Slim To None. Taylor Smith

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СКАЧАТЬ didn’t you put her through?”

      “She didn’t want to bother you. She just wondered if you’d heard anything.”

      Fitzgerald sank down in his leather chair and leaned forward on his desk, resting his forehead in his free hand. “I told her I’d be calling Evan this morning.”

      “Yes, sir, that’s what she said. She just wanted to know if you’d spoken to him and if there was any news.”

      Poor Katherine, Fitzgerald thought. This was even harder on her than it was on him. He at least had the office, where he could go and pretend to be busy.

      He didn’t bother telling her about the frustrating calls they’d been getting from crackpots and fortune hunters looking to claim that million-dollar reward. Since there was nothing to report from his calls to Washington either, Fitzgerald could do nothing but tippy-toe around his wife, terrified of saying or doing something that would set off the howls of rage and grief they both felt—terrified they might lash out at each other simply because there was no one else to pummel or scream at in their impotent fury.

      Katherine would have been sitting at home all morning, unable, like him, to do anything or step away from the phone for fear of missing that one critical call that would bring news about Amy. Reluctant, as well, to ask what else Patrick had done today for fear of sounding critical, as if he didn’t care enough to pull out all the stops to bring their daughter home. Fitzgerald himself was afraid to say anything that might get his wife’s hopes up, or of saying too little and plunging her even deeper into despair. In the end, he said little or nothing, skulking around with what must seem like stoic reserve at best and, at worst, like cruel indifference.

      Behind him, a searing flash of lightning suddenly ripped open the sky and a sharp crack of thunder rattled the windows. Bullet-sized raindrops splattered against the glass.

      This wasn’t how he’d seen himself spending his golden years, Fitzgerald thought. Now, if anything happened to Amy, there would be no golden years. Only grief and rage to his last pained breath.

      CHAPTER

       3

      Baghdad, Iraq

      Hannah was in a hurry to make her call and get down to the weapons locker before the team leader started making any cracks about the hazards of working with women, but she opened the hotel’s rooftop door cautiously, one hand resting on the gun holstered at her waist. It was her personal weapon, a Beretta nine millimeter semi-automatic, just like the one she’d been trained to use when she became a cop. No matter what equipment her employer made available, she never went out on a job without her own gun, the one she kept cleaned and oiled, the one she knew would never fail in a pinch.

      That kind of security was especially critical here. Only a fool walked around Baghdad unarmed. Insurgents and snipers had a habit of popping up at the most inconvenient times. No point in getting shot stupidly.

      The graveled rooftop was in darkness, lit only by the ambient light of the surrounding city. She stepped cautiously over the threshold, keeping the door propped open behind her in case she needed to beat a quick retreat, pausing to let her eyes adjust to the dark.

      A low murmur sounded from different directions around her, the words indistinguishable but overlapping, the voices clearly engaged in separate conversations. She squinted until she made out four figures scattered around the rooftop, all of them up there for the same reason she was—to get a clear shot at one of the orbiting communications satellites that would bounce their telephone calls to far-flung home bases.

      Suddenly, the night air shook with the boom of a mortar round landing somewhere nearby. Conversations paused, then went on as if nothing has happened. Hannah smiled grimly. They were a gutsy bunch, these people who chose to work in the world’s hot spots.

      The figure closest to her she recognized, their path shaving crossed in previous strife-tornlocales. The woman worked for National Public Radio, and by the sound of it, she was calling in a story. Spotting Hannah, the reporter gave her a wave.

      Hannah nodded back and closed the door to the stairwell, heading for her own isolated patch to place her call. She found an empty corner and set her satellite phone case down on the low wall that ran the perimeter of the rooftop. Then, she paused again as the scents of the city rose to meet her.

      There was a particular smell to the Middle East, one as familiar and comforting as her grandmother’s cooking. Even now, years since those summer visits, the smell of lemons and oranges, garlic and ginger, or olive groves and the sea instantly sent her back in her mind to a safe, warm place where loving arms had always opened to welcome her.

      Here in landlocked Baghdad, however, there were no salty sea breezes to temper the desert heat or damp down the powder-fine, pervasive yellow sand that insinuated itself into ears and noses and every other bodily crevice. And if the smell of spices and cooking fires drifted on the night air as they did in so many other cities of Hannah’s memory, here the scent was tinged with the acrid sting of weapons fire and explosives recently detonated.

      Hannah ducked low behind the parapet as she flicked on the sat phone, directing the antenna southwest toward the Indian Ocean regional satellite. Leaning back against the wall, she scanned nearby rooftops for possible snipers as she dialed the Los Angeles number of her ex-husband.

      Normally, in the Middle East’s hot summers, parents and children gravitated to rooftops and balconies in the evening, dragging out mattresses to make their nighttime beds, eager to catch the slightest breeze. These days, however, sleeping outdoors in Baghdad could prove suicidal. Four months after the capital had fallen to coalition forces and major hostilities had been declared over, the streets were still deserted and dangerous at night. No one ventured out after curfew except military patrols and the insurgents trying to kill them. Even peeking out a taped-up window could invite a bullet or rocket-propelled grenade.

      Hannah glanced at her watch. It was late afternoon back in L.A. Gabe had been attending a summer day camp in the Santa Monica mountains, but it had finished a week earlier. Now he was supposed to be enjoying a few lazy days before heading off to third grade at Dahlby Hall, the exclusive private school he attended, where classes were due to resume the Tuesday after Labor Day. As always, Hannah’s presence at his first day of school was neither required nor encouraged.

      She closed her eyes as a wave of guilt and anger passed over her. It wasn’t right that another woman got to see her child over these milestones. For two years now, Cal’s wife had been taking Gabe to his dentist appointments, his soccer games, his play dates and his friends’ birthday parties. Christie had been the one to read him the Harry Potter stories before tucking him into bed. It was Christie his teachers had called when Gabe had broken his arm in a fall from a schoolyard jungle gym.

      When she was back in L.A., Hannah had her son on weekends, for two weeks in the summer and for alternate holidays, but how much longer would even that unsatisfying schedule last? Already she felt pressured to relinquish her visitation days on those occasions when Gabe was pulled between her and a chance at doing something special with his friends. It was no use making him feel guilty about it. That way lay only resentment. What was going to happen when he hit his teens and had a girlfriend or played team sports? How eager then would he be to pack up his bag and move for the weekend to his mother’s little condo across the city?

      On the other side of the world, she heard the phone ring in Cal and Christie’s Mulholland Drive mansion. It picked up on the third ring and a Spanish-accented voice said, “Hello, Nicks residence.”

      The satellite connection СКАЧАТЬ