The Alex Troutt Thrillers: Books 1-3 (Alex Troutt Thrillers Box Set)

by John W. Mefford

  “What happened?”

  “I think you need to hear Bruno’s version first. I gotta say it’s not for the faint of heart.”

  “Play it.”

  A pause, then we heard a rustling sound. “Damn phone. Hold on. Wait...here it is.”

  I could hear sobbing echo throughout the interview room.

  Carella: “Tell me, Bruno, what happened on that final mission.”

  More crying and gasping sniffles.

  Some other voice, most likely Bruno’s lawyer: “You don’t have to do this. This won’t buy you—”

  Bruno: “Just shut the fuck up, will you? I have to tell someone. Anyone. Look what the hell she’s done. To herself. Even to me.”

  There was a long pause, a rattle of metal on metal, and a prolonged snort. Archie and I traded stares. His face had tightened. Perhaps he didn’t want to hear the story. Perhaps he already knew the story.

  Bruno hissed out a breath, then said: “We were dropped into the lower Hindu Kush Mountains. Middle of the night. We were lucky—not a bit of light. No moon. Nothing. Of course we had on our night-vision goggles. Not much was said, other than standard comms. We found the Kunar River without much trouble, started following it.”

  “Alex, Archie.” Carella had stopped the recording. “Bruno fades away here for a minute or two. No emotion, but no connection to anyone in the room. His lawyer pinged him with a couple of questions and then he suggested to me that his client might be having a nervous breakdown, a surefire sign of PTSD. He asked the guards to take him away. But then Bruno snapped back to it and insisted on spilling his guts.”

  A call from down below.

  “Give us another minute, Ralph,” I shouted, then, “I’m all ears, Carella. Hit play.”

  “Here it goes.”

  A heavy chair squeaked across a floor, and a bundle of keys jangled.

  Carella: “I’m still here, Bruno. Not going anywhere as long as you want to talk.”

  Bruno: “Kunar is one of the deadliest places on the planet. Formally, it’s called the N2KL province—one of four provinces in Afghanistan the military has given that designation. Among those on the frontlines, it’s been called Enemy Central. It’s basically a shitstorm just waiting for someone to light a match. You can’t trust anyone, yet I know there are normal people there who are trying to just survive one day at a time.”

  A throat cleared and then a deep intake of air.

  Bruno in a quieter tone: “We met some of them. Yeah...”

  Again, his voice trailed off.

  Carella: “You met some kindhearted folks who weren’t trying to kill you? Must have been nice for a change, huh?”

  Bruno, after a couple of beats: “Yeah, uh, I’ll get to that in a minute.”

  Carella: “Okay. You and the team were moving down the Kunar River.”

  Bruno: “Right. Eyes were in constant motion, but we were in super stealth mode. Made good headway and then paused behind a cluster of rocks and spotted lights from a small cottage, smoke pouring out of the chimney. Not a lot of activity around it, but we did see four guards standing outside, walking around, smoking, with AK-47s over their shoulders.”

  Carella: “How big was your unit?”

  Bruno: “We were down to twelve. Six Marines, four contractors, and two CIA guys. They had final say on whether we carried out a mission or pulled back because the risk might be too high.”

  Carella: “Did they call to abandon any of your missions?”

  A long pause. My eyes shifted from the phone to Archie. He averted my gaze.

  Bruno: “No. Never. I’m not sure they understood the term ‘risk.’ It’s like they were fuckin’ kamikazes or something.”

  Carella: “So they gave the go-ahead.”

  Bruno: “Yeah, but we played it as safe as we could.”

  Carella: “Including Margaret.”

  Bruno: “Even Margaret. She didn’t have a death wish. She was always trying to show she was tougher than any guy out there. But that night, all hell came down on us, and she was just like the rest of us. Scared shitless.”

  Carella: “What happened?”

  More rustling, as if someone had moved in his seat.

  Bruno: “We couldn’t just blow up the place without knowing. First, the brass wanted visual evidence of the kills. I’m sure they wanted to flaunt their victories, maybe leak it to the public, hoping that others who were thinking about joining one of these crazy terrorist groups would think twice. And second, we weren’t in the business of killing innocent civilians. At least I didn’t think we were.”

  Another glare at Archie, and he continued to stare off into the sky with nothing more than a blank expression.

  Carella: “The hell that came down on you guys. Did it come from the house or where?”

  Bruno: “I can still remember that first muzzle flash from the cottage. I about swallowed my tongue. Then before I could get my rifle up, it fucking rained bullets. Pinging the rocks all around me. God knows how I didn’t get hit. But they were everywhere. They came out of every nook and cranny in the mountainside. It was like we kicked over a mound of fire ants.”

  Carella: “How long did it last?”

  More metal clanging and a drawn-out breath.

  Carella: “Bruno?”

  Bruno: “Fuck, man. It’s...”

  Carella: “Tell me.”

  Two pounding thuds. I jerked the phone closer to my body, my free hand squeezing the side of the ladder. Bruno must have lost it momentarily. Still, Archie looked away.

  Bruno: “One of the CIA guys, called himself Chewy because he was so damn hairy, he shifted position, flanking right to get a better angle on this cluster of shooters. Not ten feet from me, I saw him take about twenty bullets. His head exploded like a pumpkin that had been dropped off the side of a building.”

  Carella: “Holy shit, man.”

  Bruno: “Yeah, I’m telling you. War...it’s fucked up. I could hear people screaming, some from the team, a few out there yelling with joy.”

  Carella: “Damn. How did you get out of there alive?”

  Bruno: “Luck. During a brief lull in the shooting, I followed that other CIA nut job who wanted to rush the house...I followed him down this hill that headed toward the back of the house. I just knew I was about to breathe my last breath. Do you know what that’s like? To know death is milliseconds away?”

  Carella: “No, Bruno. You tell me.”

  Bruno: “Thought my heart was going to burst out of my chest. I could see the house up ahead. Maybe fifty yards. I knew if we got to the side of it, we’d have decent cover. I picked up my pace. Then we were at twenty yards, bullets flying past my ear, taking chunks out of the ground to my left and right. I couldn’t control my breathing. Every step was like lifting a thousand pounds, but I couldn’t give up. At about ten yards, someone from behind me yelled, and I flipped my head around. That’s when I tripped and dropped to the ground, banging my head off a rock. I looked up and saw that I’d fallen over a dead man. Not two seconds later, the CIA guy took four to the back and died a few feet from the house.”

  Carella: “Shit.”

  I could sense Carella’s growing discomfort with the Q&A session. But he pressed on like he knew he had to.

  Carella: “Where was Margaret during all of this?”

  Bruno: “That woman was...” He chuckled once. “A fucking machine. She took out two more who came out of the house after me. Then she threw two grenades into the house, and we hightailed it out of there. Met up with the rest of the team about a quarter mile south of the location. In all, we’d lost both CIA operatives, two Marines, and a contractor. Everyone was rattled. Scared shitless is more like it.”

  Carella: “Were you free and clear?”

  Bruno: “Far from it. We’d paused for something like five minutes, and we were already taking random sniper shots. There were so many damn cave networks it was practically impossible to know where the enemy was at all times. We radioed in the call for our pickup,
and we headed toward our rendezvous point.”

  Carella: “You didn’t get there?”

  Bruno: “We weren’t a tight team. Probably by design. Looking back, I think the CIA picked guys who weren’t exactly stable. Yes, I’m including me in that lot. I know I’ve had some issues over the years. That was the worst thing for me.”

  Another puff of breath.

  Carella stayed silent, and then Bruno continued: “Maybe our issues gave us an edge in combat, but with no real leaders, dead people all around us, guys started to lose it.”

  Carella: “How?”

  Bruno: “Couple of them traded punches. One of the contractors pulled out a knife and threatened Beck. Margaret put a gun to the contractor’s head, and he put the knife away. It just got worse from there. We were getting loud, out of control. It was strange...without any real discussion, the contractors grabbed their stuff and took off in a different direction, saying they’d survive better on their own.”

  Carella: “That left, what, six of you?”

  Bruno: “We started taking fire, so we got the hell out of there. The terrain sucked. Potholes, rocks, caves everywhere. Couldn’t be sure if the next step might trigger some type of booby-trap bomb. But we didn’t stop moving...well, until we came upon another militia group. Think we’d interrupted some type of drug-smuggling deal between a couple of tribes. We had to change direction. Broke through a thicket of trees into a clearing and ran like hell. Think we covered about three miles over the next couple of hours. Then we came upon a small village. No more than twenty, thirty people. Very nice people. They were happy to see us. We all felt a sense of relief.”

  Silence again, until we heard a high-pitched keening.

  Bruno: “Oh my God, I still can’t believe it. I don’t want to believe it.”

  Carella: “Tell me.”

  The lawyer: “Bruno, I must interject here and advise you not to say anything further. You releasing your demons will only damage your reputation and could get you into more trouble.”

  A few sniffles.

  Bruno: “I don’t care anymore. I just can’t keep up the lie.”

  The lawyer: “Bruno, do not say—”

  A loud thud. I think Bruno had pounded his fist.

  Bruno: “I don’t work for you. You’re not my CO. Shut the fuck up.”

  A few seconds of labored breathing.

  Bruno: “One of the villagers had alcohol, and all of us on the team got drunk. Really drunk. Well, all but one. Beck. He was out doing recon. When he came back, we were all dancing, thinking we were going to get picked up in the next couple of hours. But when Beck got back, he said he found at least four hundred militia set up in two different places preparing to raid the village. That’s when shit turned upside down.”

  Carella: “What do you mean?”

  Bruno: “We all thought we were going to die. No. We knew it. Then, in another room, one of the guys, Doug Schuler, caught Margaret by surprise, and he tried to...rape her. We caught him in the middle of it all. She was beaten, bruised, tied up. We got him off her and tried to help her. But she fucking lost it. She...”

  Carella: “What did Margaret do?”

  Bruno after an audible sigh: “Shit, I can’t believe I’m saying this. But she put a gun to Doug’s head and made each one of us have sex with her.”

  Carella: “What? Why?”

  Bruno: “It was the sickest thing I’d ever seen, ever been a part of. I think she really just lost it. Beck is the only one who refused, no matter how much she yelled at him or threatened to kill Doug. She pulled the trigger, and Doug cried out, but the gun didn’t fire. She then started laughing, and it went on for fifteen, twenty minutes. It was twisted. We knew she’d lost it.”

  Carella: “Okay. After that, what happened?”

  Bruno: “She left the room, then came back in, dragging one of the villagers. She was convinced they’d ratted on us. She shot him in the head. Then she rounded up all the others and put them in a room. She forced each one of us to kill three or four people. She killed the rest.”

  I nudged Archie’s shoulder, and he just shook his head, refusing to look at me. Two hawks screeched, and I watched them soar across the park as wind slapped against my face. I tried to swallow, but there was no moisture left in my mouth.

  Carella came back on the phone. “Can you believe that shit?”

  “I’ve never heard of any case like this...any person like this in my life. How about you, Archie?”

  The CIA agent finally glanced up at me, the exposed sun over my shoulder now causing him to squint. He looked back down and muttered, “Never.”

  “Alex, what the hell is next?” Carella asked emphatically.

  I thought that one over until my feet hit the ground. Then I had to make an educated guess.

  18

  I punched in a group text to the team back in Boston: Circling Baltimore. Got anything for me?

  “Gotta know whether to take the last exit for downtown Baltimore, Alex,” Archie said, fidgeting in the driver’s seat. He shifted the rearview and checked his blind spot twice, then started edging the muscle car into the right-hand lane. “Alex. We’ve got three seconds. Two, one...”

  “Nothing. Keep going.”

  He snapped the wheel back into the center lane, slamming my bandaged shoulder into the door.

  “Dammit, Archie.” I gripped my shoulder while biting into my cheek, trying to defer the pain to another part of my body.

  “This sucker can really perform. Must take one of those blue pills,” he said with a wry smile.

  “Back at the gas station I thought I saw you pulling something out of your pocket and putting it in the gas tank.” I showed my teeth, then glanced back at the phone. Nothing.

  “Just call them. It’s been another hour.”

  “They said they’d call when they had something solid on Turov. I’ve got to trust them.”

  In reality, I was on pins and needles. I couldn’t go two minutes without staring at my phone, holding it like it held the secret to the location of the fountain of youth.

  The yellow glow of streetlights passed overhead every couple of seconds. We were motoring east on I-695, heading for I-95 South. Archie weaved through Saturday evening traffic, the wide set of tires gripping the dry road flawlessly. The car was obnoxious, but it had served a purpose—getting us from point A, Hershey, to point B, our exact destination unknown.

  Back in Chocolate City, USA, I knew we couldn’t sit around, work a crime scene, and wait for a verification of the obvious.

  Turov had killed Beck. Who was next on her list? We had studied a map on my phone while standing next to the bumblebee sports car. Lewisburg, Cobb’s penitentiary home for the time being, sat to our north; Pittsburgh about the same distance west. But my eyes gravitated south, knowing that the East Coast had the most people and drew the most eyes. While it appeared Turov had a specific list of people she intended to kill, she also seemed all too aware of the impact she’d made on those who chased her. The CIA, FBI, and countless local police departments.

  And me. Her latest dance move was leaving notes that she knew I’d read. Was there anything more to the notes than a psycho getting her jollies? Who knew, but I couldn’t ignore my gut. I had told Archie to head south toward DC.

  “Why DC?” he asked.

  “It’s the biggest stage. If you take out the side step to Hershey, she’s moving in a southerly direction.”

  My impatience got the better of me, and I quickly phoned the team back in Boston, where Nick picked up the call to the war room.

  “I’m going stir crazy, Alex. I’m not used to being cooped up in an office for days, nights in a row. I need to be in the field, dammit.”

  I offered my condolences for his professional challenge, knowing there was no way in hell I’d be able to survive being held hostage inside an office for so long. We quickly segued into a team debrief on the Beck crime scene and our next steps. Specifically, I was hoping that they’d been able to pic
k up Turov’s trail or even a hint of who might be on her target list. Nick could only say that Jerry had gotten involved—which wasn’t always a good sign because he had a tendency to steer the investigation from his own emotional perspective—and Jerry had gone off to make a phone call.

  For Nick, Brad, and Gretchen, I offered my own insight. I told them we were taking a chance by traveling in a direction where Turov hadn’t committed a crime. It went against all of our training, but even Archie admitted we had no choice. We had to make some type of proactive move, and maybe we’d get lucky. To me, luck was the intersection of hard work and persistence. My team, therefore, was due a strong dose of luck.

  “Since Turov went after Beck, logic would say she’d go after the four other guys who participated in the mission. Figure out who they are and find them,” I said. “But that still might not be our ticket. So don’t limit your scope to just the four men. Remember, she killed a used car salesman. Anyone is fair game in her mind if they ever crossed her.”

  After ending the call, I let the recurring strum of the tires on pavement take my thoughts back to the amusement park, where I imagined Sam Beck’s last living moments. For a reason I couldn’t comprehend, she killed the one guy who refused to cross the line with her on the other side of the planet. In return, she’d gutted him, creating the same type of twisted vignette that had become her calling card. Similar to the ring killings. Outside of using Cobb as her killing patsy, both sets of murders had a common denominator: the victims had been used as cadaver props to elicit the most anguish and the most humiliation—on the victims and on the law enforcement agencies in pursuit of the killer, as cold as the trail appeared at times.

  But it had become rather obvious, at least part of the reason, why Turov had gone on this killing spree. PTSD, one of the most hidden yet pervasive conditions caused by trauma, usually associated with war combat. And from what Bruno described, their experience took that to the extreme, at least partially because of the people involved.

  What did Bruno say? He suspected they were chosen for the covert op because they each had issues. Send the crazies in to do the dirty work. The work no one else could do, or would do.