Sake Bomb (31 page)

He moved forward, checked the front
passenger area. Empty.

Except for the gun resting on the seat.

He glanced at the woman but she rounded the
front bumper.

“It’s over here. The rear one on the
driver’s side.”

Harold frowned at the weapon but followed
her to the tire that needed to be replaced, surprised to see the
spare tire leaning against the driver’s door, a small jack beside
it. The lug wrench was already secured to a nut on the wheel of the
deflated rear tire, pointing straight out as though levitating over
the concrete.

The woman pushed her hair behind her ears.
“I wasn’t strong enough to get the nuts off,” she said
apologetically. She chafed her tiny hands together. “Started
getting cold and I couldn’t get a good grip.”

Harold chuckled, pointing the bat at the
jack. “First you have to get the back end lifted up.”

She eyed the unused tool and frowned.
“Oh.”

Smiling, he handed her the bat, noting how
she trembled when she took it. The cold was seeping through his
coat, too, so he needed to make this quick. “This won’t take but a
minute and you can be on your way.”

Back end of the SUV raised, Harold bent and
started torquing the lug wrench. The first nut wiggled free and he
got to work on the next. The second was on tighter. Much too tight,
actually, as if it’d been secured by an impact wrench.

Still hunched low, Harold gripped the metal
tool with all his might, braced himself and twisted. It felt like
it was loosening, just a quarter turn, and he dug deeper to get it
free. He strained so hard he barely heard her soft “I’m so
sorry.”

Something hard crashed down on the back of
his head, over and over again, each strike bringing with it a
familiar crack followed by a roar of the crowd so loud it
deafened.

His knee hit the concrete.

The batter kept swinging.

Confusion filled his foggy thoughts. He’d
never left home plate but he was sliding into the dirt, staring at
the white ball as it soared away, over the wall, and then
disappeared into the blackness.

Going…

Going…

Gone.

* * * *

J
ulie looked
down at the bat’s bulbous barrel, the end spattered red and
sprinkled with bits of gore and hair. Her fingers wrapped the
handle so hard they cramped, and she could still feel the
reverberations snake up her arms from each strike of wood on
skull.

She forced her gaze from the club to where
the man, in a half crouch, had crumpled against the flat rear tire
and the still-connected lug wrench. He was big, far too big for
Julie to have fought outright, and he wasn’t moving. Or was he? Her
heart pounded too hard to tell if his chest expanded and shrank, or
if her eyes were playing tricks.

The gun would have been easier. But it would
have been loud too. Julie wasn’t used to the bang, even with the
sound suppressor on it.

She’d never killed a man before. Woman,
either. Fay had; said when it came down to his life or hers, it was
no more difficult than squishing a beetle beneath her boot.

Having done it now, Julie decided there was
nothing easy about it. Her armpits tingled with a mix of adrenaline
and fear, and by the way her stomach felt she was going to be
sick.

A stiff breeze shook the few trees near the
empty rest stop, and the eerie songs of crickets and other
creepy-crawlies filled the silence. The feeling someone watched
crept over her, but she couldn’t drag her eyes away from the body
against her SUV. She had to be sure he was dead, or at least get
him off her tire so she could inflate it and take off.

Please be dead...please be dead….

She couldn’t stomach any more of the noisy
wet crunches hitting him made.

Julie nudged the trucker’s shoulder with the
bloodied tip of the bat, the brush so soft his heavy body didn’t
shift an inch. She sucked down a deep breath, mustered enough nerve
to push again. The force wiggled the lug wrench loose and it
clanged to the ground. Without it, the man rocked forward, a slow
slide that wedged his mangled head into the well between the tire
and the fender.

He groaned.

“Ahh!” Julie raised the bat with both hands
and brought it down, over and over, beating him wherever she could
until his face mashed freezing asphalt.

Quick bursts of air rushed out, seared her
lungs on the way back in. Her frenzied mind tried to puzzle out how
he was now positioned at such an angle that his face, neck, inside
shoulder and outstretched outer arm were in the path of the rear
tire. She’d have to move him.

Was he dead now?

Just grab his arm and drag.

The acid in her stomach churned; the locket
hung heavy at her throat, a commanding weight. She clutched the
heart-shaped pendant and drew a deep breath. Closing her eyes, she
recalled the last words Fay had whispered to her as she stood
before the cenotaph in Hiroshima:

“
Over, under, or through. If the river
wishes to kiss the ocean, it does not stop for the dam.”

Over, under, or through… Over, under, or
through… A glance at the body. Neither of those seemed a palatable
option at the moment.

Julie paced; went to the rear gate and
opened the cargo hold. Brown boxes canted precariously against the
window, and she yanked out several of the empty containers to
reveal the small air compressor. She traded the bat out for the
little machine.

First things first, inflate the tire.

Right after she lowered the car.

She was a trembling mess. Any minute now
someone would come bumbling along and find out what she was up to,
and then everything would be ruined.

A dam. Just a dam.

Get to the ocean.

The SUV came to rest on the ground once
more, and Julie snatched the jack clear of the vehicle. Working
over the trucker’s limp leg, she made the necessary connections and
switched the compressor on, cringing at the noise. Not much she
could do about it.

Now for the hard part. She stooped to take
hold of the man’s arm. Instead, her shoulders lurched and she dry
heaved, head pounding even more wildly from the loud, obnoxious
put put put
of the machine near her ear. In terms of
decibels, it rivaled the generator running the Mac truck at the
other end of the rest station.

The truck. Julie still had that to contend
with. She let the tire fill to capacity and shut down the
compressor, thankful for the silence. Then she took a crowbar from
her SUV and crossed the lot to the black and purple cab with the
green lightning bolt on the side.

And the rust colored shipping container
she’d been tracking from California.

Using a sliver of the exposed trailer for a
foothold, Julie hoisted her short frame up to reach the security
keypad; recalled the code Akari sent days before via text message
and entered it from memory. Lock rod and catches released, she
swung open the rear door and hauled herself inside. A penlight
helped her navigate crate after crate of fireworks. All the same,
each one bearing the Hanabi, Inc. stamp and the company’s logo, a
campy, five-petalled flower with sparklers shooting out from it.
The late Mr. Hall’s version of an exploding cherry blossom, she
supposed.

Julie needed the one that was different.

Toward the center of the container, she
found what she was looking for. A box, like the others, stamped
with Hanabi, Inc. across its wooden slats. Yet the flower was not
the same. Instead of five short, rounded petals, these were longer,
broader, the pink a deeper hue. Nerium oleander. She knew the
flower well.

“
I can hold the flowers,
Matushka
?”

…
Puffs of dark pink filled her vision,
and she took the bouquet, inhaling deeply.

Further proof of this being her intended
box, Akari had scribbled a messy In-Yo symbol just beside the
flower with a black sharpie. It wouldn’t look like much to someone
unfamiliar, but it was tantamount to the
X
on a treasure map
for Julie. She grinned.

This part she could handle.

A couple of pulls with the crowbar and the
crate exploded, sending bits of packing straw all over. She cleared
the rest away, locating the small tracking device in the process.
Reaching into the near-empty container, she slid out a rectangular
box. A little bigger than a portable metal cash drawer, it was much
heavier, the lead-lined titanium protecting the precious cargo
inside. With effort, she set it near the open rear door and went
back inside to ransack the rest of the crates.

At her SUV, she secured the heavy box in a
special container built into the floor of the cargo hold. She
gathered up the tools from her ruse with the tire—minus the lug
wrench and stray nut tucked beneath the trucker—and tossed them
into the hold. Then she replaced the empty boxes, stacking them so
she would once again be just another person making a long-distance
move over the open American highways.

Hands on her hips, Julie stared at the dead
body. One final bump in the road. She’d come too far to get
squeamish now.

Newly determined, she dropped into a crouch
and reached for the man’s arm, but couldn’t bring herself to touch
him. What if he hopped up like in those horror movies Fay always
tortured her with? That would creep her out.

The thought of those movies made her smile.
She couldn’t wait for them to be together again.

Julie climbed into the driver’s seat and
locked the doors; drummed her fingers on the steering wheel and
huffed.

“Over, under, or through…” she muttered.

She turned the key in the ignition and
shifted to DRIVE. One more huge breath and she slammed her foot
down on the gas.

Over it would have to be.

Langley, VA

T
he office door
flew open, smacking the wall so hard framed pictures and
certificates danced a little jig, and the draft fluttered the
papers covering the desk. Fletcher’s head snapped up; Agent Hayford
stood in the frame, files in hand. Her navy pants and white blouse
were immaculate, as always, but her hair was piled on her head in a
sloppy chignon. Red-rimmed eyes looked ready to drop into the bags
beneath them.

Since this business started with the kid,
Rachel had been giving Fletcher the cold shoulder. Looking at her
now, all tired and unkempt, he wondered what, or who, was keeping
her up at night.

She lifted her chin and pushed back her
shoulders. She shut the door and marched to the desk, slapping a
file down directly on top of the expanding Ellerson report Fletcher
was involved in. He frowned at her blatant disregard, not to
mention her insolence in entering without knocking. No
agent—previously screwing him or not—would think to do that to
Fletcher. Before he could give voice to her error, she pulled back
the manila jacket, revealing a page with a series of pictures.

“
These
,” she stabbed down a manicured
nail, “are all of the photos that have come in on Galletti’s phone
from that untraceable sender.” Rachel leaned forward on his desk,
brows drawn together over stormy violet-blues. “What do you
see?”

Fletcher inhaled a breath and calmly lifted
a pencil. Rocking back in the chair, he worked the length of wood
around his fingers. “I see somewhere between breakfast and clocking
in this morning, you obviously lost your mind, Hayford. Allow me to
help you find it. Pick up your files, go out my door, and
then—”

“Look at them.”

“You’re on thin ice here, agent,” he warned.
“If you value your position with this department, you’ll do well to
remember who you answer to.”

“And if
you
want to stay at the helm
of this ship, you’ll get your head out your ass and look at the
goddamned pictures, Dougie.” Her arms trembled slightly but, much
like her heels, the crease between her brows dug in further. She
tapped her finger on the page.

Fletcher glared a moment longer; dropped his
view to the photos. Six in all, each wallet-sized so they fit on
just the one page. Little boys. All of them smiling. Ages 7 to 13,
if he had to guess, and every shot had been taken in the daytime,
the backdrops bright and whimsical. One kid eating ice cream,
another holding a soccer ball up to his face as though mesmerized
by the single red pentagon amongst the rest of the black and white
pattern.

Nothing struck Fletcher as odd. Possible
scenarios came to mind—kidnapping, sex slaves, drug runners—and
each was subsequently dismissed.

“Children,” he said, voice and expression
blasé. “You’ve discovered Sanzio Galletti is a sexual deviant.
Likes little boys. Disgusting, but not a crime that concerns this
office. While I encourage you to forward this to the appropriate
department, I sincerely hope you didn’t solve this mystery on
Company time, especially after I gave you a direct order to
leave
this
alone
.”

Rachel’s eyes narrowed to slits. She pushed
the top page aside. Fletcher heaved an annoyed breath, flicked his
gaze down again. A repeat of the very first picture, high-gloss and
magnified to 8x11. The kid with the ice cream. Two scoops in the
cone. Greenery backed him, maybe taken in a park of some sort.

“Start in the upper left quadrant,” Rachel
said.

The sky was barely a strip near the top of
the page, and practically colorless. Fletcher had no idea what he
was supposed to see there, but hunched over to study it closer. He
combed through the area, mentally breaking the picture into a grid.
Moving from left to right, he spotted a tiny black dot. An artifact
on the lens, or a printer anomaly. It happened.

He kept going, searching the white sky with
the pencil’s eraser to stay in some semblance of a line. Another
black dot appeared. And then another. Four anomalies later, his
eyes scanned the sky in the upper right portion of the page, noting
the smattering of dots. Not so many as to be obvious, but
definitely there.