Mind's Eye by Douglas E. Richards Page B

there, and the man who was with her.”
    “Why?”
    “There was a double murder less than an hour before you arrived at the motel. And these two were both involved.” Vasily sighed. “I know it’s unusual to visit you in the dead of night like this. But every minute we don’t apprehend these two, the trail grows colder.”
    Garcia shrugged. “There’s nothing to tell. The girl had had an accident with a pair of scissors—stabbed herself in the leg. It was actually pretty minor. They really shouldn’t have called us. We stayed for a few minutes to make sure she was going to be okay, and then we left. Altogether, we couldn’t have exchanged more than a sentence or two, all of it medically related.”
    Vasily considered. A scissor wound didn’t sound likely. He would have guessed a gunshot wound. But it was possible that after she or Hall had shot his men, one of them had managed to stab her with scissors before bleeding out.
    “Where did you take them?” asked Radich.
    “We didn’t. The girl was fine. So we just left.” He paused. “If you check the hospital log, it will show that we never brought them in.”
    “ Why are you lying to us? ” said Vasily ominously.
    “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
    “We have a witness who saw them enter the back of the ambulance.”
    Garcia looked flustered, but recovered quickly. “They did,” he said. “We had them in the back for a few minutes while we were working on the girl. But then they returned to their room.”
    Vasily glanced at the television to see if Delamater wanted to jump in, but it was clear he was willing to let Vasily continue at this point. “Mr. Garcia, we don’t have to rely on eyewitnesses. I can play the satellite footage of what went on outside of the motel if you would like. Showing them leaving in your ambulance.”
    This last was a bluff, but Vasily was sure it wouldn’t be called. He had no idea why Garcia was being so uncooperative. He was sure the man now believed they were with the FBI. They could have easily beaten the information out of him, but given their cover they had assumed he’d give it to them willingly. And the current body count was already sure to be attracting enough unwanted attention.
    Vasily leaned in toward the paramedic menacingly. “Frankly, Mr. Garcia, I’m having trouble understanding why you’re lying to us about this. These people are dangerous criminals. On the loose. Do you know what obstruction of justice is?”
    The big Russian allowed this to sink in for a few seconds. “If the next words out of your mouth aren’t the truth, you’re going to become intimately familiar with this term. And jail time.”
    Garcia took a deep breath. “Okay, okay. I’ll tell you the truth. The truth is the girl had a gunshot wound, not a scissors wound. When we got there, the guy with her forced us to work on her. At gunpoint.”
    “Now we’re getting somewhere,” commented Delamater dryly from the TV. “Why wouldn’t you want to tell us about this?”
    “The guy told us everyone was after him. Trying to kill him. And he warned us that if we went to the authorities we’d probably end up dead ourselves. He said the people after him would kill anyone whose paths he had crossed.”
    “And you believed him?” said Vasily.
    “I didn’t know what was going on. But there was something persuasive about him. He threatened us repeatedly, but there was something about him,” he said, holding out his hands helplessly, as if unable to find the right words. “Like, I don’t know . . . like he was a decent guy who was at the end of his rope. Like the type who wouldn’t willingly hurt anyone.”
    “You do realize,” said Delamater, “that this guy is a paranoid schizophrenic. Thinking the entire world is trying to kill you. Nothing about that suggested paranoia to you?”
    “There was more to him than that,” said Garcia. He hesitated. “He had some . . . unusual . . . characteristics. Hard to