Hell Hole Page 20

  “Before proffering any theory as to what might have happened,” says Ceepak, “we must first determine why it happened.”

  “We need to find that camera,” I say. “That’s why Shareef was killed.”

  Ceepak nods his agreement.

  “So where do we look?”

  “Where no one else has.”

  We haul the pirates back to the police station.

  Our two jail cells are getting pretty crowded. Ceepak’s dad is currently bunking with the drool bucket: Nicky Nichols. Maybe they can swap recipes. Become real roomies.

  “Should I put the box in the evidence room?” I ask Ceepak.

  “Hmmm?”

  Ceepak is in one of his deep-think fogs: he’s physically here in the lobby with me but his brain is somewhere else, searching for that camera.

  “I’ll be right back,” I say and turn up the hall with the cardboard box.

  Behind me, I hear the front doors swing open.

  “Lieutenant Ceepak?” asks this deep, rumbling voice.

  Odd. Ceepak’s not a lieutenant in the SHPD. He’s not even a sergeant. I turn around to see who just waltzed in.

  One of the senator’s bodyguards.

  The towering black guy named Parker who, we’ve been told, is former Army. Special Ops. Green Beret. All six feet, six inches, and three hundred pounds of him.

  “Sorry to intrude, sir,” he says in a low voice that could rattle rafters. “Is there some place quiet we could talk?”

  34

  All of a sudden I feel like I’m in one of those movies where the bad guys send over a knight under a white flag and we let him into our castle and then the whole “I come in peace” deal turns out to be a trick and a billion savage barbarians storm the gates because we forgot to lower the drawbridge after we let in the evil ambassador.

  I’m pretty sure this bald black dude in the sunglasses and suit is one of the bad guys who hid that razor blade inside our front left tire. When that didn’t work, he and his pals tried to incinerate us inside the Hell Hole.

  Frankly, I’m none too pleased that Ceepak and I are currently walking up the hall with one of Senator Worthington’s hit men.

  “Officer Ceepak?”

  It’s Denise Diego, sticking her head out of the door to the tech room. She’s our top computer geek and came in on her day off to help us track down and analyze Corporal Smith’s cell phone records.

  “I just checked out the first fax from Verizon Wireless,” she says.

  “Anything interesting?” asks Ceepak.

  “I need to find a few more numbers.”

  “About who Smith called?”

  “Nah. Those are printed right on the bill. It’s the incoming calls we’re still working on. A Verizon guy is helping me i.d. the callers.”

  Ceepak gives a sideways glance at our guest and chooses his words carefully.

  “When do you expect to receive that information?”

  We hear a phone jangle in the darkened room behind her.

  “Right about now.”

  Diego disappears into her den of glowing screens, blinking LEDs, and Lord of the Rings paraphernalia. Meanwhile, Ceepak and I continue up the hall with our uninvited guest to the interrogation room.

  “We can talk in here,” Ceepak says.

  “Good. Anybody on the other side?” Parker whips off his sunglasses and checks out the sheen of his bald head in the one-way mirror covering one wall.

  “No.”

  “Good.”

  Of course he doesn’t want anybody eavesdropping. He’s most likely planning a sneak attack and doesn’t want someone on our team watching when he whips out his weapon and mows down me and Ceepak. Maybe I watch too many movies but I’m thinking we should’ve frisked this guy or had him walk through a metal detector like they have at airports and big-city courtrooms whenever Michael Jackson goes on trial—the same kind we don’t have at SHPD headquarters because we’re peace officers with a beachy kind of’tude.

  “My name is Cyrus Parker,” our visitor announces. “You were with the one-oh-first out of Fort Campbell?”

  “Yes.”

  “Me too. Fifth Special Forces Group.”

  Ceepak nods. “I was with the Third MP Group. CID.”

  “And you went over to the sandbox as a lieutenant during Operation Iraqi Freedom,” says Parker. “I was there for the first go-round. Desert Storm.”

  I can tell Ceepak’s had enough with the swapping of war stories. “Why are you here, Mr. Parker?”

  “You know what’s the best part of being ex-military?” he asks. “If you don’t like your orders, you don’t have to follow them. You can just quit.”

  “Have you recently left the senator’s employ?”

  “No. Not yet. But I think he’s going to fire me. Probably some of the other guys I put together for the crew too.”

  “Why?”

  Parker grins. “Because, Lieutenant Ceepak, a few of my men and I have decided to disobey an order we consider to be blatantly illegal.”

  “And what order is that?”

  “Senator Worthington has ordered us to kill you, sir.” Now he smiles at me. “You too. You’re Danny Boyle, right?”

  “Yeah,” I say. “But how come you all of a sudden decided to disobey the same orders you’ve been following all day?”

  “Come again?”

  “You guys already tried to kill us twice today. First, you sabotaged the tires on our Ford Explorer.”

  “Negative.”

  “Come on, pal,” I say—and Ceepak lets me. “You rigged up that razor blade so it’d slash through our steel-belted radial when we initiated a high-speed pursuit of your Denali.”

  “No sir,” says Parker. “We did no such thing. In fact, I’m the one who called nine-one-one.”

  “Why didn’t you stop and offer assistance?” asks Ceepak.

  “Because Senator Worthington would not permit me to do so. He had informed us he’d been urgently recalled to Washington for a crucial vote. We assumed it was another one of those Terri Schiavo situations and the president needed all like-minded senators back in town on a Sunday to pass a special law for somebody.”

  “Come on,” I say. “You expect us to buy that?”

  “You should. It’s the truth.”

  “So why didn’t you continue to D.C.?” asks Ceepak.

  “About twenty miles down the road, the senator received a phone call—or so he says. I, of course, didn’t hear anything. Must’ve had his cell unit set on vibrate.” He says it like he doesn’t believe it. “When he said, ‘so long’ to whoever he was pretending to be talking to, he told us the vote had been canceled and we could return to Sea Haven, where he hoped to spend more time with his son.”

  Yeah—frying him inside an abandoned amusement park ride.

  “Well what about the Hell Hole?” I ask.

  “The fire?”

  “Yeah. Who organized that little weenie roast?”

  “Again, my men and I had nothing to do with that incident.”

  “And I’m supposed to believe you because it’s ‘the truth’ again, right?”

  “Yes, Officer Boyle. Besides, if any of us had been involved in orchestrating that conflagration, you would not be sitting here. You’d be lying in the morgue.”

  I snort a chuckle. “Because you guys are that good, right?”

  “Yes, sir. We most assuredly are. If you don’t believe me, I suggest you to talk to certain members of Saddam Hussein’s Republican Guard who in 1991 were bivouacked south of Baghdad near the Tigris River. Their bunker burned down the night before our tanks rolled north out of Kuwait City.”

  Ceepak props his elbows on the table, locks his hands together—I guess so he can glare more steadily at Parker.

  “This order to kill Officer Boyle and myself—it’s recent?”

  “Affirmative. Came down about an hour ago. The senator pulled me and Graves off guard duty at the hospital so we could join the others in their pursuit and appr
ehension of you two. Apparently, you gentlemen represent a dire threat to national security. But, seeing how my men and I are independent contractors and, therefore, no longer sworn to obey the orders of the President of the United States or the orders of the officers appointed over us, we are currently at liberty to decide that the orders as given are basically total bullshit. Graves and I left the hospital as instructed but came over here instead of the rally point.”

  “And why does Senator Worthington consider us to be a threat to national security?” asks Ceepak.

  “He claims you are currently in possession of certain documentation that could severely compromise America’s ongoing war efforts. Apparently, you two have located some extremely sensitive photographs.”

  Here we go again: Shareef Smith’s damn digital camera.

  “The senator says the pictures in question are classified satellite images detailing the military installation in central Baghdad known as the Green Zone. Furthermore, the senator advises us that if you two were to turn said photographs over to Sunni or Shi’ite insurgents—or even the wrong reporters at the New York Times—you would seriously jeopardize the safety of all those currently operating behind the zone’s blast walls.”

  “Bullshit,” I say.

  The ex-soldier’s grin grows wider. “Roger that.” He rocks his wrist, checks his watch. “I believe the senator’s story is just that. Sheer, unadulterated, high-test bullshit. Therefore, gentlemen, might I suggest that we proceed over to the Holiday Inn in Avondale to retrieve the Smith sisters? They’ll be safer here inside police headquarters.”

  “How do you know where they’re currently located?”

  “The senator told us. Apparently, one of the young ladies has her cell phone turned on. When you’re the chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence you can ask your friends over at the NSA to track just about anyone you want, provided, of course, they have their cell phone powered up. You two gentlemen, on the other hand, have been somewhat harder for the senator to track.”

  Guess smashing one’s cell phone has its advantages.

  “Are Smith’s sisters in danger?” asks Ceepak.

  “I would suspect so.”

  “Why?”

  He shrugs. “Why else would Senator Worthington be tracking them?”

  “Let’s roll,” says Ceepak. We move toward the door. Parker follows us.

  “We’ll follow behind you guys in our vehicle,” he says.

  “No need,” says Ceepak.

  “You might require backup.”

  “If so, we’ll summon the state police.”

  “Lieutenant Ceepak, given the nature of Senator Worthington’s recent order and his unlimited resources within the DOD, I’m suggesting you might need serious backup.”

  Why do I think this guy has some kind of major canon strapped underneath his suit jacket and hand grenades stuffed inside every one of his pockets?

  Ceepak fixes his gaze on Parker’s eyes. “Why your sudden interest to assist the local police force?”

  “Because I suspect Senator Worthington has been lying to me for some time and that, sir, is something I simply can not abide. When I was at West Point, we had an honor code—”

  “I’m quite familiar with the academy’s code, Mr. Parker.”

  “Then you already know I have zero tolerance for lies, liars, bullshit, and bullshitters.”

  “Then we should get along just fine.” Ceepak says it like he’s still not sure what side of the line Parker really falls on. “Where is the senator?”

  “The rally point.”

  “Which is where?”

  “The radio lady’s mansion.”

  “Mr. Parker,” says Ceepak, “I appreciate your offer of assistance. However, we do not require nor can we encourage civilian involvement in ongoing police investigations.”

  “Fine. Graves and I will just follow you. I trust there’s no law against a couple civilians taking a Sunday drive even if they happen to be following a police vehicle for the duration of said drive?”

  Ceepak thinks about that for a second. Wonders whether he can trust this man. “Not that I’m aware of.”

  “Then we’re good to go.”

  Ceepak holds open the door, lets Parker head down the hall.

  Tech officer Diego comes into the hallway. She’s holding a rolled-up tube of paper.

  “You can wait for us out front,” Ceepak says to Parker.

  “Will do.”

  Ceepak waits until he is gone. Then he waits another couple seconds to make sure he’s really gone.

  “What’s up?” he finally says to Diego as we follow her into the computer room.

  “Heard back from Verizon. Wrote up a topline summary.” She hands the paper to Ceepak. “In the past week, Shareef Smith called Washington, D.C., a dozen different times. Same number.”

  “Any idea who he was attempting to reach?”

  “Yeah. That was the easy part. Took like ten seconds.”

  “And?”

  “He made numerous short phone calls to the office of Pennsylvania senator Winslow W. Worthington. The last call to D.C. was on Wednesday morning under a usage type coded U.”

  “What does that mean?” I ask so Ceepak doesn’t have to.

  “U, for whatever reason, is Verizon’s code for ‘data.’ So, I’m guessing he sent the senator a text message or a picture or something.”

  A picture. A photograph.

  “Excellent work, Officer Diego,” says Ceepak.

  “Wait,” she says. “There’s more.” She taps near the bottom of the page. “Incoming calls. Most came from a Tonya Smith.”

  “His sister,” I say.

  “But on Thursday and Friday, Smith’s cell phone received several calls from another Winslow Worthington. Winslow G. Worthington. Any relation to the senator?”

  “Yeah,” I say. “His son.”

  35

  Once again, we’re traveling across the causeway, headed for the Holiday Inn in Avondale.

  I’m driving; Ceepak is in the passenger seat, working the radio, checking in with Samantha Starky, who’s currently on-site at the motel in Avondale.

  “Please ask Rita to immediately transport my mother to the backup location. Over.”

  “Yes, sir,” says Starky on the other end. “Will she know where that is, sir? Over.”

  “Roger that. Over.”

  Starky is the one who started in with the “overs” at the end of every sentence to indicate that she’s ready for Ceepak to talk again because that’s what the official ham radio etiquette handbooks say you should do.

  “The state police are already on scene,” Starky continues.

  “Come again?” Oops. Ceepak talked before she said, “over” or “Mother may I?”

  “I contacted Wilson,” Starky chirps on. “You met him this morning, at the Pig’s Commitment? Remember?”

  She’s rat-a-tat-tatting so fast, this leg of the radio transmission may never be over.

  “He swung by with his partner. Terry O’Loughlin. Nice lady. They’re both here now. It’s a slow day and they were just basically cruising the Parkway, writing speeding tickets and stuff when I caught Wilson on his cell and explained our security situation here and how I thought, you know, it may not be totally safe, seeing how I’m unarmed and people have been trying to kill you two guys all day long.” Finally, a pause. “Over.”

  “Well done, Officer Starky,” says Ceepak. “You showed tremendous personal initiative in summoning support. We’re on our way. Estimated arrival time—five minutes. Over.”

  “Roger. Over.”

  I glance up into the rearview mirror. They’re still back there. Special Ops Parker and Navy SEAL Graves.

  “You trust those guys?” I ask Ceepak.

  “Well, Danny, as Springsteen says, ‘In your heart you must trust.’”

  “Yeah, but in that other song, he says ‘I don’t know who to trust.’”

  “That would be ‘Devils and Dust.’”


  Duh. Dust rhymes with trust. I should’ve nailed that one.

  “So what does your heart say?” I ask. “Trust or not?”

  In my peripheral vision, I notice Ceepak glancing into the passenger side mirror. Checking out the Darth Vader mobile following behind us. Are Parker and Graves evil Imperial Storm Troopers or scrappy Rebel Alliance X-Wing Pilots?

  “Parker is a graduate of West Point. Said all the right words.”

  “But, what if he’s lying about not lying?”

  Ceepak sighs. Our brand new tires whine. So far, I don’t hear the clickety-clack of another stainless-steel razor blade.

  “You raise a good point, Danny. He may simply be saying what he knows we want to hear. Putting the proper spin on his words. So much of this investigation has already resembled an unrelenting carnival ride.” Ceepak sinks back into his seat. “When I was a boy, my mother took me to the Warren County fair.”

  Yep, we’re off on a random tangent, but what the hey—it beats listening to Starky say “over” over and over again.

  “That in Ohio?” I ask.

  “Yes. Near Lebanon. They had a ride similar to Sea Haven’s Hell Hole. The Gravitron. I remember it looked like a flying saucer racked on the back of a fifty-foot trailer so the proprietor could transport it from fair to fair. You boarded the ship through a sliding door much like you might see in a science-fiction movie about Martians.”

  Who knew Ceepak watched those?

  “The Gravitron had been designed to simulate NASA’s astronaut experiments using centrifugal force to generate the gravitational pull encountered during blastoff and space travel.”

  “Same with the Hell Hole,” I say, remembering my queasy spin before they shut it down.

  We cross underneath the Garden State Parkway overpass and keep heading west. Avondale is about three miles up the road so we have time for Ceepak to reminisce, although I’m curious how he’s going to make the logic leap from g-forces to our current investigation into Shareef Smith’s staged suicide.

  “Do you recall how you felt when the room began to rotate?” he asks.

  “Sure. Like your head was locked in a neck brace.”