Sudden Death

by Allison Brennan

  “I don’t know.”

  She screamed in rage and slapped him, then grabbed his wrist and pulled him toward the truck. “Get in, I’m driving. We have to get out of here right now. You’re ruining everything. You fucked up again, Ethan. How am I going to get out of this?”

  He opened the passenger door and clamored in, slammed it shut, and she drove off, yelling at him. Then she stopped and the silence was bliss. Then it was Hell. Total silence, just the purr of the truck and the woman’s sniffles. She was crying. Why was she crying? They didn’t talk about what happened. He didn’t know whether to be worried, scared, or elated.

  He didn’t feel guilty.

  Thirty minutes later he asked, “How long until Santa Barbara?”

  Megan and Hans listened to Jack go over yesterday’s events. The more she listened, the more she realized she would have done almost the exact same things, except she wouldn’t have tackled a known drug smuggler in public, nor would she have broken into a secure crime scene to look around. The former action was all testos-trone; the latter could jeopardize the legal case.

  Scout’s missing dog tag was an important bit of information that was not in Perez’s reports, and something that easily could have been overlooked. But that was not the case with the mysterious brunette who may have been at both El Gato and Father Francis’s St. Ignatius. If Perez had been doing his job right, he should have made the connection, and not gone off on the wild theory that some rebels in Guatemala crossed the border for retribution against Jack and his team.

  “Are you certain it’s the same woman?” Megan asked.

  “Almost certain,” Jack said. “From Padre’s description and two people at the bar, she appears to be the same. There’re not a lot of non-Hispanic women in town. She’d stick out whether she was white, black, or Asian.”

  “Could be completely unrelated,” Hans said. “But it’s a good idea that you called in your men to stick by Father Francis for the time being, until we have better intel about the motives of the killers.”

  “We need to get a sketch artist here,” Megan said. “Have Padre describe the woman while she’s still fresh in his mind. We can call her a potential witness, nothing about being a possible suspect.”

  “And it may have nothing to do with this case,” Hans said.

  “And it may have everything to do with this case!” Megan shot back. “It’s the only thing we have right now. There’s no forensic evidence to help us narrow down a suspect. We have a stranger in town, a woman who shows up at a known hangout for two men who were on the same Delta Force team, a team that is systematically being slaughtered.”

  “Father Francis is alive,” Hans said.

  “And that means what?” Jack said, his voice low with anger. “That he’s involved?”

  “That’s not what I said.”

  “But you thought it.”

  “He has an alibi for the first three—”

  Jack pushed back from the table. “Don’t.”

  “It’s part of our job,” Hans said. He was uncomfortable, but he held Jack’s glare. “We have to rule out everyone. Including you.”

  Hans’s BlackBerry vibrated on the table and he picked it up. A few seconds later he said, “First Lieutenant Jerome ‘Jerry’ Jefferson is confirmed in Afghanistan. Last leave was four months ago, which he spent in Hawaii.”

  “Which means what?” Megan asked.

  “The killers can’t get to him.” To Jack, he said, “Sit down, Jack. We need to work through this.”

  Jack continued standing.

  Megan said, “We don’t know how many killers there are, we only suspect two. There could be three, ten, an entire conspiracy.”

  “Meg, I think you’re stretching it—”

  She put up her hand, then winced when she remembered how much she hated it when the jerk from CID did it to her. “Yes, to illustrate a point. We have no idea who is behind these killings. We have very basic victi-mology—they were all U.S. Army Delta Force soldiers who worked together for a period of two years on dozens of missions. But we don’t know which mission triggered the killer, why he—they—are acting now, or why they’ve chosen to kill in such a brutal manner.

  “So until we know why, we don’t know that Jefferson isn’t in danger, or that he isn’t the one spearheading the attacks. And this woman might have information. Maybe she’s a battered girlfriend or wife—”

  Hans interrupted. “This crime is too masculine.”

  “Why? Because it doesn’t have a sexual component?”

  “Most male-female killing pairs are enacting sadistic sexual fantasies, or the female is bait, luring the victims for her dominant male partner.”

  “But this isn’t sexual sadism, this feels like revenge. Whether directed toward these men because of who they are, or what they represent, I don’t know. But why not a woman? A wife or sister of a dead soldier?”

  “I don’t know. There hasn’t been any hint—”

  “Except for the female stranger in town. Profiling is based on statistics, Hans. You taught that in Criminal Psychology 101. If four out of five serial killers were abused as children, that still means that twenty percent weren’t abused.”

  Hans nodded. “Okay, we follow that trail. I’ll ask the Rangers to send a sketch artist for Father Francis to work with.”

  “Sketch artist?” Padre said as he stepped into the kitchen. “For what?”

  “The woman you saw at the church late Tuesday night,” Megan said. She glanced at Jack. He was still standing at the table, but the tension and anger had left his stance. He seemed intrigued and contemplative. He caught her eye and gave her a slight smile. She turned away. “Do you have the list of missions?”

  Padre put a notepad in front of her. “Here.” He looked defeated.

  “Thank you, Padre.” Megan read his notes. All the missions where the dead had worked together were in Afghanistan. “All eight of you were on each mission?”

  “No. I also included missions where I didn’t go as part of the team, or Jefferson didn’t go. Since we’re both still alive.”

  “What type of missions?”

  “They’re classified.”

  “I can’t work with something that’s ‘classified,’ “ Megan said. “If something that happened on one of these missions is somehow de facto responsible for these men being targeted, then I need to know.”

  Padre seemed to have changed overnight. More hard edges and temper than the priest who had picked up her and Hans the night before at the airstrip. Megan ached that the man had to cough up his past demons, but she also knew that if he didn’t, more people would die.

  “Some of the missions were assassinations. Some were extractions or liberations.” Padre left it at that.

  Jack asked quietly, “How successful?”

  “The third mission was a disaster. Our intel was wrong and we nearly got ambushed. Aborted and regrouped two days later. The last mission was also a failure. We lost a man. Thornton. I told you about him last night.”

  “Orders?” Jack asked.

  “Seize a high-ranking Taliban member. He was a weak link, had a regular mistress. High security, but no change in habits. We’d been gathering intel on him for months. We went in, but—” He stopped.

  “And?”

  “The P.R. department had us bring a civilian with us. Open-door policy.”

  “A civilian? On a Delta mission?” Jack couldn’t keep the shock out of his voice. “They’ve sent reporters and cameras to the lines, which is foolhardy, but on one of our missions? That’s insane.”

  “Another reporter, a big guy, had done it the year before with great success, according to the powers that be. But I found out later that that reporter had spent three years in the Marines. He went in because he’d gone to basic with a guy who could get him in. He had experience and could take care of himself. We didn’t know any of that, of course, only that afterward the Marines had a lot of favorable press and write-ups, lots of backslap-ping and goodw
ill toward man.” Sarcasm hung in the air.

  “Your civilian was a reporter?”

  Padre nodded. “An idiot. He screwed up the mission, and worse, he got Thornton killed.”

  “What?” Megan asked when Padre didn’t continue. “Is he dead, too?”

  “Barry Rosemont didn’t do what we told him to do. We knew we were being surrounded, and there was no way to get out. We had to call in an extraction team, breaking radio silence, which alerted the Taliban to our exact location. Russo ordered us to split into two teams and left Thornton with Rosemont in what we believed was the most secure location. They were supposed to stay in the rocks, radio silence, no matter what they heard until the Blackhawks arrived.

  “Rosemont panicked, exposed himself. Thornton sent Morse code that their position had been compromised, and we did everything we could to get back there, but by that time it was too late. Thornton was dead and the Taliban had Rosemont.”

  “They took him hostage?” Megan asked.

  “We didn’t know that at the time. Then, we assumed he was dead and they took his body and Thornton’s to parade over the airwaves and demoralize us. It would have worked. We’d been making great inroads in Afghanistan, something like this would have really damaged our position.”

  “But he wasn’t dead.”

  “No. They held him hostage for three months. Another Delta team extracted him and brought him back to the States.”

  “Do you know where he is now?” Hans asked.

  Padre laughed humorlessly. “I don’t want to know. The bastards desecrated Thornton’s body. I blamed Rosemont. It was hard to forgive him. I did—I had to— but I don’t want to think about him. Thornton was a good man. He had a family.”

  Padre excused himself and left the rectory.

  “Do you want to go with him?” Megan asked Jack.

  “He needs to be alone.” The concern in Jack’s eyes for his friend was heartbreaking.

  Megan’s cell phone rang, and caller I.D. showed an unfamiliar Sacramento number. She answered. “Megan Elliott.”

  “You’ll never believe it!”

  “Who’s this?”

  “Simone. We have the body.”

  “The body?”

  “The John Doe. Price.”

  “You’ve lost me.”

  “The dead guy in the alley? CID just dumped him back at the morgue. They ran his prints. It’s not George Price.”

  Megan’s stomach flipped. “But we had his prints. Why didn’t we know immediately?”

  “We don’t have access to the military database. Only criminal and DMV databases. The guy’s prints didn’t show up, but we weren’t concerned. If he had no record, no reason to be in the system, we wouldn’t have them. We would have naturally checked the military next, but they had the body. They didn’t tell us until this morning!”

  Megan was in shock. “But it’s the same M.O., the I.D., we have a connection with the other victims—”

  “I don’t know what’s going on, but I thought you should know. CID gave us a photograph of Price—the one they’ve been flashing on the news was Price at eighteen. But they had a photo that’s only five years old. There’s no way in Hell our John Doe is Price. Both white, six feet tall, basic build, similar coloring, but obviously not the same man. I’ll shoot an e-mail with the pic off to you … done. You have more contacts and resources. If you can find the real George Price first, more power to you. In the meantime, Black is trying to find out who our John Doe is and how he came by Price’s dog tags.”

  Megan hung up the phone, perplexed.

  Why did the killers think the homeless John Doe was Price? Had they never actually seen him before? Or was it so long ago they didn’t exactly remember him?

  Or did this mean that George Price was part of the killing team?

  “The victim in Sacramento isn’t Price?” Jack asked.

  Megan shook her head. “This changes everything. We need to find the real George Price.”

  “If he’s still alive,” Hans said. “Or wants to be found. He’s been AWOL for five years. He could have a new identity, be out of the country, in hiding. He’s not going to come forward knowing he’ll be prosecuted by the army for attempted murder as well as desertion.”

  “What if he’s involved?”

  “First Jefferson, now Price?” Jack said. “You’re really stretching it. Why would Price put his own identification around a man he just killed?”

  Megan fumed. “How do I know? To stage his own death?”

  “He’d know the prints wouldn’t match,” Jack snapped.

  “At least I’m trying to figure it out! We don’t know what’s going on, but George Price was dead three days ago, and now he’s not. He’s still AWOL, but that man was killed by the same people who tortured and executed three other Delta Force soldiers who had all worked together for two years in Afghanistan. You tell me there’s not a connection somewhere. Maybe the homeless guy found the tags in the garbage, for all we know. But then how in the world did the killers mistake him for Price?” She couldn’t figure it out, and it was eating at her. Deductive reasoning was one of her strengths, but nothing in this scenario made sense.

  “I’ll call Quantico and have them start looking,” Hans said. He shook his head and Megan felt his disapproval. “I’m surprised that you of all people made such an amateur mistake.”

  Before she could respond to Hans, Jack said to her, “Maybe you should call in your friend from Rogan-Caruso—the one you have investigating me. Because he seems to be able to get information out of a magic hat. Though he didn’t get the goods that Price wasn’t Price.”

  Megan’s brows furrowed. What was Jack saying? J.T., yeah, he would be a good contact. But Jack almost sounded jealous. What a ridiculous—ludicrous!—idea. She really was exhausted.

  “Good idea,” she said absently. Jack mumbled something under his breath, but Megan didn’t hear the words. She watched Hans walk away and realized he was angry with her. She ran through everything that happened Monday—yeah, they made the assumption the victim was George Price; they took his prints to verify … but when CID came and took the body, Megan didn’t even question the man’s identity. Of course it was Price, why else would the army take him?

  But she’d made an assumption that, though based on circumstantial evidence, was false. The entire case was in jeopardy

  Except that the homeless John Doe had been killed in the same manner as the other victims, and therefore Price’s tags must have deliberately been put on the body. Price was connected somehow. This was no coincidence.

  She looked around for Hans to explain, but he was across the room talking quietly on the phone, his back to her. And Jack was staring out the window, his back also facing her. She felt as if she would explode. She needed to talk it out, analyze every angle.

  Someone rapped on the rectory door and Jack answered. “Hern, right?”

  “Right. Good memory, Kincaid.”

  Ranger Ted Hern came in, taking his hat off. “Dr. Vigo, Agent Elliott. Glad you’re both here. We may have a break.”

  Hern’s expression was dour while he waited for Hans to wrap up his call. “Two dead bodies at a rest stop outside Blythe, California. And in the parking lot, the highway patrol found a military identification tag for Lawrence Bartleton.”

  CHAPTER

  EIGHTEEN

  Hans said to Megan as he punched buttons on his cell phone, “I’ll get a military transport out of McAllen. We should be in California in a couple hours.”

  Jack said, “I have a plane. I’ll take you.”

  “That’s not necessary,” Hans said, putting the phone to his ear.

  Megan caught Jack’s eye. He was a hard man, but he wasn’t too hard to read. He’d go with or without them. Scout was his friend, he felt responsible. Megan understood that all too well. “Jack’s contacts may come in handy,” she said. “And we can leave now.”

  Hern said, “The victims were a young truck driver, twenty-three, and
his wife. She was pregnant.”

  “Any witnesses?” Megan asked.

  “I don’t know. Barker and I can stay here and follow up on the autopsy and potential witnesses in the Bartleton investigation.”

  “Father Francis may have seen a potential witness, or possible suspect, at the church Tuesday night. Can you get a sketch artist to work with him?”

  “We’ll jump on it,” Hern said.

  “Appreciate it,” Megan said. “My e-mail is on my card, and I can receive images on my BlackBerry. Get it to me as soon as you can.” She looked at Hans, who was on hold, and then asked Jack, “You have a plane that can fit all of us?”

  “Yes.”

  “How long to Blythe?”

  “Three hours in the air, plus or minus.”

  Megan glanced at Hans again. Why didn’t he want to use Jack? He wouldn’t have been her first choice, but right now the fastest way to Blythe would bring them that much closer to the killers. They’d been at a rest stop. Someone had to have seen something. There had to be a witness. Even if they didn’t know they were a witness.

  Hans said into the phone, “Sheryl? Sorry to bother you. I found transportation…. Thanks anyway. I appreciate it.” He hung up and said to Jack, “I guess you’re our pilot.”

  Jack found Padre kneeling in front of the statue of Our Lady of Guadalupe in the St. Ignatius chapel off the main church. He didn’t say anything for a long minute. While he often came to church because of Padre, he hadn’t really thought about the reasons, if there were any. Today, he took in the old, lovingly cared for stained glass, antique statues, worn wooden pews, simple altar with the polished brass tabernacle behind it, the candle in the sconce proclaiming Jesus was present. He’d given a lot of money to Padre’s church, but he never gave a thought to what it went to. In the back of his mind guilt spread. He was trying to buy off God.

  Jack was no saint. He blamed God for most of the wrongs in the world. Blasphemy, he was sure. After all, God let Satan roam free. How else could a pregnant woman and her husband end up murdered at a roadside water hole? Where was God in that?

  “I can feel your anger and frustration, Jack,” Padre said without turning around.