Chapter 13
THIRTEEN
Sam walked into his office, which looked like Mission Control. Every single light was on, the banks of computer monitors all lit, and four men were sitting around his desk. Harry, Mike and two guys he had no trouble at all identifying as Feebs.
All looking grim.
“Show me what you have,” Sam said, sitting down behind his desk.
Silence for a moment, then Mike stirred. “Nothing good. First let me introduce the two newcomers. They’re—”
“FBI,” Sam said. “Yeah, I could tell.”
Two bland looks. “It’s the shoes,” Sam explained. If they’d been from military security they’d have been wearing boots. If they’d been CIA, the footwear would have been top quality.
A moment’s silence. The taller one, obviously senior, nodded. “Special Agent Rapp and this is Special Agent Vanzetti.”
Sam didn’t care if they were Special Agents Mulder and Scully. He’d never liked the Feebs. He just wanted them to cut to the chase.
“So give me the lowdown.” He looked each in the eye.
But it was Mike who answered. He’d been staring at a laptop screen. He turned it around so Sam could see it.
It was a page scanned from a military jacket. Prominent in the upper left hand side of the page was an unsmiling photograph of the man who’d broken into Nicole’s office.
The man was wearing a black beret, had a skull with two crossed knives flash on his shoulder. Ranger tab on the left sleeve.
Dishonorable discharge, for selling military arms off base.
It was all there, the massive threat to Nicole.
Sam’s jaw tightened and he bit down hard on his back teeth as he read carefully. The man’s name was Sean McInerny, 75th battalion. Saw action in Syria and Afghanistan. Dishonorable discharge in 2020.
Sam looked up at the four men. “A Ranger, like you said.”
Special Agent Rapp replied. “That’s right. We’ve been chasing him for a couple of years. After he got his discharge—”
“Dishonorable discharge,” Sam interrupted.
“Yeah.” Special Agent Rapp’s jaw muscles jumped.
“After he got his dishonorable discharge, he simply dropped off the face of the earth. We suspect he’s become a contract killer.
There was a partial found at the site of what was made to look like a mugging but was an assassination of a bank CEO.
And a security tape caught a half profile at another killing.
We were lucky this time, your tape caught him full face.
We have no idea where he lives. There is no record of any Sean McInerny renting or buying a house or a car, or using credit cards or entering or leaving the country.
We don’t know where he is. He’s off the grid. ”
“You do know where he is,” Sam pointed out coldly. “He’s here in San Diego, obviously on a job. Have you checked the hotels?” He kept outwardly calm but inside he was raging. A Special Forces soldier as a gun for hire. The news couldn’t have been worse.
“We’ve done this before, believe it or not,” Rapp said. “We’re making the rounds now with a photograph, because if he’s in a hotel, he’s using an alias. We want him worse than you do.”
I doubt it, Sam thought grimly. They were just doing their job, wanting to bag a bad guy. It would go on their record, maybe snag them a promotion. He wanted to keep his woman safe. Big difference. He opened his mouth to say something when his cell vibrated, three times in quick succession.
Every hair on his body stood up. He could actually feel them brushing against his shirtsleeves and shirt front, tiny little spears of terror. He froze, unable to move, unable to breathe, panic exploding in his head in a surge of white-hot light.
The two Feebs didn’t notice, though Harry and Mike were looking at him strangely. Sam shook his head sharply and they got the message. Not now.
Rapp was checking something on the laptop, pointing to the screen and Vanzetti was talking quietly into his cell. He switched off and turned to his partner. “We’ve just checked all the hotels and motels in the metropolitan area. Nothing.”
Sam clenched his jaws. Even if they’d started checking immediately, they’d only had a couple of hours.
The fact that they’d already checked with all the hotels and motels in the area meant that they’d called in local law enforcement officers, too.
Probably the entire SDPF. This was a huge manhunt.
All the more reason to get them out of his hair. Right. Now.
His cell was in his hand. He wanted to call Nicole with it so badly it felt like it was burning against his palm.
Sam stood and the two Feebs looked up, startled, then stood, too.
A big, theatrical yawn as he stretched. He put on a sheepish look.
“Didn’t sleep well last night,” he confessed to them.
He’d slept maybe four hours in the past forty-eight, but he couldn’t sleep now if you pumped him full of a triple dose of Valium.
Every cell in his body was on red alert.
He wanted the two Feebs out on their asses, now.
“Sounds like you’ve got an army out looking for this guy, this Sean McInerney.
I’m sure you’ll get him real soon. When you find him, I have a few words to say to him. ”
He knew what he wanted them to see. A genial guy who’d had a scare a couple of hours ago, but now only wanted to get back to his bed, where a beautiful woman awaited him.
There was no way for the Feebs to know that under that amiable persona was a man sweating with terror, guts cold and roiling because something was going down now.
Harry and Mike watched, baffled, as Sam subtly urged the two special agents to the outer door and saw them off with a brisk handshake.
“Sam,” Harry said uneasily when the door closed behind them. “Don’t you understand that the guy who broke into Nicole’s apartment is a—"
“No time,” Sam gritted. “Got a signal from my cell phone—means my home security’s been breached.
Someone going out. Nicole’s on the move.
No way would Nicole leave my apartment without telling me unless she was forced to.
” He had Nicole’s cell phone number on speed dial.
It was busy. Goddamn. “Harry!” he barked.
“Triangulate this number for me, fast.” He rapped out Nicole’s cell phone number.
Harry put his crutches to one side, sat down at one of the computers and bent over the keyboard.
Sam switched on a monitor connected with his home computer and saw the big, dark empty lobby of his own apartment complex appear.
“Shit,” Mike breathed. “You’re hacking your own building’s security.”
The cameras were high quality. It had been a condition for buying the apartment.
No jerky stills every four seconds to save money.
Sam went to ten minutes ago, when he’d heard the signal that Nicole was leaving his apartment.
He could see everything, including the night guard behind his U-shaped desk.
It was 0200 in the morning but the guard was alert, not reading, not dozing, checking in a regular loop the array of monitors glowing brightly on the desk.
Good man.
The guard must have heard something. He turned toward the bank of elevators, hand on his holstered weapon.
And there she was, Nicole, looking desperate, nearly running across the lobby.
She stopped just outside the huge glass doors, at the limit of the lobby cameras’ range.
Sam watched her, shaking, slender arms crossed over her waist as if hugging herself for comfort as she waited for something impatiently.
Mike had drifted over to stand by Sam. Harry watched the screen, face sober.
Sam called her again. Busy. She wasn’t talking into it. She was keeping the line open because…he felt air leave the room. She was keeping it open because someone was keeping tabs on her.
Her head lifted as she saw something outside, then she ran out of the cameras’ range. A faint glow could be seen beyond the building’s gates. A light on top of a yellow vehicle.
“Outdoor cameras,” he ordered and Harry typed so fast his fingers were a blur. It was Harry’s building, too, and he knew the codes inside out. The outside cameras flashed onto the monitors, showed Nicole opening the passenger door of a taxi. The plates were in shadow.
Sam called again. Busy.
“Keep that cell phone triangulated,” he ordered Harry.
“On it.”
The only thing that would force Nicole out would be a threat to her father.
“Mike,” he said, striding to the gun locker hidden away in a coat closet. He punched in the code fast and opened the armored door. “Check on those two officers guarding Nicole’s father.”
“Roger that.” Mike was in uniform, radio mike attached to a loop on his shoulder. He spoke quietly into it, static cutting in and out.
Sam stared at the small arsenal he had. Don’t bring a knife to a gunfight. Match your weapon to your mission. Holy, sacred words that had been pounded into his head by every drill instructor he’d ever had. Matching your weapon to your mission was essential if you wanted to stay alive.
The mission was Nicole. But what was he facing here?
He tried to call her again, on the faintest hope that she’d closed the connection. Maybe now that she was in a taxi…
No such luck. Busy. She was following orders.
“Harry,” he called over his shoulder. “Where’s she going?”
“Heading out along the causeway. Maybe coming into town? No, she’s moving inland. Taxi’s moving real fast. Over the speed limit.”
Mouth grim, Sam turned back to the locker.
If you didn’t know your enemy, then you couldn’t go wrong with a long gun and a pistol. He chose an HK–91 with an already-mounted scope. He already had his Glock 19, good for close-in work. NVG. Three magazines for the HK, hanging off a belt. Who knew how much firepower he’d be needing?
He bent and put a small block of C–4 and three detonators inside a backpack. A lot of problems could be solved by C–4. Flashbangs, four grenades.
He had a full tactical suit in the locker, they all did. He stripped down to the skin and built a warrior from the skin out. Nomex suit, body armor.
Mike was stripping out of his cop uniform.