The bus stopped outside a windowless single-storey structure. More Marines were waiting, and Chase and the suited trio were again surrounded by armed men before being taken into the building. It seemed to be the camp’s administrative centre, the small reception area dominated by warning notices and security cameras. A soldier sat in a booth behind a sheet of armoured glass, a metal door beside it. One of the men with Chase held up an ID badge; the soldier nodded and pushed a button. The door slid open.
Chase was led through and marched down a corridor to a door. ‘Room 101, is it?’ he asked. None of the mirror-shaded agents got the joke. ‘Oh well. You want me to go in?’
He took it from the lack of an answer that they did; unsure what to expect, he turned the handle and stepped through.
The room beyond was a small office, as grimly bland as the rest of the building. There was another door in the back wall, but Chase was for now only interested in the man behind the desk beside it. Black, in his fifties, close-cropped hair greying at the temples. Like the Marines he wore a tan utility uniform with a digital camouflage pattern, but his rank insignia revealed him to be an officer: a colonel. The nametape on his chest read ‘Morris’.
The colonel didn’t bother glancing up from the document he was reading as Chase entered, which annoyed him. ‘Ay up,’ he said loudly. ‘Well, I’m here. You going to bother telling me why?’
Morris finally looked at him. ‘Mr Chase?’
‘Yes?’
‘Mr Edward Chase?’
Chase gave him a toothy grin. ‘You’d look a bit of a tit if I said “No,
‘Are you Edward J. Chase?’ Morris impatiently asked.
‘Yeah, you got me. So now what? Fitting for an orange jumpsuit?’
‘I’m afraid I have some bad news, Mr Chase.’ Chase felt a jab of fear and worry. Had something happened to Nina? But that didn’t make sense - why would they bring him to Cuba?
But there
Morris stood. ‘It’s about your ex-wife,’ he said, confirming Chase’s thought.
‘Sophia?’
‘Yes. I regret to inform you that Sophia Blackwood is dead.’
It took Chase a moment to respond, his feelings very mixed. ‘Can’t say I’m going to break down in floods of tears,’ he said, sarcastic callousness covering his other emotions. ‘She
‘Which is why she was here. As the country’s biggest terror suspect since 9/11, she couldn’t be kept in the regular prison system. The other inmates would have killed her before the trial.’
‘So what happened?’
‘See for yourself.’ Morris went through the door at the office’s rear. Following him, Chase found himself in a small white-tiled morgue, stainless steel fixtures gleaming dully under the bright overhead lights.
On a table lay a body, covered by a sheet.
‘She tried to grab the sidearm from one of the Marine guards,’ said Morris, standing beside the head of the supine figure. ‘He was forced to fire to protect himself and others. The bullet hit her in the face at point-blank range.’ He took hold of one end of the sheet. ‘I should warn you that the damage was considerable.’
‘I’ve seen headshots before,’ Chase told him. But even he was caught off guard as Morris gently pulled back the sheet from her face - not so much at the carnage that was revealed, but by the knowledge that it had been inflicted upon someone he had once been very close to. Had
Jaw tightening, he stepped closer. The entry wound was an inch below the outer corner of her right eye, the skin around the blood-encrusted hole discoloured and burned by muzzle flame at extremely close range. The right eye was missing, the eyelids sunken deep into the socket. The eyeball had probably been torn apart by splinters from the shattered cheekbone.
As for the other side of her face . . . most of it was gone.
He had seen similarly horrific wounds before. The bullet would have flattened and tumbled after the initial impact, breaking apart as it tore through the cheekbone and exploding outwards from the other side of her skull. Half the upper jaw was gone, the remains of the top lip hanging limply into a gaping dark space beneath. The left eye socket was nothing but a shredded mess.
He also knew from the bullet’s path, through her face rather than into her brain, that she had probably remained alive for several minutes afterwards.
‘Cover her,’ he said, voice flat. Morris lowered the sheet over the dark-haired figure. Chase regarded the slim shape for a long moment, then turned to the officer. ‘Why’d you bring me all the way here to see that? In fact, why’d you bring me here at all? We got divorced five years ago - I’m not her next of kin.’
‘Actually, you are.’ On Chase’s confused look, Morris led him back into the office. ‘Since she had no immediate family, she listed you as her sole beneficiary.’
‘Wait, she named me in her
‘I have no idea. All I know is that she did, which is why you were brought here - to take possession of her belongings and the relevant paperwork.’ He handed Chase a folder.
He opened it. The first item was indeed a will - he recognised Sophia’s signature immediately. And it did name him as both executor and sole beneficiary. ‘Hang on a minute,’ he said, puzzled, leafing through the rest of the documents, ‘does this mean I’m suddenly a billionaire? ’Cause Sophia was married to two really rich blokes, and after they died - I mean, after she killed them - she inherited all their money . . .’
Morris revealed a small hint of emotion, a faint smile. ‘Unfortunately not. As a terror suspect, all her financial assets were frozen when she was charged. Whether they’re ever freed or not is up to the Supreme Court. But I wouldn’t hold your breath.’
‘Yeah, I thought so.’ The majority of the other papers detailed the various frozen bank accounts around the globe. ‘Liechtenstein, the Caymans, Hong Kong . . . it’s like an offshore banking world tour.’ He spotted a Zurich bank address on one sheet with the number of a deposit box. ‘Didn’t know the Swiss gave out people’s bank details, though. Thought secrecy was their big selling point.’
‘They do when terrorists are involved. Like your ex-wife.’
Chase closed the folder. ‘You know, you could have told me what this was about in Dubai, instead of the whole bloody cloak and dagger business.’
‘Not my decision,’ Morris said. ‘But they wanted you to see the body and collect her belongings personally. As well as this.’ He gave another document to Chase.
‘What’s that?’
‘Death certificate. You’ll need it to make any claims concerning frozen assets.’
Chase looked at the certificate, then placed it in the folder. ‘Somehow, I don’t think it’d be worth the effort.’ He glanced back at the morgue. ‘What’re you going to do with . . .’ he almost said ‘the body’, but instead finished, ‘her?’
‘That’s up to you.’
‘Cremate her,’ Chase decided.
Morris nodded. ‘And the remains?’
‘I’m not taking them with me. What would I do, stick the urn on a shelf as a conversation piece? Just . . .’ He shook his head, already ashamed of the tasteless remark. ‘Just scatter them in the sea.’
‘And a service?’
‘She wasn’t religious. Just say that . . .’ He hesitated, trying to find the right words. ‘That whatever it was that went wrong, that made her do all those things, it’s over now. And that I’ll remember her as the person she was when we first met, not the one she turned into.’
‘I’ll make sure of it,’ said Morris quietly.
‘Okay, so what now?’ Chase asked after signing a release form. ‘How do I get back to New York?’
‘I assume the plane that brought you here will fly you on.’
‘It’d bloody well better,’ he growled. ‘I’m not paying for
11
