Dragonfly Bones (6 page)

7

T
he chopper circled the Perryville prison complex, but landed at a nearby hospital emergency helipad. Reaching across me, the pilot opened my door, his right hand, palm facing inward, making scooting-out motions. I stepped onto the skid, bent low and duckwaddled beyond the whirling blades, knelt with hands over my ears as the chopper rose with a sudden roar, and darted off into the morning haze.

Nobody else on the helipad. I waited a few minutes before I got angry enough to head toward the exit stairway, saw an elevator, and jammed my thumb repeatedly on the Down button. The door opened with loud chimes and a tall man strode out, bumping my shoulder before realizing I was there.

“Sorry,” he said, stepping sideways, a little bow to acknowledge the bump. “Sorry. Didn't see you.”

He tugged his red beret tighter on short black hair. The only people I knew who wore red berets were either military or air marshals. Just what I needed. A U.S. Marshal. I'd had a very bad experience with the last one.

“I'm Nathan Brittles,” he said. “Will you come with me, please?”

“Why?”

“Why am I Nathan Brittles?” he said with a smile. A charmer. But then, I've met a lot of charmers, including the
ones who tried to kill me. “I know, I know. That's not what you meant. Look. Spend five minutes with me. You'll understand. Here. This is for you. From Don.”

He handed me a photo ID badge.

 

WINSLOW, LAURA NMI

AQUITEK

 

“That sounds like a toothpaste,” I said. “You're kidding me, right? Don Ralph's business is named after a brand of Mexican toothpaste?”

Chin tucked to his chest, he studied the ID badge.

“Thought it was scuba gear, first time he told me about it.”

“You got ID?”

“Why?”

I fingered the laminated tag hanging from his neck.

 

BRITTLES, NATHAN C.T.

US MARSHAL

 

“Cuz I could get one of these with my own picture and any name I wanted. Twenty-four hours, maximum wait. It's not that I don't trust you. I don't. I just want to know if you rigged an identity in a hurry and forgot to put something extra in your wallet, like, I might see you're really somebody else.”

Without hesitation he reached inside his coat and handed me a battered, stuffed leather billfold. Waited, charm in his smile, but not in his eyes. I quickly rifled through a Texas driver's license and several credit cards, all for Nathan Brittles. The finger-worn AARP membership card convinced me.

“What do those middle initials stand for?”

“Cutting Tongue.”

I took in his barrel chest, slightly flat and elongated nose, his black hair.

“Keep talking,” he said. A smile crinkled his upper lip.

“Why are you staring at me like that?” I said.

“Don't know that I'm staring.”

“Don't want to work with me,” I said. “Worries you, working with a woman. That's the kind of stare I'm seeing.”

“You're the one who seems worried.”

I was either disgusted with him or angry at myself, I didn't know which.

“Sorry,” I said. “You probably think I'm one of those strong women that are just waiting for you to take me to your home.”

“Actually, I don't think I've ever brought a woman to bed in my home.”

“What are you?” I said, his humor thawing me out some. “A priest?”

“I play Indian flutes,” he said. “Sometimes, playing one on a spring evening, I feel like a priest. But that's another time.”

“Don't think you'll play me into bed.”

We both nodded, the banter having gone on just long enough to make each of us uncomfortable.

“You're Navajo.”

“And you're part Hopi. Can we talk about that later?”

“Don't want to talk about it at all,” I said shortly. “Okay. Where do you want to spend your five minutes?”

 

Hospital cafeteria food rarely looks any different. I passed up the Jell-O and flan, desperately wanting some caffeine, but took nothing. Brittles loaded a plate with scrambled eggs, bacon, link sausages, and a soupy pile of grits.

He picked a table against the wall, nobody nearby, and dug into his food.

“Haven't eaten in a long time,” he said without apology, shoveling eggs into his mouth with one hand while fumbling with the other in his briefcase. Laid a manila envelope on the table, but didn't unseal it.

I waited, silent.

“You're a hacker.”

It wasn't a question. He pulled out a thick dossier, laid it in front of me, flecks of sausage meat dropping on the top sheet.

“Very good hacker, Don tells me. Computer forensic specialist. I had to look that one up. Okay, we've got a proposition for you.”

“I'm booked up this month.”

He laid another sheet of paper in front of me.

“This says you do very little for Don. Small jobs only. No jobs involving personal contact?”

“So?”

“Way I hear it, you're taking time off. Running and such. Free weights.”

“I work out,” I said finally, part of me angry at the surveillance of my personal life, but mostly resigned to technology's intrusion on privacy. I'd done it myself, many times, too many times to think that others wouldn't hesitate to use the same snooper stuff I did.

“We know that,” he said, using a piece of wheat toast to sop up the last bits of egg and grits. “I'm not here to threaten you in any way. To threaten your privacy. I know you've been threatened before. I know all about that mess down in Mexico. Your friend being kidnapped. So that's why you don't want any more jobs involving personal contact?”

I got out my cell phone and the set of numbers Don had given to me. Still our old code, I noticed, deciphering what he'd written so I'd call the right number at the exact right time.

“Laura.” Don answered immediately. “You're looking for bona fides?”

“Who is this handsome guy?” I asked.

“Nathan Brittles. Two tours of duty in Nam. One of the original members of the Shadow Wolves. Ask him what that is.”

“You were a shadow wolf?” I said to Brittles.

“Indian trackers. U.S. Customs. Mostly involving drug smuggling across the border and through the Tohono O'Od
ham reservation. I think the current bunch is working on terrorist stuff.”

“What else?” I asked Don.

“Spent some time as an investigator for the Arizona Department of Prisons. I think he quit in disgust at the politics. Been a U.S. Marshal for a while. I've been trying to hire him that last five months. That enough?”

I pushed
PWR
, shut down the cell phone, snapped it shut.

“So you're who you say you are.”

“Look. Can we, like, get beyond this adversarial posture for a while?”

He swiped the papers back into the briefcase, except the sealed envelope.

Now, here's the crazy part, I mean, I tell you, this is
really
crazy. I'd described him as handsome to Don, one of those words that comes out from your gut before your head can stop them and once they're out, they're in the air. Maybe it was him being Navajo, I don't know, there was something about him. I'd seen his smile at the word, a sardonic smile, though, not narcissistic or self-involved, just a recognition of something about him that he never really acknowledged to himself. But he
was
handsome, he was incredibly trim, he looked like…
Stupid stupid don't go there,
I thought. Enough Navajo men in my life.

“Do you lift free weights?” I found myself saying.

“Every other day. I also believe there are many universes. Like science fiction. Like, there's another version of you and me operating in another universe.”

“Now, that really freaks me out,” I said.

“Okay. Here's why Don had you meet me here. Three days ago, a federal prisoner at Leavenworth asked to see the deputy warden. Told the warden that she had information on a monster identity-theft ring being operated from inside a prison. You've heard, I'm sure? Some of the 800 number call centers have contracts with prisons? Help lines, customer service, catalog ordering?”

“Heard about it, yes. Never came across it personally.”

“Everybody orders from catalogs. Don't you?”

I nodded.

“And you called some toll-free number, right?” I nodded. “You ever really know, even care, where that person was?
Who
that person was?”

“Don already went through that dance with me. This federal prisoner, what's he got to do with me?”

“Not he. She.”

I waited. He tapped the manila envelope, pushed his plate and silverware aside, cleaned the plastic tabletop, started spinning the envelope by flicking a corner with his fingernails.

“I'm not sure.”

The spinning envelope started to annoy me, I knew it was a tell, a giveaway sign that he was nervous, possibly because he didn't know what was inside the envelope, possibly because, in spite of his promise, it was some threat to me, some government document, a warrant, I'd violated security somewhere, hard to know, I violated computer security regularly. I slapped my hands down on the envelope and startled him for a few seconds. He stretched out his fingers.

“I'm not supposed to look in this envelope unless you agree to help us.”

Picking it up, I looked at the flap, glued shut, threw it down again.

I'm getting good at social exchanges. I'm not anywhere near as intimidated as I used to be.

“This prisoner—”

“Who is it?”

“A young woman. Abbe Consuelo Dominguez. Abbe pronounced like ‘Abbie,' but spelled
A-b-b-e.
Early twenties, doing eighteen months on federal mail fraud. Actually a hacker. Like you. But got nailed when she sent a list of a thousand credit card numbers through the mail.”

“So?”

“Ms. Dominguez says she'll identify the prison which functioned as a source for identity theft.”

“So?” I said again.

“But
only,
” he stressed, “only if
you
would get involved.”

“Me? Involved?”

“You. Asked for you by name. Told us where to find you.”

Mind-boggling.

I quickly ran through some of the names of people I'd been responsible for prison terms. No young women. Quickly ran through the revenge thing, wanted nothing to do with revenge seekers, not after Meg Arizana being kidnapped, that crazy son of a woman we'd once exposed.

“Where's this woman now?”

“At Perryville prison. I brought her down two days ago, from Leavenworth. But I've been tied up with another…another case, on federal land. Couldn't get to you until just now.”

“And you want me to talk to this woman?”

“She wants to talk to you.”

“But you have no real idea what she wants to tell me.”

“Nope.”

He started spinning the envelope again, stared at what he was doing, stopped abruptly, and smiled.

“You're on to that one, aren't you? I don't have many tells. I play high-stakes poker, I'm very good at keeping signals from other players. Now you've got me wondering if I play with cards in front of me like this when I'm a little nervous.”

“If I meet this woman,” I said. “If she talks to me, I'm out of it then? This envelope thing is kinda dumb, anyway. Like a Hollywood spy movie without any logic. So what's really inside?”

“Yeah. We peeked. Sealed it back up again. It's just a long, detailed list of financial transactions using stolen credit cards. But we don't know how they were stolen except
through some prison 800 number call center. Lots of prisons in this country, even private prisons that have a bottom line to earn money. You talk to Ms. Dominguez, she gives up the specific prison.”

“Don said it was Florence.”

“Just a guess. She teased us with a list of fifty prisons.”

“But why me?”

“Don't you want to find out?”

Sure I did. But not that I cared about the identity thefts. I always wanted to know about people who knew my name, knew what I did. It's supposed to be a private thing, hacking into computers, supposed to be done through cutouts, although I'd been doing it long enough to have an international reputation.

“Can we go there right now?”

“In my car, I've got something you have to wear. They're expecting two people. U.S. Marshal, somebody from Aquitek. Don's cleared the way. But you'll have to put on a uniform.”

“Do I get a red beret?”

At the time, I thought all of this was getting to be a lark. Wheeeee! Some fun in the Phoenix sun. Of course, a handsome Navajo man will blind me to the truth all the time.
Not this time,
I thought.

“So you're Navajo,” I said, mouth way ahead of my brain.

“Mother was from the Biihtsoh Dine'é clan. Big Deer People. Father was Deeshchii'nii clan. Start-of-the-Red-Streaked People.”

“From where on the rez?”

“Medicine Water. You? Which Hopi mesa?”

“Hotevilla. Look, uh, I
so
don't want to talk about this.”

“No problem. Ready to go?”

And how strange, to feel so…conflicted about the difference between this man and Rich Thompson.

No. I won't go there.

8

H
e didn't have my size quite right.

The black khaki uniform trousers fit tight in the crotch, the shirt molded around my shoulders and biceps, layered on like paint, like a second skin. I refused the holstered Smith & Wesson nine, but snugged the red beret against my shoulder-length dirty-brown hair. It would take more than a beret to give me helmet hair. I liked the cool black band around the bottom, hated what the beret signified, marveled at how far I'd come to working
with
Law instead of against it.