Maura Isles 05 - Vanish

by Tess Gerritsen

  “Frankly?” The senator sighed. “It scares the hell out of me. But the directive is on the books. The military can come in.”

  “For good reason,” said Silver. “In case you haven’t noticed, our country is under attack. This is our chance to take out this nest before it can launch a strike. Before more people are endangered. In the larger scheme of things, this could prove to be a lucky accident.”

  “Lucky?”

  Too late, Silver registered his own insensitivity. He held up his hand in apology. “I’m sorry, that was a terrible thing for me to say. I’m so focused on my mission, I sometimes get a case of tunnel vision.”

  “It may also be limiting your view of the situation.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You look at this siege and automatically you think terrorism.”

  “I have to consider it. They forced us to adopt this attitude. Remember that.”

  “To the exclusion of all other possibilities?”

  “Of course not. It’s perfectly possible we’re just dealing with a pair of crazies. Two people who are trying to avoid capture after shooting that police officer in New Haven. We’ve considered that explanation.”

  “Yet you focus only on terrorism.”

  “Mr. Wynne wouldn’t have it any other way. As director of National Intelligence, he takes his job seriously.”

  Conway had been watching Gabriel, reading his reactions. “I can see you’re having problems with this terrorism angle.”

  “I think it’s too simple,” said Gabriel.

  “And what’s your explanation? What are these people after?” asked Silver. He had settled back in his chair, long legs crossed, hands relaxed on the armrests. Not a sign of tension in his lanky frame. He’s not really interested in my opinion, thought Gabriel; he’s already made up his mind.

  “I don’t have an answer yet,” said Gabriel. “What I do have are a number of puzzling details that I can’t explain. That’s why I called Senator Conway.”

  “What details?”

  “I just attended the postmortem on that hospital guard. The man our Jane Doe shot to death. It turns out he wasn’t a hospital employee at all. We don’t know who he was.”

  “They ran fingerprints on him?”

  “He doesn’t turn up on AFIS.”

  “So he has no criminal record.”

  “No. His fingerprints don’t turn up on any databases we’ve checked.”

  “Not everyone has fingerprints on file.”

  “This man walked into that hospital carrying a weapon loaded with duplex rounds.”

  “That’s a surprise,” said Conway.

  “What’s a duplex round?” said Silver. “I’m just a lawyer so you’ll have to explain it to me. I’m afraid I’m illiterate when it comes to guns.”

  “It’s ammunition in which more than one bullet is loaded into a single cartridge case,” said Conway. “Designed for greater lethality.”

  “I just spoke to Boston PD’s ballistics lab,” said Gabriel. “They recovered a cartridge from the hospital room. It’s an M-198.”

  Conway stared at him. “US Army military issue. That’s not what you’d expect a security guard to carry.”

  “A fake hospital guard.” Gabriel reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a folded piece of paper. He smoothed it flat on the coffee table. “And here’s the next detail that concerns me.”

  “What’s this?” asked Silver.

  “This is the sketch I made at the postmortem. It’s a tattoo on the dead man’s back.”

  Silver rotated the paper to face him. “A scorpion?”

  “Yes.”

  “So are you going to explain to me why this is significant? Because I’m willing to bet there are more than a few men walking around with scorpion tattoos.”

  Conway reached for the sketch. “You said this was on his back? And we don’t have any ID on this dead man?”

  “Nothing came back on his fingerprints.”

  “I’m surprised he doesn’t have prints on file.”

  “Why?” asked Silver.

  Gabriel looked at him. “Because there’s a good chance this man is military.”

  “You can tell that just by looking at his tattoo?”

  “It’s not just any tattoo.”

  “What’s so special about this one?”

  “It’s not on his arm, it’s on his back. In the marines, we call them ‘torso meat tags’ because they’re useful for identifying your corpse. In a blast, there’s a good chance you’d lose your extremities. So a lot of soldiers choose to get their tattoos on their chest or back.”

  Silver grimaced. “A morbid reason.”

  “But practical.”

  “And the scorpion? Is that supposed to be significant?”

  “It’s the number thirteen that catches my eye,” said Gabriel. “You see it here, circled by the stinger. I think it refers to the Fighting Thirteenth.”

  “That’s a military unit?”

  “Marine Expeditionary. Special ops capable.”

  “You’re saying this dead man was an ex-marine?”

  “You’re never an ex-marine,” Conway pointed out.

  “Oh. Of course,” Silver corrected himself. “He’s a dead marine.”

  “And that leads us to the detail that bothers me most,” said Gabriel. “The fact his fingerprints aren’t in any database. This man has no military record.”

  “Then maybe you’re wrong about the significance of this tattoo. And the duplex ammo.”

  “Or I’m right. And his fingerprints were specifically purged from the system to make him invisible to law enforcement.”

  There was a long silence.

  Silver’s eyes suddenly widened as he realized what Gabriel was implying. “Are you saying one of our intelligence agencies purged his prints?”

  “To conceal any black ops missions within our borders.”

  “Whom are you accusing? CIA? Military Intelligence? If he was one of ours, I sure wasn’t told about it.”

  “Whoever this man was, whoever he was working for, it’s now obvious he and his associate showed up in that hospital room for only one reason.” Gabriel looked at Conway. “You’re on the Senate Intelligence Committee. You have sources.”

  “But I’m totally out of the loop on this one,” said Conway, shaking his head. “If one of our agencies ordered a hit on that woman, that’s a serious scandal. An assassination on US soil?”

  “But this hit went very wrong,” said Gabriel. “Before they could finish it, Dr. Isles walked in on them. Not only did the target survive the hit, she took hostages. Now this is a huge media event. A black ops screwup that’s going to end up on the front pages. The facts are going to come out anyway, so if you know, you might as well tell me. Who is this woman, and why does our country want her dead?”

  “This is pure speculation,” said Silver. “You’re following a pretty thin thread, Agent Dean. Extrapolating from a tattoo and a bullet to a government-sponsored assassination.”

  “These people have my wife,” Gabriel said quietly. “I’m willing to follow any thread, however thin. I need to know how to make this end without someone getting killed. That’s all I want. That no one gets killed.”

  Silver nodded. “It’s what we all want.”

  FIFTEEN

  Darkness had fallen by the time Maura turned onto the quiet Brookline street where she lived. She drove past familiar houses, familiar gardens. Saw the same redheaded boy heaving his basketball at the hoop over his garage. Missing it, as usual. Everything looked as it had yesterday, just another hot summer’s evening in suburbia. But tonight is different, she thought. Tonight, she wouldn’t be lingering over her glass of chilled wine or her latest issue of Vanity Fair. How could she enjoy her usual pleasures, knowing what Jane was enduring at that moment?

  If Jane was still alive.

  Maura pulled into her garage and walked into the house, grateful for the cool breath of central air-conditioning. She would
not be staying long; she’d come home only to grab a quick supper, to shower, and change clothes. For even this brief respite, she felt guilty. I’ll bring back sandwiches for Gabriel, she thought. She doubted the thought of food had even crossed his mind.

  She had just stepped out of the shower when she heard her doorbell ring. Pulling on a robe, she hurried to answer it.

  Peter Lukas stood on her front porch. Only that morning, they had spoken, but judging by his wrinkled shirt and the tense lines around his eyes, the hours since then had taken a toll. “I’m sorry to just show up here,” he said. “I did try to call you a few minutes ago.”

  “I didn’t hear the phone. I was in the shower.”

  He gaze dropped, just for an instant, to her bathrobe. Then he looked past her, focusing on a spot over her shoulder, as though he was uncomfortable staring directly at an undressed woman. “Can we talk? I need your advice.”

  “Advice?”

  “About what the police are asking me to do.”

  “You’ve spoken to Captain Hayder?”

  “And that FBI guy. Agent Barsanti.”

  “Then you already know what the hostage takers want.”

  Lukas nodded. “That’s why I’m here. I need to know what you think about this whole crazy setup.”

  “You’re actually considering it?”

  “I need to know what you’d do, Dr. Isles. I trust your judgment.” His gaze finally met hers and she felt the heat rise in her face, found herself tugging her robe tighter.

  “Come inside,” she finally said. “Let me get dressed, and we’ll talk about it.”

  As he waited in the living room, she hunted in her closet for clean slacks and a blouse. Pausing before the mirror, she winced at the reflection of smeared eye makeup, tangled hair. He’s only a reporter, she thought. This isn’t a date. It doesn’t matter what the hell you look like.

  When she finally walked back into the living room, she found him standing at the window, gazing out at the dark street. “It’s gone national, you know,” he said, turning to look at her. “Right this minute, they’re watching it in LA.”

  “Is that why you’re thinking of doing this? A chance at fame? The fact you could get your name in the headlines?”

  “Oh yeah, I can see it now: ‘Reporter gets bullet in brain.’ I’m really crazy about that headline.”

  “So you do realize this is not a particularly wise move.”

  “I haven’t decided.”

  “If you want my advice—”

  “I want more than just your advice. I need information.”

  “What can I tell you?”

  “You could start by telling me what the FBI is doing here.”

  “You said you spoke to Agent Barsanti. Didn’t you ask him?”

  “I’ve heard there’s an Agent Dean involved as well. Barsanti wouldn’t tell me a thing about him. Why would the Bureau send two men all the way from Washington, for a crisis that would normally be handled by Boston PD?”

  His question alarmed her. If he already knew about Gabriel, it would not take long for him to learn that Jane was a hostage.

  “I don’t know,” she lied, and found it hard to meet his gaze. He was watching her so intently that she finally had to turn away and sit down on the couch.

  “If there’s something I should know,” he said, “I hope you’d tell me. I’d like to know ahead of time what I’m walking into.”

  “By now, you probably know as much as I do.”

  He sat down in the chair facing her, his gaze so direct she felt like a pinned butterfly. “What do these people want?”

  “What did Barsanti tell you?”

  “He told me about their offer. That they promised to release two hostages. Then I walk in with a TV cameraman, talk to this guy, and two more hostages will be released. That’s the deal. What happens after that is anyone’s guess.”

  This man could save Jane’s life, she thought. If he walked in there, Jane might be one of the two hostages who walks out. I would do it. But I can’t ask this man to risk his life, even for Jane.

  “It’s not every day a man gets the chance to play hero,” he said. “It is an opportunity of sorts. A lot of journalists would jump at it.”

  She laughed. “Very tempting. Book deal, TV movie of the week. Risk your life for a little fame and fortune?”

  “Hey, I’ve got a rusty old Toyota parked out there right now, and a mortgage with twenty-nine years left to go, so fame and fortune doesn’t sound too bad.”

  “If you live long enough to enjoy it.”

  “That’s why I’m talking to you. You were with the shooter. You know what kind of people we’re dealing with. Are they rational? Are they going to keep their side of the bargain? Will they let me walk out of there after the interview’s over?”

  “I can’t predict that.”

  “That’s not a very helpful answer.”

  “I refuse to be responsible for what happens to you. I can’t predict what they’ll do. I don’t even know what they want.”

  He sighed. “I was afraid you’d say that.”

  “Now I have a question for you. I assume you know the answer.”

  “Your question is?”

  “Of all the journalists they could have asked for, why did they choose you?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “You must have had some contact with them before.”

  It was his hesitation that caught her attention. She leaned toward him. “You’ve heard from them.”

  “You have to understand, reporters hear from a lot of crazy people. Every week, I get at least a few bizarre letters or phone calls about secret government conspiracies. If it’s not the evil oil companies, then it’s black helicopters or UN plots. Most of the time I just ignore them. That’s why I didn’t really think much of it. It was just another screwy phone call.”

  “When?”

  “A few days ago. One of my colleagues just reminded me of it, because he was the one who answered the phone. Frankly, when the call came in, I was too busy to pay much attention. It was late, and I was about to hit a deadline, and the last thing I wanted to do was talk to some nutty guy.”

  “The call was from a man?”

  “Yeah. It came into the Tribune newsroom. The man asked if I’d looked at the package he sent me. I didn’t know what he was talking about. He said he’d mailed me something a few weeks before, which I never got. So he told me a woman would drop off another package at the front desk that night. That as soon as it arrived, I should go down to the lobby immediately and pick it up, because it was extremely sensitive.”

  “Did you ever get that second package?”

  “No. The guard at the front desk said no woman ever showed up that night. I went home and forgot all about it. Until now.” He paused. “I’m wondering if that was Joe who called me.”

  “Why choose you?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “These people seem to know you.”

  “Maybe they’ve read my column. Maybe they’re fans.” At Maura’s silence, he gave a self-deprecating laugh. “Fat chance, huh?”

  “Have you ever appeared on television?” she asked, thinking: He has the face, the dark good looks for it.

  “Never.”

  “And you’re only published in the Boston Tribune?”

  “Only? Nice put-down, Dr. Isles.”

  “I didn’t mean it that way.”

  “I’ve been a reporter since I was twenty-two. Started off freelancing for the Boston Phoenix and Boston Magazine. It was fun for a while, but freelancing is no way to pay the bills, so I was happy to land a spot at the Tribune. Started off on the city beat, spent a few years in DC as their Washington correspondent. Then came back to Boston when they offered me a weekly column. So yeah, I’ve been at this reporting gig for a while. I’m not making a fortune, but obviously I’ve got some fans. Since Joseph Roke seems to know who I am.” He paused. “At least I hope he’s a fan. And not some pissed-off reader.”
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  “Even if he is a fan, this is a dangerous situation you’re walking into.”

  “I know.”

  “You understand the setup?”

  “A cameraman and me. It’ll be a live feed to some local TV station. I assume the hostage takers have some way of monitoring that we’re actually on the air. I also assume they won’t object to the standard five-second delay, just in case . . .” He stopped.

  In case something goes terribly wrong.

  Lukas took a deep breath. “What would you do, Dr. Isles? In my place?”

  “I’m not a journalist.”

  “So you’d refuse.”

  “A normal person doesn’t willingly walk into a hostage situation.”

  “Meaning, journalists aren’t normal people?”

  “Just think hard about it.”

  “I’ll tell you what I’m thinking. That four hostages could walk out of there alive if I do this. For once, something I do will be worth writing about.”

  “And you’re willing to risk your life?”

  “I’m willing to take the chance,” he said. Then added with quiet honesty: “But I’m scared as hell of it, too.” His frankness was disarming; few men were brave enough to admit they were afraid. “Captain Hayder wants my answer by nine P.M.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “The cameraman’s already agreed to go in. That makes me feel like a coward if I don’t do it. Especially if four hostages could be saved. I keep thinking of all those reporters in Baghdad right now, and what they face every day. This should be a cakewalk in comparison. I go in, talk to the wackos, let them tell me their story, and then I walk out. Maybe that’s all they want—a chance to vent, to have people listen to them. I could end the whole crisis by doing this.”

  “You want to be a savior.”

  “No! No, I’m just . . .” He laughed. “Trying to justify taking this crazy chance.”

  “You called it that. I didn’t.”

  “The truth is, I’m no hero. I never saw the point of risking my life if I didn’t have to. But I’m as baffled about this as you are. I want to know why they chose me.” He glanced at his watch. “It’s almost nine. I guess I’d better call Barsanti.” Rising to his feet, he turned toward the door. Suddenly paused and glanced back.