by Bob Mayer
A guttural cry escaped her lips as the wire snapped, the bloody remnant slipping from her fingers and falling into the dirt. Emily began sobbing and this time she couldn’t stop. She curled into a tight ball, arms clasped around her knees, the sudden defeat layered on top of the strain of the past twenty-four hours breaking through her dam of resolve.
* * *
From his hide position, the Sniper calmly watched the girl. Then he nodded to himself as he gathered his gear, confident she wasn’t going anywhere any time soon. Most importantly, she wasn’t smiling any more.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Gant looked up from the police report and watched the vacationers blissfully walking along the beach, unaware that a girl had been killed here the previous night.
“Hard to keep a crime scene intact with the tide,” Golden noted. She looked at Gant. “Why are we here?”
“Unlike you, I have to be on site. I want to get a feel for the target.”
“Targets.”
“That bothers me,” Gant said as he walked onto the beach, Golden reluctantly following. “Did you find much evidence in your data gathering of a team of killers?”
“There have occasionally been pairs of killers,” Golden said. “The DC snipers. The Hillside Stranglers — Bianchi and Buono. Even cases of a small team, from two to five people.”
Gant came to a halt next to piece of PVC pipe stuck upright in the sand, the only way the police had been able to mark the site of the murder. The tide was out, but according to the report, there would have been about a foot of water at this spot when the girl was killed.
Golden obviously took his silence as an indication she was to continue. “Such a team is always led by a central figure who has a very specific fantasy. This fantasy gives energy to the other members of the team and they channel themselves to serve him. Often, without this central figure, the others would probably never cross the line into criminal activity. However, they all have psychotic traits to some degree and while some claim, after they get caught, that they were unwilling accomplices, the reality is that it is very difficult to coerce someone into murder.”
“That’s why we have armies,” Gant noted. “Sanctioned killing.”
Golden nodded. “Yes. It’s a delicate and controversial subject that occasionally came up during my work at Fort Bragg. Because technically speaking, often we were looking for people who could kill on command. Without remorse or hesitation, yet also follow orders.”
“Someone like me,” Gant said.
That silenced Golden for the moment.
Gant intruded into the silence. “You said fantasy. There’s been no evidence of anything sexual with any of the victims.”
“A fantasy doesn’t have to be sexual,” Golden said. “It’s an unreal framework someone makes up in their mind to allow them to justify whatever it is they’re doing.”
“I assume revenge can be a framework then?”
“One of the strongest.”
A car door slammed and Gant looked inland to see Padgett walking toward them. The Cellar’s forensic expert had already been on scene for several hours and participated in the autopsy on the Roberts girl, right after leaving the autopsy on the girl they had found chained to the tree. He also had been in contact with the Cellar, gathering more data. He had deep bags under his eyes.
“Anything significant from the Caulkins girl?” Gant asked him.
“Dehydration was the cause of death, as I said at the scene,” Padgett said. “The self-injury to the foot didn’t help things. There were nuts and grass in her stomach, undigested. Toxicology was interesting. She’d been drugged with something easily available so that’s not a lead. I only found trace amounts so her system had mostly flushed it, but I think that’s how our target was able to transport her from the site where she was kidnapped.”
“What do you have on this one?” Gant asked.
Padgett wiped his forehead with an already sopping handkerchief. “Drowned. Salt water in the lungs.”
Gant glanced at the PVC pipe. Even at high tide it wouldn’t have been very deep. “In one foot of water?”
“She was held down by the neck and back of the head,” Padgett said. “Strange thing, though. There were marks on her neck and head, but not like any I’ve ever seen before.” He reached into the thin file folder he was carrying and pulled out a photo.
Gant looked at the close-up of the girl’s neck, ignoring the unseeing eyes that stared at him from the glossy paper. The bruises were spaced where fingers would go. Then the next photo showed the back of her skull, the hair shaved off. The same, evenly spaced marks. “What’s strange about them?” He shifted, showing the picture to Golden who was close by his side. Too close. Gant caught a whiff of some fragrance, he wasn’t sure what it was.
“After the photo was taken,” Padgett said, “we cut and checked the flesh underneath. Either someone with extremely powerful hands or—“ he shrugged—“some sort of hand-like device was used, in order to make the extreme damage we saw. There were hairline fractures in her skull.”
“Prostheses?” Gant asked. Ever since the mess in Iraq, more and more troops were coming back missing pieces and parts. Body armor was effective in keeping people alive, but only went so far.
Padgett nodded. “I should have thought of that. That would explain it.”
“So we’re looking for a killer who is possibly missing a hand,” Golden said.
“And another whose face is scarred,” Gant added, remembering the report from the Svoboda killing. He tried to think of what would cause the scarring the boy at the daycare center had reported, but the details were too vague and the possible ways of getting wounded on the modern battlefield too wide. “Any sign of sexual assault?” Gant asked, even though the initial report had been negative. Golden’s comment about fantasies still bothered him.
“None. But whoever held her head underwater pushed her so hard into the sand, we found abrasions on her eyes and sand in her mouth and lungs. She inhaled quite a bit of sand along with seawater.”
“God,” Golden whispered. “That’s a lot of anger.”
“Add it to your database,” Gant said dryly.
“And what did you add to your database?” Golden snapped. She spread her arms. “Why did we come here?”
“It’s the scene of the freshest kill,” Gant said. “One-Hand was here less than twenty-four hours ago. And I don’t think this spot was chosen randomly. The cache site was specifically scouted and picked.”
“One-Hand?”
“We need to start getting this mission categorized,” Gant said. “We’ve got two, possibly three targets. One-Hand and Scar-Face for certain. And there’s probably another.”
“Why do you think that?” Padgett asked, sliding the photo back in the folder.
“If Emily Cranston is bait,” Gant said, “then someone’s watching her. So let’s accept there’s a third and call him the Watcher.” A team of three. Gant nodded to himself. He’d have to run that by the Cellar’s own database of covert operations. Small enough to get in and out of places without being noticed, large enough to do damage. Off the top of his head, Gant figured it had been either a reconnaissance or sniper team. He noted that the parking lot of the Florabama was already filling up with a late afternoon crowd.
“Popular place,” Golden said, following his gaze.
“Life goes on,” Gant said. It was one of the reasons he lived on Pritchards Island: the contrast of coming back from a place of violence such as Iraq to the ‘normalcy’ of day to day living in America had always been too jarring for him.
Padgett was looking at the police report. “And One-Hand was able to do this and no one, according to the police report, remembers seeing him. Roberts just disappeared into the crowd and then ended up here. She wasn’t dragged out kicking and screaming.”
“So she went willingly,” Golden said.
“Why would she do that?” Gant asked. “Go off with a stranger?”
Golden loo
ked at him. “She was on Spring Break. She probably felt like she was on top of the world and could do whatever she wanted. Also the crowd probably gave her a false sense of security. We think there’s safety in numbers when it’s often the exact opposite.”
Gant agreed with that: which was why he preferred working alone, but he didn’t think this was the time to bring that up.
“Any drugs in her system?” Golden asked Padgett.
He nodded. “Marijuana. Her blood alcohol was high. One point two.”
“Another reason she went off with a stranger,” Golden said.
“Are we sure it was a stranger?” Gant asked. “Maybe it was somebody she knew. Her father was CIA. Could have been someone she met through her father.”
“I don’t think so.” Golden was looking at the photos. “Although the extreme violence would indicate that might be a possibility, the condition of this body and the others makes me think they were strangers. And violence was transmuted.”
“Say again?” Gant said.
Golden looked up from the file. “Quite often when the killer knows the victim, even if the actual killing is violent, subsequent to the act, there is an attempt at psychological detachment from the act. Often in the form of the body being hidden or even just covered with a blanket.”
“All right,” Gant allowed. “I’ll go with you on that. Three killers. Who didn’t know their victims. Chose them because of their fathers or fiancé in the case of Svoboda.” He glanced up at the sky. “What about weather as I requested?” he asked Padgett. He could see Golden’s confused look at the question but he ignored her.
Padgett pulled out another folder. “For the location where Tracy Caulkins was left, there were only two instances of rain in the past three weeks since she was reported missing until her estimated time of death. A total of an eighth of an inch.”
Gant frowned. “That’s not enough water to sustain her that long.”
Padgett nodded. “I agree.”
“There was no sign she had any container to store some at the site, right?” Gant asked.
“None was found.”
“And the prediction for the southeast?” Gant asked.
“Some storm activity later this week covering most of the area.”
“So Emily can drink,” Golden said, finally catching on.
“Yeah,” Gant said, his mind on the fact that the Caulkins girl had not had enough rain to sustain her as long as she had lived. “So the Watcher gave Caulkins water.”
“’The Watcher’?” Padgett asked and Gant quickly filled him on the titles he had made up for the three targets.
Padgett nodded. “Someone had to have given Caulkins water and it most likely had to be this Watcher fellow. Anyone else would have freed her or reported it.”
Gant blinked as he suddenly realized what he’d been missing. “The Florabama.”
Golden turned to look at him. “Yes?”
Gant pointed straight up the shoreline. “We’re standing on the Florida-Alabama border. He reached out with his other hand and placed it on the PVC pipe. “Roberts was killed literally straddling the border.”
“That’s not coincidence,” Golden said, not quite a question, not quite a statement.
“No, it’s not.” Gant headed back toward the car. “I need to talk to Colonel Cranston again.” He looked at her. “And you need to update your database.”
* * *
Emily opened her eyes to darkness. How long ago the sun had set, she had no idea. She wished that she could have remained unconscious through the night as she tried to look around her. She could only make out a few stars through spaces in the oak tree’s branches and leaves above her head. All around was utter darkness. She was lying on her back and she slowly sat up, feeling the weight of the shackle on her leg.
She tried to remember the phase of the moon. A small thing, but something that was very important now. Her stomach rumbled and she felt a surge of bile come up her throat. She fought to keep from throwing up, knowing she had no water to wash the bitterness out of her mouth if she did.
She stretched her hands out, feeling the pain in her fingertips from the wire and that reminded her of failure.
She forced her mind away from that and cocked her head, listening.
Once more it struck her that she had never realized how noisy the woods were at night. There were the sounds of numerous crickets, birds and other small creatures — a veritable chorus all around her. As a cool breeze swept across her, Emily suddenly realized she didn’t have her shirt on. She quickly tugged it on. It bothered her that she had been half-naked for so long, and it bothered her even more that she had not noticed it. Just over twenty-four hours and she was already losing her veneer of civilization. She put her back to the tree and adjusted the heavy shackle around her ankle into the least painful arrangement.
She was thirsty.
She couldn’t hold it in denial. Her mouth was parched, her lips cracked. Her stomach was twisted in a painful knot. How long could one last without water? She couldn’t remember. She was sure she had heard it somewhere, from her father perhaps, or the Learning Channel, an arcane piece of knowledge that had not been significant enough at the time to remember. Now it was all consuming. Was it days or a week? Maybe two weeks?
Emily felt a surge of panic boil up from her stomach into her chest, causing her heart to race. Once more, the most important matter surged to the forefront of her mind: How long could she last here without water?
She tucked her knees up to her chest, wrapping her arms around them. As the sobs wracked her body, she rocked back and forth. She tried, time and time again, to regain control, but she couldn’t.
Not for a long time. And it bothered her that crying meant she was losing precious water, even in the smallest amount.
The thing that stopped her was the reality slowly seeping through her emotional pain, that everything had gone quiet. No insects. No birds. No small creatures.
The forest was completely silent.
Emily lifted her head and peered about, trying to penetrate the darkness. To no avail.
Even the breeze had stopped. Perfect stillness. Except a branch snapped somewhere, not far away. Emily felt her heart freeze. She was uncertain from which direction the sound had come.
There was the rustle of something moving through the underbrush and Emily’s head snapped to her left. It was behind her, on the other side of the tree. She reached down and grabbed the chain, pulling it as she tried to move counter-clockwise around the thick trunk so she could get a better angle on that direction. For about two feet the chain rotated, then it jammed on something and she couldn’t move any further. She leaned sideways, trying to pierce the darkness with her eyes.
To no avail.
Emily realized she wasn’t breathing, so intent was she on listening. She swallowed and took a shallow breath, but then couldn’t control her lungs, gasping for oxygen in a spasm of need and panic.
Something was coming, even through her panic, she could hear it. Emily screamed, surprising herself with the surge of anger.
“Get away from me! Get away!”
There was a low growl and Emily pressed back away from it, as far as the chain would allow. “Get away!”
* * *
The Sniper was watching the wild dog through a thermal scope, the animal a bright red glow as it approached the tree. He had seen wild dogs in the area during his reconnaissance and knew they were a potential problem. All the more reason for his surveillance.
He centered the reticules on the dog’s head, then changed his mind and lowered the muzzle of the rifle slightly. He exhaled, emptying his lungs, feeling the rhythm of his heart. The dog was picking up speed, charging toward the tree and the girl.
He fired, the suppressor keeping the sound of the round leaving the barrel to a low cough, the specially loaded subsonic round not breaking the sound barrier as it sped down range. The round creased across the dog’s back, leaving a quarter inch furrow.
* * *
Emily heard the yelp and then she braced herself until she realized whatever creature was out there was going away. It crashed through the underbrush on the far side of the clearing. Emily’s breathing slowly returned to normal as did the sounds of the forest. She curled into a ball, arms locked around her knees and sobbed, adding her cries to those of the creatures around her as the forest resumed its normal chorus.
* * *
Gant pulled the black Chevy blazer they had requisitioned at Pope Air Force Base up to Cranston’s house. He left the engine running as he opened the door.
“What are you doing?” Golden asked.
Gant indicated the driver’s seat. “You take this to Special Ops personnel. You’re cleared to access all their records. Update your database.”
“I want to go in with—“
“No.”
“Sam is—“
“No.” Gant leaned toward Golden. “You do your job and I’ll do mine. There’s no need for both of us to talk to Cranston. Let me get what I can here and you do your thing. Then we compare notes. We don’t have time to be arguing.”
Golden looked like she was going to say something, then she simply nodded. She got out of the passenger seat, walked around, and took the driver’s. She slammed the door shut and drove off with a squeal of tires. Gant wasted no time reflecting on her anger, focusing his attention on the house as he strode up the short walkway. He rang the bell and the door was opened within a few seconds — Cranston had been expecting him after a phone call from Ms. Smith at the Cellar. Just as someone at Special Operations Command would be waiting for Golden when she got there. When the Cellar called, doors opened, no questions asked.
Before Cranston could say anything, Gant pushed his way in as he spoke. “We’re looking for three men, maybe more. Not one. They were part of a mission involving Michael Caulkins of the DEA, you, Mark Lankin a reserve pilot in Task Force 160, and Jim Roberts of the CIA. We know two of the men we’re looking for were wounded or injured somehow: one lost a hand, the other’s face was scarred.”