Victoria smiled, trying to diffuse the situation a little bit. He was liable to tell her that the meeting was over, or at the very least demand that she stop the recording. She knew that she was skating on thin ice so she tried carefully to precisely word her next question.
“I try to get a full picture of the facts for my stories. While many reporters are running on the assumption that your attack was a case of bad luck, others are questioning whether the militants were actually orchestrating a well thought out plan.”
“Obviously, my kidnapping was well planned. They planned to kidnap me and they executed that plan.”
“Yes, but the why part is still unknown. Some pundits say that the “why” is as simple as your being a prominent American who was in the wrong place at the right time. However, some posit that maybe you were under attack for reasons other than your being a former U.S. Congressman.” Okay, Victoria knew that she was stretching it here—she was really the only reporter that she knew about who questioned whether there was a different motivation behind Henning’s abduction.
She waited for a response, but Henning just glanced away with a look of irritation on his face. He nodded to his security team who were lurking nearby. She could tell that at any second he was going to bolt from the table. He was already signaling to the waiter for the check.
“Listen, Mr. Henning. If the motivations behind your abduction were anything but random, I would think that you would want to know,” she rushed ahead.
“I would prefer it if you stop the recording if you are going to continue with this unrelated line of questioning.” Henning watched Victoria carefully reach across the table to turn off the recorder.
“And what exactly makes you believe that it was anything other than random?” Henning asked.
“For starters … your connection to Nava Drug Corp. I have reliable sources that indicate that some of the key management and chemists who work for the company are currently under investigation by several international law enforcement agencies.”
“I’m sure neither I nor the management of the Henning Cooper Company is aware of any such investigations.”
“What about Walt Mickelson?”
“What about Walt Mickelson?” Richard Henning replied in a disturbingly soft voice.
“I interviewed Mr. Mickelson earlier this month. He left the Henning Cooper Company very abruptly.”
“I’m sure he had his reasons.”
“Oh, so you’re not sure? What his reasons were I mean? I would think that after a year of tense litigation and then what I can only imagine must have been a healthy settlement amount, surely you must now know what his reasons were for leaving your company.” Instead of responding to her sarcasm, Henning leaned back into his chair, looked at her, and smiled.
“He mentioned to me that he had a problem with some of your new clients,” Victoria continued defiantly, unmoved by the dark glares that Henning was shooting her way.
“Well that’s unfortunate. He didn’t mention any of that to me. He left after the restructure of the company. Unfortunately, the restructuring process reduced his share ownership. So I assumed that his departure was related to the change in his ownership percentage.”
“Are you also unaware of the investigations that both you and your company are under by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency?” Victoria was watching Henning closely as his eyes iced over to an interesting shade of arctic blue. Instead of the color draining from his face, however, a burst of red coloring infused his cheeks.
She had done it, she had played her last card in the deck, pushing him to the edge of his limits, and now he looked as if he was about to explode. Either that or reach across the table and attempt to strangle her.
“Those are some very big assertions from a reporter working for the very small Dallas Star Gazette,” Henning said, abruptly standing up from the table. Henning turned his back on her as if to walk away, but then he must have thought the better of it, because he turned back around and placed one meaty hand on the table right in front of her.
He leaned forward, right into her face. He was obviously trying to intimidate her. His eyes were like two tiny pinpoints of blue fire, and his hands were shaking—as if he was trying his best not to reach across the table and smack her or strangle her. Actually, he probably would have if there hadn’t been any witnesses. “Rest assured, your editor will hear about this and soon. If I were you, I’d have a back of plan for your day job.”
“Well, now I see some of that charming character coming out of you that I’ve read so much about. Please be advised Mr. Henning, I don’t scare easily. My job is to report the full story to the public. And I intend to do just that,” Victoria replied in as icy of a tone as she could muster. All the while, her insides were shaking—but she’d be damned if this prick would ever know that he had struck a nerve.
Without saying another word, Henning got up from the table and walked out of the café, his security group following him out.
Crap. That certainly hadn’t gone as smoothly as she had hoped. She had known that it would be a risk to push him on his connection with the Russian drug company, but she had to take that chance. Henning didn’t say much, but sometimes what people didn’t say spoke louder than words.
Since getting the information that the good former Congressman was actually under an “informal” DEA investigation, she had a modicum of leverage to lean on him a bit. Word of the investigation was going to come out at some point regardless.
Monika had told her that Richard Henning had been flagged in the FBI system as well, which was interconnected with the DEA via the shared Firebird computer system. Nevertheless, her friend had refused to probe further to determine the extent of the investigation.
To be fair to her friend, if Monika had snooped any further she would definitely be at risk not only losing her job at the FBI, but also criminal sanctions because the data about the investigation was undoubtedly highly classified.
Victoria calculated that the best move to make at this point would be to investigate Nava Drug Corp primarily and see what she could shake loose. Obviously, she hadn’t yet figured out the drug connection here. But DEA involvement wasn’t a unusual if there were somehow illegal prescription drugs flowing between the Russian and U.S. borders.
Picking up her attaché case, Victoria walked toward the exit. It was nearly one-thirty p.m. and she needed to get to the office to start tracking down some new leads and to explain the whole rogue investigation she was conducting to her boss.
Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop!
Victoria had just reached the entrance to the front of the hotel when she heard a rapid-fire cacophony of sounds followed by loud screams. Victoria felt a sense of dread creep up and land squarely at the base of her stomach.
Holy hell.
Pop! Pop! Pop!
Those were gunshots. Victoria was a left-leaning, tree-hugging, peace-loving, gun-avoiding hippie. Nevertheless, she knew with a chilling certainty what those sounds were, even though she was hoping that she was wrong. Those were gunshots.
She knew this to be true because she had dated a Navy SEAL for two years of her life, after all. She had told Joshua that she was afraid of guns, and had taken it upon himself to teach her how to shoot for her protection. She had gone a few times with him to the gun range—but an overall love of guns hadn’t taken hold of her. But she still recognized the distinct staccato sound of gunfire.
Sprinting out of the front door of the hotel, Victoria rushed toward what was certain danger, like a firefighter racing toward the fire. Upon crossing the threshold of the hotel that led out into the street, Victoria could feel that whatever had just happened was very bad. Gone was the normalcy that had characterized this very same street just a few hours before.
People were in a panic. Victoria saw three young women sprinting away from the right side of the street, screaming the whole time. Several grown men were quickly running in the same direction too. Some of those individuals who were running had
their phones out, presumably to call the cops.
She saw what appeared to be two men speeding off on a motorcycle, rounding a corner coming off a side street. At least Victoria thought that they were men. It was difficult to tell because the angle in which she was standing only afforded her a side view. Both were wearing dark clothing and had short dark hair, and black leather jackets.
Victoria headed to the left, which by the fact that it was the direction that everyone was running from, was precisely where the action was. She was a reporter after all and she wanted to see if she could do anything to help. Rounding the corner, Victoria’s faced drained in disbelief.
Dios Mio. Lying in the middle of the side street that intersected with Main Street and Catalina Boulevard, was Richard Henning. He was profusely bleeding from multiple gunshot wounds. He had taken at least one round to the chest and another to the stomach. His previously pristine white linen dress shirt was drenched in blood.
Lying around him in bright red pools of blood were the three members of his protective detail. Like Henning, someone had shot all three bodyguards multiple times. The bodyguards were definitely dead. She didn’t have to be a doctor to make these diagnoses. Shots to the head typically didn’t end well for the victim. Richard Henning looked dead too as Victoria approached him.
“Help,” Victoria screamed into the nearly desolate street, “Please help! Someone please call 911!” Victoria’s hands were shaking and her heart was pounding so rapidly she could swear that it was going to jump out of her chest. She dropped to her knees in front of Henning.
When she knelt down next to him Victoria realized that he was still breathing. His breaths were faint, but they were definitely there.
Victoria hurriedly took off her jacket and tried to press down as hard as she could with one hand on the wounds that were in his chest and stomach. She attempted to staunch the flow of the blood but the bright red, viscous fluid was pumping out of his body at a shocking rate.
The disturbing combination of the metallic smell of the blood and the thick, stickiness of the liquid between her fingers was almost enough to make her vomit. She barely held herself together, but seeing her lunch for a second time today, wouldn’t do anyone any good—especially not Henning.
She had only had the most basic of first aid training. She remembered that triaging the wounds themselves were important, so that’s what she tried to do. She figured that the chest and stomach wounds were likely Henning’s biggest obstacles to living to see another day. She continued to press down on those wounds with her jacket.
“Help! Someone help!” Victoria yelled again. She couldn’t believe that no other Good Samaritans had arrived to assist the fallen men.
She hoped that her efforts were actually help him, but she knew that he could easily bleed out from the combination of all the other wounds that he had sustained. Looking down at Henning, she saw that he was completely nonresponsive at this point. He was growing paler by the minute and his breaths were getting even shallower, his labored breaths were those of a man didn’t have long left on planet Earth.
Victoria looked up and saw a man standing across the street. He wasn’t trying to run from the chaos, he didn’t appear to be scared at all. He was just standing there, watching her. With her trembling left hand, Victoria pulled her cell phone out of her purse, and became what she was sure was the hundredth person to call 911 about the shooting.
Chapter Eleven
“
Ms. Sanchez we have a few more questions for you.”
Victoria looked up from where she was sitting in an interrogation room of the Dallas Police Department. There were two men standing in front of her in dark suits. She could tell by the way that they were carrying themselves that they were federal agents of some sort.
Members of the Dallas Police Department had driven her to the police station so that they could take her formal statement. Officers had also questioned Victoria for at least half an hour about what she witnessed of the shooting.
“I’m agent Foster and this is my partner agent Mills, with the Federal Bureau of Investigation,” the older agent drawled out, nodding to the younger man standing next to him. Both men opened up their wallets to flash their badges at her and then sat down in seats across from her.
They both had dark brown hair and eyes and were currently wearing haggard expressions their faces. Victoria could imagine that investigating the attempted murder of a U.S. Congressman must have been trying, to say the least.
“Yes. I’m not sure what more I can add. I spoke with two detectives from the Dallas PD earlier.”
“Yes. We understand ma’am, but we like to interview witnesses ourselves. Now you say that you had just finished a meeting with Mr. Henning right before he was shot?”
“Yes. The interview started at around noon at the café at the Hotel Catalina. We had just finished up a few minutes before he was shot.”
“What newspaper do you work for?”
“The Dallas Star Gazette.”
“What was the interview about?”
“Well, I was interviewing him for a local news article about his recent kidnapping and rescue.” That was mostly the truth at least.
“Did you see the actual shooting?”
“No. I had just started to walk out of the hotel when I heard several loud bangs. I realized that the sounds were gunshots, and so I rushed outside.”
The two FBI agents glanced at each other at that statement.
“You actually ran toward the sounds?” the younger officer asked.
“Well yes. I am a crime reporter. And I wanted to see if I could do anything to help,” Victoria replied.
“Did you see anyone else around Mr. Henning and his bodyguards?”
“No. Well, I didn’t see anyone immediately around them. But I did see what appeared to be two men speeding off on a motorbike.”
“Yeah, we have your statement here and that’s what you told the Dallas police. Were these two men on different motorbikes? Or was there just one motorbike? How do you know that they were men? Did you see their faces? Have you seen them before?”
“There was only one motorbike, they were riding together. I said that they ‘appeared’ to be men. I’m not certain. Everything happened so fast. The individuals on the motorbike seemed to have thin frames and both had short hair. From the angle that I was standing, I didn’t get a look at their faces. I don’t believe that I’ve ever seen them before, but then I didn’t get a clear look at their faces.”
“Did you notice what kind of motorcycle it was?”
“Umm, yeah I’m not sure the make or model. It was black though. I think.” Given how fast that everything had happened once she walked outside, Victoria could hardly be sure of anything. She knew that eyewitness identifications had the reputation of being incredibly unreliable, and now she could see why.
Victoria watched as they both furiously scribbled information down in their notepads. Then she remembered something, “I forgot to mention this when I spoke to the police earlier. It probably doesn’t mean anything though,” she hesitated.
Both men looked up from their notepads and stared at her with two sets of piercing brown eyes. The older agent, Foster, said, “Ms. Sanchez, I assure you, anything that you can remember will be helpful to us.”
“Well, like I said, it’s probably nothing, but I did see a man standing across the street. I mean it was odd. Everyone else was running away from the area. But this guy was just standing there watching, all calm. He wasn’t trying to rush anywhere. He was just looking.”
“He was looking at you, specifically?” asked agent Mills.
“No. Well, at least I don’t think so. I’m pretty sure he was there watching across the street before I got there.”
“Are you sure?”
“Well, I can’t be one hundred percent positive of course. But I think I remember seeing him out of the corner of my eye when I rushed up to Mr. Henning.”
“What did this man look like?�
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“He was white. I guess of average height, thin build. He looked middle-aged. A beard covered his facial features. He had on a hat, but his beard was a dark color. Like a dark brown.”
“What was he wearing?”
“I guess a black shirt and pants? Maybe it was dark brown? I’m not sure. I’m sorry.”
“No, that’s fine. That’s good information that we would need to know.”
Foster and Mills took turns asking Victoria a few more questions before she was free to leave. They made sure to tell her that they may have follow up questions for her and they both gave her their business cards.
Victoria grabbed her purse and attaché case and walked out of the police station. Her car was still with the hotel valet, so she took a cab home. It was close to six p.m. in the evening and she just wanted to take a hot shower and put this horrible day behind her.
Someone had shot Richard Henning.
Victoria still couldn’t fully grasp the magnitude of what she had seen just a few hours earlier. As soon as she got into her car, she checked the voicemail on her cell phone. Her editor, Edward, had called. He sounded pissed off by the tone of his voicemail. Of course, he had a right to be. He’d found out from the Dallas police department that his number one crime reporter was investigating a story that he didn’t know about and that he for damn sure didn’t authorize.
Edward wanted to speak with Victoria first thing in the morning—in his office. Victoria knew she should be bracing herself for the pink slip that she was bound to receive. At least she had a few thousand dollars in her savings account, which should be able to get her through a few months with a paycheck.
When she entered her apartment, she shivered as the cold air hit her skin. She had left her air conditioning on earlier today, and now her whole apartment felt like a meat locker. Turning on her living room lights, another shiver ran down her spine that had nothing at all to do with the air conditioning.
Pushed to the Edge (SEAL Team 14) Page 13
