by Jon McGoran
The camera angled out a few degrees, and slowly rotated. Corson and Yancy stared intently at the screen as the horizon scrolled past, coming to a jerky stop focused on a small cloud of dust in the distance. The image zoomed in, revealing a lone figure stumbling across the desert, dragging his feet and kicking up dust.
Simultaneously, the quadcopter buzzed loudly, zipping away out of sight, and the image on the screen pulled sharply back out of the zoom, and then began to grow once more, slowly.
Everyone was silent, watching, the lone, distant figure slowly drawing closer on the screen. In less than a minute, the figure had resolved once more into the distinct figure of a man, faltering as he ran. As the drone approached, he looked up over his shoulder.
It was Borova. His face twisted in horror and he ran just a tiny bit faster.
Corson and Yancy looked at each other, then Corson slid his thumb across the tablet. The camera image centered Borova, then surged forward, so close the drone must have been almost touching him, its shadow large across his back.
Then the screen flashed and turned to static.
A few seconds later, the thin crack of a small, distant explosion echoed past them.
They had blown him up. Borova was dead.
Chapter 37
“What’s g-going on?” the Cowboy asked, his voice already shrill with fear. “What is it?”
The technician turned to look into the shadows, waiting for a nod before he continued. “One of the ringers was found murdered.”
On the screens, Corson had the ringers lined up in formation, reading them the riot act. He held something up in his hand.
“What’s that?” the Cowboy asked.
“I don’t know. Some sort of contraband,” the technician replied.
Everyone in the room went quiet for a moment, listening to their earpieces—all except for the Cowboy and the figure in the back of the room, in the shadows, tapping at his keypad.
“What’s g-going on?” the Cowboy demanded, his voice rising in pitch, indignant that he was being left out.
“I don’t know, sir, but Corson doesn’t seem to think it’s important,” the technician announced into the shadows. “Wait, one of the other ringers is missing…” He raised his voice a notch. “We have a runner.”
They all went silent again, except for the tap-tap-tap.
“Yes, sir,” the technician said in reply to some silent command.
They watched the screen in silence as Yancy wheeled over the cart and launched the bee. One of the darkened screens in the mobile control room came to life, showing the camera feed from the bee as it rose into the sky, locked onto the small figure on the horizon, and zoomed toward it.
The small room filled with palpable excitement as the figure running across the desert grew on the screen, as he looked over his shoulder in terror, and as the screen went dark.
The room went silent except for hoarse, heavy breathing coming from the back.
The technician cleared his throat, awkwardly, and announced, “The target has been taken out.”
Chapter 38
“Hello, Kevin Burton. My name is Raymond Reddington.”
Red was sitting in Burton’s living room, as he had been for the past twenty minutes waiting for Burton to return home. Dembe was in the bedroom, out of sight but there if he was needed. Red knew he wouldn’t be.
Burton shrieked and dropped the bag in his hand. It hit the wood floor with a wet smack, rupturing and releasing a spurt of what looked like pad Thai. Judging from the filth that coated the floor, it might not have been the first time that had happened.
“Who are you?” Burton demanded, his voice trembling. He was fat and soft and hairy and unkempt, wearing a T-shirt with a superhero on it whose physique made Burton’s look that much worse by comparison.
Red cocked an eyebrow at him and gave him a second.
“Well, what are you doing here? What do you want?”
“Sit down, Kevin.” Red moved the gun ever so slightly, just enough to draw Burton’s eyes to it, to remind him of the power dynamic.
Burton sat, obediently, on the sofa across from the armchair Red was sitting in.
“You’re going to tell me where to find Simon Wall.”
“I don’t even know who—”
“I know you were the one who got the remifentanil.”
Burton’s eyes crystalized into twin orbs of panic and fear.
“Pretty ambitious, that rescue operation,” Red conceded. “It’s impressive that you people at H3 were able to pull it off, with your specialty being so much more focused in the virtual realm. I know you’ve been keeping quiet about it.” He laughed. “And that’s a pretty smart impulse, because the people you went up against are extremely active in the physical realm, if you know what I mean. And they do not know how to take a joke.”
“What do you want?”
“It’s nice of you to offer.”
“I didn’t—”
“I want you to tell me where to find Simon Wall.”
“Simon? I don’t know where he is.”
“Yes you do.”
“I can’t tell you—”
“Yes you can.”
“I don’t know—”
“Kevin, please. This is going to end with you telling me where Simon Wall is. There is no other way either of us is leaving this room. I appreciate that he’s your friend. I appreciate that you went to great lengths to bust him out of that room in Turkey.”
Burton paled and looked around, as if he was checking to make sure there wasn’t anyone else around who could have heard what Red had just said.
“But here’s the thing,” Red continued. “I am not going to hurt Simon Wall, and I am not going to let any harm come to him. Believe it or not, he and I are going to be working on the same side of something—something he will want to be involved with. So I am not going to muss a hair on his head.” He smiled and raised the gun.
“But I’m not going to be working with you.” He waggled the gun back and forth between them. “You and I are not on the same side of this fight or anything else. So I can’t make you the same guarantee. You can tell me where he is now, while you’re still a young man in… well, not ‘good health,’ but for the sake of argument let’s say ‘fair health.’ Or you can tell me two minutes from now, between screams while you roll around on the floor clutching the bloody, shredded remains of your left kneecap. And if you’re tougher than either of us really thinks you are, you can tell me in four minutes, while clutching both ruined knees, and wondering, if you make me pull the trigger a third time, will the last time you had sex end up being, well… the last time you had sex.”
There was a distinct possibility that the next time Burton had sex would be the first time he had sex, but that might have even given the message some added heft.
Burton had gone white and was starting to turn green. He had a hand clamped over each kneecap and his legs were pressed together firmly enough to earn a nun’s approval. A tear rolled down his cheek, and for a moment Red felt bad, but this was important, Red was in a hurry, and a few tears now would probably save Kevin Burton a lot more in the very near future.
“You promise you won’t hurt him?”
“Him? Yes. You? Only if you tell me where to find him in the next thirty seconds.”
Red looked at his watch for emphasis.
“Okay. Okay. He’s here in LA. In Canoga Park.” Red moved the gun another fraction of an inch. “I’ll write down the address.”
Burton got up and found a pen and paper, scribbled the address and handed it to Red.
“Thank you,” Red said, taking it. “And if you warn him I’m coming, you know I’ll be back here. And there won’t be anything I’ll need from you other than to show you the error of your ways.”
Burton nodded briskly, but once Red put away his gun, some of his color returned and he seemed momentarily emboldened.
“You know, it’s not so smart to mess with hackers. We can mess up your l
ife in ways you can’t even imagine.”
Red nodded, thinking about it. Then he took his gun out again and raised it. “I guess you’re right. I should probably kill you now, just in case.”
Burton gasped and took a step backward, clenching his eyes and holding up his arms in front of his face. “Sorry,” he said. “I won’t do anything, I swear it.”
As he said it, Dembe stepped silently out from the bedroom so he was standing directly behind Burton.
“Luckily for you, I don’t have to worry about such things,” Red said. “But Burton…” He waited until Burton opened his eyes. “Don’t make me come back.”
Before he could reply, Dembe whispered from behind him, “Excuse me,” causing Burton to shriek and jump out of the way.
“Thank you,” Dembe said, following Red as he walked out the door.
Dembe closed the door behind him, and as they walked down the hallway, they heard Burton gag and what sounded like more pad Thai hitting the floor.
Red winced in distaste. “I hope he made it to the bathroom.”
Chapter 39
Highland Park was an upscale area of North Dallas, half an hour from the airport. The tiny police department there still had an open file on Edward and Dorothy Stannis’s disappearance.
Red had explained that Edward Stannis and his bride had cashed out and disappeared to live like royalty in some third-world paradise. Their families weren’t so sure. Navabi and Ressler were meeting a detective named Tim Scheller to debrief and take a look at the case file. Then they were going to interview the family in light of recent developments.
They were halfway from the airport to the police station when Navabi got a call.
“Hello, Aram,” she said, answering it.
“Hi, Agent Navabi.” He sounded nervous, like he always was when speaking with her, but he also sounded down.
“Is everything okay?”
Ressler looked over while driving, trying to read the situation.
“Yes, it’s fine. Agent Keen is fine and everything. Director Cooper asked me to update you, though, that David Borova is dead.”
She put him on speaker and he told them what had happened.
“Jesus,” Ressler said. “They’ve got drones?”
“Apparently,” Aram replied. “Director Cooper has ordered us to pull ours back so they aren’t detected by theirs.”
Ressler cursed under his breath. “We should be there,” he started, but Navabi held up a hand to silence him.
He had been complaining like hell about not being there to go in with the tac team in case the signal from Keen came in while they were in Dallas. Navabi wasn’t crazy about not being there either, but she understood. This could be nothing, or it could be an important part of the investigation.
“Thanks for letting us know, Aram. Is there anything else?”
“No. No, that’s it.”
“Okay. We should be back there in a few hours.”
As soon as she got off the phone, Ressler started up again, but she cut him off.
“Okay,” she snapped. “I know. So let’s get these interviews done, see if there’s anything to uncover and get back there before we miss anything.”
* * *
Scheller didn’t wear a rumpled trench coat, but he was the kind of cop that would have if he’d been working anywhere north of there. He had a saggy gut, yellow teeth, and piercingly intelligent eyes.
They met in a coffee shop three blocks from his HQ. He had a muffin and a coffee and a file on the table in front of him.
They shook hands all around and he invited them to sit.
“Hope the flight was okay and the drive wasn’t too bad,” he said, turning the file around and sliding it across the table toward them. “This is what we have. It ain’t much.”
He asked if they wanted coffee and when they said yes, he motioned to the waitress while they examined the file.
Most of it consisted of bank documents: asset transfers, stock liquidations, account closures. All of it was from within three days of the last confirmed sighting of Edward and Dorothy Stannis, at a banquet at their country club, eight years earlier.
There were witness statements, too. Dorothy Stannis’s sister Renee and Edward Stannis’s brother Nick. Ed and Dorothy Stannis had told friends they were going to their lake house for a couple days after the banquet. Four days later, they both began missing appointments. That’s when their absence was first noticed.
There were crime scene photos of the house, which did not look like a crime scene and probably wasn’t. While liquidating their accounts, Edward and Dorothy had also donated the house to a local charity that Dorothy Stannis had been supporting for years.
Navabi looked at the file again then up at Ressler. He nodded that he was done, so she closed it and slid it back to Scheller.
“It’s interesting, but there’s not much in there,” Navabi said.
Scheller shook his head. “Nope. There wasn’t much out there. But it is interesting. Anyway, unfortunately, it turns out Nick Stannis died six months ago. Lung cancer. But I called Renee Selby, Dorothy Stannis’s sister, and she’s expecting you.”
“So what do you think really happened?” Navabi asked.
Scheller sat back and scratched his neck. “With the Stannises disappearing? If I had to bet, I’d say they probably cashed out, like everybody said. They liquidated everything, transferred it all offshore. I guess they decided to enjoy their money while they were still young enough to.” He shrugged. “Mrs. Stannis was a lovely woman. Sweet as can be. I don’t think it had been easy being married to her first husband.”
“Michael Hoagland,” Ressler said.
“That’s right. He was a bit of a mean cuss.” Scheller looked around and put up his hands, defensively. “Don’t get me wrong. He was a hero, and everything. And more power to him, building that company, and helping to support the troops and all that. But he could have been nicer to her.”
“Evidence of physical abuse?” Navabi asked.
Scheller leaned forward. “I never took any calls, so I can’t say for sure, but if he did, he had the kind of juice that’d make those calls go away, I imagine. Sorry to say it.” He looked at his watch. “I need to get back to the station. Do you need anything else?”
“One more question, if you don’t mind,” Navabi said. “Did you have any thoughts about what happened to Hoagland? About Stannis buying the company and marrying the widow so soon after?”
Scheller smiled and looked at his watch again. “I’ll tell you what. Give me a call after you talk to Renee Selby. Then we’ll compare notes.”
Chapter 40
Renee Selby’s house was massive, lush, and meticulously groomed. It was not the nicest house on her block, but it was definitely one of them. And it was a nice block.
“Geez,” Ressler said, as they pulled into the driveway. It was the fourth time he’d said it in the past five minutes, as the houses had gotten progressively bigger.
Selby was waiting for them as they pulled up. Early sixties, she had snow white hair, attractively styled. She seemed as meticulously groomed as her house.
“How do you do, Mrs. Selby,” Navabi said as they got out. “Thanks for agreeing to see us.”
“Not at all,” she said with a practiced smile. “I’m glad to help. Come inside.”
They followed her into the cool interior, a marble vestibule, followed by a luxurious formal living room, and then finally a comfortable sun porch, light but well air conditioned, with sturdy wicker furniture and plush cushions.
Navabi and Ressler sat on the sofa. Selby perched on the edge of the armchair, her posture perfect as she looked at them across the coffee table.
“So,” she said, folding her hands on her lap. “What can I do for you?”
“Mrs. Selby, we’re investigating a case that might be somehow related to Hoagland Services and G78. We wanted to ask you a few questions about when your sister and Edward Stannis disappeared.”
Sh
e nodded, her face darkening slightly. “I don’t know what happened to my sister, but I can tell you one thing: she would never have left without saying goodbye to me. Without keeping in touch.” She shook her head. “I don’t care what they say.”
“What kind of a man was Edward Stannis?” Ressler asked.
She shrugged. “He was good to Dorothy. I must say, I didn’t care for the business both of her husbands were in. I didn’t like it at all. When her first husband died, I somewhat hoped she’d no longer be involved in all that. But… well, apart from that Edward was perfectly nice. And he adored my sister. Treated her like a princess.” She laughed as she said it, as if at some faded memory. Then her laughter faded, too. “Not like her first husband, Michael.”
“That’s Michael Hoagland?” Navabi prompted.
“Yes. They got married quite young, you know. He came from a good family, but he went into the military and it changed him.”
“Changed him how?”
“He just came back… meaner.”
“And what exactly happened to Michael Hoagland?” Navabi asked. She’d heard one version of the story. She wanted to see if there was another.
She looked off into the distance. “Well, who knows, really? Those companies get up to all sorts of crazy stuff. The story, as I understood it, is that Hoagland and his top people were in a meeting in Peru, at their base of operations there. Rebels attacked the place with bombs or some such, and took out the entire leadership of the company. Stannis bought what was left of the company not long after, folded it into his own company, G78.” She leaned forward again. “I don’t think Edward had anything to do with what happened to Hoagland, if that’s what you’re getting at.”
“What do you mean by that?” Navabi asked.
Selby waved her hand, dismissively. “Oh, you know, people are always spreading silly rumors.”
“Rumors like what?”
She rolled her eyes. “That Edward was somehow involved in whatever happened to Michael and the others. Just because he had expressed an interest in buying Hoagland Services.”
“Before the attack in Peru?” Ressler asked.