by Ethan Cross
Almeida shrugged. “He is a difficult man, not built for this kind of conflict.”
“Did you acquire the drive?”
“I’m afraid not. One of our men took a drive from Munroe, but it was a fake, just a decoy. Munroe must have hidden the real drive somewhere.”
Castillo swore under his breath. “But he can’t access it?”
“No, he doesn’t know anything about what we’re planning or the weapon. He’s put some of it together, but not nearly enough to cause us problems.”
“Is he still alive?”
“I’m not sure. Our man stabbed him, but they rushed him to the hospital for treatment. I haven’t heard beyond that. I’m sorry, Vaquero. I should have had him killed instantly at Georgetown, but I thought that perhaps I could reason with him.”
Castillo smiled and clasped Almeida’s shoulder. “That’s why I love you so much, Antonio. Many of the men who gravitate toward our profession are borderline sociopaths. They don’t care who they hurt and actually enjoy the killing. But not you. You realize that even a soldier must maintain honor and keep a clean soul. It’s about business and raising our people out of the gutter, not about causing pain. But sometimes even that is necessary. Think of the wars that King David fought in defense of his people, and he was a man after God’s own heart.”
“You’re right, as always, Vaquero,” Almeida said with a nod. “We’ll find Munroe and get the drive back.”
“I know you will, my friend. When I found you on the streets of Bogota living like an animal, even then, I could see greatness in your eyes. I know you won’t disappoint me.”
Almeida thought back on his early years in Bogota, all the things he had done to survive. He had sold his innocence to perverted old men in exchange for food. Sometimes he still woke in the night thinking he could feel their hot breath on his neck and the stink of cigar smoke and aguardiente in his nostrils. He had stolen food from the mouths of other children. Once another boy, who was only six years old, had managed to pinch a muffin topped with arequipe. Almeida bludgeoned the boy to death and took the sweet confection for himself. And then one day he stole the wallet of a young man in a fine suit. The man captured him, and a young Antonio thought his life was over, not that it was much of a life anyway. But instead the young man, named Ramon Castillo, saw something in him and gave him a life and a purpose. From that day forward, Castillo took him under his wing and treated him like a son.
They climbed into the Mercedes and headed off in the direction of the resort. In a few moments, the lights of the clubhouse came into view. The forty-five thousand square foot facility featured an elegant ballroom, restaurant, tavern, and a well-stocked golf shop. A red-roofed dining terrace supported by massive stone columns wrapped around the front of the impressive structure.
As they approached, Castillo spoke in a voice so low that Almeida could barely hear him over the hum of the engine and the car’s air conditioner. “These American politicians think that we are nothing but cockroaches, Antonio. Their corruption and greed and hypocrisy make me sick. They stand on pedestals and spew lies about their ideological and moral superiority, while all the time they’re abusing every ounce of power they have in shady back room deals while snorting our cocaine of an underage prostitute’s backside. They talk about their Geneva convention, about human rights, and due process while they send their black ops assassins to murder my family. But they will pay for their transgressions. Just like God himself struck down Sodom and Gomorrah for their sins, we’re going to burn Washington, DC to the ground.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
As the last shackles of sleep and disorientation fell away, reality took hold, and Deacon Munroe remembered the stabbing and the theft of his decoy flash drive. After the encounter at Georgetown, he had switched the real drive with one from his office so that if anyone else tried to take the drive from him, he could provide them with a fake instead.
He tried to sit up, but the movement tugged against the needles in his arms and the monitors attached to his body. On his right side, his youngest daughter, Chloe, said, “Mak! I think he’s awake.”
Footsteps sounded from his left, and he felt Makayla’s soft fingers intertwine his own. “Dad? Do you know where you are?” she said.
He opened his mouth to speak, but the words came out as a dry crackling like the crunching of dead leaves. “Here, take a drink,” Chloe said.
After letting the cool liquid slide down and coat his throat, he said, “How bad?”
“You’re lucky,” Makayla replied. “You probably would have died if you had a kidney on your left side.”
Munroe had lost his left kidney and a piece of his liver at the same time he had lost his sight, and now that old injury had apparently saved his life. “Where’s Black?”
At the foot of the bed, another voice answered, “He’s in the hallway. Do you want me to fetch him?” He hadn’t realized that Annabelle was also keeping vigil by his bedside.
“Yes, thank you.”
“You shouldn’t be worrying about the case. It’s over now. Fuller wants you in protective custody and says to let NCIS handle the investigation.” Their supervisor, Jack Fuller, was an intelligent and forward-thinking man and mostly stayed out of Munroe’s way, but he also had his own career to consider.
“Did you tell him about the flash drive?”
“No, but you should. I’ll be right back.”
He heard her footsteps move away from the bed and toward the door. Chloe stroked his hair and said in a strained voice, “We thought we’d lost you.”
With a squeeze of her hand, he said, “I’m much too ornery to die, darling.”
“It’s not funny. Black told me about the other attempts on your life. I know you’re doing this because of Uncle Gerald, but it’s not worth losing you too. You think that—”
“We can talk about that later,” Makayla interrupted. “He’s barely even awake.”
Chloe added, “Somebody needs to talk about it.”
“I said that’s enough.”
“You’re not in charge here, Mak. I can say whatever I want to my father.”
“You are such a brat. Dad doesn’t need this right now.”
“Girls, please. Both of you. I’m fine. I’m going to continue to be fine.”
Chloe began to cry. “I just don’t want to lose you, too.”
He placed an arm around her and pulled her close. She had always been the sensitive one. She was the daughter who rescued stray animals, nursed birds with broken wings back to health, and had been strongly considering a vegetarian lifestyle after seeing a video at school on the poor treatment of livestock. Her nature reminded him of her mother. Makayla, on the other hand, was analytical and practical and took more after him. He wanted to comfort Chloe by saying that he would let the case go, but he also didn’t want to lie to her.
Makayla gasped as a set of large footsteps pounded in from the hall. “You need stitches,” she said to Jonas Black. “How did that happen?”
“What this?” Munroe couldn’t tell to which part of his body Black had gestured. “Just a souvenir from the attack at Georgetown. You should see the other guy.”
“You realize that you’re in a hospital. You should get that looked at.”
“I don’t like doctors. I’m damn near immune to anesthesia. It takes about six times as much to have the proper effect, and by the time I get stuck with that many needles, most of the time it’s easier to just get whatever it is done without being numb. It made going to the dentist a ton of fun when I was a kid.”
Interrupting the conversation, Munroe said, “Girls, can you give me a few minutes alone with Mr. Black? Maybe fetch my doctor. I’d like to know when I can get out of here.”
“They want to keep you for at least a few days,” Makayla said.
Chloe sighed. “You’re not a doctor, Mak.”
&
nbsp; As their voices moved toward the hall and faded away, he heard Makayla reply, “And you’re not a baby, but you whine like one.”
A chair scraped across the floor and creaked with Black’s weight on Munroe’s left. Small feminine footsteps entered the room, and the door closed. The scent of jasmine grew more potent as Annabelle took up position next to him. “They’re worried about you,” she said.
“They’re smart girls. They should be worried. We’ve stumbled into something big here. Whatever is on that drive is worth a whole heap of trouble.”
“And now they’ve got it back,” Black said.
“No, they took a fake. I hid the real one somewhere safe after Georgetown. Did they find the man that attacked me?”
Annabelle replied, “He got away. They have camera footage, but so far, no hits from facial recognition.”
“It sounds as if I’ll be laid up for at least a couple days, but we can’t afford to let things settle that long. The case needs to continue forward. By the time the docs clear me, it could be too late.”
“Fuller gave me specific orders that we were not to pursue this case any further,” Annabelle said. “He even went as far as saying that the orders came from above, so there was no point in you trying to call in a favor and go over his head. It wasn’t supposed to be our investigation in the first place.”
“Normally, I have no problem following orders, but not this time.”
“Dammit, Deac. I miss Gerald too, but this has gone far enough. Nothing you do will bring him back, especially getting yourself killed.”
“I’m not just going to roll over on this. And it’s bigger than just Gerald. General Easton and Wyatt Randall were murdered. Corrigan’s about to be executed. Who knows how many more people have died or will die over whatever the hell is being covered up here. You think everything’ll be fine if we just stop making waves?”
“It’s not our problem! Someone else can handle it.”
“Easton contacted me because he didn’t know who else to trust. And neither do we. Once we have the big picture and some usable evidence, we’ll take it up the food chain and get help. But right now, it’s on us.”
She stood and stormed toward the door. “You stubborn bastard,” she said under her breath.
Munroe closed his eyes and gritted his teeth. “What about you, Mr. Black? Are you ready to let it go?”
“I don’t have anything better to do.”
“So you agree with me?”
Black seemed to consider the question carefully. “I honestly don’t know, but I owe it to you to see it through.”
“Good enough.”
“What’s our next step?”
Munroe was quiet a moment as he weighed their options. Then he said, “I’m going to recover, and as I do that, you’re going to be my eyes and ears out on the street. You’re going back to the beginning, Mr. Black. You’re going to find out how John Corrigan’s family really died.”
“I’m not an investigator.”
“A fact to which I am most certainly aware, but I think I know who may be able to lend you a hand.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Katherine O’Connell had been fifteen years old when her family immigrated from Ireland, and she had never been able to lose the accent. As if she didn’t have enough inherent obstacles to overcome simply by being a woman, she also had to deal with the issues that accompanied her status as an obvious immigrant. In most lines of work, such things wouldn’t matter, but as an agent within the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, she had to deal with soldiers on a daily basis. They tended to treat her like some spy from a foreign intelligence agency. She had to work twice as hard as a male agent in order to gain their trust and respect and then fight against the stigma of not being a natural born citizen. At least she didn’t trace her origins to a country hostile to the United States, otherwise she would never have been able to insert herself into the military culture.
But on some occasions, her long red hair and Irish accent gave her an advantage. Feminine charm could often break down the barricades erected by even the hardest soldier. In those instances, the men would hungrily glance at her body in much the same way as the man who was currently sitting in her office.
Jonas Black had demanded to speak with her and, after showing DCIS credentials and being allowed access, started fiddling with an iPad, trying to bring up some type of video call. She wondered if a gorilla would be making more progress. “You need a bit of help with that?” she asked for the third time.
“No, I think I’ve got it.” He turned the device to face her and the image of another man sitting in what appeared to be a hospital bed loaded onto the screen.
“Hello, Agent O’Connell,” the man on the screen said. “My name is Deacon Munroe. I’m a special investigator with DCIS. I would have preferred to greet you in person, but circumstances dictated that our first encounter be facilitated through the miracles of technology.”
“Let’s not muck about, Munroe. What are you after?”
“Straight to the point. I like that. My associate, Mr. Black, and I need your assistance with a case on which you were the lead investigator.”
“Why?”
“Because I believe it to be tied to my current investigation.”
“In what way?”
“Do you remember the case involving Sergeant John Corrigan?”
“The man I put on death row? Yeah, it rings a bell or two. Corrigan waved all rights to appeals and confessed to the crimes. Why would DCIS show such a sudden interest in a closed case?”
“We believe his confession may have been coerced.”
She sat forward. “That confession was handled by the book. I did nothing—”
“I’m sorry, Agent O’Connell. I didn’t mean to imply any impropriety on your part. I believe that he may have been coerced by influences outside of the investigation.”
Munroe started at the beginning and laid out the information they’d uncovered to that point. Although she didn’t like the implications, she couldn’t fault most of his conclusions. Plus, the Corrigan case had never added up to her. The evidence was overwhelming, and Corrigan had confessed, but her gut told her that some aspect of the case had gone unnoticed.
She held her comments until Munroe had completed his story, and then she leaned back in her desk chair and steepled her fingers, letting the new information process. After a moment, she said, “So if I’m reading you right, you want me to drop everything, go back on a case I worked in which a Marine was sentenced to death, and check everything out again. A case, I might add, where the suspect confessed and the evidence overwhelmingly supported his guilt.”
The corners of Munroe’s mouth curled up into a large grin. “That seems to be the long and short of it.”
CHAPTER FORTY
Although Katherine hated taking the time away from her current caseload, she also didn’t want it to come back on her if something was missed during Corrigan’s original investigation. A few hours reviewing evidence was better than spending days having her every move dissected and second-guessed by some oversight committee. Plus, if there was even a small chance that Corrigan was innocent or that others were involved, she wanted to know. She had the files delivered to one of the conference rooms, and she and Black began the arduous process of laying out the documents across the surface of the twenty-foot maple conference table. The files carried a musty acidic odor that was at odds with the leather and vanilla scent of the meeting space. She dropped a file on the table and then washed down a king-sized Snickers bar with a two liter bottle of Mountain Dew. Jonas Black hadn’t said much, but she noticed him examining her from the corner of his eye more than once.
Finally, she said, “So what’s your story Black? I haven’t seen a lot of DCIS agents with tattoos on their knuckles.”
He shrugged. “I like to defy expectation.”
>
“LIFE and PAIN. Life is pain. Kind of a pessimistic and depressing thing to tattoo across your digits, don’t you think?”
Without looking up from the file he was reading, he said, “You’re reading it wrong.”
“How so?”
“You have it backwards. It doesn’t say, ‘Life is pain.’ It says, ‘Pain is life’”
“What’s the difference?”
He placed the file down on the table and met her eyes. “It’s a reminder that no matter how bad things may seem, I’m still kicking. Every moment you can say that is a gift. You have to take the good with the bad. And sometimes it’s those moments of pain that shape who we are and give us the strength to face what comes next. Like most everything else in life, it’s all in how you look at it.”
Black returned to the files, but Katherine stared at him a moment longer, noticing for the first time how attractive he was with his dark complexion and muscular frame. She realized that she had made the same mistake with Jonas Black that every chauvinist made when assuming that a woman couldn’t do anything that a man could. She had taken one look at Black’s size, muscles, and rough exterior and assumed that being big and being dumb were synonymous. The guilt over that stereotypical mental assertion forced her to see him in a different light. And a part of her had to admit that what she saw intrigued her.
Black’s phone rang. He put it on speaker and sat it in the center of the table. “Okay,” Munroe said from the other end of line. “Let’s run this thing down. Give me the details.”
“Corrigan was found cradling his family and crying while covered in their blood,” she said. “His DNA was collected beneath his wife’s fingernails, and the scratches on his neck match up. Corrigan claimed that he had blacked out and couldn’t remember the actual murders. Psych evals showed that he wasn’t suffering from any form of psychosis or PTSD that could have explained the blackout or the violence. The face of Corrigan’s watch was broken, and pieces of the glass were retrieved from his daughter’s cheek where he backhanded her. Bite impressions on his wife matched Corrigan’s teeth. His tox screens showed no drugs or illegal substances. Financials are all clear.”