Zack (In the Company of Snipers Book 3) (6 page)

“I’ve been reading the ME’s report,” David continued quietly. “It listed an identifying mark on her arm, so I asked to see the body.”

Zack peered through the magnifying glass, following the tip of David’s ballpoint pen to what looked like a black splotch on the arm of the remains.

“What am I looking at?” As much as he respected his senior agent, David’s method of always making a man come up with his own conclusions was aggravating, especially at times like this.

“What does it look like to you?” David persisted.

“I don’t know.”
Just spit it out. I need to get out of here.

The longer Zack looked, the edgier he got. Fish had nibbled these tiny hands. The fingernails were gone. No toes remained on her feet. He couldn’t even begin to look at her face. The cold smell of death in the morgue had thoroughly squashed any good feeling left from his visit with Chai. She could have ended up on another tray in the same morgue.

Tears blurred his vision. He gritted his teeth and willed them away.

Focus, Lennox. You’re a Marine. You’ve seen worse.

“Look again.” David pulled the magnifying glass closer. “Tell me what you think you see.”

Damn it, David. Spit it out. Tell me what I’m looking at, so I can get—

Zack looked closer. “What the hell?”

“You see it now, don’t you?”

“On a child this small? Why? How?” Zack looked again, disbelieving his eyes. This baby had been marked all right with what looked like a black dragon tattoo.

“Chai is very lucky you found her when you did.” David nodded sadly.

“Does the ME have a COD?”

“Not exactly. This little one has been in the water too long. Agent Xing was right. There’s no way to know cause of death for sure,” David said. “I’m headed back to the hospital and then to the foster family who has Zhen Ting. I want to know if she and Chai have been marked, too. What about you?”

“I think I’ve tracked the gentleman down who pulled Zhen Ting out of the garbage. He hangs out at the men’s rescue mission over in Anacostia. Thought I’d buy him dinner and see what he can tell me. Madam Mim didn’t seem to think that was important, but I do. Who knows?”

David rolled his eyes at Zack’s description of Agent Xing. “I’m surprised you know who Mad Madam Mim is.”

“I’ve got a kid sister,” Zack explained. “She’s fifteen years younger. I watched a lot of Disney before I joined the Corps. Xing and Mim have a lot in common, only I think Mim might be nicer.”

“We have another problem.” David lowered his voice as the ME covered the small corpse and removed the tray. “Alex is on his way back from Seattle.”

“Already?” Zack groaned. “Wasn’t he supposed to be gone all week?”

“Apparently ATF Director Carducci has some clout in Congress after all,” David said. “The boss has been targeted for a Senate investigation. He’s scheduled to appear before a committee in the Russell Senate Building later this week.”

“Damn.” Zack didn’t know what else to say. Alex was probably cursing him at this very minute. “He only left yesterday. When’s he due in?”

“Seven-thirty tonight.”

“Damn,” Zack repeated. Could things get any worse?

“Be careful, Zack,” David warned. “I have a very bad feeling.”

“Who wants to know?”

Marty was smelly, whiskered, tipsy, and suspicious. It seemed his entire face squinted, his lips pursed together like he was thinking real hard when Zack caught up with him. “Do I know you, young fella?”

“No, sir. You don’t. Name’s Zack Lennox.” When the man didn’t accept his handshake, Zack sat on the fold-up cot with him. “I was hoping I could buy you dinner in exchange for your story of how you found the little girl the other night.”

“What little girl?” His shaggy brows crinkled in suspicion. “Do I know you?” he asked again. “You look kinda familiar.”

Zack sighed. Maybe this was a waste of time. Hagatha might be right. “The little Chinese girl you found in the dumpster behind the IGA store. Remember her?”

Another swipe over his face, and Marty blinked a few times. “Oh. Her. I get kinda confused. I used to have my own little girl, ya know. Leastways, I think I did. Sometimes, I ain’t too sure ’bout nuthin’ no more.”

“Come on.” Zack offered a hand up. “A good hot meal will help you remember. What do you say?”

Marty pulled his hand away like Zack had just bit it. “I ain’t going nowhere. They’ll give my bed to someone else. Where will I sleep then?”

“Nah.” Zack pulled Marty to his feet. “I’ll put in a good word for you. They’ll hold it.”

“You sure?” He looked across the huge room where a hundred or so cots were set up in rows for another night of shelter from the cold. “Boy, I sure hope you’re right. It’s awful cold to be sleeping on a park bench. A fella could get his fingers froze off, if’n he don’t wake up dead.”

“Don’t worry.” Zack helped Marty into the threadbare green and black plaid jacket laying on his cot. “They’ll hold it or they’ll have to answer to me.”

“Eh, eh, eh.” Marty’s eyes twinkled. “You must be darned important if you think they’s going to listen to you.”

They were at the entrance door where a swarthy man stood checking the transients and less fortunate as they came in for a night of warm food and sleep.

“You’ll hold my friend’s bed until he gets back, won’t you?” With those words, Zack pressed a couple bills into the man’s hand. He nodded once, and Zack led Marty out into the frosty November night. An early winter storm was blowing in off the Atlantic, kicking the last of the autumn leaves out of the gutter. Marty was right. A man could freeze out here.

“Br-r-r.” Marty pulled his jacket tighter. “Gonna be a cold one. Folks are gonna die tonight if’n they ain’t careful.”

Together they walked across the street to the Fishmonger’s Diner where Zack knew he could get a decent meal and hopefully, a private conversation. It was one of Jake’s hangouts, a train car-sized Mom and Pop joint right next to Fat Larry’s Tavern.

“Howdy, Stan.” Marty flashed a high-five to the man exiting the diner.

Stan grumbled and kept on going, flashing nothing back but a whiskered sneer.

Zack steered Marty to the corner table farthest from the door. Setting diagonal to the corner, it avoided the draft while offering the best view of everyone eating, serving, coming and going. He took the corner chair and positioned Marty in the chair to his left, not that the old guy was concerned with covering his back. Zack lived by the simple rule of every sniper. Watch everyone.

The waitress was quick with their glasses of water, and quicker when Zack ordered a round of beers, two large bowls of Fishmonger’s specialty, their homemade oyster chowder, and triple-decker sandwiches stacked high with cheese and turkey.

“Will that be all?” she asked politely after she’d delivered the spread.

“How about the biggest slice of pumpkin pie in the house?” Zack clapped a hand on Marty’s shoulder. “My friend’s a little hungry.”

“Coming right up, Hon.”

Marty chuckled, rubbing a quick hand over his thinning hair. “You keep being so nice ta me, and folks are gonna think you’re my kid or something.”

“You got kids?” Zack doffed his leather jacket, letting it slump to the back of his chair.

The old man nodded, working his jaw like he needed to keep his dentures in place. “Yeah. Two. Leastways, I think I only had the two.” He scratched the end of his red chapped nose. “’Course, I been on the road awhile now. Ain’t seen ’em much lately.”

“Well, dig in.” Zack sliced his sandwich in half, keeping an eye on Marty. The old man was hungry, licking his lips when he already had a mouthful. After the first bowl of chowder was nearly gone, Zack signaled the waitress for another.

It was at the end of Marty’s first sandwich that he turned with his mouth half-full. “I wasn’t always like this, ya know.”

Zack didn’t respond. Tonight was Marty’s night to fill his stomach and talk.

“No, sir,” he rambled as he tore off another chunk of bread and turkey with his teeth. “I was gonna be an engineer, was gonna be rich and work for NASA.”

Empathy swelled Zack’s heart. He knew this kind of man well. Marty was one of so many lost souls along the waterfront. His eyes might be rheumy from too many years on the bottle, but his heart was solid gold. Maybe around sixty or sixty-five, gray-haired and missing a couple teeth, he was no more than a scarecrow in a two-bit pair of worn out jeans that someone at the local rescue mission had probably given him. His thin jacket was worthless in the bitter North Virginia weather. Winter wouldn’t be any kinder.

“That little gal weren’t like you and me,” he muttered between spoonfuls of chowder and sandwich. “She had real pretty eyes, kinda slanted like them boat-people back in the seventies. She only peeked ’em open once, but they was real purdy brown.” Another couple spoonfuls and he continued, “And she had short black hair. Her lips were kinda blue, ya know, cuz she was so cold. When I first seen her, I just figured she was a doll someone throwed away. She was dirty and she weren’t moving at all.”

The baby at the morgue flashed into Zack’s mind, another cold little body. At least he’d found Chai Yenn in time. Somehow, it didn’t ease the fact that the other child had suffered. But why were they all Chinese girls? The Wicked Witch of the West might be right. The operation smelled more and more like a child trafficking ring at work.

“’Course, then she kinda cried.” Marty stared across the counter, his mind a million miles away. “She reminded me of...another little girl who...I mighta known....” A drip of cream-colored soup spilled over his bottom lip. The moment stretched.

At last Marty shook his head. “There’s just something about a little girl crying that gets to me right here, ya know?” He pumped a weathered fist against his chest, his voice tight and hoarse. “That little baby doll needed me, and I was dang glad I was there. There she was with coffee grounds smeared all over her, and what was I gonna do, huh?”

Defiance glistened in the old man’s eyes, as if he needed to justify who he was and what he’d done. Zack nodded, his heart full of compassion. Yeah. Marty had seen better days a long, long time ago. It was hard not to like the old guy. He could’ve walked away that night, and Zhen Ting would’ve never been found, but he didn’t. That made him a hero. A drunk maybe, but in Zack’s book a hero just the same.

“So what happened next?” Zack prodded gently.

Marty lifted the bowl to his mouth and slurped the last of the soup down before wiping his lips with the back of his hand. “Well, umm, let me think.”

Zack waved the waitress over for another bowl. “You’re still hungry, aren’t you, Marty?”

The old fellow’s eyes lit up. He dunked half of his sandwich in the next bowl of chowder and ate most of it before he continued his tale. “Well, ya see, I had a hold of her real careful like, cuz I weren’t sure if she was hurt, you know what I mean? I grabs up a dirty blanket and I wraps it around her, and I was standing there wondering what the heck was I gonna do next. I mean, what’s folks gonna say when they sees me with a tiny little thing like her? I’m just an old drunk–a nobody. Ain’t no one gonna ever believe a guy like me.”

Zack nodded encouragingly, but that seemed to pique Marty’s indignation.

“Well, I’ll tell ya what folks are gonna do. Them punks at the IGA don’t like guys like me rummaging around the dumpsters. They likes to use us for slingshot practice when they catches us. Heck.” Marty peeled his coat and shirtsleeve down, exposing two round black welts on his upper arm. “Look it here, will ya? One of them boys shot me. I don’t figure it was a slingshot that time. Sounded more like some kinda gun, it did. They coulda kilt me. It coulda been me laying in that stinking dumpster.”

Zack listened and waited. Marty needed to eat. He’d get to the rest of his story as soon as he remembered.

“So I says to myself, I says, Marty, ya gots to do what’s right this time. Ya can’t worry about yerself when there’s a little girl what needs your help.” He nodded in self-satisfaction. “Yep. That’s what I said. I was standing there, and it was getting colder and colder, but I knew what I had to do. Yessirree. So I clumb outta the dumpster, holding the baby real careful over my shoulder so’s I wouldn’t bump her poor little noggin, and I walks right in through the front door of the IGA store, and you know what I said?”

Zack shook his head slightly. Marty had a determined glint in his eye.

“Well, let me tell you what I said.” He tore off another mouthful of sandwich. “I walks up to the first checkstand and I says real loud, ‘I needs help, and I needs it right now’.” He thumped his fist to the table. “I did. Yes, I did. That’s exactly what I said, and I’ll tell you what. You coulda heard a pin drop in the place. Everyone was lookin’ at me like I was crazy, only then my poor little baby doll starts moving and fussing, and everyone runs up to see what I found.”

“And they helped you?”

Marty nodded. “You better believe they did. The next thing I know, the police are there and an ambulance too, and them doctor guys are taking real good care of my baby, and they got warm blankets, and—” His eyes misted. “And the poor little gal didn’t even cry one peep when they stuck that needle thing in her arm.”

A tear slipped over his whiskered face and fell onto his empty plate. “My poor baby girl,” he sobbed, wiping his face. “She was too sick to cry even when them nice guys was hurting her.”

“It’s okay.” Zack said. “You saved her life.”

“Yeah.” Marty ran a gnarled hand over his eyes before he stuffed the last of his sandwich into his mouth and started on his pumpkin pie. “That’s what everyone was saying. The police came, and they was asking me where I found her, and they gave me a drive to the station, and they was all real nice to me that night. One of them officers even gave me his jacket, you know. Them really warm winter jackets with fur collars?”

“That’s the least they could do.” Zack noticed the old guy wasn’t wearing the warm jacket anymore. The thin waffle weave plaid covering his shirt was definitely not police issue.

“The next night I went back to the store. You know what them mean boys did?” Marty wrangled one of his feet up far enough so Zack could see it. “They all pitched in and they bought me these here boots. Look it. Ain’t they nice?”

“Yes, sir. They look real warm.”

“They is. They really is. And they gave me a big bag of warm socks and something called protein bars. And they said I was their hero. I ain’t never been called a hero before.”

“Is there anything else you can think of? Did you understand anything the little girl said?” Zack asked patiently. He’d flagged the waitress for another slice of pie.

“Nah, that’s all there was to it, know what I mean?” Marty stared off in a daze. “She was almost dead, poor little thing. Poor baby.”

“You’re a real good man. You did a great thing saving her like you did.”

“I did, huh?”

Zack peered into the old man’s humble eyes. “She’s in a good foster home right now. Her name is Zhen Ting. It means ‘precious treasure’. You found a precious treasure in the trash that night.”

“Well, I’ll be darned. Precious treasure, huh? Zhen Ting, did you say? That’s a real pretty name for a pretty little tyke.” Marty was lost again as he stared past the fork in his hand. “I really helped this one. Didn’t I?”

“You sure did.” Zack thumped his back gently. The old man didn’t get much encouragement on the streets. A kind touch from a friend meant a lot.

“I remember something else, now you mention it. She had something in her little mitt.” He dug down deep into his dirty shirt pocket and handed a small item to Zack.

Zack held it up to the light. It was an ordinary, black, four-holed button. “She had this in her hand when you pulled her out of the trash?” He turned the button over before he stuck it safe inside his own shirt pocket.

“Yeah. She looked like a little prizefighter with her hand all clenched up in a fist, kinda like she was ready ta punch me in the nose when I found her. Poor little squirt. Darn near forgot about it. Guess I shoulda gave it to the cops, I reckon, huh?” Marty looked expectantly into Zack’s face. The soup was gone, along with the sandwiches and pie.

“You ready to get back to the shelter, my friend?” Zack asked.

“Not yet.” Marty stared at Zack, waiting and hopeful. “I might meet up with some guys. They might need some help. You know how it is.”

Marty sounded a lot like Jake, always working an angle if it meant there was the smallest possibility of a drink in his immediate future.

“Like I said, you’re a good man. You ever need anything, and I mean anything, you give me a call, okay?” With that, Zack tucked a couple of bills into the old man’s shirt pocket along with his business card. “Where’s that nice warm coat the police gave you?”

“Ahh.” Marty’s eyes roamed around the diner while he patted his pocket. “I’m thinking it’s around here somewhere. You know how it goes in my line of work.”

Marty’s line of work, as he put it, was a hard way to live. Who knew where the coat was by now? Hopefully, he’d spent at least one warm night in it. “You hang onto my card, and call me, okay?”

Marty nodded. “You bet I will.”

Zack motioned for the waitress one last time, sliding a couple large bills across the counter to her. “Will you get my friend here another piece of pumpkin pie, ma’am? I’d be much obliged.”