The Collective

by Jack Rogan

  “Relax,” Stanovitch said. “I’m here. Be grateful for that. I almost didn’t come.”

  Anger surged up inside Herc. “What, you think you’re doing me a favor? He was your friend, Terry. Saved your life once, and your career more than once. You told me that yourself, because Sean had too much class to ever mention it.”

  Stanovitch nodded. “Yeah, I know. And now Sean’s dead and nobody—and I mean nobody—knows who took him out—”

  “Somebody knows, because somebody did it,” Herc snapped.

  Eyes narrowed, Stanovitch glared at him. “No shit. Don’t be a prick, Brian. You know what I’m saying.”

  Herc wanted to hit him, scream at him, but he knew it was just helplessness gnawing at him. He slapped the steering wheel and swore.

  “I can’t believe he’s fucking dead.”

  That sobered Stanovitch. “He was one of a kind.”

  Herc stared at him, chewing his lower lip, contemplating. “Maybe not.”

  “You’re talking about the sister?”

  “Her name’s Caitlin. Her baby daughter’s name is Leyla. Sean talked about them constantly. You should remember.”

  “I do—”

  “Their names, Terry. You should remember their names. Look, maybe Cait McCandless isn’t the person her brother was, maybe she doesn’t have his courage or his smarts or his loyalty—but maybe she does. We don’t know. All we know is that Sean loved her and that baby more than anything else in the world, and he made me promise I would look out for them if anything ever happened to him. And now it has. So you need to tell me, man, what the fuck is going on up in Boston? Who posted a watch on Sean’s aunt and uncle? Who tried to take the baby? Whatever you know, you’ve gotta tell me. You don’t want to go all in, take care of this for Sean, that’s up to you. You’ve got to sleep at night. But at the very least, you’ve gotta give me this.”

  Stanovitch stared at him, sort of twitchy, mouth working as he turned his palms up, like he hoped the right words would fall into them.

  “What … I mean, did you think we were going to be like Butch and Sundance, going out in a blaze of glory? Because those are the odds,” Stanovitch said.

  Herc felt queasy. “No. Not at all. I’m not some action hero. I don’t want to expose anything or even get in anybody’s way. I just want to do what I promised and take care of Sean’s sister and her baby.”

  “What if doing that leads to the other?” Stanovitch asked.

  The question made Herc flinch. He hesitated, then shook his head to clear it of any doubt.

  “Just tell me what you know. The rest isn’t your problem.”

  Stanovitch took a deep breath. “Fine,” he said, letting it out. “You wanted to know who’s got the juice to blank those plates, right? I got your answer. But there’s another question you should be asking.” He glanced out the window again, as though afraid they were being watched.

  “Which is?”

  “Who owns the car?”

  Monteforte drove without mercy, hitting the siren anytime some idiot on a cell phone didn’t notice the dome light flashing in the rearview mirror. Rachael Voss liked her for that. The white box van had more under the hood than Voss would have believed without seeing it, but they could easily have caught up. Instead, they all agreed to keep a short distance behind. They didn’t just want one truck and the armed soldiers it carried, they wanted both trucks and the person to whom the bodies were being delivered.

  They had passed a state police patrol car, necessitating a quick radio exchange between Monteforte and her dispatcher, so now the state trooper roared along behind them on the way to the airport.

  “We just came from the damn airport,” Voss said, though mostly to herself.

  Turcotte sat in the backseat, churning through cell phone minutes. He’d been on with Chang at first, snapping orders, making sure the local P.D. would be guarding the crime scene now that all the techs, investigators, and FBI were leaving. Once the police cordons were removed, the press would be swarming the place. It would remain an FBI investigation with Coogan in charge of the scene, but the Medford cops would keep the press behind the yellow tape, at least for tonight.

  Now, as Monteforte concentrated on the road and Voss and Josh listened, Turcotte had moved on to his second call—to his boss. Voss noted the number of times Turcotte said “sir,” and she wondered if he had always been that deferential or if this was a special case. The call lasted three or four minutes, and only ended because they went into the tunnel and Turcotte lost his cell signal.

  “So?” Voss asked, turning to look into the backseat.

  Turcotte’s jaw was set, like he wanted to throw a punch. Then he uttered a short laugh of disbelief. “So he knew. He’d signed off on it.”

  “Without telling you?” Josh asked.

  Voss heard the surprise and dismay in his voice and she shared those feelings. In the years that she had spent with the FBI, she had dealt with a lot of politics, a lot of shell games, but none of her superiors had ever pulled the rug out from under her the way Turcotte’s boss had just done.

  “It gets better,” Turcotte said. “He’s the one who issued that BOLO identifying McCandless as a terror suspect.”

  “For Christ’s sake!” Josh said.

  “Sounds like someone’s got an agenda here that isn’t about solving this case,” Monteforte said.

  The temperature in the car dropped twenty degrees. They all fell silent, staring at her. The engine roared and blue lights from the state police car behind them filled the interior of the Camry. Nobody wanted to respond.

  “What was his excuse?” Josh asked at last.

  “Wait,” Voss said, before Turcotte could reply. “First up, who are we talking about here? This is Julius Andelman?”

  Turcotte’s face looked carved from granite. “Not for a while. Dwight Hollenbach. He’s SSAC of CTD Ops II.”

  “All right,” Voss went on. “So what did he say? Why is SOCOM operating on U.S. soil? Why did he let Arsenault take the vics from the scene? Where the hell are they going?”

  For the first time she saw the tic at the corner of Turcotte’s left eye. He reached up and ran a hand across his stubbled head.

  “He told me that was not my concern—”

  “It’s your case!” Josh said.

  “—and that I should focus on finding McCandless and her accomplice.”

  Voss scowled. “He used that word? Accomplice?”

  “He did.” Turcotte continued, “As for why the bodies were removed, SSAC Hollenbach informed me, ‘Nobody wants the public seeing all of those body bags, or getting any ideas about who might be in them.’ His superiors apparently decided this was the best way to keep the media in the dark.”

  Sickened, Voss could only laugh. “By making the bodies vanish?”

  Turcotte lifted his chin, trying to catch Monteforte’s eye in the rearview mirror. “Actually, Agent Chang just informed me that the bodies of the Russo woman and Detective Jarman were loaded into one of the ambulances at the scene. They’re being taken to the morgue.”

  “And the others?” Voss asked.

  The car shot out of the tunnel. They weren’t far from the airport now.

  “Let’s find out,” Turcotte said.

  Voss glanced out the windshield, then at Monteforte. The detective must have exhaled at least a little when Turcotte had confirmed that her partner’s body was not in one of the white vans, but she seemed no less determined to follow that van and get the answers they all wanted.

  Voss turned again and looked at Josh, sharing a silent exchange. They were turning onto an access road that seemed to lead to hangars for overnight delivery company planes when she turned to Turcotte again.

  “Ed,” she said, “you know I have to take the case.”

  Turcotte’s grimace was impossible to read. “By all means,” he said. “It’s yours. At least with you running the show, I know who’s pulling the strings and why.”

  Voss looked at Josh.
“Call in. Don’t let Unger stonewall you. Get Director Wood on the line and tell her what’s happening. Make sure she puts the call in to this Hollenbach herself, so there’s no mistaking the chain of command here.”

  Josh nodded and pulled out his phone.

  Monteforte swerved, tires squealing, and even as Voss looked up she saw they were racing around the nose of a dark sedan that had stopped in their path.

  “That call might have to wait,” Monteforte said.

  Voss and Josh swore. Ahead of them, metal gates were rolling shut to block their entrance to an airfield. They were far from Logan Airport’s passenger terminals here. The next airfield over, planes with Federal Express logos could be seen over the top of the fence, but this aircraft had no such branding.

  Turcotte gripped the seat in front of him and leaned forward. “Don’t stop.”

  “Easy for you to say. I’m still paying for this car.”

  But Monteforte floored it, the state trooper keeping pace behind her. Blue lights fluttered like ghosts all around them. Headlights filled the passenger-side windows and Voss looked to see two cars racing toward them.

  Beyond the fence the white van kept going, not even slowing down. Other vehicles were in motion as well, dark figures running back and forth, but they were hard to make out in the dark and through the rapidly closing fence.

  “Shit,” Monteforte said, teeth snapping down on the end of the word.

  The car shot through the opening, knocking the driver’s-side mirror inward, and then they were inside the perimeter. Twenty feet in, Monteforte had to slam on the brakes. A military transport truck blocked their path, dark sedans on either side of it. Soldiers in T-shirts and fatigue pants leveled weapons at them. Men and women in suits pointed pistols at Monteforte’s windshield.

  The Camry skidded to a halt.

  “Stay here,” Voss said.

  She popped the door and got out. The night had grown humid and she felt the air cling instantly to her skin. She started forward on foot and guns cocked, some of them tracking her while the others stayed aimed at the car.

  A door opened behind her. Turcotte, she figured.

  A glance back confirmed it, and revealed that the state trooper had skidded to a halt outside the gate. She could hear the crackle of his radio and see the flashing blue of his light rack, but this was out of his league anyway.

  “I’m not going to bother to reach for my ID,” she called to the soldiers up ahead. “I don’t want to ‘accidentally’ catch a bullet. My name is Rachael Voss and I work for the InterAgency Cooperation Division. That’s part of Homeland Security, for those of you who don’t read the papers. ICD has situational jurisdiction over every other agency or department of the U.S. government.”

  Even as she said it, a chill went through her. The ones in suits didn’t work for the government. Every single one of them looked just as cold and hard as Norris.

  “I have taken over this case,” she said. “Anyone who is still attempting to bar our way by the count of three will be up on charges before sunrise.”

  Nobody moved.

  “Stupid, arrogant shitheads,” Voss said, loud enough for them all to hear. “My authority comes from the President of the United States. Fucking move!”

  One soldier, fortyish and grizzled, scar on his forehead, shipped his weapon and stepped away from the truck to approach her.

  “I’ll take a look at that ID,” the officer said. “Nobody is going to shoot you.”

  “Do you speak for them, too?” Turcotte yelled, pointing at the Black Pine operatives on the left.

  “Damn straight,” the officer said, affronted by the question.

  Voss pulled out her ID, feeling the clock ticking with her pulse, picturing the bodies being loaded onto a plane even as she handed her ID to the officer. He examined it for a few seconds, then seemed to deliberate.

  “I have my orders, Agent Voss,” he said.

  “I’ve just given you new orders. You’re SOCOM, soldier. You’re not even supposed to be here, and Lieutenant Arsenault knows that.”

  Another few seconds and the officer handed her ID back, then turned to his troops. “Lower your weapons.”

  Voss spun and called back to the car. “Josh, go!”

  Monteforte didn’t wait. She cut the wheel to the right and started to drive around. A BMW—one of the Black Pine sedans—backed up into her path and the cars collided. Monteforte shouted and jumped out, and dark-suited cold-eyed bastards drew down on her.

  “That’s enough!” the army officer shouted. “Stand down right goddamn now!”

  They did. Gun barrels lowered. Soldiers and operatives stepped back. But the damage was done. Beyond the truck and the cars a plane buzzed down the runway and took to the air.

  Voss studied Turcotte’s face. He had somehow made his features an emotionless mask. She couldn’t hide her feelings that well.

  “There’s going to be hell to pay,” she promised the officer.

  Even as she did, a silver Lexus glided around the gathered vehicles from the direction of the runway. It slid to a halt and two men stepped out—Arsenault and Norris. Josh climbed out of Monteforte’s backseat but Voss calmed him with a gesture. She walked to Turcotte and Monteforte.

  “I’ve got it,” she said softly, so only they could hear.

  Monteforte nodded. Turcotte said nothing.

  “You have a lot to answer for,” Voss said as Arsenault and Norris approached.

  Norris stopped and stood with his arms behind his back, military parade rest. Once he’d been a soldier or a Marine, that much was clear. He said nothing, deferring to Arsenault.

  “Agent Voss—” Arsenault began.

  Voss snapped, face flushing, nostrils flaring. “You are not even supposed to be here, Lieutenant! You were an observer. And your friend Norris here is a consultant, remember?”

  “I received orders from my superior officer,” Arsenault said. “Mr. Norris’s organization offered their assistance. We were working with the full knowledge of the FBI—”

  “Not of the agent in charge of the fucking case!” Turcotte snapped.

  Voss silenced him with a look, then turned back to Arsenault.

  “Listen to me, Lieutenant. From this moment forward, the ICD claims jurisdiction over this case. That means that any agency, military or civilian, taking part in the investigation must answer to me. So I’m going to ask you straight up, right now. Where are those bodies headed?”

  Arsenault glanced at Norris, but it delighted Voss to see that the lieutenant was not looking to him for approval, but in irritation. Steeling himself, standing a bit straighter, Arsenault faced her again.

  “Agent Voss, I am not authorized to answer that question. ICD will have to take it up with my superior officers.”

  She shook her head and gave a disgusted sigh. “You do know I could have you put in custody right now?”

  But when she spoke, it wasn’t Arsenault she was looking at. It was Norris. The slick son of a bitch just smiled. The Black Pine operatives—most of them ex-military—and the soldiers all stood by, listening intently. She almost expected one of them to speak up, but they were trained better than that. They waited like carrion birds for the outcome.

  Arsenault met her gaze. “I’m not sure your authority extends that far, but I won’t fight you if that’s your move.”

  As Voss contemplated that, Turcotte’s cell phone began to ring. At first it didn’t seem like he was going to answer it, but once he glanced at the screen he took the call.

  “Turcotte,” he said, and then listened. Twice he said, “Go on,” and then he thanked the caller and hung up, putting the phone back in its holster on his belt.

  His smile spoke volumes.

  Voss took a few steps toward him. Halfway between him and Arsenault, she stopped.

  “What’s up?” she asked.

  Then Norris’s cell phone began to ring.

  Turcotte walked up to him, staring down at the smaller man, expression once
again hard and cold.

  “You’re going to want to take that.”

  As Norris did, Voss caught Turcotte by the arm and led him back toward Josh and Monteforte. Arsenault had begun giving orders to disperse his troops, and the Black Pine operatives seemed to be following his orders as well, but Voss was only half paying attention to them.

  “What was that?” she demanded.

  Turcotte glanced at Monteforte and Josh, but only for a second before he forged ahead.

  “We’ve got a line on where Cait McCandless is going to be, about ninety minutes from now. It’s in Hartford. Agent Chang is already arranging a plane for us. We’ve got to hustle.”

  Voss was already walking toward Monteforte’s car, the others keeping up.

  “I’m sorry, Detective,” she said. “I hope you’ll drop us off, but this is where we part ways.”

  “No problem. I want to look into some things from this end, see if I can figure out who this girl really is.”

  Monteforte got behind the wheel and they all piled in, slamming the doors.

  “Thanks for understanding. If you’ll keep me up to speed, I’ll do the same for you,” Voss said. “I know how I’d feel if it had been my partner out there tonight.”

  Monteforte said nothing after that. Turcotte directed her to Terminal A and they drove in silence for almost a minute.

  “Rachael,” Josh said, voice low.

  Voss hated being called by her first name. Only Josh could get away with it. But tonight it seemed a very small thing.

  “It’s not enough to find this woman,” Josh said. “Detective Monteforte wants to know why, and so do I. I think we have to find out why this is all happening, how it all fits. The brother, for instance. I want to head back to D.C. and see what I can pin down about his death. He worked for the government, right? Cait McCandless thinks he was some kind of spy.”

  Turcotte rolled his eyes a little at the use of the word.

  “I’ve checked,” Monteforte said. “Sean McCandless worked for the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. Satellite surveillance. I guess you could call that spying. But Cait thought there was more to it than that.”

  Voss took that in and turned to Josh. “You don’t think a phone call to the investigating officer will do it?”