Androcide (Intel 1 Book 5)

  “Concur. Although with this killer, anything goes. Maybe he just does his research.”

  “Or hers.”

  “Right.” He was approaching Gone’s block.

  “Anyway, most have alibis, and those who don’t are these Aspergers types living alone. They scream ‘serial killer’ so loudly it’s too obvious.” That brought a laugh. “In the backgrounds, no priors, no serious mental illnesses, nothing suspicious. It will take weeks to talk to them all.”

  “Okay,” he said, pulling to a stop in front of Gone Investigating. “My guess is you’ll strike out, but be thorough. Also, keep the list and data. Things might be opaque now but could gel with more information. Anything on the cathedral security footage?”

  “The red tape on this is awe-inspiring. I’m hoping by the end of the week we’ll get all the clearances.”

  “Whatever you do, don’t talk to the Feds. This is too big now. They’ll swoop down on us any minute and we’ll be making them coffee for the next six months.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Keep pressing, Kathy. I’ll talk to you later.”

  He stopped the car and closed his phone. Even my damn eyes hurt. He was beginning to run on five hours sleep a night, and it was adding up. Everyone was feeling it.

  This is going to be one hell of a winter.

  “This visit is unofficial, unlogged, and will be unacknowledged,” Sacker began. He leaned forward in the chair toward her desk to emphasize his seriousness. Gone stared at him intently, her brandy eyes glinting. “You will be working strictly with me, reporting only to me, or it’s over. Do you understand?”

  “You’re taking a huge risk on this, detective Sacker.”

  He leaned back in the chair and grunted. “Damn right I am.”

  “I appreciate the vote of confidence. But we need to get a few things straight. I will respect your rules only so much as they do not interfere with mine.”

  “Your rules?” The nerve of this woman! “Now you’re making demands?”

  “Given what I’ve read online today, I would characterize my negotiating position as strong.”

  It’s out already? There were too many at NYPD taking green from the press corps.

  She continued. “I’m not going to waste my time or yours without getting access to what I need to work effectively. And I will not do this as a freebie. I recognize this ‘off-the-books’ approach we’re forced to adopt precludes financial compensation. I will require something a little different.”

  Oh boy. “Yes?”

  “My rules are simple. First, you will grant me unfettered, uninterrupted, and complete access to crime scenes and evidence. This includes bodies, forensic reports and samples. Anything related to the case, including, but not limited to, databases, victim and suspect information, computer accounts, and interviews.”

  “There is no way I can—”

  “This is non-negotiable, detective. This requires clandestine efforts on your part, meaning my access can’t be in the light of day, so to speak. But I demand access nonetheless. You would want the same. If I am going to investigate, I must see all the data.”

  Sacker stared into the diminutive woman’s smoldering eyes. She wasn’t going to back down. And, dammit! She’s right. He’d have insisted on the same. Any detective worthy of the name would.

  “All right. I don’t know exactly how we’re going to pull it off, but you got it.”

  “Good,” she said. “Second, if I solve this case, find the murderer, lead the police to the killer, then you and the NYPD will publicly acknowledge my role. You will name me as a consultant on the case and present my contributions fairly.”

  “Would be easier to raid precinct funds and pay you with stolen pensions.”

  “I’m serious, detective.”

  Sacker laughed. “So am I, Ms. Gone. You’ve got no idea how much hot water I’ll be in for bringing you on board. It’s against the demands of my superior. I could lose my badge. Even if you drag in the killer cuffed with a leash around his neck. Keeping my job is pretty high on my priority list. Strong-arming a bunch of angry dudes at NYPD to wax eloquently about Gone Investigating isn’t.”

  “Whether or not NYPD officially says anything, then, I want your word that you will. That you will put my name and my contributions in your official report. Fired or not, you’ll be required to submit one.”

  “Ah, I see. And then one way or another, the information will find its way out to the press.” He smiled. “Might be the end of me, but you would earn yourself some choice advertising.”

  “I don’t run a nonprofit,” Gone said, smiling. “At least, that isn’t the intention, whatever the current figures.”

  Damn. He couldn’t blame her, but damn! This wasn’t just doubling down, this was all in.

  “Done.”

  Gone stared at him for a split second and blinked. Sacker suppressed a smile. She hadn’t anticipated his quick capitulation. Didn’t figure everything, huh, little genius? But, like everything with Gone, her recovery was fast.

  “That’s good to hear! And since we’ll be working together, can we drop the formalities and go with Grace and Tyrell?”

  “Done, Grace,” said Sacker, the corners of his mouth twitching upward.

  “So, Tyrell, when do we start?”

  31

  Flying Low

  Dalir Afshar set the helicopter down in an outermost section at Azadi Square. The landing space was more than adequate, the weather conditions optimal with blue skies and a mild wind. Only the circumstances spiked his adrenaline as he caught the monument arcing skyward in his peripheral vision.

  The NOPO? He’d worked some sensitive missions, but nothing like this. Nothing with those shadows and killers. He didn’t even want to see what he would be transporting in this military sized aircraft.

  But that he couldn’t help. The two soldiers opened the back hatch and lowered the ramp. Figures beneath the monument captured his attention. Weapons out, NOPO in their dark uniforms raced toward him. They herded a group of bound captives. Sending a chill through him, the bearded form of Commander Karami accompanied the prisoners.

  God protect us.

  Who are these prisoners? Why are they in Azadi Square?

  Why is the NOPO here?

  He tried to focus on the flying machine, its rhythms, its needs, its complicated and emotionless mechanisms. This calmed him. He’d only be flying. It didn’t matter what he carried. It’d be over soon and he would return home to his wife and children. Forget this day.

  Then the screams began.

  “Control the pilot!” cried Houston. “Secure this bird! We’ve got minutes.”

  Lightfoote darted past to the co-pilot’s seat and aimed a gun at the frozen form of Afshar. “Calm down. Don’t try anything. How’s your English?”

  The pilot is key.

  They either forced his cooperation or they died. Houston focused on him as Lopez tossed the second Iranian commando from the helicopter. Behind her the American soldiers lined the transport. A medic tended a pale Zaringhalam, blood everywhere.

  “My English?” came Afshar’s strained words. “Three years. I have watching the televisions.”

  “Passable,” said Lightfoote, studying the pilot’s eyes. “Might piss himself, though.”

  Houston sat beside an unconscious Karami, his arms tied behind him. He bled from the back of his head. She shouted over the noise of the aircraft to Afshar.

  “Time is short. You know who this is.” Afshar swallowed. “He lives only if you do exactly as we say. You live only if you do what we say. We’ve got nothing to lose. We’re desperate.”

  He shook his head up and down, displacing his headset.

  Lightfoote’s eyes flashed to Houston. “Watch him.”

  As Afshar stared in shock, Lightfoote reached forward and smashed the control panel with the butt of her gun. She ripped back the front facade to expose the instrumentation.

  “Wait, no, you cannot—”

  Sp
arks flew as she yanked a series of wires from the circuitry. The HUD before him popped and blackened. They tasted acrid smoke.

  “What—”

  “I fried the GPS and other triangulation systems.”

  “No navigate!”

  “No one can track us! You don’t need GPS. Fly the old fashioned way.”

  “You are crazy!”

  Time to raise the threat level.

  Houston turned to Lopez. “Gabriel, cut off Karami’s small finger.” Afshar’s eyes grew wide. “Work your way up to the larger ones if needed.”

  Lopez removed a large knife.

  Afshar screamed. “No! Yes! I fly! I fly! Where?”

  She gazed out the window. “North. Due north, keep low, and don’t respond to any hailing.” He gaped. “Fly!”

  The helicopter lurched upward, the passengers jolted, equipment crashing in the back of the craft.

  “And there she blows,” called Lightfoote.

  The base of Azadi Tower exploded. The grand monument plunged, its majestic curves dissolving like sand into a growing eruption of dust from the ground. Afshar screamed again as thunder rolled over them, straining to steer the craft. They climbed skyward.

  “Shame,” muttered Lopez. “Beautiful monument.”

  “Damn,” said Houston. “Supposed to take out the underground structure. Leave nothing for Mirnateghi or the NOPO.” She sighed. “But you know me and explosives.”

  One side of his mouth twitched. “Yeah, you really need to go back to school for that or something.”

  The Seal captain stared at her. “When did you—”

  “When you were searching for an escape route underground.”

  “Next time consult a specialist. Jesus!”

  “Next time, maybe. But I’m kind of in a vindictive mood, today.”

  Houston felt a deep tug in her stomach and scanned the skies around them.

  “We bought some time,” said Lightfoote, leaning back in the chair. “Thank God for NOPO secrecy.”

  “Time?” asked the soldier.

  “Our only hope.” Houston shook her head. “The government didn’t know. Mirnateghi went straight to Karami. And right now it’s 9/11 down there and we’re just some bird in the sky. Might slip through the smoke.”

  Lopez looked at the sprawled body of Karami. “We just kidnapped the Iranian head of intelligence, blew up one of their most prized monuments, and pissed off Nemesis. Again. She knows her information’s compromised. We’ve got a head start, but the manhunt is going to be something fierce.”

  “I know,” she said. “Not likely going to be a next time, but I’m still taking notes.”

  “You think we can make it?” His gaze bored into her.

  She turned forward. “I don’t know.” She prayed the blur ahead was the blue of the Caspian Sea. “To the sea, maybe. Port of Nowshahr is seventy miles as the helicopter flies. We’re not carrying any heavy equipment. I’m guessing this bird’s got two hundred miles in her at least before we drop out of the sky.” She smiled. “Sure, we’ll make it. Piece of cake.”

  “And when we get there?” he asked. “It’s landlocked by hostile countries.”

  Lightfoote interrupted from the front. “Don’t you read the mission preps? CIA contacts have a ship. Last line evac.”

  Lopez laughed. “That’s why you’re here, Angel. Last line for everything, it seems.” Lopez nodded at the back of the pilot’s head. “Can’t have that get out, though. Looks like we have one more passenger.”

  Lightfoote sighed. “Inevitable. He’s seen too much. We dump him to the locals once we’re clear.”

  Static popped on the radio and voices in Farsi called out. Lightfoote glared at the pilot, who kept his gaze locked forward.

  “If we can make that ship,” she continued, “they smuggle us through Georgia or Azerbaijan. It’s going to be a bit on the fly from here. At least out there we’ve got a chance to get lost.”

  In silence, they left Tehran behind them. The urban landscape shifted to the rough and jutting foothills of the Alborz mountains, a wall of rock looming. No pursuit followed.

  Houston checked the restraints on their captive and leaned back in the seat.

  They flew toward the mountains.

  32

  Gone Mental

  Sacker backed away from the bristling scientist. Dr. Richards had just about had it with Grace Gone.

  “Look, gumshoe,” she began, a vape-pen dancing in a fog of some cinnamon flavoring turning Sacker’s stomach. “I don’t care if the NYPD brought you in. I don’t care about his recommendations. You don’t know shit about my crew, understand? There is no way in hell any of them had anything to do with this.”

  Gone stared unblinkingly at the raving woman, her face an emotionless contrast to the beet-red researcher towering over her.

  She’s vulnerable.

  He grimaced. Don’t get personal. Cardinal rule in police work. Never, ever works out well. He’d seen the truth of it and he was no rookie. So, what the hell?

  It’s that damn foot.

  He’d noticed it the first time they met. The limb, the way she dragged it around. Some accident? But no cast, no brace. Congenital defect? Wasn’t she a dancer? Few answers, and it didn’t seem to matter then.

  But damned if it hadn’t started to matter. She’d struggled to move through the alleyway, the leg like some loadstone. By the time she’d insisted in walking up the stairway, her breath rattled.

  She didn’t care. The little tyrant ordered and questioned and sampled every aspect of the crime scene. The area around the busted doorway, the fried security camera, the railings and steps, the location around the body. She spared nothing. Gone toted her own evidence case, complete with sample vials, blue nitrile gloves, knock-off smart-glasses shooting the scene.

  But she was human. In Dr. Richard’s office, he could see a trickle of sweat run down her cheek. With raging Richards screaming over her diminutive form, he winced. The real question was why the hell he gave a damn.

  “Why entertain such a simplistic hypothesis?” Richards fumed. The derision crackled like a force field. “It’s right out of a TV show. Based on what?”

  Gone dropped one of her logic cluster bombs.

  “The facts present this as the most probable scenario. First, the killer, a strong man who is also well acquainted—”

  “Strong man?” scoffed Richards. “Jesus.”

  “The elevator cameras show nothing. The front entrance the same. The only other way up is through the back door. It happens to be broken and with an inoperable security camera. Not only does this indicate the killer is familiar with this building, but it means he carried the corpse up a stairwell. Four flights. Few men could do it and leave no sign. Many fewer women. Probabilistically, a very strong man.”

  “Why not a team? Why one?”

  “A ritualistic serial killer. Methodical with a giant ego, staging and taunting the police. Surgical mutilation and effective destruction of evidence. You’re dealing with an intelligent psychopath. Statistically, such killers work alone.”

  Sacker couldn’t help himself. “And how to recruit for this job? Craigslist?”

  Richard’s mouth tightened. “Gangs? The mob?”

  “Hire some mobsters to drop a corpse in a federally funded research lab?”

  Gone continued. “Statistically, such killers are predominantly men. Combine these facts and the conclusion is inescapable. A single, very strong male was responsible.”

  Richards frowned. Sacker smiled. “I’m convinced,” he said.

  “In summary, the killer is a very strong man who knows this building well. As noted, he’s an expert in concealing any information about himself or his methods from forensic investigation. He’s therefore knowledgeable of forensic science. I sampled the route he moved the body.” She gestured to the grid of vials in her evidence box. “There’s nothing evidentiary. No prints. No DNA. No proteins.” She indicated a magenta liquid. “This vial shows significant qu
antities of chlorine. The killer bleached everything. You can’t smell it here. All the research chemicals overpower it. But some simple assays show it’s coating the body, the door handles, the railing. Anything the killer could have touched is bleached. Evidence erased.”

  Sacker jumped. “What?” How did we miss this?

  “Therefore, we have a highly educated killer, fluent in forensic science. He’s intimately acquainted with the research building and the lab and knew he could erase his presence chemically. That no one would realize. I’d say the chances of him working here are high.”

  Richards paled. “Maybe. But not one of my people. I know them. Certainly none of them are ritualistic serial killers. Why destroy my scientific career and theirs?”

  “Maybe someone in another lab,” said Sacker. “Another floor? A frustrated Ph.D. dropout janitor? Good Will Hunting meets Hannibal Lector?”

  She leaned back and closed her eyes.

  The woman is near the breaking point.

  “Maybe it’s ideological. Political.”

  Gone’s eyes narrowed. “How so?”

  “God, I’m not a psychologist.” Richards passed a hand over her forehead. “But think about it. This...man clearly has it out for rapists. That’s obvious.”

  “Granted,” said Sacker.

  “It happens some labeled my work a rape drug. A tool for degrading women by removing consequences of sex from men.”

  He shrugged. “A male contraceptive?”

  “Yes. Pop a pill, enjoy all the unprotected sex you want. Never fear some slut is going to come after your bank account with a kid in tow.”

  “I see. So, some got upset?”

  “Oh, sure. We got letters. Screeds online. A few threats of violence. Threats of rape. How’s that for irony? These idiots can’t see anything. Unwanted children are the single biggest drag on a woman’s life. Placing the burden of preventing children on women is unfair. So is the health cost they pay for many of the hormonal treatments. Maybe this killer’s hung up on it.”

  “How does your male contraceptive work?” asked Gone.