“You too, Taylor.”
Taylor turned and left, heading back to his own room. He was surprised that he meant what he’d said. When they first met late the day before, and especially in the morning when she’d been toeing the company line, he’d been convinced she was like all the intelligence POGs he’d known in the service. Worried more about their own ass than the job on the ground.
Back in his room, Taylor unclipped the holster from his belt, and set the weapon on the night stand. Kicking off his shoes, Taylor lay on the bed and focused on relaxing his muscles.
His body was tired from the long day, but he knew that if he tried to sleep, Julie would join his squad mates riddling his nightmares with the people he let down. Of course, Taylor knew that wasn’t right. Julie had been dead before Taylor ever set foot in town, and there was nothing he could have done to save the friends he’d lost in Afghanistan. But the subconscious isn’t a place of reason and understanding. It’s where your fears wait for you to relax.
Slowly, his breathing slowed. He let his mind float, concentrating on not concentrating. Trying to keep his mind from locking on any single thing. It wasn’t a skill Taylor had mastered, but the effort kept him from dwelling on the things that chased him and allowed him to rest his body.
As had happened the day before, his mind eventually quieted and he drifted off to sleep.
A feeling of something moving nearby jerked Taylor awake, his body moved by experience and training ahead of his brain, which was still clawing its way out of a foggy sleep. Taylor's hand shot out, gripping the butt of the pistol on his nightstand, only to stop as a hand closed around his.
He might have fought the resistance had a voice not whispered in his ear at the same moment, “Easy, Taylor.”
His brain finally started to catch up to what was happening around him, noticing the feeling of a weight next to him, pushing down on the mattress.
“Whitaker?” he asked.
“Yeah. Let go of the gun.”
His hand released his grip on the weapon.
“Sorry,” he said, still trying to get his bearings, not sure what was happening.
“No need.”
“What are you doing here?”
Her answer made it clear why she was there, as she pressed her lips against his. At first Taylor sat motionless, the unexpected move taking him by surprise. That hesitation was only for a moment, and soon he found himself kissing her back.
Just six months ago he had turned down any kind of physical intimacy, still too raw from his experiences in Afghanistan. He had a moment to wonder if this was some kind of progress, as she began undressing him. That moment passed quickly, however, as he gave in to more base instincts.
Later, as he lay on his back, with her body tucked up next to him and her head resting on his shoulder, he started to consider the situation.
“What was this about?” he finally said, ending the silence.
“I was too keyed up from today. I needed to let off some steam.”
“I guess I’m ok with being your release valve,” he said, surprising himself by actually meaning it.
Which was definitely progress.
“A pretty good one at that.”
“How’d you get into my room?”
“A badge has a way of unlocking doors.”
“That’s a good way of getting shot.”
“So I noticed. I’ll try and give you a heads-up next time.”
“Are you sure this was a good idea though?”
“Don’t over think it. Just go to sleep,” she said, her voice starting to drift off.
He decided to take her advice.
* * * * *
A scream sounded in the distance. The sound pierced the otherwise still silence around him. Taylor looked up. He was lying on the dusty rocks that made up the primitive roads in the mountains in Afghanistan. He realized he was lying next to a Humvee and sat up, looking around confused.
Sergeant Alvarez was above him in the turret, hanging over the side. His eyes were open in a death stare, blood dripping from the holes that riddled his body. Sound slowly increased as Taylor looked around, building to a roar. The metallic sound of bullets whipping off the side of the Humvee, the crunch of the glass as they found a softer target to connect with, the hiss of rockets, the roar of explosions. But more than anything, it was the screaming. The constant screaming.
Taylor looked to the right and could see a line of trucks in a convoy, soldiers shooting at some unknown enemy. As he watched, a young soldier who was moving position jerked to a stop as dozens of bullets found him, slamming his body to the ground.
A missile whipped out and impacted in the side of a truck, sending a fireball shooting in the sky. Limbs rained down, landing near him as the force knocked Taylor back to the ground. Everywhere he looked, men were dying. Broken bodies and pieces of bodies lay scattered all around him, dozens of faces staring at the skies, unblinking.
Turning to the other direction, he saw three men crouching near him, a fire blazing around them. Looking down, Taylor saw that he was in the fire, too. The smell of cooking meat filled his nostrils. Through the pain he saw the Captain leaning next to one of the communication guys, a telephone in his hands even as he cooked alive. In an almost robotic fashion, the Captains head, as it continued its fiery transformation from human to skeletal, turned towards him, the jaws working.
Taylor could see the Captain was saying something, but Taylor’s ears were almost gone now. Everything had turned into white noise. Finally he managed to make out the words.
“Taylor! Wake up! Wake up, Taylor!” the skeletal commander said.
As his skin began to boil off, Taylor realized he was the one screaming.
* * * * *
The images shut off, the sounds and smells disappeared as Taylor snapped awake with a gasp. He could feel sweat pouring off his body, even though his chest was not covered by a blanket and the air in the room was cool.
There was a ringing silence hanging in the room. The kind of silence that followed a loud noise, although Taylor couldn’t remember any noises now. It was only when a hand gripped his jaw and turned his head to the right that Taylor realized he wasn’t alone. Memories flooded back to him as the dream world receded, forgotten and hazy.
Whitaker was leaning up, the covers having fallen down, exposing her firm upper body. She was looking at him with a mixture of horror and concern.
“Taylor. Are you with me?” she asked.
“Wha...” He started to say, but was interrupted by the phone on the night stand.
“Yes,” she said, leaning over him and picked up the receiver. “No, everyone’s fine. Just a nightmare .... I’m sorry, we’ll try and keep it down.”
“Are you ok?” she asked.
“Yeah. I’m fine.”
“The hell you are. You were moving around a bunch, mumbling, and then you just started screaming, over and over.”
“Sorry. A bad dream.”
“No kidding. Was it about, you know, what happened when you were captured?”
“No, it was what happened before that. I was in a convoy that was hit by insurgents. They wiped us out, killed everyone. I got lucky I guess and was knocked out when an RPG impacted nearby, throwing me down an embankment into some rocks. That’s how they got me. The dream was about the attack.”
“Jesus. Is that how you got these?” she asked, running her hands over the scars that covered his upper body.
“Only a few. Most came from .... after the battle. Except for this one,” he said, putting her hand on the puckered scar on his shoulder. “That one came when I escaped.”
“All this from interrogation?” she said, amazed.
“Only a little of it was from actual interrogation. After that, I was kind of like their captive handy man and entertainment all rolled into one. When they were drunk, or angry, or bored, or whatever, they would come by and beat on me. Sometimes they took bets on who could make me pass out first.”
&nbs
p; “Jesus.”
“You said that already.”
“I just ... I just can’t imagine.”
“What time is it?”
She leaned over him again pressing her chest into his, looking at the clock.
“Four AM. Taylor, I ...”
“I’m gonna grab a shower,” he said, interrupting her. “You getting up or do you want to sleep a little longer.”
She frowned at him, but got the message and dropped the subject, “I’ll sleep some more.”
“Ok. I promise I won’t wake you up.”
Whitaker gave him one more frown, but she lay back down, pulling the sheet up to her chin. He could feel her eyes boring into his back as he walked to the shower, however.
* * * * *
Whitaker woke some time later with the sun streaming in through the cracks between the window curtains. Looking up, she found Taylor sitting at the table across from the foot of the bed, leaning back with his feet resting on the edge of the dresser. He had changed clothes from the day before, dressed differently in the specifics, but identically in general.
“...no no no that wasn’t me. That was Frisco. I swear he was never going to get his hand out of that thing,” Taylor said into the phone, smiling like the previous night had never happened.
Taylor saw Whitaker looking at him and pulled his feet down off the dresser, sitting up.
“Ohh, hey, my partner’s up. Let me put you on speaker.”
“Ok,” a voice said, as Taylor tapped a button.
“Whitaker, this is Doug, an old army buddy. Doug, this is Lola. She’s a Fed.”
“Nice to meet you, Lola.”
Whitaker gave Taylor her best death stare and said, “Same here.”
She slid out of bed and pulled on the shorts and t-shirt she had worn into his room the previous night. Taylor couldn’t help but stare until the best parts were all covered again.
“Doug’s the guy I sent the files to last night. He spent most of the night and this morning going over everything we sent. Doug, tell her what you told me.”
“It’s like this. I ran through the calculations you sent me and did every variable I could come up with. If this inventory is accurate, there is no way it would make the crater you have out there.”
“There was another explosive?” Whitaker asked, sitting down on the edge of the bed.
“No, the opposite. There was too much in that armory for the scope of the damage you have there. Either the crater would be twenty-percent deeper and have half again the radius, or there was a lot less in that armory than you think there was.”
“How much less,” Taylor prodded him.
“With either two-thirds less diesel, none of the small arms ammo and about a third less diesel, or about one third the amount of C4?”
“Taylor,” Whitaker protested, “Our techs went over this. I’m sure they got the numbers right.”
“I’m sorry, Miss, but they didn’t.”
She looked incredulous, “How can you be sure.”
“He’s sure. Whitaker, this is Master Chief Petty Officer Doug Trout. Before he became a shifty layabout in Florida, he spent twenty-five years in the teams, most of that in their underwater demolitions group. And the last five years of his hitch, he taught EOD and improvised demolitions at the Special Warfare Center. He’s now a consultant with one of the largest explosive manufacturers in the world. This man knows more about blowing up shit than anyone I’ve ever heard of.”
“Ok, Sorry for doubting you, Master Chief.”
“No problem, Lola.”
Whitaker sent another death stare Taylor’s way.
“I gotta run, Doug.”
“Next time you're out this way, Sergeant, you need to stop by and spend a few days. Betty’s gonna insist on it.”
“Tell her I promise. See ya, old man,” Taylor said, and hung up the phone.
“So what does that change?” she asked.
“Everything. We need to dig up some stuff to prove it, but it makes a hell of a lot more sense than terrorism.”
“I still don’t follow. What makes more sense?”
“Whitaker, one-third of the high ordnance is almost two-hundred pounds of C4! This wasn’t terrorism. It was a robbery!”
Chapter 7
“A robbery?” Whitaker said, surprised.
“Yep. The explosion was to hide any trace of it, most likely. And it’s not like you can go out and buy two-hundred pounds of C4. The inconsistent blast radius, plus the fact that multiple guys are involved in kidnapping Julie, all point to it, unless we go with the abduction being a coincidence.”
“No, we don’t. But that doesn’t let Samar off the hook. He could have been in on the crew stealing the explosives.”
“Sure, but then why kill Julie? What possible reason could Samar have for holding her alive for four or five days and then killing her just before or just after he blew up the armory? None of that makes sense.”
“Maybe she learned of the plan?” Whitaker said in a voice that suggested even she didn’t believe it.
“But why did guys jump her in a parking lot at night. It was a good setup, sure, but they could have been seen. That’s a hell of a lot riskier than Samar just calling her up on the phone and asking her to come over. And it’s not like he needed to keep his phone records clean. With his code being used, he was always going to be a suspect.”
“Ok, but then why did he use his code.”
“I have a thought, just bear with me. Maybe these guys started planning the robbery, but couldn’t figure out how to get in the door without getting caught. I mean, this is a building with trained soldiers and a bunch of weapons and ammo. Not exactly an easy score. So they find out one of the kids on the night shift has this coed girlfriend, snatch her up and then say ‘do this for us, or the girl gets it.’ Afterwards, they get rid of the evidence.”
“I don't know.”
“I get that I have literally no evidence to back that theory up, but it’s the only thing I’ve got that fits all the facts. I mean, Samar loves this country! Everyone that knows him says no way did he betray his oath. But he’s this young kid, raised by a single woman, with this pretty girl friend who apparently was crazy for him. It’s not a stretch to say he made the wrong call and agreed if he thought he could get her out alive.”
“Maybe, but now we have to do the hard part, and actually get evidence. If you think I’m a hard sell, Dorset will need someone standing in front of him signing a confession before he buys into any of this.”
“You know what really worries me?”
“What?”
“If I’m right, someone is out there was willing to kidnap and murder a young girl, blow up a Army instillation and kill multiple servicemen, all to get a truck load of military grade high explosives. It was an amazingly risky operation that had a mountain of fail points all along the way.”
“And?”
“What are they planning to hit, that's worth all that risk?”
“Shit!” Whitaker said, looking down as she considered the ramifications.
“So, let's go to the AC place. The next link in the chain is the guys who grabbed her.”
“All right,” she said and got up to go back to her room.
Taylor took one last moment to appreciate her in short shorts and a tight t-shirt before she disappeared out the door.
After ten minutes the buttoned up Whitaker in a pants suit and tasteful makeup appeared. As they walked towards the car, she grabbed him by the elbow, stopping him.
“About last night,” she started to say.
“I get it. You were just blowing off steam, and having some fun. We’re good.”
“Ok. Good,” she said, and then punched him hard in the chest. “And stop telling people to call me Lola.”
“Oof!” he said, half from the impact and half in exaggeration. “Sure thing, Princess.”
She gave him a glare, but smiled as she turned away and headed to the SUV.
They made
one stop on the way to the AC shop, at a small electronics retailer. After flashing her badge, Whitaker talked the kid behind the counter into pulling some items they had for sale that allowed users to digitize VHS tapes, and had them print out a snap shot of the two men from the van. Even so, when they arrived at the AC business, they found its doors locked tight and a sign indicating that it wouldn’t open for almost an hour.
Looking in the shops windows, Taylor couldn’t see any people or lights. That wasn’t terribly surprising considering it was more than an hour before the business would normally open. In the parking lot sat two vans that matched up with what they had seen on the surveillance tape, including the logo as it had been described to them and each with a number on the back right door. Neither of these van’s numbers matched the one from the tape, however.
Taylor checked the paint on those numbers, but both seemed weathered enough that he seriously doubted if either had their number changed any time recently. Both vehicles were locked, but looking in he could see they shared a similar layout, with an open back area easily accessible from the driver’s seat, with a row of drawers and a very narrow work bench on one side of the van’s cargo area. It wouldn’t have been hard for them to keep Julie hidden while they’d taken her to wherever she was held prior to her death.
While Taylor was poking around the trucks, a younger man walked up wearing a button up shirt with the same logo over the pocket.
“Can I help you?” he asked.
“Sir, I’m Agent Whitaker with the FBI. Do these men look familiar to you?” Whitaker asked, holding up her badge in one hand and a print out of the surveillance tape in the other.
“It’s a little blurry, but I’m pretty sure that’s Willie on the left. No idea who the other guy is.”
“Willie?”
“William, ma’am. William Mullins. He’s a technician, here. That picture kinda looks like him, and he has this big tattoo on his arm that is where that dark spot is on the person in the picture. I’m not a hundred percent sure, of course; but if I had to guess, it’s Willie.”
“What’s the tattoo of?” Whitaker asked.
“A big snake that’s curled up at the bottom and the top part is sitting up. You’ve probably seen it before. It’s off that yellow flag you sometimes see at protests and stuff on TV.”
False Signs (John Taylor Book 2) Page 8