Collateral Damage

by H. Terrell Griffin

  “How did she find out about the account in the first place if she wasn’t part of it?”

  “Another good question, Counselor. We find J.D., we find the answers.”

  Jock said, “You only discussed one of the issues. Want to tackle the ones dealing with the dead kids of Thanatos team members? Or the attempts on Matt’s life? Or Stanley’s role in all this?”

  “I’m going to have to think about those. Let me see the security video of J.D. cashing that check.”

  I put the flash drive into a port in my computer and got the tape rolling. Logan watched it with growing interest, his eyes riveted to the monitor, his hand manipulating the mouse, varying the speed of the tape. He went through it twice and then paused it at a point where J.D. had turned to leave. He pointed to a man in the picture. “This guy seems to be pacing around the lobby during most of the tape. Do you know who he is?”

  I peered more closely at the tape. The camera had caught J.D. just as she was passing by a man in a suit. They were right next to each other. She going toward the exit and the man was standing there, mouthing some words. “He’s the bank president.”

  “He must be pretty tall,” said Logan. “What? Six three or so?”

  “No,” I said. “He’s about my height, a little shorter maybe. Five ten or eleven.”

  “Look closely. This guy towers over J.D. He’s got at least six inches on her. She’s what, five nine?”

  My pulse quickened. “Yes. Damn. This woman’s several inches shorter. But it’s J.D. I got a full face shot of her at the teller’s window.”

  “Look again,” said Logan. He backed up the tape, slowing it as he hunted for a particular shot. He stopped it again. This time the picture was of a smiling J.D. talking to the teller.

  “Look at the front tooth,” Logan said. He pulled the picture in tighter. “See anything?”

  “I’ll be damned,” I said. “There’s a small chip in the right front tooth. J.D.’s teeth are perfect.”

  “Look some more,” Logan said. “There’s a lot you can do with makeup, but some things can’t be changed. The width between the eyes, laugh lines, shape of chin. Have you got a picture of J.D.?”

  “There’re some on the computer. Go to my photo folder and you’ll find them.”

  I pointed Logan to the right place in the computer files. There were a number of photos of friends enjoying the slow lifestyle of the key. One had a full face shot of J.D. sitting with Logan and Marie on the beach at Egmont Key, her big smile brightening the day. He cropped the picture and printed it. He then pulled up the security tape and held the printed picture of J.D. up to the monitor.

  The pictures were very close, but there were subtle differences. On the security tape, the smile wasn’t quite right, the curve of her cheek a little different, the eyebrows a tad thinner. “That’s not J.D.,” I said. “Damn. How did we miss that?”

  “At some level,” said Logan, “you and Jock were thinking J.D. had changed sides. The picture confirmed your worst fears. Even though your brains were telling you that she wasn’t dirty, the evidence was pretty convincing at the subconscious level.”

  “Why would somebody go to all the trouble to convince us that J.D. was the one cashing that check?”

  “I don’t know,” said Logan, “but it worked.”

  I was feeling guilty for doubting her, and relief that my dark suspicions had been wrong. But she was still in trouble, still missing without explanation. I had to find her.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX

  “We need to get to the Abacos,” I said. “J.D.’s been gone two days. That can’t be good.”

  “Does everybody agree that she’s probably there?” asked Jock.

  Logan and I nodded.

  “We’ve still got Doc’s plane,” I said.

  Logan said, “If Doc is holding J.D. against her will, why would he allow you to use his plane?”

  I hadn’t really thought about that one. I picked up the phone and dialed Fred Cassidy’s cell phone. When he answered, I said, “Are you in communication with Chaz Desmond?”

  “No. I don’t think anybody knows where he is.”

  “Who authorized you and the plane to stick around to help us?”

  “That’d be Paul Macomber and the company’s lawyer, Harry Anderson.”

  I hung up and called the offices of Desmond Engineering Consultants and asked to speak to Macomber. “I’m sorry, sir,” the receptionist said, “but he’s in Charlotte today.”

  “Then may I speak to Mr. Anderson.”

  “He’s out sick today.”

  “Can you give me his home phone?”

  “I’m sorry, sir, but it’s against our policy to give out home numbers.”

  “He’s probably in the book,” I said. “Can you tell me what town he lives in?”

  “No problem, sir. Decatur.”

  “Decatur, huh? Thank you.”

  I hung up, my pulse quickening. “There are a lot of suburbs around Atlanta,” I said, “so was it just a coincidence that Anderson lived in the town whose library computer generated the e-mail alerting me to Marsh LLC?”

  Jock looked at me. “There are no coincidences, not in a case like this one. There are only a few people who know Doc hired you to look into his son’s murder. Anderson is one of them.”

  He was using his fingers to tick off his points. “He lives in Decatur. He’s Desmond’s lawyer. He probably knows about Marsh LLC and the house in the Abacos. He’s been a close friend of Doc’s for many years. They’ve built a company together. He wouldn’t do anything against Doc’s interest unless he thought it was better for Doc if you knew about the house.”

  “The answers are in Marsh Harbour,” I said. “Logan, you up for another trip to the islands?”

  “Can I take my gun?”

  “I think that’d be a good idea. I’ll call Cassidy and let him know where we’re going.”

  I called Bill Lester as I was walking out the door. “Bill, Jock and I are on our way to the Bahamas. We have a lead on J.D.”

  “Talk to me.”

  “We think she’s safe and hiding out with some friends near Marsh Harbour.”

  “You think she’s okay?”

  “Yeah. She’s with Doc Desmond.”

  “Okay. Keep me posted. I’ve found out something else that is very odd.”

  “What’s up, Bill?”

  “I followed up on the list of names you gave me. The Thanatos group. We know about Desmond, Brewster, and Fleming, but there were four more still alive. One of them owns a small garage in a town in North Dakota up by the Canadian border. His only son was shot to death a few months back. Another member of Team Charlie lives in Northern California. The sheriff there told me that there’d been no murders in the county in the last couple of years. I asked him if he knew the team member. He did. Then he told me that the guy’s daughter, an army officer, was murdered in Charlottesville, Virginia last month.”

  “That pretty much seals it. Somebody is definitely targeting the children of the members of Team Charlie.”

  “There’s more,” the chief said. “The other two men and their families have disappeared.”

  “Shit. Are you sure?”

  “Matt, J.D. had already talked to each of the cops I spoke to. They’d looked into this thing for her. They were kind of curious as to why I was calling them.”

  “When did J.D. talk to them?”

  “Sunday. The day before she disappeared.”

  CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN

  The islands lay like brown amoeba floating on an ocean of ever-changing hues. Dark blue over trenches, light green covering the sandbars and shallows, brown where the reefs poked toward the surface. Puffy clouds dotted the horizon, cotton candy daubed on a cerulean backdrop. A kaleidoscope of pastels imprinted on a tropical canvas. This was the Bahamas from twenty thousand feet, a country of seven hundred islands and twenty-five hundred islets and cays covering a hundred thousand square miles of Atlantic Ocean.

  We lande
d at the Marsh Harbour Airport and checked in with the customs officer stationed there. Like most things in the Bahamas, the arrival procedures are relaxed and cursory. Logan had been apprehensive about bringing our weapons to the Bahamas, but Jack had assured him that the authorities were not likely to examine our bags. They didn’t really care what we brought in as long as we paid the fees. Jock was right.

  We showed the man our passports, paid the arrival fee in cash, got a signed document attesting to the fact that we’d cleared customs at a government port of entry, and were told to enjoy our stay. Our pilots were headed for a hotel they knew that catered to executive aircrews laying over while their bosses enjoyed whatever it was they did on the island.

  Jock, Logan, and I retrieved our bags from the plane and took a taxi to a marina that rented boats. I’d made a reservation online before we left my house.

  J.D.’s interest in the other dead children of Team Charlie members was another anomaly in our theory of what was going on. We’d only gotten the information on Team Charlie from the director that morning. How did J.D. find out about it before we did? How did she know to start making calls on Sunday? Did she have a source that she wasn’t sharing with us? The facts just kept getting fuzzier. One minute I thought we were on the right track and the next minute the fog of doubt rolled in and obscured the picture that was taking shape in our minds. It was maddening, like a jigsaw puzzle that was beginning to come into focus and suddenly some of the pieces changed shape, causing me to rethink what I’d begun to accept as truth.

  Our plan wasn’t well formed. We were going to take our time surveilling Doc’s house on the island, seeing what level of security he had in place. We were going to storm the property just after dark, rescue J.D., and get back to the plane. It wasn’t much of a plan, as Jock pointed out. But we couldn’t come up with anything better.

  We were anchored about three hundred yards off the little island that contained the house Desmond had built. A dock ran out from the front of the place about sixty feet. Two go-fast boats, each at least thirty-five-feet long with big twin Yamaha outboards hanging off the transoms, were moored on either side.

  We were decked out for fishing, large floppy hats covering our heads and shielding our faces, trying to look like three guys spending a day doing not much of anything. Our boat was a twenty-three-foot center-console Grady-White, a fishing platform. Jock, Logan, and I sat with rods and reels, casting now and then. I had a pair of binoculars and checked for activity at the house every few minutes. It was quiet.

  Our guns were stored on the floor of the boat in the duffels we’d used to transport them. We had three M4 military assault rifles and three nine-millimeter Glock 19s. The bags also held camouflage paint, black clothing, and extra rounds for the weapons.

  We were waiting for dark, hoping to get a better idea of what was on the island before we launched our attack. I didn’t expect to see J.D., but I thought Doc might be roaming around, checking his security. Old habits don’t die, and an old soldier in hiding would make sure he was secure.

  The sunlight was fading when my cell phone vibrated in my pocket. I pulled it out and saw that the call was from a blocked number. I answered.

  “Matt,” J.D. said, “you guys come on up to the house.”

  “J.D.,” I said, “are you all right?”

  “I’m fine. Look at the dock, the one right in front of the house.”

  Shit. I held the phone away from my mouth, said in a whisper, “They’re on to us.”

  “Matt,” J.D. said, “I can hear you. I’m fine. I’m standing on the end of the dock. Bring the boat on in, and I’ll help you with the lines.”

  I picked up the binoculars and looked toward the dock. J.D. was standing at the end of it. Alone. She was dressed in shorts and a golf shirt and seemed relaxed. If she was under duress, there was no sign of it. “She wants us to bring the boat to the dock.”

  “I don’t think we have much choice,” said Jock. “We sure as hell didn’t surprise them.”

  “She looks okay,” said Logan. “J.D. wouldn’t let a little thing like the threat of getting shot make her throw us to the wolves.”

  Logan was right. J.D. would not let herself be used as bait. I put the phone to my mouth. “Okay. We’re coming in.”

  I closed the phone. “Get the weapons out of the bags,” I said. “Don’t let them show above the gunwales. They’ve probably got glasses on us.”

  I used the windlass to raise the anchor, cranked the engine, and moved toward the dock. J.D. waved at us as we came closer. Jock and Logan were at the bow and stern with lines. I eased the boat into the dock and J.D. caught the bowline from Logan. Jock jumped off the stern and wrapped his line around a cleat. I shut down the engine and climbed off the boat.

  J.D. hugged me and then Jock and Logan. She looked at the floor-board of the boat and smiled. “You won’t need those,” she said, pointing at the guns.

  “What the hell is going on, J.D.?” I asked.

  “Come up to the house. Doc’s there with some other people you’ll want to meet. He’s got one heck of a story to tell you.”

  “How’d you know we were here? I thought these floppy hats would hide us.”

  She laughed. “I’d know you guys anywhere. Besides, Doc had a GPS beacon hidden on his plane. He could follow it on the Internet. We knew the plane had landed at the Marsh Harbour Airport, and we were pretty sure you were aboard. I thought you’d get my hints.”

  “I figured them out, but why? If you’re here voluntarily, why didn’t you just tell me that?”

  “Come on up to the house. Doc will tell you everything.”

  I was a little steamed. She’d worried the hell out of me and now she was telling me that the hints as to her whereabouts were part of some kind of game. “I don’t find any of this very amusing,” I said.

  She hugged me again, put her mouth to my ear, and whispered, “Matt, I’m so sorry to have worried you. It was necessary, and I knew you’d find me.” She kissed me on the neck, just below my ear. “Thank you.”

  I was still a little pissed, but the kiss, the first one ever that was more than a friendly peck on the cheek, was quickly washing away my anger. I hugged her back. “I’m so glad you’re okay,” I said. “These have been the longest three days of my life.”

  “Come on. Let’s go up to the house,” she said and led the way.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT

  The house was large and rambled over most of the little island. There was a tennis court on one side of the structure, a guesthouse on the other, and an infinity pool in the rear, the boat dock in the front. J.D. led us through the front door into a large entryway and on back to a great room overlooking the pool and Abaco Sound. The room was filled with middle-aged men. Doc was there and so was George Brewster, and to my astonishment, Paul Galis, a Key West detective I’d met the year before when I was trying to find my former wife’s stepdaughter. There were four other men whom I’d never seen. Doc introduced them to me as Don Lemuel from North Dakota, Conrad Dixson from California, Ben Wright of Kentucky, and Harrison Fleming.

  I’d brought the duffel containing the weapons with me. I didn’t think leaving them on an open boat was a good idea. I set the bag on the floor.

  “These are the remains of Team Charlie,” said Doc. He looked at the group arrayed in a semicircle of stuffed chairs and two sofas. “I used to work for Matt, back when he was a Special Forces shave tail running our A team out of Camp Connor. He’s tougher than he looks. He took a bullet in the leg and later a gut full of shrapnel while earning the Distinguished Service Cross, the army’s second highest award for valor. He’s also a lawyer, but he doesn’t take it too seriously.”

  Doc pointed to Jock. “This has to be Jock Algren, a guy you don’t want to know much about, but I’ll vouch for him because Matt and J.D. do. I don’t know this other gentleman.”

  “Logan Hamilton,” I said. “A Vietnam airborne Ranger grunt who did a second tour flying helicopters. Owns a Silver
Star. He’s okay.” I looked at Galis. “Good to see you, Paul.”

  “Same here, Matt.”

  I could see a visible relaxation on the faces of the men in the room. We’d passed the first test. We were soldiers who’d tasted combat and acquitted ourselves well. That made us part of the brotherhood.

  I’d met Paul Galis in Key West and was aware that he’d been a Special Forces trooper in Vietnam toward the end of the war. We hadn’t talked about his experiences there, because that’s not what old soldiers do. Still, it was a shock to see him with this group.

  “What’s going on here, Doc?” I asked.

  “This thing runs deep, Matt. It started coming to a head over the weekend, and I had to make some quick decisions. I left you out of the loop on purpose. You were part of my misdirection strategy.”

  “I’m not sure I like the sound of that,” I said.

  “Take a load off,” said Doc, pointing to four empty chairs. “I’ll rustle up some drinks. What do you want?”

  We all ordered water and in a few minutes Doc returned with bottles for all of us. “Okay,” he said. “Let me start with Team Charlie’s last operation.”

  The story was as old as war, and as necessary. There have always been bands of assassins tasked with taking out the leadership of the opposing forces. The theory was that if the leaders were killed, chaos would ensue and the killers’ side would have the advantage for at least a short time. Often that is all that’s needed in battle. It was a good theory and had been a part of the American war machine since the Colonial sniper Timothy Murphy killed British General Simon Fraser in 1777, a death that led directly to the American victory at Saratoga.

  “We were a band of killers,” said Doc. “I don’t think any of us would ever have robbed a bank or stolen a loaf of bread, because we saw ourselves as honorable men. But we believed that by killing the Viet Cong leadership, we were shortening the war and saving American lives.”

  Team Charlie had drawn from all the military special ops groups, Army Special Forces, Marine Force Recon, and Navy SEALs. There was a team leader and an assistant leader, both civilians, both Central Intelligence Agency operatives. The other ten men were military, and though they wore no rank insignia they were given the courtesies of noncommissioned officers.