Chapter Sixteen
He could almost taste the hot, dry air, choked with dust, and the smell of petrol and explosives and . . . things he didn’t want to name. He took a swig of his coffee, trying to rid himself of the sensory memory. Coffee wasn’t enough, he wanted something stronger, something that could dull his mind as well.
He remembered how he had shared a long look with his Afghan military trainee partner, Aziz, before he had dug a tube of Vicks out of the cargo pocket on his fatigues. He applied a generous layer under his nose and handed the tube to Aziz. They had both known that their task was not going to be pleasant.
They stood facing what was left of the door of the school in Kandahar. The previously blocked door, barred from the outside. Two days before, it had exploded and burned. During the school day. He shuddered to recall it, clearing his throat roughly.
“Aziz and I had been ordered into a bomb site to do a sweep for unexploded ordnance and other dangers. It was a school . . . a girl’s school.”
“Oh dear God,” Elle gasped softly, covering her mouth with her hand, dreading what was to come. He leaned his elbows on the bar, cradling his head in his hands, long fingers digging into his hair.
“I will never get the sights of that nightmare out of my head. Little girls burned beyond all recognition, some blown to pieces. At least they went quickly, which was a small comfort, but others, though . . . We found them all huddled together near the door. I don’t know if the smoke got them or the flames. I’m not sure which would be worse.”
He risked a glance at Elle and saw she was silently weeping, her hand covering her mouth. He looked away before he could lose his courage.
“We went carefully through the building, checking its stability, mapping it out, so that the civilian morgue team could come in safely and retrieve the bodies. Then I saw Aziz pick something up. He turned to look at me with tears in his eyes. I made my way over to him and looked at what he held. I expected it to be a doll or shoe or something.” He took a deep shuddering breath.
Elle wanted to ask what his friend was holding, but she stopped herself. This was hard enough for him and pushing him might make him clam up. Still, she slid her hand over the bar and touched his fingers for comfort.
“It was a metal fragment, no bigger than his hand, with the insignia of the US Army, and a clear serial number etched into it. Aziz looked at me, his confusion and betrayal as plain as day. It was the same type of ordinance that had been supplied to both Blackwall and the Afghan military by our generous sponsors, the US Defense Department. I took a photo of it before Aziz slipped the fragment into his pocket. I took a lot of photos after that, especially of the little . . . of the bodies.”
Elle couldn’t help the small horrified sound that slipped out. She reached out and took his hand, squeezing it tightly.
“I went to my CO with my suspicions, who told me that the girl’s school was obviously burned by the Taliban, and their activities in the area were increasing. He expressed frustration that our contract was nearly up and that the Afghan units we were ‘training’ weren’t ready to take on the job, which was plainly nonsense. He advised me to keep my mouth shut about my suspicions lest I upset the bigwigs who were lobbying for more money and a longer contract.”
“Three days later, Aziz was found murdered in an alley, in what our commanding officer told me looked like a robbery. I knew Aziz had been looking into the bomb fragment on the Afghan side, and I just knew that was why he was killed. I had started my own investigation of the serial number on that fragment, but I was careful to keep it to myself. The Blackwall records were clear. The bomb that had exploded in the girl’s school had been ours, and we had issued it to the Afghan military unit that we were training.”
“Less than a fortnight later, a new contract to continue training operations was signed, all paid for right and tight by the US Government. I resigned the next week and came home to England. I spent most of the next year trying to drink and fight my way through every dive bar I could find, trying to forget about the proof I had smuggled out, trying to escape the knowledge that my CO and his counterpart on the Afghan side had colluded to kill little girls just so they could keep the money flowing.”
He downed the rest of his coffee like it was a shot of whiskey, but the burn wasn’t the same and it didn’t give him the same relief.
He expected her to ask . . . no, demand why he hadn’t told anyone, exposed their cover-up, got justice for those children, but she didn’t. Instead she came around the breakfast bar and took him into her arms, laying her cheek on his damp hair.
“Why would you think I’d hate you for that?” she asked softly.
“Because I had known something was wrong, but I never went to the higher-ups.”
“You couldn’t have known,” she assured him, stroking his hair. “Good people can’t see what monsters are planning—it’s not in their nature. Besides, it sounds like your higher-ups at best were colluding and at worst would have ignored your warning anyway. It’s not your fault.”
“You don’t understand. I still have the proof,” he went on, pulling away, his mouth twisting in self-disgust. “Every day I think about having the guts to do something with it, to get justice for those children, and every day I . . . don’t.”
“Of course you don’t! Your friend was murdered trying to do the right thing. You have every right to wait until you can do something safely. Justice isn’t going to bring those girls back, and getting yourself killed before anything can be done isn’t going to help anyone. You haven’t done anything wrong,” she assured him.
He had been sitting passively in her embrace, but now he turned just enough to wrap his arms around her waist and push his face into her neck. Elle felt his body jolt as he began to sob. She continued to stroke his hair until he felt strong enough to pull away.
He looked into her eyes, his own red and tear-streaked as he asked in a small voice, “You really don’t hate me?”
“Of course not.” She held his gaze so he could see that she was sincere. “And I’ll help you get the word out there, I promise.”
“No.” He shook his head. “It’s too dangerous.”
“Well, we can discuss that later.” She knew he needed to bring this atrocity to light or it would haunt him forever. She had to find a way to free him from that burden because right now, the guilt was eating him alive.
It wasn’t his fault, not in any way, shape, or form, but he still felt guilty, just as she felt guilty that he’d been hurt by her stalker.
After dinner, she’d ask for more details, then see what their options were.
Conrad’s proof was photographs stored on a flash drive. There was the photograph of the shell casing with the serial number on it. She skipped over the photographs of the dead children. Finally, there were a dozen or so photographs of documents, which were of high enough definition to read.
She transferred the photographs to her computer and checked the metadata, which all listed Conrad’s make and model of phone, as well as the date and time the images were taken.
As she went through them, Conrad was working on his computer beside her, reading the police file Browning’s had sent him for Marcus’s accomplice, one Gary Marshall. He was a petty thief and drug addict, but in recent months, he’d graduated to muggings.
Elle deftly removed the identifying metadata from the properties data of the files. Next she opened the photographs of documents and increased the contrast before saving them again.
“Okay, the copies on my laptop can’t be traced to you anymore,” she told him. “Now we just have to worry about what we send on.”
“How so?” he asked.
“Because almost everything contains identifying markers, so whether we burn these to a CD or to another flash drive, it will have hidden data that can be tracked.
“So what do you suggest?”
She thought for a moment and looked at the printer that was in the apartment when they got here.
“Most printers include identifying information on everything they print—a series of yellow dots that are invisible to the naked eye. But not all printers do that.”
“You’re thinking this printer might not?” Conrad asked.
“Everything else about this place is secretive. Why not its printer too?” she asked rhetorically.
“Is there any way to check?”
“Yeah.” She nodded. “We need a strong blue-colored light, which will make the yellow dots look dark. I’ll try to pick something like that up tomorrow, then we can check if this printer is safe or not. If it is, I suggest we print the pictures, include a cover letter, and send it to some newspapers.”
“Not WikiLeaks?”
“They just release documents. A story like this needs extra work done to find out how far up the chain of command this goes, so we need someone who still does investigative journalism.”
“Is there any other way to do it?”
“Well, we can do it digitally. Use a VPN to obscure our IP address, set up a fake email, and email the documents. Or we could upload them to an anonymous image hosting site and send links to the documents. It might be safer, but honestly, I think people will pay more attention to an envelope full of paper that lands on their desk.”
“You’re probably right,” he conceded. “Okay, so what about those dots on the original document? Could they tell someone which printer I used?”
“They could, but I increased the contrast to make the light colors whiter, so if your camera caught any dots, that would wipe them out.”
“How do you know all this?” he asked, not doubting her knowledge as such, just needing to understand.
“I like science and technology,” she said with a shrug. “I told you I considered becoming a paleontologist.”
“I thought that was just because of the movie.”
“Well it was, mostly, but I also like science. I considered studying chemistry rather than music at university. Now it’s just a hobby.”
He took her hand, and when she turned to him, his expression was sober.
“And you’re sure this can’t be traced back? I can’t risk you.”
She swallowed, suddenly realizing that they might actually kill him if they discovered he was the leak, just like his friend Aziz.
“How many people knew about this?” she asked.
“There was Aziz, and he told me he’d spoken to people while he was looking for the truth. My CO, obviously, and whoever had Aziz killed. There were some reports in a local newspaper, but they had their offices bombed. By the time I left, it was an open secret in the camp. People made crude jokes, but no one talked because they didn’t want to end up like Aziz.” Conrad shook his head.
“What about the picture of the casing with the serial number on it? Did you show it to anyone?”
“No.” He shook his head. “At first I didn’t think they’d need it; Aziz had the actual fragment so . . .”
“And you didn’t tell anyone you had photos?”
“No.”
She brought the photo up.
“Was Aziz right-handed?” she asked.
“Yeah, I think so.”
“Good, because he’s holding the fragment in his left, which means he could have taken this photo. He found the fragment. He took the picture. They won’t be able to say with certainty who he showed it to after that. If it was an open secret and everyone knew, they can’t link this to you specifically.”
“Are you sure?”
“As sure as I can be.”
“What about the stamps we use? Can they trace them back to us?”
“No. They’ll be able to tell where the envelope was mailed, because of the postmark. The stamps themselves have some anti-counterfeit measures in them, like the edges of the stamps fluoresce under UV light if they’re genuine, but they don’t have a serial number or anything.”
“Where did you learn that?” he asked, a bewildered smile on his lips.
“I saw it on a program about forgeries. Since stamps have a set monetary value, they’re apparently a popular thing to forge.”
“Okay, so what do we do now?”
“I’ll do some research into who it’s best to send it to. How’s the accomplice’s file looking, anything useful?”
Conrad made a noncommittal noise.
“I’ve got a lot of names of known acquaintances and lots of addresses to try. Now it is just a case of visiting these squats and seeing if anyone’s seen him recently.”
“That sounds tedious,” she sympathized.
“No more so than you having to trudge from interview to interview to answer the same damn questions over and over.”
“Oh, it’s not so bad.” She smiled. “Ask me again when I release album five, though.”
“Five? Little ambitious, aren’t we?” he teased.
“Oh, that’s just the beginning,” she assured him with a saucy wink.
He chuckled. “Oh, I know it, darling. You’re going to the top!”
“Anyway, I think that’s enough Marcus for one day! Let’s close the computers, open some wine, and adjourn to the sofa,” she suggested.
“I’ll get the wine,” Conrad agreed, a pleased smile on his lips. He clearly liked that idea.
“So, um,” Elle murmured shyly as he sat down, “do we need to have the talk?”
“I don’t know, do we?” he asked, holding both wine glasses in the long fingers of his left hand while he poured. She sighed.
“I wanted to wait until this was all over and I could think with a clear head, but right now it doesn’t feel like it’s ever going to be over . . .” She trailed off mournfully.
“I’ll find the accomplice, and Marcus is going away, I promise you that!” He handed her a wine glass.
“It’s not just that.” She shook her head as if she couldn’t understand it herself. “I mean, it’s going to take months to come to trial, then there’s the worry over whether he’ll be found guilty. But it’s more than that. It’s like . . . I’ve changed, and even if he is locked up, I’m not sure I can go back. Which is why I don’t think we should wait any longer. Because it doesn’t feel like there’ll ever be an end.”
“Okay.” Conrad nodded. “I understand that.”
He was hesitating slightly, and given his earlier revelations, she could understand why. Maybe it was time she was exposed for a change. She pulled in a deep breath and plunged in.
“So basically, I’m crazy about you. I think you’re the most special man I’ve met in a very long while, and I think we could have something beautiful together. I don’t know what a relationship would look like—we’re from two very different worlds, you’re a tough guy and I’m a soft singer, but I think we can make it work, if we want to. Plus, it feels as if we’ve just jumped three stages of a relationship or something. So we’re straight into the deep and meaningful parts, even though I hardly know anything about you.” She scurried on, hardly taking a breath. “But I may not know where you grew up, or if you have a middle name and that sort of stuff, but somehow that doesn’t matter.” She’d felt as if she’d been baring her soul for a long time with no reply. His expression wasn’t even readable; his goddamn poker face seemed to be his default expression. “Right?” she finished softly. “We can make it work, can’t we?”
He looked surprised for a second, then he opened his mouth as if to reply before closing it again. After he pondered a moment, he nodded.
“Yes. I think we can,” he said decisively.
Her heart leaped.
“You agree?” she asked.
“Yes.” He gave a single nod, and they shared a warm smile. “I’ll be honest, I don’t know what the future looks like either. Right now, I don’t even know what I want to do with the rest of my life. I don’t have a career like you do, but I feel the same about you. You’re right, we’re not really a conventional couple, so I say we just take things easy and see what works. Okay?”
“Sounds great.” She nodded. She hadn’t been looking for a dating plan anyway. She just wanted to know they were both on the same page. “But I demand to know more about you,” she said pompously.
“Oh, you demand it, do you?” He seemed amused by her proclamation. “What did you have in mind?”
“Twenty questions!” Elle challenged.
“That’s fine by me, as long as we take turns,” he warned.
“Deal, but I go first.”
“Done.” Conrad held his hand out. She took it for a firm shake and swallowed a rather large sip of wine for courage.
“Okay, so do you have any siblings?”
“No, it’s just me and my Mum.”
“Do you see her much?”
“Oh no, it’s my turn to ask a question now,” he said with a smile as she pretended to sulk. “Tell me about your mother.”
“What! You can’t ask an open-ended question like that. It’ll take forever to answer!”
“Are you going somewhere? I’ve got time.” Conrad settled himself more comfortably on the sofa, turning toward her and bringing his knee up.
“That’s cheating!” she said indignantly.
“It’s not my fault you didn’t read the fine print,” he said with a smirk.
So she told him the CliffsNotes version to begin with, but she got more detailed as she went on and saw the interest written in his expression.
“Okay, my turn,” she said when she was done. “Question two: tell me about your childhood.”
“Now who’s cheating?”
Elle shrugged her shoulders. “Suck it up and answer the question.”
And he did. They stopped counting questions by five, and stopped the strict rule of a single question at a time as well. They didn’t notice when the clock passed midnight, and only when Elle began yawning, did they realize that it was nearing one o’clock.
“We should head to bed,” Conrad said.
“But I have more questions!” Elle pouted.
“Tomorrow night,” he said, getting to his feet and offering her his hand to help her up.
“I’ll hold you to that.”
“I never doubted it,” he assured her with a pleased smile.
David was still using a stick the following morning, which made Elle feel awful since he’d been hurt helping her. He assured her it was nothing, his bum leg just overreacted to injury these days, and he’d be back to normal in no time.
He in turn, kept apologizing for not stopping the man who stole her purse, despite her reminding him that they’d prepared for an attack not a mugging by a sprinter.
After they had both agreed to stop apologizing, they talked about that day’s interviews. While Elle agreed to answer some questions about her stalking, she didn’t want that to take over the interviews. She asked David to step in if the interviewers weren’t taking her hints.
The first meeting was with NewsBuzz, the online news outlet she had been on her way to see when her bag was stolen.
She felt incredibly nervous as she stepped out of the car and headed toward the building. She kept her hairspray can in her pocket, her hand on it ready to strike at the slightest sign of aggression from anyone. They made it inside unscathed, exactly as she logically expected, but that didn’t stop her from wishing Conrad was with her.
“It’s is so weird not to have Conrad here,” she said as they headed up to the interview. “I’ve only known him a matter of days, but it’s so strange not to have him beside me.”
David smiled to himself, pleased that they’d become so close. He thought they were a good match for each other.
After NewsBuzz it was the Telegraph, then the Daily Mail. Somewhere in there, she found time to purchase a blue LED light and make it to the court for her 3:00 p.m. injunction hearing.
Since Marcus hadn’t been convicted of a crime, nor was he in the courtroom to defend himself, they could only grant a temporary injunction, but Elle had known that. Once he was convicted, she could get a restraining order, but this was all she could get for now.
Finally, she was finished for the day, and David dropped her back at her apartment before returning to his office.
It felt so odd to be coming home alone. She couldn’t help wondering where Conrad was and if he was okay.
What if he’d been hurt? He already had a thigh full of buckshot, and Marcus’s thug had proved he didn’t have a problem with violence. Could he have overpowered Conrad? What if he’d got an infection in his leg and was lying somewhere, out of his mind with fever?
She distracted herself with a long shower, and left her hair to air dry. She dressed in her favorite pair of pajamas, which were a little more worn than her others. She hadn’t let Conrad see these yet.
She headed into the kitchen and browsed the fridge, hoping to find something to make for dinner. That would keep her busy until Conrad returned.
She was nearly finished with her preparation, when she heard a key in the lock, and she rushed to the kitchen doorway to see Conrad entering.
Conrad was limping slightly, but he was so pleased to see Elle waiting for him that he gave her a warm smile.
She fussed over him, insisting he rest, getting him a drink and more painkillers. All he really wanted was a kiss, so he pulled her off balance and onto his lap, ignoring the pain that flared in his thigh as he claimed his kiss.
“That’s better,” he said when she finally pulled away, his eyes still closed from lethargy.
Today had been hard work. He’d taken cabs between locations, but there had been a lot of walking while he tried to find someone who knew Gary Marshall. He’d forgotten his painkillers too, so he’d eventually stopped at a pharmacy in the afternoon to buy more, but by that point, no amount of over-the-counter medicines was really going to take the pain away.
He kept going, however, not just for Elle’s sake but for his own professional pride.
While being a bodyguard wasn’t for him, he was wondering about starting his own security firm, providing short-term protection in dangerous situations. He’d also designed a few other safety devices much like his quick release door brace; he could look into either making or selling those designs. He could also advise on safety procedures and alarm systems. He could be the man who set up security for a person or a place, and after finding any weak spots, decide on what systems and how many guards would be needed.
But that could wait. Right now, he just wanted to relax for a while.
“How did it go?” Elle asked him.
“I have a solid lead,” he told her. “A friend of Gary’s agreed to lure him to a location at a set time tomorrow. I’ll go early in case it’s a trap, but I think this guy was genuine.”
“His friend is going to turn him in?”
“Well, former friend,” he elaborated. “Apparently, thanks to his drug habit, Gary Marshall owes a lot of people a lot of money, which might explain why he’s working for Marcus. Anyway, for a small finder’s fee, his former friend will happily deliver him to me.”
“How small is small?” she asked, worrying her lower lip.
“Two thousand,” he replied.
Elle gasped.
“Don’t worry. I can claim it as an expense, so Sonic music will be paying me back for that.”
“And what will you do once you have him?”
Conrad fished a long white cable tie from a pocket in his jacket.
“Tie him up and wait for the police to come get him.”
He seemed to have it all figured out.
“Are you sure he isn’t just planning to rob you and take the cash?”
“Sure? No, not one hundred percent, especially given that this friend seems to have a nasty drug habit too. But by getting there early, I’ll be able to see if it’s a setup.”
“What time are you meeting him?”
“Two o’clock. I’ll get there at nine o’clock, though, just to make sure he’s on the up-and-up.”
“What will you do for five hours?”
“Watch and wait. It’s something you learn in the forces. I know it’s boring, but waiting can be vital to a mission’s success.”
“Okay, but will you call me as soon as you can?”
“Of course,” he assured her.
She was clearly worried, but she found a smile for him as she leaned in and hugged him.
He wrapped his arms around her and kissed the top of her head.
The meeting was actually at one o’clock, but he didn’t want Elle to worry unduly. Hopefully by the time she was starting to get anxious, he could call her and reassure her it was all over.
“What about you? How did your interviews go?” he asked.
“Everyone’s only interested in the stalking, but David got them all back on track. He said to look on the bright side and think about the additional publicity. Apparently, there’s already been a spike in YouTube hits. He’s sure it will translate into sales.” She gave a weary sigh. “Oh, and he got me three prime-time TV shows, which will help.”
“I know it feels like a double-edged sword right now, but one day you’ll look back and laugh.”
“I hope so.” She sat up and forced herself to smile.