Disclaimer: I don't own Human Target and intend no copyright infringement.
"Damn, this is grainy", Chance said, squinting at the black and white satellite photos Guerrero was showing him.
"1982, bro. Told you so." Guerrero handed Chance a magnifying glass.
"Yeah, great. Gray grains up close."
"Maybe this is like those paintings in that French museum with the glass pyramid? Those where you see nothing but dots when you're standing right in front of them, but if you take a couple of steps back suddenly you've got a landscape…", Ames mumbled absent-mindedly. She and Winston had been sifting through tons of computer data all morning, trying to track the substance that had almost killed Carmine back to its origin.
Penny Cleves was lying on a sofa in the back of the room, snoring away deeply. Maybe she was catching up on her beauty sleep after the long flight to Florida against the clock. Maybe Guerrero had tampered a little with the drink she had allowed herself after arriving at the hotel.
"You don't happen to know something about the Cezanne stolen from the Louvre a couple of years ago, do you, Ames?", Ilsa asked, voice raised in amused suspicion.
"Hey, I didn't even know the name of that museum till you mentioned it", Ames replied, making a show out of being completely focused on the data on the screen.
Both Chance and Guerrero grinned. Winston rolled his eyes. Ilsa gave a mock sigh of desperation, closed the file she had been studying and, by then grinning, too, joined the ex-thief and the ex-cop at the computer.
"She bought the mints from one of those shops where they have loose goods on display in huge jars and behind glass panes. A shop assistant filled them into the box for her." Ilsa opened the file and showed Ames and Winston the still from the shop's surveillance cam. Ames accessed the electronic file on her computer and let the video run.
Nothing suspicious – Penny Cleves came walking into the shop, ordered a medium-sized box of chocolate mints, the young woman behind the counter took a scoopful from the respective jar, put it into a box, named the price, Penny paid and left.
"The poisoned mints might have gotten into the box somewhere else", Ames suggested. Winston didn't react at all, not even with a grunt. He just urged her with a nod to play the video again.
"It's really difficult to get close enough to a woman's purse to pull that kind of stunt", Chance replied, still studying the satellite photos. "Almost impossible to access something inside and change its contents without getting noticed. Stealing or switching is easy, but adding something? And from the barcode we know that the box with the poisoned mints is exactly the same box that was bought at the shop."
A couple of years ago that comment would at least have sent a slight shiver down Ilsa's spine. The sentence spoke of experience in a somewhat darker context. By now, two shot thugs and numerous violations of the law later, she barely noticed its wider background. They all had tainted pasts.
"Stop right here", Winston told Ames just then. "There. You see that?" He was pointing at the young woman's upper arm. A tattoo was peeking out from underneath the short sleeve of her blouse.
"That's a navy tattoo. The eagle's tail feathers and part of the anchor that it is holding in its talons… decently colored enough not to shine through the white uniform… totally in accordance with the Navy's latest regulations regarding body art…"
Winston had been to enough bars to know what he was talking about. And now that he had pointed it out, Guerrero and Chance recognized the lower part of the official Navy Eagle, too.
So did Ames, by the way, from a very hot night with a very hot gunnery sergeant, but she didn't think it wise to mention that in the presence of Chance.
"The navy…" Chance dashed over to the other desk and came back with the satellite photos. "This here is the rescue vessel… easy to recognize from its prominent v-shape." He tapped at a grainy dot. "This must be the coast guard. They like boats that are slightly round. But this here…" He tapped at a third grainy dot. "…look at the length, the pointed ends… that's a military ship."
"Lots of military vessels were using that route", Ilsa read from the file in her hands. "It was 1982, the Cold War was still raging. Even some NATO allies were in the vicinity with their aircraft carriers: The British HMS Invincible and the French Clemenceau."
"Well, that's definitely a US tattoo and that's the shape of a US military boat", Chance said. "A boat strong enough to hoist a tail unit. Nobody would have minded its presence in waters so crowded with military."
"But wouldn't someone have noticed the boat hoisting a part of the plane?", Ames asked the obvious. "Seriously, this was thirty years ago. Even if they threatened everybody, things do leak out."
"Unless they never hoisted it above water level…" Diving between Winston and Ames Guerrero took up command over the keyboard and showed them a topographic map of the sea bed at the crash site. "Completely plain ground. All they needed to do was hook the unit up and drag it off. If they did it during the night, nobody would have noticed."
Just then the telephone rang. The young man from the aviation museum Chance had talked to last night, asking for a meeting. Judging from his voice he wasn't planning to show him the museum's latest attractions.
"Did he say why?", Guerrero asked his friend.
Chance shook his head.
"Trap?"
"Maybe." Chance holstered his 45er. Guerrero got his shotgun from the hidden compartment of his suitcase.
"You're not going alone, bro."
… … …
When Chance arrived at the venue, the young man indeed wasn't alone. The elderly woman in his company, however, posed no threat. She was of frail birdlike appearance and her clothes indicated no hidden weapon whatsoever. She was holding a box in her hands, though.
"I mentioned to her that an expert had looked at the wreck", the young man explained.
"My brother perished in the plane crash. Luckily his body was one of those they were able to retrieve from the ocean. The only thing missing…" she took a deep breath "….was his leg. At first we didn't think much about it, but then the mortician – a dear friend of the family – pointed out that the wound was very clear cut, not at all as if it had been … ripped off … during the crash. More like someone had cut it off."
Chance frowned – first a missing tail unit, then a missing leg? What in the world had Penny Cleves stumbled into?
"I still tried not to think too much about it. But then one day, two years after the crash, this arrived in the mail…"
With shaking hands she held out the box to him.