealism or mission-oriented terrorist affiliations. Possible motives: revenge, monetary gain, ideology.”
“Or challenge.”
She considered that. “Yes. Or challenge.”
“So in essence, we need to discern what Valkyrie wants? Is that what you’re saying the key is here?”
“Well, to nail down motive, yes. To glimpse personality, no.”
I was no expert on profiling, but her comment took me by surprise. “No?”
“To find out what lies at the core of someone’s personality, you need to know more than what he wants.”
“What he loves?”
“No.”
“Dreams of?”
“Uh-uh.”
“Fears?”
She shook her head.
“Then what?”
“What he regrets. Only when you know what someone most deeply regrets will you know what matters to him most.”
I took a moment to reflect on that, recalling my thoughts from my conversation with Jake yesterday about assassin mentality: Without rationalization we’d have to live in the daily recognition of who we really are, what we’re really capable of. And that’s something most people avoid at all costs.
Tessa’s observation: Denial is too cheap a cure.
“What happens,” I said, “when you’re not able to rationalize or justify your deviant thoughts or behavior? When you’re left with regret but no hope of forgiveness or resolution?”
“The mind has to deal with guilt somehow. When it’s overwhelming, escaping reality is sometimes the only choice.”
We run from the past and it chases us; we dive into urgency but nothing deep is ultimately healed.
“So, some kind of psychotic break? A split personality?”
She shook her head. “I see where you’re going with this, but that’s incredibly rare. Usually people just find a way to diminish the wrong or justify themselves in some way. Assassins, terrorists, espionage agents are experts at that.” She sighed in disappointment. “I’m sorry, I know at this point all of this is sketchy, just unfounded conjecture.”
“No, it’s more than that. It’s your instinct based on experience.”
“Pat, you don’t trust instincts.”
“I trust you.”
A long moment. “Thanks.” She regrouped at the keyboard. “How much farther to the Inn?”
“Just a couple minutes.”
“Let me see what I can find out about those criminal statutes.”
One hour and four minutes left.
Solstice had thought they should just use a small, handheld camera, but Cane had wanted to go all out, so they’d brought a Sony HVR-HD1000U digital high definition HDV camcorder along.
“Go ahead and set it up,” Solstice told Gale. “Let’s get this statement filmed.”
He flipped open the tripod and began to pull out the equipment.
“I made a real mess of things,” Amber said, her voice quavering in a delicate, broken way. “Sean-he’s not really that bad of a man. He never hurt me. Never hit me. He’s never… I love him. I think I was just looking for a reason…”
To justify leaving him… Tessa thought, filling in the blanks.
“It’s all gonna work out,” she told Amber. “Don’t worry.”
Cliche, cliche, cliche.
Lame, lame, lame!
In the unsettling silence following her words, Tessa remembered the broken glass from the sailboat painting in the living room. “Maybe we should clean up that glass? From the picture, in the other room?” Okay, it was a little pathetic, but at least it might help distract Amber for a little bit.
Amber took a breath that was obviously an attempt to compose herself. “Yes.”
The lights flickered briefly as the two of them traipsed down the hallway.
“There should be some flashlights in the kitchen,” Amber suggested, obviously in anticipation of a power outage. “And we should probably get that fire started. Just in case.”
“All set,” Gale announced as he finished tightening the height adjustment on the tripod.
Solstice nodded.
Right now, three members of her team were carefully setting the remaining TATP ordnance in the tunnels on the top level of the base; Eclipse was guarding the hostages on the second level. Cyclone had taken Donnie up to the crew quarters for the time being so he wouldn’t disturb the filming. The remaining team members were here with Solstice in the control room.
She eyed the remote control detonator on the desk next to her keyboard. A simple five-step plan: (1) send the transmission, (2) get to the tunnel that wasn’t rigged to explode, (3) shoot anyone who tried to stop her, (4) blow the base, (5) disappear.
No more Eco-Tech team.
No more ELF base.
No loose ends.
Cane and Squall donned their ski masks and positioned themselves in front of the camera. Behind them hung a flag with a picture of the earth taken from outer space, as well as Eco-Tech’s logo and their boldly lettered motto: A New Breed of Green-Dialogue When Possible, Action When Necessary.