What Lies Behind

by J. T. Ellison

  There was a siren behind him, but he didn’t break eye contact.

  “Thor, achtung!”

  Thor stopped barking immediately, but still had his teeth bared, a rumbling growl emanating from his belly. Xander had seen huge men cower in front of a dog, but Heedles decided to stand her ground. She was trapped, and she knew it, but she wasn’t going to be backed down.

  “Call him off. Call him off now,” she yelled at Xander.

  Daniels appeared to Xander’s left. Chalk was inching in from the right. They had her, and she knew it.

  “I’m not kidding. Call him off or I’ll shoot him dead.” From the folds of her jacket, she produced a Glock with a lightning draw. She was practiced with the weapon; she didn’t hesitate or allow it to waver in her hand.

  “Don’t even think about it, Heedles.” All three men had their guns trained on her in a flash. She hadn’t stopped staring at Xander. She began moving the weapon toward Thor, and Xander called, “Fuss.” Thor whined once, then came to his master’s side and sat heavily, still on alert, his hair bristling along his back. Xander touched the dog once on the back in reassurance. “Braver hund,” he whispered, low. “Bleib.”

  Heedles relaxed when the dog stopped growling at her. Considering she had three highly trained men with guns on her, she became almost conversational. Still defiant, she tossed her hair and gave Xander a manic grin. “It’s too late, you know. We’ve already launched. There’s no way to stop things now. We’ve won.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “The Pyramid was activated last week. We’ve eliminated everyone who could stop us. You’re the only ones left who know about us, and trust me, you won’t see another dawn before your throats are slit and you’re left mewling in the gutters.”

  Her bitter words, delivered in a polite, upper-crust British accent, were completely incongruous.

  “Who, or what, is the Pyramid, Maureen? Tell me. If I’m going to die, anyway, what’s to stop you?”

  “I’m not stupid. I’m not falling for that. I won’t tell you anything more. You can torture me, you can rape me, you can tear me limb from limb. I know that’s what you do, that’s what you enjoy. But I’ve done my job, and done it well, and I will not give up my people.”

  Daniels called out to her. “We don’t torture and rape, Ms. Heedles. But we will put you in a four-by-six room for the rest of your natural life if you don’t cooperate.”

  She laughed, a high-pitched shriek. Xander was reminded of a woman he’d seen in Afghanistan, keening and wailing over the body of her dead child, killed while playing after he ran over a neglected roadside bomb. An unfortunate mistake with everlasting consequences.

  Xander knew there was no reasoning with Heedles. She was mad, and she’d done enough damage.

  “What was your job in this plot? At least you can tell us that. We know you’re the one who was stealing the money. Was that all you were asked to do?”

  Heedles shook her head, her strangely asymmetrical eyes flashing in the streetlamps. “I killed the girl and the doctor. Juliet. She’s had Denon by the cock from the first. He’d do anything she said, anything she wanted. She was his perfect little toy, and he had no idea she had double-crossed him. She had to be eliminated. She was going to expose us all.”

  “So you, what, dropped by Cattafi’s place last night with a knife, like you just did in my kitchen?”

  “I was the only one who could get close. I was the one she trusted. She told me a month ago she and Denon were fuck buddies. We were having drinks, and she had too much, and I got her back to my place. I asked her if she was usually into women, and she let it slip that she was into Denon, big-time, but she wanted me, too. So we screwed, and I realized then she must be a decoy. She’d been sent in to destabilize us.”

  “Who is us, Maureen? Who are you talking about?”

  That hysterical laugh again. “Don’t you wish I’d tell you? The Pyramid is sacred. We only know the person above us and below us. We are safe. We are impenetrable. But I will say this. Feeling the knife go into her flesh was one of the best moments of my life.”

  “Stand down,” Xander said, nodding at Daniels, and at Chalk, who both looked shocked, but listened. They lowered their weapons, and Heedles reacted like a mirror, and did the same.

  In that fraction of a moment, inside the breath they had all just taken, he shot her.

  Xander felt the familiar rush he always did when a gun went off in his hands, and watched the woman drop to the ground, screaming in pain.

  He’d hit her in the right knee, and the second she began falling, Chalk hurtled forward and knocked the weapon from her hands. Where she’d gotten the gun, Xander didn’t know, but he was cursing himself for letting his guard down. He should have known it was someone with Denon, someone who’d want to stay close. They were damn lucky she hadn’t managed to murder them all. She’d tried to get out of the house silently by cutting the throats of the men she worked with day in and day out. Couldn’t risk the gun, there were too many people in the house who knew how to disarm her and wouldn’t hesitate to do so.

  Chalk stood by him, weapon pointed at the crying woman. Daniels converged from the south, and while they covered him, he rolled her and slapped a pair of cuffs on her. It was over.

  She was crying and yelling, making no sense. Daniels was on his phone, calling for help.

  Xander heard applause. Some students had gathered behind him. They were taking pictures and one was filming with his iPhone. His first thought was one of fear and relief. Son of a bitch. They’d been right in the line of fire. They were lucky not to have been shot or worse. His second was more disturbing. They had it all documented. Great.

  Chalk realized the issue, went to talk to them, and a bright light flooded from behind them with a snap. Xander heard footsteps approaching. He turned to see the reporter from CNN who’d called him earlier in the day, with a cameraman in tow, a smile crossing her face, the wail of sirens a distant howl to accompany her.

  “Sergeant Whitfield, Rebecca Gorman, CNN. You’ve done it again—you’ve shot your second person today. How does that feel, sir?”

  Chalk was back, a few cell phones bulging out of his pockets. Xander gave him a dark look, and moments later, the cameraman was lifted off his feet, arms twisted behind his back, the expensive camera clattering to the ground.

  “You can’t do that! You’re interfering with our first amendment right to—”

  One of the students, the one who’d been filming with his phone, joined in. “Yeah, you can’t steal our stuff, man.”

  “I respect your right to report on this story, and I’d lay down my life to make sure you can, but we’re not going to do this right now,” Xander said.

  Gorman was losing control. “I have it all, we have it all, on tape. It doesn’t matter. We can approach one of those kids over there. They have it all, too. We can be live in five minutes. Our viewers need to see what’s happening here. I can get an uplink to New York in a few minutes.”

  Xander sighed. “Ma’am, when the FBI clears these videos for public consumption, then I’ll be happy to sit down with you and give a comment. Until then, you’re going to have to shut this down. We’re in the middle of a case. There’s a killer on the loose.”

  Chalk stepped in, taking up much of the space between the woman and her cameraman. “Seriously, if you put our faces out there now, we lose our tactical advantage. We can’t have you broadcasting this footage, not until we find him. Do you understand?”

  She nodded, wide-eyed, let the mike drop to her side. The student’s eyes grew big. “Are we safe, dude?”

  Chalk shook his head. “No.”

  The reporter turned white. “Why didn’t you say so?”

  “I just did. Please get back in your van, and lock the doors. Metro will be here momentarily. Take thi
s one with you.” He pulled the kid’s sleeve, and he happily cozied up to the pretty reporter. “Don’t worry, we’ll be in touch. You guys are witnesses, after all. The police will want to talk to you.”

  “I need my equipment,” the cameraman said.

  Chalk obliged, but not before removing the cassette that held their footage of the shooting and handing it to Daniels.

  “Dude, totally uncool.”

  Daniels had Heedles by the arm. She was sitting up, back against the stairs, blood leaking onto the sidewalk. She kept up a steady string of curses at them.

  “Ma’am, I’m Agent Daniels, FBI,” he called to the reporter. “He’s not kidding. We will return your footage as soon as we’re cleared, but you want to get off the street right now.” The cameraman backed off, nursing his bruised hand.

  “Xander, Chalk,” Daniels said. “I’ll stay here, deal with Metro. You should head back to the house.” The sirens were coming closer; Fletcher’s call had been answered. A patrol car whipped onto the street. Daniels turned his head toward it, then yelled, “Go. Now!”

  Xander didn’t hesitate. The last thing he needed was to be detained like he had this morning. He took off at a jog, Thor and Chalk right with him. They had no more time; he knew Gorman was already on the phone to her producer. There was no help for it. Even without the footage they’d just shot, word would be out in moments. Too many people had seen him shoot Heedles. It was how things moved now. They had to act quickly, before they became bigger targets than they already were.

  “She’s just the money,” Chalk said as they cut across to N Street. “We still need to find the brain.”

  Xander nodded. “This is a seriously fucked-up day, man. Let’s get back to the house, go from there. But keep an eye out for anything Heedles might have discarded on the way.”

  Chapter 48

  WHEN THE DOOR opened and Sam saw Xander and Chalk come through, she felt overwhelming relief. She hurried to them. “Xander, are you okay?”

  “I am. Daniels sent us back here. We cornered Maureen Heedles, and I shot her in the leg. Where’s Fletcher? I need to make sure he knows what’s happening.”

  Fletcher came into the hall, clapped him on the shoulder. “I know. We saw the whole thing. Mouse tapped into the CCTV cameras. You did good.”

  “I should have killed her,” he said grimly.

  “Probably. But it’s good that you didn’t. She might be able to give us information. I should head down to the scene. I’ll make sure they understand what happened.”

  “It’s all on video,” Chalk said. “A fucking reporter was there, plus a bunch of kids.” He dropped the phones and film cassette onto the hall table. “Lucky they weren’t killed.”

  They went into the den. Mouse was on the floor, stretched out like a teenager on her stomach, typing faster than anyone Sam had ever seen.

  “Mouse,” Xander said. “Heedles said there was a pyramid, or the group is called the Pyramid. We need to see if we can find what she’s referring to. Here’s her phone. We found it in the bushes at the end of the street. She didn’t have time to destroy it when she was on the run. Can you see who she’s been talking to?”

  “I’m on it,” Mouse said. “While you two were off being heroes, I found a seek-and-destroy program on Heedles’s computer. She launched it when we asked her to look at the personnel files. She’s managed to destroy half the servers in Denon’s company. They’re totally wiped clean.”

  “Can you restore them?” Xander asked.

  “Maybe. We have the SD card Amanda smuggled out, and it has a pretty sophisticated program on it that could be used to restore what’s been wiped. It’s almost as if she knew this would happen, and put her own fail-safe into play. I can’t promise it will work, and it’s going to take a while. She’s very good. She’s had the attack built into the system for a while. This kind of recovery, it’s hit or miss. It all depends on what I can reconstruct. It’s like a puzzle—without the corners, you can’t make the insides work.”

  “Did she kill the information about Africa, and the medicine?” Sam asked.

  Mouse nodded. “I’m sorry, but she did. She’s destroyed this so thoroughly even I am going to have trouble recovering it. She had at least thirty minutes’ head start, and it was enough time to wipe most everything clean. I’ll do my best, but without another backup to run and fill in the blanks, I can’t promise anything.”

  “Another backup? You mean, like another computer where the information could be stored?”

  “Yes. I’ve reconstructed a bit. I can see threads to other computers. But she’s severed them, and sent the attack program into their systems to wipe them clean, too. There are at least two other machines that hold the answers she was trying to get rid of. One is here in D.C., and one is in France. Probably the home of the terrorist who organized this in the first place.”

  “If there’s one in D.C.... Can you trace an address, Mouse?” Fletcher asked.

  “It’s on Connecticut Avenue.”

  “Where does Jason Kruger live? What’s his address?”

  Mouse typed some more, her tongue caught between her teeth. “There’s a Kruger on...hey, you’re good. Here it is—3700 Connecticut Avenue, apartment 303.” She flipped the screen, and Sam saw a satellite shot of D.C. The image zoomed in to a small spot. “It’s a match,” Mouse announced.

  Fletcher had his phone in his hand, was squinting at the small screen. “My vote is someone gets over to Kruger’s house ASAP. He was up to his eyeballs in this. He must have a backup for safekeeping in case he needed to use it to try and play the hero instead of the villain.” He hit Refresh for the hundredth time in the past fifteen minutes. “Where the hell is Cavort with that file?”

  On cue, Fletcher’s phone rang. He glanced at the screen, then answered with a frown. “Woolrich? What’s wrong?”

  “Hey, boss. I’ve got a major problem.”

  “Don’t we all,” he said. “Hit me.”

  “I know you’re off on admin, but I thought you might want to hear this. That guy Hart interviewed earlier today, the one driving the gray Honda in circles around the crime scene? Hart told me something felt off about him, asked me to do a background check. The guy he described who opened the door and said he was Toliver Pryce doesn’t match the driver’s license photo Virginia has on file. It’s not even close.”

  “Son of a bitch. Get back over there. Right now.”

  “I’m already here. No one’s answering the door.”

  “Shit, shit, shit, shit. Does this Pryce guy have family?”

  “Not that I can find. I called his work—he’s an actuary out in Ballston. Boss said he’s a loner, keeps to himself. He was genuinely worried about the guy. Apparently, missing work is completely out of character. Without a family, if he were hurt or missing, no one would come forward to ask for a welfare check, right? We’d need to take the boss’s word on things?”

  “That’s right. If you’re asking permission, I absolutely think you have enough to go in.”

  “Armstrong’s getting paper right now. He wanted to be sure we were all taken care of. I just wanted you to know.”

  “Break down the fucking door, Woolrich. I don’t give a shit if we have paper or not. This might be the key to stopping our killer.”

  “Goddamn it. This is on you, Fletch.”

  Fletcher heard a crash, then a muffled groan.

  “Ah, man. Smells awful in here. We’ve got a body.” More shuffling, a murmur of voices in the background, then Woolrich came back on the line. “Fletch, we found him. Pryce has been stabbed. He’s in the closet. We’ve got another fucking crime scene.”

  “Turn it over. You need to grab Tony and hightail it out to Hart’s place. We need a composite sketch of the guy he saw, and we need it yesterday. Have crime scene run the entire place for DNA,
trace, anything they can find. We’re missing one last assassin. This might be him.”

  “I’ll hand the scene over and get on my way. You think he’s in cahoots with the woman?”

  “Maybe. What did Hart say he looked like?”

  “Pretty boy. Really handsome guy, could have been a model. Blue eyes, midthirties. I’ll get with Tony and get a sketch together.”

  “Is the Honda still there?”

  “Yes. It’s in the driveway.”

  “So we don’t know for sure whether this guy was really driving it last night or not.”

  “Nope. Which puts everything he said into question. His whole statement is worthless.”

  “Go get me a composite drawing, Woolrich. We’ll worry about the rest later.”

  “Roger that.”

  He hung up, and Fletcher’s phone dinged. It was the email from Cavort. “Finally,” he said, opening the file.

  Kruger was thirty-four, born in Cape Town to an American mother and South African father. His mother was a diplomat, and they moved around a lot—he spent most of his time in England and South Africa. He went to the embassy schools, and followed in their footsteps into the Foreign Service. He requested the Africa desk, wanting to work closely with the various countries he’d fallen in love with as a boy.

  He scanned the rest. This wasn’t going to do it. They needed more. Financials. Private emails. Phones. All the things that took time. He saw Sam, face pale but composed, moving from the kitchen to the living room, and intercepted her in the hall.

  “We gotta go to Kruger’s place, ASAP. This file doesn’t give us diddly-squat.”

  “You can’t show up there, Fletch. You’ll get into all kinds of trouble.”

  “Then you go. Take Xander as backup. Someone needs to get into his place immediately. I’ll stay here and see that Bebbington and Everson are taken care of properly.”