They were headed to Knoxville, following TN-71 through the mountains. After scouting several local hospitals around the Gatlinburg area, they had set off to the bigger city in hopes of striking gold at one of the larger trauma centers. Sara Houston seemed sure of herself.
“This could turn into a wild goose chase,” Lopez muttered in frustration.
Houston parried immediately. “We won’t let that happen. If we strike out in Knoxville, we go to Plan B.”
“CIA headquarters.” He couldn’t believe he’d just said that.
“That’s right,” she said. Even Houston paused as she seemed to consider the implications. “Our offices, Francisco. Something is buried there. Something that will explain this madness.”
“So you keep saying.”
“Things don’t happen without a cause! Multiple killings and coverups are always the tip of the iceberg.”
Lopez threw up his hands in frustration. “But you were there for years working next to him. If you didn’t know, how can you find out now?”
“I was a good soldier, Francisco. I did my job, and I did it well. I didn’t gossip. I ignored rumors. I believed in serving my country, not in dirtying it up.” Lopez saw a pained look on her face and decided not to press the argument.
She changed the subject. “Your bishop was cooperative?”
“Barely. This did not go down well. I’m a local priest with a parish. I am faculty at a Catholic school. Running off suddenly with poor explanations about it being related to my brother’s death raised a lot of eyebrows.” Lopez sighed. “If they weren’t going to close the school anyway, it wouldn’t have flown.”
Houston nodded. “Well, soon we’ll either have hit a wall, or discovered something that will make you take a sabbatical. We’ll find the answers, either at CIA or, just maybe, in Knoxville.”
“The hospitals.” Lopez was still skeptical.
She turned to face him, taking her eyes off the road and sending a new round of adrenaline through the priest. “Miguel was a hell of an agent. A bit of a legend at Langley, actually.” She returned her gaze ahead. “Judging from your description of the cabin, he put up one hell of a fight before he was killed. Whoever did this, they weren’t supermen. Somebody, likely several people, got hurt. I bet at least one of them seriously. They would have needed a hospital.”
“Why? Don’t these guys have some sort of secret lair or the like? Special hideouts? Paid docs who don’t talk?”
Houston laughed. It was a pleasant sound, free from the tension and cynicism of so many of her words. “Francisco, these are dirty players, so far underground that they live with worms. They clearly have resources, but not enough to staff trauma care in any old backwoods skiing resort in the South.”
“It makes about as much sense as everything else I’ve seen going on.”
“You’re right. I’m sorry,” she said. “You’re totally green in all this. Jesus, you’re a damn priest. But you’re learning. I’m afraid you’re going to be learning a lot of harsh lessons, Francisco.”
“Whatever I have to do to find out what happened to my brother.”
She glanced briefly into his eyes. “We’ll check all the local emergency-room records in Knoxville, focusing on the day of Miguel’s death. There aren’t too many grenade wounds that come through the Tennessee ERs each month. Knoxville is about all they’d have left. If they needed help, they went there. And we’ll find them.”
17
“This is highly irregular.”
They sat in a pleasant if mundane office at the University of Tennessee Medical Center, confronted with the frowning face of a middle-level VP. VP of what, Lopez had lost track. The bureaucracy even in a Tennessee hospital was awe-inspiring.
It seemed that they had hardly paused for breath since Gatlinburg. Lopez wasn’t used to this. His rhythms were the Catholic school, the parish council, and religious services. He felt he had been strapped into a roller coaster. The weight in his stomach was his sense that it was only just now nearing the top of the first hill.
After the mad drive to Knoxville, they pulled up to the redbrick-and-glass trauma center, raised several sets of eyebrows flashing government ID, and demanded to see patient records in a murder investigation. One after the other, they had been transferred to higher-ranked hospital staff. The bureaucracy was all a blur to Lopez, and he shifted uneasily in his chair as he watched Houston scowl at the hospital administrator. The CIA agent recovered quickly and morphed her face into a pleasant smile.
“Ma’am,” began Houston, “we’re sorry to take so much of your time, but this is an extremely urgent matter. There have been criminal actions in the state of Tennessee that involve government employees.” She paused for effect. “Murders.”
The administrator seemed nonplused. “Yes, yes. That’s what the others said, too.” Others? Lopez and Houston exchanged glances. “You know, it’s always a murder or a mafia boss or some damned matter of national security and you Feds barge in here and think that you have access to any old thing that you want. We have other important business, you know.”
The priest leaned forward. “You said others were asking similar questions?”
The woman rolled her eyes. “FBI, CIA, KPD, whatever, I don’t know.” She looked the priest up and down. “Seems maybe Vatican too, now. No wonder all our tax money is wasted. Don’t you clowns ever talk to each other?”
Houston probed further. “This does seem wasteful, I know, but there are hundreds of investigative branches in US law enforcement, not to mention governmental agencies. This case is so important that it might have brought in unrelated groups. I’m sorry for any repetition, but a man has been murdered and we need to make sure nothing was missed. Can you tell me what they asked and what you told them?”
The woman sat in the center of a wrap-around desk. She spun around in her plush office chair, stopped when she faced a counter behind her desk, and grabbed a manila folder. She dropped it sharply on the surface in front of Lopez and Houston as she rotated back. Her tone was increasingly irritated.
“Look, it’s all in here, what we actually do have on this guy. The man came in with massive trauma injuries. Shrapnel if you can believe it — combat injuries. Former army surgeon was called in to have a look. There was no ID on him. He refused to talk to the police.” She shook her head. “He was here in the ICU, critically wounded, monitored around the clock, and then, one day, poof! He was gone. Stole a bunch of supplies, hot-wired a truck in the parking lot. Damndest thing we ever saw. Police came again and saw the file, and more of you Feds were here the other day. Maybe I should put this whole thing online and you all can just let me get back to my work.”
Houston began, “If we can just get a look—”
The woman waved them off. “First door on your right’s a conference room. Have a look in there and drop this back off with my secretary.”
“Thank you very much! We’ll be out of your hair soon.”
“Sure, honey, until the next bozo shows up.” She spun around and took a call, turning her back on them.
The two made their way to the small conference room and closed the door. The air inside was stale, and there was dust on the table. A small window overlooking the forested hills surrounding the hospital let in some light at the far end of the space, but the room was dim. Father Lopez flicked on the light, and they sat together to look over the file.