“Coming onto scenes like this is getting to be a habit I can really learn to live without, Jack,” Everett said, pulling his ID as a detective walked in from the long corridor behind the reception and eyed them.
“Still a hard world,” was all Collins said in return.
“Can I help you?”
Jack looked at the man in civilian clothes with his shirtsleeves rolled up and saw that he was wearing a shoulder holster.
“ATF. Our people called today and spoke with a Captain Harnessy. We had a match hit on the ballistics report filed by your department.”
“The warehouse thing, right?” the detective said.
“Can we have a look around?” Everett asked as he started to skirt the detective.
“We haven’t finished the CSI yet, so—”
“Look,” Jack leaned over and looked closer at the man’s badge, “Lieutenant, we’re willing to share our information and we do have a lot of it. Willing as long as we don’t have to play any of these jurisdiction games. Believe it or not, we’re on the same side here.”
The lieutenant looked around and then nodded. “All right, but I go with you, and don’t touch anything. My captain is a real stickler for this clean crime-scene stuff.”
Jack smiled and started through the reception door. “I know what you mean; our director can also be a stickler for rules.”
As they passed through the door, Carl stepped up and whispered, before the Boston cop caught up to them, “Especially if he knew we were here.”
“Oh, man,” Ryan hissed, as he saw the first bloodstain on the carpet, where the first victim had been killed.
“They capped the security guard here. The rest of the victims were split into six different offices and shot execution-style.”
Jack walked through the first door he came to, which was the main conference room. It looked to Collins that four or five people had been killed in the large room. There were stains on the carpeted floor and on the wall.
“The second batch of people died here, we think. One man, three women, all popped once in the head. The ladies were shot execution-style against the wall.”
“Jesus, who in the hell are we dealing with here?” Ryan asked as he stepped from the room.
Mendenhall didn’t say anything as he joined Ryan. The exact same thoughts had crossed his mind when he saw the death at the warehouse, and after two days he still could not fathom the type of man who would kill so callously.
“You claim the motive was robbery?” Jack asked as he followed the detective out of the room.
As they entered the hallway, several crime-scene people walked past with large cases. At the end of this line was a man in a white coat who snapped several pictures of a large bloodstain on the wall. As the five men walked off, the police photographer took several more shots and then left. He did not hurry or otherwise attract attention to himself as he made his way to the front after picking up a black case. He nodded at the uniformed officers outside and then moved past the onlookers, walked easily across the street, and disappeared.
Collins and the others were led into a very well-appointed office. A large bloodstain had soaked into the beige carpet in front of the oak desk. The detective pointed to a large portrait that stood out from the far wall. Jack saw the open safe built into a cavity behind it.
“The safe was found like that with only the fingerprints of the senior partner….” He looked into a small notebook. “Mr. Jackson Keeler. Twenty thousand dollars in cash was found, along with several keepsakes and legal papers.”
“What was missing?”
“We don’t know at this point. Mr. Keeler has no living relatives, and his partners were among the dead.”
“It had to be something pretty good to have murdered this many people,” Ryan said as he looked into the safe.
“At this point it could have been anything, or nothing. Whoever killed Mr. Keeler took a lot of pleasure in doing it. He was shot ten times.”
“So maybe they didn’t get what they wanted. Maybe that’s why he angered his killers,” Everett commented as he looked at the large bloodstain.
“Did the bullets from Keeler match those of the others?”
“We don’t know yet; he hasn’t been autopsied yet. The coroner seems to be a little bit behind schedule. Guess he wasn’t ready for the rush.”
“Anything caught on security cameras?” Jack asked.
“No, the cables were—”
“What in the hell are you doing, conducting tours?”
Jack and the others turned at the sound of a booming voice with an Irish lilt. A large man stood in the office doorway with his hands on his hips, glaring at the detective.
“Captain, these men are from ATF and wanted—” ‘I don’t give a damn what they want. Get them the hell out of here! Did you know you have more people in here than Fenway! One of our CSI photographers was mugged outside just twenty minutes ago. We found him beat to hell. Now, all deals are off. You ATF guys go through channels.”
Three minutes later, Jack and the others were standing on the other side of the police cordon.
“What now, Colonel?” Mendenhall asked.
“The coroner’s office—maybe he has something we can use.”
Their false ATF IDs worked again with no difficulty. The office of the coroner was packed with next of kin and extra medical examiners brought in from other towns to assist the Boston office with the massacre victims. Jack grabbed the first harried-looking white coat he could stop.
“Jackson Keeler—has he been autopsied yet?” Collins shouted above the din of crying family members and tired medical examiners.
The young woman wanted to pull away from Jack’s grip, but when she found it locked around her wrist, she quickly looked at her clipboard.
“Number three. They’re just starting.”
Collins let the woman go and she dashed into a mob of people and started explaining the hold-up on the identification process. The four men watched for a moment and felt for the families suffering from this cold-blooded tragedy.
They turned away and went to two side-by-side doors. One said EXAMINING ROOM 3 and the one next to it was marked VIEWING.
Jack chose the latter. As the four men entered, they saw two medical students standing at the glass. They looked at the four men in black wind-breakers with the curiosity one would show a bug that had just crawled onto ones’ sandwich. Everett held up his ID and the two students swallowed and stepped to the far side of the glass.
Inside, the autopsy had already started. On a chalkboard in front of the stainless steel table was a hastily written identification: JACKSON KEELER, 78 YEARS, 4 MONTHS.
The speaker inside the viewing room was connected to the microphone used by the ME as he started to work on the elderly attorney.
Twenty minutes later, Everett leaned toward Jack.
“Well, I guess all we’re going to get is the cause of death.”
“Dammit. I was hoping something would come out of this,” Collins said as he turned and sat in a chair next to Will and Jason.
None of the four men paid any attention to one of the medical students when she stood up and walked to the intercom.
“Dr. Freely, when your assistant removed the subject’s dentures, something fell out of his mouth.”
Everett watched as the assistant in the autopsy room bent over, retrieved something from the floor, and held it up to the light.
“Jack, you may want to see this,” Carl said as he watched closely.
“It’s a torn piece of paper. Looks like four names here; it’s hard to make out,” the assistant said, holding it in front of the ME.
Jack looked at Everett and they both made for the door.
“Ryan, you and Will go get the car started and meet us out front.”
The ME was just reaching for the torn piece of paper when the door opened and two men in black windbreakers stepped in.
“Don’t touch that, Doctor, please,” Jack said.
&nb
sp; “Hey, you can’t be in here, there’s an autopsy going on!” the assistant said as he tried to step in front of Everett, who just picked the smaller man up and set him aside.
Jack snatched a pair of rubber gloves from the counter and pulled the right one on and easily removed the paper from the shocked ME’s hand.
“Call security and get these men out of here!” he said as he watched Collins hold the paper up to the light.
The assistant looked as if he wanted to follow the orders of his boss, but Everett was still standing in front of him with his brows raised.
“ATF, Doctor. We’ll need this,” Jack said as he lowered the paper and made for the door, followed quickly by Everett.
“What is it, Jack?” Carl asked as he caught up with Collins.
“Names; I can’t make them out, but they are names. Keeler obviously didn’t want his killers to have them, so he stuck them in his mouth before he died.”
They were ten feet from the door when the large Boston police captain entered with the detective that who had given them the tour of the law office; they stood toe-to-toe with Jack and Everett.
“Hey, stop those men! They just took evidence from the autopsy room!” the whiny little assistant cried from the open door of the examining room.
“Okay, give it—”
That was as far as the police captain got, because right at that moment Jason Ryan pushed the double doors open as hard as he could, sending the two policemen sprawling onto the green tiled floor. Everett and Collins did not wait to offer apologies and followed the smaller Ryan out of the door and into the car, and Mendenhall sped away as if they had just robbed a bank.
As their car took off, another vehicle, this one a white van, pulled out and sped along in pursuit.
EVENT GROUP CENTER
NELLIS AIR FORCE BASE, NEVADA
Sarah had called a two-hour break for the science teams so that they could recharge their batteries. Thus far, the group had come up with no theory that would pass muster as to the validity of the manmade-earthquake theory. Virginia was very close to calling Niles at the White House and informing him that in the opinion of the Group, while not impossible to do, the expense and labor-intensive problems would be too much to overcome with today’s technology. Which in and of itself was not gospel, but close to it, with the minds they had working the problem.
Virginia and Alice sat next to Sarah in the large cafeteria. They both had tea and they looked at Sarah’s unfinished sandwich.
“Are we interrupting something?” Alice asked with her pleasant smile.
Sarah snapped to as if she had been in deep thought.
“Oh, hello, ladies. No, you’re not interrupting anything more than the contemplation of failure.”
“Failure? I wouldn’t say that, Sarah. You weren’t ordered by the president to start a manmade earthquake, only to prove if it could possibly be done by others. You failed at nothing.”
Sarah looked from Virginia to the face of Alice and she smiled sadly.
“You know, this may sound strange, but I think it could be done. Oh, I know the North Korean claims are probably just a smokescreen, but I think the answers are out there and we just failed to find them.”
Alice patted her small hand. “Well, don’t take it so hard. You should spend the rest of your break down in the artifact-cataloging room—that’s where the excitement is happening.”
“Yeah, I was down there earlier and saw that large map and the other one with the strange lines running through it,” she said, taking her spoon and playing with her cold soup.
“Not only that, but they came across scrolls from Rome. Julius Caesar, of all people,” Alice said as she lifted her cup of tea and sipped.
“Caesar? Why would his scrolls be mixed in with the ancient texts? Don’t tell me Jack and Carl screwed up when they crated them and just threw everything together?”
“No, no. That collector had them cataloged like that. Everything placed together by date. They’re working on them now. There is really a lot of excitement, especially about those scientific scrolls and other things that are definitely strange,” Virginia said. “So even if your team fails to come up with a way to start earthquakes, we still have plenty for everyone to do.”
Alice and Sarah noticed that Virginia had lowered her tea and looked distant.
“What is it?” Sarah asked.
“Oh, I just realized how ridiculous all this is when you think about what’s happening in the world around us. I mean we have kids, American boys, dying, and here I sit acting like a schoolgirl about a bunch of stuff that really means nothing when compared to the lives of people.”
“Now who’s being hard on herself?” Sarah said as she patted Virginia’s hand.
“No, sometimes the foolishness of people makes me want to scream so loud I could shatter that glass.”
Sarah smiled, but then a strange look crossed her face.
“What did you just say?”
“Oh, please, I could go on forever about the foolishness of—”
“Shatter glass,” Sarah said instead of waiting for Virginia to finish.
“Excuse me?” Virginia asked.
Sarah picked up her water glass and looked at it. She then set it down and looked at Virginia and Alice in turn.
“What happens to a glass when an opera singer hits a certain decibel level?”
“Well, I’ve heard that they can …” Virginia trailed off as she thought about what Sarah had asked. “You mean sound?”
“Sound and earthquakes, Sarah?” Alice asked, lowering her teacup.
Sarah stood up and smiled.
“Excuse me, ladies, I have some calls to make.”
BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS
“Dammit!” Jack exclaimed from the front seat.
“What?” Will asked as he took a corner as fast as he could without losing traction.
“We should have brought a laptop so we could tie in to Europa!”
“Wait a minute, Will; pull over here by those kids,” Ryan said from the back.
Mendenhall pulled into the curb and Ryan jumped out. Everett, Collins, and Will watched as Ryan spoke animatedly to them about something.
For the past fifteen minutes they had been trying to read the names on the wet paper, and now they thought they finally had all four: Henry Fellows Carlisle, Davis Cunningham Ingram, Martha Lynn Laughlin, and Carmichael Aaron Rothman. None of them recognized these names, but they meant something to someone, that much was clear. Jackson Keeler had wanted them protected enough to die for, and the people who had killed him had ruthlessly sought them.
“What in the hell is that flyboy doing?” Everett asked as Ryan finished with the young teenagers and then trotted back to the car and jumped in.
“Third and Argyle,” he said, settling into his seat.
Everett looked at Ryan with a blank stare. “You need a patch-in to Europa—well, there’s a cyber café on the corner of Third Street and Argyle.”
“You navy types never cease to amaze me,” Jack said as the car sped away into traffic.
The man who had taken the photographs of Jack and his team at the law firm sat in the back of the white van and directed the driver to follow them into the heart of downtown Boston. The white lab coat he had used and the ID he had taken from the police forensics technician lay crumpled on the seat beside him. He was using a portable film developer on the pull-down table in front of him. The first photo of the man came out crystal clear as he pulled the still-wet eight-by-ten from the mouth of the machine. He snapped on an interior light and examined the face. He now knew for sure that it was the same man he’d seen in the warehouse.
He bypassed the five other shots on the reel, setting them aside as he placed the photo of Collins inside a scanner and closed the top. Then he opened his laptop and examined the black-and-white photo more closely. He centered the cursor on the identification badge and zoomed in a hundredfold. The name came into focus.
“John Harriman, ATF,�
� the long-haired technician mumbled under his breath. “Let’s just see if you are who you say you are, John.”
The man picked up a cell phone and made a call. He gave the name and the department of the subject and then waited.
“There is no John Harriman at Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, huh? I kind of suspected that; this guy is a little too efficient for government work.” The man thought for a moment. “Look, can you get a trace-visual ID on this man and see if you can come up with any matches? I’ll wait.”
The person he was speaking with was a deep-cover operative run by Dahlia and used sparingly because of his position in the federal records division. You didn’t burn someone who was in a position to give you that kind of information.
The cell phone rang.
“What have you got?” He listened as he wrote down the information. “That’s all? Colonel Jack Collins, U.S. Army Special Forces on detached service, and then nothing? I’ll pass it along to Dahlia you were a great help,” he said angrily.
“They’re pulling over in front of that cyber café,” the driver said.
“Park somewhere nearby and for God’s sake don’t be seen. These guys are starting to make me a little nervous.”
The man opened the cell phone and hit a single number.
“Keyhole here. I’m faxing you some photos. Our friends from the warehouse are back. They went to the law offices and then to the morgue and they left there in one hell of a hurry. Listen, Dahlia, I used our source in federal records and we’re dealing with an unknown here—a Colonel Jack Collins was ID’d. U.S. Army and a former Special Operations guy who is on detached service to an unknown entity, and I believe he and his men may have uncovered something from the coroner’s office because they left there in one hell of a hurry. I’m going to keep a tail on these guys but I need some major backup. Is the Boston strike team still in town? Thank you. Now I’m going to see if I can eavesdrop on what they’re doing. I’ll call back.”
The man shook his head, knowing that Dahlia failed to realize that somehow she had allowed a possible federal agency of unknown prowess to tag her movements. Oh, she acted calm enough, but then again she was safe in New York, while he had his ass hanging in the wind, tagging a damn Green Beret and his people who scared you just by looking at you.
Ancients: An Event Group Thriller Page 20