Predator: Cold War by Nathan Archer

Author:Nathan Archer [Archer, Nathan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science Fiction, Fiction, General, Science Fiction; American
ISBN: 9780553574937
Publisher: Spectra
Published: 1997-03-30T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter 17

Rasche sat at the breakfast table, reading the newspaper. The front-page headline was about the American ambassador to the U.N. publicly calling the Russian ambassador a liar and insisting that there were nukes being moved around illicitly in the arctic, but Rasche was more interested in the funnies-”For Better or For Worse” was his favorite.

He sipped coffee and looked up at the clock: 7:20. It would be three hours later in New York, the middle of the morning.

He lowered the paper. “Shaef never called back, did he?” he asked.

”No,” Shari said. She was standing at the sink, rinsing the kids’ breakfast dishes.

”That’s not like him,” Rasche said.

He’d tried calling Schaefer three or four times the night before and hadn’t gotten an answer.

He’d left a message on the machine at Schaefer’s apartment.

”Maybe he’s on a stakeout,” Shari suggested. “If he is, he could be gone for days.” She didn’t mention all the times Rasche had been gone for-days on stakeouts, or that there hadn’t been any since they had moved to Oregon.

”Maybe,” Rasche admitted. He smiled at Shari to show he wasn’t worried, that everything was fine and that he was happy to be out here in Bluecreek.

Then the smile vanished. “What the hell,” he said, ”I’ll give him another try.” He tossed the paper aside and reached for the wall phone. He knew Schaefer’s office number by heart.

Someone picked up on the fifth ring, and Rasche started to relax-but then he realized that the voice on the other end wasn’t Schaefer’s.

”Detective Schaefer’s office, Officer Weston speaking,” the voice said.

”Weston?” Rasche frowned. “This is Rasche-is Shaef around?”

”No, he.. .” Weston began. Then he recognized the name. “Rasche? My God, you haven’t heard?”

”Heard what?”

Shari looked up at the sudden change in the tone of her husband’s voice.

”Schaefer’s gone,” Weston explained. “His whole squad was wasted in a drug sting that went bad-we still don’t know what the hell went down, but we wound up with a van full of dead cops, three dead perps, a shitload of questions, and no Schaefer. Rawlings and Horshowski and a couple of techs bought the farm on this one.”

”What about Schaefer?” Rasche demanded. ”What do you mean, ‘no Schaefer’?” The possibility that Schaefer might have been included in the vanful of dead cops simply didn’t occur to Rasche. Schaefer couldn’t have died that way; it wasn’t his style.

”Schaef’s disappeared,” Weston said. “Gone without a trace. One reason I’m on his phone is in case someone calls with a lead.”

”Schaefer doesn’t just vanish,” Rasche said.

”He took off to Central America that time without telling anyone here,” Weston countered.

”Yeah, but he told me,” Rasche replied. “Look, check around his desk, will you? Appointment book, calendar, maybe he left some kind of note.”

”Jeez, Rasche, I don’t . : .” Weston didn’t finish the sentence; Rasche could hear, very faintly, the rustling of paper as Weston poked around on Schaefer’s desk.

”There’s some stuff about the sting,” Weston said at last, “and a note here on top with no explanation, just a couple of connected names .

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