Slim To None. Taylor Smith
weapon, a Beretta nine millimeter semi-automatic, just like the one she’d been trained to use when she became a cop. No matter what equipment her employer made available, she never went out on a job without her own gun, the one she kept cleaned and oiled, the one she knew would never fail in a pinch.
That kind of security was especially critical here. Only a fool walked around Baghdad unarmed. Insurgents and snipers had a habit of popping up at the most inconvenient times. No point in getting shot stupidly.
The graveled rooftop was in darkness, lit only by the ambient light of the surrounding city. She stepped cautiously over the threshold, keeping the door propped open behind her in case she needed to beat a quick retreat, pausing to let her eyes adjust to the dark.
A low murmur sounded from different directions around her, the words indistinguishable but overlapping, the voices clearly engaged in separate conversations. She squinted until she made out four figures scattered around the rooftop, all of them up there for the same reason she was—to get a clear shot at one of the orbiting communications satellites that would bounce their telephone calls to far-flung home bases.
Suddenly, the night air shook with the boom of a mortar round landing somewhere nearby. Conversations paused, then went on as if nothing has happened. Hannah smiled grimly. They were a gutsy bunch, these people who chose to work in the world’s hot spots.
The figure closest to her she recognized, their path shaving crossed in previous strife-tornlocales. The woman worked for National Public Radio, and by the sound of it, she was calling in a story. Spotting Hannah, the reporter gave her a wave.
Hannah nodded back and closed the door to the stairwell, heading for her own isolated patch to place her call. She found an empty corner and set her satellite phone case down on the low wall that ran the perimeter of the rooftop. Then, she paused again as the scents of the city rose to meet her.
There was a particular smell to the Middle East, one as familiar and comforting as her grandmother’s cooking. Even now, years since those summer visits, the smell of lemons and oranges, garlic and ginger, or olive groves and the sea instantly sent her back in her mind to a safe, warm place where loving arms had always opened to welcome her.
Here in landlocked Baghdad, however, there were no salty sea breezes to temper the desert heat or damp down the powder-fine, pervasive yellow sand that insinuated itself into ears and noses and every other bodily crevice. And if the smell of spices and cooking fires drifted on the night air as they did in so many other cities of Hannah’s memory, here the scent was tinged with the acrid sting of weapons fire and explosives recently detonated.
Hannah ducked low behind the parapet as she flicked on the sat phone, directing the antenna southwest toward the Indian Ocean regional satellite. Leaning back against the wall, she scanned nearby rooftops for possible snipers as she dialed the Los Angeles number of her ex-husband.
Normally, in the Middle East’s hot summers, parents and children gravitated to rooftops and balconies in the evening, dragging out mattresses to make their nighttime beds, eager to catch the slightest breeze. These days, however, sleeping outdoors in Baghdad could prove suicidal. Four months after the capital had fallen to coalition forces and major hostilities had been declared over, the streets were still deserted and dangerous at night. No one ventured out after curfew except military patrols and the insurgents trying to kill them. Even peeking out a taped-up window could invite a bullet or rocket-propelled grenade.
Hannah glanced at her watch. It was late afternoon back in L.A. Gabe had been attending a summer day camp in the Santa Monica mountains, but it had finished a week earlier. Now he was supposed to be enjoying a few lazy days before heading off to third grade at Dahlby Hall, the exclusive private school he attended, where classes were due to resume the Tuesday after Labor Day. As always, Hannah’s presence at his first day of school was neither required nor encouraged.
She closed her eyes as a wave of guilt and anger passed over her. It wasn’t right that another woman got to see her child over these milestones. For two years now, Cal’s wife had been taking Gabe to his dentist appointments, his soccer games, his play dates and his friends’ birthday parties. Christie had been the one to read him the Harry Potter stories before tucking him into bed. It was Christie his teachers had called when Gabe had broken his arm in a fall from a schoolyard jungle gym.
When she was back in L.A., Hannah had her son on weekends, for two weeks in the summer and for alternate holidays, but how much longer would even that unsatisfying schedule last? Already she felt pressured to relinquish her visitation days on those occasions when Gabe was pulled between her and a chance at doing something special with his friends. It was no use making him feel guilty about it. That way lay only resentment. What was going to happen when he hit his teens and had a girlfriend or played team sports? How eager then would he be to pack up his bag and move for the weekend to his mother’s little condo across the city?
On the other side of the world, she heard the phone ring in Cal and Christie’s Mulholland Drive mansion. It picked up on the third ring and a Spanish-accented voice said, “Hello, Nicks residence.”
The satellite connection was as clear as if Hannah were calling from next door. She pictured Cal and Christie’s housekeeper standing by the phone in their massive granite and travertine kitchen. It overlooked a sprawling hillside garden with an infinity swimming pool that seemed to drop off the edge of the earth.
“Hello, Maria. This is Hannah, Gabe’s mother. Is he there?”
“Oh, hello, Miss Hannah. No, he’s not, I’m sorry,” the housekeeper said. “He just left with Mrs. Nicks to get some new shoes and his school uniforms.”
Even now, three years after Cal’s remarriage, it still grated to hear someone else besides his mother called “Mrs. Nicks.” It wasn’t that Hannah had an emotional attachment to her ex-husband’s name. She’d seriously considered going back to Demetrious after the divorce, but in the end, had decided against it. It wasn’t just the paperwork hassle. Sharing a name with her son seemed more important than severing that link to the man who’d cheated on her and then dumped her. God knew, she shared little enough with Gabe, the way things had worked out.
“They should be back in a couple of hours,” the housekeeper said. “Would you like Gabriel to call you when he gets in?”
Damn, damn, damn.
“No, I’m out of town on business and I’m going to be out of touch for a while. I’ll have to call back. Could you tell him I called and said I love him?”
“Yes, of course. I am sorry you missed him,” the housekeeper said.
“How’s he doing?”
“Oh, very good. He had some friends here for a sleepover last night. They put up the tent in the backyard and slept out there.” Maria laughed. “Mookie wanted to sleep with them, but the boys put her out. She had gone into the pool with them earlier and she was getting their sleeping bags all wet. And she smelled, Gabriel said.”
“Ah, yes, the ripe odor of wet border collie,” Hannah said, smiling. The puppy had been Cal and Christie’s gift on Gabe’s sixth birthday two years ago—a bribe, maybe, or a consolation prize. Lose your mom, gain a dog. A fair trade, right?
Whatever it was—the dog, the fabulous house, the new school and many friends—the strategy had obviously worked. Although Gabe had originally been unhappy with the changed custody arrangements, crying to move back with his mother, he clearly considered the Mulholland Drive mansion his home now and no longer even mentioned going back to living full-time with Hannah. Though he assured her he understood why the change had been necessary, she couldn’t help feeling she’d let him down—and that once more Cal, damn him, had ended up looking like the hero.
Hannah had met Calvin Nicks during her freshman year at UCLA. Barely eighteen years old when she arrived in Los Angeles from her parents’ home outside Chicago, she’d been swept off her feet by the handsome pre-law senior who lived down the hall from her dorm room. Being young and on her own for the first time was no excuse for her incredible stupidity about practical