by Coyle, Matt;
“Allowed me?”
“Yes.” He nodded his head and sneered at me. “Allowed you so you could ask your questions and we could then get on with nailing the traitors who killed Jacks. I’ve had four surgeries on my knees. I need to be mobile tonight. If I keep kneeling, that’s not going to happen. I’m not kneeling anymore. I’m going to sit in that damn chair and answer your questions.” He nodded to the chair by the desk.
“You’re going to stand right where you are. Why the hell should I believe anything you say?”
“Look inside that bag.” He nodded to the duffel bag he’d brought with him.
“What’s in it?”
“A first aid kit in case you’re stupid enough not to go to a doctor.”
“Sit in the chair.”
He did as told and I walked over to the duffel and picked it up, never taking my eyes or the gun off Rollins. I sat down and unzipped the bag with my left hand. I didn’t look inside, but dumped the contents onto the floor and quickly glanced at it. Gauze, scissors, bandages, surgical tape, Q-tips, suture needle and thread, tweezers, hemostat, Neosporin, saline solution, Betadine, and a vial of pills.
“Take these cuffs off and let me patch you up.”
“I asked you yesterday if you’d been a medic in the SEALs and you said no.”
“I wasn’t. Bates was our corpsman, but I learned how to sew a few stitches. Hell, everybody in the unit knew how to do that.”
Bates. Fentanyl. The silent partner who stuck a needle in my neck from behind at the auto body shop.
The first aid kit could have been a ploy to gain my trust. But to what effect? He’d already had a chance to kill me. If he and the others were playing a game, I couldn’t figure out what it was.
“Stand up.” I walked over to Rollins’s chair. He stood. “Turn around.”
He did as told and I unlocked the handcuffs and removed them from his wrists. He turned to face me and held out his hand. “The Glock.”
If I gave Rollins the gun, I’d be all in. I trusted him or I didn’t. I wanted to because I couldn’t do what needed to be done without him. If I was wrong, I’d be dead and so would Brianne.
I put my gun in my coat pocket, reached behind my back, and took the Glock 9mm from my waistband.
All in.
I put the gun in Rollins’s hand. He slowly closed his fingers around the handle, then snapped the gun up under my chin.
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
ROLLINS PUSHED HIS face close to mine. Coal eyes squeezed down. I let out a long breath. I wasn’t ready to die, but at that moment, I wasn’t afraid to either. My instincts, wrong too often, had finally gotten me killed.
“You’ve pulled a gun on me twice, Cahill. Nobody else has ever done it once and lived. Do it again and you better pull the trigger.” Rollins yanked the gun down and placed it in his holster. “Let’s go into the bathroom and patch up that arm.”
My instincts were making a comeback.
He scooped up the first aid supplies into the duffel. I let George out of the bathroom, and Rollins followed me inside. He used the scissors to cut through the duct tape that I’d used as a tourniquet/bandage on my arm in Pine Valley. I took off the sports coat and shirt and looked at the wound. A four-inch gouge traced along the outside of my left bicep. A thin black scab had started to form, but the wound still wept small tears of blood. The gouge ended six inches from the scar on my shoulder.
“How’d you get the other one?” Rollins nodded at my shoulder and grabbed a washcloth from the nook under the sink.
“In a shootout with a bad man.”
“When you were a cop?”
“After.”
“What happened?”
“I got the last shot.”
Rollins gently grabbed my arm and looked at the wound. “It’s not too late to go to the emergency room.”
“We don’t have time.”
“Then I have to open the wound and clean it to make sure it doesn’t become infected.”
“Okay.”
“Lean over the sink.” Rollins dampened a washcloth and then poured some Betadine on it. “This is going to hurt.”
I held my arm over the sink. “I’m ready.”
Rollins held my arm with his left hand and then scrubbed the wound with the washcloth with his right. Pain seared along my arm all the way into my stomach. Sweat poured off my forehead and down my sides. I gritted my teeth and groaned. Blood seeped from the wound.
Rollins then pulled the plastic bottle of saline solution out of the duffel bag. He poured the solution along the wound until the bottle was empty. Then he squirted the Betadine into the wound, up and down. He padded the wound with a dry towel and then applied Neosporin with a Q-tip.
“Now comes the painful part.” He handed me another washcloth. “You might want to bite down on this.”
I could take pain, but cleaning the wound hadn’t exactly been a soothing massage.
Rollins clasped the small curved suture needle with the hemostat and pulled it from its thin plastic case. He looked at me and raised his eyebrows. “Ready?”
I let go a breath. “Go.”
Rollins stuck the needle into my skin behind the wound. I bit the washcloth. Sweat boiled out of my forehead. He twisted his wrist and the needle poked through my skin on the other side of the wound. More endurable pain. He tied off a knot, then three or four more. He clipped off the ends of the suture. One stitch done. How many more to close the wound?
Stab. Twist. Knot. Ten stitches? Fifteen? I lost count. I just wanted Rollins to stop. When he finally did, the pain burned on afterward. Smoke from a still burning fire. Rollins put a couple large bandages over the wound and then taped gauze around it.
Then he popped open a small vial of pills, took one out, and held his hand up to me. “Percocet. This will help with the residual pain.”
I shook my head. “I need to be alert until this is over.” I wished it was already over. “Tell me how a dead man came back to life.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
“MCCAFFERTY AND BATES were hunting a sniper and looking for weapons caches in Haditha during Operation Red Bull in 2006. McCafferty opened a cabinet and an IED blew off his head and upper chest. The only identifiers were his dog tags and his uniform.” Rollins blew out a loud breath. “At least that’s the official story.”
“Where were you and Colton? I thought you were all in the same unit.”
“We had rotated out stateside for some R and R.”
“Was anyone else hurt?”
“No.” Rollins shook his head. “The two of them went off on their own one night following up on intel from a known source. According to Bates, they were given the location of the home belonging to an Al-Qaeda sniper who’d been responsible for three US KIAs in the area. Bates claimed that he and Dirt had just cleared the last room of the house without finding the sniper or any weapons caches. Bates exited the house, not realizing Dirt was still inside until he heard the explosion.”
“That doesn’t sound like standard operating procedure.”
“Not much they did that night was, but McCafferty was an action junkie with a hero complex. He was always trying to get the rest of us to break protocol or ROE.”
“ROE?”
“Rules of Engagement. We had our hands tied behind our backs half the time over there.” Rollins stared at me, but his eyes looked by me into the past. “Sometimes it felt like the brass cared more about political correctness than Americans coming home in body bags. But we were SEALs. Trained to follow orders and that’s what we did. Dirt was a little different. Blurred the lines when he could. Jacks always worried about Dirt when we rotated out for R and R. Thought he’d do something reckless and pull Bates along with him while we were gone. Seemed like he was right.”
“Did Bates leave the military after that?”
“Not until two years later when his hitch was up.”
“So, a year after McCafferty supposedly is blown up and a year before Bates retires
from the military, his father-in-law, a guy who never held the same job for more than a couple years, starts up a multimillion-dollar international holding company with a Swiss banker. Coincidence?”
“It all fits.” Rollins stood up and paced back and forth across the room like a caged big cat. “There was an investigation into missing gold bullion confiscated from Iraqi warlords about six months before McCafferty’s death. Nothing ever came of it and the missing gold was kept under wraps. The brass kept a lid on anything that could be perceived as negative to the war effort.”
“So you think McCafferty and Bates stole the gold and then faked McCafferty’s death so he could escape Iraq with the gold and launder it through the holding company that Bates’s father-in-law suddenly founded?”
“Yep.”
“How much gold went missing?” I asked.
“I don’t know the exact amount, but it was rumored to be about two million dollars.”
“Hmm.” I stroked the stubble on my chin. “McCafferty and Bates would have to cut in Townsend and probably the Swiss banker plus pay for McCafferty’s plastic surgery and new identity. Two million is a lot of money to me, but split four ways the reward doesn’t fit the risk.”
“Like I said, I don’t know the exact total. It could have been more.”
Wiedergeboren Holding Company had been capitalized with six million dollars. Three million of which came from Ben Townsend, Kyle Bates’s father in-law, who, according to Special Agent Mallon only had a couple hundred thousand in assets of his own when he cofounded Wiedergeboren. That left him eight hundred thousand short if he used the stolen gold and his own money.
The money didn’t add up, but not much did in this case.
“What were you looking for at the Colton house yesterday?” Speaking of things that didn’t add up.
“His cell phone.”
“Why?”
“He left me a message the day he died that he had a picture of the man he’d seen at the harbor and was now sure that it was McCafferty. I wanted to get a look at the man who I had to track down.”
“Why didn’t Jim email or text it to you back in August?”
“He wasn’t big on technology and hadn’t spent much time on how to use all the properties of his cell phone. He didn’t know how to attach images. He was a bit of a dinosaur in a lot of ways.” Rollins’s eyes went soft. “In a lot of good ways. I didn’t have the chance to call him back the day he died and walk him through it.”
“If you never saw the photo, what convinced you that the man Colton saw is McCafferty?”
“The way Dirt died always bothered me. He could be reckless in his personal life and in his decision making, but never on a mission. He was as skilled a SEAL as I ever knew, and Bates would never lose track of his partner. Certainly, not if they weren’t under fire.”
“Why didn’t you tell me any of this when I questioned you in Lake Tahoe or the other day at Colton’s house?”
“Team guys take care of our own, and I wasn’t a hundred percent sure Jim had been murdered when you questioned me at the casino. I was ninety-nine percent certain when Bates called me out of the blue a couple days after you came to Tahoe and invited me to come down for a reunion out at the cabin.”
“The cabin? You mean the house out in Pine Valley where Townsend was murdered tonight?”
“Yeah. He’d had a reunion out there once before about three years ago. Jacks and I couldn’t figure out at the time how Bates could afford two mortgages. Now I know.”
“Why did his invite make you suspicious?”
“He and I were never really friends. In fact, we didn’t like each other. Jacks was the connection between us. The only time I’d ever see Bates off the battlefield was back in the States when someone would have a party for the whole unit. After he invited me down here, I checked with a couple of guys from our unit and none of them had been invited. The suspicions that had been percolating in my head went to a full boil. Bates had killed Jacks and invited me down to kill me and tie up the last loose end.”
“Does Bates know you’re already here?”
“No. I told him I was flying in tomorrow. Even bought a plane ticket in case he checked up on me. I rented a car and left my truck in the casino parking lot.”
“That’s smart, but won’t matter if Bates or McCafferty saw you in Pine Valley tonight.”
“There was only one man up there and I’m sure it was Dirt. I think that’s where he’s been hiding out since he’s been down here. There were empty cans of beans and chili in the kitchen trash, and the bed in one of the guest rooms had hospital corners. None of the other beds in the house did. Someone who’d spent time in the military had been staying there.”
“You’re pretty damn good at this. Brianne should have hired you instead of me.”
“I knew what to look for.”
“How can you be sure that he didn’t see you?”
“I can’t be one hundred percent. Dirt was there to kill Townsend. Probably because you shook him up and he must have called Bates. Bates probably told him to meet him out at the cabin. Dirt and Bates couldn’t trust him anymore so he had to go. I don’t think they expected you to follow Townsend. Dirt might have thought he killed you with the first shot, but couldn’t risk checking to make sure in case he didn’t and you called the police or someone saw you get shot.”
“I can’t wait any longer.” I whipped out my phone and called Kyle Bates. The call went to voicemail. I spoke after the beep went off. “Bates? You and Doug McCafferty let Brianne call me right now or I go to the police, the FBI, the state attorney general, and the media.”
I hung up.
“What the hell was that?” Rollins’s eyes went wide.
“Brianne should be here. She won’t answer her phone. I think they grabbed her. Either they want her as leverage to get to me or she’s already . . .” I looked at Rollins but couldn’t say the word. “I had to make sure they know I’m still alive. That they still need Brianne as leverage.”
“Give me until tomorrow before you call the police.”
“I’m not calling the police unless I somehow get Brianne back without getting her or me killed.”
“You’re not going to get her back.” Rollins’s eyes softened like they did when he thought of Jacks Colton. “She’s already dead or she will be if you try to play hero and exchange yourself for her.”
“I can’t let her die.”
My phone rang. I looked at the screen. Brianne. “Hello?”
“Here she is.” Ski Mask’s voice. My insides turned over.
“Rick?” Brianne. Scared. My guts flipped again.
“Are you okay?”
“Yes.” Voice bloated with emotion. “They’re going to kill me if you don’t do what they say.”
“Stay strong. I’m coming for you.”
“Good to know.” The man’s voice again. He laughed. The devil’s cackle. “You have what we want, we have what you want. We’ll make an exchange when the time is right. Sit still for now. Call this phone at exactly ten o’clock. A minute late, she dies.”
The line went dead.
“Where and when?” Rollins asked.
“And what?”
“What do you mean?”
“They think I have something that they want to trade Brianne for.” I pushed my good hand through my hair.
“What the hell is it?”
“I don’t know, but I’m not going to let them know that.”
“What time is the meet?”
“I don’t know yet.” I walked toward the bathroom.
“Where are you going?”
“For a shave first. Then Coronado.” I pointed to the duffel. “The surgical tape still in there?”
“Yes. Why the hell do you need to shave now?”
I went into the bathroom and shaved where I needed to.
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
THE SKY, ALL bled out of rain, pushed a gray haze against the black night. Rollins and I drove separat
ely to Coronado. Rollins agreed with me that Bates would want to set up the meet on terrain he knew. Coronado.
I parked two houses down from Bates’s house and Rollins pulled in behind me. Streetlights sat far apart leaving pockets of dark between some homes. I sat in my car in a pocket. Rollins tapped on the passenger side window wearing a ski mask. My heart double tapped and I flashed back to the night in the auto body shop. I settled and scanned the street. A scattering of parked cars, but no humans. No cars in the Bates driveway or on the curb out front. A porch light lit up the front of the house.
I got out of my car and opened the trunk. Rollins stood next to me. His Glock 9mm in his hand. I grabbed a ski mask from my duffel in the trunk and put it on. Only my eyes and mouth were exposed to the cool November air. I unracked the Mossberg 590A1 Pump-Action Tactical shotgun from the rack on the inside of the trunk lid, then gently closed the trunk.
It was 9:05 p.m. Thirty-five minutes since the call on Brianne’s phone. Still fifty-five minutes until I had to make the call. If we were lucky, Bates was in his house with Brianne and McCafferty, waiting to head out to wherever they planned to walk me into an ambush. I hadn’t been lucky yet on this case. Unless you counted only taking a flesh wound instead of a bullet to the head. I wasn’t sure whether or not I wanted my luck to change.
Rollins edged up next to a hedge in the shadows of Bates’s neighbor. I gave him fifteen feet, then followed behind. Rollins dashed across the neighbor’s driveway lit by a spotlight then disappeared back into the darkness next to Bates’s backyard fence. I caught up to him.
Rollins nodded and opened the gate into the backyard. A dark shadow sprang out past his legs and dashed into the neighbor’s bushes. My heart double clutched and instinct zeroed the Mossberg on the bushes until my brain caught up with my eyes and I realized it was just a cat. I knew Bates didn’t have a dog. Didn’t know about the cat.
Rollins stepped through the gate. I followed. The cat kick-started my heart and it stayed redlined as I followed Rollins. I’d gone up against killers in the dark before, but they hadn’t been trained by our government to kill silently and quickly.