Killed in Action

by Michael Sloan

  He spread the bicycle parts on a table and pulled apart the double metal frame, which was hollowed out, as were the handlebars. He slit the tires. Then he packed the metal frame, the handlebars, and the tires with C-4 explosives, tightly molded like modeling clay. He had been trained in its use, but recited the components to himself as he worked: 91 percent RDX, 5.3 percent DOS as the plasticizer, 2.1 percent polyisobutylene as a binder, and 1.6 percent of a mineral oil called the process oil. Once packed, the C-4 would not explode when set on fire or even in microwave radiation. It used a detonator. The tests that he had carried out had shown the gases expanded at an explosive velocity of 8,092 meters per second. After the explosion, gases rushed back to the center of ignition, causing a second explosion. There were more sophisticated explosives, but this could be molded to fit into the spaces he needed.

  He welded the metal frames back together and the handlebars. Then he packed up the bicycle parts into a black Tourmaster nylon traveler backpack with heavy-duty 840-denier with a built-in helmet house that could accommodate most helmets. In case the backpack was opened, the helmet would be a nice touch. He packed the backpack into a blue-and-black Nike Team duffel bag. He had no worries. He was clean shaven with an American passport. He would be returning home. He found his contact who would deliver the bag to him. At the airport it would be checked in with his other luggage.

  He left the workshop, climbed back into the carpet store, and found his way out into the labyrinthe tunnels that erupted into the bazaar. It took him almost an hour and a half to walk back through the teeming streets.

  He was in a state of euphoric peace.

  Not even the death in the family could touch him.

  * * *

  Dr. Patrick Cross stepped out of the Atlanta Checker cab looking exhausted. Beth’s Jeep Wagoneer was parked in the driveway of the Maple Park suburban house. David’s bike was discarded on one of the swathes of manicured lawn. Cross didn’t get far up the flagstone path before the front door flew open and his kids came tearing out of the house. David leapt up into Cross’s arms. Lisa held back to be cool, but then she succumbed to the homecoming and wrapped her arms around her father’s legs. Beth came out last, dropping her children’s backpacks into the back of the Wagoneer. Dr. Cross let go of his son and daughter and moved to Beth. He was immediately struck by how great she always looked. She had long curly blond hair that tumbled over her shoulders like Farrah Fawcett’s, had flawless skin, and stood almost five-eleven. Around her piercing blue eyes were little crow’s-feet, which she thought marred her beauty, but he had always loved them. She moved into her husband’s arms. They kissed, a promise to the kiss, of clothes discarded as their mouths explored each other, the shroud of Beth’s hair enveloping him as she went down on him. But right now she was the perfect wife, cool and practical. They were already late for school. Dr. Cross said he was going to shower and change clothes and then head in to the Centers for Disease Control on Clifton Road. He also had an office at Emory University nearby, but first he’d need to file his report for the CDC about the Ebola outbreak in Monrovia.

  Once Beth and the kids were away from the house, he would store his precious vials in the massive freezer and refrigerator in the garage. His family knew never to go near it. He could have taken the vials straight to the CDC’s biosafety Level 4 laboratories, but the risk was too high. He wouldn’t be staying long in Atlanta, no matter what lies he told Beth about taking another tour of duty for Doctors Without Borders. Before then he wanted to take his son to one of the Braves’ AAA games at the Gwinnett Braves’ stadium.

  Beth herded Lisa and David into the Jeep Wagoneer and slid into the driver’s seat. The kids had on their earpods, engrossed in their music. Two exquisite diamond tennis bracelets on Beth’s slim wrist caught the light. Cross had promised her a new princess diamond bracelet for her birthday. He already had it in the desk of his office at Emory University. He would bring it home and gift wrap it and leave it for her on the vanity table in their bedroom.

  He remembered Ann Crosby, naked in bed with him in a tangle of sheets, asking him, “Will you tell your wife about us?” She had regretted it instantly, he was sure.

  He thought of her now lying in the shallow grave in the sweltering tropical rain forest.

  Beth backed out, gave her husband a wave, and drove off down the street.

  Dr. Patrick Cross picked up his suitcase and backpack.

  Tom Renquist sat in his rented Volvo S80 parked across the street. He wore dark sunglasses and a cashmere sweater over black jeans. His face was rugged and chiseled, the eyes gray. He carried a Glock 26 subcompact pistol in a snug holster in the small of his back. He watched Dr. Patrick Cross walk into his house and close the front door. Renquist picked up his cell and dialed. He was thinking about The Company. A great many shadow executives had been killed in the past few years. Mickey Kostmayer had been captured in that North Korean prison fiasco and been left there to rot. Granny had been killed. Renquist had been sorry to hear about that. Granny had been the only other agent in The Company Renquist had ever liked. There were only three Controls now. And, of course, Control himself.

  And he was no longer functioning.

  But the shadow executive who had quit The Company had been the closest to him. He was still out there. Renquist had read the intel that had come in to Virginia last night. It had been a hasty and ill-conceived mission in London. The twins had escaped, but the publican at the Duke of Argyll had found the third man in the cellar of his pub when he had opened up in the morning. The tendons in both of his legs had been severed. He had been stabbed through the throat. Renquist had never liked the bastard, but he had been an ally. Not just anyone could have taken him out.

  Renquist waited for his call to be rerouted. He idly fingered the silver demon-claws skull on his right hand. Beside it was a silver ring that had etched on it REMEMBER THAT YOU MUST DIE. Neither of the rings had been mentioned in the intel. The killer had taken them off the assassin’s right hand. Renquist vowed he would retrieve them when he avenged him.

  The call was picked up.

  Renquist said, “Dr. Cross is back in the country.”

  Matthew Goddard said, “You’re positive of the ID?”

  “He just kissed his wife and hugged his kids.”

  “What are the ages of the kids?”

  “I’d say the boy, David, is six, the girl, Lisa, is nine or ten.”

  “How about Cross’s wife?”

  “In her forties. Cool and detached, but a babe. You want me to stay in Atlanta?”

  “Until he leaves. Keep me updated.”

  The connection was broken. Renquist thought about checking in with the house in the country. Just to make sure they hadn’t had any visitors. It was unlikely, but he’d make the call. Renquist hadn’t been told the name of this onetime Company agent—need to know—but he was going to find him.

  Then he would cut off his head and send it back to his Jihadist comrades in a box.

  * * *

  Tara sat in the Starbucks on Broadway at West Forty-Seventh Street, just down from the Hotel Edison, where she was staying, sipping a Caffè Mocha. She was worried about Melody. She hadn’t answered her cell all day yesterday. Tara had gone down to Dolls nightclub. The owner was Samuel Clemens, a good ole boy who looked like he should be selling used Caddys in Fort Worth—which McCall had told Tara he had been doing until he relocated to New York City. Clemens had greeted Tara as if she’d just told him Davy Crockett was a distant relative. Tara had told him Melody Fairbrother was an old friend and she wanted to look her up. What time did she come to work? Clemens had told her that Melody had not come into Dolls that night or the previous night. But then, she often skipped nights at the club. He cut her some slack because she was his favorite of all the dancers there. Clemens was sure she would be back at Dolls tomorrow night. He would let Melody know an old friend had stopped by to see her. Tara had thanked him and left.

  Tara knew that Melody had been out for lunc
h with Blake Cunningham two days ago. After their cosy rendezvous at Gaby in the Sofitel Hotel, Blake had escorted Melody home to her apartment. He had wanted to come up for a drink, but Melody had been complaining of a migraine and wanted to lie down. Blake had, as usual, been the consummate gentleman. He got his Rock Hudson kiss, which Tara had upgraded to a Ryan Seacrest kiss, and taken off in a cab. Tara had watched it all from Mike Gammon’s Prius. Nothing new or remarkable. Melody had gone into her apartment building. Tara wasn’t worried about her when she was at Dolls. She had friends there, and the pro-wrestling bouncer at the doors was careful about whom he let in or kept out of the club.

  Except Melody had not gone into Dolls nightclub that night. Or the next night.

  Tara remembered Melody’s migraine headache. She knew how bad they could be. It could have lasted for a couple of days. Still …

  The detective took another swallow of her Caffè Mocha and checked the messages on her cell phone one more time.

  She had missed one.

  It was a text from Melody’s phone from two nights ago. Tara had thought it had been a glitch because she’d noted there was no message. But one letter was in the text: I. That was it.

  An icy chill went through her. What had Melody been trying to say that night? I need to talk to Mr. McCall? I think someone is in my apartment?

  CHAPTER 29

  Tara finished off her Caffè Mocha and hailed a yellow cab. She told the cabbie to take her to the corner of Jane Street and Eighth Avenue. When the cab pulled up in front of Melody’s apartment building, Tara paid the driver and ran up the four steps to the front door. She rang the silver button outside for apartment 3B. No response. She tried the front door and saw it hadn’t completely closed. She walked down the dim hallway to apartment 1A, which had SUPERINTENDENT lettered on it. She knocked loudly. After a pause three bolts were thrown back. As long as the super is safe, Tara thought. He opened the door. Tara thought he should be teaching a calculus class at Columbia. He was in his fifties, dressed in a tweed suit. Glasses hung around his neck on a cord. A frozen dinner was on a table beside a big easy chair. The TV was on. The super was watching a rerun of NCIS. Tara liked that show. She especially liked Ducky Mallard, the coroner. She gave the super her highest-wattage smile, which had been known to floor lesser men.

  “Hi! I’m Melody Fairbrother’s sister, Diana. I’m staying with her for a few days and I’m supposed to meet her for lunch. We’re going to the matinee of Aladdin, I hear it’s great, and I just realized I left my wallet and my emerald earrings in her apartment, and I don’t have a set of keys. Could you let me in? Apartment 3B.”

  “I know Ms. Fairbrother’s apartment number.” The super’s tone suggested he didn’t believe a word Tara had said. “How do I know you’re her sister?”

  “We come from Geneva, not the city in Switzerland, but the town in Wisconsin. Look, here’s a selfie we took together at a party last night.”

  Tara dug out her cell phone, scrolled down, and showed him a selfie they had taken together at the rave party some nights ago. The super sighed, closed his apartment door, and they trudged up the stairs to the third floor. He opened apartment 3B from a big ring of keys.

  “Thanks so much!” Tara gushed. “I think I know where I left the earrings, but I might have to hunt around a little for the wallet.”

  “I’ll be waiting right here.”

  Great, she thought. “Okay, no prob. Be right back!”

  Tara moved into an apartment she had never before entered. The living room was small and cozy. She ran into a bedroom. A Tiffany lamp was on one bedside table shedding a soft glow through the room. The sheets on the bed were rumpled and thrown to one side, as if Melody had got up in a hurry. A short silk teddy was lying in a heap on the floor. Tara didn’t think young girls even wore those anymore. She opened the closet. Dresses were on hangers, and sweaters and underwear were on shelves. Lots of shoes, but no sign of the blue dress that Melody would certainly have hung up. Maybe she had decided to go out nightclubbing, but she didn’t seem like much of a nightclub girl to Tara, especially since Melody worked in one. Tara turned back into the room.

  That’s when she saw the blood.

  It was splattered in a thin line across the top sheet. A series of subliminal images flashed through Tara’s mind:

  Melody being slapped and the blood spitting out of her mouth across the sheet …

  The short nightdress being pulled up over her head …

  The blue dress being dropped over her naked body …

  Shoes being thrust onto her bare feet …

  Tara didn’t need to look for clues. She knew who’d taken her. She moved fast out of the bedroom into the living room, taking something small wrapped in tissue paper out of her Giorgio Armani shoulder bag. She unwrapped a pair of emerald earrings. She grabbed her wallet from the bag and ran out into the corridor. She showed the earrings and the wallet to the super with a look of triumph.

  “Here they are! The earrings were on the bedside table, and the wallet was scrunched down between the back of the couch and one of the cushions!”

  The super nodded, locked the door to apartment 3B, and escorted Tara down the stairs to the front door of the building. “Let me know how your sister liked Aladdin. I’m supposed to take my grandson to it for his birthday.”

  “Sure will,” Tara said breezily, and was out the door.

  She walked to the corner of Eighth Avenue and pulled out the small receiver from her bag. The tracking device on Blake no longer emitted a signal. Tara dialed her cell phone. McCall didn’t pick up. She cursed and caught a cab uptown to the Morgan Stanley building on Broadway. Tara tried to talk her way into Blake Cunningham’s offices, but was told by the officious receptionist he was in a series of meetings. If Tara left her name and number, Blake’s assistant would get back to her. Tara left the building. For the hell of it she walked over to Rockefeller Center and looked for Melody at the Rock Café, where she’d be watching the skaters on the ice. She wasn’t there. By then it was afternoon.

  Tara tried calling Robert McCall again.

  McCall was in the back of an old-fashioned black London taxi that looked like it had first been driven right after the Blitz. His cell phone vibrated in his jacket pocket. He took it out, looked at the caller ID, and said, “This is McCall, Tara.”

  “Where are you?”

  “In London. What’s happened?”

  “Melody’s been grabbed. She didn’t go into Dolls nightclub for two nights. I just accessed a text from her. There was one letter in it—I. I managed to get into her apartment with the super waiting outside in the corridor. I found a silk teddy on the floor of Melody’s bedroom and bloodstains on her sheets. I should have known Blake would come for her sooner rather than later. I tried to see him at his Morgan Stanley offices today, but that was a lost cause.”

  “What would you have done if you had confronted him? He’d have told you that Melody was a girl he sometimes dated, but he didn’t have any idea where she was.”

  “I know. I had to do something! I even went down to the skating rink in Rockefeller Center, but there was no sign of her.”

  “I’m catching an afternoon flight to JFK in a couple of hours. We’ll regroup at the Liberty Belle Hotel.”

  “One more thing. The signal on the receiver you gave me to track Blake is dead. Either he threw his sunglasses away or he found the tracking device. This is my fault, McCall.”

  “No, it’s not. We’ll find her.”

  “Like we found Emily Masden?” Tara said bitterly.

  “Just sit tight. I’ll call you as soon as I get into New York.” McCall disconnected. No, he thought, this wasn’t Tara’s fault.

  It was his.

  * * *

  Bo watched the Feds winding up the driveway to the main two-story ranch house in a tight procession. He was sitting on the big flagstone porch drinking coffee. A one-story flagstone building was beside it with a redwood roof. It had been built as a bunkhouse for t
he cowboys when the property had been developed, but it was used now by the families who lived on the compound. Three more ranch-style buildings in the enclosure also housed his Texas Minutemen Militia. Some raucous kids were running around, shooting hoops, throwing horseshoes at stakes in the ground, tossing a football around. Most of them were in school; the young’uns kept close to the compound. Bo had strict rules for the families of his Minutemen Militia. The wives and girlfriends were allowed to go into town for supplies and did laundry and sundry chores and serviced their men when they were told to.

  Some of Bo’s militia were on patrol on the grounds, all of them carrying M4 rifles, all with holstered Smith & Wesson Shield 9mm pistols. They watched the federal procession reach the main ranch house, but none of them took any action. They were too well trained for that. The pickup games at the hoops and the horseshoe tossing ceased. Within two minutes Bo noted with satisfaction that all of the kids were inside the structures and the women had closed the doors.

  Four Crown Victoria sedans and three Dodge Durango SUVs came to a stop in the driveway. Federal officers poured out of them, some of them carrying their own M4 rifles. Bo wasn’t in a hurry to finish his coffee. It was Texas Coffee Traders, produced in Austin.

  FBI special agent Todd Blakemore climbed the flagstone stairs onto the wraparound porch. Bo caught the eye of one of his minutemen, his cousin Kyle. He was barely twenty-one, green, intense, anxious to please. Bo made one of the minutemen signals he had developed, nothing overt, just a gesture as he raised his coffee to his lips. Kyle understood and stepped down.