Burke's Revenge: Bob Burke Suspense Thriller #3 (Bob Burke Action Adventure Novels)

by William Brown

  “I read somewhere that the Army hasn’t hanged a soldier since 1961. That was fifty-six years ago, and well before our time — Cold War time. But I suspect that’s about to change,” O’Connor said as he sat back in his chair.

  “Do you really think he’s a ‘lone gunman’? Look at the guy. He had a bad record before he ever donned a uniform; and he’s so stupid, I wouldn’t trust him to make a barracks beer run. Who would include him in some big-time terrorist plot? No way. I’m not even sure how he got out of elementary school, and he’d never have gotten out of high school if he didn’t play football. Look at his AFQT test score. How he got in the Army, I’ll never know.”

  “Won’t be the first time the local recruiter fudged things to make a quota.”

  “Fudging? Hell, he was up for B&E in Mississippi and the judge gave him a choice — three years in the State Penitentiary in Parchman or enlist in the Army. Then the judge sealed his local records so the Army wouldn’t know.”

  “You know how many times I’ve heard that one?”

  “Me too, and then people wonder why the Army has problems.”

  “He’s functionally illiterate.”

  “He’s also dead broke, Pat,” he said as he pushed a sheet of paper across the table. “That’s his bank statement. It’s $16.30 in the red, because those bastards at the bank charge a $25 service fee every month the balance drops below $1,000. The Army now requires them to direct deposit their Army paychecks and that requires a bank account to put it in. They never have much money left by midmonth and get hit with the service fee. What a racket! But the point is, Muhammad had no money. So who paid for the C-4? He didn’t.”

  “You’re right, somebody gave it to him,” O’Connor said as he looked at the sheet.

  “Perhaps a certain well-heeled sociology professor who runs the Muslim Student Center on campus,” Bob offered. “Seems like he just got back from the Middle East and he’s on the FBI’s watch list.” O’Connor looked up at him and gave him a puzzled frown, so Bob continued, “That FBI agent, Tom Pendergrass, whom Ernie brought to the party, told me about the guy, in confidence, of course, but he knew exactly what he was doing and wanted us to have a heads-up. He thinks the CID is hopeless.”

  “Well, then, he told the right guy, didn’t he?” O’Connor smiled.

  “Yep. What did they say in that Watergate movie? Follow the money?”

  “And the C-4. It’s highly controlled and damned expensive. I don’t know what it costs on the black market here in the States, but in Iraq or Afghanistan, you’re talking about thousands of dollars for a block.”

  “And if nobody gave that kind of money to Muhammad out of the goodness of their hearts, and he didn’t break in and steal it from the 20th Engineers, which doesn’t seem to have happened, where did he get the money to buy it?”

  “Bob, I’m not surprised you asked the general if you could look this stuff over, especially after the tip you got from the FBI, but they got Muhammad dead to rights. Don’t forget, he was in possession of the .45 that killed an MP and two officers at the golf club. His prints are all over it.”

  “True, but were they on any of the shell casings at either scene? Or on the bullets in the magazine? Or were they just on the outside of the .45?”

  O’Connor flipped back through the pages and frowned. “Damn. Nothing, nada.”

  “Then I guess we should ask Agent Phillips about that, shouldn’t we?”

  O’Connor turned his head and looked out the bay window. The sun was just beginning to come up over the farm, and the soft morning mist made the scene look other-worldly. “You lucky bastard. You sit here every morning when you and I talk, don’t you?” O’Connor asked. “I never realized how gorgeous this place was. Whatever the hell you paid for it, it was worth every dime.”

  “Yeah, and it’s especially nice in the morning, isn’t it?” Bob smiled as he thumbed through a few more pages, and then got up and poured them both another cup of coffee. “I have another question for you, Pat. The trigger mechanism for the unexploded bomb was a burner phone, right? And they found fragments of cell phones at the other three explosions, plus the one last night, right?” he asked as he pointed down at the MP inventory sheet. “And it says that Muhammad had a cell phone on him, in his hip pocket, when they cut his clothes off at the hospital. If that was the case, how did he trigger the bomb?”

  “Maybe a butt call?” O’Connor shrugged.

  “I don’t think so.” Bob picked up another sheet. “The statement of the surviving guard says that Muhammad put the bag down, pulled out his .45, turned, and started shooting at them as he started to run. They exchanged shots, and then the bomb went off, seconds later. He doesn’t mention a cell phone, and if he had one in his other hand, how did he dial and fire the .45 at the same time?”

  O’Connor stared at him. “Something else to ask her, isn’t it?” He thought for another long minute and then asked, “Do you think the phone number of the burner phone on the unexploded bomb is in the speed dials on Muhammad’s phone?”

  “Another good one. CID Special Agent Phillips should be pleased to get all this help we’re about to unload on her, shouldn’t she?”

  “Let’s hope she’s way ahead of us on the answers.” That was when the Command Sergeant Major’s cell phone rang and he looked down at a text message. “Private First Class Farrakhan Muhammad has regained consciousness. Shall we pay him our respects?”

  “Absolutely!” Bob answered.

  “Are you coming with me in the General’s sedan? It’s got better A/C than your truck.”

  “No, I’ll follow you. Just tell the gate to wave me through.”

  “Okay, but the sedan gets the close-up parking spaces.”

  Bob laughed. “Really? Who pays attention to signs in a parking lot?”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Womack Army Medical Center

  The big Army hospital at Fort Bragg is an attractive seven-story brick building with wings and angles going off in all directions. Located in the center of the big Army post, it is easy to get to from almost everywhere; and like most hospitals everywhere, military or civilian, it is constantly being expanded and renovated. Although fifteen years old, it doesn’t look its age, despite the stress and strain of handling a flood of casualties from two major wars and a dozen small ones. Most recently, the Trauma Center had just finished a major upgrade, with a new entrance and thirty-five separate treatment rooms.

  Pat O’Connor was driving General Stansky’s sedan and parked it in the VIP space near the Trauma Center entrance. When he got out of the car, he donned his heavy green dress jacket, which was covered with one of the more impressive arrays of ribbons, patches, stripes, sleeve hashes, shoulder braid, and insignias that anyone inside was likely to see. He was a big, powerful man to begin with, and took an extra moment to tip his beige Ranger beret slightly forward on his head, work up a good frown, and get his grim “don’t screw with me” expression on his face. By the time he had his full Command Sergeant Major persona in place, Bob Burke had joined him and they set off for the Trauma Center door at a long-stride, double-time pace.

  “Try to keep up, Major, ’cause I ain’t stoppin’!”

  No doubt because of the prisoner inside, two large MP guards in full battle dress flanked the automatic entry doors. You didn’t see that every day at Womack, Bob thought. Instead of stopping O’Connor, however, the two MPs pushed the door opener and stood smartly aside as he marched in without breaking stride. Everyone on post knew who Patrick was, and they would no more get in his way than they’d step in front of an Abrams battle tank coming at them full speed across a muddy field. If he didn’t run them over, their own sergeants major and first sergeants would later, because Pat O’Connor wasn’t a man that any enlisted man on Fort Bragg dared piss off; and at five foot nine inches tall and 150 pounds, they didn’t even see Bob Burke trailing behind in his wake.

  There were three hallways leading off the central Trauma Center lobby. O’Connor
came to a crisp parade-ground halt in the center, glanced momentarily down all three, and set off again at full speed down the one to the left, where he saw two more heavily armed MPs standing in front of a treatment room halfway down the hall. O’Connor caught the two MPs in the full glare of his “headlights,” but these two did not step aside. O’Connor came to another heel-clicking halt directly in front of them. The one with the highest rank had Sergeant First Class stripes on his arm and “Mullins” on his name tape.

  O’Connor had this one by at least two or three inches and leaned forward, his nose six inches from the SFCs. It was obvious that O’Connor wasn’t amused.

  Up close and personal like this, you could see the poor bastard blink and begin to sweat as he stammered, “Uh, Command Sergeant Major, my orders are to… uh…”

  “Of course, they are, Frank,” O’Connor said quietly. “But the General asked me to look in on your prisoner and have a word with Special Agent Phillips. So, if you don’t mind, I’d appreciate a couple of minutes of her time.”

  Mullins opened his mouth and began to say something else, but made a snap decision regarding who he least wanted to piss off. He quickly stepped aside, opened the door, and O’Connor didn’t wait for him to have any second thoughts. He strode on in.

  When Bob Burke began to follow, the MP stepped forward to stop him. O’Connor turned one eye on him and growled, “He’s with me,” and the MP quickly backed off again.

  Inside, they saw about what they expected to see: a large, heavily-bandaged African American lying on the only big hospital bed in the room, which was placed at the center of the far wall. Above and around him stood IV bags on poles, a bank of electronic monitors, and two more large MPs with shotguns. The other person in the room was a petite African-American woman dressed in full ACU and desert boots, with a holstered Beretta on her hip. She was standing at the foot of the bed staring down at Muhammad when Pat O’Connor stepped into the room with Bob Burke close behind. Her head turned toward them and her green eyes flashed as she recognized their faces. If daggers could fly out of those two narrow slits, both he and O’Connor would already be skewered on the far wall.

  “This is an official CID investigation… and you!” she said, starting with O’Connor, but aiming the last barbed comment directly at Bob Burke as well.

  O’Connor stopped, held up both hands in surrender, and smiled, which Bob wasn’t even sure the grizzled old Command Sergeant Major’s face remembered how to do. “Special Agent Phillips,” he began, “could we have a word with you… in private, please,” he added as he put a gentle hand on her shoulder and steered her off into the corner as if he were nudging a live hand grenade.

  “Look, O’Connor,” she began all over again. Bob saw Pat flinch, but she probably didn’t understand. “You know you two have no business…”

  “Stand down, Special Agent,” Pat spoke quietly but firmly as he leaned in closer. “You are absolutely right, but let us consider the big picture. You’re a CW-3 Warrant Officer who works for a full colonel. I work for a Two-Star who works for a Four-Star, who told me to get my ass over here and talk to you and the prisoner. Should he have done that? Probably not, but he can and he did. So, if you want to get in a pissing contest to see who’s is longest, that colonel of yours is going to leave you dangling in the wind, isn’t he? And since I’m the highest-ranking NCO on this post, so will every enlisted man who works for you. So how about the three of us have a little talk, nice and polite. Okay?”

  She glared at him; but whether she liked it or not, she knew she was outmanned and seriously outgunned. “All right, O’Connor, tell me what you want,” she said angrily as she crossed her arms over her chest and stared at him.

  “Special Agent Phillips, let’s you and me get one thing straight.” O’Connor rose to his full height and looked down at her with an even harder expression, as he told her, “You can call me Command Sergeant Major or you can call me Pat, if you wish, but only my wife and Major General Arnold Stansky can get away with calling me O’Connor. And with all due respect, you and I do not have that kind of relationship, do we… Sharmayne?” Pat then turned toward Bob, who had been quite happy to remain behind out of the fray and added, “Oh, and in case you two haven’t been introduced, this is Major Robert Burke, now retired, who is a close advisor and friend of the General, and…”

  “I know who he is… Command Sergeant Major. I’ve been warned.”

  “Good, then you should be aware that no one in the Army knows the mindset of our enlisted men or Middle East terrorists better than Major Burke,” Pat O’Connor said.

  Her green eyes remained dark and flinty. “Fine. What do you want?”

  “He and I looked over the files this morning and…”

  “And what?” she bore in. “You two think I missed something?”

  “Look, Sharmayne…” Bob finally said.

  “Mister Burke,” she snapped, hands on hips. “You can call me Special Agent Phillips or you can call me Special Agent Phillips, ’cause you and I ain’t got no relationship, is that perfectly clear?”

  Bob laughed. “Okay. Well played. Let’s talk about the C-4. Did the arms room guys from the 20th Engineers cave yet and tell you how he got it? Did he buy it from them?”

  She stared at him for a long moment before she finally answered, “Yeah, he bought it from them. Four blocks at $1,000 each, cash…”

  “Four?” Bob asked, suddenly alarmed. “That means…”

  “That’s right, Sherlock, there’s another goddamn block of C-4 out there.”

  “Those guys in the 20th Engineers should be hanged,” Pat O’Connor said.

  “Don’t you think they know that?” Phillips countered. “That’s probably why they stonewalled us until we found the cash hidden in their cars. Now they’re scared. Funny how the mention of special rendition and Gitmo can have grown men peeing all over themselves. Muhammad swore he was taking it out of state to somebody and that it wouldn’t blow back on them. Stupid, huh? When we finally convinced them they were headed for a long vacation in the Caribbean, they finally opened up and cooperated.”

  “Did they see anyone with him? Was anyone else hanging around?” Bob asked.

  “No, just Muhammad.”

  “Then the big question is where did he get $4,000?”

  “No, the bigger question is where is that other block of C-4?”

  “The answer’s the same,” Bob told her. “We’ve looked at his bank account. His car’s a wreck, he’s living on payday loans, and he’s been dead broke for almost a year.”

  “Agreed. We saw that too,” she reluctantly said.

  “From his AFQT exams and his record, he doesn’t have the brains God gave a moose, so I find it hard to believe he could’ve put a complex series of attacks like this together.”

  “Agreed. Somebody’s pulling his strings.” She shuffled her feet and looked over the hospital bed. “Maybe somebody from that mosque.”

  “Maybe,” Bob answered. “But in all the mosques we encountered overseas, in Afghanistan and Iraq, the serious trouble almost never came from the Imams inside, it always came from the younger guys hanging around the back doors, smoking and arguing.”

  “Kinda like high school,” she grumbled.

  “Exactly like high school. That’s why we should check the mosque, but we also need to look at those classes he took downtown. Do you know who taught them, and if Muhammad really took them?”

  “Not yet, but we should in a few hours. We’re also trying to find out who he hung around with on post. We have a call in to his CO.”

  O’Connor nodded. “I’ll turn my NCO channels loose on him, too. Enlisted guys may BS their officers and the MPs, but nobody lies to their First Shirts.”

  Sharmayne looked up at him for a moment, thinking. “All right, maybe you do have your uses… Pat.”

  “And what about his cell phone?” Bob asked. “It was in his pocket when the bomb went off, so who triggered it? In addition to recently placed calls, w
hat was in his Speed Dial? What was the cell phone number of the bomb at the recruiting office that didn’t go off?”

  She looked up at Bob with a new respect, and he could see the wheels going around inside her head. “Those are all good questions. And the truth is I don’t know, but I’m going to find out.”

  Bob nodded, recognizing she was finally beginning to open up to them. “I’ve got an even better one,” he said. “Have you had any whiff that ISIS might be involved in this?”

  Her eyes went wide. “ISIS! Where the hell did that come from?”

  He looked at her and then said, “Very unofficially, a friend of a friend in the FBI. I heard they’re tracking a link to a possible ISIS cell here in Fayetteville, but that’s all I got.”

  “Jesus Christ! How the hell do you know something like that and I don’t?”

  “Because federal agencies never share anything with each other on anything. You know that better than I do. The only reason I heard is through a mutual friend. It’s not for attribution, but I’m going to see what else he’ll share.”

  “I want to be there.”

  “I’ll see what I can arrange. He’s a straight shooter.”

  “That’s high praise for the FBI.”

  “Good, and now that we’re all on the same sheet, is it okay with you if we all go over and talk to Muhammad?” Pat O’Connor asked.

  She turned her head and looked over at the heavily bandaged black man lying spread-eagled on the bed. “Okay, but I reserve the right to cut you off and throw you out if I don’t like where you’re going.”

  “No problem, Sharmayne,” Bob answered as he turned and walked over to the bed. Muhammad had tubes and wires going off in all directions but he wasn’t on a ventilator, his eyes were half open, and he was alert enough to be watching them as they approached.

  Bob stepped up to the bed and looked him over from head to foot. “Geez, you are a mess, Muhammad, but I guess it don’t matter none, does it? You know where they’re taking you from here, don’t you?”