When she reached the busy avenue, she stood dazedly at the crosswalk and was assaulted by the jarring cacophony of the city: groaning engines, screeching tires, beeping horns, the drone of a distant siren. Her body was bathed in sweat from exertion, but the sweat had turned cold. After fainting, she felt diminished somehow, powerless to control her own body.
She crossed the street and went to the mall, trying to sort it all out. Slowly, the pieces of the puzzle began to come together. It wasn’t that her target this time was a woman—she was repelled by the very thought of killing anyone!
Before she had always been able to rationalize the killings by convincing herself that the real murderers were the men who hired her. Before she had carried out her assignments with cold mechanical swiftness, which was enough to insulate her from shame. But now, because of Anthony, everything had changed. The feelings of guilt and remorse were overtaking her. They were making her physically ill, sapping her control over her own body. Now the demons came on during the day, as well as the night, and she was unable to fight them off.
Leaving her to wonder: How can I possibly pull this off when I’m falling apart?
CHAPTER 104
PATTON SPENT THE MORNING hunched over a desk at the L.A. field office, reviewing the files Lorrie Elert had emailed him while listening to Bill Monroe and the Bluegrass Boys on his iPod. Most people listened to something placid and soothing, like classical music or jazz, to focus their concentration; for FBI Special Agent Kenneth Gregory Patton, the only thing that worked was frenetically dueling banjos, dobros, and mandolins.
Spread out before him were NCIC case files, Interpol alerts, police reports, CIA memos, and dossiers from friendly intelligence services around the world. Lorrie had done a remarkable job. In less than three days’ time, she had developed a computer code that queried hundreds of thousands of records—asking critical questions about murder weapons, bullets, firing distances, and tactical elements—and spit out thirty-nine cases similar to the Kieger assassination based on key elements. Of the thirty-nine cases, Lorrie had narrowed down the list to fourteen cases that had more than three common elements with the Kieger murder. This is where it got interesting: the fourteen cases involved only four different suspects.
Jack Hammond, former British SAS commando turned professional assassin.
Habib Mustafa, former gold-medalist shooter in the 2000 Olympics, now Islamic State gunman believed to be responsible for five killings since 2012.
McKinley Taggert, American, ex-Special Forces sharpshooter, formerly of right-wing group Red State Confederacy, now contracting out to various criminal and corporate syndicates as a hit man.
And Diego Gomez, no previous military experience, reportedly a member of the Basque separatist movement Euskara, but also an independent contractor.
All of them were reputed world-class shooters as well as masters of disguise, but most importantly, they were active and their whereabouts unknown. They were the best candidates based on a query of thousands of case files worldwide.
Going over the dossiers a second time, Patton found the Basque Gomez the most promising suspect. He was the most recently active, with seven credited kills in the past decade. More importantly, all of his sanctions involved distances believed to be in excess of 500 yards, as well as heavy-caliber weaponry, including, on two occasions, .50-caliber armor-piercing incendiary cartridges. Interestingly, the seven confirmed kills were restricted to Europe, the U.S., Canada, and South America.
Gomez certainly had the qualifications to take out Kieger. And he did work the U.S. But there was a problem: he had no apparent connection to John or Jane Doe. The two artist’s sketches of Gomez, produced by the French and Italian intelligence services, bore only a vague resemblance to both. Not only that, the French sketch had little in common with the Italian one. There was one surveillance photograph, taken in Spain, but it was too grainy for a positive ID. Somehow Gomez had managed to stay in business for at least a decade without anyone taking a high-quality photo of him.
Closing the file, Patton decided to catalogue Gomez for the time being. He might prove important later, but for now he was just a mystery man.
Suddenly, Patton felt a hand on his shoulder.
He nearly jumped up from his seat, so intensely focused was he on the file in front of him. Turning around, he half-expected to see Diego Gomez standing there pointing a Glock at him.
But it was only Sharp, as usual looking none too pleased. The ASAC motioned for him to remove his earphones, which he did.
“What’s up, Henry?”
“Turn off that hillbilly music and get your butt in gear. We have to get to the goddamned airport!”
Patton looked at his watch. “Jesus, it’s nine already?”
“We’ll meet you at the elevator. Hurry up!” and he was gone.
Patton scooped up all his paperwork and stuffed it in his briefcase along with his iPod. He and Sharp were flying back to Denver with Schmidt and Barr Hogen, Jane Doe’s neighbor, who were scheduled to review the Union Plaza Building security tapes this afternoon. Taylor had flown back late last night to help with the security detail for Fowler’s speech.
Rising from his chair, Patton turned off the light and shut the door. As he stepped into the hallway, he thought back to something he had seen on the security tapes of John Doe.
A fistful of breath kicked out his lungs as he was struck with a thought.
What if John Doe, Jane Doe, and Gomez are the fucking same person!
CHAPTER 105
AFTER BEING FINGERPRINTED AND PHOTOGRAPHED, Jennifer sat for over an hour on a cold steel bench in a dirty, stench-ridden holding cell. It could have been anywhere, but just happened to be the Colorado Springs Police Department at 705 South Nevada Avenue.
Soon a sour-faced Betty Davis lookalike in a sharply creased uniform called her name. The woman escorted her to a spartan interrogation room with a brown pressboard table, metal folding chairs, and out-of-place pictures on the walls showing flashy race cars barreling up Pike’s Peak during the yearly mountain auto race. Seated at the table were two men who gazed at her accusingly as she walked in.
“Sit down,” the older of the two men commanded gruffly. He was ugly as sin, with a crush of fissures lining his face and a nose that looked like it had been broken several times. He was dressed in a cheap jacket and tie and his hair was flipped over the top of his head, like a mop, in a futile attempt to cover his bald spot. The younger guy was African-American, late-thirties, with ballooning biceps his neatly pressed police uniform failed to conceal.
Jennifer fought back the urge to scowl at them as she took her seat. She distrusted cops ever since they had overreacted at a Dead show years ago, firing pepper spray at her and a bunch of other peaceful kids for no reason. In fact, she didn’t like law enforcement types in general, though she was willing to make an exception in Ken’s case.
“I want to make a statement,” she declared straight off.
“There will be time for that,” the older man said. “First we have to read you your rights.”
He leaned across the table and turned on the tape recorder. Two minutes later, the Miranda warning was complete and Jennifer had agreed to answer their questions without an attorney being present. After all, she was innocent and as long as she told the truth, she had nothing to fear. She also learned their names: the older, fifty-something guy was Chuck Pinkerton, Captain of the Operations Support Bureau, Investigations Division; the younger, black man was Marvin Hayes, a detective within the division. When they were finished with the preliminaries, Pinkerton said, “Go ahead.”
“First off, I had nothing to do with this. You’ve got the wrong person and all you’re doing is wasting time. You should be trying to find the real guy who did this.”
The two homicide detectives said nothing, staring at her through crocodile eyes. Everything about them was unsympathetic, suspicious, quietly hostile.
“Okay,” Pinkerton said with mock courtesy. “Why
don’t you tell us exactly what did go down?”
She did. It took twenty minutes with the detectives stopping her occasionally to ask questions. Jennifer was pleased the younger guy seemed to loosen up a bit. He nodded a couple times, which she took as a good sign. But the older one, Pinkerton, was sullen as a clam.
When she was finished, Pinkerton said, “I gotta be honest with you, your story sounds pretty far-fetched. You expect us to believe that it wasn’t you, but a policeman, who shot everyone? And after he did this, you wrestled the gun away from him?”
“I didn’t say he was a policeman. I said he was dressed like one. And I didn’t wrestle the gun away from him. I hit him in the arm with a toilet lid. It was the only weapon I could find.”
“A toilet lid, huh? And after that, you just picked up the gun and walked outside, is that it?”
“Yes, that’s exactly how it went down.” Jesus, I can’t believe this is really happening.
Hayes said, “And how does Benjamin Locke fit in to all this? You said something about how it was all his fault.”
Jennifer didn’t like the distrusting look in his eyes. “I believe he was the one behind the attack.”
Pinkerton frowned. “That’s a strong allegation. Benjamin Locke is a world-renowned religious leader and pillar of this community.”
She shook her head in disbelief. Pillar? Anathema is more like it!
“Mr. Locke’s take is a little different. And so are the eyewitness accounts from the other six people we’ve interviewed.” Pinkerton paused to glance over his notes. “Three of the witnesses said when you walked out of the clinic carrying the gun, you looked like a zombie. Like you were in a trance or something. Now why would you act like that if you were innocent? I would think you would be in a state of emergency, running to get help as fast as possible.”
“I don’t believe this. Why would I lie to you? I told you I’m a professional journalist not some anti-abortion freak.”
They just stared at her as if she were a violent, deranged woman. “Do you have any actual evidence Benjamin Locke’s involved?” Hayes asked.
“Well no, but what was he doing there at the clinic? When Susan and I were at the hotel, she told her parents she was staying at a friend’s house. So he couldn’t have known she was going to the clinic this morning.”
“And why were you hiding out at the Marriot? I’m not sure I caught that,” pressed Pinkerton.
“We weren’t hiding out . Susan came to me for help after her father attacked her.”
“Attacked her?”
“Okay, he didn’t actually attack her—he spanked her—but she was still scared to death.”
“So he…he spanked his seventeen year old daughter, is that it?” Pinkerton looked at his black partner with the bulging biceps. “What’s the world coming to?”
Jennifer was irked by his dismissive, condescending tone and shook her head in frustration. “You’re really not getting any of this are you, Detective? Locke forbade her from getting an abortion, but she was set on doing it—that’s the whole point of all this. That’s why we decided to rent a room for the night, so we could sort everything out. We decided that I would drive her to the clinic this morning and that we wouldn’t tell her parents about the abortion. The parental notification age in Colorado is sixteen so we were fully within our legal rights.”
“Why didn’t the two of you just stay at your place?” asked Hayes.
“I didn’t want them to find us...I mean me.”
“Who are they ?”
“Locke, Marlene Tanner, and the others. Just...just forget that part. It’s not relevant.”
Pinkerton’s eyebrows jumped up. “Not relevant? When there are eight corpses at the Coroner’s Office and two people in critical condition, we’ll decide what’s relevant. You’d better start telling us the truth.”
For the next thirty minutes, they grilled her about her relationship to Locke and his family, her purported job as a freelance journalist, and finally her role as an employee at AMP. As the interrogation went on, she began to wear down, overcome with frustration at her inability to convey her innocence. Toward the end, Pinkerton brought the line of questioning back to the clinic attack.
“When you were first taken into custody, you looked at Susan and said, ‘I’m sorry, Susan.’ What did you mean by that?”
“That I was sorry for what had happened to her.”
“You mean that you were sorry for killing her.”
“No, that’s not what I meant,” Jennifer said, rubbing her forehead in weary frustration. “You’re...you’re putting words in my mouth again.”
“Were you keeping Susan Locke against her will?” asked Hayes. “Is that why you were at the hotel?”
“Of course not—I was her friend. That’s why I took her to the clinic and stayed with her in the waiting area. To offer moral support.”
“But you weren’t with her in the waiting area,” Pinkerton said, his voice carrying an accusatory undertone. “You were in the bathroom.”
“Just for a minute and that’s when all hell broke loose. I didn’t know what was going on at first, until I heard the screaming.” Her face turned fearful. “You’ve got to believe me—it’s the truth.”
Pinkerton eyed her skeptically. “It’s a tough pill to swallow. Here you are, the only person to make it through this bloody rampage unscathed, telling us you stole the gun from this so-called policeman. Well, I hate to tell you this, but no one interviewed saw any uniformed officers until after the shootings, when the squad cars arrived on the scene.”
Hayes frowned. “What I can’t understand is if all these people were being gunned down, why didn’t you make any effort to help them?”
Jennifer’s eyes dropped to the table. I should have done more. I should have tried to save Susan.
“It just sounds too convenient,” Pinkerton said. “There’s supposed to be some cop there, or a guy dressed like a cop, but no one sees him. Then everyone gets shot but you. And finally just as the guy’s escaping, you manage to knock the gun from his hands. You really expect us to believe you could disarm an armed man. I mean, how much do you weigh, one twenty tops?”
Now Jennifer’s head swam with fear and she knew she was in real trouble. She felt like the innocent guy in The Wrong Man or The Fugitive. The interrogation was not going at all how she’d expected. There seemed to be nothing she could say to convince them of her innocence. How naive to have thought she could simply tell the truth and everything would be properly sorted out.
She felt herself being swept into a riptide. Somehow, she had to get in touch with Ken. Hopefully, he would be able to vouch for her and clear up this mess.
Pinkerton fixed her with a prosecutor’s glare. “You’d better just cut the bullshit, lady, and tell us what really went down. Because we’re going to go over it and over it and over it—until we get it goddamned right!”
CHAPTER 106
AT 1:38 P.M., Benjamin and Mary Locke walked out of the El Paso County Coroner’s Office. A flock of reporters quickly engulfed them, shoving microphones in their faces and bombarding them with questions. The attack on the Family Planning Group clinic marked the most gruesome episode in Colorado Springs history and the media was in a state of frenzy. It already had its angle on the big story: CHRISTIAN-RIGHT LEADER’S PREGNANT DAUGHTER SLAIN BY ZEALOT AT ABORTION CLINIC. The irony was not lost on Locke, but what made his blood boil was that there was nothing he could do to prevent the media from carelessly slandering him and staining the memory of his poor daughter.
With the help of four uniformed cops, Locke fought his way through the agitated crowd. Reaching his silver Cadillac, he helped his wife to the passenger seat and then bulled his way through the microphones and cameras to the driver’s side. With reporters banging on the windows, they drove off, leaving the news people to scramble to their satellite vans and follow.
His wife had met him at the Coroner’s Office a half hour earlier. Locke had already given his
version of the story to the police downtown, in the reassuring presence of his top attorney. Because of his sterling local reputation and vast wealth, as well as his friendship with Police Chief Bill Hanson, the cops had only questioned him a short time. When asked about what he was doing at the Family Planning Group clinic, he reported that he had discovered his daughter had met with a Dr. Sivy about getting an abortion and when she had not shown up to school this morning, he had driven to the clinic. He had planned to dissuade Susan from taking the life of her child, he admitted, but was completely shocked by what had happened at the clinic.
When they had identified Susan’s body, the unspeakable pain on his wife’s face as the cold steel tray was pulled out and the sheet lifted would be imprinted in his mind forever. But what pained him most of all was that he could have prevented his daughter’s death. He should have confronted Truscott and the colonel right away and called off the entire operation. It wasn’t the Apostle’s fault: he had only been fulfilling a contract.
He and his wife did not speak on the way home. However, during the long strained silence, Locke sensed that she was suspicious of him. To mask his utter shame and guilt, he reminded himself that Susan’s death was only an accident and no one, not even Skull Eyes or the colonel, had intended her to die. All the same, he despised himself for not acting more swiftly and putting a stop to the contract the instant he had first learned of it. At the tender age of seventeen, his daughter’s life had been prematurely snuffed out and he would never know the many mountains she would have climbed.
As they drove up to their Tudor mansion, Locke hit a button to open the heavy steel gate. He pulled into the drive, the electric gate swinging closed behind him, and parked in front of the house. Benjamin Jr. walked outside to greet them just as the satellite vans screeched to a halt at the curb outside the estate.
By the time Locke stepped from the Cad, his wife was already heading briskly toward the front door. Without saying a word to Benjamin Jr., she dashed into the house.
The Coalition: A Novel of Suspense Page 36