Jackboot

by Will Van Allen

  He wondered how close Tan was, if he flicked his fingers like in the old days, would he burst into the room and end this affliction.

  “Mr. Hasawi is on loan,” the D.C. dissembler continued, his face just out of the light. “He would not tell you that he is distantly of the Al-Sabah clan, but we are all good friends here, are we not, General? Mr. Hasawi’s father, another good friend, has asked me to help with his son’s education. The family has ambitions, as does their scion here. You would be pleased to discover that Mr. Hasawi has his sights set on the Kuwaiti Ministry of Defense, even as you are saying to yourself, ‘fat chance,’ no one outside the direct royals would be offered such a prestigious and important position. Fortunately for Mr. Hasawi you would be wrong.”

  “I’m two seconds from standing up and walking out that door.”

  He folded his hands across his lap. “Jackson’s death is becoming quite the story. It’s becoming an issue. Mr. Hasawi?” A tall Arab stepped into the light long enough to hand Barringer a manila envelope, and just as quickly stepped back to the shadows. “Some in the Doctrine have raised concerns.”

  It was an FBI file. He scanned it briefly, just the first page. Goddamn, that Lucas was a total fuckup.

  “It’s under control,” he said, nonchalantly leaning back.

  “My men can be of assistance if you’re a bit shorthanded. Or overwhelmed.”

  My men. The man had consigned cold death with a pen from the warm comfort of a cozy office while sipping tea, had five deferments to show for it. What did he know of being a leader of men?

  “This ain’t summer camp. This is the majors. You keep your men out of my AO.”

  “Some have voiced their concerns regarding your AO. You’re no longer in the official chain of command, General.”

  “And you’re no longer a director or a secretary, Mr. Secretary.”

  Smoothing a pinstripe, “You will sacrifice Jackson to the wolves.”

  He ignored the implied subordination. It was a foregone conclusion, with the contents of that envelope that Petey—deceased or no—would now have to take a hit for the team. “Anything else?”

  “His replacement.” The pedantic prick leaned forward, the light shining on his balding pate, reflecting off his rimless spectacles. “I have suggestions.”

  “That must make you feel important. It’s covered. That it?”

  “I think that’s more than enough on your plate for now, don’t you?”

  If this political hack had an inkling of the size of his plate, he would be shitting bricks in his four-thousand-dollar suit. “Next time give this to one of my people.” He shook the FBI report. “Don’t waste my fucking time with this dick-and-yardstick bullshit.”

  That dry chuckle again as the man rose to leave.

  “Careful on your way out,” Barringer said, “marked five of your spooks tailing me earlier. Might recognize you from the halls of infamy.”

  A haughty smile gleamed in the dark. “Not my spooks, General. If they were, most assuredly they wouldn’t have been marked by you.”

  He and his two body men left out the back alleyway to a waiting car, Barringer following after. Tan slipped beside him and they watched the black Mercedes speed away.

  “You know about this, Major?” Barringer handed him the FBI folder.

  “As of this morning.” Tan’s face was impassive as ever.

  “I want Alpha to take over from Lucas, ay-sap. Make that story stick like glue to Petey, and get someone on the yahoos running that Pincer investigation.”

  “Yes sir. And that?” He nodded in the direction of the departing car.

  “That? That was just a shot across the bow. That’s all me. For now.”

  “And the shooter?”

  “Find him, question him, kill the sonofabitch.”

  “Hooah.”

  CHAPTER 34

  AUGUST

  San Diego, California

  “You goin’ to ween’ the big wun’ this week?” Maria asked from behind the register.

  “Got the winner right here.” He pulled his SuperLotto picks out of his breast pocket, handed them over and she punched them in. “How’s school?”

  “Got me three A’s this summer,” she beamed.

  “Good for you. No surprise there. One more semester?”

  “Si. Just the coffee?” She looked at him sideways.

  He glanced over his shoulder at the mother with the baby and toddler in tow, cleared his throat and mumbled, “Throw in a pack while you’re at it.”

  Maria tsked-tsked. “You know you need to quit, Agent Duffield. Shit is gonna kill you.”

  She pulled the Raleighs from above her head, dropped them next to the coffee on the counter.

  Duffy tap-tapped the pack against the counter, met her eyes. “See you tomorrow, Maria.”

  “Get ’em before they get you, Agent Duffield,” she said soberly.

  The coffee awful, prices inflated, he had to make a U-turn at the light but every day he stopped on his way to work to suffer the twenty-four-year-old cashier’s public castigation. Anybody else and Oral Duffield would have had their balls in a jar. Not that Maria had any, not literally anyway, but she had saved his life a couple years ago.

  The ER doctor put it better when Maria finally left his side to call and check on her kids. “That girl sure has spunk. Broke two of your ribs. If she hadn’t you’d be dead.”

  Fifty pounds lighter, more cardio, less scotch, he just couldn’t give up his Raleighs.

  On the way to the office he pulled his Ford in front of a 7-Eleven, got out and lit up a smoke. Absently rubbing at the scar over his temple that his thinning, graying hair did little to conceal he considered the old six-story theatre across the street, more specifically its roof. He liked to look over a crime scene with no one else around. Get a feel for it. The people were now going about their pre-lunch business as usual, indifferent to the killer that had hid up there on that roof. Reports to file. Croissants to serve. Smokes to sell. He glanced down Broadway towards the courthouse. From here he could just make out the steps.

  “Helluva shot,” he muttered. He crossed the street.

  The roof was painted white, and blinding in the morning sun. Crime tape fluttered in the Pacific breeze, marking off several areas. He looked up at the surrounding buildings, many taller, offering a clear vantage of this roof and others and the streets below. Their shooter had not only avoided being seen here but had descended the building without a trace as well. Prevailing theory, he had wedged himself between a wall and cooling unit for the shot. But the escape? The top floors were all occupied office space, not a lot of security but still, someone should have seen someone who didn’t belong. But they hadn’t.

  His Blackberry buzzed. It was the one technology he had mastered, if mastered meant knowing how to read the screen. He snorted at the message from Lind. Goddamn Goldwyn. Supercilious prick never let up.

  Slipping the phone into his pocket he ducked under the yellow crime tape, crouching into the shooter’s spot. Super tight. He held his hands like he was holding a rifle. At this angle, the steps were slightly more visible, but the shot, he couldn’t have made it, not even on his best day in ’Nam.

  “Helluva shot.”

  No DNA, no fiber, no hair, no latents, no smudges, no cartridge, no residue. Just dried bleach water beneath his feet. Smart. Detective Grohl of San Joaquin County confirmed the same up in Stockton. Clean, military firepower, disappears without a trace. Obviously a pro. Too obviously?

  They had put The Pincer Parish and Pete Jackson deaths together when the RCFL had run the Parish slug fragments against NIBIN, earning a likely match to the killing up north, yet the dots linking Jackson’s and Parish’s lives remained unconnected. Jackson was black, had security clearance, was a known womanizer but preferred them full-grown, the fuller the better, and he had no known enemies. Parish was a redneck, convicted pedophile and who didn’t want to shoot that sonofabitch. You couldn’t find those two in the same bar.
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br />   “Helluva shot,” he said impressed. It wasn’t in a good way.

  He finished his second smoke of the day in the field office garage, tossed the butt in the trash, popped an Altoid as he reached the elevator. The air thickened with the cloying haze of Polo as Rob Goldwyn materialized out of the shadows. “You get my email on the Islamic Center?”

  “I sent the Wonder Twins to pay them a visit yesterday.”

  “Jesus, Duffy, at least send someone who knows a Shia from a Sunni.”

  “If I had more people I would. Wanna spare me a few of your forty?”

  Goldwyn stroked his neat, dark goatee. He looked at the elevator button. “You going to push it?”

  “I haven’t decided yet.”

  Goldwyn glanced at it again. He took a breath, surrendered and punched the button. Twice.

  “Ask me next time you want to rifle my office,” Duffy said.

  Goldwyn’s eyes narrowed. How’d Duffy know? Who ratted on him?

  “You don’t want anyone in there, lock the door.”

  “You really need to learn to play well with others, Goldwyn.”

  “Your parting gift of wisdom on the way out?” Goldwyn grinned sardonically. “Happy birthday. Fifty-seven. My my. That’s mandatory retirement, right?”

  Duffy gave him his back.

  “Well, if you want something done right. Guess I’ll send some of my guys up to interview the Imams again,” Goldwyn graciously offered.

  “Hey, whatever floats your boat, we’re a government agency; wasting man hours and taxpayer dollars is in our charter.”

  The elevator door opened. Duffy just stood there.

  “You going in?” Goldwyn asked.

  “I haven’t decided yet.”

  Goldwyn continued to lurk until the door closed. Then he threw up his hands and left. “Try not to kill any Mexicans on your last days, old man,” he said over his shoulder.

  An older Latino janitor looked over at him. Duffy shrugged and the janitor returned to his sweeping.

  A slender, sienna-skinned woman in a gray pantsuit glided by him, pushed the elevator button. She wrinkled her nose. “Goldilocks just here? What’d he want?”

  “Remind me not to leave dead Mexicans lying about.” Some things stuck to you no matter what you did.

  She crossed her arms. “Good advice. What’d he really want?”

  “What does every JTTF head want? Terrorists under every bed, popping out of Cap’n Crunch, shouting ‘Allah Akbar!’ Anything to validate his budget, not that anyone gives a shit. When’s the last time JTTF nabbed anyone who knew how to tie his own shoes? Still makes the damn paper.”

  “No one reads the paper anymore, Duffy.” He gave her a look. She shrugged it off. “And this isn’t terrorism. At least not the Islamic kind.”

  The elevator door dinged opened. This time he entered. She joined him, pushed the button for the top floor and they settled into opposite corners. “Missed you this weekend.”

  “Don’t start, Abbey.”

  “How’s Colin?”

  “Eating like a horse. Growing like one too. Pitched a no-hitter Friday in front of a couple recruiters.”

  “That’s great. Wish I could have been there to see it,” she sighed wistfully.

  He wasn’t taking that bait.

  Was meeting his son too much to ask? Probably not. They had been sleeping together for months. Abigail Red Deer had replaced his longtime partner Tom Mazurski after he had retired last year to Corpus Christi to see if he and the wife could fish out the gulf. Maz had said they’d be bedded within three months. To Duffy’s credit it had taken six. His first office romance. It would also be his last.

  “I just don’t want him distracted. He has a good chance at a scholarship,” he said. Not to mention the last woman he dated, Colin hated her guts.

  “We certainly don’t want him distracted.” She played with a loose strand of her pinned-up, black hair. To the young agents who incessantly flirted with her she was courteous, professional, often cold, pretending not to hear the squaw jokes, the “Pine Ridge Bitch” mutterings and the “I’d like to mount me a Red Deer!” running commentary.

  “Stop that.”

  When it was just her and Duffy she dropped her strict agent façade to reveal a desirous woman in her sexual prime. Had he dated her before his heart attack at the Circle-K he’d have died the first night she had straddled him in the passenger seat of her car.

  Abbey dropped her hand. “Quantico got back this morning. Judy agrees, a high-prob match, the markings good considering the deterioration of the Parish slug. Identical land impressions, same angle of twist of one-twelve. A Winchester maybe, possibly a military grade rifle with the M118 Long Range.”

  “Helluva shot,” he said. Again. She could only nod.

  The elevator door opened and they navigated the busy office cubicles to his office.

  “Yo, Duffy.” A tall balding black man waved him over and slapped a twenty into his palm.

  “Now the Padres do know they were playing baseball last night, right?” Duffy smiled.

  “Anyone can kick the ball.”

  “Twice in one inning?”

  “Oh, don’t let me forget: Happy birthday, man.”

  Duffy gave him his back.

  Abbey followed him into his office, plopped down in a chair.

  “You’re going to hear that all day.” He ignored her. She smiled at him. “You still have the year.”

  “Let’s stay focused on the case.” He tried his email password on his computer. It wasn’t working.

  “San Joaquin PD requested assistance. They’re not getting anywhere up there with the Army.”

  “Monty used to be an Army MP, let’s get the Wonder Twins up there. And no leaks on this one,” he added gruffly. “Make sure everyone’s dotting their ‘I’s, crossing their ‘T’s on their 302s. I don’t want any foul ups. What else?”

  “Other than this guy can shoot and disappear like a ghost?” She blew out her cheeks. She started the hair twirling thing again, watching him with soft eyes. “Dugan’s still on foreign assignment.”

  He rubbed at his scar. Duffy Potter they liked to call him behind his back, all but Jimmy Dugan. He liked to say it to his face.

  “I know he’s your friend—”

  “Kamuri’s fine.” But Jimmy Dugan was better. “Goldwyn wants Lind for some pattern analysis, that’s a negative if he asks.” Everywhere Goldwyn looked, Muslims with magic bombs were materializing from puffs of terrorist hookah smoke but he never wanted to use his own agents, preferred to volunteer one of Duffy’s ten directs instead.

  Abbey pursed her lips. “Office is betting this’ll go serial.”

  “Not if we do our job.”

  She didn’t look optimistic as the Wonder Twins knocked on the door and entered without an ask.

  That’s what you got for promoting an open door policy.

  He could never remember stocky Montgomery’s first name. Everyone just called her Monty. She was just the opposite of their other New Agent Trainee, Andy Lind, who peered pensively over her shoulder. He was one of those who always looked stiff and uncomfortable in a suit. Slight, nervous, a computer whiz though Lind assured him that no one used the word “whiz” anymore.

  “I’m locked out of my email again, Lind,” he confessed.

  “I changed your password this morning, sir, when I saw Agent Goldwyn enter your office.”

  “Good thinking. Thanks for the email. What is it?”

  “I changed it back a few moments ago.”

  “How did you know—never mind.” He typed in Colin’s middle name and birthdate and it let him in.

  “You know sir, if you had a laptop—” Lind began.

  “What do you got?” Duffy cut him off.

  Monty cleared her throat.

  “Yes sir. We’ve eliminated fourteen of the original POIs. Three of the remaining four, the plumber from Horton Plaza, the homeless man—”

  “Goes by Rayon,” Lind chim
ed.

  “The surfer fixing the flat on the highway, we’re verifying their alibis. The goth is our one suspect that remains unaccounted for.”

  The two grainy images and the facial composite off of them were worthless, the pictures snapped from a bad angled, older traffic cam. Even blowing up the pixels hadn’t given them much, the goth kid in the afternoon crowd always finding the pavement at his feet far too interesting. It could have been anyone, hell, the sketch could have been his son Colin. The canvassed witnesses weren’t much better:

  Caucasian, wait, he was mixed; white guy but from the islands, early to mid-twenties; just a high school kid; five-eight to six-foot-four, one-forty to two-ten; pot belly; skinny as a rail, black spiked hair with blue highlights; highlights but absolutely a blue bandana; black Lacuna Coil T-shirt; definitely a gray RATM T-shirt; gray Ministry sweatshirt, black baggy trousers; tight black jeans; tight blue jeans, dangling earrings; one post earring, possible eyebrow ring, definitely a nose ring; no way it protruded from his lip. Dark shades, no shades, tribals on the arms, Kanji on the neck, a skull all in black, some reddish color in the eyes, no tattoos whatsoever. Listening to an MP3 player, what’s an MP3 player? Guitar case in hand, no he was toting a boogie board, surf was great that day. Obviously homeless. Seriously, I think he’s that actor, you know, in that one thing?

  “RATM?”

  “Rage Against the Machine. More rock than goth, sir.”