The administrator had summarized accurately; the details were stark on the page. The same day Miguel Lopez had been murdered, a John Doe had entered the ER with extensive injuries, pulling up delirious in a car, bleeding profusely, handing the medics a list of information: a summary of his wounds, his allergies to medicine, blood type. Everything the hospital staff might need to know except his name or any other personal information. The man described in the file was a combination of detailed data and gaping mystery.
“Shrapnel?” asked Lopez. “Could that be from the grenades?”
“Not much else,” said Houston. “She didn’t mention anyone else with him. How did he get here on his own?”
“She said he drove in.”
“In this condition? By himself? Why would his team allow that? How could he drive across the mountains from Gatlinburg so badly wounded?”
“Maybe they got him as far as the hospital and let him get the rest of the way. Hiding out?”
“Yeah, maybe.” She shook her head. “So many holes in this. Nothing adds up. But this is it, Francisco. No way this is a coincidence. This man was injured fighting Miguel. We found one of them.”
Lopez sighed, throwing up his hands. “And lost him.”
She ignored him, flipping through the pages. “There is some weird shit here.”
Lopez leaned closer, trying to decipher the medical jargon. There were the usual physical stats — height, weight, appearance. The staff described a physically imposing man of moderate height, bulked like a martial arts champion. Caucasian, blond hair, blue eyes. There was a description of injuries, treatment and patient response. A lot of doctor talk. Lopez paused, confused by the next section. “Skin discoloration?”
Houston nodded. “Seems they weren’t sure what to make of it. They ruled out burns or any diseases. Look, here, underlined with a question mark: pharmacological.”
“What do drugs have to do with skin?”
The CIA agent stared off into space for a moment, her eyes narrowing in focus. “Anything about his eyes?” She flipped through the pages. “Here — contacts!”
Her exclamation caught him off guard. “Contacts?” Lopez felt like a slow pupil.
Houston read from the page. “Patient was prepped for surgery. Clothes cut from his body, contacts removed.” She flipped back and forth intensely through the file. “Damn, no more on the contacts.”
“Sara, what is it? What’s so important about contact lenses?”
“You can use them for purposes other than eyesight, Francisco.”
Lopez thought about this. “You mean decorative? Colored lenses?”
“Exactly.”
“Why would this lunatic want fashion contact lenses?”
“I’m not sure, Francisco.” She began snapping photos of the pages with her smartphone camera, careful to make sure no staff looked in through the window in the door. “But I think our killer might be a chameleon.”
“Chameleon?”
“Yes, hiding his appearance, changing it depending on his mission. It’s rare, and it’s reserved for ultra-elite ciphers. It usually goes with plastic surgery and serious, black-ops-type work. James Bond material. Honestly, stuff only rumored from anything I’ve seen at the Agency.”
That word again. Black ops. “This killer can’t be governmental!”
Houston closed the folder and put her phone away. “I wouldn’t have thought so, but now, I don’t know what’s going on. I don’t know anyone else who would have the resources to take things this far.” She stood up, and Lopez followed her to the door, once again reeling from the revelations that arose from this search. “Miguel’s killer was here, Francisco, and he’s something very nasty. I knew this was bad, but I’m getting a chill about where this is headed. We need to get up to CIA now. Something is really being buried. I’m convinced after seeing this.”
Lopez nodded. “Yes. So am I. And it seems that some others are as well.”
The agent nodded. “You heard the woman. Inquiries were already made. I doubt they were who she thought they were.”
Lopez exhaled. “We aren’t the only ones looking.”
18
He stood at the fence and called the old soldier’s name. The second day. The desert winds were blowing harshly from the south, the sand stinging exposed skin. The ground this far out from the major centers was cracked and nearly bone dry. The heat pounded down from an evil eye staring cruelly on them.
He repeated the call. The door of the rundown ex-army cabin banged open, and a stocky form approached the barbed wire cautiously. Even in his sixties, the man was imposing, his sagging muscles still considerable, the vasculature thick and prominent. He wore a tank top, exposing his mottled and dark skin, burnt from years under the sun. Scars from battles pocked his form. He limped slightly on the left side.
“You again?”
“Train me!”
The old solider shook his head in disbelief, and pulled on the faded American baseball cap shielding his eyes. “For God’s sake, boy! Why me?”
“You are the best. I have searched.”
“You’re not army. You’re not even Israeli.”
“You are hardly Israeli.”
The old man waved his hand at the youth. “Why should I train you?”
The dust swirled around the old man’s home, forming mini-tornados. The dark-skinned boy leaned into the fence, grasping the links almost desperately in his hands. He looked deeply into the soldier’s eyes.
“For justice!”
There were crickets.
For some unquantifiable time, that is all he knew. That droning, rhythmic chirping, swirling, pounding his consciousness, rising over him like water.
He swam. Swam in a sea of insect sounds, the patterns forming shapes in his mind, colors that danced. The colors slowly bled across his vision, fading to white like a fog.
He opened his eyes. There was only blurred light and the sense of crusted glue sticking his eyelids together. He raised his arm to rub his eyes. Pain. The pain kicked him suddenly to a higher level of awareness as he inhaled sharply. The cabin walls came into focus.
In the mountains. He began to remember. Remember the hell of the last few days, and remember that this was not the first time he had awakened so disoriented. Still feverish. He summoned a burst of strength and pushed up from his chest to turn slightly to the side. The pain from his back nearly made him cry out.
He glanced through a small window on the wall parallel to his bed. The first pale daylight fell on the pines outside. He had slept dusk to dawn. He noticed the sheets were soaked with sweat and, in some places, pink with blood. But it is less. The bleeding is nearly over. He noticed that the bandages were applied well, even over his back which he could hardly reach. The sound of wood groaning under weight distracted him.
“You are finally awake,” came the voice from the dream. He glanced across the room to a shape against the wall. The soldier. Each day, his mind cleared faster, his memory returned more quickly. The rough voice spoke again. “They’re calling you the wraith.”
“Yes,” he spoke through a parched mouth, grabbing a full canteen strapped to the bedpost. “How do you know?” He drank greedily.
The old man laughed and shifted in a creaking chair by the door. “You spoke in your delirium. Sometimes, nonsense. Sometimes, cold facts. Sometimes, a mixture.” The soldier gestured beside the bed. “Fresh formula for a growing infant.”