The Coalition: A Novel of Suspense

by Samuel Marquis

  With these thoughts weighing heavily on his mind, he posed a question: “Where is Will?”

  “Nepal.”

  Shit, that’s right—the trek. “How’d you track him down so fast?”

  “You can thank CNN. Will heard about the assassination only a few minutes after me. He called in from some small town. Hasn’t started off on his trek yet.”

  “Is he going to cut his vacation short?”

  “He’ll be back on Wednesday or Thursday. It’s going to take him a whole day just to get back to Kathmandu. Until his return, I’m in charge, and I’m warning you right now, the heat’s gonna be turned up on this one.”

  “Just tell me how you want it handled, Henry.”

  It took Sharp five minutes to lay out the assignments. Patton would be the case agent. He would manage the day-to-day operations of the task force, keeping in touch with the lab techs and other specialists and compiling their findings, while working closely with the Secret Service. Because of the case’s high-profile, everything he found out was to be reported to two separate levels within the FBI: John Sawyer, the supervisory special agent of the Domestic Terrorism desk; and, until Will Nicholson’s return, Sharp himself, who would, in turn, report directly to FBI Director Sidley. However, as the case agent, Patton would have substantial control over the case. The Bureau’s approach was to let competent agents do their jobs as they saw fit, allowing them to focus on the investigation while others ran interference with the media, politicians, and watchdog groups.

  Sharp looked at his watch. “I’ve got a press conference in an hour. What else you got?”

  “Prelim ballistics. Looks like the assassin was using heavy caliber stuff.”

  “How heavy?”

  “Fifty. That’s what Eric Kronebusch, the Service team leader told me.” He pointed to a walrus-mustached man bending down to examine the wooden platform.

  “Fifty caliber, huh. What is this guy a buffalo hunter?”

  “That’s not all. The shooter used an explosive cartridge. Military ordnance, not available at your average gun show. Fragmented on impact like a grenade.”

  “Wasn’t taking any fucking chances, was he? Anything else?”

  “Just one thing. I talked to two of the Service countersnipers. They think the shot that killed Kieger was one in a thousand.”

  “Meaning our guy got lucky?”

  “No, meaning he’s a world-class shooter.”

  CHAPTER 10

  FROM THE PLAZA, they drove to the Union Plaza Building, where they were met by Agent Frederick Taylor of the U.S. Secret Service and three other suits. Unhappy times, thought Patton as they exchanged greetings. The Service guys all had the same expression: a combination of intense focus, guilt, tarnished pride, and bitter anger. For some of them, most notably the guys in the personal protection detail, this wasn’t just about losing a presidential candidate to a sniper’s bullet—it was about having your whole career flushed down the toilet and not being able to do a goddamned thing about it.

  The two senior agents, Taylor and Sharp, shook hands. Fred Taylor was mid-fiftyish and fit, with a shock of white hair that deluded one into thinking he was older than he was. Patton knew all about him. He was a legend in the law enforcement biz, having knocked John Hinckley, Jr. to the ground in 1981 in front of the Washington Hilton Hotel. The swift response prevented Hinckley from squeezing off a sixth and, possibly fatal, shot at President Reagan.

  When they were finished with the introductions, Taylor escorted them to the security control room in the basement of the building, posting his men outside the door. High-tech surveillance gadgetry was neatly built into the rows of cherry cabinets lining the walls. On one wall, there were eight flat, oversized video panels, and on another were eight more. All but two of the control monitors in the panels showed color images of the interior or exterior of the building.

  A bald man wearing a fluorescent green golf sweater and a look of worry stepped forward and introduced himself as the property manager. Next to him stood a tall, cadaverously thin man in a gray suit. The property manager introduced the second man as chief of security for Security Systems, Inc. A third man stood behind the other two, but the property manager didn’t bother to introduce him. He wore a light-blue uniform bearing a Security Systems logo.

  With the preliminaries completed, Henry Sharp stepped forward in his patented Wyatt Earp pose, looked the chief of security squarely in the eye, and demanded a rundown on the security system. Patton pulled out his iPad to type down notes, acutely aware of the frisson of tension gripping the room.

  “It’s a state-of-the-art electronic security system. We have sixteen security cameras that feed the control monitors you see here. Two at each main entrance. Four covering the lobby and elevators. Two in the loading/parking garage area. Two on the roof. Three covering the power and maintenance floor. And one for this security area. Everything we have is high-resolution color video.”

  “What about the individual floors?” asked Sharp, leaning in close and crowding him.

  The property manager fielded the question. “Only three lessees have additional security cameras. They’re on the twenty-fifth, thirty-eighth, and fifty-fifth floors. One’s a software company, the other two are insurance. They have their own internal security that monitors the recordings. Front Range Investment Advisors—that’s the company leasing the fiftieth floor—doesn’t have any cameras.”

  Patton pointed to the two blank screens. “Why aren’t those two showing anything?”

  The security man and the property manager exchanged a look. “Those two cameras are down,” said the property manager guiltily.

  Patton looked at Sharp, saw his patented frown. “What part of the building do they cover?”

  “The loading/garage area,” the uniformed security man replied. “They’ve been down since this morning, around eleven. I called the repair people, but they’re still not here yet.”

  Now he understood why they were so tense, the uniformed guy in particular. “Do you know what’s wrong? Is it the cameras or the wiring?”

  “All we’ve been able to determine is that the cameras aren’t working. We don’t tamper with the hardware—we just call in the repair people whenever there’s a problem.”

  He made a note on his iPad. Cameras disabled. Shooter or accessory?

  After another uncomfortable silence, Taylor switched directions. “How often do you record over these tapes?” he asked the chief of security.

  “Every seventy-two hours. We have continuous recordings since Friday morning.”

  “So if the assailant entered the building between Friday and today, and left right after the shooting, he should be on film.”

  “That’s correct, with the exception of the footage from the parking garage after eleven a.m.”

  Sharp looked intently at the property manager, causing him to retreat a half step, and again took over the line of questioning. “What do you have to do to get inside the building?”

  “The entrance doors on Seventeenth and Eighteenth are open from seven in the morning until seven at night on weekdays, except holidays. We have a security guard and information desk staff member in the lobby during business hours. But there’s no official check-in point at the two main entrances. Access during non-working hours, weekends, and holidays is by a card-key system.”

  “What about once you’re inside the building? What would you have to do to get up to the Front Range Investment offices on the fiftieth floor?”

  “During normal working hours, all you’d have to do is take the elevator to the fiftieth floor and get past the receptionist.”

  “What about during non-working hours?”

  “That would be more complicated, but not impossible. The individual floors can be accessed in three different ways during non-business hours: a card-key, a keypad, and an ordinary key.”

  Now the security man spoke up. “Front Range Investments has a keypad system. Each employee receives their own six-digit code
when they’re hired.”

  Sharp held up a bony hand, signaling that he had heard enough. “We appreciate your cooperation,” he said without a hint of sincerity. “But we’re going to need more from you. First, the videotapes. Second, a list of all companies in the building and the names of all employees along with their job titles and phone numbers. Third, a list of all employees who entered the building after five p.m. Friday. I’m guessing your card-key system records the code number of all personnel entering the building on weekends?”

  “That’s correct,” the property manager replied.

  “The last thing we need is a list of all maintenance, security, and other building support personnel. Again with titles, phone numbers, the works.”

  Sharp pulled out a pair of business cards, offering one to the property manager and another to the security man. Patton and Taylor followed suit.

  “Obviously we need everything by yesterday,” said the ASAC.

  “We’ll get right on it,” said the property manager, looking relieved to be finished with Henry Copernicus Sharp.

  “Call Agent Patton here when you pull it all together. Got it?”

  The nervous property manager started to nod, but was interrupted by a knock on the door.

  Patton turned and opened it. Standing there was Agent Weiss.

  Jesus, Wedge, you look pale as a ghost.

  “We’ve found something,” said Weiss. “It’s bad—you need to take a look.”

  CHAPTER 11

  WITH TURBOFAN ENGINES RUMBLING, the 747 streaked across the night sky like a giant falcon. From her first-class seat, Skyler handed her empty wine glass to the steward and peered out the window. Beyond the flickering starboard lights loomed a curtain of blackness sprinkled with stars. Soon she would be back in La-La Land: the world of movie stars and broken dreams, white sandy beaches and traffic jams, endless sunshine and toxic air pollution.

  A place of striking contrasts, not unlike Skyler herself.

  She had been living in an apartment in Venice Beach for the past three months. But she would be moving on again soon, now that the Kieger contract was complete. Her control agent, Xavier, arranged her “safe house” accommodations, depending on where she wanted to live at any given moment and her contractual obligations. But with her assignment complete it was now time for a little R&R. She was thinking of a vacation to Bora Bora; the Society Islands were supposed to be wonderful this time of year.

  Today marked her fifteenth contracted kill. Yet surprisingly, even after all the killing she didn’t think of herself as a murderer. She was simply an extension of her gun, a mechanical robot that pulled the trigger. The real murderers were the evil men who hired her. They were the ones who gave the orders; all she did was execute them, and if she didn’t, someone else would.

  All the same, she regretted killing the woman and her companion at the elevator. Though she had been forced to—there had been no choice considering they could identify her—she still felt anguish over the incident.

  Still, it would not be until later tonight, when she was asleep, that the true haunting would begin. When the nightmares came—and they always did—she would quake with shame. With sweat pouring from her body and teeth grinding, she would see the faces of her victims, one after another. They always came through clearly, framed in the perfect circle of her sniperscope with the crosshairs centered on the forehead. When she squeezed the trigger, the smooth, clear faces would explode in a spray of blood and she would gasp for air and leap up in her bed, covered in sweat.

  It was strange how she always saw the faces blowing open when it was her custom to shoot for the heart. She thought it was to remind her that the people she killed were actual human beings, tangible and alive. Real people with real faces, real emotions, real lives.

  The bad dreams usually came the first evening after a contract and gripped her for two or three nights. It was on those nights that she hated herself for what she did and wished she had never become an assassin. And it was on those nights that she prayed to the Holy Father—not for her own redemption, but for the souls of those she had killed.

  CHAPTER 12

  THERE WERE two bodies, a man and a woman, slumped against the floor outside the service elevator, their white bloodless faces frozen in expressions of mute horror. Patton could see instantly that they had been shot at close range. Both bore small entry wounds and gaping exit wounds, splattering off to comet tails of dried gray brain matter and blood. Standing at the scene of carnage with him were Sharp, Taylor, Weiss, another FBI agent, and a cop. But out of all of them only the ASAC, his boss Henry Sharp, looked unaffected by the grisly scene.

  “This can’t be a coincidence,” he pronounced. “Got to be the same guy who took out Kieger.”

  “Do we really know that for sure?” inquired Patton mildly. “Our shooter could have had a spotter, or there may have been another accessory.”

  “Did I ask your opinion, Special Agent?”

  “No, sir. All I’m saying is it might not have been a lone gunman.”

  Ignoring him, Sharp looked pointedly at Weiss. “Who was first on scene?”

  “Me, sir.”

  “Touch anything?”

  “No, sir. I came straight to Agent Patton. Officer Johnson and Agent Williams remained here to keep the area secure.” He motioned toward the uniformed cop and FBI agent next to him.

  Sharp squinted at them. “You guys touch anything?”

  They shook their heads.

  “I’ll call in a crime scene team,” Taylor said, pulling out his cell phone.

  “And the ME,” Sharp reminded him, referring to the Medical Examiner. He turned back to Patton. “Where are my gloves, Special Agent?”

  Feeling like a serf, Patton pulled out two pairs of latex gloves and handed a pair to his boss. After donning their crime scene gloves, they knelt down to take a closer look at the corpses, making sure not to step in any splattered blood or tissue. The blood was a glossy iron-black patina, cracked near the edges. Patton withdrew a fiber-optic penlight and, with Sharp looking on, shined it on the dead man’s face.

  There were two small entry wounds—one in the forehead, the other between the eyes. Patton carefully turned the man’s head sideways to expose the back of the skull. There wasn’t much left; a jagged exit wound much larger than the entry borehole, and a semihard lump of brain and tissue. They turned their attention to the young woman. There was a large bloodstain on her cream-colored blouse at her heart. Patton could see two neat bullet holes in the fabric. The woman also had a small entry wound in the forehead and a large, ragged exit hole on the back of her cranium.

  Hollow point? Heavy caliber for sure.

  “I don’t see any skin abrasions or other signs of a struggle,” said Sharp. “Looks like they came upon our perp by surprise as he was making his escape.”

  “We should take a look at the elevator. That will confirm it.” Patton hit the elevator button. A half minute later the doors opened up. They stepped carefully inside and locked in the Door Open button. There was a cryptic blood spatter on the left side of the elevator door as one faced out. It looked like his boss was right: the victims had come upon the shooter by surprise and he had gunned them down from inside the elevator.

  “No brass,” Sharp mumbled after looking around.

  Taylor walked up and stopped outside the elevator. “Maybe our guy wasn’t using a semiauto.”

  “Either that or he picked up the spent shells after he made the kills,” Patton said, thinking this a more likely alternative. Empty shell casings, if recovered, could be matched to a murder weapon, based on the firing pin and ejector markings on the casing.

  “No, he wouldn’t have had time,” said Sharp emphatically.

  Patton disagreed, but didn’t bother to challenge him. He knew that Wyatt Earp didn’t like to be challenged.

  They took a minute to chart out a rough trajectory path of the shots. The aerial spray patterns, though partially obscured by the bodies and heavier t
issue, angled away from the elevator, suggesting both victims had faced the assailant just outside the elevator when they were shot. There were no drag marks across the marble floor; the bloodstains and spray patterns implied the deceased had been shot where they had fallen. Which made perfect sense, thought Patton, if they had surprised the killer at the elevator.

  But why, he wondered, would the shooter have let the elevator stop and the doors open in the first place? Was he distracted or preoccupied in some way? Why didn’t he just hit the Door Close button and not let them in? After all, he had been in a huge hurry to escape. It was odd. But more importantly, it was just the kind of unforeseen circumstance and unanticipated evidence trail that might actually help them nail the perp.

  Five minutes later, the ERT arrived and quickly secured the area with yellow crime scene tape. When the team began setting up, Patton took Sharp and Taylor to where the nightmare had begun.

  CHAPTER 13

  THEY STARED OUT the fiftieth floor window in silence. The Secret Service crime scene unit was busy down in the plaza. Powerful lamps illuminated the half dozen figures laboring inside the yellow tape. From a half mile away and fifty floors up, they looked like fastidious ants.

  While they stood gazing down at the platform, five ERT technicians quietly went about their business in other parts of the room. They had finished the photography, mapping, and sampling, and were now performing the final evidence vacuum sweep and preparing for fingerprinting. The e-vac was a small, powerful vacuum cleaner equipped with a special filter for retaining fibers, hairs, and other miniscule bits of evidence. Patton turned to watch a technician pull out a filter and place it in a labeled evidence bag. Meanwhile, another technician cleaned the vacuum, inserted a new filter, and began vacuuming a grid area on the other side of the room.