more than once gotten data from the facility.
'This is Irma Rohrerbach,' a voice said after some electronic chirping. The detective had the instant mental image of an overweight Caucasian female sitting at a desk cluttered with work that could have been done a week earlier.
'I'm Lieutenant Emmet Ryan, Baltimore City Police. I need information from a personnel file you have -'
'Sir, it's not here. My clerk just showed me the notes.'
'What do you mean? You're not allowed to check files out that way. I know.'
'Sir, that is not true. There are certain cases. This is one of them. The file was taken out and will be returned, but I do not know when.'
'Who has it?'
'I'm not allowed to say, sir.' The tone of the bureaucrat's voice showed her intensity of interest, too. The file was gone, and until it came back it was no longer part of the known universe as far as she was concerned.
'I can get a court order, you know.' That usually worked on people, few of whom enjoyed the attention of a note from somebody's bench.
'Yes, you can. Is there any other way I can help you, sir?' She was also used to being blustered at. The call was from Baltimore, after all, and a letter from some judge eight hundred miles away seemed a distant and trivial thing. 'Do you have our mailing address, sir?'
Actually, he couldn't. He still didn't quite have enough to take to a judge. Matters like this were handled more as a matter of courtesy than as actual orders.
'Thank you, I'll get back'
'Have a good day.' The well-wish was in fact the bland dismissal of one more forgettable irrelevance in the day of a file clerk.
Outof the country. Why? For whom? What the hell's so different aboutthis case? Ryan knew that it had many differences. He wondered if he'd ever have them all figured out.
'That's what they did to her,' Kelly told them. It was the first time he'd actually said it all out loud, and in recounting the details of the pathology report it was as though he were listening to the voice of another person. 'Because of her background the cops never really assigned much of a priority to the case. I got two more girls out. One they killed. The other one, well...' He waved at the newspaper.
'Why did you just turn her loose?'
'Was I supposed to murder her, Mr Ritter? That's what they were planning to do,' Kelly said, still looking down. 'She was more or less sober when I let her go. I didn't have the time to do anything else. I miscalculated.'
'How many?'
'Twelve, sir,' he answered, knowing that Ritter wanted the total number of kills.
'Good Lord,' Ritter observed. He actually wanted to smile. There was talk, actually, of getting CIA involved in antidrug operations. He opposed that policy - it wasn't important enough to divert the time of people who should be protecting their country against genuine national-security threats. But he couldn't smile. This was far too serious for that. 'The article says twenty kilograms of the stuff. Is that true?'
'Probably.' Kelly shrugged. 'I didn't weigh it. There's one other thing. I think I know how the drugs come in. The bags smell like - embalming fluid. It's Asian heroin.'
'Yes?' Ritter asked.
'Don't you see? Asian stuff. Embalming fluid. Comes in somewhere on the East Coast. Isn't it obvious? They're using the bodies of out KIAs to bring the fucking stuff in.
All this, and analytical ability too?
Ritter's phone rang. It was the intercom line.
'I said no calls,' the field spook growled.
'It's 'Bill,' sir. He says it's important.'
The timing was just perfect, the Captain thought. The prisoners were brought out in the darkness. There was no electricity, again, and the only illumination came from battery-powered flashlights and a few torches that his senior sergeant had cobbled together. Every prisoner had his feet hobbled; in each case the hands and elbows were bound behind their backs. They all walked slightly bent forward. It wasn't just to control them. Humiliation was important, too, and every man had in close attendance a conscript to chivvy him along, right to the center of the compound. His men were entitled to this, the Captain thought. They'd trained hard, were about to begin their long march south to complete the business of liberating and reuniting their country. The Americans were disoriented, clearly frightened at this break in their daily routine. Things had gone easy for them in the past week. Perhaps his earlier assembly of the group had been a mistake. It might have fostered some semblance of solidarity among them, but the object lesson to his troops was more than worth that. His men would soon be killing Americans in larger groups than this, the Captain was sure, but they had to start somewhere. He shouted a command.
As one man, the twenty selected soldiers took their rifles and butt-stroked their individual charges in the abdomen. One American managed to remain standing after the first blow, but not after the second.
Zacharias was surprised. It was the first direct attack on his person since Kolya had stopped that one, months before. The impact drove the air from him. His back already hurt from the lingering effect of his ejection and the deliberately awkward way they'd made him walk, and the impact of the steel buttplate of the AK-47 had taken control of his weakened and abused body away from him at once. He fell to his side, his body touching that of another prisoner, trying to draw his legs in and cover up. Then the kicks started. He couldn't even protect his face with his arms bound painfully behind him, and his eyes saw the face of the enemy. Just a boy, maybe seventeen, almost girlish in appearance, and the look on his face was that of a doll, the same empty eyes, the same absence of expression. No fury, not even baring his teeth, just kicking him as a child might kick at a ball, because it was something to do. He couldn't hate the boy, but he could despise him for his cruelty, and even after the first kick broke his nose he kept watching. Robin Zacharias had seen the depths of despair, had faced the, fact that he'd broken on the inside and given up things that he knew. But he'd also had the time to understand it. He wasn't a coward any more than he was a hero, Robin told himself through the pain, just a man. He'd bear the pain as the physical penalty for his earlier mistake, and he would continue to ask his God for strength. Colonel Zacharias kept his now-blackened eyes on the face of the child tormenting him. I will survive this.I've survived worse, and even if I die I'm still a better man than you will ever be, his face told the diminutive soldier. I've survived loneliness, and that's worse than this, kid. He didn't pray for deliverance now. It had come from within, after all, and if death came, then he could face it as he had faced his weakness and his failings.
Another shouted command from their officer and they backed off. In Robin's case there was one last, final kick. He was bleeding, one eye almost shut, and his chest was racked with pain and coughs, but he was still alive, still an American, and he had survived one more trial. He looked over at the Captain commanding the detail. There was fury in his face, unlike that of the soldier who'd taken a few steps back. Robin wondered why.
'Stand them up!' the Captain screamed. Two of the Americans were unconscious, it turned out, and required two men each to lift them. It was the best he could do for his men. Better to kill them, but the order in his pocket prohibited that, and his army didn't tolerate the violation of orders.
Robin was now looking in the eyes of the boy who'd attacked him. Close, not six inches away. There was no emotion there, but he kept staring, and there was no emotion in his eyes either. It was a small and very private test of wills. Not a word was spoken, though both men were breathing irregularly, one from exertion, the other from pain.
Care to try it again someday? Man to man. Think you can hack that, sonny? Do you feel shame for what you did? Was it worth it? Are you more of a man now, kid? I don't think so, and you might cover it up as best you can, but we both know who won this round, don't we? The soldier stepped to Robin's side, his eyes having revealed nothing, but the grip on the American's arm was very tight, the better to keep him under control, and Robin took that as his victory. The kid was still afraid of him, despite everything. He was one of those who roamed the sky - hated, perhaps, but feared too. Abuse was the weapon of the coward, after all, and those who applied it knew the fact as well as those who had to accept it.
Zacharias almost stumbled. His posture made it hard to look up, and he didn't see the truck until he was only a few feet away. It was a beat-up Russian vehicle, with fence wire over the top, both to prevent escape and to let people see the cargo. They were going somewhere. Robin had no real idea where he was and could hardly speculate on where he might go. Nothing could be worse than this place had been - and yet he'd survived it somehow, Robin told himself as the truck rumbled away. The camp faded into the darkness, and with it the worst
