Steven James - The Queen

“Patrick?” Tessa must have sensed my urgency. “What’s going on?”

Time was of the essence, so I cut straight to the point. “Listen, there’s a woman who was taken, kidnapped. We might finally know where she is. Are you all right staying here with Amber?”

She looked at me anxiously. “Who is it?”

“Her name is Kayla. Will you and Amber be okay?”

“Yeah, no, totally. We’re fine. We’ll be fine.” A line of worry scribbled across her face. “I didn’t know someone was kidnapped.”

“Call me if you need to.”

She was staring uneasily at me.

“What?”

“He hit you really hard.”

I translated that to mean that my face was really a mess.

Turning to the side, I drew my sleeve across my chin, leaving a long smear of dark blood on my jacket. I managed to keep from wincing from the pressure against my lip. “Lien-hua!”

“I’m coming.”

Back in my room I grabbed my computer, as well as Donnie’s biometric ID card, additional magazines for the Glock, my folding knife-a Randall King black automatic TSAVO-Wraith-the extra plastic handcuffs, and the GPS ankle bracelet. After encouraging Amber to call Lien-hua’s cell if there was anything we could do or if she needed to talk, I said an awkward and rushed good-bye. On my way through the living room I discreetly asked Tessa to text me as soon as Sean came back, then I left to meet Lien-hua by the cruiser.

Sliding into the driver’s seat, I handed her my computer.

“I can drive if you like,” she offered.

“Sometimes I process things better when I’m behind the wheel.”

I took us down the driveway, sliding momentarily on the ice. Wind-driven snow sliced at our headlights.

“So the Schoenberg Inn,” Lien-hua said. “Alexei left Kayla right under everyone’s nose?”

“If he’s telling the truth, yes. And if Kayla is there, I want you to talk with her first.”

“Sure. Of course.”

On the road I hit another patch of ice and we fishtailed precariously close to a snowbank, then straightened out again.

“You sure you don’t want me to drive?”

“I’m all right. See if you can trace the GPS location for Hank Burlman’s cell.”

It only took Lien-hua a few seconds to put the trace through, but Alexei knew how to operate off the grid and not surprisingly she came up empty.

A dozen puzzle pieces were cycling through my head. Too many things to keep straight. “Okay,” I said. “Check my email. There should be a file from Angela or Margaret containing the schematics for the ELF base.”

Lien-hua clicked to my email. “No. Nothing.”

“What’s taking them so long?” I muttered. “Send them both a message that we need that ELF info now.”

Lien-hua did as I asked, then said, “Next.”

“Two things. First, see if the Navy has had any communication problems tonight with the ELF base. Any alerts, anything at all.”

“Who should I contact?”

“Admiral Winchester is the one who put this case in Margaret’s lap. Try him. I’m not sure how to get in touch with him.”

“I’ll figure it out. What’s the second thing?”

“Check the statute of limitations for vehicular reckless homicide in Wisconsin. I need to know what they were twenty years ago.”

A moment of silence. “What’s that about?”

“When I was in high school there was an accident. Sean lost control of our car, there was a collision, a woman was killed.”

“Oh, Pat.”

“No charges were brought against him, but when we were in the garage just now he told me he’d had too much to drink that night before getting behind the wheel.” I didn’t want to add this last part, but I wasn’t sure if Lien-hua knew that my brother was only two years older than me. “Sean was underage at the time.”

She quietly tapped at the keyboard. “I’ll see what I can find out.”

Tessa knocked on Amber’s bedroom door. “Hey, can I come in?”

“Sure.” She could tell that Amber was trying to stifle her crying.

Tessa opened the door somewhat haltingly and found Amber seated on the bed, a box of tissues on one side of her, a pile of crumpled tissues on the other. She was blowing her nose, doing her best to make it sound soft and insignificant.

Whatever confidence Tessa had displayed a few minutes ago when she was reassuring Patrick that everything would be fine had now evaporated.

“It’s gonna be okay,” she told Amber inaptly.

Amber patted the bed. “Come here.”

Tessa crossed the room and took a seat beside her.

She’s taking depression meds, this must be totally weirding her out.

“I’m sorry,” Amber said.

“No, you don’t need to be sorry.”

But Tessa wasn’t sure if that was true or not.

Overall, Sean seemed like a nice enough guy, so on the one hand she was upset at Amber for wanting to leave him, but Sean had punched Patrick-which, actually, Patrick probably had coming-and Amber had told her earlier that Patrick wasn’t the reason she was leaving her husband, and apparently Sean did drink a lot, so it was hard to know what to think.

Tessa wanted to remind Amber of the stuff they’d talked about at the motel about canceling debts and sacrificing for the benefit of the relationship and all that, but she wasn’t really sure if Amber needed to forgive Sean or divorce him. Obviously, Amber had issues too; however, as far as forgiving yourself, Amber had told her that she thought that sort of talk seemed arrogant, so in the end Tessa ended up saying nothing rather than chance saying the wrong thing.

Instead, she just reached out and took Amber’s hand.

And Amber let her hold on.

“Okay,” Lien-hua said, “sat comm with the ELF station broke off a couple hours ago, but the Navy received a web-based encrypted audio message that everything is okay.” She paused then added, “Yeah, unlikely. I know.”

I’d heard Lien-hua’s side of the conversation with the admiral’s aide but hadn’t been able to decipher all the specifics. “Who was the message from?”

“A chief warrant officer named Dickinson. He said the storm took out the satellite communication and landlines and that he’d come to the surface to check in. Because of your suspicions, though, the Department of Defense did a voiceprint analysis on the audio, and it was him. It’s confirmed.”

Could he be working with someone? With Eco-Tech?

“That’s not enough to convince me.”

“Me either. But it seemed to reassure them for the time being.” Her voice stiffened. “They’re closely monitoring the situation.”

“Closely monitoring it.”

“Their words, not mine.”

That phrase “closely monitoring a situation” really means “not taking any immediate action,” and that was the last thing I wanted to hear right now. I wished Torres and the SWAT team were here. I could sure use their help, especially if there was something going down at the base.

“Pat, I’ll look up those statutes in a sec, but I never told you what I was working on at Sean and Amber’s house earlier-doing research, trying to pull together a preliminary profile on Valkyrie.”

“What’d you find out?”

“Unfortunately, not a whole lot. Valkyries are found in Norse mythology and were originally goddesses who flew over battlefields and determined who would be slaughtered and who would survive. Basically, angels of death. Eventually, the myths turned them into beautiful, alluring spirits who waited on slain heroes in Valhalla.”

“Quite a transformation.”

“Well, beauty and death are central themes of nearly all mythic systems. Very Jungian-if you buy into that. Anyway, psychologically, the code name draws from images of death, eternity, beauty, marriage. Maybe even judgment or eternal rewards.” She paused slightly. “Code names by high-level operatives are rarely chosen indiscriminately.”