by BJ Bourg
“I’m London Carter and this is Dawn Luke,” I said. “We’re investigating the murder of—hell, a lot of people. First off, are you willing to talk to us?”
Wade shrugged. “I’ve got nothing to hide. I don’t even know why you guys cuffed me.”
“Then this’ll be short.” I read him his Miranda rights and then had him sign the form. When that was done, I set it aside and leaned back in my chair. “If you’ve got nothing to hide, does that mean you didn’t do anything wrong?”
“That’s right.”
“So, it’s not wrong to go around the country manipulating young minds and making them prove themselves by killing men, women, and children?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
I leaned forward and slapped my knee, breaking out in a fit of exaggerated laughter. Wade’s eyebrows furrowed as he watched me, not sure what was so funny. After I brought my laughter under control, I said, “Man, you’re such a coward.”
That got his hackles up. He looked like he wanted to jump from his chair and pound me with his fists, which were balled up at his side. “What’d you call me?”
I scooted my chair closer and got in his face. “I said you’re a coward…a yellow belly…a scared little boy with no backbone. Did you hear me that time?”
His eyes turned to slits. “Oh, I’m no coward. I’m a soldier and I’m not scared of shit.”
“Yeah, okay.” I leaned back and folded my arms across my chest. “Then tell me how many innocent people you’ve murdered.”
“I haven’t murdered anyone.”
“You know, Wade, real soldiers don’t lie.” I shook my head. “Nope, they’re not afraid to tell the truth. They own their sins…take responsibility for their actions. But you”—I shoved my finger in his face—“you’re nothing but a terrified little bitch. You’re a little punk coward wannabe. You’re an insult to Sergeant Boyd.”
“I’m…I’m a real soldier.”
“You disgust me.” I waved him off. “Sergeant Boyd will be sorely disappointed in you. At least he had the stones to admit what he did.”
Wade cocked his head sideways. “Wait a minute. I heard a gunshot. Didn’t y’all shoot Sergeant Boyd?”
“Come on, Wade, don’t be so naïve.” I lifted my arms out to my side. “I’m a sniper…I can tell a bullet to go wherever I want it to go. If I want to disable Eric with a bullet but keep him alive so I can talk to him…well, I have that power.”
Beads of sweat were starting to gather on Wade’s brow, and I knew I was getting to him.
“You know, our team recovered three ghillie suits and three sniper rifles…two of each from Sergeant Boyd’s house and one from Roger’s house. You remember Roger, right? Anyway, our crime scene techs have fingerprinted all three rifles and sent them for DNA and ballistics comparison.” I paused for a few seconds to let him consider that information. “Which of those rifles will come back with your prints and DNA? Will it be the one that killed my FBI buddy Dave? Will it be the one that killed that poor girl, Joyce Cole? Answer me, man. Who are you responsible for killing?”
“I didn’t kill anybody.”
“What would you say if I told you Eric is putting this whole thing on you? That you’re the one who made Roger kill those people? That it was your idea to kill the FBI agents? That it was you who murdered Roger to shut him up?”
“I didn’t murder Roger! He was my friend—I would never turn on one of my own. I told Sergeant Boyd—”
Wade caught himself and clamped his mouth shut.
“Come on, man, keep talking,” I said. “Who killed the FBI agents?”
“I don’t know anything about that.”
“There you go lying like a coward again.” I leaned my elbows on my knees and stared up at him. “Our investigators were able to determine that three shooters stalked the FBI team and set up a triangulated ambush, murdering every last one of them. I only need your fingerprints or DNA on one of those rifles and I’ll be able to arrest you for first degree murder. Do you know what’ll happen next?”
Wade stared at me without answering.
“You’ll get convicted of first degree murder and sentenced to death. And then one day, about ten years from now, they’re going to drag you out of your small concrete cell and strap you to a bed. Some doctor in a white suit and mask will walk in and inject some death juice into you. After a little kicking and trembling, you’ll die like the coward you are—not on the battlefield like a real soldier.” I nodded. “That’s your future, so you’d just as soon embrace it.”
Wade’s head fell and I saw tears spilling from his eyes and splashing on the floor.
“If I tell you everything, will you grant me one wish?”
“It depends. What do you want?”
“I want to die like a real soldier—in front of a firing squad.”
I frowned. “As much as I’d love to oblige you, we don’t have firing squads here in Louisiana.”
“They have them in Utah.”
“But you committed first degree murder here in Louisiana, so you’ll have to be punished according to our laws.”
“What if I confess to a murder in Utah? Can I then go before a firing squad?”
“What murder?”
“Do I have a deal?”
“Yes…yes, you have a deal.” I wasn’t sure if I could make it happen, but if he gave me something useful, I’d sure as hell try. “Now, what murder in Utah?”
“The murder of a man, a woman, and a little boy,” Wade said quietly.
My heart slowed to a crawl and I stole a glance at the two-way mirror, behind which I knew Patrick was standing. “This little boy…what was he doing when you murdered him?”
“He was walking his dog in the desert.”
CHAPTER 49
Wade spent the next thirty minutes detailing his relationship with Sergeant Boyd and how he’d become involved in his program.
“I was in a bad place eleven years ago,” Wade explained. “My dad caught me dealing meth out of the shed in the back yard and beat the shit out of me. He kicked me out the house. After a week of living on the streets, my cousin let me run with his crew.”
Wade’s cousin was a sergeant in a militia group and they were hanging out in a local bar just outside of Salt Lake City one night when he met Boyd. The meeting seemed one of chance, but Wade later learned Boyd had overheard one of his anti-government rants the week before in a grocery store.
“He told me I was the perfect candidate for a new program he was developing,” Wade said. “Everything happened so fast from there. Next thing I know, I’ve got a sniper rifle in my hands, I’m killing people to prove to him I’ve got what it takes to wage war on the United States military, and I’m headed for boot camp.”
Boyd’s plan was for Wade to graduate from boot camp and get deployed to the War in Afghanistan. Once there, he was to covertly wage war on his fellow soldiers, taking out as many of them as he could without being detected. Eric figured if enough American soldiers died, they’d eventually accept defeat and pull out of the area.
“It seems a bit far-fetched,” I said, “for Eric to think he could insert rogue killers into the military and then have them murder their fellow soldiers.”
“Y’all do it all the time,” Wade said flatly. “My cousin was taken down by an undercover pig—no offense—who infiltrated his group. What makes you think y’all are the only ones who can use undercover spies?”
“Good point.”
“I was Sergeant Boyd’s first recruit,” Wade said, “but he was wrong about me—and I was wrong about myself. I didn’t mind killing that man and woman, but I couldn’t go on anymore after killing that little boy. I was having nightmares and seeing that kid’s face everywhere I looked. I tried to back out, but Sergeant Boyd wouldn’t let me. I got the feeling he would kill me if I walked away, so I shipped off to boot camp like we planned and waited for a chance to injure myself. I knew I had to sustain a crippling injury to get d
ischarged, so I wrecked my knee bad during an o-course (obstacle course).” He frowned. “I did too good a job, because now I’m disabled.”
After Wade was discharged, Eric took him in and supported him like he was his own son. “He was the father I never had,” Wade said. “We grew really close and he made me a part of the program. I’d go out, connect with local militia and other anti-American hate groups, and look for someone who had what it took to get the job done. I was the liaison between Sergeant Boyd and the recruits.”
“You do know he was using you, right?” I asked. “He sent you out there to make the contacts to minimize his exposure.”
“He would never do that to me.” Wade sounded confident in his assertion. “I was an integral part of the operation. Together, we had seven successful operations. Of course, none were as good as Roger would’ve been. That kid would’ve done some damage had he made it through the Air Force Academy.”
My mood turned sour and it was all I could do to keep my composure. I wanted to rip Wade’s throat out, but I knew I couldn’t mistreat him. “How’d you come by Roger anyway?”
“I found him on social media while we were still in Tennessee,” Wade said. “He was using some fake name and railing against the war like many people, but in an extremely intelligent way. I contacted him privately and we ended up having a lot of things in common. We communicated for over a year and became really close. When I told Sergeant Boyd about him, he wanted to come to Louisiana immediately and meet Roger in person, but it took a lot of convincing on my part. Roger was a cautious one, that’s for sure, but once he met Sergeant Boyd, the rest—as they say—was history.”
I was glad I’d put a bullet in Eric’s head. “How did Eric convince these guys—hell, you—to kill for him?”
“A little hate goes a long way, and Sergeant Boyd knows how to exploit it. He’s a very persuasive man.”
After questioning him for a while longer, I asked who took out the FBI’s sniper ream.
“We all did,” Wade admitted. “When we send a soldier out to his proving grounds, Sergeant Boyd and I set up in positions to best support him in case he runs into trouble. Sergeant Boyd spotted the government’s team at this camp on the northeast sector of the proving grounds, so we knew they were coming after Roger. We simply set up our sniper hides and waited. As I’m sure you already know, it’s hard to find something that doesn’t move, but it’s easy to spot something that does.” Wade shrugged. “As soon as they got into our field of fire, we took them out. We knew the rest of the team would come looking for them—it’s what you cops do—so we stayed in our positions until they arrived.”
I was thoughtful. “Why was Eric doing this? I mean, what was his beef with the United States military?”
Wade frowned. “Sergeant Boyd had met an Afghan woman while serving in Afghanistan. She was friendly to him and he’d sneak over to her place every chance he got. The more they hung out, the more they liked each other, and they eventually fell in love. He’d even pass on opportunities to return state side just so he could be with her. His girlfriend eventually got pregnant for him and he promised to bring her back home to Utah, where he would divorce his wife and marry her.”
“I take it Stephanie didn’t know about his secret life?”
“God, no…she still doesn’t. Anyway, about six months after their baby boy was born, Sergeant Boyd was in camp and some of his friends came in bragging about raiding this house in a small town south of Kunduz. They were showing off some of the loot they’d claimed and Sergeant Boyd recognized a necklace he’d given his girlfriend.” Wade shook his head slowly from side to side. “He rushed to her house, but it was too late. She was already dead—shot multiple times—and it was clear she’d been sexually assaulted before being killed. His little boy and his girlfriend’s dad had also been murdered. It destroyed him.”
“What did he do about it?”
“He waited until he and his friends were out on patrol, and he killed every last one of them.” Wade’s expression was one of pride. “He didn’t get caught, either.”
“So, this is his way of getting back at Americans.” I shook my head. “A man, woman, and child…an eye for an eye.”
I let Dawn take over questioning him and I left the interview room. Sheriff Chiasson was in the hallway.
“Where’s Patrick?” I asked.
“We had to escort him outside.” The sheriff frowned. “He was really upset and wanted to interrupt the interview.”
I nodded my understanding, and then returned to the interview room to write the arrest reports so we could ship Wade to the parish jail.
“Will I get my wish?” Wade asked when Dawn and I had finalized the paperwork and placed him in handcuffs. “About the firing squad?”
“I’ll do everything I can to see to it that you die the way you killed,” I assured him, standing him to his feet. “I’ll even apply for a position on the firing squad.”
Dawn and I then walked Wade out the door and down the long hallway to the lobby. A patrol deputy was waiting to transport him, and he held the door while we escorted him outside.
The sun was sliding toward the western horizon. It blinded me as I walked across the parking lot, holding Wade’s arm firmly in my grip. We had made it to within twenty feet of the squad car when I heard a distinct splat and Wade’s legs gave out from under him. My arm jerked downward as his body collapsed to the ground. Officers started scrambling around the parking lot, yelling in excitement. Dawn had instinctively drawn her pistol and taken up a position behind the deputy’s car, and several other officers were diving for cover.
I didn’t move. Instead, I shielded my eyes and searched the horizon, scanning the rooftops of every building between the parking lot and the sun. At first, I saw nothing, but I could feel a set of crosshairs on me. Standing there facing the west, I mouthed the words, “You’ve got what you wanted and it’s over—now go.”
There, on a distant rooftop, a dark and shimmering silhouette stood to its feet. I couldn’t be positive, but it looked like Patrick was waving goodbye.
Book Three:
SILENT TRIGGER
CHAPTER 1
Monday, September 24
If there was any truth to the assertion that our lives flash before our eyes when we die, then Gaylord LeDoux’s highlight reel should’ve been displayed big as shit and in full surround sound on the jumbotron in his mind.
I’d been eating lunch at my favorite Chinese restaurant when I received the call five hours earlier. An irate man had walked into Olivier’s Car Dealership in Mathport—a small town in Magnolia Parish that was located between Gracetown and Payneville—and shot two employees and one customer to death. He then proceeded to lock up the doors and take the remaining occupants hostage, threatening to kill anyone who defied him or made a break for it. Luckily, an employee was in the bathroom during the time of the takeover and he hid in a stall and dialed 9-1-1.
It had taken me less than fifteen minutes to throw away my food, toss money on the counter, and drive the nearly ten miles to the scene. I set up on the eastern side of the dealership, high in the cabin of a nearby lift bridge. From my vantage point, I could clearly see through the glass walls that made up the entire front of the building. Before getting in my position, I’d been able to obtain information from the owners about the type of glass on the front of the building, and had loaded my bonded bullets for the shot. I was hoping we’d be able to lure the bad guy outside, but we had to be ready in the event he refused to leave.
It wasn’t hard to spot Gaylord. He wore faded jeans and a dark, plaid flannel shirt that was unbuttoned, exposing a dirty white T-shirt underneath. His sneakers were held together with Duct tape, and there was at least a week’s worth of salt-and-pepper growth on his face. His disheveled hair was balding in a weird way. It was brown and thick on the sides, but had a landing strip down the middle—sort of like a reverse Mohawk.
After taking one look at his leathery face through my crosshairs, I k
new immediately how this one would end. His eyes were a dull gray—as though the life had already started to drain from his veins—and one thing was certain…he was so pissed off that he no longer had any regard for human life.
I’d tracked as much of his movement as I could, losing sight of him every now and then when he’d enter an office or duck behind a cubicle wall to harass the employees huddled there. He walked by the dead bodies often, but didn’t give them a second glance. He paid as much attention to them as intoxicated tourists did to the litter on the ground along Bourbon Street.
Jerry and Ray had arrived minutes after I did. Jerry was set up in a field on the south side of the building and Ray had taken up a position to the north. Since then, we’d waited and watched.
While this wasn’t how I planned on spending my day, I had long ago realized that such was the life of a police sniper leader. My primary job was as a detective, and I had a heavy caseload, but my sniper duties controlled my life. When I wasn’t at the range shooting, I was honing my skills in other ways, such as dry-firing (practicing all of the fundamentals of marksmanship with an empty weapon) on my living room floor, practicing my quick-draw—this included my rifle as well as my sidearm—and a host of other drills.
Once I’d made detective and both of my jobs were combined, well, that meant I had to give up sleep if I wanted spare time to do the little things…like eat or bathe. I sighed. Or have a social life.
I’d only seen Detective Sergeant Dawn Luke once since we’d closed the Trinity Sniper case. We’d gotten together the following week to view the SD cards from the game cameras recovered off of Wellman Boudreaux’s property. There was nothing useful on the cards and we’d gone our separate ways with a promise to keep in touch. I’d meant to call her, but one thing had led to another. Here it was, three weeks later, and I hadn’t said a single word to her. Maybe she cared, and maybe she didn’t—