We’d cleared the city boundary now and were into an area that had escaped relatively undamaged. Marcus put his foot down and the Land Cruiser picked up speed.
“Kyle Stephens was a damned fool. He’d come through two Gulf Wars without a scratch and he thought he was indestructible,” he said. “But are you asking me do I blame myself? Am I responsible for what happened? Then yes I am.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
It was dark by the time we got back to the army base. The gate sentry made a perfunctory check of our IDs and waved us through. Joe Marcus swung the Land Cruiser to a halt outside the mess hall and cut the engine. In the glare from the floodlighting the insects swirled as components of a larger mass.
“Grab some food, Charlie and get some rest,” Marcus said. “It’s been a long day and tomorrow won’t be any shorter.”
“I know,” I said. “‘The only easy day was yesterday’, right?”
“You’re thinking of the SEALs,” he said, climbing out.
“Before we call it a day, I’d like to check on the items found with the woman — the one Rojas mentioned.”
He turned back, flicking his head against the airborne bugs. Maybe that was why he looked annoyed to have his plans interrupted.
“I think Alex has her on tomorrow’s list,” he said. “What’s the hurry?”
“There won’t be time for me to wait around for the results in the morning, and I’d like to see her things — just in case the ring is there.”
Or if it’s been miraculously disappeared…
“Now?”
“Yes, now,” I said, standing my ground. “If I’m going to call in on Rojas again on one of the hospital runs tomorrow, he’ll want to know.”
Marcus eyed me with a dispassionate gaze. “Chances are, by tomorrow, there won’t be any more hospital runs,” he said. “They’ll all be coming here to the morgue.”
“Even more reason not to leave it any longer than I have to then,” I said. “You have a better idea?”
“Yeah,” he said, exasperated. “Eating is a better idea than getting emotional over a piece of jewellery that still won’t give us the woman’s name.”
“The credit card authorisation Rojas used will give us her name,” I argued. “Five minutes is all I ask. In fact, all you need to do is unlock the door for me.”
After another moment’s grumpy silence Marcus let his breath out and reached into his pocket. He came out with a small bunch of keys which he threw across to me. I wasn’t foolish enough to try to catch them, so I just stuck a foot out to stop them skidding off the path into the grass. You never knew what might be lurking there.
“Knock yourself out,” Marcus said as I bent to retrieve the bunch. “Bring ’em back when you’re done.”
“Where will you be?”
He gave a now familiar snort as he turned away. “Eating,” he said over his shoulder. “Where d’you think?”
I watched him walk away. Eating sounded like a very good idea, particularly as the smell of cooking drifted from the mess hall windows. If he hadn’t been so stubborn I probably would have held off until morning but the more he’d tried to talk me out of the idea, the more important it seemed to find out the information tonight, dammit.
I headed in the opposite direction, trying to ignore the disaffected growling of my stomach.
Is that really what R&R did — robbed the dead of their belongings while they lay in cold storage nearby?
I thought again of those loose gems lying amid the broken glass outside the jewellery store. I wouldn’t swear in court to the fact that their numbers had diminished in the time I’d been there, but it had certainly looked that way. The trouble was, it wasn’t only R&R personnel who’d been on site. Any one of a host of other people, from the members of the dig team to the local police, could have pocketed a few stones in the time they were there. Perhaps it didn’t feel like stealing if they were lying on full view in the street?
The lock to the hall being used as a makeshift mortuary had a piece of yellow insulating tape stuck underneath it. The same colour tape had been wrapped around the head of the key. An easily recognisable system that worked irrespective of language barriers. I felt the hand of Joe Marcus in there somewhere.
The key turned noiselessly in the lock. I opened the door and slipped inside, closing it again quietly behind me. Too much noise would have seemed disrespectful to the dead.
I paused just inside. Now I was there, alone and unsupervised, should I take the opportunity to have a nosy round? I smiled in the dark, mocking my own intent.
Yeah, Fox, and just what are you expecting to find? A treasure map with a convenient X marking the spot? A document marked ‘Our Secret Plan’?
There was enough light coming in from outside that I didn’t switch on the overhead lights. The personal possessions and clothing of the victims had been placed in archive boxes, all marked with a URN, and stored in an ante room off the main hall. The army had dragged in racking that, by the faint pervasive odour of gun oil still lingered around it, had once been used in their armoury.
I pushed open the dividing door and walked in. The windows were smaller in this room, and the height of the shelving made it darker still. I wasted time groping for a light switch I couldn’t find. Eventually I gave up, standing for a moment in utter stillness, listening.
It was then I caught the thump of a full box dropping onto the hard tiled floor, and the scuffling sound of rapid footsteps.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
I took a fix on the direction of the sound and started running.
It was no surprise that the noise had come from the row housing the boxed possessions of the latest victims to be found. By the time I reached the end of the racking and catapulted around it, I’d just time to see a darkened figure disappearing at the far end. Automatically, I gave chase.
In the centre of the row was a mess of spilled boxes and their contents. I had to half step, half jump over the obstacle it created. Whatever they’d been looking for, our intruder had not been tidy about it. So, the object itself was more important than hiding the search. Or was this simple robbery?
As I pounded to the end of the row some sixth sense kicked in. I skidded to a halt just as a large fire extinguisher came swinging around the end of the racking. It hit the upright of the shelving unit a fraction of second before it would have connected with me, sending a reverberating clang through the whole length of it.
The intruder had put everything into his attack, relying on the weight and momentum of his chosen weapon to do the job for him. Missing had not been in the game plan. Neither was an opponent who didn’t cower back after the first volley.
I’d learned a long time ago that even the most overwhelming odds can be successfully countered by speed and aggression. Now I used both, darting sideways and leaping to attack.
Even in the dark I managed to ram an elbow into the side of his neck just below his ear. He grunted in pain and stumbled forward. As he went down on his knees I spun, grabbed the back of his collar to locate him and kicked him in the ribs, my other arm outstretched for balance, giving it my all.
In the muted darkness I heard his breath explode out, heard the dull crack as a couple of ribs let go on his left-hand side. Still, he managed to fling his arm back, catching me low in the stomach with a clenched hammer-fist. It was only the pain from his busted ribs that took all the force out of the blow but it hurt enough to warn me to be careful of this man. He’d had training and he didn’t give up easily.
I caught his flailing arm, hooked it up and back, starting to twist it into a lock. He countered by lurching sideways, despite the ribs, pivoted and kicked for my legs. I stamped on his ankle and booted him in the ribs again, eliciting an outraged squawk.