Burned Bridges

by A. J. Stewart

  “They were, and we should remember that.”

  “They need you alive.”

  Flynn nodded. “And that was the beginning of their errors. They were well drilled. A four-man team. Fast, mobile. The Navy SEALs prefer that formation.”

  “You think they were SEALs?”

  “Not specifically. But military, yes. Or ex-military. And that was their problem. They weren’t used to less than full commitment. They were used to shooting to kill. Nonlethal force was foreign to them, and it made them slip up. It gave you the chance to get your shot in. Thanks for that, by the way.”

  “Anytime.”

  “So it’s Iraq all over again.”

  “How is it Iraq all over again?” asked Beth. She was still hugging the pillow, but she was watching and listening.

  Flynn didn’t move from the door, but he focused on Beth. “Best we can tell, this all has something to do with an operation we did in Iraq.”

  “Who’s we?” Beth’s eyes were on Hutton.

  “Laura and I met in Iraq. We worked on an investigation together.”

  “So what does this have to do with me?”

  Flynn wanted to sit down and tell her everything. He had never lied to her about his past life. But there were lots of gaps, plenty of chapters left unspoken. She had said she understood. He had been in the military. His was a black-ops unit. There were things he did and places he went and people he dealt with that he could never speak of. She hadn’t asked. He knew she had filled in the missing pieces herself, the way people do. He knew she had filled them in wrong. But she had said she wasn’t interested in his past, she was only interested in his future.

  And he had told her that his future was hers.

  Now the past and the future had collided. So he explained to her about the container. About Staff Sergeant Dennison and their standoff in an abandoned building in the desert of Iraq. About it all going to hell.

  “So you disappeared?” Beth asked.

  “Yes.”

  “In San Francisco?”

  “I went to Colorado. San Francisco just kind of happened. You kind of happened.”

  A smile almost made it onto her face, but it faded before it began.

  “Is your name really John Flynn?”

  “Yes. I was born John Weatherston. When I came back to the US after Iraq, I adopted my mother’s maiden name, Flynn.”

  Flynn glanced at Hutton. She was watching Beth.

  Beth said, “So that’s you. Who are they?”

  “That’s what we’re trying to figure out.”

  “And you think there are two groups of people after me?”

  “After me,” said Flynn. “It looks that way. And it did in Iraq.”

  “Why? What happened in Iraq?”

  Flynn glanced at Hutton. Hutton nodded.

  “We felt like there were two teams there as well. The actions didn’t fit one person, or even one coordinated group. It was like there were two sets of actors and they had the same endgame, but they either didn’t know about each other or someone didn’t care if they went against each other.”

  “How so?”

  Hutton said, “Sergeant Dennison was a grifter. He was a guy who could get things for other soldiers. It happens in places like war zones or prisons. Places cut off from normal society. Certain things become commodities. In prison it might be cigarettes. In a war zone it might be unofficial guns or drugs.”

  “I get it,” said Beth.

  “So Sergeant Dennison was a quartermaster. He could get things in and out. He did a lot of that sort of trade. And then he did more. He essentially became a drug dealer.”

  “In the army?”

  “Sure. The military is a big organization. It contains a broad cross section of people, similar to regular society. So it has the same problems. Only add in the fact that these people’s lives are in real danger on an ongoing basis. There’s a lot of stress, PTSD, you name it.”

  “He was a drug dealer? Doesn’t the army stamp that kind of thing out?”

  “Of course,” said Hutton. “They might turn a blind eye to a bit of weed during downtime, or a few sleeping pills here and there, but they don’t condone drug abuse. The MPs root it out where they find it.”

  Flynn said, “The point is, Dennison moved on. He started dealing in weapons. The US was pulling out of Iraq and he was disappearing munitions and selling them on the local market.”

  “To terrorists?”

  “To anyone. But his operation was low-level. He was the equivalent of a cashier stealing a twenty from the cash register. The way he ran things—and when he got wind that he was being investigated, the way he handled things—it was amateurish.”

  “So?”

  “So there were things that happened that were very professional. And it wasn’t him doing them.”

  “I don’t understand,” said Beth.

  “He tried to have us killed,” said Hutton.

  “Really?”

  “Yes. And he kidnapped someone to do it. Sound familiar?”

  Beth said nothing.

  Hutton looked to Flynn and he urged her to continue.

  “Have you heard of the Green Zone in Baghdad?”

  “Sure,” said Beth. “It was like a safe area.”

  “More or less. John and I were there. We were on foot and a truck came out of nowhere at us. There was a man inside with an explosive strapped to his body.”

  “A suicide bomber?”

  “Yes,” said Hutton. “Only this one wasn’t what you think of when you think that. This wasn’t about religion. It was a sloppy attempt to silence us, to stop our investigation.”

  “How did you survive?”

  “We got lucky,” said Flynn. “A guy I once served with, a Scotsman by the name of McConnell, had become a private security contractor and happened to be on patrol with his unit. He took the bomber out.”

  “Took him out?”

  “Sniper shot.”

  Beth said nothing.

  “We realized that bombers didn’t just come and go from the GZ, so someone had to help them get the explosives in. We figured Dennison for it.”

  “He had a hideout,” said Hutton, “away from the military base, in the suburbs. Kind of like the Baghdad equivalent of Katonah. We deduced that the bombers had to be motivated by more than money. That’s when we came up with the idea that Dennison had taken the bombers’ families hostage.”

  “Kidnapped them,” said Beth.

  “Right,” said Hutton.

  “But we figured it all out too late,” said Flynn. “We went to his hideout and found the bodies of the bombers’ families. Women, children. All executed.”

  “Oh my goodness,” said Beth. “And this Dennison did it?”

  “No. It was professional. Double taps to the head. Dennison could hardly hold a gun.”

  “There was a French operative though,” said Hutton. “Right?” She looked at Flynn.

  Flynn nodded.

  Hutton said, “He was pretending to be the driver for a general, but when the general left the country the operative stayed. We think he may have taken out a member of John’s team, and possibly been the professional behind the deaths of the women and children.”

  Beth fell silent.

  Hutton continued. “Then we discovered a container shipment Dennison was moving, and the investigation went south. People way above Dennison’s pay grade got involved—high-level officers, NATO MPs and more. So we came to the realization that there were two groups—Dennison, the amateur, and another group, more professional. We never got the chance to figure out how the two were connected. But now there are two again. An amateur side—this woman and the two men—and the professional side. The amateur side is just like Staff Sergeant Dennison, except we thought he was dead, and the professional side feels like it might be this French operative.”

  “Except we know he’s dead,” said Flynn.

  “We do?” asked Hutton.

  Flynn nodded. “Guaranteed.
”

  Beth rubbed her hands across her face. She looked pale and tired. Flynn didn’t know how much sleep she had gotten in the basement, but he figured on somewhere between not much and none. He pushed off the door with his hips, stepped to the bed and put his hand on Beth’s shoulder. She put her hand across his and looked up at him.

  “You’ve had one heck of an ordeal,” he said. “You should get some rest.”

  “I don’t think I can sleep,” said Beth.

  “I have something to help that, if you like,” said Hutton.

  She took a pill from a plastic bottle in her satchel and placed it in Beth’s palm.

  “Vicodin,” Hutton said.

  Beth took the pill with a swallow of water and then settled down into the bed.

  “You get some rest,” Flynn said to her, but she was staring into middle distance and she didn’t respond. He stepped to the door with Hutton.

  “You should get some rest too,” said Hutton, opening the door.

  “Too many questions,” he replied.

  Hutton glanced along the walkway toward her room. “Work it through?”

  Flynn looked back at Beth, eyes closed.

  “Yeah, let’s work it through.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Room 24 felt colder. Hutton flicked the lights on and Flynn followed her in. They stood for a moment in silence before he spoke.

  “Will you be okay?”

  Hutton nodded. “I wish I had my whiteboard. I think better with my whiteboard.”

  “Use me. I’ll be your whiteboard.”

  “Okay.” Hutton shrugged off her jacket and Flynn turned up the heat.

  Hutton said, “Let’s start with what we know. Two men, one woman. None of them is Dennison. They arrange a meeting at the last minute. A meeting arranged on the back of a wealthy client of Beth’s. The woman meets Beth, gets her in the minivan. The men are there. They drive her to Katonah.”

  “No, they drive her to Manhattan. That’s where Beth’s phone signal stopped, and that’s where it stayed. They made the transfer in Manhattan. The two guys stayed in Manhattan and the woman came to Katonah with Beth.”

  “Why?”

  “The guys didn’t know the Katonah location. Not exactly. A moat between them and the woman.”

  “And they kept Beth’s phone. Why?”

  “By that time, they’d worked out that I was tracking them on it. They could see my blue dot just like I could see theirs. So they knew I was headed for Manhattan. The two guys stayed partly because of the moat, and partly because it was their home turf. They had the advantage. Or so they thought.”

  “Okay, so the woman has Beth. She leaves the house. Why? And permanently or temporarily?”

  “Permanently. Because of the other team. The professionals. They were sending a hit squad.”

  “To get Beth?”

  “Maybe, initially.”

  “That doesn’t work,” said Hutton. “The assault team had nonlethal weapons. Especially for you.”

  “Maybe for Beth?”

  “No, they had her hostage already. No need for it. Besides, you said it yourself. It was like the Iraq thing. The suicide bomber’s family. Dennison held them hostage, but the other team killed them. Why did they do that?”

  “They didn’t need them alive,” said Flynn. “Prisoners are a liability.”

  “Right. I think that’s what happened here. The amateurs abducted Beth. They kept her prisoner. The professionals figured they didn’t need her. They were okay to kill her. They shot at me, remember? I could have been Beth. They didn’t care. Everyone except you was to be eliminated. Just like in Iraq. No prisoners.”

  “All right. I buy that. But who is this woman?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Whiteboard it. What do we know about her?”

  “She’s linked to Beth’s client.”

  “But she isn’t Beth’s client. She’s on the amateur side of the ledger. There’s some kind of link between the two, but it’s tenuous. Because the amateurs keep doing their own thing and the professionals keep cleaning it up.”

  “Right,” said Hutton. “And she didn’t fit in at the Watergate. The costume. It wasn’t her kind of place. She’s not a mover or a shaker. She not Washington. She’s Katonah.”

  “No, she’s not,” said Flynn, pacing the room. “Think about Katonah. Think about the stores and the cars and houses. You said it yourself. It’s money. It’s a commuter suburb for Manhattan. But not for the janitors. For people who would fit in at the Watergate. But this woman didn’t fit in.”

  “So why was she in Katonah? Your rationale was sound. Dennison’s MO. A familiar location, a quiet street, an abandoned property. So why Katonah?”

  Flynn spun around and looked through the window. The drapes were open in room 24, but all he could see was his own reflection.

  “There’s a link with Dennison. Got to be. Maybe he told someone. Maybe the woman was in Iraq with him.”

  “Lot of maybes.”

  “There’s always a lot of maybes. You just keep checking off the maybes until all that’s left is definite. So she’s following Dennison’s MO and she’s on the amateur side of the ledger. Just like he was.”

  “Maybe.”

  “No, more than maybe. The link is there. Somewhere. What do we know about Dennison? Associates in Iraq?”

  “You know what I know,” said Hutton.

  “None, to speak of. What don’t we know? What about his jacket? Do you have it?”

  “It doesn’t say a lot.” Hutton opened her courier bag and found the file she had on Dennison. It wasn’t very thick. She pulled out some sheets that were stapled together.

  “This is all I have. It’s all I got. The DoD didn’t like to share, especially with the Department of Justice.”

  “Don’t take it personally. I’m sure they don’t like to share with anybody. Let’s look at what you have.”

  “Same as what we went through in my office. The basics. Family history, deployment locations, date of MIA.”

  “Whiteboard it.”

  “Family. Father and mother, Enoch and Mary. From some small town in Pennsylvania. Both deceased. Two kids, Cameron and Oxnard. Like we said before, typical story. Nothing to do, no future. The boys find trouble. The older brother gets into some trouble, does jail time. The younger brother does what younger brothers do when they don’t want to follow their sibling down that path. They join the army.”

  “The brother did time. The two guys in New York did time. Maybe they met.”

  “Doesn’t explain the woman.”

  “Not yet. Follow the links.”

  “Okay. You think Dennison talked to his brother and he’s behind this?”

  Flynn said, “Maybe Dennison was the Iraq end and his brother was the US end.”

  “Of what? There was no evidence anything was coming or going to or from the United States. No need. Easier to make stuff go missing in the field in Iraq or Afghanistan than it is in a warehouse at Fort Lee.”

  “All right, I buy that. But the woman chose Katonah for a reason. Maybe the brother was the reason.”

  “A jailbird from Pennsylvania isn’t really Katonah material either.”

  “You’re assuming he did time in Pennsylvania. Does Dennison’s jacket say anything about that?”

  “His jacket doesn’t say anything about his brother. Just a name and a DOB. Department of Justice info says he did time. The stuff I have doesn’t say where.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Positive. I spent a long time looking at this file, after Iraq. It’s got its own entire section in my brain.”

  “So we don’t know where. But suppose it was in this area. It’s not uncommon for inmates to stick around a general vicinity of the location of their incarceration. They’re like military guys. A lot of guys who get discharged hang around the towns near their last posting. It’s a thing. When I used to search for deserters, one of the first places we looked was the town, but on
e from their last posting.”

  “And that worked?”

  “About thirty percent of the time. So what prisons are around here?”

  “It’s New York. There are plenty. City and county lockups, state prisons, federal penitentiaries.”

  “Not lockups. Not long enough inside. And there needs to be a reason to stay. Think the kind of prison that would run a community program to help inmates get back into society.”

  “Sing Sing isn’t far. It’s in Ossining. Over on the Hudson.”

  “Possible. But I’m thinking closer. An inmate from Sing Sing is more likely to end up here in Yonkers, or back in New York.”

  Hutton pulled her laptop and tapped some keys.

  “I’m searching for prisons around Katonah. The closest is in Bedford.”

  “Is that close?”

  “Katonah isn’t actually an incorporated town. It’s a hamlet, within the city of Bedford.”

  “That’ll do.”

  Hutton kept tapping and reading. “Huh.”

  “What?”

  “The jail in Bedford. Its full name is Bedford Hills Correctional Facility . . .”

  “So?”

  “. . . for Women.”

  “That’s a wrinkle. Maybe it’s the woman who did time. It’s possible she had a parole officer in Bedford. Maybe she met Ox’s brother there.”

  “Still a lot of maybes.”

  “What would keep an inmate in the local area? Apart from a parole office?”

  “A work release program?”

  “Right. Maybe the woman worked in Katonah.”

  “Doesn’t narrow it that much.”

  “Hutton, it narrows it plenty. That town is practically one street deep. We could canvas the whole town in a morning.”

  “Okay. Maybe we should. But what about Beth? Can we leave her alone for a few hours?”

  “It won’t take a few hours. It’ll take a few minutes.”

  “The town’s not that small.”

  “No, but the suspect pool is. Think about it. The woman does work release, which keeps her in the area. But it’s the kind of work that allows her to scope out vacant properties. And not just any vacant properties. REO properties. Properties that haven’t even gotten onto the public record yet.”