Darwin's Blade

20 “T is for Sympathy”

Syd’s Thursday morning task force gathering was one of the more efficient meetings that Dar could ever remember attending.

She’d insisted on leaving immediately after the call the previous afternoon. Dar had agreed to stay for dinner, but before he ate, he walked the perimeter to make sure they were safe from snipers. He thought that they were. The Stewarts’ sprawling home was on a steep hillside above the road, with open pasture and then a dense woods below them to the south. It was more than 800 yards to the tree line, and even from there, the angle was very bad for a shooter. The only way people in the house would be visible to the south would be if they walked far out on the overhanging patio, and the three of them had already discussed the inadvisability of doing that. The house was set lower than the street to the north, but there the houses were tightly packed and heavily landscaped, the traffic brisk on the street outside—and Larry and Trudy had adequate security on their doors and shutters on their north-facing windows—so that offered no opportunity for a sniper.

Still, after dinner, Dar had driven around the neighborhood at twilight, making sure that everything looked and felt right, before heading home.

Nothing looked or felt right during the 8:00 A.M. task force meeting. Syd herself looked exhausted, and the others all seemed sad or distracted or irritated for being gathered so early.

It was pretty much the same group as in the previous Friday’s meeting—Syd, Poulsen, Special Agent Warren and another FBI man, and Bob Gauss, who had once been Santana’s boss. Next to Warren sat Lieutenant Barr from LAPD Internal Affairs. Larry and Trudy sat to the right of Dar across the table from this group, Lieutenant Frank Hernandez and the CHP’s Captain Sutton sat on Dar’s left, and at the far end of the table was a new face—District Attorney William Restanzo. Restanzo looked every inch the blow-dried, white-haired, firm-jawed once and future politician he was.

Syd opened the meeting without preamble.

“You all know that four people working for this task force were murdered yesterday,” she said. “Investigator Tom Santana, Special Agent Don Garcia, Special Agent Bill Sanchez, and Special Agent in Charge Rita Foxworth. All four were lured to a remote place in the county—under pretext of training for swoop-and-squat accident fraud—and shot from concealment by a high-powered rifle.”

Syd paused and took a breath. “The details of the murders are not pertinent to this task force meeting and the investigation is ongoing under the supervision of Special Agent in Charge Warren.”

Detective Hernandez looked around the group. “If the details aren’t pertinent, why were we summoned here, Investigator Olson?”

Syd met the officer’s stare. “To arrest the person responsible for those murders,” she said.

No one spoke. Dar saw Lawrence shift slightly, and knew he was making his holster more accessible—perhaps unconsciously.

“We knew there was a leak from high up months ago,” continued Syd, “but it was Tom’s idea to announce his going undercover to this group. We tapped the phones of most of you…”

Syd waited for protest, but there was just a general clenching of fists, squinting of eyes, and thinning of lips. No one spoke.

“And what did the wiretaps reveal?” Captain Sutton asked, his smoker’s voice a rasp this morning.

“Nothing, directly,” said Syd. “The person who had been paid off must have suspected that he or she was under suspicion. There was no illegal activity heard or recorded under the wiretap surveillance authorized.”

“Then how…” began Hernandez.

“The person under surveillance avoided even local pay phones,” continued Syd, “which was wise, because pay phones near this suspect’s apartment had been tapped. What the suspect did use was a special cell phone purchased by agents of the fraud Alliance and registered under a fictitious name. We believe there were several of these phones given to the suspect, to be used for emergency contacts.”

Syd unbuttoned her blazer and Dar could see the 9mm Sig-Sauer holstered on her belt. Then she turned toward the NICB attorney, Poulsen. “What you didn’t think of, Jeanette, is that we wanted this person bad enough to follow all of the major suspects with cell-phone scanners.” Syd stabbed a button down on a tape recorder.

Poulsen’s voice could be heard, static-lashed and tinny but quite recognizable: “Santana from Fraud Division and three FBI agents have gone undercover to make contact with your Helpers of the Helpless.”

A man’s deep voice said something unintelligible.

“No, I don’t know the agents’ names,” came Poulsen’s voice, “but it’s two men and a woman and they should be coming into the country via the same coyote and contacting the Helpers at the same time Santana does. That’s all I can tell you now.”

The man’s voice rattled again, but this time the words “money” and “transfer” and “usual amount” could be heard.

Attorney Poulsen shot up out of her chair as if propelled by a huge spring. Her face was deep red and the cords stood out on her pretty neck. “I don’t have to listen to this shit. This is nonsense. You can’t get any real information to your fucking grand jury after six months, so now you’re framing me with this…” She started striding past Syd toward the door. “You’ll have to reach me through my attorney.”

Syd grabbed the taller woman by the arm, spun her around, and slammed Poulsen’s upper body down onto the conference table while she pinned both arms behind her. Syd swept a pair of cuffs off her belt and had the woman handcuffed before Poulsen could lift her head from the table.

“You have the right to remain silent—” began Syd.

“Fuck you—” began Poulsen, but Syd grabbed a hank of her hair and slammed her face back onto the tabletop.

“Anything you say can and will be held against you in a court of law,” continued Syd in a calm voice. “You have the right to an attorney…” She pulled Poulsen’s handcuffed wrists high above and behind her, causing the woman to gasp and shut up.

“We’ll take over here, Chief Investigator,” said Warren. He and the FBI man next to him each took the now-weeping Poulsen by an arm and led her out of the room, still reading the NICB attorney her rights.

When the door was closed behind them, Syd wiped her hands on her linen slacks as if they were dirty. “We’ve traced one hundred and fifteen thousand dollars transferred to a secret account that Attorney Poulsen set up eight months ago,” she said.

Syd’s voice had stayed steady during all of this, but now she paused long enough to draw a breath. “Our regular task force meeting will be held a week from tomorrow. District Attorney Restanzo has agreed to join the task force and will be present at our next meeting. I hope to be able to announce some real developments by then.”

Syd looked around the table. “Some of you knew Investigator Santana—I’ve known him and been close friends with him, his wife, Mary, and their two children for four years. Tom’s funeral will be held tomorrow, ten A.M., in Los Angeles, at the Trinity Catholic Church in Northridge, just off Reseda Boulevard near the State University campus. We’ll let you know about the arrangements for Special Agents Garcia, Sanchez, and Foxworth.”

During Santana’s funeral, Dar realized that he had not been in a Catholic church since the funeral for David and Barbara.

Afterward, people milled in the sunlight outside the church for a while. There would be a private graveside ceremony, and Syd asked if she could talk to Dar afterward. Dar nodded, seeing his dark suit and glinting sunglasses reflected in her dark glasses. She had not cried during the funeral, nor when she’d hugged and spoken to Mary Santana and the two children.

“Name a place and time,” said Dar.

“Lawrence and Trudy want us at the Esposito accident site by four for a demonstration,” said Syd. “After that? Your condo?”

“I’ll be there.”

Lawrence’s cell phone rang as Dar and the adjuster drove back to San Diego in the newly repaired NSX. “Bingo,” said Lawrence.

“One of the photos?” said Dar.

“Yep. I showed them to the few guys who were working the construction site that Sunday—not Vargas, the foreman, he didn’t want to cooperate, but to the other guys—and two of them made a positive ID. They each saw this guy walking around with a hard hat. They hadn’t recognized him, but figured he must be some contract laborer for that weekend.”

“One of the Russians?” asked Dar.

“No. The New Jersey ex-mafia guy, Tony Constanza.”

“Will they testify in court?”

“Who knows?” said Lawrence. “I didn’t tell them that this was a murder case with ex-mafia hit men involved, I just showed them the pictures. If I knew what it was all about, I wouldn’t testify.”

District Attorney Restanzo was standing on the construction site with three of his underlings, and none of them seemed very happy about getting their wing tips muddy. Two uniformed police officers had cordoned off the area around the scissors lift and were standing guard, holding the curious construction workers at bay, while Lieutenant Hernandez stood with arms folded. Trudy had the video cam set on a sturdy tripod. Lawrence was standing under the raised scissors lift precisely where Jorgé Murphy Esposito had been standing when he was killed. As during the original accident, there was a quarter ton of lumber on the massive lift bed thirty-six feet up.

Hernandez was explaining. “There’s been controversy over whether this was an accident or should be added to the wrongful-death files already involved in this Alliance case. Mr. Stewart has the answer.” He gestured toward Lawrence, who nodded at Trudy. The red light on the camera came on.

Lawrence cleared his throat. “All right. We all know that autopsy evidence and circumstantial evidence surrounding the death of Attorney Esposito suggest that he could not have pulled the hydraulic screw loose on the pillar there and died as he did, in under two seconds, without the front of his torso being sprayed by hydraulic fluid. The coroner’s photographs show clearly that only the cuffs of Mr. Esposito’s trousers and the soles of his shoes were sprayed with the fluid. Several workers on the site here have identified photographs of a man they say was present on the Sunday Mr. Esposito died. That man is a certain Tony Constanza, a former mafia informer now in the employ of Attorney Dallas Trace.”

“I don’t like the term ‘mafia,’” said District Attorney Restanzo. “Mafia equates with Italian and Sicilian and is a slur on a specific ethnic group. Everyone knows that the so-called Syndicate has long since moved away from dominance by any single ethnic group. We prefer the term ‘organized crime.’”

“All right,” said Lawrence. “For the record, Mr. Tony Constanza used to be a member of that wing of the multiethnic, multiracial, equal-opportunity organized crime syndicate which, even today, is comprised primarily of Sicilian-and Italian-Americans and is commonly known as the mafia.

“All right,” continued Lawrence, looking at the district attorney, “if you’re going to prosecute this, you need proof that it was murder, not an accident. I’d like to show you that proof. I’m currently standing where Mr. Esposito was two seconds before this scissors lift lost all hydraulic pressure and collapsed on him, crushing him in the scissors’ mechanism. Would anyone like to join me here while we reenact the accident?”

For a minute no one moved. Then Dar stepped under the platform next to Lawrence. He had no idea what his friend was up to, but he trusted his professionalism. Dar’s black Bally shoes and the cuffs of his Armani suit trousers were getting splattered with mud, but that did not bother him. He knew how to spit-shine shoes.

“Mr. District Attorney, would you like to loosen and remove the hydraulic adjustment screw?” said Lawrence. The huge platform loomed thirty feet above his head…and above Dar’s.

“It’s muddy over there,” said Restanzo, who was obviously still pissed off at the mafia thing.

“I’ll do it,” said Lieutenant Hernandez. He squished through the mud to a spot just outside the shadow of the platform, next to the main hydraulic post.

Lawrence paused as Syd Olson crossed the lot in a quick walk. “Sorry I’m late,” she said, a bit out of breath.

“We were just going to show how this works,” said Lawrence. “Lieutenant, would you please unscrew and remove the hydraulic adjustment screw?”

Dar flicked a glance at Lawrence. The two men were standing casually enough, arms folded, the mass of platform weight a palpable presence above them, but Dar was mentally figuring if he would have time to grab Larry and throw both of them out from under the falling scissors lift in time. It was a simple equation with a simple answer. No.

Hernandez shrugged and began turning the massive screw counterclockwise. It moved, there was a gurgle of hydraulic fluid, and the platform shifted six inches downward.

“Oh, shit,” said Hernandez, jumping away.

“All the way out, please,” said Lawrence.

The homicide lieutenant approached the post as if it were a live rattlesnake. Ever so gingerly he put his arm around it and touched the screw. He turned it another half notch. The platform seemed to quiver in anticipation of its massive collapse.

“All the way out, please,” repeated Lawrence.

The screw stopped turning. Hernandez leaned on the massive lug nut, changed hands, tried harder. Then he tried both hands.

“The fucking thing…excuse me, Mr. Restanzo…the thing won’t budge.”

Lawrence walked over to the post and Dar followed, happy to be out of the death zone. Lawrence put his hand on the massive bolt and screw and waited for Trudy to zoom in.

“Mr. District Attorney, Chief Investigator Olson, Lieutenant Hernandez, gentlemen…this screw is in its regular setting, just as it was on the day that Attorney Jorgé Murphy Esposito died. There is no chance that Counselor Esposito removed the hydraulic screw by accident. As you’ve seen, the screw was designed to be adjusted slightly by hand, but beyond two turns, it requires at least a medium-sized wrench to be turned further. Basic engineering.”

Lawrence turned and looked at Syd and the district attorney. “Whoever killed Mr. Esposito—and we have witnesses who will place the former mafia hit man Tony Constanza here at the time of Esposito’s murder—must have held a gun on Mr. Esposito while removing this screw with a wrench.”

“We didn’t find any wrench at the accident scene,” said Hernandez.

“Exactly,” said Lawrence. He signaled for Trudy to shut off the video and he walked out of the shadow of the scissors lift with Dar following.

Trudy and Lawrence dropped by Dar’s condo for a drink before heading back to Escondido. Syd seemed to be in no hurry for the talk she had asked for after Tom Santana’s funeral.

“OK, we have the Esposito thing nailed with Constanza as the man,” said Trudy. “The Willis case up at Carmel has been reopened and the FBI have taken possession of the Camry…They’re going to use every forensic trick they know to find a print or fiber or something.”

“Warren is going all out on this one,” said Syd.

“Three field agents dead,” said Lawrence. “I wouldn’t wonder.”

“Is Dallas Trace just crazy?” asked Trudy. “He’s been a defense counsel for thirty years…Doesn’t he know that the one thing you don’t get away with in this country is killing law enforcement people?”

Dar cleared his throat. “I don’t think Trace is running things anymore—if he ever was,” he said.

The other three looked at him.

“This behavior is Russian,” continued Dar. “Their crime bosses run the country. If government bureaucrats or police get in the way, they murder them. That simple.”

“That’s true,” said Syd. “They have no RICO statutes over there, or anything similar that allow federal or local police to really crack down on the bastards. The Russian mob owns and runs the distribution of coal, natural gas, alcohol, half the foods available, and electric energy.”

Trudy said, “So you’re saying that the Alliance brought in the Russians to organize things, but that now the Organizatsiya is calling the shots?”

“That’s my bet,” said Dar. “I think Dallas Trace and the others who wanted to get in on the capper business climbed onto a tiger—or maybe I should say onto a bear—and now it’s all they can do to hang on and not get eaten.”

“It’s too late for that,” said Syd, her gaze distant. “They’ve gone too far. They’re all going to get eaten, even the Russian bear…and slowly, I hope.”

“So what would you like to talk about?” asked Dar when the Stewarts had left. Syd sat on the sofa across from Dar’s chair, lost in thought.

Her head came up and she met Dar’s eyes with that intelligent, blue-eyed, attentive gaze that had first called to Dar. “Actually, I don’t want to just talk,” she said. “I wanted to make a suggestion.”

“Yes?” said Dar.

“I want to come up to the cabin with you this weekend,” said Syd. “Not to play bodyguard and not for a strategy session. Just you and me getting away together.”

Dar felt the words jolt him. He hesitated. “It might not be very safe around…” He had been going to say “me,” but he said, “…the cabin.”

Syd smiled. “Where is it safe if they keep coming after us, Dar? If you don’t want to go away with me, it’s OK, but let’s not worry about being safe right now.”

Dar understood that the sentence had more than one meaning for her. “Do you need to drive back to the hotel to get your stuff?”

Syd kicked the small duffel bag she’d carried in with her earlier. “I’m already packed,” she said.

While driving out of town together in the Land Cruiser, his old rifle and the loaned weapon and ammunition under tarps in the back, a few groceries—steaks, fresh salad, a bottle of wine—in the backseat, Dar suddenly had a thought. Perhaps he was being presumptuous, but if she felt the way he did, she might not be spending the night in the sheep wagon. Damn, thought Dar, I should have stopped at a drugstore before we left town. He suddenly blushed. For years he’d been totally faithful to Barbara, and then there had been no one.

Syd touched his arm lightly. He looked over at her.

“Do you believe in telepathy?” she said. She was smiling again.

“No,” said Dar.

“Me either,” said the chief investigator. “But can I pretend that it exists for a minute?”

“Sure,” said Dar, returning his gaze to the road and hoping that his neck and cheeks were not as red as they felt.

“We may be in the same dilemma here, Dar,” she said, “not being young and modern enough to think out all the implications of this. But there’s a certain advantage.”

Dar kept his eyes on the road.

“I led a really dull life as an FBI trainee before marrying Kevin,” she said, “and Kevin and I were faithful to each other, we just didn’t work out. And for a bunch of reasons, there’s been no one since.”

“Barbara and I…were like that,” said Dar. “I haven’t…I mean I’ve chosen not to…”

She put her hand on his arm again. “You don’t have to say anything, Dar. I’m just saying that it’s your call. We’re not kids. Maybe all this stupid abstinence on both our parts gives us something special to share in this day and age.”

Dar glanced at her. “You keep doing this sort of thing,” he said, “and I will believe in telepathy.”

They arrived at the cabin just at dusk. The light was thick and golden even through the nearly closed shutters.

“Do you want to have a drink and dinner now?” said Dar.

“No,” said Syd. She took her holster off her belt, removed three clips of ammunition in their neat leather belt holders, and set them on the dresser.

It had been so long since Dar had helped undress a woman that he had almost forgotten that the buttons were backward. Out of her clothes, Syd looked all gold and white in her plain underpants and bra. They kissed. Dar remembered how hooks and eyes worked and he unfastened them without fumbling. Syd’s breasts were full and heavy, her hips wide: a grown woman.

“Your turn,” she said, helping him pull his T-shirt over his head. She unfastened his belt buckle. “I’ve been wondering since I met you,” she whispered after another kiss, her breasts compressing against his bare chest. “Are you a boxer shorts or Jockey shorts kind of guy?” She unzipped his fly and helped him step out of his chinos.

“Oh my,” she said.

“Habit I picked up way back in Vietnam days,” said Dar. “No one wore underwear in the jungle.”

“How romantic,” Syd said with a smile, but this time as she hugged him her right hand went lower and found him.

The sheets were cool. Syd swept the pillows aside. Dar kissed her mouth, kissed the pulse throbbing at the base of her throat, kissed her breasts and long nipples. Their fingers interlaced even before they began making love.

Syd kissed him deeply and long. Their fingers intermeshed more tightly as her arms spread above her head, his palms against hers, his arms pressing hers down into the sheets, every square inch of his flesh aware of hers.

They had dinner at around 11:00 P.M. Dar grilled the steaks outside, wearing only his bathrobe, while Syd tossed the salad, fried some potato wedges—they were too impatient to wait for baked potatoes—and let the cabernet sauvignon breathe. Dar was hungry as they sat down to eat. Syd was obviously ravenous.

He had forgotten—it was that simple. Of course, he remembered the pleasure of sex—that was impossible to forget—but he had forgotten the thousands of small pleasures of intimacy with a woman. Of lying naked with her in dim light and talking before sheer, physical imperative reasserted itself; of showering together and turning the simple act of washing each other’s hair into a pure form of lovemaking; of laughing while walking around in bathrobes and bare feet, starving, rushing to get dinner ready. Of being happy in the moment.

They each had a glass of Macallan single-malt for dessert and sipped it in front of the fire. The night was warm and the screens were open, letting in the rustle and scent of the pines and the occasional noise of night birds or yip of distant coyotes, but they had lit a fire anyway. Then the Scotch was left only half consumed on the side table and they were in bed again, more passionate than before, Syd crying out at the same instant Dar did, each of them abandoning the boundaries of self at the same instant.

They lay touching then in the sweat-soaked sheets, the air rich with the combined sexual scent of themselves.

“All right, it’s time to tell me,” Syd said softly.

Dar propped himself up on one elbow. “All right,” he said. “Tell you what?”

“Why you joined the Marines and became a sniper.” Syd’s eyes were bright in the dying firelight.

Dar actually laughed. He had been expecting something a bit more…romantic?

Syd’s voice was soft but serious. “I want to know why someone as intelligent and sensitive as young Darwin Minor joined the Marines and became a sniper.”

Dar lay on his back and looked at the ceiling. He found himself strangely unprepared to explain this because he never had before. Not even to Barbara.

“I’ve already told you I was interested in the Spartans. But I didn’t really tell you why.” He paused. “I was scared,” he said at last. “I was a scared kid. At age seven…I remember the day, the afternoon, where I was, the curb I sat on, when the realization hit me…At age seven I realized, knew, that I was going to die someday. I was already an atheist. I knew there was no afterlife. The thought scared the shit out of me.”

“Most of us encounter that sooner or later,” Syd whispered. “But usually not that young.”

Dar shook his head. “The fear wouldn’t go away. I had night terrors. I began wetting the bed. I was afraid to be separated from my parents, even to go to school. I was aware that not only did I have to die, but so did they. What if they died while I was away in Miss Howe’s third-grade class?”

Syd did not laugh. After a minute she said, “So you joined the Marines to find courage…to get over that fear?”

“No,” said Dar. “Not really. I graduated from high school early, finished college in three years with a degree in physics, but all the time, what I was really interested in was death and fear and control. That’s when I started studying the Spartans and their ideas about controlling fear.” He rolled over to look at her. “The Vietnam war had started…”

Syd set her palm flat on Dar’s chest. He could feel the coolness of her fingers. “And so,” she said very softly, “the U.S. Marines.”

Dar shrugged slightly. “Yeah.”

“Thinking that perhaps the Marines would still know the secret science of controlling fear.”

“Something like that,” said Dar, realizing how stupid all of this sounded.

“Did they?”

He chewed his lip a moment in thought. “No,” he said at last. “They had preserved a lot of the disciplines started by the Spartans—tried to live up to their ideals—but had lost most of the science and philosophy which lay behind and beneath the Spartan mind-set.”

“But…a sniper,” said Syd. “The only snipers I’ve met are on SWAT and FBI tactical teams, but they seem to be outcasts…”

“Always have been,” said Dar. “That’s probably why I gravitated in that direction. Whereas even Marines are taught to be part of a bigger organism, snipers work alone—or in teams of two. Everything has to be factored in: terrain, wind velocity, distance, light—everything. Nothing can be ignored.”

“I can see why you would gravitate to that,” whispered Syd. “Always thinking.”

“The guy who set up and ran my sniper school was a Marine captain named Jim Land,” said Dar. “After the war, I read something that Land wrote for a little sniper instruction manual called One Shoot—One Kill. Want to hear it?”

“Yes,” whispered Syd. “More sweet nothings, please.”

Dar smiled. “Captain Land wrote: ‘It takes a special kind of courage to be alone—to be alone with your fears, to be alone with your doubts. There is no one from whom you can draw strength, except yourself. This courage is not the often seen, superficial brand, stimulated by the flow of adrenaline. And neither is it the courage that comes from the fear that others might think you are a coward.’”

“Katalepsis,” whispered Syd. “You told me about that before.”

“Yes,” Dar said, and continued. “‘For the sniper there is no hate of the enemy, only respect of him or her as a quarry. Psychologically, the only motive that will sustain the sniper is knowing he is doing a necessary job and having the confidence that he is the best person to do it. On the battlefield, hate will destroy any man—especially a sniper. Killing for revenge will ultimately twist his mind.

“‘When you look through that scope, the first thing you see is the eyes. There is a lot of difference between shooting at a shadow, shooting at an outline, and shooting at a pair of eyes. It is amazing when you put that scope on somebody, the first thing that pops out at you is the eyes. Many men can’t do it…’”

“But you did it,” said Syd. “At Dalat. You looked into human eyes and still squeezed a trigger. And that’s been your survival secret for all these years.”

“What’s that?” said Dar.

“Control,” said Syd. “The constant pursuit of aphobia—avoiding possession at all costs.”

“Maybe,” said Dar, uncomfortable with the psychoanalysis and all his blabbing that led to it. “I haven’t always succeeded.”

“The .410 shell with the firing-pin imprint,” said Syd.

“A misfire,” agreed Dar. “That was eleven months after Barbara and the baby died. It seemed…logical…at the time.”

“And now?”

“Not so logical,” he said. He turned and took her in his arms. They kissed. Then Syd pulled her face back far enough to focus her gaze on his.

“Will you do something for me tomorrow, Dar? Something special…just for me?”

“Yes,” he said.

“Will you take me soaring?”

Dar chewed his lip again. “You’ve been flying. You were up in Steve’s sailplane…You know mine only has one seat and—”

“Will you take me soaring tomorrow, Dar?”

“Yes,” said Dar.