Catherine Coulter - The Edge

The day seemed to last forever. Laura awoke briefly, but mostly slept. We all elected to stay at the hospital that night, at the urging of the six police officers there to protect us.

The next morning we were seated in Laura's room, speaking quietly since she was sleeping. I heard a man's voice but didn't look up. Then the hospital room door opened and Savich roared to his feet.

"Good God, sir, am I glad to see you!"

Assistant Director Jimmy Maitland, Savich's boss, came into the hospital room like a tackle bursting through the line, grinning from ear to ear when he saw Sherlock and Savich.

"S and S, good to see you guys on your feet! I don't mind telling you though that I'm glad this sort of thing is mostly behind me." He hugged Sherlock tightly and shook hands with Savich.

Behind him was my own boss, Big Carl Bardolino. He was a man I'd walk over coals to work for, a man who was ferocious in his loyalty to his people, just as Jimmy Maitland was to his. Big Carl came in at just under six feet five inches and weighed a lithe two hundred pounds. I'd never yet seen an agent who could take him in the gym. "Sir," I said. "Welcome to Costa Rica."

"Good to see you in one piece this time, Mac."

Another man I'd never seen before walked over to Laura's bed. I knew he wasn't FBI. Funny, but I knew that immediately. I also knew that I wasn't going to like him.

"We met this fellow at the airport," Jimmy Maitland said. "He's DEA. We let him come with us because he's Laura Bellamy's boss, at least that's what he says. His name's Richard Atherton."

I looked him over. He was tall, thin, too well dressed for a Fed, very blond, and looked supercilious. He was wearing loafers with little tassels on them. I said to him, "I was not in Edgerton on assignment for the FBI. I was there on a personal matter, to help my sister. You were dead wrong."

"That's what you told me on the phone," Atherton said, looking at Big Carl. He ignored all of us and looked down at Laura a moment, then said to Savich, "I suppose you were there just to visit with him."

He nodded in my direction.

"That's right. As I'm sure he told you, someone tried to kill him. Sherlock and I don't like it when folks try to kill our friends."

A too-blond brow arched up. "You're Sherlock? You're the agent who took down the String Killer?"

There was stark admiration in his voice, and Savich frowned.

Sherlock flinched and I knew she was remembering the drug-induced nightmares filled with Marlin Jones.

Ignoring him, she addressed Big Carl and Maitland. "The local cops want to take out that compound as much as we do. Shall I tell them that you're here and ready to go?"

"It's okay, Sherlock," Maitland said. "We've already set things up."

"This is DBA business," Atherton said. "It's not in FBI jurisdiction. Anything you have to say, you say it to me first, not these guys."

"Are you always an asshole?" I asked him.

Atherton took a step toward me, looked uncertain, then stopped. I wanted him to take a shot at me, I really did, and so I added, "Laura said you were ambitious, but she didn't say you were i>n asshole.

Surely that isn't a requirement for supervisors in the DEA?"

I heard Maitland cough behind his hand. Atherton took a step toward me.

Savich took his forearm. "Don't do it," he said to him quietly, very close to his left ear. 'Trust me on this, Atherton. It wouldn't be smart. We're boih pretty pissed at your attitude. I suggest if you want to keen your nice capped teeth intact, you sit yourself down and listen. It's time for full cooperation. This isn't some sort of game. Look at Laura. She nearly died."

"Yeah, because she disobeyed my direct orders."

And that, I knew, was the truth. I said, "Yes, she did. As a matter of fact, we were all hot dogs, but believe me, we paid for it."

"You wrecked my operation."

"That remains to be seen," Maitland said. "We've got about a dozen FBI agents in Edgerton as we speak, turning over every rock."

"We were about to holler for help," Sherlock said. "We just didn't have time. They got us that very first night."

Maitland said, raising his huge hands, "What's done is done. Carl and I are used to S and S playing things too loose. We'll deal with that later. As for Mac, he wasn't there on the job but on personal business.

We're all in Edgerton now tearing the place down to the ground. If there's still anything there to tie Tarcher and Paul Bartlett to this drug operation, we'll find it."

Atherton stepped back from me, looked hard at Maitland, and sighed. "Well, hell. If there's a chance we can get anything on Del Cabrizo, I want to be there with you to find it. But I think they must have hit you guys so quickly to give themselves time to close down shop, to destroy evidence."

Maitland, always a diplomat, said, "If you can nail Del Cabrizo it would be quite a feather in the DEA's cap. We can use all the help we can get."

"As of right now," Big Carl said, "this is an interagency operation. All right with you, Atherton?"

Atherton nodded. He was looking at Laura, oxygen in her nose, an IV in her arm, lying there pale and silent. He walked over to her and lightly touched her shoulder. Maybe he really gave a damn about her.

Laura, her voice a thread of sound, said, "Please get Molinas. He tried to make us think he was so noble, trying to make his daughter well, but he isn't. He would have done anything to us. He wouldn't have cared if we died or just went crazy. He's as bad as Del Cabrizo." She blinked, closed her eyes, and turned her cheek into the hospital pillow.

Maitland stood up. "It's time for the FBI and the DBA to mount a joint operation. We'll all go down to this compound to see what's going on."

Out with it, Mac. What happened?" "Molinas is dead," I said to Laura. "It wasn't our side who killed him.

Del Cabrizo's people arrived before we did and executed him."

"He was afraid of Del Cabrizo."

"He was right to be. Unfortunately, we didn't find Molinas's daughter. By the time we and the Costa Rican people got to the compound, it was deserted. The police burned it to the ground to prevent any possibility that it could ever be used again as a halfway point. They're going to patrol the airspace too."

"Any word yet from Edgerton?"

"They searched the Tardier house from top to bottom, and they're going through his business records.

Nothing yet, no financial records to indicate anything concerning drugs.

"Paul's gone, everything in his house including his computer, gone as well. Tarcher says he doesn't have any idea what all this is about. They can't hold him, at least not yet. They're still looking for Jilly too. But as of two hours ago, we've got nothing on anybody."

I helped Laura move herself higher on the pillow. "There, that's better. Now, what about Charlie Duck and the traces of the drug the M.E. found?"

"Tarcher said he hadn't any idea how Charlie Duck had gotten ahold of Paul's drug. Maybe Paul killed him, Tarcher said." I lightly kissed Laura's hand. Her skin was smooth and soft. Her fingers clasped mine.

Her grip was stronger. "As you can imagine, the local sheriff, Maggie Sheffield, isn't a happy camper. She and Atherton are going at each other like two cocks after the same hen."

Laura laughed.

"Well, two dogs after the same bone. You get the idea. Since I got this from Atherton, he didn't quite phrase it like that, just complained that this cop in Edgerton was a pain in the butt."

"What are we going to do, Mac?"

I kissed her mouth and the tip of her nose. I got her ear-lobe on the third kiss. "We're going to stay right here until you're well enough to travel. Then"-I drew a deep breath-"I've got to go back to Edgerton. I've got to find Jilly."