Submerged (7 page)

There were other things growing in front of
her San Diego home: weeds, and weeds left unattended were weeds
that thrived.
Not in my garden,
she
thought. From her garage, she pulled a tool with a sharp, flat tip
and a wide pad of foam rubber. She returned to the strip of
flowers, dropped the foam rubber, and lowered herself to her knees.
Her back complained, her hips grumbled, and her wrists groused. She
ignored them all.

As she dug the weeding tool into the soft
dirt, she thought of poor Monte Grant, dead and lying in the morgue
in Kingman, Arizona. Soon, if it hadn’t already happened, some
medical examiner would take a scalpel and cut Monte’s chest open.
It was undignified and useless. Luisa, Monte’s sister, had called
in tears. She had heard a crash and ran outside to see her brother
slumped over the steering wheel of his lawn tractor. Luisa had
called her because Monte had left instructions to do so. Over the
years, she and Monte had remained friends. Perhaps, had they not
each been married when they met, they might have been more. They
never spoke of it. After her husband died of heart disease five
years ago and Monte’s wife of a stroke last year, Cynthia held out
a slight hope of exploring what might have been, but it didn’t
happen. Monte was entrenched in Arizona and she in San Diego.

She would go to the funeral, of course.
Perhaps the others would be there. The others. How many were left
now? How many could say they really knew? It had been over thirty
years ago. Three decades could eradicate a lot of memory. Her
memory, however, was still undimmed by distance. Age had touched
her hearing, corroded her joints, dimmed her sight, and bollixed up
her biological plumbing, but it had left her mind alone. She was
thankful for that and thankful that she could still live on her
own.

Granted, she lived in a “retirement village,”
where neighbors were more than neighbors. They were also guardians
of one another’s well-being. Several times a day she received calls
from others to see how she was doing. Translated, that meant, “Are
you still alive?” She laughed to herself. She had starting making
the same kinds of calls.

Cynthia stopped weeding and closed her eyes.
Her vision wasn’t what it used to be, and now she was having
trouble seeing. Perhaps she needed a nap. She rubbed her eyes, then
leaned forward, resting her hands on the dirt. She was on all
fours. Her lungs joined the chorus of complaints. She opened her
eyes and wondered when the world had turned milky.

A loud ringing startled her and pulled her
attention to the cordless phone she had brought outside with her.
She had called Henry Sachs to let him know of Monte’s death. Maybe
he was calling back. She reached for the phone but stopped. A
dagger of pain ran up her spine. She was familiar with all her
pains, and this one was a stranger.

The phone rang again. This time it sounded
muted. She shifted her position and grabbed the phone. There was a
new pain in her stomach. Cynthia sucked in air, and it burned her
lungs. She couldn’t get a full breath. As she exhaled, she heard a
gurgling and realized there was fluid in her lungs, fluid that had
not been there fifteen minutes earlier.

The phone rang a third time, and Cynthia
raised it to her ear. She tried to speak. Nothing came out.

“Hello? Hello? This is Perry Sachs. I’m
calling for Cynthia Wagner. Hello?”

The normal, autonomic breathing had become
labor. Cynthia had to think about every inhalation. Her skin began
to burn, as if it were ready to combust.

“Ms. Wagner.”

Perry Sachs, Henry’s boy. She remembered him
talking about his son over thirty years ago. Perry . . . She
doubled over and retched. Blood poured from her mouth.

So this was it, she thought between spasms of
pain. This was the place of her death, on her knees amidst the
gold, blue, and yellow of her flowers. It was a good place, a
pretty place to die.

She forced her hand to rise and place the
phone by her ear. Her lungs were no longer drawing breath. She was
suffocating, but she had to say something. Help? She was beyond
help, and she accepted that. Perhaps she could get one word out,
one word that could make a difference.

“To-no-pah,” she whispered.

“Excuse me?” the voice on the phone said.

“Tonopah.”

Cynthia Wagner fell to her side, and the
phone dropped beside her.

“Ms. Wagner? Ms. Wagner, are you all
right?”

Cynthia’s vision faded into white, then into
black. Her last sight had been of a marigold. She thought it very
pretty.

Perry hung up the phone for the second time
in less than five minutes. The last four minutes had been spent on
the phone with a 9-1-1 operator explaining how he knew that someone
named Cynthia Wagner in San Diego was in trouble when he was in
Seattle. The operator assured Perry that the proper authorities
would be called. It was all that Perry could do.

“She said Tonopah?” Jack sat in a burgundy
leather chair. “That’s in Nevada, right?”

“I believe so. I’ve never been there.”

“Really?” Jack cocked his head.“I thought
maybe you had.”

Perry switched on his father’s computer. “Why
would you think that?”

“The photo album. Lots of pictures of you
when you were cute. I saw a few of the desert. I had assumed you
had vacationed there.”

“If we did, I was a baby. I don’t recall any
such family vacation.”

“You couldn’t have been too young. One of the
cars in the picture is from the mid-seventies. You had to be nine
or ten.”

Something struck Perry. “Show me.”

Jack flipped through the pages, then pushed
the photo album toward Perry. “Here it is.”

Perry pulled the book closer. “I don’t
remember this, and I doubt it’s a vacation.” He was looking at a
group of smiling people, one of whom was a much younger version of
his father. He was surprised how much he resembled his dad. The
group of six stood in front of a dark red stone building. There
were five men, counting his father, and one woman. Two of the men
frowned at the camera while the rest smiled. Perry studied the
photo. His father’s hair was moderately long, and he sported a
thick mustache. Another man had long sideburns and wore pants that
flared a little at the bottom. Not quite bell-bottoms but related.
The woman’s hair was straight and blond. The two men on the side
with the serious expressions wore civilian clothing, but their
clean shaved faces and short hair made Perry think military. Just
to the right of the group was the front end of a car.

“I recognize my dad,” Perry said. “And you’re
right about the car. What is that?”

“A 1974 Chevy Suburban. My dad was a car nut,
always buying some car or another, fixing it up, then selling it.
Several of those went through the garage when I was a kid.”

“So this picture has to be from 1974 or
later.”

“Exactly.”

“Well, it’s no vacation picture. I’ve never
met these people. They seem an odd match.” Perry removed the
picture and turned it over. There was writing on the back. He read
aloud,

“Mizpah Hotel. VZ, CW, MG, me, and two
associates.”

“Those initials match up with the names your
father gave you.” Jack thought for a second. “Where’s the Mizpah
Hotel?”

“I don’t know, but I have a guess.” Perry set
the photo down and started the computer’s Internet browser. A few
moments later, he said, “I’ve got it.”

“Tonopah?”

“Tonopah, Nevada. I’ve found several pictures
on the Web. It’s the same place, all right.” Jack rounded the desk
and looked over Perry’s shoulder. “In Dad’s photo, I can see the
entrance to the hotel and some of the architectural style. It’s a
match.”

“It looks a bit run-down in this photo.” Jack
pointed to the screen.

“It was built just after the turn of the
century, so it has a right to look a little run-down. Look, here’s
one after it’s been refurbished.”

“Looks better.”

Perry shook his head. “There’s something in
all of this that Dad wants me to find. There’s some connection. But
what?”

“We know that one person in the photo is
dead. We know your father is very ill, and from what you told me
about the conversation you just had with Cynthia Wagner, another
one is in bad shape.”

“All within a day or so of the other. All
were together in 1974 in Tonopah, Nevada. Now, over thirty years
later, three of them are afflicted.”

“Coincidence? None of them is young.”

“I doubt it. I think Dad wants me to find
them.” Perry shut down the computer, then stood. He closed the
album and bundled up the notebook.

“We’re going somewhere?”

“We’re going several places. At least I
am.”

“You will have better luck shaking your
shadow than shaking me loose, pal. Where to?”

“First the office. I’m going to put Gleason
to work. Then to the hospital. I’m going to check on Mom and Dad. I
also want to talk to Dr. Nishizaki. I have some questions. Then we
pack our bags.”

“Road trip?” Jack smiled.

“Road trip.” There was no smile.

It was a chartered flight, and the Boeing
business jet pushed through the hazy skies of Washington, D.C. At
110 feet in length and powered by a pair of CFM56-7 engines
delivering over twenty-seven hundred pounds of thrust, it seemed
overkill to be carrying only one passenger. Finn MacCumhail was no
ordinary passenger. His name never appeared in the newspapers or on
the list of directors for government agencies, but he was known
around Washington, D.C., and his name was often spoken of in hushed
whispers. That was the way he liked it.

At forty-two years of age, he still cut a
dashing enough figure to turn the heads of most women and to garner
the scowls of most men. His hair was short, red-brown, and hinted
at a curl. His eyes were blue and showed an intimidating
intelligence. Beneath his gray business suit was a well-exercised,
muscled body.

Finn found a comfortable seat over the wings
and settled in. Soon the aircraft would be flying at thirty-five
thousand feet and cutting the thin air at over five hundred miles
an hour. Even at that, he was in for a six-hour flight. Over three
thousand miles separated Washington, D.C., and Nellis Air Force
Base. Accommodations would be waiting. In the morning, he’d take a
drive.

He shifted in his seat. Reaching under his
coat, he repositioned the 9 mm pistol that was sticking him in the
ribs. Once comfortable, he opened a briefcase. A leather skin
covered the protective metal structure of the case. Inside rested
several plastic file folders. He removed the top one and set it on
his lap. Opening the folder, he studied the pictures it contained.
He whispered to himself: “Henry Sachs, Cynthia Wagner, Victor
Zeisler, Monte Grant.”

Each photo bore a label revealing the name of
the subject and the year the photo was taken.

Chapter6

How is he?”
Dr. Gleason Lane asked. He was on his feet the moment Perry walked
into his office. His ever-present smile was missing, replaced with
the uncomfortable look of a worried man. Perry wondered if he
appeared the same.

“I just spoke to Mom as we were driving over
here. She called on the cell phone. They’ve taken Dad down for a
CAT scan. They’re trying to rule out a stroke. They’re still
waiting on other test results.”

“What can I do?”

Perry knew Gleason well and therefore knew
the question was sincere. Gleason Lane was slightly taller than
Perry, had kind blue eyes, a chiseled chin, and quick humor.
Wheat-colored hair was trimmed close to the scalp. He was the “head
techie” at Sachs Engineering and not one for office life. He
preferred outdoor tech to writing code, and that made him ideal for
the kind of work that Sachs Engineering did.

“Keep the prayers up. What are you working
on?” Perry stepped to Gleason’s desk, a metal-and-glass contraption
that Perry found too sterile. “Desks should be made of wood,” he
had told Gleason once. “You think computers should be made of
wood,” Gleason answered. He had Perry there.

“I’m trying to pull together a private
communications system for the South Korea project. Guess a lot of
eavesdropping goes on over there.”

“That project begins next month, right?”

“Six weeks. You got something you want me to
do?”

Perry paused for a second while recalling the
details of the South Korea operation. The South Koreans were
“hardening” several of their key civilian communications centers.
North Korea was rattling sabers again. Sachs Engineering was
providing consultation.

“I’m going to pull you off that for a little
while.” Perry set down the notebook and photo album. “I need your
analytical abilities, your . . . ”

“Weird way of thinking? That’s what Jack
calls it.”

“I’m sure he means it as a compliment, but
that’s what I need.” Perry told Gleason of his father’s struggle to
speak a few words and of Perry’s discovery in the floor of the
pantry.

“Let me get this right.” Gleason slipped back
into his chair while Perry remained on his feet. “Your father
manages to speak a few words, and in that list are the names of
three people somehow related to your father. One has just died; one
suffered some kind of attack while you were on the phone with her;
and your dad is all of a sudden stricken with a yet-to-be-diagnosed
illness. This picture shows them together sometime in the
mid-seventies in a desert town called Tonopah.”

“That’s right. You know Dad—he wouldn’t spend
that kind of precious strength unless there was a reason for
it.”

“Do you know what happened to the woman on
the phone—Cynthia Wagner?”

“No. Not yet.”