Adrienne licked her lips, looking at Anselm. “You think someone did this to him”
“Maybe.” He admitted slowly, “I don’t know.but.”
“But you don’t believe in coincidence. Right”
“Right.” He nodded.
“Neither do I.” She said after a moment, taking a breath. “Agent Gunnar.If you find out someone did this to my husband.”
“It’ll be handled.” He promised quietly.
She shook her head, “No. I want to handle it.”
“Inspector, that’s not a good idea.” Anselm shook his head, “Besides which, you will be needed here with Ron.”
The blond looked stricken, caught between two desires. Anselm sympathized with her entirely, knowing that the desires were not only conflicting, but the desire for revenge was entirely more tempting than the desire to be by her injured husbands side. Revenge meant action, it meant more strength drawn from her will and her mind’s bag of tricks. It meant not having to face the long will-sapping hours of sitting by the side of a man who may not survive.
“He’ll need you when he wakes up.” Anselm said softly.
Adrienne remained silent for a time, then nodded almost imperceptibly.
“I know,” she whispered.
“What is the status on the Interpol husband” Abdallah Amir asked as he walked up behind Mr. Jacob.
“Badly injured, but it appears that he will survive. Whether he will be able to walk again is another matter.”
Amir grimaced, “Damn it.”
“I didn’t know you cared, Amir.”
“Of course I care. The only thing worse than a dead man, is a live martyr to bring every bleeding heart down on us like raining bricks.” Abdallah Amir growled, “This is an intolerable situation.Only days from the completion of the project, and now this.”
“We have everything prepared, Amir.we could increase the time table.”
“No.” Amir shook his head, “We can’t. We need the people inside the Project for that, and the celebration isn’t for four more days.”
“We could force them to.”
“How” Amir demanded, “There are eighty thousand people in the outer ring of the city, how do you propose to force them At best you would get a few thousand, while scattering the rest like untended sheep. No, they have to be lured in.”
“I apologize, Amir.” Jacob said quietly.
“Forget it.” Abdallah replied, shaking his head. “For now we’ll remain as we are and hope that this blows over. Find out what happened to that Interpol man, Jacob. I want to know if this is an obstacle set by God, or by man.”
Jacob nodded.
“And Jacob”
“Yes Amir”
“If it is an obstacle set by man, and not God.send that man to meet God.”
“As you say, Amir.”
Patience was a virtue, but Abdallah’s patience had practical limits.
“Mrs. Somer”
“That’s me.” Adrienne looked up at the nurse, a hopeful gleam in her eyes.
“Your husband is in the Intensive Care Unit now.If you’d like to see him.”
“Yes please.”
The nurse smiled, “This way. The Doctor would like a word with you before you go in.”
Adrienne nodded, and started off while Anselm caught the nurse’s attention.
“Yes Sir”
“Excuse me, Nurse, but do you know where I can find the gear Mr. Somer was wearing when he came in” Anselm asked, flashing his Interpol ID.
Inspector Gwendolyn Dougal groaned in sympathy pains as her Eliica was yanked up hard by the tow rope they’d attached to one of the four-wheeler trucks, the patrol car twisting slightly under the pressure.
“Sorry Gwen.” Donald Smitts grinned sympathetically, “Gotta do it.”
“Yeah, I know Don. Thanks.”
“Hey, no troubles. Right, Gwen” The man shrugged, clapping his hands clean. “You’ve been out here for us other times, we’ll be here for you.”
“Yeah, well.thanks anyway.” She smiled, rubbing the back of her head, ruffling up her red hair.
Don Smitts just chuckled, “As you wish. You ready to move out”
“Just hang on a sec, ok I want to make sure that we’ve cleared the scene,” she told him. “By tomorrow, if we get any wind, this place will just be another slice of the desert.”
“Ain’t that the truth. Alright, me and Jackie will be waiting when you get back.”
“Thanks.” She said again, walking over to where the para-sailor had struck, noting that the sun was starting to set.
She didn’t have a lot of time, given that the dark out this far could be very dark and most of the four-wheelers had gone and taken their flood lights with them. Of the ones that were still here, few of the drivers would want to be sitting still while their batteries ran down for her.
The impression in the ground where the man had struck was relatively small, but fairly deep. His legs had folded up under him, absorbing a lot of the energy, though breaking in the process. All around that indent were the light patterns in the sand where the memory plastic of the para-foil had rubbed the sand in one direction or another.
She pulled out her flashlight and started to play the powerful light across the ground to counter the growing shadows.
“Whatcha looking for”
Gwen started, almost jumping out of her skin as the young voice popped up behind her. “God Jackie, don’t do that!”
Jackie Smitts grinned at her, shrugging in a manner that was probably supposed to be innocently endearing. Luckily, Gwen knew the girl too well to fall for that.
“Sorry.”
Gwen shook her head, “I’m just looking over the site before a wind comes up and wipes it.”
“Looking for anything special”
“No, just making sure we didn’t miss anything.”
“See anything”
Gwen smiled softly in the dimming light, but shook her head. “No, it looks like we got everything.”
“Can I keep this”
Gwen’s head snapped around to see that Jackie was playing with a plastic housing that was trailing wire leads. “Where’d you get that”
“Over there.” The teen jerked her head over her shoulder, indicating a short distance from the crash site. “Stuck in a bank.”
“I’ll have to take it, Jackie.”
“Aww.”
Gwen grinned, “Look, if it’s nothing you’ll get it back. Ok”
“It’s never nothin,” the girl complained, but idly tossed the housing to Gwen.
She caught it awkwardly, just managing to hook it against her body as she juggled it and the flashlight. Gwen braced it as quickly as she could, then played the light over it and frowned to herself. Didn’t look like much, just a plastic box with some wires, but it could have been part of his gear, she supposed.
“Done yet” Jackie asked rather loudly.
“Jackie!” Donald Smitts came around the tailgate of his four wheeler and glared at his daughter and legacy. “Stop bothering the Inspector! I told you to wait in the truck!”
Jackie shrugged and giggled, “Oops.”
Gwen watched the young teen run back off, wondering at the fact that she was out here at all. Most fathers wouldn’t bring their daughters out to where they might reasonably expect to find a corpse if they did their job correctly.
Most fathers weren’t Donald Smitts, though, who had brought up their daughters in the outback with a rifle in the rucksack with them every night before they went to sleep. Nor did most fathers have daughters like Jackie Smitts, who habitually rode the thermals of the Project herself.
Gwen shook her head and clipped off the flashlight, finally turning away from the crash site and walking back to where her ride home was waiting.
“Oh Lord above,” Kamir chortled to himself as he swallowed a pull of whisky from the shot glass. “I wish I’d been able to see that cop’s face when the Stream yanked him up short and threw him long.”