Perfect killer

CHAPTER 24

I awoke to Vince Sloane's worst scowl.

"Up! C'mon, wake up!"

Sloane shook my shoulder.

I struggled to remain in a significant dream, desperate for its fleeting epiphany where answers outnumbered questions.

"Shit." I opened my eyes.

"Glad to see you too," Sloane said.

Jasmine stirred.

Looming over us, Sloane offered two large Styrofoam cups glaring with the orange-and-black logo of a small convenience store a block away we called the "Shop and Rob" because of the way crooks frequently used it as their personal ATM.

"Time to go home," Sloane said as he shoved a cup at me. "Wherever the hell that is for you these days."

I took the cup and caught his disapproval. Vince was a solid, trustworthy man with a time-honored and still-admirable set of ethics and personal principles that he always hoped others would live up to, while recognizing most would not. He reminded me of that Marine division motto: "Your best friend, your worst enemy."

Beyond Sloane, Detective Darius Jones obscured the doorway like a walking roadblock. His deep black skin trended toward blue; sweat beads glistened on his forehead and a murderous stare distorted his face. He avoided my eyes, looking first at Jasmine, then back toward me. Back and forth, pendulum regular. When I finally caught his gaze, Jones glanced away and made a perfect poker face.

What the hell was that all about? I looked over at Jasmine, who sat up straight in her chair, leaving a warm spot on my shoulder. She had obviously read a message on the big detective's face. I thought better of asking her about it, for now.

I pried the plastic top off the coffee and took a gulp. A palsied shudder ran down my spine and cinched my scrotum tight like a drum. The coffee was everything I expected, I took another gulp, then stood up and stretched.

"You and I need to have a little chat." Vince looked toward the door, then back at me. "Alone. I'll drive you home."

"But-" I looked over at Jasmine, who struggled to throw off the fatigue and jet lag. She shivered for a moment, then tugged the blanket tighter around her shoulders. Vince caught her eye, waved the coffee about, then set it down next to her.

"No buts." Vince gave me his authoritative sergeant's tone and I almost returned a "Yes sir," but knew no matter how I said it, he'd hear sarcasm. I nodded.

"Good." He nodded toward Jones, who stepped forward and addressed Jasmine.

"I'll give you a ride to your hotel, Ms. Thompson," the big detective said, his voice deep, formal, and professional. His assassinating stare had vanished, which made me wonder if I had imagined things in waking up.

Jasmine stood, let the blanket slip into the plastic chair, then combed her fingers through her tight curls.

"Thank you for the coffee," she told Vince. And thank you," she said to Jones. Then, to me: "Call me after you get some sleep." My gaze held her face, but my peripheral vision caught anger flashing across the big detective's face again, quick and bright like fractured shards of sun glinting off polished chrome.

"Count on it," I told her, and felt all sorts of regret when she picked up her purse and left the room with Jones.

Vince made his way over to me, picked up the blanket from the chair and folded it. I took that moment to drink as deeply as I dared of the Shop and Rob coffee.

"You know I don't mess in people's business," he spoke so softly I had to strain to hear him.

"Sorry?"

He cocked his head to the now empty doorway and continued to fold the blanket. He always took care of equipment. Put things where they belong and you'll know where to go in an emergency.

"Your friend." He finished the blanket. "Look, you've known me long enough to know I don't care what color a person is or any of that."

This bewildered me.

"It makes no difference to me, but it makes a lot of difference to some other people, a big, big difference."

A queasy recognition blossomed in my gut.

"And it's not just your Aryan Nation bozos and Klanners who think birds of a feather should stick with their own kind."

"That's just freaking wonderful," I mumbled. Darius Jones's visual daggers added up.

"Ducky." He bent and placed the folded blanket with its perfectly aligned corners and perfect right angles on the chair. "Now, if you don't mind…" He motioned toward the door with his head. "The LAPD gives me the creeps; I'm running a severe sleep deficit, and quite frankly I am truly weary of following the trail of bodies you've left behind you."

Without waiting, Vince left the room. I spilled hot coffee down the front of my pants following behind. We exited into a bright new day and crossed the parking lot, lined with trees and populated by a variety of temporary buildings. We zigged through a jam of cruisers, RVs, personal vehicles, and brown temporary buildings until we came to a battered Dodge pickup parked under a spreading eucalyptus tree. Vince used the truck for his house-painting business, one of those side ventures cops need either for financial reasons or for the psychological satisfaction coming from a job not connected with drug dealers, casual killers, gangbangers, rich celebrity drunk drivers, hormone-crazed teenagers, and an aggressively disappreciative public who rarely had anything good to say about their public safety officers. I experienced enough of that on my reserve duty to realize why some cops retreated into their "cops versus civilians" world.

We walked silently and got in. Vince started the truck's engine and backed out of the space.

"Remember what I said back there. Jones is a terrific detective, closes a lot of his cases without all the BS you get from others." Vince headed for the exit. "He's a lot smarter than he is big, but he's got this thing about his black women and white guys."

My fingers tingled with anger and caffeine.

He paused at the Culver Boulevard exit. "Where to? Where the hell you gonna sleep now that your boat's sunk and your house is trashed?"

I shrugged. "My lab's pretty much it." I looked at my watch. "Besides, it's time for work."

Vince smiled, then pulled carefully into traffic.

"I thought Jones's kind of thinking was for Archie Bunker," I said.

"Bigots come in all colors." Vince turned north on Centinela. "Watch yourself."

I opened my mouth to reply, but he cut me off.

"Look, Doc, we could talk forever about why its not right. But we can't change it and we don't have all day because I need to tell you a few things which are a lot more important."

"Ooh-kay," I said slowly.

"Chris Nellis-you remember him, the reserve guy who dives?"

"Uh-huh, he's got an ad agency or something. I've trained with him."

"We had Chris in the water right after we pulled you off the rocks, down to check to make sure there wasn't anybody still alive. He retrieves some debris and a few pieces of a guy left after the explosion. Then out beyond the breakwater, one of the Harbor Patrol guys finds an inflatable idling around in a circle, and nearby a floater with a very broken neck.

"So, while the suits at Internal Affairs are working you over, they haul all this stuff to the dock, and they're not there half an hour when this Army chopper lands on the jetty and farts out some pretty pushy guys in fatigues flashing heavy-duty military ID and firepower."

Vince stopped at the light by the east end of the Santa Monica airport where Centinela turns into Bundy Drive. A small single-engine plane on final approach coasted across the road above the stoplight.

"To make things short, these military guys check out. Then they take everything. Raft, body, body parts, debris." The light turned green, and a nanosecond later a horn sounded behind us. I turned around and spotted a blond in a black BMW, one of those California cliches that plays on the worst of both worlds. Vince looked in the rearview mirror as she honked again. He pressed on the accelerator more slowly than usual.

"She's very important, I guess." He smiled. She wore a snarl on her face as she weaved the Beemer back and forth in the lane. She had nice, shiny nails on the hand used for her Anglo-Saxon salute.

"Anyway, these Army jerks are gone almost as fast as they arrive, only they leave behind a tight-assed, full-bird colonel, who tells us there's not going to be a report on this incident because it involves national security and it's a training exercise that got out of hand with some new men who were way too gung ho."

"Whoa! No report? What about my boat?"

"He said the check would be in the mail."

My jaw dropped.

"No, really." Vince gave me a smile. "That's what he said. Checks would go out to everybody today. He made a point of saying that you would be a lot better off without insurance, not filing a claim."

"It doesn't add up. My attackers told me exactly what they came for and that they came looking for me to give it to them."

"That's what you say, Officer;" Vince said.

"What the hell's that supposed to mean, sergeant?"

"It's their story and your word against theirs." He fell silent. Then: "Look, Doc. I know you did some classified work before. And if this is connected, you'll need to sort it out."

"This has nothing to do with my past life and everything to do with Vanessa Thompson's killing."

"Uh-huh. They have a different story. And firepower to make their version stick." He turned right on Olympic. "Not that I believe a word of it, which is why I am telling you what they told me not to. It's not a lot, mostly what Chris pulled together before the chopper arrived-that the people you killed were from an elite unit attached to the Army Technical Escort Unit, which is a one-of-a-kind, battalion-level organization headquartered at the Edgewood facility at Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland. They were reorganized a while back into something called the Guardian Brigade, and when that happened, some of their command structure went covert and untraceable. They're all good soldiers is my understanding, but the covert part of things offers some opportunities for abuse, especially those who're supposed to be secretly supporting Homeland Security operations.

"In the words of the tight-assed colonel who did all the speaking, most of their missions are 'no notice, hazardous, and classified.' which means no damn thing to me. Does it to you?"

It did. Dread gathered in my gut. "What else?"

"Nothing, unless Chris has something."

We drove the rest of the way in silence, up Westwood Boulevard, past the medical school and right toward my lab's entrance, where Vince stopped at the curb.

"Watch your back. These guys may be assholes, but they're powerful, dangerous assholes and they're holding enough cards to make you play whatever game they want."

"They think." I got out.

"No hero stuff," Vince said. "What you're doing in there means a lot more to the world than you getting killed." He paused. "Call me if you need help."

"Thanks, Vince," I said. "I will."