Carter jerked his forearm against Jackson’s throat, applying as much pressure as he dared without rendering the man unconscious. He needed Jackson alert and talking. “I know exactly who I’m dealing with. Answer me! Where is she?”
“I don’t know,” Jackson croaked, clawing at Carter’s forearm. “My men are working on it.”
Carter fixed his gaze on Pritchard and clenched his jaw to mask his rising confusion. “What do you mean, they’re working on it? They’re the ones who took her.”
“It wasn’t them.”
Convinced Jackson was handing him yet another pack of lies, Carter’s gaze narrowed. “I saw the van. They snatched her right in front of me.”
“It’s true, my men were there, but it wasn’t them who took her. They witnessed the abduction the same as you.”
Carter shoved Jackson aside and staggered back, his mind reeling from a sudden realization so dreadful he could barely grasp the concept. If Jackson was telling the truth—and that was taking a huge leap of faith on his part to believe him—then he’d just lost his only real lead on Piper’s whereabouts. He wasn’t ready to totally abandon his suspicions—not just yet.
“After everything you’ve done, why should I trust you now?”
Jackson held out his hands. “If you want hard evidence, I can’t give you any, but you need to believe me when I tell you the men I had following you were there to keep an eye on the two of you since Miami.” Then Jackson did something that nearly knocked Carter off his game for good. Jack paused briefly for effect, his pale blue eyes crinkling at the corners like a demented elf, and he grinned.
Carter could only stare, deciding that the only rational explanation he could think of for Jackson’s unprecedented behavior was the scotch. It had obviously addled the old man’s brain.
“I’ve got to tell you,” Jackson continued. “Keeping tabs on the two of you wasn’t easy. I really thought they’d lost you there on the Florida Turnpike, and again when you switched vehicles in Atlanta. If your girl hadn’t taken the bait we planted with her friend, my men might not have been there to follow her abductors.”
Carter palmed his forehead and grimaced from the frantic thoughts running through his head. Nothing Jack was saying made sense. “So if it wasn’t you who orchestrated her abduction, then who was it?”
Jack calmly smoothed the front of his rumpled shirt and suit jacket as he spoke. “The same person who’s been feeding me false evidence to frame Jordan from the very beginning. I guarantee if we find him, we find her.” A muffled, intermittent hum came from deep inside one of his suit coat pockets and he anxiously reached for the persistent cell.
To further Carter’s frustration, Jackson hardly said a word when he answered. All he did was listen with a pinched expression of worry that concerned Carter far more than the man’s silence. When Jackson finished, he slowly closed his phone and leveled a somber gaze on Carter. “A female floater fitting Piper’s description was just pulled from the Potomac near the Arlington Memorial Bridge.”
Carter’s heart hammered as a multitude of emotions tried to get the best of him. Every rational thought was filled with visions of Piper. He couldn’t function with them coming at him from every direction; he could barely breathe at the moment. So he did the only thing he could do under the circumstances. He gathered them all together and forced them into a place so deep and dark within himself he hoped they’d never resurface.
Carter drew a deep, cleansing breath, and straightened his shoulders. He knew what he needed to do next. “That’s not far from here,” he said, turning to leave with the intention of going straight to the recovery site. He was halfway down the winding drive and reaching for his keys before he spotted Jackson hurrying toward him.
The last thing he needed was Jack’s interference. “Save your breath, Jack. I already know my credentials are useless with local authorities, but I have to know for sure if it’s Piper. I’ll find a way to get through the barricades.”
He was already neck-deep in regulation violations, and his career with InPro was pretty much over. What difference would a few more black marks on his résumé make?
Visual confirmation was quicker than waiting for any of the conventional means of identification. Dental records, fingerprints, and DNA took time—time he couldn’t afford to waste. Every inch of Piper’s body was consigned to his memory. She had several distinctive scars as well as a couple of interesting moles. He was certain he’d know if it was her or not in a matter of moments. He refused to think about what he’d do if it was.
“You’d better be prepared to use it,” Carter said when he saw the older man reaching under his jacket.
“I don’t want to shoot you, I want to help,” said a breathless Pritchard. He pulled a handkerchief from his inside breast pocket and mopped the sweat dripping from his forehead. He braced himself against the car as he struggled to draw a deep enough breath.
Carter studied the older man from across the roof of his sedan. “Are you okay?”
Jackson ignored Carter’s question and jiggled the passenger’s door handle. “Just open the goddamn door and start driving.”
Carter continued to stare at Jackson. He’d have to be a complete idiot to let the man get into his car. Even in his current state of mind, Carter still had enough sense to be on his guard around Jackson Pritchard.
“I know what you’re thinking, and I don’t blame you, but I was wrong about Piper. I know that now. I need to confirm it isn’t her as much as you do.”
Carter couldn’t help note that Jackson’s tone and demeanor, in spite of his labored breathing, was heavy with the kind of conviction he remembered from his early days of working with the man. Trusting his instincts had saved him more times than he could count. It would have to be good enough for him now. He hit the keyless remote and said as he opened his door, “Know this—I won’t hesitate shooting you if you try one thing to hinder me.”
“Fair enough,” Jackson said as he climbed into the passenger seat.
“What changed your mind about Piper?” Carter asked as he turned onto the main road.
“You mostly, and your adamant refusal to believe she was capable of committing the acts I accused her of, got me thinking. Your unwavering faith in her innocence and unwillingness to accept my evidence convinced me to do some fact-checking on my own. I called in a couple of favors from some outside agencies and had their technical analysts do some independent digging for me. It didn’t take them long to prove you were right—all the charges against Piper were complete fabrications. Every shred of evidence I was given had been planted over the last two years.”
“Why didn’t anyone pick up on this before now?” Carter demanded. “Our security system must have a hole in it the size of the National Debt to let something like this fall into it without anyone noticing.” He cast Jackson a sideward glance to let him know his questions were not just rhetorical ramblings.
“We missed it because no single piece of information was significant enough to raise any flags until it was compiled and presented by one very clever and convincing individual.” Jackson fell into a disturbing silence following his insightful declaration.
“Are you going to give me a name?” The black scowl Carter tossed at Jackson would have convinced any lesser man to spill his guts. Not so with Pritchard. He had always been the man who had all the answers, and he knew precisely the right time and place to reveal them. At the moment, however, all Carter saw was a disturbed old man who was clearly uncomfortable with the question.
“Now is not a good time to weigh your options, Jack. I need answers, and I need them before we go any further.”
Jackson inhaled sharply and replied, “Rafe Sawyer.”
Carter couldn’t hide his astonishment. “Rafe Sawyer, InPro’s chief of security?” Carter briefly directed his attention to where he needed to turn. “Th
at explains a lot, actually,” he said. “If anyone could falsify confidential records, it would be the man hired to keep them safe.”
Jackson nodded in agreement, but with obvious reluctance. “He’s the one who brought the evidence of Piper’s duplicity to my attention in the first place, right after you left to bring her home. I had no reason to mistrust the data. I’ve known the man all of my life. We grew up together, for God’s sake. He’s always had my back. I can’t believe he used me like this.”
“Why Piper?”
Jackson wiped his hanky across his face. “According to my sources, your girl’s been digging around military archives and hacking into government databases searching for evidence to exonerate her brother. Just before she left for Colombia she’d submitted her findings along with a formal request asking to reopen his case. From what I heard, she uncovered some strong evidence to support her brother’s innocence, and her request is currently under advisement. The problem is, that same evidence she uncovered raised some serious questions about Sawyer’s involvement. There are rumors that Sawyer’s entire career is under the microscope.” Jackson wasn’t a person easily duped. Carter could see it took a lot for the man to admit what turned out to be a lifelong error in judgment.
“Did he kill Kevin Nelson?”
“I can’t say for sure if he did it himself or hired someone to do it, but either way I’m now convinced he was responsible. Preventing Nelson from going public was Rafe’s objective; in his mind killing the lieutenant was simply the most expedient way of achieving that goal.”
“What exactly was Lieutenant Nelson taking public?”
“Nelson stumbled onto an arms and antiquities smuggling operation running out of bases all over the world.”
“The way you’re talking, it sounds like Nelson had already reported the smuggling activities to someone.”
Jackson shifted in his seat. “He brought his initial findings to a superior officer he thought he could trust.”
“Why didn’t that officer escalate Nelson’s findings after he was killed?”
“If only it had been that simple.” After making his whispered declaration, Pritchard fell silent and stared out the passenger window.
Jackson’s ensuing silence was enough for Carter to begin mentally sorting through the bits and pieces of what he could recall about Pritchard’s lengthy military career and arrive at his own conclusions.
“You were Nelson’s superior officer at the time, weren’t you? You chose to keep quiet and let an innocent man take the fall rather than let the truth take your buddy down.”
“I didn’t know about Rafe’s involvement until a few days ago.” Jackson swiped his palms down his thighs. “Not everything is that black and white. All I had were Nelson’s accusations. Without him to substantiate his discovery, there wasn’t enough evidence to incriminate anyone, let alone Sawyer. Nelson was already gone. My escalating his accusations after the fact without solid proof would have done nothing but open an investigation that would have led nowhere and leave marks on my command. In retrospect I realize that one of Rafe’s greatest talents is the ability to manipulate facts and data in order to implicate others and eliminate anyone who gets in his way. He has an incredible talent for keeping his hands clean no matter how dirty the dealings.”
Carter knew there was way more to this story from the cautious way Jackson volunteered information. He’d only give as much as he had to, and not a scintilla more unless Carter dragged it out of him. “And another one is?” Carter prompted.
“What more do you need to know?”
“I want it all—everything you know about Rafe Sawyer. You just told me that manipulating facts to implicate his enemies is one of his talents, implying he has others. What’s another one?”
“Explosives. He was in bomb ordnance detail in Vietnam. Nothing gave him more pleasure over there than blowing things up.”
They arrived at the recovery site just as the coroner’s van was passing through the police barricades. The descending darkness and the harried young officer’s moment of distraction was enough for Carter to use to his advantage. Tailgating the black vehicle, he flashed his credentials and drove past the crowd of onlookers and reporters without incident.
As soon as he cleared the main checkpoint, he veered from the path taken by the van and wended his way around the haphazardly parked assortment of squads, unmarked cruisers and rescue vehicles until he found a place big enough to pull into and park. He threw open the sedan’s door and headed straight for the place where the bagged body was being lifted onto the gurney.
“Wait,” Carter shouted as he rushed toward the most terrifying thing he’d ever faced. “I need to see her.”
The coroner’s assistant hesitated and cast a wide-eyed glance from Carter to the coroner for guidance.
“I might be able to identify her,” Carter further explained, his final half-dozen steps faltering.
There were plainclothes and uniformed policemen as well as crime-scene investigators working the scene, half of which stopped what they were doing to look directly at Carter when he announced his intention. He waited for someone to challenge his request, or at the very least ask how he got past the guards, but he slipped into his sternest game face and dared anyone to question his presence, though he quickly realized there hadn’t been any need. Every one of them wore their own brand of relief that there was a chance that someone might actually make their jobs easier.
The coroner nodded his acquiescence and the assistant stepped aside so Carter could get a closer look.
Carter took a deep breath and held it as the body bag was peeled back to expose the woman’s face and upper torso. The air exploded from his chest when his gaze fixed on the bloated, badly bruised and battered face covered with wet tendrils of stringy dark hair. There was one unmistakable physical attribute he couldn’t ignore.
“Sir, do you recognize this woman?”
“No,” he said as he shook his head and dragged the stiff black cover over the woman’s surgically enhanced double Ds. “It’s not her,” he said under his breath as he stepped away. A spark of hope flared inside him. It was all he needed to spur his flagging resolve. His determination to find Piper alive was renewed and stronger than ever.
When Carter returned to the car, he found Jackson standing outside the vehicle and deep in conversation with a man Carter immediately recognized as one of Jack’s faux marshals. It wasn’t so much the man he recognized as much as Piper’s handiwork. Her signature punches were imprinted all over the poor guy’s battered face. If Carter wasn’t feeling so emotionally drained at that moment, he would have commented on the man’s panda-black eyes and decidedly off-center nose.
The relief he felt exceeded his need to point out the man’s Piper-altered features. “It wasn’t her,” was all he managed to mumble as he climbed behind the wheel.
“I know,” said Jackson, taking his place in the passenger seat. “Sawyer’s holding her at InPro’s old headquarters.”
Carter started the car and pulled away without giving it a second thought. “Then that’s where we go next.”
“Before we make another move, we need to stop and assess the situation. Think about it, Carter. We’re talking about the chief of security here. I can’t help wondering why he’s taken her to the old building when there’s a state-of-the-art security system already up and running at the new one—a system that neither of us knows that much about.”
“Has the system already been disconnected at the old building?”
“It’s supposed to be, power, too, but I’m not sure of anything anymore. I was scheduled to meet with Rafe for a follow-up report at the end of day on Monday.”
Even in his desperate frame of mind, he understood what Pritchard was telling him. “It sounds like he’s expecting us to come to him, and no power means we take the stairs.”
/> “They’re probably booby-trapped. I told you how much he liked explosives.”
Carter had a hard time staying focused when every instinct was telling him to “storm the tower” to save the damsel in distress. He had to put aside his conflicting emotions and be the warrior he was trained to be. He took a deep breath and steeled himself for the task ahead.
“There’s another way,” said Jackson as he straightened in his seat to reach into his front trouser pocket.
Carter eased his foot off the accelerator but kept moving as he slid an interested glance in Jack’s direction. If anyone would know the building’s weaknesses it was Pritchard, since it was remodeled and designed to his specifications. “I’m listening...”
InPro’s old headquarters were located on the top two floors of an unassuming twelve-story redbrick office building located on the southeast fringes of metro D.C. The remaining floors had housed a small investment firm and an insurance brokerage, both of which had moved out weeks before Carter had returned to work.
The building was dark and forbidding when they arrived. Even the usual street people appeared to have moved on. There wasn’t a soul around where Carter parked on the street near the gaping black maw of the underground garage entrance.
“This is weird,” commented Jackson, gesturing toward the soon-to-be demolished building.
“I was thinking the same thing,” Carter agreed. “You’re certain Sawyer doesn’t know about the back stairwell?”
“I never told him about it. Never had any need to use it. I had it installed before we moved into the building, and I’m the only one with a key.” Jackson held up the ordinary brass key before dropping it into Carter’s outstretched palm. “The access door is through that maintenance closet near the elevator shaft. Same thing upstairs.”
Carter rolled the key between his fingers with silent scrutiny, amazed by its simplicity. Smart keys had their place, but anything involving computer chips weren’t infallible, as anyone whose laptop crashed without warning would attest. Less complicated was sometimes the better option.
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