David Rosenfelt - Dog Tags

More business-oriented publications focused on the future impact the event would have on the oil industry within Iraq, and the secondary impact on the world oil market in general. All concluded that the explosion would signal an instability and a future question of oil supply that would send prices skyrocketing in the short term. That prediction was validated within twenty-four hours, as oil prices immediately went up 11 percent.

At the time the stories were written, the oil minister was in a coma, listed in grave condition. There were rumors that he was brain-dead, and that the life-support machines could be disconnected at any time. This proved not to be the case; he lingered for eleven more days before succumbing.

For some reason this fact strikes me differently than it has before, and I look in the army file to see if I can find sketches that answer the question I am forming. The sketches are there, but they’re confusing to me, and it’s going to be at least tomorrow until I can find out what I need to know.

But now I’m anxious and frustrated, which prevents me from falling asleep. I start to fake-yawn and stretch, nudging against Laurie each time, hoping to wake her up without getting blamed for it.

This doesn’t work, so I start to put some voice into the fake yawn, giving off an “aaaahhhhh” each time I do. She doesn’t wake up, so I do it increasingly louder, until I’m yawning like Luciano Pavarotti. Still nothing.

My next trick is to pull on the covers in various directions and turn the lamp on and off. Still no luck, so I pull, turn, and yawn all at once. If the Iraqi oil minister were still in a coma and lying next to me right now, even he would wake up.

“Andy, if you wanted to wake me, why couldn’t you gently touch me on the back and say, Laurie, please wake up, I need to speak to you, sweetheart. ” She says all this without moving a muscle or opening her eyes.

“Oh, sorry,” I say. “Did I wake you?”

“Andy, be careful. I’m licensed to carry a gun under my pillow.”

“Oh. Laurie, please wake up, I need to speak to you, sweetheart.”

For the first time she moves, half sitting up, supported by her elbow. “Okay. Speak.”

“Eighteen people were killed in Iraq that day. Sixteen of them died instantly, and two died days later.”

“So?”

“So one of the two was the oil minister.”

“I know that, Andy. We’ve both known that since day one.”

“It was a powerful explosion, Laurie. If the girl was after the minister, why wasn’t she close enough to him to kill him on the spot?”

Now she sits all the way up. “That’s a good question. Maybe the girl got confused, and stood in the wrong place. She was sixteen years old, and she had to be scared.”

I shake my head. “Maybe, but unlikely. Billy said she moved around for a long time before doing it. That’s why he kept watching her.”

“Then maybe she couldn’t get close, because of the security.”

“The security was set up to give her a free pass. This operation was planned perfectly; why go to all that trouble and then not give her access?”

“We need to check this out,” she says.

I nod. “That’s for sure. First thing in the morning.”

I turn out the lights and lay my head down. “Good night.”

“Andy, this could be important. I’m not sure I’m going to be able to sleep.”

“Then just try to lie there quietly. I’m exhausted.”

CHAPTER 53

WILLIE AND HIKE WERE NOT THE PERFECT TRAVELING COMPANIONS. They were in first class from New York to Miami, which Willie found to be “really, really, cool.” The seats had elaborate entertainment systems, with a television, DVDs, and video games. The flight attendant seemed happy to quickly bring Willie pretty much anything he wanted, and in normal circumstances he would have been content if the flight went on much longer than it did.

That’s if he hadn’t been sitting next to Hike.

Hike thought the cabin was too cold, the chicken stringy, and the bloody Marys watered down. He mentioned all of this to Willie, who didn’t share his viewpoints and told him so.

“It doesn’t matter,” said Hike. “We’re going to die on the next flight anyway.”

Once they boarded the small plane for the Miami-to-Nassau flight, Hike really kicked it into gear. His we’re-going-to-die fear became a chant, annoying all the passengers and prompting a warning from the flight attendant.

By the time they landed in Nassau, Willie had decided that he would rather swim back to New York than fly with Hike. They got their bags, and then Willie rented a car while Hike covered himself in bug repellent and suntan lotion.

They went to the local headquarters of the Royal Bahamas Police, where they had an appointment with Inspector Brendan Christian. Christian had investigated Donovan Chambers’s disappearance, and had spoken to Laurie on the phone.

Hike conducted the interview after getting Christian’s permission to turn on his tape recorder. He took him through everything that Christian knew about the Chambers case, which was little more than he had already told Laurie. During the interview, Willie showed the sketch of M that Cindy had provided, but Christian had no recollection of seeing him.

When they were finished, they had four and a half hours until their flight, and Willie wondered to himself if he had time to buy a gun to shoot Hike during the flight back.

“I was just thinking about something,” Willie said. “They say that this guy is a shooter only… that’s how he hits. And Chambers was a combat soldier, so he could probably handle himself.”

“So?” Hike asked.

“How did he get a gun onto the island? He wouldn’t try getting it through airport security, would he? That would be taking a chance.”

Christian nodded. “And he wouldn’t have purchased one on the island. That would call attention to himself, and we’d know about it.”

“Which explains the fact that you haven’t found a body,” Hike said. “He came in by boat, and dropped the body at sea. And he would have needed a car to get around.”

Christian held up the sketch. “I’ll have this shown at all the rental car agencies and piers where the boat could have docked. But even if we get an ID, it doesn’t help catch him. He’s long gone.”

“We can use it at trial,” Hike said.

When they were back at the airport, Willie called Andy in New Jersey, while Hike went into the bathroom to wipe off the lotion and repellent.

Willie told him about the deposition, and the idea that M might well have come in by boat if he was there at all. “The cop is going to show the sketch around. Will it help if someone IDs him?”

“Absolutely,” Andy said. “As long as I can figure out a way to get the judge to admit it.”

“Cool.”

“You’re not half bad at this detective work,” Andy said.

“Nah… I still don’t know a lot of legal stuff.”

“Like what?”

“Well, like… what if I throw Hike out of the plane between here and Miami? Which country would I be charged in?”

CHAPTER 54

“I CAN’T BE SURE WHERE THE OIL MINISTER WAS,” says Billy. We’re meeting in a courthouse anteroom before the start of today’s trial session. “My job was to watch out for what I thought might be threats, so I didn’t see him at all.”

I take out the sketched map of the immediate area, and point to specific spots on it. “She was here, and the minister was here.” There’s a fairly substantial distance between the two locations.

Billy stares at it for a few moments, then closes his eyes. It’s a sign of my sensitivity level that I hadn’t anticipated he might react emotionally to this; he is revisiting the time and place that cost him his leg. It also led him to his current incarceration and plight.