Samurai Game

Page 21

“What are you working on now? Catch me up.” He picked up the file sitting in front of Gator and flipped it open to study the contents.
Ryland looked around at his men with his steel gray piercing eyes. “We’ve got a problem, I’m certain of it. Two people suspected of being in Whitney’s employ dropping dead might be a coincidence, but three? No way. And the woman, the witness, Sheila Benet, at two out of the three accidents? We’re missing something here.” He turned his attention to Sam. “These are reports of deaths that have been ruled accidental. None of them raised an alarm anywhere else, but my gut tells me something’s definitely off. We flagged two of these people at least two years ago and the third, Major Art Patterson, we put on our watch list about three months ago.”
Sam’s eyebrow shot up. “Patterson worked on the general’s watch. They got into a thing a while back and he told me he was concerned about the man. He actually said he was keeping ‘the enemy’ close.”
Ryland nodded. “It was the general who put Patterson’s name on the watch list.”
“We’ve got both Flame and Jaimie tracking this woman Sheila Benet, finding out everything they can about her,” Kadan added. “It’s way too much of a coincidence.”
Sam scanned the medical reports of the three victims Ryland mentioned. A woman appeared to have died by slipping on water in a bathroom and hitting her head on the sink at an infamous nightclub. The second incident was a man dying in a car accident, his car going off the road on a remote mountain highway. The third, Major Patterson, lost his life in a restaurant, apparently dying of anaphylactic shock in front of a host of witnesses.
“I’ve studied all the reports,” Kadan added. “I went over both the investigating officer’s and coroner’s reports meticulously. They look like straight-up accidents, all three of them, but something is off. My gut doesn’t lie and it’s screaming at me.”
Nicolas “Nico” Trevane looked up from where he was cleaning weapons. “I’m in agreement.” He was a big man, half Native American, half Japanese, and all lethal. “But how could any of these have been anything but an accident?”
Sam scanned the report of the army officer a second time, his mouth going dry. He moistened his lips, his pulse beginning to race. He wished he hadn’t gotten up after all.
“Sam?” Ryland frowned at him. “Do you need to lie down?”
There it was. His out. Hell, yeah, he needed to lie down. He swallowed down his need to protect Azami and cleared his suddenly clogged throat. “The medical examiner’s notes on Major Patterson’s throat seemed pretty significant to me.” Why the hell did this seem like such a betrayal? His loyalty was solidly with his team—his brothers. He would protect Daniel at any cost.
“Spit it out, Sam,” Ryland ordered. “Why would you think that bruising was significant when the ME mentions he had a known allergy to peanuts and the bruising is in the shape of a peanut. The death was ruled accidental.”
Sam nodded his head, reluctant to continue, but loyalty demanded he do so. “He didn’t find a peanut in his body anywhere.”
Kadan leaned forward. “But it’s possible that when he was choking he coughed it out.”
“I’m just speculating that maybe he didn’t eat a peanut,” Sam persisted, hating himself. This was far more difficult than he’d thought it would be. “The woman who lunched with him said he didn’t eat anything with peanuts. He knew he had an allergy. It’s just a thought.”
“You’ve got a point,” Nico said. “That bothered me as well.”
“His airway could have swollen closed,” Gator said. “With the bruisin’, it would have been natural and there were signs of swellin’. All the witnesses said he was chokin’.”
“But the ME said there were inconsistencies. Anaphylactic shock usually isn’t quite so fast. His EpiPen was nowhere on his body and his colleagues said he always carried one,” Kadan said, his voice thoughtful.
Ryland regarded Sam through half-closed eyes. That sleepy look didn’t deceive Sam for a minute. The man was sharp and he knew Sam wasn’t finished. He simply waited for more of an explanation.
Sam had it to do. Give her up. Azami. I’m sorry. But that wouldn’t cut it. How could she forgive such a thing? Telling his team about her weapons would only force her to answer more questions about herself.
He shook his head, tossed the medical report back in front of Gator, and looked around the room. “It’s possible that someone, using a blowgun, shot a tiny dart into the major’s mouth, poisoning him. The delivery system, no more than peanut-size, could have dissolved. If he wasn’t looking for it, the ME may have missed a very fine needle mark.” He drummed on the table with restless fingers. “If I were an assassin, I would have learned everything about my targets and I would have found out Patterson had a severe allergy to peanuts. If I could deliver the toxin to him, no one would ever know it was anything but an accident, just like the other two.”
There. It was done. He looked around for a glass of water. Tucker had a water bottle unopened in front of him. He snagged it and chugged nearly half of it.
“A delivery system that dissolves?” Ryland echoed. “It’s possible.”
Kadan and Nico exchanged a long look. Finally Kadan shook his head. “Do you have any idea how accurate one would have to be to use a blowgun in full view of the public and hit someone in the mouth when they were talking? The chances of anyone having that kind of skill are nearly impossible.”
He’d given her up. He damn well wasn’t going any further until he had a chance to talk to her. Sam remained silent. He felt like hell, both mentally and physically. He was beginning to sweat again. He tried not to move, the pain from his wound just waiting for the smallest shift of his body to assert itself.
“You make impossible shots in high winds,” Gator pointed out. “It’s not like it couldn’t be done.”
Nico shook his head. “It’s not the same thing. You’re talking about hitting inside the mouth. I could put a bullet in the mouth, but it wouldn’t matter if it was opened or closed. You’d have to time it perfectly. And this was done in a crowded restaurant.”
“Impossible,” Kyle “Ratchet” Forbes agreed. Slightly under six feet, with blue eyes and a medium build, his looks were deceptive. He was abnormally strong and a genius with explosives as well as being a doctor. “No one would try it in a crowded room in a public situation. If they missed . . .”
“But maybe they don’ miss,” Gator said, reluctant to give up on the mystery theory. He looked toward Sam for confirmation.
Sam couldn’t say another word. The room shifted a little, the floor rolling. He was grateful for the chair he was sitting in.
“If you’re assassinating someone, you don’t want a maybe,” Kadan pointed out.
Kyle grinned and gave a little shrug. “There’s that, of course. You’d have to be absolutely confident in yourself to try something like that.”
“Maybe a tribesmen from the lost tribes in the Amazon came a-visitin’,” Gator said with a small laugh.
“I could do it with a knife,” Jonas “Smoke” Harper said into the silence. Lithe, medium height with blond hair and Florentine gold eyes, he was a quiet, highly intelligent man who could have been a master thief. He was an undisputed master with knives. “It would be difficult, but with enough practice, and studying my mark, I’d be able to know his mannerism’s, the way he moves, the little things that give people away when they’re talking.”
“You could hit a man from across the room inside his mouth with a knife?” Kyle asked, half skeptic, half awed believer.
Jonas nodded. “I know I could.” Jonas had grown up throwing knives with a circus family, he’d practically been born with a knife in his hand.
“Really?” Kyle’s eyebrow went up. He leapt up and raced out of the room.
“He’s up to somethin’, Smoke, you’d better watch out,” Gator advised Jonas in his slow Cajun drawl.
The men erupted into laughter. Jonas shrugged and took out one of the many knives he carried most of the time. Around the room on various walls hung well-used targets, testimony to the fact that when idle, Jonas threw knives and was very accurate.
Nico held up his hand. “Let’s think about this. If we’re really going with the assassination theory, the bathroom and the car accidents are very doable. Any assassin worth his salt could rig a car, or make the hit in a secluded bathroom. It’s just the major’s death that’s harder to figure out, right?”
Kadan nodded. “And yet, of all three, his death seems the least likely to be an accident.”
Kyle slipped back into the room, a huge grin on his face. He plopped a can of peanuts down on the table in front of Jonas. “Let’s see.”
Gator nearly leapt over the table. “I want to try. Hand a few peanuts to me.” He didn’t wait but scooped a handful out of the can.
“I said I could hit the target with a knife,” Jonas said, holding up a wicked-looking two-inch throwing knife. “Start talking and let’s see if I can time it just right.”
Kyle threw a peanut at Jonas’s mouth as he spoke. The peanut hit him on the bridge of Jonas’s nose. War erupted. Team members scooped up peanuts and flicked, threw, and chewed the nuts, laughing uproariously. Through it all, Sam was very aware that Ryland remained silent. Hard knots formed in Sam’s belly. He knew Ryland. The man didn’t lead the team because he was stupid. Those piercing gray eyes were locked onto his face. Steady. Unblinking. Sam remained stubbornly silent, making him ask if he wanted any more information.
The room spun a little and he almost hoped he’d just faint and get it over with. He’d never live down an actual faint if it happened. For the rest of his life, Gator and Tucker would dramatically fall to the floor in an adaptation, swooning at every opportunity to remind him, but it might be worth avoiding Ryland’s questions. Sam gripped the table hard to keep from swaying. He became aware of the throbbing, pulsing pain in the region of his gut every time he moved. He’d been able to block it before, keeping the pain to a nagging ache, but now his pulse seem to keep time with that lurching, pounding wound in his abdomen.
Ryland heaved a sigh. “You’re one obstinate son of a bitch, Sam. Is there a reason why you’re not coughing up all the information?”
The other men stopped their antics, although Gator stuffed another handful of peanuts into his mouth, crunching while they all waited for his answer.
Sam shrugged. “I saw Ms. Yoshiie use a blowgun in combat. It was very small and I realized, when I read the report, that a small blowgun would fit into a man’s hand easily and if he was good enough, he might be able to deliver poison to the back of a throat.”
Now he couldn’t gracefully exit. He had to hear what that revelation brought. Just because Azami had a blowgun didn’t mean anything. Hell, he was probably going to faint if he stood up and made an exit anyway.
“You don’ look so good.” Gator’s voice was suddenly concerned. “Tucker, let’s get him out of here.”
“I’m fine.” If they were going to discuss reasons for Azami to have a blowgun, he wanted to hear every word. Sadly, even sounds were fading in and out. He looked around the room, saw mouths moving, but he couldn’t hear a word.
Ryland suddenly stood, as did most of his teammates. Tucker and Gator reached him first, supporting his large frame with strength.
“You’re done, Knight,” Ryland said. “Take him back to his room. I’ll send for Lily.”
He didn’t have the strength to protest and in any case, when Ryland spoke in that tone, no one disobeyed him.