Chapter 12
Kat slowly let out her breath. “How did he know you were here?”
“I came on my personal passport,” Badger said quietly, and a lopsided grin slipped out. “I was hoping it wouldn’t trigger an official investigation. The last time I was here, I might have had a problem.”
She turned to stare at him. “Might? Enough that MI6 comes personally to see what you’re doing?”
He shrugged. “I cleared it with them last time. I do have some connections in MI6. But Jonas isn’t anyone I know personally.” He glanced at Erick. “I guess the ranks have changed.”
Erick nodded. “They always do. They always do.”
Kat sank down on her bed and grabbed her laptop. “Well, that ate up a ton of time. We have to leave in the next half hour.”
“So do what you need to do, and we’ll leave.”
The two men walked toward the door, engaged in conversation. She knew exactly what they were doing. And partly she was happy to let them. This was a tough-enough day already. She had no reason for MI6 to look into her. But just being associated with Badger apparently had been enough for them to find out all kinds of shit going on in her world. It just made the globe seem that much smaller too.
She checked her emails, sent off a couple to Jim, answered a few herself, and then found one from the detective. His phone number was on the email. She dialed it on the hotel landline and quickly called him. “Hey, it’s Kat. Sorry for the late call. This time change is brutal. Do you have an update?”
“We haven’t been able to find Paul’s brother yet. He was released from jail two months ago, and he’s not known at his listed address. By the way, you can return to your house while we tie up some loose ends. You’ll obviously have to do some work and get the insurance moving.”
“I called them,” she said. “I’m waiting on a report. They should have been there yesterday.”
“Good.”
She heard papers rustling in the background.
“It’s a case of stay low and let us work.”
There wasn’t a whole lot she could say to that. She ended the call, answered a few more emails, then realized it really was time to go. She shut down her laptop, put it in her bag, grabbed her sweater and walked to where the men were still discussing plans.
“It’s time to go,” she said abruptly. “I know there’s all kind of shit still happening. I’m totally okay to go alone, but I need to go either way, right now.”
The men stood glaring at her, then turned to look at each other, stepping back from the door. Erick opened it for her and said, “Get it in your head you won’t be alone the entire time we’re here.”
“Good, that works for me. It means you get to drive because I wouldn’t have a clue how to get where we’re going.” She grinned, smacked Badger on the shoulder lightly and added, “It also means you get to see the animals and look at some of the new advanced technology they’re using.”
“Do you really think it’ll work for humans?”
“Not widely today, not tomorrow. But it needs to happen soon. What we have in place works for many, but some need more.”
They discussed some of the alterations that could be made as they drove to the vet’s hospital.
At the hospital, the girl sitting behind the desk smiled and told Kat, Badger and Erick to wait in the reception area. Ten minutes later she was surprised to find Dr. Ron Macintosh standing in front of her. He held out his hand. “Delighted to see you. I’ve got an hour.” He glanced at his watch and winced. “Not quite an hour.”
“I appreciate you taking what time you do have.”
There followed an hour that was as fascinating to her as it was to the men with her. Not only did they discuss what Dr. Macintosh was doing for various animals but he also showed her some of the prototypes they were working on, explained how the 3-D printing designs were sent away, and, when they came back, they actually did the implants. Then he took them for a tour in the back so they could see a couple of the latest animals he had worked on.
By the time she stepped outside the vet clinic, she wished she could have worked at his side for a couple weeks. She lifted her head and took a deep breath of the fresh country air. The men beside her stood quietly. She understood the feeling. What they’d just seen was both awe-inspiring and comforting.
“Do you think anybody is doing work like that in the US?”
“I don’t know exactly, but certainly several vets are looking at it.”
Badger looked at Erick. “Do we know any?”
Erick frowned. “Maybe Louise? Levi does security for her clinic. They had a big shoot-out there a couple months back. She’s got a high-end HVAC system because of the bone-dust problems associated with her future prosthetics work.”
“Amazing. Absolutely amazing.”
As they walked back to the car, Kat felt a sense of wonder and potential soar through her. She knew transferring cutting-edge technology for the animals over to humans was a long way away. But there was just so much hope. Dr. Macintosh had achieved so much for those animals that it really made her heart smile.
As they reached the vehicle, Badger’s phone rang. She came back to reality with a hard bump and turned to look at him. And waited.
“Talon, what did you find out?”
“Just like the MI6 guy said, nothing is here. However, I did track down a neighbor. He saw some man go into the apartment. He thought it was unusual because nobody had been living here. He was also carrying a large black case.”
Badger’s gaze flew toward Erick. “Did you get a description?”
Talon’s voice filled the air so clearly she could hear too.
“He did get a glimpse. But not enough to ID him. He had on a black hoodie and a winter cap. He only saw him from the back. But we’ll estimate six-two and lean. Didn’t fill out the jeans and walked with a lanky kind of long loose step.”
“Long arms?”
“Presumably. Goes along with long legs,” Talon said in a dry tone.
Kat had to laugh because, of course, he was right. Most people were proportional.
The two men talked again for a few moments, then Badger said, “We’re on our way back into London. I’m not sure there’s any point in staying any longer.”
“Have you heard from Mason?”
“No, not yet.”
“Good enough. We’ll meet you at the hotel.”
Badger put away his phone, hopped into the driver’s seat and said, “I’ll drive.”
Erick shrugged and got in the back seat.
With Badger driving, Kat got into the front. “This works for me.”
He gave her a smile, reached over, squeezed her fingers and turned on the engine.
The drive back was pleasant. She studied the surroundings, realizing the sky was clear, and it might be sunny all day. “Can we play tourist today?”
“Sure. Is there any particular place you want to go?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know the usual tourist places.”
That started the discussion all the way back to the hotel about the merits of each tourist attraction.
Erick said, “We definitely have to go to a few places. We’re booked to fly home on Monday. Today is Saturday. We might as well stay the extra day and a half. If nothing else, it will help us return to some normality in our lives.”
Privately she agreed. “I want to see Big Ben,” she announced. “And the wax museum.”
“It’ll be a long day tomorrow then,” Badger announced. “You better hope the world lets us have the day.”
She turned to stare at him. “Do you think we’re in danger playing tourist for a day?”
He shrugged. “I wasn’t expecting MI6 to spot us. So, outside of a shooter killing my informant, it’s hard to say if we’re in danger.”
“We have to assume he saw you,” Erick said. “You can try to minimize the danger all you want, but here’s a thought. If he shot one person and left you alive, it was for a reason.”
“Yeah, lack of opportunity,” Badger snapped.
Back at the hotel they parked in the underground lot and made their way up to their rooms. Kat collapsed on the bed. “You know? I might just need a nap.”
“I was going to suggest that. I have some work to do. The guys are all back at their rooms. We’ll arrange to have lunch in, … let’s say, half an hour or forty-five minutes.”
She thought about it. “That’ll be good.” So saying, she rolled over, pulled a blanket over her shoulders and fell asleep.
Badger watched how quickly she went out. He smiled. Like a child full of innocence, when the call for sleep sounded, she responded.
He pulled up his laptop, sat down and fired off an email to Mason. He knew it was too much to hope there might be news, but, at the same time, how much work could anybody do on an audio file?
Just as he sent off the email, he got one in. They crossed their communication lines. He read it and reached for his phone. Keeping his voice low, he said, “Mason, your email just came in. Are you sure about that information?”
Mason said, “Yes. Tesla went over it, and there’s no way to do a voice recognition with the background noise, even when we took it off. But it definitely sounds like other voices. And little bits of conversation.”
“So he was possibly in a group of people when he made the call?”
Mason hesitated. “Tesla identified a truck engine in the background, leading us to believe the speaker was inside a vehicle.”
“Well, that makes sense.”
“How well do you know the men in all three vehicles?”
“In the other two vehicles, as well as you probably do,” Badger said slowly. “The men in my truck, very well.” His voice took on an edge. “Is there any way to separate out background voices?”
“That’s the thing. One of the voices in the background sounds like yours.”
Silence. Badger thought his heart would stop. He closed his eyes and leaned against the headboard, his mind racing at the implications. “You think?”
“Tesla identified your voice immediately. When I heard it for the first time, I did too.”
“Any other voices identifiable?” he asked in a very controlled tone. He was trying hard to not slam the phone against the wall. This was too important. But the thought that any one of the men in his unit could have betrayed them made no sense.
“I recognized Geir’s voice. I think Erick’s too. Definitely other men are speaking. And you might be able to identify them a little more yourself. But the caller, his voice, it’s almost as if he used a mechanical device to change his tone.”
“How big would something like that have to be to change his voice?”
“It could be installed on the phone itself. In fact, it could have been a typed text message sent as a voice message. So keep that in mind. You might not have heard the true voice making the call. We only have a copy of the audio file. We don’t have the original, and if, as you’re saying, it’s been deleted, chances are it’ll be impossible to trace.”
“Right. That’s a hell of a bombshell.”
“I know. But, if this is the audio file, and you’re sure of its source, and the voices we’re hearing in the background are as we suspect, somebody from your own vehicle, one of the men in your own unit, sent that message.”
“But that would be suicidal,” he exclaimed. “That makes no sense. Seven of us were badly hurt. One dead.”
“Any idea of the mental states of the men at the time?” Mason’s voice hardened. “Not to mention their allegiances?”
A muscle worked hard in Badger’s jaw as he contemplated the thought. “I would have sworn on my life they were all patriots. And, if you were here in front of me right now, you know how close I would be to ringing your neck for even implying such a thing?”
“I know,” Mason said with a note of humor. “It’s not very nice to have to bring it up either.”
Badger winced. “You’re right, and I’m sorry. I did ask you to look into this. I just hadn’t expected it to come back around to my own men.”
“Sometimes when you open Pandora’s box,” Mason said quietly, “the only thing you find is a bit of personal hell.”
“There’s nothing small about this,” Badger said, hating that a tremor made his hand shake. “This is major. As in, this is so damn big …”
“Sorry. I suggest you listen to it yourself. Put on a set of headphones, close your eyes and hear for yourself.” And Mason hung up.
Badger put down the phone, brought up the audio file, and, using earbuds to not awake Kat sleeping beside him, he hit Play and settled back to listen.