CHAPTER 10

 

10a

“Sharon, please meet me at Alain’s this afternoon,” Evelyn Luca said. “The doctor’s tell me that he is dying.”

“They’ve been saying that for years,” Sharon answered.

“He is bleeding inside; there is nothing that can be done. I will be there at 2:00.”

Sharon sat the phone back on the table and looked out her office window into the backyard. Her whole life it seemed that death was always just around the corner. Her parents died when she was just a child, a neighbor just about her age died when she was ten, Iraq and countless lives wasted and now again in this freakish profession she had chosen. It’s a door that beckons everyone and a door we must all go through. She felt Basil nuzzle her hip.

“That’s a good boy,” she said. “Walk?”

Basil reacted like she had said “unlimited bones for life.” He took off down the hallway, pulled his leash off the countertop and trotted back to Sharon.

“Now where’s my shoes?” she said to him. He cocked his head and looked at her, then scanned the room. “Shoes?”

Basil, leash still in his mouth, turned and walked into the hallway; Sharon followed, sliding her phone into her back pocket. In her bedroom, he stopped by the bed, sat, looked at her sneakers, then at her. She was sure that, if her boy could talk, he would have said, “There they are, same place you left them, now put whatever they are on your feet and let’s get going, I’m already late for a bush.”

Five minutes later he had marked, for maybe the thousandth time, every bush and shrub on their circuit and a few garbage cans with rollers set in twos and threes along the street, it was trash day.

Since the surveillance truck incident a few weeks earlier, she never went anywhere without her Beretta, now couched in its holster snug in her back. A white shirt, long tails out, covered the weapon. Black jeans and sneakers finished the look. But Basil was more than enough protection if any close quarters work had to be done.

On the second tour of the block, she noticed something new, a van parked at the curb in front of her cottage. Department of Sanitary Services, with its elaborate Contra Costa County seal, was painted on its side. No one was in the front seat or anywhere around the vehicle.

Perhaps she was more sensitive and aware of things in the neighborhood since the clove guy, this was probably nothing, but she couldn’t just leave it alone.

“A little peek, don’t you think, old boy?” she said as they stepped off the curb and headed to the van. At fifty feet away, she saw two boys on bikes heading toward her in the middle of the street, they couldn’t have been twelve. She couldn’t understand their banter but it was loud and full of classic early-testosterone bravado, as well as a few, “we’re so fucking cool,” curse words. She smiled.

She looked back at the van, then the boys. “Shit,” was the first thing Basil heard, then “Run.” But she wasn’t running away from the truck, she was running toward it. She dropped Basil’s leash and waved frantically at the boys who had pulled up short, three cars were parked on the opposite side of the street from the van; maybe was her best hope.

“I need you to get out of here fellows, now!” the tone in her voice said it all, besides, she looked pretty crazy to the two bikers and the dog would have put fear in the eyes of the devil himself.

But these were tough suburban twelve year olds; no one was going to push them around.

“We don’t have to do what you say, you’re not my mom,” the taller one said while straddling his bike. The other, not to be left out, said in full voice, “Yeah.”

Since her first fears had not immediately materialized, Sharon approached the boys with a more measured tone, “Men, I’m an ex-Army officer and I live right there in that house,” she said pointing. “I need you two to leave the area. It’s very dangerous at the moment and …”

“What’s so dangerous?” the shorter of the two said, interrupting. “Don’t see nothing.”

Stubborn was not what she needed right now. “See that van over there,” again she pointed. “There’s a chance that it’s not what it’s supposed to be and I really don’t know, but it may be very dangerous.”

“Like spies and stuff, maybe it’s an IED, what do’ya think Pat?” the taller one said.

“What do you know about IEDs,” Sharon asked, her impatience rising.

“I watch TV, I know all about ‘em but they’re not around here. No terrorists around here but Dad says to be careful around town, lots of foreign people,” the smaller of the two added.

Paranoia everywhere and with too much casual knowledge. “I want you boys to leave here now, I’m calling the police. I want them to find out why that truck’s there and until I know what’s going on, you two must get out of the area,” she paused and looked the boys, Abdul flashed in her memory. “And I mean it, right now.”

Startled by her sudden, very loud order, they started to saddle-up, the taller spun his bike around. As the shorter boy began to spin his bike, all three saw the man appear, striding down the narrow walk between Sharon’s cottage and the one next to it; he was carrying a metal toolbox. The boys looked back at the crazy woman but all they saw was the automatic pistol in her hand and the dog ready to lunge. They looked back at the man as they heard the sound of the crashing of metal on concrete; he had dropped the toolbox and also held a pistol. It was aimed at Sharon.

“Boys, run behind those cars, now. And stay down. Basil, hold.”

No bravado this time. They dropped their bikes and ran behind the cars as instructed.

Sharon hit 911 without taking her eyes from the man. She slowly raised the automatic and aimed it.

“Your emergency?” a voice said over the phone.

“Shots fired,” she said, anticipating the future; she then gave her street address. “Two people on the street, one woman and one man. The woman is plain clothes.” She knew she’d get in trouble but if it went down as she hoped it wouldn’t, better to be safe than sorry. Nothing brings police faster than, “Shots fired and officer on scene.”

The man held his ground but she could see him inching his way down the walk toward the van. He was strongly built with narrow hips and wide shoulders. His complexion was dark, black hair, a two-day-old beard and black eyes. He looked at the cars where the boys were hiding.

“Don’t even think about it,” Sharon yelled, Basil stood very still, his eyes never left the man; he waited for the order. “Just throw the weapon on the grass, drop to your knees and interlock your fingers on the top of your head.” She knew that was not going to happen. She continued to watch the man. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught movement and then the sound of a diesel truck, took a quick peek, a garbage truck. “Shit.”

The truck picked up speed and headed toward her. She hoped the driver would see her standing in the road with a pistol in her hand but then again that’s not exactly what you are looking for on a quiet tree-lined suburban street; the truck kept coming. Her target was ten feet from the van, “I said stay where you are,” she yelled.

The truck had enough room to pass between her and the van; the first sirens could be heard over the increasing rumble of the garbage truck’s engine. The boy’s bikes, still lying in the street, would force it to move to the right, then what?

She heard the engine roar suddenly. He’s seen my gun; he’s trying to get the hell through this area as fast as possible, good. She looked back at the man; he was almost at the van and cover. She could tell he heard the sirens, fight or flee was all over his face. She stood fully exposed in the middle of the street. The truck roared by directly in front of her, hiding the van for maybe two seconds. As it passed by, the van roared to life, its rear wheels spinning on the asphalt, tire smoke filled the wheel wells. The van lunged forward and took off after the garbage truck. At the corner, the garbage truck paused, its brake lights flared and then it went left; the van, on almost two wheels, went right, no brakes. Five seconds later, a patrol car sped around the same corner, lights flashing, siren screaming. O’Mara turned and watched two more prowlers approaching from the other end of the street. She slowly lowered her pistol to the asphalt.

“Boys, you can come out now,” Sharon yelled. From behind the cars, the two boys stood and slowly walked to their bikes as the patrol cars slid to a stop; the trio was now flanked by black and whites. The sirens suddenly faded, not a sound filled the street. The door to the first arriving prowler opened, a large man stood, adjusted his gear and looked at Sharon.

“Goddamn it, O’Mara, I just knew it had to be you when I got the call and heard the address,” he said as he walked toward the group. “What the hell’s going on here?”

“Good morning, Sergeant,” Sharon said. “May I?” she asked, pointing to the ground and her Beretta.

“Yeah, go ahead, any shots fired really?”

“No, Glenn, but I thought there would be,” she answered as the two of them were surrounded by three more cops. Two others, one was a woman, were talking to the boys.

They moved the bikes from the street to the small patch of lawn that extended to the sidewalk in front of Sharon’s cottage. She noticed a couple of people standing in front of their houses, looking at her and the police. Not going to help my already poor standing in the neighborhood, she thought as she explained everything that had happened over the last five minutes. Sergeant Glenn Stack was not amused by her telling dispatch that there were “shots fired and officer on scene;” he was not amused at all. The man’s toolbox sat where it was dropped on the sidewalk.

“Don’t ever do that again, O’Mara. Jesus H. Christ, my people might have reacted differently, who knows what would have happened.” He also knew that it worked and the boys were lucky to be involved in nothing more than a good story to tell at school. It could have been worse.

“I saw the ass-end of that van when I turned onto the street,” he continued. “We might be able to grab a shot of its license from the dash camera. What did he look like?”

“Dark, swarthy complexion, might be Greek or Middle Eastern, maybe six one, grey uniform, something that a county inspector might wear, nothing suspicious,” Sharon said. “I was cautious until he pulled his gun, that’s when I told the kids to get behind the cars.”

“Why so cautious? Why is your radar heightened over a sanitary van parked at your curb?” Sergeant Stack asked.

Sharon told Stack about the earlier surveillance van, the clove man and the DNA hit and the SFPD’s interest. Even she had to admit it was all a jumble with a couple of big pieces sticking out; large pointy pieces that explained nothing.

“Should I get the bomb people out here to look at the toolbox?” a patrolman asked Stack. They all looked at the blue metal box lying on its side on the sidewalk.

“Don’t think it’s going to explode,” Sharon said. “He dropped it down hard on the concrete just before he pulled his Glock. It sounded like a toolbox. May I?”

“Be my guest, it’s on your property and I still don’t know if there’s been a crime committed other than a false police call,” Stack said.

Sharon walked over to the box and nudged it with the toe of her sneaker, the patrolman blanched a bit. She smiled at him, bent down, grabbed the handle and uprighted the box. A single chrome plated clasp connected the lid and the case; she flipped the hasp and slowly opened the lid. Inside were electrician’s tools, wire cutters, screwdrivers, black electrical tape, coils of wire, two small empty boxes and two crumpled wax paper wrappers with no labels. Basil stuck his nose into the open box and harrumphed.

“Interesting, follow me, Sergeant,” Sharon said as she headed to the backyard. She scanned every inch of the cottage’s walls, even the fencing between the houses. Basil led the way; he stopped near the Jaguar, his nose high in the air.

“Nice car,” the patrolman offered seeing the Jaguar parked in the driveway.

“Thanks,” she said turning to the car. She looked at Basil. “What do you smell, boy? Where?” She got on her knees and felt along the car’s undercarriage. “If he left anything here, I should be able to feel for it, he was bigger than I am and there’s no way he could get under this car.” She continued to feel about, getting more and more pissed as her two hundred dollar shirt collected dirt on its sleeves. Basil nudged his way toward the area where she had her hand under the car. “You smell it too, don’t you, now get back.”

“One of my men has an inspection mirror, do you need that?”

“Maybe … wait, got something,” Sharon said, after a few seconds she withdrew her hand. “Now, Sergeant, you can call the bomb squad, I suggest we clear the area.”

Two hours later, the tech from the bomb squad held up a small rat-sized device by its tail, another small pencil-shaped piece of metal in the other. “My guess is about six ounces of C-4, blasting cap, cell phone activated, taped near the gas line. Saw something similar in Afghanistan, simple and very effective, six ounces or six pounds, doesn’t matter. Ma’am, that would have blown the car up and probably killed you.”

“Thanks, Jimmy,” Stack said to the officer. “Well, Sharon O’Mara, I now have a crime scene and you are it.”

“Well, lucky me.”

 

 

10b

After the morning’s events, the last thing Sharon wanted to do was visit Alain Dumont. And it was the only thing she needed to do. Alain had become almost like a grandfather to her; he was, like her, an orphan. He was a true self-made man, even with the kick-start of forty ingots of found gold at the end of World War Two. At ninety-four, the billionaire had been involved in almost every high tech venture since the invention of the transistor. He lived in a fine mansion on upper Broadway in San Francisco and had lived well, sired a beautiful, but damaged, daughter who OD’d on drugs but left him a granddaughter, Claudette Leclair. Claudette met Sharon as she climbed the steps to Dumont’s front door, they kissed and then hugged.

“He’s resting peacefully,” Claudette said. “Evelyn’s with him.”

They walked the length of the hallway, past the parlor, to the library. There, amongst one of the greatest private collections of art, first editions and small Impressionist statues, lay Alain Dumont on a hospital bed. A large black man stood directly behind the head board and smiled at the women as they entered. Evelyn Luca sat on a low velvet footstool near the bed. She held the right hand of her godfather. The bed had been adjusted allowing Dumont to sit more upright.

Sharon kissed Peter Brass, Dumont’s nurse and bodyguard, on the cheek. “How’s he doing?”

“As well as can be expected, the medication has softened the edge but he’s still with us.” Peter said.

“Damn straight I am,” a hoarse voice mumbled from directly below the two. “As long as I’m breathing, I’ll be a pain in the ass. How are you, my dear?” Alain Dumont said as he slowly raised his free hand toward Sharon.

She took his hand, kissed his sallow cheek and saw that he was even thinner than the last time she visited; he was almost translucent.

“I missed you Alain; are you comfortable?” Sharon asked.

“As best as I can be, not much else I can do.”

“You rest,” Evelyn said.

Dumont took in a large breath, his eyes brightened. He turned his head to take in the three women in the room; calmness seemed to soften the hard edge to his cheeks.

“A man could ask for nothing more than to have you three with me, you are like my Valkyries leading me to Valhalla,” he chortled then coughed, not a deep cough but a laughing cough. “

“Quiet now,” Claudette said.

“Granddaughter, soon I’ll be quiet forever. It is my hope that my love will meet me at the gates, I have missed her for more years than I can remember.” He took in another breath.

After Alain Dumont fled the army at the end of World War Two, by faking his death and changing his name from Robert Alan Dupont, he moved to Paris and became a very successful, if not creative, importer of goods for desperate Europeans. He also found and married the love of his life, Dominique, Claudette’s grandmother. The gold that he and two fellow soldiers stole or, as the case was, liberated, gave him an excellent grubstake. One of his fellow thieves died in the war and the other was reunited with Alain almost sixty years later when Sharon helped Alain find the family that originally owned a Toulouse-Lautrec painting that was confiscated from them by the Nazis; it too had also found with the gold. Now he was dying.

“I’m sure Dominique has missed you as well,” Evelyn said squeezing Alain’s hand.

Alain sighed heavily, “I know that my daughter will be waiting as well, all our lives leave small tragedies for others to deal with and I hope I have left few behind. Sharon,” he looked at O’Mara, “I want you to watch over these two and keep them out of trouble,” he squeezed her hand and Evelyn’s. Sharon was amazed at his strength. “Claudette, let these girls help you and you help them - I know of no better three women than you. Take care of each other.” He inhaled raggedly.

“Rest, we will be right here,” Claudette said wiping a tear away.

Sharon’s involvement with death, violent death, hadn’t hardened her as Alain lay dying. Her heart ached. She was sad because she had only known the man for a short time and she would have loved to have been near him, like Claudette and Evelyn were, for her entire life. There were few people in her life that she loved; Alain Dumont was one of those few.

For the next few hours, they sat and talked, Peter made coffee and even found some small sandwiches, they nibbled but the tray stayed full. Sharon told Claudette about the events with Jean-François and the missing trimaran. She didn’t say anything about the suspicions that were gnawing away in her gut about JF’s possible involvement with his own missing sailboat. Her gut had been wrong before but then it was in Iraq and she might have had food poisoning.

 

**********

Green Zone, Baghdad, Iraq, 2005

“I can’t get my head around al-Jamil and his granddaughters,” O’Mara said to Sanchez as they sat in the afternoon shade near their billet. “Why would the son-of-a-bitch put them in jeopardy just to get to us? Shit, we’re sitting ducks most of the time, IED Central, wait long enough and we’ll pass every potential bomb planted in this wreck of a country. Why all this intrigue? I just don’t get it; there has to be something else he’s after.”

“Can’t say I don’t disagree, seen a lot of strange shit here, two plus two don’t always add up to four with these people,” Sergeant Sanchez said. “If he’s out there moving the al-Qaeda around, assuming they’re al-Qaeda, then why would they deal with him? He’s Shia and they’re Sunni, true believers, like oil and water. Historically, they have hated each other since the seventh century and that’s a lot of hate and vengeance.”

“What you said about assuming they are al-Qaeda makes me think, suppose they aren’t; maybe we’re dealing with something else. Maybe we want to believe they are al-Qaeda, perhaps he’s using that to make us his tool.” She lit a cigarette and stared at the flame of her lighter for a moment. “Sergeant, I hate being a tool.”

“I don’t like being a tool either, Lieutenant. My mom didn’t raise me to be the tool of some fucking asshole in some God forsaken part of the world. No sir, I’m not a tool.”

“Shall we go and pay Mr. Hakim al-Jamil a call and this time it won’t be social.”

“Yes Lieutenant, I’ll get the plans together.”

O’Mara took a long pull on her cigarette and wondered what tomorrow would be like.

 

**********

San Francisco, Today

“I’m going have a smoke,” Sharon said to the group as she walked toward the library balcony.

“I’ll join you,” Evelyn said. She always smoked when she was stressed and now was one of those times.

The view across the Bay from Alain’s balcony was breathtaking. This particular afternoon was clear and sharp; Alcatraz sat like a coarse cruise ship heading toward the Golden Gate as ferries scurried about minding their own business. Their business and their passengers’ business didn’t include dying or even thinking about dying today. For Sharon, that’s all she was thinking about.

“Something’s eating you. I can tell,” Evelyn said bumming a cigarette.

Sharon paused as she slowly let out a mouthful of smoke. “I’ve seen so much death that sometimes I think I’m past caring, past even thinking about it. Friends and enemies are all the same dead, they don’t care anymore but we care, those that mourn for them. I think that’s the reason for all the pomp and the lengthy ceremony, not for the dead, but for us, the living.”

“Guess that’s the way it’s always been, we never know what they know.”

“I will miss Alain a lot, he is very dear to me and I only wish I could have known him longer. You two are the lucky ones.”

“Can’t disagree, he has been everything to me and Claudette, a friend, a father, a mentor and a shoulder to cry on, I’ll miss him forever.”

“What a beautiful day, everything considered,” Claudette said, opening the door to the balcony. “That’s what Grand-père would have wanted, sun and blue skies.”

Sharon and Evelyn smiled at Claudette’s comment. Yes, sun and blue skies, especially blue skies.

Peter Brass tapped on the window and motioned to the girls, they followed him to Alain Dumont’s side. His breathing was very shallow; Claudette took his hand and noticed how warm it was and how strong it was. Alain opened his eyes and looked at his granddaughter.

“Dominique? Dominique?” Then his hand softened and the only strength left was hers.