Stuyvesant was about to deliver the next serving, targeting the oncoming mound of potatoes like an archer would a bull’seye, when the man holding the tray abruptly grabbed his wrist. A surprised Stuyvesant looked up to see a downtrodden Hispanic man, perhaps thirty years old with tea-brown skin and a weary gaze. Both men stood still for a moment, frozen in a hesitant grasp. A large and alert man behind Stuyvesant, who was there for security, noticed right away and took a step forward. The Hispanic man chose that moment to smile and let go, and then he held out a small card which Stuyvesant took cautiously. He saw a biblical verse on the front: For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Stuyvesant smiled, pocketed the card, and dumped half a pound of glutinous beef and gravy on the man’s potatoes. The Hispanic shuffled toward the green beans, Stuyvesant addressed his next customer, and the large man behind him went back to watching.
The early bird lunch shift ended uneventfully, and not wanting to get stuck with cleanup duty, Stuyvesant bid goodbye to his coworkers, a group he would certainly never see again. He left by the back door, as was his custom, and paused outside to flex his bum knee. It hurt like hell, and he reached into his pocket for a newly acquired stash of Percocet. He swallowed two pills dry — a learned skill — and slipped the tiny bottle back into his pocket. His hand came back out holding the card he’d been given. He was about to flick it into a nearby trash can when he noticed something handwritten on the back, a message in English. It was brief and to the point. After reading through it twice, Stuyvesant closed his eyes and raised his face toward the heavens.
“Christ!” he muttered through taut lips.
Martin Stuyvesant’s worst fears had just come true.
TWELVE
Thomas Mulligan was an Anglo male, late thirties with dark hair that was clipped short and neat, a cut that would have passed inspection in any man’s army. Three days ago he’d been in excellent physical condition, something of a runner’s build but more broad in the shoulders. The passenger list Davis had seen yesterday declared him to be an American citizen traveling to Colombia on business. There was little else to go on, other than the fact that he’d arrived on a connecting flight from Atlanta, the same connection four other passengers had made, including Jen and Kristin Stewart. That was all good information, but none of it explained what he and the medical examiner were looking at now.
Guzman pulled a small penlight from her pocket and inspected two wounds in the center of Mulligan’s chest. Davis thought they correlated reasonably well with the holes he’d found in the back of seat 7C, and he was sure Guzman would find matching exit wounds on Mulligan’s back. As if to confirm the thought, she rolled the body far enough to shine her light underneath.
“Gunshot wounds,” Davis said. It wasn’t a question.
“How did you know about this?” she asked.
“I didn’t know — not for sure. I found two holes in the back of his seat, holes that I couldn’t explain any other way.”
Guzman shouted across the room, and the two querulous officers called a truce long enough to join them. Guzman explained what they were looking at.
Echevarria addressed Davis, “You discovered bullet holes in this man’s seat? Why did you not mention it sooner?”
“I saw two holes… but I didn’t know what made them. Any airplane that’s been in a crash has a thousand new holes, caused by everything from fragmented turbine blades to hail impact. Bullets are rarely on my list of causal factors.”
“In this case they will have to be,” said Echevarria.
For once Marquez agreed with his rival. “Perhaps this man threatened our hijacker. Or Umbriz could have shot him as an example to the others. That would make sense — this man was the most fit passenger on the airplane, and therefore might be viewed as the biggest threat.”
Davis stood very still. He felt everyone looking at him, waiting for a response. He gave them nothing.
Echevarria’s glib tone returned. “This is only more reason for my office to undertake a full investigation. I will insist on full cooperation from both of you.” Notwithstanding his words, the man was indifference itself in pressed fatigues.
Marquez nodded, and Davis sensed an unusual acquiescence — a colonel ceding command to a junior officer.
“Am I clear, Mr. Davis?” the chipper policeman reiterated. “I want your complete cooperation.”
Davis only stared, and perhaps to end the impasse, Dr. Guzman pushed Thomas Mulligan back into cold storage. The drawer clunked shut with apt finality, and three detectives with widely angled agendas walked away in silence.
The light outside was blinding, and the heat had taken its sullen grip.
“Are you going back to headquarters?” Davis asked Marquez.
The colonel nodded. “I have a briefing this afternoon. Do you need a ride?”
“Yeah… and maybe a cup of coffee.”
“Yes. I think I could use one as well.”
They both looked at Echevarria, and Davis said, “Why don’t you join us, Major?”
The policeman considered it before nodding. “Yes, I would very much like that.” He edged away to make a phone call.
While he was out of earshot, Marquez said, “I have worked with Echevarria before. He’s a bastard, that one.”
“I don’t doubt it,” Davis replied, “but I’m forced to take the greater view. Right now he’s an asset. If the Bogotá police can help find my daughter — I’ll deal with the devil himself.”
Marquez drove to a place called Calle Setenta, a string of shops and cafés in the financial district. Echevarria took his own car, so Davis sat in front with the colonel. The air conditioner was feeble, and Davis steered the vents to his face. The sun was higher now, beating the morning into submission and driving bystanders into narrow shadows.
Marquez spent most of the journey on the phone, but drove slowly and deliberately, making for a far different experience from the morning’s cab ride. With the colonel doubly occupied, Davis withdrew to his own thoughts. He was increasingly uncomfortable with the way things were progressing. In most investigations time was on his side. Victims were either deceased, recovering in hospital beds, or seated in interview rooms. Wreckage was rarely perishable, and thus could be collected and analyzed at a leisurely, professional pace. To slow-roll reports and findings in the name of accuracy was commonplace, even encouraged. Here, however, patience seemed anything but a virtue. The primary difference was his daughter, yet Davis sensed something more at play, a niggling worry that some unseen clock was working against him.
Marquez parked on a street lined by colorful awnings, and they reconnected with Echevarria and walked into a busy café. The colonel asked for a table in the shade, and they were seated on the patio under a big red-and-blue umbrella. The three men made a triangle at a table built for four, Davis at the vertex. One American outflanked by two Colombians. Even so, he sensed that this wasn’t any kind of two-versus-one scenario. It was more like the training scenario he would brief up, years ago, when leading a three-ship formation of F-16s. A one-on-one-on-one dogfight. Every man for himself. He remembered those contests well, freewheeling affairs in which the shifts from enemy to ally, and back again, were instantaneous and unpredictable. At least until somebody took a simulated missile up their tailpipe. At that point it became one against one. And nothing in the world was more clear than that.