by Kylie Brant
The man slipped on his suit coat, somehow appearing as fresh as he had that morning. Dace felt a flicker of bemusement. The agent was one of those model-type guys, the kind that could go all day in the same clothes without a crease or a stain. By contrast, Dace would always be a Marine at heart. More at home crawling through the muck on recon than he was in a suit. Once off duty, he changed into jeans and a ratty T-shirt the first chance he got.
But in spite of that flaw, Dawson was all right, as far as feds went. He hadn’t balked at sharing some of the background data they were putting together in the investigation. And while Dace didn’t kid himself that the agent had been completely forthcoming, it was far more than he would have gotten from Truman.
A light tap sounded on the door. Dawson headed toward it. “I’d like to keep the file overnight. Discuss it with Jolie.”
Dawson paused in his approach to the door. “I suppose that would be all right. If you have Agent Truman bring it in with him in the morning.”
“I can do that.”
The man nodded and, reaching the door, checked the peephole before unlocking it. “Keep me posted about the convict angle you guys are following. We covered that lead ourselves, of course, but SAC Fenholt will want to be kept apprised of any new developments.”
So she could yank the angle from the locals and reassign it to her own unit. Dace kept the cynical words unvoiced. He was well aware of how the feds worked. But if he and Jolie uncovered anything promising, they’d damn well go to Sanders with it first. The chief could flex what muscle he had with the Bureau to make sure they didn’t get cut out of the process.
The door opened and Truman entered. He and Dawson engaged in a brief conversation held in undertones before he stepped farther into the room, dropping his garment bag over the back of the couch. “Where’s Conrad?”
“She had dinner with her mother.” He checked his slim gold wristwatch. “Hawkins called and they’re on their way back now. They’ll be using the rear entrance.”
The other agent frowned. “That was an unnecessary risk, wasn’t it?”
Although Dace was inclined to agree with him, Dawson shook his head. “He’s decent at evasive driving tactics. Hart joined him at the restaurant. Waller and Reams are on duty outside here this evening. Should be safe enough.”
Truman didn’t respond as the other agent said his goodbyes and left. After locking the door after Dawson, he immediately did a walk-through of the apartment, as if they had unknowingly been harboring the suspect in his absence.
If Dawson was a poster boy for a fed-issued GQ, Truman was his polar opposite. He either wore the same navy suit every time Dace had seen him, or had identical Bureau outfits in his closet. He looked rumpled, tired and ill-tempered. The man might have warranted some sympathy if he weren’t such a prick.
As it was, Dace ignored him and scooped up the contents of the file to replace them in the expandable folder. He wouldn’t put it past the man to commandeer the information Dawson had left. Although the other agent seemed to be senior, Truman didn’t hesitate to voice his disagreements with him over details in the security.
As Dace replaced the last sheet in the folder, Truman reentered the room and began loosening his tie. “Hope you and Conrad are planning on an early night,” he said tersely. “I haven’t had more than five hours’ sleep at a stretch for over a week. I plan on turning in soon.”
Since Dace was sitting on what would be the man’s bed, his meaning was clear. He nodded, picked up the file and rose. “I can work upstairs.”
But as he ascended the steps, he hesitated. His desk was in the spare room. Jolie’s room.
The possessive had him mentally backpedaling. It wasn’t her room, any more than the couch downstairs was Truman’s bed. It was all purely expedient. And temporary. It was his damn house and once this case went down, he’d be alone in it again.
Resolutely, he turned into the second bedroom. His office. Striding to the desk, he dropped the file on it and pulled out the chair, ignoring the small heap of luggage in the corner.
Other than the bags and some garments in the closet, there was no sign of Jolie’s presence. The bed was tucked away back inside the couch. No other personal belongings were in sight. She left, he recalled grimly, a faint wake. When she’d walked out on him before, it was as if she’d never been there at all. Except for the lists he’d run across when he’d moved, there had been no reminders of her left behind.
He immediately tasted the lie. He yanked open the desk drawer with more force than necessary, nearly spilling the contents to the floor. Truth be told, Jolie had carved an indelible mark on him that had taken a long time to erase. Or Sammy had, and she was tied up in his loss. It didn’t mean they were destined to repeat their past. He’d never been one to chase the flames after getting burned. Although you couldn’t prove it by his behavior a couple nights ago.
His gut clenched at the memory of their kiss. As ideas went, that hadn’t ranked up there with his most brilliant. But it was useless to believe that logic had a damn thing to do with it.
He’d spent a lot of months after Jolie left damning her to hell and back. Spent even more months deliberately not thinking of her at all. And, yeah, it rocked him a bit to discover that he could still respond to her on any level.
It was the misery in her eyes that had tugged at him that night. The air of silent tragedy that had always seemed to linger around her. There had been a time when he’d been determined to erase the sadness that could flit so easily across her expression. A short time when he thought he’d succeeded.
He selected a pen and legal pad, shut the drawer. She’d cured him of any underlying protective instincts he’d once had. It would be a cold day in Satan’s playground before he’d respond to her again.
With the ease of long habit, he determinedly shoved the woman from his mind. Emptying out the file contents, he started jotting notes that had struck him when he’d first gone over the surveillance photos with Dawson. But there was plenty of other information stuffed in the file that he was eager to delve into, too. He couldn’t help but wonder what was included that even Chief Sanders’s file lacked.
A good half hour passed before he heard the low murmur of voices downstairs. Jolie had returned. He kept his eyes trained on the updated investigation report. Minutes ticked by. When it finally occurred to him that he’d reread the same page three times without retaining a thing on it, he scowled and summoned his flagging concentration.
But he was hyperaware when her steps sounded on the stairs. Although he didn’t look up, he knew precisely when they faltered outside the bedroom door.
“You’re working late.”
“Convinced Dawson that the file was safe here until Truman delivered it back to him tomorrow.” He set his pen down for the moment. “Speaking of Truman…you two getting pretty buddy-buddy? Never heard him speak that long at a stretch before.”
Although he hadn’t made out their words, hadn’t tried to, he was more curious about what the man had to say than he wanted to admit. “Did he open up about the case at all?”
“The case?” Her tone sounded vague as she wandered into the room and perched on the arm of the sofa. “No, not really. Said he was pretty tired. He has an aging father he’s been dealing with on his off-nights. Needs to get him placed in an Alzheimer’s unit, but that care is pretty pricey. He and his sister are trying to manage on their own for now.”
The news startled him on a couple levels. He’d never given Truman’s personal life much thought. Or any, to be honest. He didn’t like the guy’s attitude, but he was a temporary irritation that would be forgotten as soon as this thing was over.
What was more surprising was that Truman had confided the information to Jolie. Or maybe not so surprising. Her task on an incident response was to draw people out, same as his. She was good at it. It was when it came to reciprocating with bits and pieces about herself that she sucked.
He turned in his chair to look at her and felt
a quick punch in his chest. Truman and his problems were forgotten. For someone who had just shared a leisurely meal with her mother, she didn’t look particularly relaxed.
She looked brittle. On edge. Like the wrong word could shatter her into a million pieces.
“So. How was dinner?”
“Fine.”
Caution reared. She’d been “fine” after Sammy had died, he recalled. “Fine” right up to the point when she’d taken off. Disappeared without another word. Fine wasn’t necessarily an innocent adjective the way Jolie used it. With her it was a window slammed shut against revealing anything the slightest bit personal about her thoughts or feelings.
And remembering that burned.
“How about your mother?” He wasn’t sure why he continued to probe. “Is she fine, too?”
The sudden bleakness that came to her eyes had him instantly regretting his pettiness. “She’s dying of cancer. Other than that…she’s the same. Exactly the same.”
Remorse stabbed him, but before he could fashion an apology—one that was likely to get thrown back in his face—she launched off the sofa and came to his side. “What’d you get from Dawson’s file? Anything new?”
Relief coursed through him as she snapped the conversation back to a purely professional level. Relief, mingled with a tinge of regret. “Lot more here than what they shared with Sanders.”
“Of course.” It surprised neither of them. Whatever the feds shared freely with the locals, they would always hold plenty back. It was their standard operating procedure.
He picked up the pile of photos gleaned from surveillance cameras in the last half-dozen bank heists. “Probably two different individuals taking turns being the front man. But there’s a pretty solid link between all the robberies in the MO. Besides the similarities of the times of day and days of week that the banks were hit, the suspects took out the surveillance cameras first, quickly got all the occupants in one place and filled the bags themselves. If you compare the witness accounts, the orchestration is the outstanding similarity. Plus, they used disguises each time and escaped on foot.”
The use of disguises was interesting in itself, since better than sixty percent of bank robbers didn’t bother with them. And these guys weren’t the type to simply don ski masks. Maybe it was the proximity to Hollywood that fired their imagination. But they were pretty decent makeup artists. None of the faces in the pictures matched exactly. Foreheads were raised or lowered, chins rounded or squared, noses lengthened or shortened, wrinkles added or removed. There were several slight alterations each time that gave a completely different appearance. It was one more detail that pointed at the pair as professionals.
And successful. They’d gotten away with better than thirty million so far.
The lights snapped off downstairs. Dace nudged the door shut with his foot.
Each photo was stamped with the date. Jolie studied the most recent one the longest. “John,” the HT, could pass for a slightly older-than-average college student.
She echoed his thoughts. “Based on this and other photos, he could be anywhere between twenty-five and thirty-five.”
“And the other subject could be a decade or more older. But that’s not what I found most interesting in the file. It was this.” Dace picked up a stapled report and handed it to her. She began skimming.
Without waiting for her to finish, Dace continued with what had been bothering him all night. “That report summarizes what Dawson told me they’d concluded from the examination of the devices. Because they’re improvised explosive devices, they’re going on the assumption that they’re dealing with an amateur with some expertise. But one of the wit statements from the incident last week, from Tyler’s mother, claims she heard the HT talking to someone early in the incident while they were in the vault. Thought he called the person Loomer. Goomer. Boomer. She wasn’t sure. But she thought she heard him say, ‘…up to you, Loomer.’”
Jolie looked up, her interest arrested. “He could have gotten out on a cell phone before the grid was shut down. Maybe more than once. It would explain the well-orchestrated rescue attempt.”
Impatience filled him. “Yeah, and we can be sure the feds are running the name and all its variations through every database they can access. But what if she didn’t hear a name, exactly? What if it was a call sign?”
“Boomer?”
He nodded, satisfied that she’d followed the same mental path he’d taken.
“That would put us back to our original impression when we were talking to the HT.” Jolie slowly sank to the floor to sit cross-legged, in a boneless movement he couldn’t have imitated if he tried.
“That he had military or law enforcement training or knowledge. Yeah.”
She tapped the edge of the report against her open palm. “Given our near-death experience in my parking lot, the accomplice must be the one with the explosive expertise. Great.”
“Maybe not. If it’s just a nickname, sure. But if we’re correct, and it’s a call sign, or given by someone familiar with call signs, the subject got hung with it for making a less than intelligent move. Blondie 2-0.”
Her murderous glare did nothing to erase the smirk from his lips. The story of how she’d earned her call sign stemmed from her actions on a response five years earlier that had been roundly summarized as a “blond moment.”
“You really want to reminisce about how we earned our call signs, Hootch?”
He winced. Since he wasn’t anxious to recall his unfortunate run-in with a K-9 bomb-sniffing dog his first month on the unit, he said, “No use being mean. I might not even have considered the name being a call sign if something didn’t bother me about those explosives.”
She cocked her head, her searing blue gaze fixed on him, and for a moment his mind went blank. Those damn eyes of hers should be declared illegal. He pushed the chair back from the desk to give himself some room to stretch out his legs. And to collect his thoughts, which had scattered like confetti in a windstorm.
“I’ve told you that I’m veteran Marine Recon.”
She nodded. They’d talked about it before. Swift. Silent. Deadly. The words and the 3rd Reconnaissance Battalion skull logo were tattooed on his left bicep. His military background had led him to volunteer for the first SWAT unit formed by Metro City PD, six years ago. “There’s nothing in the files about the link to the terrorist cell, so we can’t judge the validity of the lead ourselves. But you and I both know that with the Bureau the past few years, it’s all terrorism, all the time. And given the Homeland Security involvement…they’re going to chase that angle down to the last man.”
“You think they’re blinded to other possibilities?”
“Not following them as vigorously, maybe. Take these IEDs. They look at them and see similarities to those used by terrorists in the Middle East. I’m saying there are other explanations.”
“Could be self-taught. I could name half a dozen sites on the Internet where they sell books on that very subject,” Jolie offered.
He shook his head. “Nine out of ten amateurs making explosives at their kitchen table end up nursing bloody stumps. The surveillance photos show both subjects with hands and fingers intact. Believe me, I went over the report on the explosive devices with a fine-tooth comb. Special Ops soldiers get intensive instruction in makeshift weaponry, and how to combat it. Al Qaeda operatives aren’t the only ones who would know how to use that weaponry. When I was on active duty, part of our training would be to go up against an OPFOR troop. Their job was to lie in ambush, or launch an attack using the same weapons and tactics used by the terrorists.”
He appreciated the quick flicker of comprehension on her face. Jolie was never one he had to spend time explaining things to. “And OPFOR troops are still used?”
Inclining his head, he said, “They play a vital role in instruction.”
She leaned forward slightly. “During negotiations we thought law enforcement or military background was a possibility. Someone wit
h fairly recent military service could have been OPFOR in Iraq. Afghanistan.”
“And these surveillance photos, as worthless as they are for ID purposes, do show that one of the subjects is older than the other.”
“If we’re still thinking that one of them did time, he’d likely be the older one,” Jolie mused, unfolding her legs. “Which would mean the HT is ex-military.”
“Possibly even ex-Special Forces,” he corrected, his tone grim. The thought of a soldier trained to defend his country going rogue and using those skills against it was as sour as suspecting a cop had gone bad.
“Well, I can see why the feds aren’t pursuing this connection,” she said, her tone wry.
“If they’ve thought of it,” he interjected.
“It’s shaky.”
“Yep.”
His cheerful agreement didn’t ease her thoughtful expression. “We’ve got that list of paroled ex-cons with bank robbery records. But without a way to cross-reference that with a list of military personnel who went inactive around the same time…”
He was way ahead of her. “But what if we could access those names?”
She narrowed her gaze at him. He had a distant thought that the case had distracted her enough to wipe away some of the earlier bleakness from her expression. “And just how would we do that? The government databases aren’t going to highlight which former military had that kind of training.”
“No. But I’ve got a Marine buddy who ended up at OMPF/PERMS. The electronic records management system for the military personnel files,” he explained, seeing her blank expression. “Every individual in the military has a file and all duties except for the most classified would be included. It wouldn’t take him any time at all. But it’ll end up costing me, one way or another.” The last time his buddy Ben Stratton had accessed some information for him, it had cost Dace a couple of Cardinals tickets. It had been a small price to pay to close the homicide investigation he’d been working.
When he glanced at Jolie again, there was a small satisfied smile curling her lips. The sight hit him like a fast left jab to the solar plexus. He remembered that smile. Remembered her wearing it and nothing else as she sat astride him, controlling their movements until he’d been sweating and shaking, his control frayed. The memory torched something inside him, an inner heat that made his forehead dampen.