Unmanned

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

COLE, ON FULL ALERT NOW, pulled back the blinds and checked outside. Lights were again on in the main house. One downstairs, two upstairs. Either the gunman was inside, lording it over them with blood on the floor, or everyone was awake for the same reason he was. Sharpe’s van was silent and dark, all locked up.

He stepped reluctantly into the night and the cold, walking quietly but briskly toward the house. Halfway there he stopped, overcome by the same creeping sense of another presence that he’d experienced the night before—someone, or something, watching from the trees. Or maybe even from above. He imagined himself as a green blob on an infrared display.

He moved behind a pine and peered at the dark line marking the edge of the woods. Nothing, as far as he could tell, although he knew this observation was meaningless. If someone back there wanted to drop him, it probably would have happened by now. He stepped out from behind the tree and made his way to the door, pausing on the porch to listen for sounds from inside. Muffled voices, no sense of panic, a few footfalls at an easy pace. He pushed on through. Three of them—Barb, Steve, and Sharpe—were gathered in the living room, just beyond the foyer. They looked up in unison, eyes a bit wide.

Sharpe looked at Cole and grimly shook his head as if to say, “Not my doing. Not this time.”

“Where’s Keira?” Cole asked.

“In the kitchen,” Barb said. “She called the cops. They’re keeping her on the line.”

“Some deputy named Tony,” Steve said. “She seems to know him.”

“And you’re surprised?” Barb said.

“Probably a friend of the family’s,” Cole said. It was too early for their usual bullshit. Keira emerged from the hallway, cell phone pressed to her ear.

“There’s a police cruiser now at the upper end of the drive,” she said. “They’re looking around, but they’re thinking it might be hunters.”

“At this hour?” Steve said.

“Spotlight hunters,” Cole said. “I knew guys back home who did that shit.”

“Spotlight?”

“For deer. Blind ’em and shoot ’em. Illegal. It’s why they do it in the middle of the night.”

“Tony said some of the neighbors heard cars coming and going. I don’t think we were the only ones who called.”

“Cars?” Barb said. “In the plural? Jesus, how many people are out there?”

“Is there a coffeemaker handy?” These were Sharpe’s first words since Cole had come through the door, and it was clear he didn’t give a shit about what the others were saying. He looked detached from them, as though thinking this was their fight, not his. Cole saw his sleeping bag, unrolled on the living room carpet. Couldn’t they have at least offered him a bed? Maybe this had been his punishment for the stunt with the minidrones. Or maybe Sharpe had preferred it this way, with easier access to his boxful of toys out in the van.

A voice squawked on Keira’s cell phone. She pressed it to her ear while everyone watched. Her mouth flew open, but for a moment no words emerged. She turned away from them and spoke in a low voice, the words inaudible. A few seconds later she turned back around, shaking her head, holding the phone at her side.

“What is it?” Barb asked. “What’s happened?”

“They found a body. On the property, up in the woods. Shot.”

“Hunting accident?” Barb asked hopefully, almost desperately.

“Shot twice,” Keira answered. “The two shots we heard.”

“No accident, then,” Steve said. He was already reaching for his coat. “One to knock him down, then a second to make sure. We need to get a look at the scene before they’ve had time to clean it up. Somebody bring a notebook.”

Barb had already produced one from somewhere—did she sleep with a supply?—and she held a pencil in her right hand. Steve paused at the door.

“You coming, Keira? It would probably help to have you out there, since you know the cops.”

“Sure,” she said, barely a whisper. She turned slowly, took her coat from the closet, and got Barb’s out as well. They trooped out the door together, a team again, at least for now, pursuing their story. Cole’s first impulse was to join them, but something made him hesitate. Maybe he didn’t belong, not this time. After the door shut, the room was enveloped in silence. Then Sharpe spoke up.

“Any theories?” He looked somber, but not particularly surprised.

“No idea. It’s the hour of death.”

“What?”

“Nothing. I should go out there. See what’s up.”

“Suit yourself. I’m going to find a room upstairs where I can get some sleep. We’re flying at first light, provided the cops have cleared out. We need to make the most of every opportunity now, because it’s pretty obvious someone is trying to shut us down.”

“Maybe they got shut down instead.”

“By whom? It’s not like the woods are crawling with our allies.”

“True. Doesn’t make much sense, does it?”

“None at all.”

Cole paused, looked around, as if wondering if there was anything he should take with him. “Okay, then. I’m off.”

Steve led the journalists toward the murder scene, which was lit up by the headlights of two Talbot County police cars parked at angles facing the body from the driveway. The body lay about ten feet into the trees. The victim had fallen perhaps a hundred yards from the house, about seventy from the pool house. Even from a distance you could tell it was a man. He wore a camouflage uniform and some sort of floppy jungle hat. Off to one side was a rifle with a sighting scope. He was either a hunter who’d come to the wrong place or some sort of freelance commando. But on what sort of mission? To watch them, or to bring them down? And if either was the case, then who had brought him down, and why?

Steve watched Keira for her reaction as they reached the scene. He’d already been feeling guilty about the drone thing and the way they’d accused her, and now there was a murder on her family’s property, with God knows what sort of ramifications. She’d grown up with this place, a haven of peace and safety, and now she’d probably never feel the same way about it again. They’d ruined it for her, and a man was dead. She was probably scared, too. He knew he was, out here in the wild with shooters on the loose and all their secrets up for grabs, now that the police were involved.

Two cops were at work. One was unspooling yellow crime scene tape around a framework of trees in a tight perimeter around the body. The second was down on one knee, examining but not touching the rifle. The first cop looked up as he heard them approach.

“Hey! Get back! Get away from here!”

“No!” the second one said. “Hold your ground, damn it, before you track any more footprints onto the scene. Right there. Hold those positions until I give the word. And we’re going to have to get a look at the soles of your shoes now, all three of you.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” the first one said. “Here comes another one.”

Steve turned and saw Cole coming toward them through the trees.

“You! Hold it there. And take your shoes off.”

“Take ’em off?” Barb complained. “It’s twenty fucking degrees.”

“Don’t worry, little lady,” the first one said. “Only need to remove ’em long enough to get a look at the bottom. Then you can slip ’em back on. But, like he said, don’t move. Calbert’s a stickler on this stuff.” He lowered his voice and smiled. “Been watching too much CSI.”

“I do it cause its protocol, damn it. You know that, Earl.”

“Hey, man. Just doing my best for community relations, Calbert,” the cop named Earl said. He winked at Barb. Steve suppressed a laugh. But Keira was still pale and silent, her face looking drained in the glare of the headlights. Cole had halted some fifteen feet behind them. The look on his face made him seem forlorn back there in the shadows, as if he was aching to join them. Aching to join Keira, more likely.

The whole episode from the other night still rankled, although what had they really expected? Bring in a military guy who probably hadn’t been laid for more than a year, and stick him out in his own little cabin—his own idea, Steve reminded himself—on a property belonging to an attractive woman who hadn’t been quite the same since her married boyfriend went down in flames over the English Channel, like in some war movie. Squeeze that much needfulness into a small space and something reckless was bound to happen. Besides, he had detected a spark between them almost from the beginning, and he grudgingly conceded that there was a redeeming hint of sweetness about it.

Was he envious? Well, yes, but why not let them have their fling? The four of them could probably keep working together as long as Barb was okay with it. Why, then, had he been so eager to follow Keira’s car down the highway with the drone? Spite, probably, a realization that shamed him. Or maybe Barb was right. He’d been thinking with his dick.

“Hey,” he whispered to Keira. “You okay?”

She nodded but said nothing. Hadn’t said a word since they walked out here.

“Have you called your mom and dad?” Barb asked.

She shook her head.

“I’ll do it in the morning. After everything’s calmed down.”

They stood in the cold while the cops did this and that, taking photos of the soles of their shoes and of footprints here and there. After another twenty minutes a third car arrived. Some sort of crime scene tech emerged, pulling on a white smock over a sweat suit and donning a plastic white hat and latex gloves. He got out a kit for making casts of footprints, then took a handful of plastic bags from the car along with a pair of tweezers.

“Who are the idiots, Earl?” he asked.

“From the house. Don’t worry, Calbert froze ’em in their tracks. I got shots of their treads.”

The tech guy shook his head, then got down to business in the small area around the body. Steve figured the county probably didn’t have a huge staff for handling this kind of event, but he didn’t know enough about crime scene work to judge if they were handling it well or not.

After another twenty minutes or so the cold and the lateness of the hour began to seep into his bones. He was damn tired. He yawned.

“Earl?” It was Calbert, motioning the other cop toward him. The two cops leaned their heads together, whispering.

Steve distinctly heard Earl mutter “No shit?” but Calbert kept his voice down and continued for a while longer while Earl kept nodding.

When they finished, Calbert turned toward them and said, “Okay, you folks can move freely again. But go on back to the house and stay out of our hair. We’ll be down there later to ask some questions. Just sit tight and let us do our jobs.”

“You got an ID on the victim yet?” Barb asked. Steve perked up, eager.

“Maybe we do, maybe we don’t,” Earl said.

“Goddammit, Earl!”

“Keep your shirt on, Calbert. I ain’t telling ’em nothing more.” Then, to Barb: “We’ll be releasing all that later, after the proper notifications have been made.”

“Maybe,” Calbert said.

Their punishment for having tromped across the crime scene, probably.

The tech was now down on his knees with a flashlight and tweezers and another of his plastic bags. He had placed little metal sticks with orange DayGlo flags at spots where there must be footprints. Steve made a mental note of where the flags were in relation to the body, the driveway, and certain trees, in case all this stuff was cleared away when they came out later. He turned and joined the others.

Cole waited for them to pass, then dropped into step behind them. They reached the driveway single file, then walked four abreast back to the house. Twenty yards later Barb brought them to a halt, holding up her hand like a patrol leader in a combat film.

“Listen. You hear that?”

A rumble of engines, from the upper end of the drive. They turned and saw more headlight beams working their way down toward the scene.

“You people get moving, you hear?” Calbert called out. He stepped out into the driveway as if to make sure. “Don’t make me come arrest you, now.”

“Must be somebody they don’t want us to see,” Barb said.

“The feds?” Steve asked.

“Maybe. But which ones?”

“I said move it. Right now!” Good lord, he’d actually drawn his sidearm.

“Relax,” Steve said. “We’re going.”

And they were, although slowly, and while glancing over their shoulders. Steve thought he could see the outline of a big dark SUV of some sort. A Chevy Suburban, or maybe that was just wishful thinking, since he knew Suburbans were often the choice of federal law enforcement. No tags were even close to being visible from this far off, and pretty soon they were too far down the driveway to see much of anything except the glow of lights.

They were just arriving at the house when Steve’s cell phone rang.

He pulled it from his pocket and checked the display, but the incoming number was blocked—which gave him a clue as to who it might be. And that surprised him a bit, shocked him even. It was 4:43 a.m., and the grapevine was already lighting up to spread the word. The cops must have notified someone very early based on something they’d found at the scene.

“Hello,” he answered. The reply was the voice he expected.

“Sounds like an eventful night down your way.”

“Figured I might hear from you, but not this soon. What do you know about this?”

The other three had stopped to listen.

“Very little, Old Pro. Probably less than you. But what I do know is significant, and I’m calling to say that you can stand down. The quarry has not only been treed, it has been brought down.”

It took Steve a second to add it up.

“Fort1? The body is Wade Castle’s?”

The other three watched him closely. His mind was in a whirl, but he knew he needed to take care not to make some sort of slipup that would compromise the Source’s identity.

“Please, Old Pro. No blurting of names, not on this line.”

“Sorry. But is it him?”

“The one and only.”

“Why? And who would’ve done it?”

“Good questions. Wish I had the answers.”

“What do you know?”

“Nothing I can talk about now. Maybe never, which is why I’m going to hang up. Loose lips and all that, Old Pro.”

“Our work’s not finished.”

“But your story is. That’s what happens when you no longer have a living, breathing subject. It passes into history. And we’re surely finished as well. Thanks for the drinks, though.”

“You can’t do this, asshole!”

But the asshole had already done it, hanging up and vanishing into the ether. And as the other three stared at him questioningly, Steve was left to wonder whether any of his efforts, with all their tricky compromises, had ever been worth it.