Lost Girls

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Airplane rides and murder scenes. Gant hoped they didn’t find the latter when they arrived in Virginia. He was looking at the satellite imagery of the farm and the brief security summary sent by the State Department to the Cellar regarding their protection of Lewis Foley and his wife Mary. Golden was across from him, going through the personnel folders of their three targets one more time.

Gant’s Satphone buzzed and he pulled it out. “Yes?”

“Mister Gant.” There was no mistaking Nero’s unique in-human voice. “We have an operative going in to provide coverage of the area. She’ll be in place within the hour.”

“She?” Gant asked as he checked his watch. They were still a good three hours out.

“Yes. We thought it time you met Ms. Neeley.”

Gant’s hand tightened on the phone as he recognized the name of the woman who had been his brother’s lover for the past decade. He had never met her, but he had heard about her. He’d heard that she had been there when he died and according to Bailey had buried him.

“The State Department has a couple of agents on site for protection and to provide what they believe to be deterrence,” Nero said.

“But Neeley isn’t on site.” Gant said it as a statement, not a question.

“She’s in over-watch.”

“All right.” Gant understood what that meant and he’d done enough missions for the Cellar that he knew there was no discussing it with Nero.

“There is something else,” Nero said.

“And that is?”

“Let me turn you over to Ms. Masterson.”

There was a brief silence, and then the woman’s human voice was on the phone replacing Nero’s metallic rasp. “You left a message asking about Doctor Golden’s son, Jimmy. Doctor Golden was married for eight years, divorced six years ago. Her husband was a psychiatrist also, specializing in the same field of predictive behavior. They had a son, Jimmy. She was given full custody when they divorced.

“Jimmy was living with her when she worked at Fort Bragg. He went to school one day and never came back. He was last seen in the school playground. It was immediately suspected that someone who Doctor Golden denied entry into Special Operations because of her psych evaluation might have been the culprit. However, there was also the stronger and more likely possibility it was a sexual predator and a random snatch. The police pursued the latter angle but turned up nothing. Nobody was ever found.”

Gant glanced across the plane at Golden who was immersed in her computer.

Masterson answered the question that Golden had asked and that was just forming in Gant’s mind before he could voice it: “The Cellar was not brought into this matter initially. The military chose to handle it themselves since it happened on post. They investigated without any success. Eventually it was brought to Mister Nero’s attention, but by then the disappearance was so far removed time-wise that an operative sent to check things out reported little to work with.”

But Nero got interested in Golden, Gant thought. Always the opportunist.

“The case is still open but there has been no progress in the past four months and there is no active investigator.”

“Might want to reconsider that,” Gant said.

“Yes, that has occurred to me” Masterson simply said. “But let’s stick to the task at hand. There will be a helicopter waiting for you at the airfield. It will take you close to Neeley’s over-watch position. She is at grid one-eight-five-six-one-five.”

The phone went dead and Gant slowly closed it.

“What’s the latest?” Golden asked as he put the phone away.

“The State Department has guards with the Foley’s.”

“I’m sure that’s a great comfort to them,” Golden said dryly.

“We’ll be joining a Cellar operative in an over-watch position,” Gant said as he checked the grid coordinate. “She’s already on-site.”

“’She’?” Golden repeated. “Seems the Cellar is very big on gender equality.”

“The Cellar is big on efficiency,” Gant said. He paused, considering if he should broach the subject, then decided it was best to do it before they met Neeley. “Ms. Masterson also mentioned your son.”

Golden’s face became a stone. “What about him?”

“She told me what happened. The Cellar wasn’t informed by the military so that was why no operative investigated until Mister Nero heard about it months later.”

“And?”

“Nothing was discovered.” Gant pointed at her computer. “I assume you did a target search of those people you interacted with or screened at Bragg?”

Golden nodded. “Yes. I came up with twenty-six possible. But the Criminal Investigative Command only did a cursory check of those. They were convinced it was a pedophile and, like other people, weren’t very impressed with my methodology. Even though I believe it was my methodology that caused this to happen.”

“And you? What do you think?”

“I think it was someone I screened out of Special Operations. Someone striking at me for revenge.”

“Why do you think that?”

Golden’s voice was harsh. “Because nobody has been found. Whoever it is wants me to continue suffering.”

Gant leaned back in his seat, suddenly very tired. Golden was still staring at him.

“After we save Emily,” Gant said, “we’ll check out your probable’s.”

Golden blinked. “Why?”

“Because you’re my partner.”

Golden considered that. “You said save Emily, not sanction the targets. A change in objective?”

“Both objectives are tied together,” Gant said.

“Perhaps.”

The Security looked through the binoculars at the roving guard, noting the way the man had his sub-machinegun casually slung over one shoulder. It was a good news-bad news situation. In several ways.

It had been anticipated that someone would be putting the pieces together of the various deaths and kidnappings. That was why the Security had immediately come back here after leaving Alabama. He’d already prepared for this possibility several weeks earlier during their mission preparation Isolation phase of this operation. However, it had not been anticipated that the response would be this quick. The call from the Sniper warning him that Foley’s name had already come up had been a surprise. It meant the timeline of the entire operation needed to be accelerated.

The fact the target had run to the country farm-house was good and had been anticipated, indeed predicted. The guards were an obstacle but not a major one as they were poorly trained guards, thinking having a show of weaponry was a deterrent. So that was good. It meant that whoever had put these pieces together was severely under-estimating the threat.

The Security was in the front seat of an old mail delivery truck he had stolen six weeks earlier. He’d kept it hidden in an abandoned barn further out in the country while he made modifications to it and once the target and his wife went to ground he’d retrieved it and driven here. The windshield he was looking through was double-thick bullet-proof glass and tinted so that someone on the outside could not see in. The interior walls were lined with bullet-proof and blast resistant Kevlar blankets. The dirt bike was in the back, held in place by nylon tie down straps and facing the back doors. There were other special modifications, which had called upon his training as a Special Forces demolitions expert, all of which would come into play very soon.

The Security pulled out his one-time pad and turned to the current day. Then, using a tri-graph and the message he’d written, he combined the letters to put it in a text format that was unbreakable by anyone except the owner of the only other version of the pad. He punched the letters into his cell-phone. When the message was done he paused. Once he sent it, the clock was ticking and he had to go through with his mission. Up until now they had had the luxury of operating on their own time schedule. Now they had to move faster to stay ahead. There was always a danger in moving fast.

He reached up and felt the striated skin of his face. He remembered coming to consciousness and feeling the pain of the initial wounds from the Claymore mine. Then the ongoing agony of the varying, but non-stop tortures inflicted on them by their captors. He looked down at his ankles where he had worn the heavy iron shackle for over eight months. The skin around both ankles was now callused and rough and had remained so despite four months since the shackles had been removed. Worst of all had been the constant threat of death at any moment. There had even been mock executions to the point where any hope of living had left him.

Once you ‘died’ like that so many times, the only thing left powerful enough to keep you clinging on to life was hate. A hatred so deep and dark that only those who had been to a hell on Earth could understand it. It had been a hate that had bound the three of them together stronger than any love could. By accepting they were already dead they had managed to survive, and by embracing their hatred they had generated the energy and wit to escape. It had sustained them on their secretive return to the United States and the months of planning and preparation for this final mission.

The Security hit the send.

Emily had the dog’s head on the ground in front of her. The smell was disgusting, the sight only slightly less so. She had it facing away so she didn’t have to see the dead eyes, but that left the severed neck facing her, cut bone and tendrils of flesh exposed.

She brushed away the incessant flies and controlled her revulsion as she looked for any meat on it that she could eat. She tentatively reached out and touched the top of the skull and all she felt was bone. The dog had been starving, that was apparent even by just having the head.

“Fuck it,” Emily said to herself. She picked the head up and threw it with all her might away from her.

She would not descend to that level.

Yet, the word echoed in her mind.

Neeley could barely hear the chopper behind her. She knew it was far enough away not to be heard at the farm-house or by the State Department security man. Or by whoever was in the old mail-truck that was parked in the far wood-line, hidden in the trees and shadows. She’d spotted the truck within a half-hour of settling in to her over-watch position. It was parked in the far wood-line in such a way that it couldn’t be seen from the farm-house or barn area but a corner of it was visible from her higher position.

She’d contemplated going over there to check on it, but that would have required a long trek, looping around the entire area to stay under cover. And there was the possibility one of the bad guys was in the truck and could take action while she was moving. Plus, she was supposed to link up with the reinforcements coming in from the Cellar. Better to over-watch with the rifle.

There was the even stronger possibility that the truck was the State Department or some other government agency trying to build redundancy into the protection. Neeley had heard enough of Gant’s stories to know that government bureaucracy was often the most dangerous enemy of all. She had called it in to the Cellar and was waiting for word back.

She’d read the information on the PDA and now understood who she was watching and why. And who the potential threats were. She was dealing with men who were professionals in the art of war and killing. They were killing innocents in their thirst for vengeance, which meant they had crossed a line into a darkness few could comprehend. Neeley realized that they had felt abandoned and betrayed on their mission into Colombia, but to her their response was beyond comprehension. Of course, what had happened to them in the time they had gone missing until now, was a big unknown. There was even the possibility they had been turned and now were working with the drug cartel.

The sound of the chopper faded and she split her attention between the farm-house, the mail truck and looking over her shoulder for her support from the Cellar. Her mind kept going back to Gant’s — her Gant, Tony’s — face. He’d saved her life when she was still a teenager and then in a way took her life from that day onward. And now he was still a presence because she knew she would not be here with a sniper rifle if it weren’t for his past connections with the Cellar.

She heard a woman’s voice raised in complaint and looked over her shoulder once more. A man and a woman were coming up the ridge, the man in the lead, a sub-machinegun at the ready, his eyes and the weapon doing sweeps back and forth in concert. He wore black fatigues and a combat vest. And the woman struggling to keep up with him and appearing none-too-happy about the traipse through the woods. Nor was she dressed for being outdoors in her long slacks and blouse.

Neeley raised an arm to indicate her position and the man spotted her right away. And then she saw his face and felt a charge run through her body. It was Tony — how Tony had looked when he was healthy. If she hadn’t buried her lover herself, watched the cancer eat him down to the bone, she would have sworn it was him. But she knew it was Jack Gant, the twin brother she had never met.

Neeley scooted back slightly from her over-watch position, putting the top of the ridge between her and the target so she could greet them.

Gant lowered the sub-machinegun and stuck out his hand. “Jack Gant.”

“I’m Neeley.”

“I know.”

The two stared at each other, their gaze only broken when the woman arrived and Neeley realized there was another presence.

Gant introduced the woman. “And this is Doctor Golden.”

Neeley shook her hand. “Doctor of what?”

Gant pointed at his head. “Shrink.”

“Someone down there going to need therapy?” Neeley asked.

“I’m a predictive behavior profiler,” Golden said.

Neeley had no idea what that meant. She turned back to Gant, forcing herself to remember that this was not her lover of over a decade. “Foley and his wife are in the farm-house. The State Department has two men on outside perimeter duty, one walking a circle around the house and barn, the other monitoring security cameras in the van. There’s something else — an old mail truck in the far tree-line. I don’t know if it’s part of their force, some other government agency’s intrusion or the bad guys. I called it in to the Cellar to check on and haven’t heard back yet.”

“Let’s take a look,” Gant said. He motioned for Golden to take a seat. “Wait here.”

Golden looked around for something to sit on and then settled for a log, on which she gingerly perched herself. Neeley moved back toward her position and as she got close to the ridge went down to her belly and began to crawl. Gant automatically did the same and they arrived at the hide site where her sniper rifle rested on its bipod and stock.

Gant noted the weapon. “Same as Tony liked using.”

“He taught me how to fire it,” Neeley said, feeling foolish as soon as she said it.

But Gant only nodded as he pulled out a set of binoculars and scoped out the area.

“The mail truck is there,” Neeley said, pointing.

Gant nodded once more. “I see it. It was here when you arrived?”

“Yes.”

“Hasn’t move at all? No movement around it?”

“Nope.”

Gant lowered the binoculars. “What do you think?”

Neeley liked that he hadn’t come in and tried to take charge and that he was asking her opinion. “I called the truck in to the Cellar but I haven’t heard back. I think we should check it out. I would have done it but—“

“You couldn’t leave coverage,” Gant finished for her. He glanced at his watch. “Let’s give the Cellar another ten minutes to get back to us whether it’s another agency. I’d hate to bust in on a truck full of SWAT guys. If the report is a negative, I’ll go down there.”

Neeley nodded. They lay together in silence for a few moments, their bodies within a foot of each other, both feeling off-kilter.

“You know that Tony—“ Neeley began but stopped.

“Did Tony really die of natural causes?” Gant asked.

“Yes. Cancer. I buried him.”

“Was he in a lot of pain?”

“Yes.”

“Tony never liked being sick. He’d have preferred to go fast.”

“He didn’t exactly have a choice.”

It was Gant’s turn to feel slightly foolish for a moment. “Why did Bailey dig him up?”

“Long story,” Neeley said and left it at that and was grateful when he didn’t pursue it. Now was not the time or place.

“Mister Nero said you were with him at the end.”

“I was.”

“Thank you.”

Neeley glanced over at him. “Tony wasn’t responsible for the RPG attack in Mogadishu.”

Gant slowly turned his head and looked back at her. “Who was?”

“A man named Racine.”

“Little fucker. I remember him.” Gant frowned. “But he was Cellar also.”

“He wasn’t in Mogadishu working for the Cellar. He was doing freelance work for a Senator named Collins.”

“The one who just resigned?”

“Same.”

“What happened to Racine?”

“We killed him.”

“’We’? You and Tony?”

“No, Tony had already passed. Hannah Masterson and I. And Jesse.”

Gant whistled and a slight smile crept across his face. “Jesse? I will have to hear this story, but not now.” He checked his watch once more. “Five minutes.”