Extreme Liquidation: Caitlin Diggs Series #2

by Gary Starta

  He assumed control of the bird once again, rocking it sharply, until gravity forced his body out the driver’s side door. Pilot George Aims died instantaneously from a broken neck. Seconds later, the Black Hawk mirrored the sickening crash of the Apache Longbow. Colonel Sweizer could not right the black bird’s course in time because his hands were already occupied with a knife, water bottle and a machine gun. He and his black vessel of destruction imploded on impact.

  Three Air Force F-16s whizzed over the smoldering wreckage. Aims had realized the fighters would have blown the Black Hawk into smithereens. He had opted for the best possible outcome: an honorable discharge.

  ***

  Celeste panted heavily, pausing for a break. She had pulled Caitlin’s robe from the bedroom into the kitchen and up on top of the counter, all with the aid of her teeth.

  As Celeste paused to catch her breath, she recalled how Tara manipulated a small, silver box to reheat tea and coffee. She stuffed the pink-colored apparel into this box and slammed its door shut with the force of a linebacker. The cat tapped a few buttons.

  Beep. Beep. Beep. The microwave had been programmed.

  Chapter 21

  Firefighters clad in black and yellow swarmed through her apartment complex, reminding Caitlin of bees. She could not help but feel a pit of dread welling up in her stomach today as firefighters filed past her, clumping and huffing their way along the hallway in insulated boots. Someway. Somehow. Something had happened here, something beyond her control.

  It appeared as if they had things under control. A chief radioed dispatch. In between hisses of static, he notified headquarters the unit would be returning shortly—hiss, hiss...that the fire had been confined to a kitchen unit—hiss. It wasn’t until she was within five feet of her door that she realized the chief had been referring to her kitchen. The door was ajar. Diggs ran toward it. She found Tara staring at the charred remains of her microwave. It had been tossed upon the floor and now sat partially cloaked in the veil of a few soaked bath towels.

  “What happened here?”

  Tara turned about face; startled, she let out a short gasp.

  “Oh, it’s you. The firefighters cleared out. I really don’t know what happened, Sis, other than the microwave caught fire. The superintendent heard the alarm and called the fire department. They were hosing down the kitchen when I arrived.”

  “Celeste... Is Celeste all right?”

  “Yes.” She paused, eyes shifting. “I’m not transferring blame here, but I think Celeste managed to turn the microwave on. It sounds strange but I know I didn’t leave it on. In fact, I didn’t even use it this morning. I was running too late. Your boyfriend scooted out of here a few minutes after you. So he couldn’t have started it. And that leaves Celeste.”

  “No, no, Tara. I don’t think it’s strange.” She peered around the corner. Suddenly the dread she had felt in the hallway blindsided her again. Running to her bedroom, Caitlin began panting and mumbling underneath her breath. Her sapphire eyes monitored every square inch of the room until she confirmed her fear.

  “The robe is gone!”

  Tara ran in from the kitchen. Celeste popped out from underneath Caitlin’s bed and began pacing along the bedspread.

  Diggs’s eyes fell upon the cat. Celeste broke eye contact, fathoming what Caitlin’s icy stare meant. The Tonk bowed her head, mimicking the human equivalency of guilt.

  Caitlin had been stung. Like the bee, it all happened before she could realize it. Her link to the investigation, or more aptly, her connection to herself and her future had been taken from her, eaten alive by microwaves with the aid of feline ingenuity.

  “Damn, you!”

  Caitlin tossed her fur gloves errantly upon the bed, narrowly missing Celeste.

  “Sis! What’s wrong?” Tara did not wait for a response. She jostled Caitlin out of the way and leaped upon the bed to scoop the cat into her arms.

  Celeste sneaked a momentary peak at Caitlin. Her owner still wore an icy stare. Hoping she could dissolve into thin air, the cat nestled deeper into Tara’s arms, burrowing her head into her confidant’s bosom.

  A few seconds of silence ensued, filling the air with a static tenseness.

  Caitlin exhaled deeply. “Did they mention what they found in the microwave? Was there any salvageable remains?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, sis. You’re freaking me out.”

  “The robe, Tara. Did you find any pieces of the robe?”

  “Is that what this is about—your robe? I hope it burned to hell. In fact, I entertained the thought of throwing it out when you were at work. There were many days I fantasized about it. One time, I had even wrapped it up in a garbage bag, but I put it back. I couldn’t bear facing your wrath. I know how you obsessed over it. It looks like Celeste was the only one here with enough courage to destroy it.”

  “Tara, you don’t know everything about that robe. It might have allowed me to explain my visions, the reason why I have been behaving so damn emotionally lately.”

  “I think Celeste did the right thing. That robe was evil.”

  “And you know it’s evil, because, what, somebody gave you a Kabbalah bracelet?”

  “I put that damn thing on one night, Caitlin. I had a freaky dream, a nightmare. Maybe it was a vision... It scared the hell out of me. Look, I can understand how these visions, how this robe and certainly how your abduction have you all wigged out right now. I do understand. But you need to take a step back. To realize whoever abducted you may have been manipulating you through the robe.”

  Caitlin nodded. She recalled the vision of Rivers shooting Dudek. Maybe the robe had somehow given her this false vision. It might have even prevented her from stopping the tragedy at Fort Belvoir today. Still, the fact didn’t offer much comfort. She didn’t think she could feel any worse about things at the moment. She had stood by while a slaughter unfolded on a simulated battlefield.

  And now, her link to the men who might have been responsible for today’s killings had been severed. She took Celeste away from Tara and pulled her into her arms. As she stroked the cat’s head, she wondered what good her visions were doing her, except illuminating the fact that her newly acquired psychic gift might be pulling her small family apart. She recalled the visions that warned her about trying to manipulate Tara’s life. At this moment, she felt like the one who needed some guidance.

  She kissed the top of Celeste’s head. “I’m sorry, my friend.”

  Unlike humans, Celeste forgave quickly, harboring no desire to extend another’s pain. In seconds she began purring as if nothing had happened at all.

  A few hours passed in silence as Tara and Caitlin went to work righting the wrongful invasion of their kitchen. Tara had wrung the last wet towel over a bucket when the phone interrupted the silence. Ross Fisher was on the line. He requested Caitlin join him for a late lunch. He said he wanted to take a break and see his girl before he resumed work on his latest piece—the Fort Belvoir Massacre. Caitlin suggested he rename the story, citing that a massacre implied a scandal. Fisher corrected Caitlin without hesitation.

  “Isn’t it a scandal of some sort?”

  It was then Diggs knew her lunch with Fisher would not only serve as a date, but an opportunity to conduct damage control as well.

  ***

  “Come on, Caitlin. Give it to me.”

  If they were in the bedroom right now, Diggs wouldn’t have hesitated a millisecond. Unfortunately, Fisher’s inquiry had nothing to do with carnal pleasures.

  “Look, you investigated the Salinger murder, Senator Ralston’s meltdown and now, today, I find you at Fort Belvoir. What else do you want me to think? It’s deductive reasoning, my dear Caitlin.”

  Ross paused, hoping Caitlin’s icy blue eyes would soften and succumb to his Oklahoman charm. When they did not, he attempted to deflect the awkward moment by refilling Caitlin’s wine goblet.

  Ross had picked a five star restaurant for their impromptu lunc
h date. In all honesty, Caitlin would have been more comfortable if Fisher cut back a little on his efforts to impress .

  “You must be aware of the thread that binds these three incidents together, Caitlin. I’m a reporter. You can see how I arrived at this. I’m simply asking for a little help, a little dash of spice I can add to my exposé.”

  “I see we need to set some boundaries, Ross. I apologize if you think I misled you, but there are moral considerations here. I can’t jeopardize an investigation by divulging information the perpetrators might use to their advantage. That said, I’m sure you can understand my position. And no, pouring me another glass of wine will not change my mind.” She paused to sip her beverage. “And by the way, why are you referring to your piece as an exposé? Who do you suspect?” She swished the red liquid around her palette.

  “Tit for tat, Caitlin. Even if I did have an idea of who is really behind these killings, could I trust you not to feed it to my competition?”

  Diggs’s ocean blue eyes narrowed. At this moment they did not contain a single drop of serenity.

  “All right,” Ross said. “I see where you’re coming from. Mixing business with pleasure and all.”

  Caitlin caught a slight inflection in Ross’s accent. Her face brightened. “Looks like you’ve still got some work to do. I’m sure the DC market frowns heavily upon reporters who sound like they’re from Heartland, USA.”

  Ross laughed good-naturedly at the ribbing. “So you have a problem with the accent, huh?”

  “Not at all. I find it honest. I like the way you sound in bed, as well.”

  “I like the way you sound in bed.”

  Diggs beamed a full tooth grin. It accentuated her high cheekbones.

  “You know, Caitlin. I must admit. About the sex...I’ve never had such a sensual experience before.” He dropped his voice to a hush. “It was like the sex was supercharged or something.”

  “You felt it too?” Fisher did not answer. His brown eyes bore into her with confirmation.

  Diggs wished she could have pulled back the words. Again, honesty would have to take a backseat. This time it had nothing to do with job confidentiality. It had everything to do with her and how much she could choose to reveal about her ever-evolving personal nature. If she were to enter into a discussion about feelings, talk of visions might come up. No matter how carefully she chose her words, the more intimate she would become with Ross, the more he would be able to see through her. He said it himself. He was what he was—an investigative journalist. How long could she keep up the pretense without slipping was anyone’s guess. And Caitlin did not favor those kinds of odds at all. The brief sparkle in her eyes ebbed.

  As seconds passed, Caitlin suddenly realized their dinner date resembled her earlier vision—the one that foretold her and Fisher’s breakup. A maroon napkin sat beside Fisher’s plate, just as it had in the vision. They were seated at a corner table overlooking the street with sun pouring through the window, exactly like the vision. And she had worn a mint green dress, again, similar to the vision. She dropped her gaze to table level.

  Her wine glass absorbed her attention. Suddenly, it glowed. And inside it, she and Ross were making mad, passionate love to a fiery red backdrop. Their naked bodies entwined as one, each taking turns riding on top of one another. Her cheeks blushed in response. A part of her worried about what Ross would think, seeing her sit there, fantasizing about an image contained in a glass of wine. Surely, her mind was playing tricks on her. She had never had a waking vision. As one part of her felt mesmerized by the image in the wine, another seemed to watch from above.

  It was as if Caitlin’s body and spirit existed independently in those seconds. Caitlin’s mind, the part bound to carnal attraction, could not move her eyes away. The two bodies now floated in the glass as she had floated upon water during her abduction, or upon the white light she had ridden upon in a recent vision. Nothing else existed in the glass. A strange, black cross hung above the goblet, suspended in midair, upside down. As more seconds passed, Caitlin relived the intensity of their sexual union, even if she was now only a spectator.

  Sensuality throbbed inside Caitlin, soaking her as if she had just become very intimate with a tsunami. The bodies in the glass gyrated. They spun together, faster, faster, into one. The wine began to bubble, threatening to overflow the goblet’s lip. Climax was imminent. And then, the scene in the glass changed. Red wine turned to water—black water. The face of a man pressed upon the insides of the glass as if he were a fish caught in a tank. It was Crowley! Diggs recognized him from the internet photos, the evil black magician! He laughed at her, eyes bulging, air bubbles seeping from his mouth.

  Diggs gasped. She was sure half the restaurant had heard her. She shook her head back and forth to break the trance.

  “Are you all right? Is there something wrong with your wine?”

  She could not respond to her dinner companion right away. She fumbled for speech. She dared to glance at her glass. It contained red wine, nothing more.

  She found herself lying. “Yes, it’s all right. It’s perfect.”

  The wine portended danger. Diggs knew the liaison between her and Ross could not continue. The intense feelings she and Ross summoned during intercourse threatened to bring a man from the netherworld back into the real world. She would explain she needed to take a step back. To take a breather, so she and Ross would never again risk mixing business with pleasure. But the real reason haunted her far more deeply. The vision of the evil man in the glass sent shivers up her spine.

  She wrapped her arms about her body and began rubbing her arms with her hands as if she were braving an Arctic storm. Her behavior solicited further dubious stares from patrons. Ross felt their eyes. He dared not make a scene even though he feared Caitlin’s decision would end their romance. He paid the check without uttering a word. He saw Caitlin out to her car, gave her a quick, closed mouth kiss and waved as she drove off. He couldn’t help but feel a tinge of regret. He had possibly waved goodbye to the best damn alien-like supercharged sex he would ever come to know in his lifetime. He stood there for a moment, gazing upon an ethereal plume of mist before him. It continued to hang in the air as Diggs’s car faded in the distance.

  When her vehicle was no longer visible, the mist winked out of existence and darkness fell about Fisher.

  ***

  The Fort Belvoir investigation began early the next day. Thick clouds had rolled over the area and forecasters were calling for a winter storm. Rivers and Diggs felt the weight of the storm, its pressure creeping up on them, impressing upon them that all their previous efforts had resulted in futility. No matter how quickly they worked to uncover a clue or secure a tangible piece of evidence, the impending atmospheric disturbance served as a reminder. Eventually the storm would envelope the agents in the same white void they had encountered after Greg Salinger’s death and Jeremy Jacobsen’s televised assault. The blanket that had protected the perps this far need not be fashioned out of frozen flakes of precipitation. It could hang invisibly in the air, much as it had for the past two weeks, intimidating the agents with silent intimation.

  Time was now running against them. The attacks had grown more brutal, more lethal. Neither investigator would admit the truth out loud. Instead, they used the inclement weather and not their own personal clouds of desperation as an excuse to push for an answer, to cling to hope, to uncover some small clue that might lead them to the people who were really responsible for the chilling massacre that took place on the army base less than twenty-four hours earlier.

  In their hearts, they didn’t believe Director Salinger, Sen. Ralston or Lt. Col. Sweizer had acted upon their own volition. Someone with the skill of a magician had manipulated them. All they had to do was find that trickster. It sounded simple, yet they had no evidence to link them with the perp.

  Their consciences forced them to push on. They now found themselves in the stage of their investigation where self-doubt and blame came to the for
efront of even the most skilled and deductive minds. And if Rivers and Diggs didn’t take ownership of this blame, they knew their superiors would surely do it for them.

  Public panic threatened to blossom into all-out hysteria as discussions about crumbling American leadership dominated every radio, TV and internet talk show. The President refused to address the issue in his weekly radio address, silently confirming the validity of these claims. No amount of rhetoric in the world could begin to assuage the public’s fear of a pending governmental breakdown. Who would protect them when the winds of chaos hit? When martial law had been declared? They had witnessed the discord of a catastrophic hurricane that had devastated the city of New Orleans. Citizens employed firearms for survival. What would happen to America if the whole country were to suddenly find itself at the mercy of looters and terrorists?

  Whoever the perpetrators were, Diggs knew the events of the past two weeks had played out flawlessly for them. Their message had been heard loud and clear. Prominent political commentators deducted the events had indeed been connected, and that antiwar activists had somehow found a way to discredit the leaders most vocal about staying the course in Iraq. But none of these analysts could determine the perpetrator’s modus operandi. They didn’t know how the director of Homeland Security, an ambitious senator with an eye on the presidency or a decorated colonel could be coerced to turn on their fellow Americans.

  Public consensus was mixed. Nearly fifty-three percent of people polled by CNN believed that President Duncan should give in to the demands and halt the war. About forty percent accentuated the need to stay the course and to never bow to the demands of terror. A remaining seven percent were not convinced the three events were even linked or that an anti-war message was being broadcast.

  Lab pathologist Ed Hoyt had already determined the water bottles found in Lt. Colonel Sweizer’s office were tainted. Again, initial analysis found nothing more than traces of ethanol. The agents began their day facing this fact. They had found yet another smoking gun, but could not trace the finger that had fired it. No fingerprints were found on the bottles or cartons. Apparently, the delivery person had worn gloves. Diggs believed the perps subscribed to either one of two theories: either the drug in the water would never be linked to them, or there would never be enough time to link the drug to them.