Authors: Ken Goddard
“I’m sure there are,” Cellars nodded.
“That’s just … frightening, not to mention completely insane,” the pathologist pronounced, shaking his head slowly.
“Wait a minute … you had her head in that MRI for a few minutes while it was grinding away. What did you actually see?” Cellars demanded.
“Differences — very distinct and significant — from the normal human brain,” Sutta said after a moment. “I’d need to go back and look at the individual slices, but you could see where —”
Sutta’s voice faded as he blinked in sudden realization and then turned to Marcini, who was already hurrying back to the smoldering console. “Oh no, don’t tell me —”
He and Cellars quickly followed Marcini into the Console, leaving MacGregor still sprawled on the Scanning Floor in what now looked like a sea of pulsing red lights.
“— we lost the data? I don’t know,” Marcini muttered as she quickly pulled on a pair of thin cotton gloves … hurried around to the back of the console … knelt down and pulled the panel door all the way open … examined the maze of electronic boxes, chip-boards and connecting ribbons for a few seconds … carefully reached in, disconnected and pulled out a palm-sized rectangular metal box … stood back up and walked back to Sutta and Cellars … and held the box up so that the two men could see the deep and almost-dead-center indentation in the metal side panel.
“Nice shooting, Cowboy,” she said, glaring at Cellars for a few seconds before turning to Sutta. “The RAM memory is definitely gone — went up in electronic smoke the instant the computer shorted out — but the MRI operating system is programmed to automatically record a real-time back-up copy to this hard-drive … and then to another completely separate off-site computer when the scan run is completed.”
“Was it?” Sutta asked hopefully.
“No, we were just getting started.”
“Shit.”
“So can you retrieve the data from that hard drive?” Cellars asked.
“In theory,” Marcini replied distractedly, her mind clearly engaged in working through the mechanics of a high-velocity bullet impacting a ‘Military-Spec’ — and therefore supposedly shock-proof — hard drive. “It depends on what the read/write heads were doing at the exact time of impact. There’s almost certainly going to be at least one deep gouge across each of the disk surfaces, but maybe —”
“Hey, guys,” MacGregor said from the Console Room doorway, looking marginally less pale and shaky, “we’ve got company outside. Base fire units and guard patrols, all wanting to know what’s going on in here.”
“Tell them the fire’s out, and that we’re going to need to keep them outside for a few minutes,” Cellars ordered. “We’ve still got an unprocessed crime scene in here.”
“Crime scene?” Marcini blinked her eyes as if she wasn’t sure she’d heard him correctly.
“A multiple-shots-fired situation on military property, resulting in the arguable ‘death’ of one bitch-nightmare, and —” Cellars glanced around the still-smoky room “— a great deal of collateral damage. I’d say this meets the basic definition of a crime scene.”
“But you did all the shooting, and caused all the damage,” Sutta reminded.
“Yeah, that’s a complication,” Cellars agreed. “But until I’m relieved by the U.S. Army or the Oregon State Patrol, I’m going to stay with this thing … work it until I’m told to stop.”
“So how do you plan on describing this in your latest CSI report,” Marcini demanded, reaching into her lab coat pocket, and holding up the still-warm stone between her thumb and forefinger, “as your latest suspect, or victim?”
By way of answer, Cellars took the stone from her hand, reached over to her lab coat breast pocket, cautiously and gently removed a Sharpie™ pen, removed the cap, started to mark something on the stone, and then hesitated.
“Do you happen to have any coin envelopes handy?”
Marcini walked over to a nearby cabinet and came back with a handful of small manila envelopes.
“Will these do?”
“Perfectly,” Cellars said, nodding in satisfaction. “And now if you’ll just hold … her ... again for a few seconds,” he said, handing her back the stone and then quickly reaching into his pocket.
“What the hell are you doing?” Sutta demanded.
“Getting caught up on my paperwork, Cellars replied absentmindedly as he quickly marked sequential numbers on the back of the three disfigured 9mm bullets he had earlier shot at MacGregor’s Humvee window … and the same numbers on three of the coin envelopes … dropped the bullets into the matching envelopes … quickly sealed them … then retrieved the stone from Marcini and marked it with the next number in order.
“I’m going to call her item number thirteen,” he announced, holding up the now-item-marked stone for Sutta and Marcini to see. “And once I figure out how many rounds I fired in here, and then find all of the bullets, I’ll have myself a nice collection of more-or-less properly-marked evidence.”
“Charming,” Marcini said, giving Cellars a look that he couldn’t quite read. “And while you and Dr. Sutta are doing all of that, I’m going to go find some of our computer experts and get them working on restoring the data from this hard drive.”
“Would you like me to mark it item number fourteen first?” Cellars asked.
“No, I would not,” Marcini replied in a voice that suggested there would be no further discussion about the matter, and then walked out of the room.
“Wow,” Cellars whispered as he and Sutta watched her disappear through the outer Scanning Room doorway.
“She called you ‘Cowboy’ … twice”, Sutta commented. “Why in the world would she do that? I’m assuming, of course, that you wouldn’t know a cattle ranch from a bat cave.”
“I think she meant it as a term of endearment.”
“But she said it right before she nailed you with that really impressive right hook,” Sutta reminded.
“She’s Sicilian,” Cellars said with a shrug. “I get the impression the women there are all pretty much like that.”
Sutta stared at Cellars for a long moment, and then shook his head sadly.
“You know, Cellars, given your obvious attraction to dangerous situations — and equally dangerous people,” he added meaningfully, “I’m truly amazed that I haven’t run across you professionally ‘at the table’ long before now.
“Yeah, well, after reading my non-official CSI reports, I’m kind of amazed too,” Cellars agreed, and then looked around the shattered room again. “Are you going to help me look for those spent bullets, so that we can get out of here before all those pissed-off Army bean-counters show up?”
“Yes,” Sutta nodded agreeably, “as a matter of fact, I think I will.”
CHAPTER 27
Fifteen minutes later, Cellars and Sutta emerged from the MRI Scanning Room to find Lisa Marcini sitting at the monitor desk, reading what Cellars immediately recognized as his ‘A’ addendum CSI report.
“I thought you were going to get that damaged hard-drive over to your techie team?” he said, walking up to the desk and starting to empty his pockets.
“I had them come to me, instead,” Marcini replied absentmindedly, not looking up from the report. “You find all your bullets?”
“I found the five that that I apparently hit her with, Cellars replied. “I didn’t think you wanted me digging around in that Console Room looking for the other three.”
“You did all that damage with only three bullets?” Marcini looked up with an amazed expression on her face. “I may recommend you for the Army Sharpshooter badge. It’ll go very nicely with your court martial … and very possible firing squad,” she added brightly, and then went right back to her to reading.
Cellars stared down at her for a few seconds.
“Do you really think you ought to be reading classified police reports?” he finally asked.
Marcini ignored him.
“Let me put it another way —”
Marcini made an indeterminate gesture with her right hand, her eyes still scanning the sentences, and then turned to what was apparently the last page of the report.
“What does that mean?” Cellars demanded.
Marcini continued to ignore him for another fifteen seconds … then put the report down on the table, and looked up at him with her flashing dark eyes.
“You slept with her,” she said matter-of-factly, “on three distinct and separate occasions.”
“I’m … not sure that sleeping is quite the right word,” Cellars said as he pulled up a chair in front of the desk and sat down.
“Oh, this ought to be good,” Sutta declared with audible relish as he grabbed a third chair and sat himself at the left side of the desk, facing Cellars and Marcini with arms folded across his chest in cheerful anticipation.
They both ignored him.
“I’m sure it’s not,” Marcini agreed. “But I also presume a certain delicacy is required in writing confessional police reports. Police Watch Commanders are probably easily shocked.”
Cellars rolled his eyes.
“Based on the way that first report was worded, I have to assume I was tired … and confused … and I didn’t know who — or what — she was, the first time.” He shrugged. “I can’t imagine that I would have known she was the bitch from hell, and still been able to … well, you know.”
“Fair enough,” Marcini nodded agreeably, her dark eyes glittering with emotion that Cellars couldn‘t even begin to interpret, “but that begs the obvious question.”
“The second time …?”
“… when you
had
to suspect she was involved — somehow — with these shadowy creatures,” Marcini pointed out.
“Or with the Alliance of Believers, because that was where I reported first seeing her,” Cellars reminded. “Granted, I should have been suspicious as hell of her in any case. But, according to the addendum report, the second time was late at night, up at Bobby’s cabin. And a thunderstorm that had clearly scared the shit out of me earlier that day was still raging outside. The report doesn’t say, but I can only assume I was back up there looking for more evidence … for Bobby … for anything that made sense. And it was pretty obvious that the shadowy figures were out there — presumably looking for him or something else — too. Maybe an opening in the cabin wall … God knows what. Combining all the related information in the two reports, I had to have been pretty scared — of those damned lightning bolts, if nothing else — exhausted, wet and cold. Probably not the best combination for rational thinking.”
“But possibly explaining why — when she came to the cabin door in the middle of the night and knocked — you actually opened it?”
“According to the report, she showed up soaking wet and looking terrified. I can see how I might have empathized with her situation … assuming that the whole incident wasn’t just some kind of dream.”
“So now you’re saying you might have only
dreamed
about making love to her a second time?”
“No, I really don’t think so,” he shook his head, “because she was obviously probing me —”
Both Marcini’s and Sutta’s eyebrows shot up.
“— for information,” Cellars quickly clarified. “Come on, you read the report. She wanted me to tell her the code words — ‘Gravestone Peak’ and ‘Windshear’ — that Malcom had used to send me encrypted information.”
Shaking his head, Sutta leaned forward and picked up the CSI reports for the desk top.
“Okay, so rendezvous number two, we have you empathizing with the bitch; mostly because she showed up late at night — all alone, out in the woods — looking wet, terrified and helpless … and you’re a guy with unresolved ‘White Knight’ issues. Is that pretty much the gist of the situation?” Marcini asked.
“It seems to be,” Cellars agreed.
“Okay, so that brings us to rendezvous number three, shortly after rendezvous number two, at a clandestine hotel room that your buddy Malcom arranged for you … when you
had
to know she was from Mars or Venus — or from wherever the hell she and her shadowy buddies came from — because she showed up at your undisclosed location anyway, and told you she was. But you, apparently, didn’t notice … or care?”
“The report isn’t clear on the timing,” Cellars said, “so — for the same, basic ‘guy’s libidos probably don’t function very well when they’re terrified out of their minds’ reasoning, I have to assume that I still didn’t know
what
she was until later, when she must have confessed when she was explaining their rules.”
“Rules? What rules?” Sutta’s head snapped up. He was still skimming through the first report.
“Allesandra told me they have three rules,” Cellars said, reciting the ‘A’ report information from memory. “Can’t stay long … can’t use their advanced technologies … and, most importantly, can’t ever leave evidence of their visit.”
“And that had to be it, right?” Marcini whispered. “They — or she — had violated their most important rule by leaving or losing something, and they had to get it back?”
“I think so,” Cellars agreed, “except that my report also implies there were
two
things she was looking for — and desperately wanted to get back — not one. Again, the report is real vague on that issue … like I was tired … or frustrated … or just didn’t want to write any more. But, reading between the lines, I think Bobby had one of the things Allesandra was looking for and she thought I had the other. That had to be why she kept probing me for information about where Bobby was.”
“So what was it she thought you had?”
“I don’t know. The report doesn’t say, and I sure as hell don’t remember.”
“But the reports are very clear that you and Bobby were both working just as desperately to get Jody away from Allesandra,” Marcini pointed out. “According to your initial report, you and Bobby Dawson had a big falling out over Jody Catlin — your childhood friend — a long time ago because you were both in love with her. But then you
had
to find Bobby to get her back … so that the two of you could set the bitch up with the tricky Sharps rifle long-shot, because you couldn’t trust her to make an honest trade.”