Sudden Death

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Ethan woke to nothing.

No movement, no noise. He froze and listened. Distant cars moving fast. Birds chirped and squawked. A motor, but not the truck.

He sat up, looked around. Where was she? She’d left him. Deserted him. Just like the army.

The gunfire was so loud but unreal at the same time. Pop-pop-pop. Poppoppoppoppop. A machine gun spewing out bullets. One nicked Ethan in the arm. He looked down and saw blood. Just a bit. Nothing to worry about.

He was in the middle of a firefight! He wished he had a camera, but on this clandestine mission cameras were forbidden. Adrenaline rushed through his veins. His first real firefight. He pulled out a notebook and rapidly jotted down words and phrases. 103 degrees. Dry and dusty. Arid. Flashes of gunfire. Brows beaded with sweat and tension. A precision team. Well oiled. Well trained. America’s elite. Fighters. Killers. Comrades. Oh, that was good!

“What the fuck are you doing?” one soldier hissed. “Stay put! You already almost got us all killed, dipshit.”

He nodded, eyes wide, and went back to his hiding spot. They didn’t like Ethan, he had known it from the beginning. Didn’t want him to be here, didn’t want to see the truth in print. Continuing to write, he thought of an opening line.

The first gunfight of the day was right out of a Hollywood movie. Heat, heroes, and panic. Special forces were brave, but fear ate at their resolve like …

Like what? Come on, think!

He stayed hidden, writing, the gunfire moving farther away. Shouts, then silence with the occasional report of a rifle. He liked that phrase; he had to be wary and not use it more than twice in the article.

Pulitzer Prize, baby, it was within his reach …

Silence.

Ethan peered out from the cavity of the rocks. The air reeked of gunpowder. And blood.

The soldier, he couldn’t remember his name, who had been assigned to “babysit” him (as he lamented), was dead. There was too much blood for him to be alive. And his head … half of it was gone.

Ethan swallowed and looked around.

Where were the others?

They’d left him? Left him with a dead body?

He heard a helicopter in the distance, coming closer. He relaxed. They were coming back for him. He stepped out of his hiding place and looked skyward, ready to wave them down.

They came out of the woodwork like termites. Dozens of them, men wearing traditional Taliban headdress, holding guns. Rifles. Handguns. Knives. These were not Americans. They were the enemy.

Ethan thought he was going to die. He put his hands on his head and waited for the bullets to penetrate his body.

Make it fast, God. I don’t like pain.

He didn’t learn until later what pain really was.

They were going to punish General Hackett for sending Ethan on that mission in the first place. For assuring him, and his editor, that he would be safe. Protected. “It’s an easy mission,” Hackett had said. “In and out.”

Where was that woman?

Ethan got out of the truck. The sun burned and he began to sweat as he started toward the bathrooms. A semi with insignia from Arkansas or Alabama-Ethan couldn’t tell from the distance-was parked on the far side. Fear clawed at him, constricting his throat. He went back to the truck and reached under the passenger seat for the gun the woman kept there. It snagged on the metal wires and he pulled hard.

Bartleton’s dog tag fell to the ground.

Dammit, he’d told her not to do it again. He didn’t know she’d grabbed it, but there was the proof, wrapped around her gun. Lying bitch.

He picked up the tag, tossed it into the cab, and slammed the door shut.

Behind the restrooms were half a dozen picnic tables. The woman-Kate? Christina? Carmen? — hadn’t seen him. She was sitting at one of the tables. Was that her? She’d changed; he remembered now. She’d cut her hair in the motel. All of it, off. Put a different color on. Told him it was part of her disguise. But he knew her now from her build, the way she moved, her eyes. She couldn’t change her eyes. Karin. Her name was Karin.

He skirted the building and walked around to the far side where she couldn’t see him approach. He’d scare her. Serve her right.

Then he heard the voices. For a minute he thought they were in his head. They weren’t. It was Karin, and she was talking to a man. The trucker? Ethan peered around the side of the building. Looked like a trucker. Jeans. T-shirt. Skinny kid. Twenty, twenty-two maybe. The building shielded Ethan, but he could hear their conversation.

“Are you okay?” the trucker asked Karin.

She didn’t say anything, just shrugged.

“Are you here alone?”

“Yes.”

She glanced toward the truck and Ethan smirked.

“Are you sure? You’re looking kind of skittish. I’m not going to hurt you.”

“I know.”

“It’s going to be okay,” he said. “Do you want me to call someone?”

“I’m just getting a breath of fresh air.”

“Do you have a name? I’m Thomas. Let’s pray, okay?”

What was this kid doing? Praying for Karin? Did he know how many men she’d killed? Didn’t he know that she wanted to kill him? Ethan could see it. She’d fuck him and kill him. She’d done it before, had told Ethan all about it. Why couldn’t this kid see that? Why was he praying for her, the spawn of Satan?

“Thomas?”

A woman’s voice from behind him startled Ethan. When he whirled around the woman screamed.

Panic spread to every nerve in his body. He pressed the trigger. A reflex. He didn’t plan it.

The woman fell to the ground.

“Loretta! Dear Lord, Loretta!” Ethan heard the shouts from the picnic table, but the noise barely registered.

He stared at the woman. She was dead. It was obvious from her eyes that he had killed her. Her hands were on her stomach. A large, round stomach.

An agony-filled cry bellowed from behind Ethan. He turned and saw the praying Thomas now rageful. He was running toward Ethan. Ethan fired again. Then two more times. Thomas dropped to the ground, his chest a bloody mess.

“What have you done?!?”

Roxanne? Rachel? Regina? Whatever her name was- Ethan couldn’t remember-she panicked. She screamed at him. Her eyes were wild. Maybe she had changed her eyes. He couldn’t remember her name. He should know it. He frowned. It was right there minutes ago.

“Shit! Shit! Oh fuck, Ethan, you’re crazy!”

She snatched the gun from his hand. He let her. Why didn’t he shoot her, too? Why didn’t he just stop it all now? Shoot her, then himself. But now he had no gun.

She pushed Ethan. He stumbled backward. “Dammit, Ethan, why? Why did you kill them?”

“I don’t know.”

She screamed in rage and slapped him, then grabbed his wrist and pulled him toward the truck. “Get in, I’m driving. We have to get out of here right now. You’re ruining everything. You fucked up again, Ethan. How am I going to get out of this?”

He opened the passenger door and clamored in, slammed it shut, and she drove off, yelling at him. Then she stopped and the silence was bliss. Then it was Hell. Total silence, just the purr of the truck and the woman’s sniffles. She was crying. Why was she crying? They didn’t talk about what happened. He didn’t know whether to be worried, scared, or elated.

He didn’t feel guilty.

Thirty minutes later he asked, “How long until Santa Barbara?”

Megan and Hans listened to Jack go over yesterday’s events. The more she listened, the more she realized she would have done almost the exact same things, except she wouldn’t have tackled a known drug smuggler in public, nor would she have broken into a secure crime scene to look around. The former action was all testos-trone; the latter could jeopardize the legal case.

Scout’s missing dog tag was an important bit of information that was not in Perez’s reports, and something that easily could have been overlooked. But that was not the case with the mysterious brunette who may have been at both El Gato and Father Francis’s St. Ignatius. If Perez had been doing his job right, he should have made the connection, and not gone off on the wild theory that some rebels in Guatemala crossed the border for retribution against Jack and his team.

“Are you certain it’s the same woman?” Megan asked.

“Almost certain,” Jack said. “From Padre’s description and two people at the bar, she appears to be the same. There’re not a lot of non-Hispanic women in town. She’d stick out whether she was white, black, or Asian.”

“Could be completely unrelated,” Hans said. “But it’s a good idea that you called in your men to stick by Father Francis for the time being, until we have better intel about the motives of the killers.”

“We need to get a sketch artist here,” Megan said. “Have Padre describe the woman while she’s still fresh in his mind. We can call her a potential witness, nothing about being a possible suspect.”

“And it may have nothing to do with this case,” Hans said.

“And it may have everything to do with this case!” Megan shot back. “It’s the only thing we have right now. There’s no forensic evidence to help us narrow down a suspect. We have a stranger in town, a woman who shows up at a known hangout for two men who were on the same Delta Force team, a team that is systematically being slaughtered.”

“Father Francis is alive,” Hans said.

“And that means what?” Jack said, his voice low with anger. “That he’s involved?”

“That’s not what I said.”

“But you thought it.”

“He has an alibi for the first three-”

Jack pushed back from the table. “Don’t.”

“It’s part of our job,” Hans said. He was uncomfortable, but he held Jack’s glare. “We have to rule out everyone. Including you.”

Hans’s BlackBerry vibrated on the table and he picked it up. A few seconds later he said, “First Lieutenant Jerome ‘Jerry’ Jefferson is confirmed in Afghanistan. Last leave was four months ago, which he spent in Hawaii.”

“Which means what?” Megan asked.

“The killers can’t get to him.” To Jack, he said, “Sit down, Jack. We need to work through this.”

Jack continued standing.

Megan said, “We don’t know how many killers there are, we only suspect two. There could be three, ten, an entire conspiracy.”

“Meg, I think you’re stretching it-”

She put up her hand, then winced when she remembered how much she hated it when the jerk from CID did it to her. “Yes, to illustrate a point. We have no idea who is behind these killings. We have very basic victi-mology-they were all U.S. Army Delta Force soldiers who worked together for a period of two years on dozens of missions. But we don’t know which mission triggered the killer, why he-they-are acting now, or why they’ve chosen to kill in such a brutal manner.

“So until we know why, we don’t know that Jefferson isn’t in danger, or that he isn’t the one spearheading the attacks. And this woman might have information. Maybe she’s a battered girlfriend or wife-”

Hans interrupted. “This crime is too masculine.”

“Why? Because it doesn’t have a sexual component?”

“Most male-female killing pairs are enacting sadistic sexual fantasies, or the female is bait, luring the victims for her dominant male partner.”

“But this isn’t sexual sadism, this feels like revenge. Whether directed toward these men because of who they are, or what they represent, I don’t know. But why not a woman? A wife or sister of a dead soldier?”

“I don’t know. There hasn’t been any hint-”

“Except for the female stranger in town. Profiling is based on statistics, Hans. You taught that in Criminal Psychology 101. If four out of five serial killers were abused as children, that still means that twenty percent weren’t abused.”

Hans nodded. “Okay, we follow that trail. I’ll ask the Rangers to send a sketch artist for Father Francis to work with.”

“Sketch artist?” Padre said as he stepped into the kitchen. “For what?”

“The woman you saw at the church late Tuesday night,” Megan said. She glanced at Jack. He was still standing at the table, but the tension and anger had left his stance. He seemed intrigued and contemplative. He caught her eye and gave her a slight smile. She turned away. “Do you have the list of missions?”

Padre put a notepad in front of her. “Here.” He looked defeated.

“Thank you, Padre.” Megan read his notes. All the missions where the dead had worked together were in Afghanistan. “All eight of you were on each mission?”

“No. I also included missions where I didn’t go as part of the team, or Jefferson didn’t go. Since we’re both still alive.”

“What type of missions?”

“They’re classified.”

“I can’t work with something that’s ‘classified,’ “ Megan said. “If something that happened on one of these missions is somehow de facto responsible for these men being targeted, then I need to know.”

Padre seemed to have changed overnight. More hard edges and temper than the priest who had picked up her and Hans the night before at the airstrip. Megan ached that the man had to cough up his past demons, but she also knew that if he didn’t, more people would die.

“Some of the missions were assassinations. Some were extractions or liberations.” Padre left it at that.

Jack asked quietly, “How successful?”

“The third mission was a disaster. Our intel was wrong and we nearly got ambushed. Aborted and regrouped two days later. The last mission was also a failure. We lost a man. Thornton. I told you about him last night.”

“Orders?” Jack asked.

“Seize a high-ranking Taliban member. He was a weak link, had a regular mistress. High security, but no change in habits. We’d been gathering intel on him for months. We went in, but-” He stopped.

“And?”

“The P.R. department had us bring a civilian with us. Open-door policy.”

“A civilian? On a Delta mission?” Jack couldn’t keep the shock out of his voice. “They’ve sent reporters and cameras to the lines, which is foolhardy, but on one of our missions? That’s insane.”

“Another reporter, a big guy, had done it the year before with great success, according to the powers that be. But I found out later that that reporter had spent three years in the Marines. He went in because he’d gone to basic with a guy who could get him in. He had experience and could take care of himself. We didn’t know any of that, of course, only that afterward the Marines had a lot of favorable press and write-ups, lots of backslap-ping and goodwill toward man.” Sarcasm hung in the air.

“Your civilian was a reporter?”

Padre nodded. “An idiot. He screwed up the mission, and worse, he got Thornton killed.”

“What?” Megan asked when Padre didn’t continue. “Is he dead, too?”

“Barry Rosemont didn’t do what we told him to do. We knew we were being surrounded, and there was no way to get out. We had to call in an extraction team, breaking radio silence, which alerted the Taliban to our exact location. Russo ordered us to split into two teams and left Thornton with Rosemont in what we believed was the most secure location. They were supposed to stay in the rocks, radio silence, no matter what they heard until the Blackhawks arrived.

“Rosemont panicked, exposed himself. Thornton sent Morse code that their position had been compromised, and we did everything we could to get back there, but by that time it was too late. Thornton was dead and the Taliban had Rosemont.”

“They took him hostage?” Megan asked.

“We didn’t know that at the time. Then, we assumed he was dead and they took his body and Thornton’s to parade over the airwaves and demoralize us. It would have worked. We’d been making great inroads in Afghanistan, something like this would have really damaged our position.”

“But he wasn’t dead.”

“No. They held him hostage for three months. Another Delta team extracted him and brought him back to the States.”

“Do you know where he is now?” Hans asked.

Padre laughed humorlessly. “I don’t want to know. The bastards desecrated Thornton’s body. I blamed Rosemont. It was hard to forgive him. I did-I had to- but I don’t want to think about him. Thornton was a good man. He had a family.”

Padre excused himself and left the rectory.

“Do you want to go with him?” Megan asked Jack.

“He needs to be alone.” The concern in Jack’s eyes for his friend was heartbreaking.

Megan’s cell phone rang, and caller I.D. showed an unfamiliar Sacramento number. She answered. “Megan Elliott.”

“You’ll never believe it!”

“Who’s this?”

“Simone. We have the body.”

“The body?”

“The John Doe. Price.”

“You’ve lost me.”

“The dead guy in the alley? CID just dumped him back at the morgue. They ran his prints. It’s not George Price.”

Megan’s stomach flipped. “But we had his prints. Why didn’t we know immediately?”

“We don’t have access to the military database. Only criminal and DMV databases. The guy’s prints didn’t show up, but we weren’t concerned. If he had no record, no reason to be in the system, we wouldn’t have them. We would have naturally checked the military next, but they had the body. They didn’t tell us until this morning!”

Megan was in shock. “But it’s the same M.O., the I.D., we have a connection with the other victims-”

“I don’t know what’s going on, but I thought you should know. CID gave us a photograph of Price-the one they’ve been flashing on the news was Price at eighteen. But they had a photo that’s only five years old. There’s no way in Hell our John Doe is Price. Both white, six feet tall, basic build, similar coloring, but obviously not the same man. I’ll shoot an e-mail with the pic off to you … done. You have more contacts and resources. If you can find the real George Price first, more power to you. In the meantime, Black is trying to find out who our John Doe is and how he came by Price’s dog tags.”

Megan hung up the phone, perplexed.

Why did the killers think the homeless John Doe was Price? Had they never actually seen him before? Or was it so long ago they didn’t exactly remember him?

Or did this mean that George Price was part of the killing team?

“The victim in Sacramento isn’t Price?” Jack asked.

Megan shook her head. “This changes everything. We need to find the real George Price.”

“If he’s still alive,” Hans said. “Or wants to be found. He’s been AWOL for five years. He could have a new identity, be out of the country, in hiding. He’s not going to come forward knowing he’ll be prosecuted by the army for attempted murder as well as desertion.”

“What if he’s involved?”

“First Jefferson, now Price?” Jack said. “You’re really stretching it. Why would Price put his own identification around a man he just killed?”

Megan fumed. “How do I know? To stage his own death?”

“He’d know the prints wouldn’t match,” Jack snapped.

“At least I’m trying to figure it out! We don’t know what’s going on, but George Price was dead three days ago, and now he’s not. He’s still AWOL, but that man was killed by the same people who tortured and executed three other Delta Force soldiers who had all worked together for two years in Afghanistan. You tell me there’s not a connection somewhere. Maybe the homeless guy found the tags in the garbage, for all we know. But then how in the world did the killers mistake him for Price?” She couldn’t figure it out, and it was eating at her. Deductive reasoning was one of her strengths, but nothing in this scenario made sense.

“I’ll call Quantico and have them start looking,” Hans said. He shook his head and Megan felt his disapproval. “I’m surprised that you of all people made such an amateur mistake.”

Before she could respond to Hans, Jack said to her, “Maybe you should call in your friend from Rogan-Caruso-the one you have investigating me. Because he seems to be able to get information out of a magic hat. Though he didn’t get the goods that Price wasn’t Price.”

Megan’s brows furrowed. What was Jack saying? J.T., yeah, he would be a good contact. But Jack almost sounded jealous. What a ridiculous-ludicrous! — idea. She really was exhausted.

“Good idea,” she said absently. Jack mumbled something under his breath, but Megan didn’t hear the words. She watched Hans walk away and realized he was angry with her. She ran through everything that happened Monday-yeah, they made the assumption the victim was George Price; they took his prints to verify … but when CID came and took the body, Megan didn’t even question the man’s identity. Of course it was Price, why else would the army take him?

But she’d made an assumption that, though based on circumstantial evidence, was false. The entire case was in jeopardy

Except that the homeless John Doe had been killed in the same manner as the other victims, and therefore Price’s tags must have deliberately been put on the body. Price was connected somehow. This was no coincidence.

She looked around for Hans to explain, but he was across the room talking quietly on the phone, his back to her. And Jack was staring out the window, his back also facing her. She felt as if she would explode. She needed to talk it out, analyze every angle.

Someone rapped on the rectory door and Jack answered. “Hern, right?”

“Right. Good memory, Kincaid.”

Ranger Ted Hern came in, taking his hat off. “Dr. Vigo, Agent Elliott. Glad you’re both here. We may have a break.”

Hern’s expression was dour while he waited for Hans to wrap up his call. “Two dead bodies at a rest stop outside Blythe, California. And in the parking lot, the highway patrol found a military identification tag for Lawrence Bartleton.”