Steve Martini - The Rule of Nine

I shake my head.

“Hard to tell what he looks like from the pictures. The hat’s down over his eyes in two of them.” Harry zeros in on the other photo, the enlarged close-up. Over the shoulder is just a piece of a sign, the words “basketball and weight lifting” and a line below it that was out of focus. Harry studies it for a moment, then lays it on top of the other two and pushes them off to the side.

“When were these taken?”

Snyder looks up at Joselyn. “I don’t know. Why?”

“Do you mind?”

“Go ahead.”

She picks them up.

“I’m pretty sure they are stills from a security video camera,” says Snyder.

“That’s exactly what they are,” says Harry. “Where were the photographs taken? What building, I mean?”

“Oh, God.” Joselyn is leaning over the enlargement, peering down at it on the table. She’s white as a sheet, and slack jawed.

“What is it?” I say.

“It’s like a bad dream,” she says. “I thought he was dead. They told me he was dead.”

“Who?”

“National Security Agency.” She coughs, covers her mouth. “Gimme-can I have some water,” she says.

Harry motions for the waitress, but she doesn’t see him.

“There’s a pitcher and glasses on the side table near the bar.” I point.

Harry starts to get up, but Snyder’s closer. He makes a beeline for it just as Joselyn topples sideways onto the booth seat.

I grab her before she can fall. Snyder scurries back with the water. He’s got it in a glass, but Joselyn’s not going to be drinking. She’s out cold. I dip my linen napkin into the glass and wipe her forehead. The shock of the ice water on her skin causes her eyelids to flutter. A second later she opens them.

By now the waitress is over. “Is she all right? You want us to call 911?”

“No!” says Joselyn. “I’m okay. Really, it’s nothing.” She struggles to right herself on the booth seat.

Her skin is clammy, with cold sweat on her arm. “Sip a little water,” I tell her.

She gives a feeble shake of the head. “No, my stomach right now…” I steady her so if she goes down again she doesn’t bang her head on the edge of the table. “Yeah, you’re just fine,” I tell her.

“I think she’ll be all right.” Harry looks up at the waitress. “We’ll get her back to the office. We’ve got a couch in the conference room. She can lie down. If she needs help we’ll call from there. Can you bring the check?”

“We’ll deliver it to the office. Go,” she says. “Take her on over. We’ll catch up.”

He’s older, and he looks heavier in the photograph, but it’s him,” she says. Joselyn is flat on her back on the couch.

“Keep your head down, don’t try to lift it. Keep your eyes closed.” One of the girls from the outer office is holding a cold compress across Joselyn’s forehead and eyes.

“Do you have a name for this guy?” Snyder is holding the single enlarged photo in his hand, his notebook open on the conference table in our office.

“When I knew him he was calling himself Dean Belden.”

Snyder writes it down.

“But that was what? Nine years ago now. I was told later that he had a number of other names he used, but according to the people I talked to he usually worked under the name Thorn.”

“How did you meet him?” I ask.

“He came to my office. I was still practicing law back then. Up in Washington State, near Seattle. He said he…” Joselyn lifts the wet compress from her eyes and shifts her body on the sofa to get her head up onto the armrest.

“Don’t try to sit up,” I tell her.

Harry hands her a pillow and helps her to slide it under her head.

“Thanks. I’m feeling a little better. Besides, I have to get my feet under me. I have a flight to catch tonight, remember?”

“As you said, there are more important things than Congressional hearings,” I remind her.

“You were telling us how you met him,” said Snyder.

“It’s been so long. He was calling himself Dean Belden. He showed up at my office one day and said he was a businessman. Said he had some corporate legal work for me or something. No. No, I remember now.” She lowers her feet onto the floor and sits up. She holds her head for a moment with both hands as if it’s ringing like a bell.

“Are you all right?” I ask.

“Yeah. Gimme a second.” She takes a moment to compose herself. “The offer of corporate work came later. The first thing he told me was that he had been subpoenaed. That was it. He was under subpoena to appear before a federal grand jury in Seattle. He told me that as far as he knew, it had nothing to do with him. He was not the target of the investigation. It was somebody else, another man he just happened to do business with. He claimed he didn’t even know why they wanted to talk to him. He offered a large retainer and told me that if I did a good job on the grand jury thing, especially if I could get it quashed, there might be some corporate work for me later. I was starving at the time, in a solo practice, ready to take anything that came through the door, and like a fool I said yes. That’s when the world caved in on me.”

“How do you mean?” says Snyder.

“All of it was a lie-his name, his business, the reason he was being called before the grand jury. He knew I couldn’t get the subpoena quashed. The government was closing in on him and what he needed was a witness, so he could disappear.”

“Go on,” says Sydner.

“His business, which was nothing but a front, was located in the San Juan Islands, in Puget Sound. He invited me out, supposedly to prep for his appearance before the grand jury. He had a pilot’s license and a small floatplane. The day he was supposed to appear before the grand jury he decided we’d fly.

“I was impressed. I was young and stupid. He set the plane down on Lake Union in Seattle and we took a cab to the federal courthouse. He was cool as a cucumber. We got inside and while I was engaged in small talk with one of the marshals, Belden took a powder. It was a few minutes before I realized that he was gone. But there I was, standing all alone holding the bag. I assumed that Belden had a case of last-minute nerves, simply got scared and ran. It’s what he wanted me to think. I grabbed a cab and headed back to Lake Union hoping I could catch him before he got into the air. I thought I could talk him into coming back to the courthouse.

“As it turned out, I didn’t quite make it. I got there just in time to watch him push off from the dock, climb up into the plane, and lift off. I heard the engine sputter and watched as the plane cart-wheeled into the lake. To this day at least that’s what I think I saw. He was very good. It was all meticulously choreographed. Of course, the divers didn’t find his body in the wreckage, but then they didn’t have to. The police had me as a witness. But the feds didn’t buy it.”

“So they already knew about him,” says Snyder.

“Oh, yes. He wasn’t just the target of their probe, he was the bull’s-eye. They told me that he worked under the name Thorn and that he was a hired mercenary. That his specialty was the transport of dangerous cargos.”

“What kind of dangerous cargos?” says Snyder.

“Nuclear, biological, chemical, that kind,” says Joselyn.

“A terrorist,” says Snyder.

“That was a word that had not quite come into its own back then.”

The puzzlement on Snyder’s face as he tries to snap all of these amorphous pieces into the puzzle of his son’s murder might be funny if it wasn’t so sad.

“I know how you feel.” She looks at him. “While Thorn didn’t pull the trigger, I know he is responsible for the death of a dear friend, a man named Gideon van Rye.”