The morning of departure was marked in white by the first snow of the season. It gently dusted the city streets and buildings with a light powder. It collected in the alcoves of the steel, glass, and timeworn brick where little whirlpools of wind had formed. Scott Markman stood beside the silver-gray rental van with his brown leather jacket zipped all the way up. A black longshoreman’s cap concealed the wide, white bandage around his head. He struggled to keep the new, pink cast on his right arm covered by sleeve or pocket. Despite the effort, his broken wrist was cold, and his middle back ached on the right side where it had hit a fixture on the deck wall of Inkman’s cruiser.
Cassiopia and Tel waited patiently in the van, as Ann Rogers’s car pulled into the parking lot of the defunct doughnut shop. She parked next to Markman and gathered up a file folder on the seat beside her. She climbed from the driver’s seat, tucked the folder under her arm, and at the first cutting gust of wind pulled her long, brown cotton jacket tightly around her. As she approached the van, she gave a big, red lipstick smile and pushed the file at Markman, quickly tucking her hands back in when he had taken it.
“What’s this?”
“A little present. It’s the file on Chrissy Sumner, your lady in the lake. It’s everything they’ll need to close out the case when you get back.”
“Thanks. Any more news about the big bang on Inkman’s yacht?”
“Not much. They must’ve messed with C4 one too many times. Our friends from the intelligence agency won’t say a thing. They’re still a bit miffed about you going to the marina alone, although if you hadn’t we might never have known Inkman and Fishkin were both on board when it went up. They’re still bringing up little pieces of it. They’ve found a few bits of the Dragon Master computer. Not much is left. That yacht must have been loaded down with diesel. Oh yeah, they did recover the body of the second guy that tried to do you in. Both of those guys had records a mile long. No one has shown up to claim their bodies.”
Rogers paused to look over her shoulder at an irate cab driver who had blown his horn in snow-stalled traffic. “There was one puzzling thing, Scott. One of our monitoring stations thought they picked up a blip from a proximity sensor about the same time Inkman’s yacht blew up. Problem is, we never got a chance to plant the master unit. Odd isn’t it? By the way, I need yours back. Finance is very sensitive about things like that. Do you have it with you?”
“I lost it.”
Rogers cast a questioning look. She started to ask something, but stopped and paused. “Damn, I’ll have to write a lost property declaration on that. It won’t go well with the new scuba stuff you bought us.”
Markman shrugged apologetically. “Sorry. Tell me, what ever happened with Richard Baker? We stole his thousand dollars away from him, worked him over in an elevator, and then held him in custody with no charge. Is he going to sue the hell out of you guys, or what?”
Rogers shook her head and smiled. “You mean Cadet Baker.”
“What?”
“Cadet Baker. He works for us now. I’d guess in six months it’ll be Agent Baker, and he’ll probably eventually come looking for a favor or two from you. After all, he did save your butt, did he not?”
“Agent Baker?”
“He’s no slouch. He’s got an engineering degree by the way. He was working for Harrier Dynamics and got busted for a small amount of marijuana. It was only a misdemeanor, but the government revoked his secret clearance so he lost his job. He hasn’t been able to get work since. We cleared his record and offered him a position. He was glad to accept. All is well that ends well.”
“You amaze me, Ann.”
“Oh yeah, my upper management people seem to think it’s time you considered working for us, also. They say your skills would be better applied on a federal level. They would like to discuss it with you if you’re willing. They wouldn’t need the six months; you could learn the system on the job. You’d make considerably more money. I think you should consider it.”
Markman shook his head gratefully. “I need some time to sort things out, Ann. I never expected this work to get so, I mean, I didn’t expect to have to sacrifice so much so often.”
“What do you mean, sacrifice?”
Markman paused uncomfortably. “I mean, I never expected to play a part in so many ten-sevens.”
Rogers nodded grimly. “Oh. It’s a crowded world, Scott. It is what it is. We make it better.”
Markman looked out through the falling snow at the city around him. “You know, I love New York. The real people are good here, don’t you think? I’ll be back as a tourist, that’s for sure, an off-duty tourist. You know, Ann, you should come to Florida and let Cass and me show you around. New York is great, but my heart really belongs to Orlando. It’s the City Beautiful. There’s a lot to do down there. Take some time off and come see us.”
Rogers raised an eyebrow and smiled. “Okay, who can refuse a sales pitch like that. I’ll call you. And Scott, on the way back, don’t get car-jacked or something, okay? You need some time off.”
With a wave to Cassiopia, the pink-faced agent dashed back to her car, and after a long, last smile, ducked into it. Markman hurried to the driver’s door of the van. The temperature was still dropping.
The TEL 100D sat quietly in the back of the roomy van, hidden for the most part by heavily-tinted windows. In spite of playful sarcasm from Cassiopia, Markman had fit a N.Y. Yankees baseball cap on its head, claiming it to be a disguise. The overworked trio pulled out onto the highway, and immediately Cassiopia’s realized it was not the shortest route home.
“Aren’t we going to take the Lincoln Tunnel to the Jersey Turnpike?”
“I want to make one more quick stop if it’s okay with you.”
“Sure. What’s bothering you?”
“Nothing.”
“Something is. I can tell.”
“Nothing.”
“Tell me, please.”
Markman cast a heavy glance at her as though she were intruding into things she should not. He looked back to the road and spoke remorsefully. “My life has too many surprises.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean I think the price is too high.”
“Which price is that?”
Markman looked irately back at her. “I mean I never thought I’d have so many notches on my gun so fast, okay?”
Cassiopia paused and gave a questioning stare. “What are you saying, Scott? Would you prefer that harm had come to me?”
“Impossible!”
“Okay, how about yourself. Would it be better if you had been killed?”
“I’m not sure.”
Anger surged in Cassiopia. “Well, you’d better get sure, Markman, that is if you care a damn about me.”
Markman looked again at her. He knew no words to say, but the soulful caress in his eyes was enough.
“Oh, come on, Scott. Look at yourself. Your head’s all bandaged up. Your arm’s in a cast, and you’re worried about what you did to the two guys who were trying to kill you?”
“Hey, I thought you were the hard-core pacifist!”
Cassiopia became silent and stared thoughtfully out her window. Though she despised violence, Markman’s disposal of the two men who had intended to kill him somehow made her feel uplifted. It didn’t matter how or why he was safe and with her, only that he was.
The place he was looking for was easy to find. Property had become so scarce in the area that a cemetery was something unusual and hard to miss. He parked the van on the horseshoe-shaped, snow-covered driveway and found his way through the many markers to where a more recent grave was heavily adorned with slightly wilted, snow-covered flowers. The inscription on the marker read, “Beloved Daughter, Chrissy Sumner.” He stood at the foot of the grave and kept his cold hands in his jacket pockets. He spoke with his mind and his heart. Somehow he knew she would hear.
“I told you I wouldn’t leave you. It’s done and over now, and it wasn’t for nothing. You forced me into it. We st
opped something very bad from getting very worse.”
He sought the inner silence he had learned from the old Tibetan monks, the men who had always seemed to have smiles etched into their face, no matter how trying the day. Suddenly he felt an inner violence. Ugly faces of mean-hearted people were holding him down and hurting him. It was night, and the water was cold. Nylon rope burned the ankles. Then emptiness. The inner silence returned.
In the peaceful quiet, a spoken feeling welled up within him. A distant message from a friend. A sentiment of kindness. And in that moment, he somehow came to know that the black-hearted men that had so casually tried to destroy him were the same ones that had harmed the lady in the lake.
Back at the van, emotionally-drained, he turned to stare at his tracks in the snow. Strangely, they had come to look like those of two people. He climbed into the warmth of the idling vehicle and found Cassiopia’s dark eyes staring affectionately back. No words were spoken. None were necessary. Markman’s inner burden had found its rightful place, in the weightlessness of selfless space.
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