M-9 by Marvin J. Wolf

Author:Marvin J. Wolf [Wolf, Marvin J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Rambam Press
Published: 2019-08-19T22:00:00+00:00

Sixty-two

Chelmin parked his rental car under a large, bare tree near the edge of a small city park across the street and a hundred meters or so down the block from Cheryl’s apartment. He had made much better time than expected from San Bernardino and was forty minutes earlier than Cheryl expected him. As he got out of the Ford, an old Chevrolet turned the corner behind him and burned rubber. Just before it blew past him, Chelmin hopped sideways out of the car’s path. He looked up to see a Latino youth giving him the finger.

When the car disappeared around the far corner, Chelmin walked slowly and deliberately up the street, glancing around the unfamiliar neighborhood and glad for the chance to stretch his legs. His stump rarely bothered him if he was walking. Kneeling, squatting, climbing stairs, and anything that required him to use the muscles in his thigh for unusual purposes put strains on the stump. But a prosthesis was much better than a wheelchair, Chelmin reminded himself.

At the end of the block, he paused and looked around. Something was wrong. It was a feeling. A slow scan of the street, illuminated by sodium vapor streetlights, and then the park, yielded no visible threat. Chelmin was left with a vague but palpable feeling of unease.

I’m getting jumpy, he told himself. Too many gun battles for a man his age. Shoot, for any man.

He carried two phones now. One was for Cheryl, the other was for all else. So, he was surprised when Cheryl’s phone rang. He didn’t recognize the caller’s number, so he let the call go to voicemail. He retrieved the message: A man with a thick Spanish accent asking, in English, to speak with someone named Henry, then hanging up without leaving more of a message. A wrong number, Chelmin thought. Perhaps Henry was the person who had used the number before he got it. No matter. He put it out of his mind.

A moment later, his other phone rang: FBI Special Agent Blair, in San Bernardino.

“You’re working late,” Chelmin said, by way of a greeting.

“I’m headed home,” Blair replied. “Hey, I’ve got something on Malone and Cardenas.”

“I’m all ears,” Chelmin said.

“They did spend some time in the same boot camp unit in San Diego. But Cardenas didn’t graduate.”

“He was kicked out? An entry-level discharge?”

“No, a medical. He got a stress fracture in one leg, his tibia, during the seventh week of training. What we used to call shin splints. He was on light duty for six weeks, and when he returned to duty, he was recycled—sent to another unit that was starting its training cycle. That’s where he might have met Malone. They were in the same unit, but I can’t tell if they were in the same platoon or the same squad.

“Anyway, Cardenas was in that company only another six weeks. Then he fractured his other tibia, and after rehab, he was offered a medical discharge. He took it, and about a year later, he started in the Orange County Sheriff’s Academy.

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