Parker 05 - The Darkness (33 page)

We merged onto Central Park West, and several minutes later arrived at the Columbia campus. Jack paid the

driver and tucked the receipt into his wallet. We got out,

checking our pockets to make sure all our belongings had

arrived with us.

A few months back, I'd forgotten my wallet in a taxi,

and was dismayed to think I'd have to spend the whole

day in line at the DMV while explaining the situation to

my credit card companies and, worst of all, Wallace

Langston, who would need to order me a new corporate

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card. Yet just half an hour after realizing the gaffe, I

received an e-mail from a Mr. Alex Kolodej, the kindly

driver who'd found my wallet in the backseat of his cab,

put two and two together between my driver's license and

business card, and even drove by my office to drop the

wallet off.

He refused any sort of reward, and drove off with the

plain smile of a Good Samaritan.

Amanda, on the other hand, had forgotten her purse at

a bar just a few weeks ago, and returned home later that

night to find no less than twenty-five hundred dollars in

charges racked up. Ironically they were not at jewelry or

electronic stores, the bastion of people looking to make a

quick splurge with a stolen card, but rather from places like

Home Depot and Ace Hardware. A sign that whoever had

taken her bag was way behind on their home renovations.

A small thing perhaps, but I considered it a sign of the

times. For years, after the mayor and cops had cleaned

the city up, New York was known as one of the safest big

cities in the world. Like any city, of course you needed a

modicum of common sense, the knowledge that despite

this change if you wandered into the wrong neighborhood

at the wrong time you were playing Russian roulette.

But now, New York didn't feel quite as safe. There was

a constant tension, a thickness in the air, that something

combustible could ignite at any moment. There were too

many people out of work, too many people unable to afford

their homes, too many businesses hanging on for dear life.

And when a city is being stretched like a piece of taffy,

just the slightest bit of tension will cause it to snap.

The Columbia University department of history was

located in a building called Fayerweather Hall. It looked

like a building transported from Victorian England,

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redbrick and laced with intricate scrollwork. It felt as out

of place in Manhattan as I did several years ago.

We entered the building and the receptionist, a middleaged woman whose nameplate read Carolyn, directed us

to William Hollinsworth's office on the first floor. The

door to William Hollinsworth's office was wide open. I

entered first, Jack following me.

Hollinsworth was about forty years old, with a severe

crew cut and intense green eyes. His hair was specked with

gray, and he wore a pair of square-rimmed reading glasses

that sat on the tip of his nose. He wore a well-cut gray suit

jacket that did little to hide the taut frame underneath.

I'd met many athletes, cops and military personnel

over the years, and they fell into one of two categories.

Either they continued their fitness routines to a T after

leaving their vocation, or let themselves go entirely. Bill

Hollinsworth clearly had not let his post-military career

become a detriment to his fitness.

"Professor Hollinsworth?" I said.

He stood up, removed his glasses.

Hollinsworth was not a tall man, maybe five-ten or

eleven, but he stood up straight as an arrow and held his

shoulders back like he was expecting a salute.

"You must be Parker," he said. Jack had followed behind

me, and peeked his head out. "And Jack O'Donnell."

"It's a pleasure, sir." Jack extended his hand. Hollinsworth took it, shook it, then motioned for us to sit down.

Jack took his seat, and I noticed him rubbing his hand

and grimacing.

I closed the door to the professor's office, took a seat

as well, and glanced around the room.

The former Special Forces officer kept his office as

clean and free from excess debris as he kept his body. The

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bookshelves were all neatly aligned, every paper neatly

arranged. Even his in-and out-boxes, which were full,

somehow managed to be perfect examples of immaculate

care. There were no picture frames, no trinkets, no souvenirs, posters, awards or plaques. Nothing that led you to

believe that William Hollinsworth had anything in his life

but his work.

If the sign of a sick mind was a clean desk, then

William Hollinsworth was Hannibal Lecter.

The professor sat back down, folded his hands and

crossed his legs.

"Mr. Parker. Mr. O'Donnell. What can I do for you,

sirs?"

"Professor Hollinsworth," I said.

"Bill," he said with a smile. "I ask my students to call

me Professor Hollinsworth, so unless you've just applied

here to be an undergraduate I don't expect the same formalities from you, Mr. Parker."

"All right then, Bill, as we told your secretary, we're

here from the
New York Gazette.
"

"Carolyn did mention that to me, yes. What can I do

for you?"

"Twenty years ago, you were a member of a Special

Forces unit in Panama. Is that correct?"

Hollinsworth shifted in his chair. He clearly wasn't expecting this line of questioning.

"That's right," he said. "I was there for a little over a year."

"You were with Operational Detachment Bravo, along

with ten other men and women. Correct?"

"That's correct," he said, a hint of agitation dipping

into his voice. "Did you just come here to confirm things

we both already know?"

"Sorry to waste your time," I said, "but Mr. O'Don-276

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nell and I did some background research on you and your

squad before we came here. But we both know that what

you read in the newspapers and what you experience in

actual life can differ greatly."

"That's true. Fair enough."

"According to military records, you and three other

members of your squad were attacked by members of

Manuel Noriega's military deployment, the PDF, on

January sixth, nineteen-ninety. Is that right?"

Hollinsworth's eyes narrowed. He was no longer shifting but staring straight at me. I couldn't tell if he was

angry that I was dredging up old memories, glad that his

near-death experience was still a topic of discussion, or

furious to the point where he might rip my head off with

his bare hands.

"That's right."

"One man was killed that day. Chester Malloy." Hollinsworth nodded slowly, as his eyes softened.

"Were you close with Major Malloy?" Jack said suddenly. I turned to face him, but he was looking at Hollinsworth.

"I was," the man said. "Our whole unit, Bravo, we

trained together, fought together. I would have died for

any one of them. And I wish I had been able to. But..."

Then Hollinsworth trailed off.

"But what?" Jack said.

"I have no problem giving my life for my country, or

for one of my countrymen. But that day, we shouldn't

have been in a position for anyone to lose their life."

"Why not?" Jack said.

"We knew not to mess around with the PDF," Hollinsworth said. "A few weeks earlier, Second Lieutenant

Robert Paz was coming out of a restaurant in Panama

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City. He came across a PDF squad. He was alone. Now,

any smart man or woman would have had the common

sense to know when the right time is to fight, and that was

most certainly the wrong time. We never got an official

number, but civilian reports said that Lieutenant Paz was

outnumbered at least eight to one."

"He decided to fight," I said.

"Not fight," Hollinsworth said. "See, Paz was a member of a special unit nicknamed the 'Hard Chargers.'

Their job was to actively provoke the PDF, to incite them

either to violence against American troops or Panamanian

civilians."

"Why would they do that?" I asked.

"Because until then, we had no reason to go after

Noriega. Nothing official, anyway. Lots of innuendo, and

we knew for certain he was trafficking in enough drugs

to fill the Grand Canyon fifty times over. But you can't

overthrow every dictator that's dabbling in illegal goods.

If that was the case we'd be at war with half the known

world. No, we needed something more tangible. Something we could sell to citizens back home."

"That's where Paz came in."

Hollinsworth nodded slowly.

"It wasn't supposed to go like that, though. Hard

Chargers were never supposed to travel alone. Paz just

happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and

they recognized him."

"So they killed him," I said.

"Not immediately. Paz quickly realized that things

were going to get out of hand, so he tried to run. But

because the PDF had set up a legitimate roadblock, they

felt they were justified in killing him. That's the way

Noriega spun it. Have you heard of Franz Ferdinand?"

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"Of course," Jack said. "His assassination in Sarajevo

was the primary catalyst for World War I."

"That's right. Well, Robert Paz was our Archduke Ferdinand. Until December sixteenth, nineteen eighty-nine,

no members of the United States military had been killed

by Panamanian forces. When Lieutenant Paz was killed,

suddenly we had all the cause in the world. And on

December twentieth, the floodgates opened. We went

into Panama with a vengeance, and we took Noriega out

of power and that bastard has been rotting in prison ever

since."

"So how does this all play into Chester Malloy getting killed?"

Hollinsworth said, "Why are you so interested in this?

All of this happened almost twenty years ago and suddenly you want to know about it? I'm not buying it. What

else are you looking for, Mr. Parker?"

I looked at Jack. He said to Hollinsworth, "We finish

our interview, you can start interviewing us."

He pursed his lips, said, "Fair enough."

38

Morgan couldn't believe how fast his heart was pounding. Even when he used to snort a few lines at a club then

dance until his blood felt like lava, he couldn't remember

ever feeling quite like this. Those nights when he was

high, there was always a sense of floating above the

world, that the Morgan who was doing those things, saying those things, would wake up the next morning a different person.

The world didn't really count when you were out of

it. Everything you did could be explained. This, though,

there was no explaining it. No justifying it. If he accepted

what was being proposed right now, he would wake up

tomorrow the same Morgan Isaacs, remembering every

detail and never be able to wash it away.

Which is, perhaps, to his great surprise, the reason he

didn't feel the slightest hesitation.

The gun was heavier than he expected it to be. You

always saw movies where guys swung guns around like

they were made of tissue paper, aiming them sideways

and backward and doing cool tricks. Not this gun, though.

He held it in his hand, and it felt just fine.

"This is a Glock 36, .45 caliber handgun," Chester

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said. He was looking at Morgan with dead seriousness in

his face. Chester had been nice to him during the short

time he'd known the man. A good conversationalist, even

jokey at times, but right now Morgan got the feeling that

if he even cracked a smile Chester would throw him out

of the car.

They were driving uptown, passing by the glistening

Time Warner Center, the natural beauty of Central Park

on the right as they drove up Central Park West. Morgan

never spent a whole lot of time in the Park, or in any

sort of nature. When he wasn't behind a desk, he was

at home with a beer or at a club throwing back martinis

like they were iced tea. At first the idea of traveling all

over the city to hawk his wares worried him. What if

he didn't like it? What if he couldn't take all the time

on the subway, didn't want to deal with the asshole

who often paid with crinkled twenties and smelled like

dirty socks?

But when that money started rolling in, when he saw

the smile on Chester's face, Morgan knew he could hack

it, and hack it quite easily.

"You sure you can do this?" Chester said. His eyes

betrayed no sympathy; he was simply making sure that

Morgan was up to the task.

"Yes," he said emphatically. "I am."

"Well, all right then. Once we pull up to the building,

the office is number A17. You're going to walk straight

past the receptionist. If she gives you a hard time, just tell

her you're going to the bathroom. Her name is Carolyn.

Don't look at her, just walk right past and say, 'Just going