The Collective

by Jack Rogan

  “Whatever,” she said.

  Jordan hefted the camera onto his shoulder, then headed around the front of the van to set up for the live part of the segment.

  “Lynette also asked me to pass along a message,” Duffy said. “She wants you in her office at eight a.m.”

  Then he was gone, following Jordan.

  “Fantastic,” Cait whispered to herself. “My best night ever.”

  His interrupted date with Molly had put Josh in a contemplative mood for the entire flight and the drive out to the crime scene. He wondered where the date would have led if work had not intruded, and pondered what kind of woman it would take to put up with a relationship in which she would always come second. Would any woman ever understand that? His ex-wife certainly hadn’t.

  Throughout the flight, he had let his edginess out with humor. He felt like being funny, a little caustic, and just letting everything roll off of him. Sometimes, that was the only way to get through the job.

  But he didn’t feel like being funny anymore as he followed Voss and Chang up the stairs. The whole house had been decorated in typical Florida coastal décor, all soft pastels and shell patterns. Even the framed photos of the family were shell-themed, but these had actual tiny shells behind the glass.

  The father looked to have been in his late forties—ex-military, given the photos of him younger and in uniform—and the mother a lovely, dark-haired woman at least a decade younger. In most of the family photos, they were gazing at their twin boys with the kind of wonder only parents ever had. Josh paused to scrutinize one of the family photos more closely. The twins had dark tangles of black hair and deeply hued olive skin, even darker than their mother’s. He wondered if they were adopted or the product of a sperm donor. With the father’s fair skin and sandy hair, it seemed highly unlikely the boys were his biological children.

  “Looks like the father was killed here in the corridor,” Chang began as they reached the top of the stairs. She pointed to a place on the pastel green wall where the plaster had been dented. “There are no other signs of a struggle out here, but the crime-scene guys found hair caught in the cracked paint. They’ll probably match it to the dad. His killer either slammed him into the wall or got him off balance so that he fell against it.”

  Voss had already taken a step past them, toward the open door of what appeared to be the master bedroom.

  Josh studied the carpet under his feet. “No blood. What was the cause of death? Not the head trauma?”

  “Strangulation,” Chang said, catching up with Voss. Apparently she had told them all she thought they needed to know about the murder in the hallway.

  Josh didn’t move, staring at the dent in the wall. “What was his name again?”

  Chang paused just outside the master bedroom. Voss had already gone inside. “Huh?”

  “The dad. The colonel. Did he have a name?”

  Josh already liked Chang. She seemed smart and competent and take-no-shit, and he admired all three of those qualities. And it didn’t hurt that she had a firm, petite figure her boring FBI clothes couldn’t hide, and lips that seemed on the verge of some kind of mischief. But when he saw the flash of self-recrimination that passed across her face in that moment, he liked her even more.

  “Sorry. Of course he did. Philip Thomas Greenlaw, Colonel, U.S. Army, retired. Owns a cigar shop in Fort Myers, with another one supposed to open on Sanibel Island in October. His wife was Carla Jean, maiden name Santoro, and the twins were Michael and Neil.”

  Josh nodded, letting the names sink in, so he knew who he was working for here. In ocean interdiction, assigned to hunt and capture drug runners and gun smugglers, they had rarely come face-to-face with the victims of the crimes they were trying to stop. They wouldn’t come face-to-face with the Greenlaws, either—their bodies had already been removed from the scene—but he had seen their pictures and now he had their names. As Troubleshooters, they were here to facilitate cooperation between agencies, not to solve crimes. But Josh was on this case, and he knew Rachael felt the same.

  “Young to be retired,” Voss said.

  Chang glanced at her. “Fifty-one. He kept himself in good shape. Carla was forty-two.”

  “And the twins were adopted?” Josh asked.

  “I thought you hadn’t seen the file,” Chang replied, frowning.

  Voss gestured toward the stairs. “We saw the pictures. Not a huge leap.”

  Chang glanced between Josh and Voss as if she was appraising them anew. “No, I guess it isn’t. The kids had been with the Greenlaws for two and a half years, but had only been their children legally for about five months.”

  Josh looked again at the dent in the wall. “And now this.”

  “Yeah. Now this.”

  Voss headed into the master bedroom and Chang hurried after her. When Josh walked in, Chang was standing at the foot of the bed and Voss had already progressed to just inside the bathroom door. Neither woman looked at him. Chang’s attention seemed drawn by the tangle of sheets and the manner in which the pillows had been carefully arranged.

  “The way we’ve got it figured, they were in bed together when they heard something out in the hall or in the boys’ room. Colonel Greenlaw went out to investigate and one of the suspects killed him. The second intruder—right now we’re going on the theory that there were two, but it could have been more—came into the room after Mrs. Greenlaw.”

  Voss had her back to them. “And she ran for the bathroom.”

  “Maybe she thought she could lock herself in,” Chang suggested.

  Josh crossed the bedroom to stand behind his partner. Over her shoulder, he could see the shattered mirror and the broken reflective shards that filled the sink and littered the expensive seashell-patterned tile floor. Spatters of blood were everywhere, but not enough to indicate a stabbing or shooting.

  “Cause of death?” Josh asked.

  Chang’s nostrils flared in disgust. “Blunt trauma. Slammed her head into the mirror, then the sink. Caved in her skull.”

  “Jesus,” Josh whispered.

  Voss turned quickly, gaze dark and intense, and Josh and Chang both stepped out of her way as she strode into the hall again. They caught up to her quickly, but when Voss started farther down the hall, Chang held back.

  “Sorry, I wasn’t kidding. I’m not going back into the twins’ room.”

  Josh glanced at her. “Don’t worry about it.”

  When he entered Michael and Neil Greenlaw’s bedroom, he expected blood, or worse—something gruesome. Instead, the bedroom showed no sign of the horror that had occurred. No blood soaked the sheets or painted the walls. The beds were rumpled and slept in, the pillows still carrying what might have been the impressions of the boys’ heads. Toys and picture books were scattered on the floor and shelves. A Winnie-the-Pooh border ran along the top of the wall. A ceiling fan rotated slowly, perhaps forgotten in all of the chaos of the past few hours.

  Josh stepped back into the corridor and looked at Chang. “How did the boys die?”

  Voss, walking around the twins’ room, perked up at the question, waiting for the answer.

  “Actually, that was the entry point,” Chang said.

  “The boys’ room?”

  “They cut the screen just enough to be able to remove it. The window must have been open, and they locked it when they left. They even put the screen back when they were through, apparently hoping we’d be baffled as to how they got into the house.”

  Voss came out into the corridor and the three of them stood looking at one another.

  “So the twins were killed first,” Voss said. “And that was the sound their parents heard, the one Mr. Greenlaw came out to investigate?”

  “Looks that way,” Chang confirmed. Then she looked at Josh. “To answer your question, we’re waiting on the M.E. to confirm cause of death on the entire family. I’m just telling you what we’re hypothesizing at this point. With the twins … pillows were found over their faces.”


  “Suffocation,” Josh said.

  Voss leaned against the wall, her shoulder jostling a framed beach scene. “All right. We’ve had the tour,” she said, studying Chang. “So what’s the terrorist angle?”

  “You’ll get a full briefing,” Chang said, “but the nutshell version? The house is for sale. I’m sure you saw the sign. Three days ago—that would be Wednesday—the realtor brought two men by to look at the property. The Greenlaws weren’t supposed to be home—it’s bad form when showing a house, right?—but Mrs. Greenlaw had sent the colonel to the grocery store while she took the boys out to buy them new shoes.”

  “And he came back early,” Josh surmised.

  Chang nodded. “And the potential buyers set off some alarms. Two men house shopping together could mean a lot of things, but he didn’t get the impression they were a couple, and it troubled him that they didn’t ask many questions. Saudi or Syrian, he thought, according to the call he gave us.”

  “Wait,” Voss said. “He called the FBI because a couple of Middle Eastern–looking guys toured his house, looking for a place to live?”

  Josh shook his head, studying Chang. “No, he called because he got a bad vibe, like maybe these guys were up to something or looking for a place to hide in plain sight.”

  “That’s the gist,” Chang agreed. “Colonel Greenlaw felt something was off about the men. On Thursday, he called the realtor and asked if their building had a security camera. It did. Then he called the Bureau to report his concern. With an ordinary citizen, we’d certainly have paid attention, probably even checked it out, and Colonel Greenlaw was a veteran officer with more than twenty-five years in the military. His last post was in Afghanistan. SSA Turcotte sent me to his place of business to talk to him, but Greenlaw hadn’t shown up for work, so I came around to the house.”

  Josh studied her. “You were the one who found them.”

  “Yeah,” Chang said. “Lucky me.”

  Now it made more sense, how the Feds had gotten onto the case so quickly. The state cops had been brought in because it was a potential terror plot. Somehow SOCOM had got word and stuck their noses in, maybe because of the army connection, and that triggered Homeland Security into sending Troubleshooters from the ICD.

  “Are you investigating other possible suspects?” Josh asked. “Looking at a house that’s for sale is a pretty thin motive.”

  “Agreed,” Chang replied. “Obviously the state and local police are being thorough, but the Bureau is taking Colonel Greenlaw’s suspicions seriously. The guy wouldn’t have gone to the lengths he did, calling the realtor and the FBI, if he hadn’t felt that these guys needed to be looked at more closely.”

  “So do we have video from the realtor’s security camera?” Voss asked.

  “We do. The photo images went into the database, and we’ve got other suspicious activity recorded for one of the two under a different alias. We think he’s Saudi. And not only that, but we matched the address on their fake IDs to two additional men, both Iraqi. We’re considering them KA at the moment.”

  KA. Known associates. Possibly other terrorists.

  “Saudi and Iraqi together. That’s unusual, isn’t it?” Voss asked.

  Chang shrugged. “Whatever their plans are, it’s obvious these guys have shared goals.”

  “You think you have a terrorist cell?” Josh asked.

  “The last two are legal residents, but both have traveled to Pakistan within the past two years,” Chang acknowledged. “If Colonel Greenlaw’s instincts were correct, I’d guess that those visits to Pakistan involved al Qaeda training camps. But that’s all supposition at this point.”

  Josh glanced at Voss and knew that she felt the same way he did. Terrorists who murdered toddlers in their beds? If the various agencies and departments working this case started up any bullshit dick-waving contests that interfered with the investigation or slowed it in any way, they would be more than happy to use their authority and take the reins. Whatever it took to catch the bastards.

  “Thanks for the rundown,” Josh said, nodding at Chang.

  “Let’s get to work.”

  “I thought you ICD guys were supposed to be observers.”

  “Didn’t you hear your boss?” Voss asked. “They’re calling us the ‘Troubleshooters’ now. Does that sound like we just observe? Now, introduce us to the brain trust out there.”

  As they started back down the stairs, Josh asked, “I assume you’ve got a team sitting on the address the suspects used?”

  Chang hesitated, and Josh saw something flicker in her eyes. He swore, shaking his head in frustration. Voss read his reaction and understood as well.

  “Seriously?” Voss said. “Turcotte is a prick, but I didn’t expect him to play games like this.”

  “We don’t play games, Agent Voss,” Chang said. “SSA Turcotte and his team were about to leave for the suspects’ address when you arrived.”

  Josh quickened his pace and Voss followed as he raced through the living room and toward the front door.

  “Yeah,” he said, as Chang caught up to them, “and giving us the leisurely guided tour before catching us up on the case—while he runs off to try to take down the suspects—was just him being cordial.”

  They left the Greenlaws’ house at a sprint, racing for the rental car. There were plenty of cops still on-site, but Turcotte and the group he’d been talking to, including the guy from SOCOM and the man in the expensive suit, were gone.

  “You’ve got this wrong,” Chang said, as Josh flung open the passenger door and climbed in.

  “This is a joint investigation,” Voss snapped as she slid into the driver’s seat. “Officially the FBI is leading the team, but we’re not just here to make sure it stays a team. We’re a part of it.”

  Josh looked out at her, his door hanging open. “And something for you to consider, Special Agent Chang. We weren’t the only ones left behind.”

  He saw her hesitate and hit the button to unlock the back doors. “Plenty of room if you want to ride along.”

  Chang’s expression softened, but her gaze was still tinged with worry.

  “I’ve known Turcotte a lot longer than you,” Voss said. “He’ll be expecting us. And he’ll be even more irritated if you’re just standing here twirling your hair when we show up.”

  “Nala,” Josh said, catching her attention with her first name. “We can help.”

  A smile flickered at the edges of her mouth. She locked eyes with him for a moment, cocking her head in a way that he found incredibly sexy. But she wasn’t flirting—she was sizing him up.

  “All right,” Chang said. “I guess I’ll go along for the ride.”

  She opened the back door and climbed in behind Voss. Josh managed to bite back the innuendo-loaded reply that had occurred to him, but mostly because Voss was sitting right next to him.

  Nala Chang was intriguing. No doubt.

  Voss pulled into a spot by the curb, a block away from where the police and FBI vehicles were clustered. “What is this place?” she asked, glancing at Chang in her rearview mirror. “Any idea?”

  Chang said nothing. She’d spoken very little during the handful of minutes they’d been in the car. Voss wasn’t sure if she’d been so quiet because she thought she might catch hell from Turcotte, or because she was ticked off at being left behind. Turcotte had introduced her as if she were his right hand, and maybe she’d thought that was true. But as far as Voss could tell, the jury was still out.

  Josh glanced into the backseat. “You all right?”

  Voss arched an eyebrow and shot him a sidelong glance. Had he forgotten that Nala Chang worked for Turcotte and had just been part of an effort to shake them off? She glanced at Chang in the mirror again, thinking that she looked even more attractive when she was aggravated, and wondering if Josh had noticed.

  Of course he’s noticed.

  “Let’s go have a talk with Turcotte,” Voss said, popping her door open. “We can remind him what happens i
f he doesn’t want to play nice.”

  The three of them climbed out and headed toward the tangle of official vehicles that was now drawing attention from the locals. Most of the buildings along this block were storefronts—a few bars, a candle shop, a consignment boutique, a liquor store—but all seemed to have offices or apartments on the upper floors.

  Uniformed police stood on the sidewalk and around the cars in front of an empty storefront that had last been a women’s gym. Banners advertising membership deals still hung in the windows, but they were faded and one had partially collapsed. The door to the gym was still locked, a forbidding metal grate sturdy in its frame, but the authorities weren’t interested in the gym. The dead giveaway was the gigantic FBI agent standing guard in front of the narrow door between the gym and the small pizza place beside it. Torn and cracked numbers above the door announced the address as 347, but Voss saw there was a digit missing.

  “If Turcotte just found out about this,” Josh said as they stepped onto the sidewalk, “how did he get a warrant so fast?”

  “Good question,” Voss replied.

  Chang still wore her blue jacket with FBI emblazoned on the back. That must have been enough for the local P.D., because none of them—state police included—tried to stop them as they approached the massive federal agent. Voss had once known a Samoan of similar hue and build, and wondered if this guy shared that heritage. He frowned, making a noise in his throat as they drew near that reminded her of a dog guarding its bowl.

  “Make way, Bode,” Chang said. “We’re going up.”

  “Who’s this?” the giant Fed asked, indicating Voss and Josh.

  Josh flashed his ID. “Homeland Security.”

  Bode looked him up and down, then gave Voss the once-over, too.

  “Turcotte said no one gets past me, Agent Chang. And that means no one gets past me.”

  Voss smiled at him and stepped closer, inside what Bode probably considered his vast personal space. “Honestly, Agent Bode—” she began.

  “Bode’s my first name.”