Monster

by Bernard L. DeLeo

  “I thought you and Charles wanted McDaniels dead.”

  “You approached us,” John Hughes replied. “We said we wanted the woman who had hounded Stanton. You said we could have her.”

  “Yes, and you were to allow us to draw this McDaniels out where he can be killed, using the woman.”

  “I’m willin’,” John Hughes said. “I don’t want you double crossin’ us. Charlie and me will cut the woman loose and help her nail your whole gang if ya do.”

  “We want Reskova and McDaniels dead, John,” Kojovich stated quietly, his fists tensing on the steering wheel. “We will not double cross you. This McDaniels will probably never return from Iraq. He is not a policeman. You may be assured he is doing something dangerous for the Americans. In any case, you may do anything you like to the woman once we know McDaniels is dead.”

  * * *

  “How did it go, Mikhail?” Romanko exhaled a cloud of smoke from his Cuban cigar.

  “We took Reskova without incident. You were right to have me watch over those two idiots,” Kojovich answered. “Is that why you gave up on keeping them in the dark about us?”

  “They have nothing. They cannot implicate us in the Reskova taking. Once McDaniels is dead we will take care of the brothers. They will be found with the body of Reskova. All will be dead. The trail will end there.”

  “Alexi mentioned killing this McDaniels from a mile away.”

  “The Bulgarian, Strasser, was the best sniper we had in our organization. Any idea where he is now? In any case, we must draw McDaniels somewhere we can make him disappear like his girlfriend.”

  “A car bomb would make it look like the Arabs did it.”

  “And our agreement to keep them out of this, Mikhail?”

  “Not everything can be done the way they like it.”

  “I will consider it,” Romanko agreed. “It is not good to take too many chances. Do the dunce brothers know to keep their hands off Reskova until we get McDaniels?”

  “Yes, Serge, but they suspect we are setting them up.”

  “Let them suspect what they want. They have Reskova, not us.”

  * * *

  “I don’t like this young Pete,” Rasheed whispered. Reskova had not reported to work or called off. Barrington immediately sent Rasheed and Donaldson over to her apartment when she could not be reached. Both men surveyed the dried grouping of footprints around Reskova’s apartment entrance. “How often do they vacuum these hallways?”

  “I don’t know, Kay.” Donaldson drew his weapon.

  Just then, Dino whined before issuing a short plaintive bark. Rasheed relaxed. Donaldson holstered his weapon. Rasheed rang the doorbell. The only answer was more short barks from Dino. He looked at Donaldson and nodded. Donaldson took out the key they had picked up from the apartment manager before going up to Reskova’s apartment. The two men stayed on each side of the door. Donaldson pushed the door open while they stayed tensely to each side of the entrance. Dino bounded out, sniffing and poking at the two men. Rasheed pointed at the floor.

  “Look, Pete.”

  “I see them.”

  The footprints extended into the entranceway of Reskova’s apartment. They were not from a woman’s shoes. They were different sizes and shapes.

  “I count three distinct sets, Kay. What do you want to do?”

  “I will call it in. We will stay right where we are until Tom and Jen get here. I do not know how anything could happen to Reskova without first killing Dino but we will find out.”

  Rasheed called Barrington. “Boss, we have three sets of footprints in the hallway outside Diane’s apartment continuing into her entranceway. We…”

  “Is her dog dead?” Barrington broke in.

  “No, Sir. He leaped into the hallway when we opened the door. Pete and I are standing with Dino now.”

  “You did right. Stay there. Shut down the hall. Have Pete check where the footprints go. Shut those areas down too. Jen and I will be right over. We’ll CSI the scene ourselves.”

  Barrington hung up. Rasheed knelt down to pet Dino. The dog whined and tried to climb up on Rasheed. Rasheed’s mouth drew into a tight grimace.

  “We must find Diane right away. Tom wants you to trace the footprints and see how far you can track them. Do you have your digital?”

  “I have it. We’ll find her, Kay. If they wanted her dead, she’d be laying in her apartment dead.” Donaldson began taking pictures first of the grouping of footprints inside the apartment and then out through the entranceway.

  “If Shaun of the Dead hears of this, no place in the Western Hemisphere will be safe. I fear many innocents will die.”

  Donaldson stopped abruptly, remembering the look on McDaniels’ face when Mero said he would deal with Reskova in the restaurant. “C’mon Kay, the Colonel wouldn’t start executing anyone he gets his hands on.”

  “Keep thinking those happy thoughts.” Rasheed stroked Dino’s head.

  “The Colonel will be out of touch for at least a month. We can wait until he gets back to base before even mentioning this. By then we’ll have Reskova back.”

  “We will immediately call his Marine friends and begin signaling his satellite phone in case he has it on,” Rasheed countered. “If he returned to base and found we had not done everything we could to contact…”

  “You’re right, Kay.” Donaldson imagined McDaniels’ rage if he found out they had kept Reskova’s disappearance from him. “I’ll get on it the second we get in the office.”

  Donaldson returned to his picture taking. He stopped abruptly and retraced his steps, kneeling down at one point to touch something on the carpet.

  “Kay, check this out. These are wheel indentations. For them to have made a mark in this commercial carpeting there had to be something of weight on them.”

  It was only after Donaldson had pointed them out the two men could plainly see the wheel marks originated inside the apartment.

  “If Diane’s luggage is still inside the apartment we will know beyond doubt how she was taken out of her place. Continue, Pete, and get close ups of the wheel marks.”

  “Will do.”

  An apartment door across the hall near the stairwell opened up. A thin, middle-aged woman peered out at the scene in the hallway. Dino immediately tensed with his muzzle pointed at the woman’s door. Rasheed turned and held up his identification.

  “We are FBI, madam. Please stay inside your apartment.”

  “Wait, Kay.” Donaldson held up his ID for the woman to take a closer look at. “Ma’am, did you see or hear any commotion in the hallway or see any strange men out here in the last day and a half?”

  “No,” the woman answered and slammed her apartment door closed.

  “Good try though, Pete,” Rasheed complimented him. “We will have to how do you say… ah… canvas the neighborhood after Tom and Jen take over for us on scene.”

  “Once we know where these tracks are headed, we’ll need a team over here questioning all the occupants of the surrounding buildings. This will be tough on your nerves, Kay, but it will have to be done. Someone may have glanced out the window or heard a vehicle at an odd hour.

  Rasheed resigned himself to the inevitable. He stood up suddenly. Looking down at Dino, Rasheed started clapping his hands together in a staccato fashion, ordering Dino to find Diane. Dino looked at him expectantly but sat at rigid attention tilting his head. Donaldson walked over, smiling at Rasheed’s attempt to get Dino involved.

  “Dino,” Donaldson said abruptly, putting a hand on Rasheed’s shoulder. When the dog looked at him, Donaldson knelt down pointing at the carpet.

  Dino immediately began sniffing around, returning to the apartment’s interior. He completed his circle at Donaldson’s side again.

  “Search,” Donaldson ordered.

  Dino jogged toward the stairwell door, barely pausing to sniff at anything.

  “Why did you not do that to begin with, newbie?”

  “I didn’t think of it unti
l you started yelling at him. I’ll go with him while you secure the hall. Good thinking, Kay. I guess we need to focus. We’re thinking too much about everything but the scene.”

  “You are right. Go with the hellhound but watch your back.”

  Donaldson pulled the belt from his pants. He went to where Dino waited patiently at the stairwell door. He slipped the belt under the dog’s collar and through the buckle, letting it tighten in a small loop using it as a leash rather than going inside Reskova’s apartment.

  * * *

  Barrington stood outside of Reskova’s apartment building talking to Rutledge when a black Lincoln parked alongside and Aginson stepped out of the car’s passenger compartment. He walked over to the two agents, his coat collar up to ward off the icy wind.

  “What do we know?” Aginson asked without preamble.

  “You didn’t have to come down here, Sir,” Barrington replied. “I was going to come by your office when we finished.”

  “I know. I have the President calling me to ask what’s going on. If I get another call from him, I want to be on the scene when I talk to him. He wants Reskova found. He doesn’t care if we have to use the entire office of Homeland Security to do it.”

  “That’s reassuring,” Rutledge offered. “We’ve had an army of agents down here interviewing every person living in the area. Tom and I went over Diane’s apartment like CSI dreams about doing. We have three sets of footprints leading out of the apartment.”

  “One was from a guy easily around the Colonel’s size,” Barrington added. “Another set was from a more medium sized male. They went off in the opposite direction as the set of footprints handling the rolling trunk they used to cart Diane out of the apartment.”

  “We drew a blank in the apartment, Sir,” Rutledge explained. “We didn’t even find a hair belonging to anyone other than Diane, Dino, and the Colonel.”

  “How the hell did they get around the dog?”

  “I did a sampling of the air inside the apartment first thing when we arrived,” Rutledge answered. “There was a faint odor inside. Tom and I believe they gassed Dino, thinking we wouldn’t figure out what happened for days. They probably figured we’d find Dino in good shape and assume Diane left of her own accord. I also took a blood sample from Dino. It’s being analyzed right now for traces of anything.”

  Aginson nodded. “Any leads at all from the interviews?”

  “Nothing, Sir,” Barrington answered. “We have an APB out for Diane’s Honda. They drove it away to probably convince us Reskova left somewhere on her own. I mentioned to check airport parking lots first. We may get lucky and come up with a surveillance tape with the guy who drove it.”

  “We’ll have to keep this under wraps. I don’t want McDaniels getting wind of this, even if he could receive word where he’s at. We’ll put teams…”

  “We’ve already put out the word to the Colonel, Sir,” Barrington interrupted. “The Marines of course have no idea where he is. They promised to keep trying his Sat. phone and will inform him the moment he communicates with them.”

  “What the hell did you do that for?” Aginson asked angrily. “That psycho will…”

  “Kay reminded me it would be a very bad thing for Cold to find out when he gets out of Syria that we’ve been hiding Diane’s disappearance,” Rutledge broke in.

  “I agreed with Kay, Sir,” Barrington said. “I gave the go ahead to put out the word. Kay also said it would be very bad if we don’t get Diane back in one piece real quick.”

  “Sorry, Tom.” Aginson remembered his desk flying against the wall of his office. “You were right to put out the word for him. He won’t get it until his mission is over anyway. Who can we lean on to find out what the hell happened?”

  “For at least the next twenty-four hours we’re shadowing everyone Diane has had any contact with in a bad way: the remaining Syrians, the Russian mob, and even the clowns from that Arab lobbying group who aren’t in jail already. It would be best if you don’t know what Donaldson is doing in the way of surveillance, Sir. We…”

  “Good point,” Aginson cut in with a wave of his hand. “Keep me informed. We cannot have an agent as high up as Reskova get snatched right out from under our noses. This is damn disturbing. If McDaniels hears of this… well… I’m with you, we’d probably need a S.W.A.T team to corral him.”

  “The Colonel wouldn’t kill one of our guys, Sir,” Barrington stated. “I know that. It’s just he would be unpredictable in going after whoever did this.”

  “Exactly. That’s why I didn’t want him involved. I don’t care to be between him and finding out who did this.”

  “Amen to that, Sir,” Rutledge echoed quietly. “We need Diane safe and sound next to us by the time Cold gets word of her disappearance.”

  Chapter 46

  Slipup

  At nearly eight o’clock in the evening, Barrington sat down with his team.

  “How’d you guys do, Pete?”

  Donaldson looked over at Rasheed who sat across from him. “Maybe you better take that one, Kay.”

  “Why?” Barrington sat up straighter, with an uneasy feeling. “What did you find?”

  “We found nothing.” Rasheed shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “Pete talked me out of a more direct route to the truth. It has to be the Russians.”

  “What about the Syrians?”

  “They still haven’t recovered from the loss of Mero, Tom,” Rutledge answered. “We’re monitoring every word out of their mouths right now. Without a replacement leader they’re just dancing around. Besides, they still believe Mero died of natural causes. Diane shouldn’t play any part in their thinking.”

  “What did Pete want to defer to you for, Kay,” Barrington asked again.

  “The newbie talked me out of taking a more direct course in our surveillance. They are all playing very cute and quiet. We know the Russians have a new man on top - this Romanko. It was also the Russians who tried to get Cold’s records at the Pentagon.”

  “Pete was right. The order was to set up surveillance only for the first twenty-four hours to see if we could gain a clue as to Diane’s whereabouts. You can bring in Romanko and whoever he has with him tomorrow. Be careful though, Kay. These Russian mobsters are as vicious as Saddam’s old secret police. They would not hesitate to kill everyone close to you.”

  “They cannot harm anyone if they are all dead. I will heed your warning, Boss, and be professional. The Cold Mountain taught me many things in Iraq. One of his lessons was there is no such thing as a coincidence in our type of work.”

  “Kay’s right about that part, Tom,” Rutledge said. “We have proof the Russians have been working with the Syrians. Diane was one person known to both groups.”

  “I’m not disagreeing with Kay. We must approach this objectively without exposing any other innocents. If these people want to take this to the next level, no one will be safe. I want all of you to look at this as if we are on a war footing right now, right here. Do not trust anything. Check your surroundings, your vehicles, and where you will be going next. Go home, get some sleep, and we’ll go over all the surveillance data tomorrow. Do we know where Romanko will be tomorrow, Kay?”

  “Yes, we know the building where they conduct their supposedly legitimate enterprises very well. He gets there at ten o’clock in the morning every weekday as if he were a real businessman. Pete has bugged his home and his office. We have a team monitoring him every moment.”

  “If we get anything from the surveillance, it’ll be illegal,” Barrington reminded them. “We will have to find a way to use it to our advantage. Right now, finding Diane is the top priority. As far as I’m concerned if we get Diane back in one piece we can let the Colonel handle the ones we can’t prosecute.”

  “You don’t mean that, Tom,” Rutledge declared, real surprise evident on her face, even as Rasheed and Donaldson exchanged nodding smiles. “You could be fired for even saying something like that. As much as I detest this crap going on
, I don’t want to be part of…”

  “Easy, Jen. Remember the mountain and what Hughes planned to do with us? There are times when we have to admit what is becoming exceedingly obvious. If we insist on playing nice while these freaks tear us apart there won’t be any of us left to protect the country. I want Diane back. I want whoever is responsible dead or in custody with an airtight case.”

  Rutledge hesitated before replying.

  “I’m in all the way,” Rutledge stated finally. “I’ll never forget going into those damn mountains after Hughes. I… shit!”

  Rutledge jumped up and ran to her computer console with the rest of her comrades close behind.

  “What is it, Jen?”

  “Yes, tell us,” Rasheed added. “We will help.”

  “The one party in all this we ignored.” Rutledge typed furiously, scanning through numerous screens until she reached a split screen of two men. “We forgot about the Hughes brothers.”

  “But didn’t they disavow everything about their brother and cooperate at…” Barrington began.

  “Cooperate, hell. They just kept saying, ‘we don’t know nuttin’. That wasn’t cooperation, it was obfuscation. Even you thought if they weren’t helping their shithead of a brother, they were silently rooting for him. They knew Diane was leading agent on the investigation. They have that old rundown place near San Antonio.”

  Barrington paused for only a moment as he stared at the computer screen.

  “Forget going home. Jen, find some way to check those asshole brothers’ shoe sizes. Call every police authority in that area and tell them to find out. We’ll pay the bill. Tell them we want the Hughes’ ranch under twenty-four hour watch. C’mon guys, we’re going to set up road blocks along every route leading into Texas. We’ll need to compute this from the time we suspect they left her place and project where they might be. It may be a wild goose chase but…”

  “At least we are doing something,” Rasheed finished the sentence as the three went to their respective stations while Barrington jogged into his office to contact Aginson with their plan.