Taker of Lives

by Leslie Wolfe

  “I’m saying the Taker has something really special in mind for Brianna Gillespie.”

  Silence engulfed the room and lasted long moments. Tess refrained from adding anything else, afraid she’d dissipate the paper-thin urge she’d managed to arouse in her boss to hunt for the killer.

  “Who’s got eyes on the senator’s residence?” she eventually asked. “You remember the Taker installs cameras everywhere, right?”

  “Eat your burger, Winnett,” Pearson snapped.

  She understood quite well that he wanted her to shut up but couldn’t say it to her face. Nevertheless, she used the opportunity to wolf down some food. Fradella followed suit.

  “I have SA Patton and Walz on the scene,” Pearson replied eventually, refusing her invitation to partake in some fries with a swift gesture of his hand.

  “Patton’s good, but Walz…” she started, but Pearson glared at her and she clammed up promptly.

  The silence lingered on, tugging at her taut nerves. She shot the wall clock a quick glance, then broached the subject again.

  “Is the scene compromised, sir? If those two tipped their hand in any way, the Taker knows.”

  “Winnett!” Pearson bellowed, and she froze, her hand, holding the last remaining fries, stuck in mid-air. “When are you going to stop assuming we’re all idiots?”

  “I didn’t—”

  “I’m not done yet,” he added, still shouting. “We haven’t compromised a single thing yet. Patton and Walz are a nice couple vacationing in the house cross the street. They set eyes on Brianna earlier and have deployed surveillance discreetly—cameras, infrared, directional audio, the works.”

  “When did you have the time to—” she started to ask, then turned to Donovan. “Why didn’t you tell me? For how many women down that list did we do this?”

  “Five,” he replied, after quickly glancing at her. “And sorry, but he’s the ranking officer,” he added, pointing to his right where Pearson sat.

  She turned to Pearson. “Why didn’t I know about this, sir?” She felt choked, and her eyes burned under the burden of shame, of feeling distrusted. What did he do, put out a memo, advising all those agents to surveil the targeted locations but not say a word to her?

  “Get over it, Winnett,” he replied. “It was my call to make, and I made it. Donovan’s software was taking too damn long to finish crunching those names. Now let’s call the senator; it’s getting late.”

  “Sir, if I may,” she said, wiping her mouth with a paper napkin and clearing her throat quietly. “I think someone should explain to the senator what we’re trying to do, and how important it is. Brianna won’t be in any danger whatsoever; we’ll be all over her.”

  “You can’t barge into a senator’s house without permission,” Pearson replied, seemingly more irritated than before. He’d been constantly checking his watch, every minute or so. “You can’t surveil it without a warrant. You can’t do anything but tell him.”

  “Do we have an exact location on him?” she asked, wondering if she could still come up with something.

  “He’s scheduled to give a speech for Memorial Day at 7:30PM,” Donovan replied, after checking something on his phone.

  “I’m calling him,” Pearson said, and started dialing the number on the conference phone.

  Out of options, she dove under the table and yanked the phone’s cord from the outlet. “No, sir, I can’t let you do that,” she said, out of breath when she rose, holding the torn cable in her hand.

  “Winnett,” he snapped, slamming his hands against the table as he rose to his feet.

  “Sir, I’m sorry, but there’s no way you’ll convince him to cooperate by phone. Let me send Bill to talk to him.”

  “You’ll be asking a father to use his daughter to bait a trap, Winnett,” he said in a low, menacing voice. “You know how I feel about that,” he added, looking her straight in the eyes, as he made reference to Carrillo.

  “And you know I deliver, sir, whatever it damn takes,” she replied, matching his tone and his posture.

  They stood like that for a long, tense moment, staring intently at each other, clenched in a silent battle of wills.

  “You always get what you want, Winnett?” Pearson asked, breaking off eye contact.

  “I try, sir.”

  “Okay, get Bill on this, right this moment. If he drives like a maniac, he’ll get to the senator before his speech. I won’t even ask why you have a supervisory special agent, the head of the Behavioral Analysis Unit in Quantico, no less, serve at your pleasure; right now, I need to run. In case you forgot, I have a shipment of drugs to seize and the DEA is waiting. And Winnett?” he added, looking over his shoulder from the doorway.

  “Sir?”

  “Don’t screw this up.”

  52

  The Senator

  Senator Wallace Gillespie was already seated on the front row of plush seats, among other notable names scheduled to speak at the Memorial Day evening event. The secretary of defense was there, and so was the secretary of state, the two officials flanking Senator Gillespie, as if he were the president, chatting incessantly. Occasionally, a burst of laughter came from the three men.

  Bill approached the front row after showing his badge to several law enforcement officers, then stopped in front of Gillespie.

  “Senator, Bill McKenzie with the FBI,” he said, keeping his voice down and showing his credentials discreetly. “I need to speak with you, sir. It’s important.”

  “Now? I’m about to give a speech in less than ten minutes,” the senator replied, then turned away and resumed his earlier conversation with the secretary of defense.

  “It’s about your daughter, Brianna,” Bill said, and the laughter on the senator’s lips froze into a grimace.

  He stood and approached Bill, getting so close he could feel the scent of the man’s aftershave.

  “What about Brianna? What happened?”

  “Please follow me,” Bill said, leading the way to the side of the venue, where they could have a more private conversation.

  The senator followed, the furrow on his brow matching the deep ridges around his mouth.

  “Say it already,” he said, grabbing Bill’s sleeve and stopping him in place.

  “We have reasons to believe your daughter has been targeted by a serial offender we’re pursuing. We have ascertained he will make his move on her tonight. We need your permission to—”

  But the senator had stopped listening, as soon as Bill had finished his first phrase; he’d beckoned a Secret Service agent.

  “Who do you have in Florida? I need my daughter picked up and taken to a secure location.”

  “Understood,” the agent replied, but froze in place, under Bill’s commanding glance.

  “Senator, if you’re not willing to help us, we lose all hope of catching this killer. He could disappear forever.”

  “What are you saying? Are you out of your mind?” The senator’s face was flushed, crimson and purple starting to tinge his tan skin; he grabbed Bill’s lapel, squeezing and turning it in his fist.

  “For now, he thinks he’s in control,” Bill continued unfazed, willing himself to ignore the senator’s grip on his jacket. “But if he figures out we’re one step ahead of him, he’ll vanish and start killing people someplace else, unknown and unseen. Criminals like him never stop.”

  “I don’t care,” the senator snapped. “There’s no way I’ll have my daughter placed in harm’s way like that. You must think I’m crazy, three strawberries short of a fruitcake.” He let go of Bill’s lapel and turned to the Secret Service agent. “What the hell are you still doing here?”

  The agent turned to leave, but Bill called out. “Stop right there,” he ordered.

  “The FBI doesn’t outrank the Secret Service, now does it?” the senator asked coldly.

  “No, but the alternative isn’t valid either,” Bill replied calmly. “We’re both federal organizations that should cooperate. Sir, I must ins
ist. Your daughter will be safe at all times. We have teams around the house, and the moment the Taker shows up, we’ll—”

  “That’s who’s after my daughter? The Taker of Lives?” Gillespie reacted. “I saw it on the news last night, what he did to that poor woman. You’re asking me to use my own daughter to lure a monster like that? Get the hell out of here,” he added, shoving Bill out of the way.

  Bill didn’t budge, except for taking a step to the side to be back in the senator’s path.

  “She’ll be perfectly safe, sir. I promise you.”

  “Move over,” he growled between clenched teeth, “I have a speech to give.”

  “Ah, yes, the speech in which you’ll speak about the value of human life, and how our heroes’ sacrifice wasn’t in vain? That kind of speech?” Bill retorted.

  “Agent… whatever your name, I will have your badge as a centerpiece for my fireplace mantle before the end of today,” he said, getting into Bill’s face so close he could feel the senator’s heated breath on his face. “I’m a damn US senator,” he added, grabbing Bill with both hands by the collar and trying to move him out of the way.

  Several Secret Service agents approached, guns drawn, but Bill didn’t take his eyes off the senator’s scrunched face.

  “Yes, you’re an elected official who swore to represent the interests of his constituents,” Bill said serenely, speaking as if they were chatting casually over coffee and cookies. “To protect them and their families, to keep them safe from harm. Just imagine what those constituents will think if this got out. They’ll be thrilled to hear that you let a serial killer go loose, to kill more of the citizens who voted for you.”

  “Are you blackmailing me?” the senator’s voice climbed to a high, almost strangled pitch riddled with rage and disbelief. Tiny droplets of sweat formed at the roots of his receding hairline. “I’ll have you fired before the end of the day, you crazy lunatic.”

  “Do that if you must, but help us catch this killer,” Bill said calmly, his gaze steady and firm.

  Gillespie let go of Bill’s collar and breathed slowly a few times, pacing in place, as if trapped by an impossible decision. “You’re a stubborn son of a bitch,” he finally said, then made a hand gesture toward the Secret Service agents who promptly holstered their weapons. “Do you swear, on your life, that she’ll be safe?”

  “I swear,” Bill replied, without skipping a beat. He knew Tess Winnett would rather die herself than let any harm come to Brianna Gillespie.

  The senator sized him up, still thinking. Then he let out a loud, loaded breath of air and asked, “What exactly do you want to do?”

  53

  Seizure

  SAC Pearson had boarded one of the Legend-class Coast Guard cutters via helicopter and now watched the radar together with a senior DEA agent. They had the Reina del Mar tracked by satellite and radar, clearly visible as it drifted in international waters, probably waiting for the cargo, while Paco Loco and his crew pretended to be fishing. No other vessel had approached the Reina since it went to sea that morning, although the shadows grew longer by the minute.

  Was their intelligence wrong? Or had the Colombians rescheduled the shipment, because that bastard, Carrillo, couldn’t provide the insurance he’d promised? He came close, even from the hospital room. Pearson nearly had to lock his daughter in her bedroom to prevent her from rushing to his bedside. The memory of her sobs and the things she’d said to him that morning were going to be with him for a while. One thing was for sure though; as soon as the cocaine was seized, DEA agents stood by to arrest Carrillo and remove him from his daughter’s life forever.

  Then he’d explain, and maybe she’d understand and forgive him for not trusting her with the truth about the man she’d fallen in love with.

  Static crackled in the encrypted radio terminal.

  “Phantom, this is Eye in the Sky, come in.”

  “Go, Eye, we read you,” the operator said.

  “We’ve got movement around the Reina, one stealth, go-fast boat, now stationary.”

  “Copy that, Eye. How close to the target?”

  “They are loading the goods.”

  Pearson clenched his jaws. They were already too late.

  The cutter was much slower than the Reina, its speed half that of the modern, overpowered fishing yacht. They weren’t going to be able to catch up with it. Before he could say anything, he heard the DEA agent call the choppers in.

  Impatient, he found the Coast Guard commander at his post. “Let’s cut in front of them if we can,” he said. “We already know where they’re going.”

  “That’s where we’re headed,” the commander replied calmly. “No one wants a high-speed chase at sea. It takes too damn long to reel them in.”

  “Right,” he acknowledged.

  “But you don’t want them too close to shore either,” the commander continued, just as calm. “In case we start shooting at each other. You don’t want civilian casualties.”

  “Right,” he repeated.

  They obviously knew what they were doing, but he was increasingly restless. It probably had to do with the burning ire, sometimes even blinding rage, he’d felt ever since he’d learned those guys were planning to use his daughter as leverage and how they manipulated her and broke her heart. This time it was personal; he wanted those bastards to pay. If none of them made it to shore alive, he wouldn’t be caught shedding a single tear.

  “Where are you planning to stop them?” he asked, throwing a glance at a digital map displayed on a screen.

  “Right here,” the commander replied, putting his finger on the map, somewhere between Palm Beach Marina and the current location of the Reina del Mar, visible on the screen as a red dot. The Coast Guard vessel they were on, shown as a blue dot, was moving northbound along the international waters line, closing in on that position. Several other dots, green and yellow, marked the other resources involved in the operation: two helicopters, a couple of Coast Guard rigid-hulled inflatable boats, and another medium-sized vessel, standing by near the entrance of the marina.

  The red dot started to move, slowly at first, but then catching speed. The other vessel, the Colombian stealth go-fast, was nowhere in sight on either radar. Probably it was a low-profile boat, slathered in black, nonreflective paint, almost invisible even to the naked eye from up close.

  “We’re letting them go?”

  The commander briefly sucked his teeth. “Can’t do anything about it. Foreign vessel in international waters, and Colombia won’t grant us permission to board. We’re still waiting to hear back on a request filed last year.”

  “Can’t believe it,” Pearson muttered. By the look the commander threw him, he understood the Coast Guard sympathized with his frustrations, and probably would’ve wanted just as much as he did to blow them out of the water, still there was nothing they could do.

  The Coast Guard cutter traveled as fast as it could, but the choppers and the RHIBs were going to reach the Reina first.

  The radio crackled to life about the time the yellow dots had reached the red one.

  “Interceptor One moving in,” a voice said.

  “Interceptor Two in position,” another voice said.

  “We’re taking fire,” the first voice announced, almost screaming against a background of high-caliber shots fired. “We’re hit! We’re hit!”

  Then silence for a split second.

  “They’ve got rocket launchers,” the second voice said. “We’re breaking off. Eagle One, take over. Fire at will. Fire at will.”

  The red dot continued to move on the screen, without even slowing a little. One of the yellow dots had disappeared, the other one had veered to the south, putting some distance between the two vessels at the top of its speed.

  Suddenly, the red dot turned around, heading back out to sea. Based on its trajectory, it was aiming to reach the Bahamas before the Coast Guard could catch up. By now it must’ve been clear to those onboard that they weren’t going
to make it to port with their load.

  Eagles One and Two, the two green dots on the screen, approached the Reina in formation at high speed, catching up with it fast. Pearson held his breath, watching the green dots closing in, then one disappeared.

  “Break off, break off,” a voice screamed over the radio. “Eagle Two is down. I repeat, Eagle Two is down.”

  The sound of machine gun fire subsided, and there was silence over the waves again. They could actually see the Reina in their binoculars now, disappearing fast into the horizon.

  There was nothing left to do.

  The commander had changed course to the site of the helicopter crash, hoping to find survivors. The chopper’s remnants still burned on the waves, sending whirls of black smoke into the air. It would be a miracle if anyone had survived what appeared to have been a direct hit from a rocket-propelled grenade, an RPG.

  Pearson let himself fall into a nearby chair and crossed his arms at his chest. They were done, and the smugglers who had targeted his family were gone, roaming the waters free with millions of dollars in cocaine.

  “Phantom, this is Eye in the Sky, come in.”

  “Go for Phantom,” the operator promptly replied.

  “We have a go-fast chasing after Reina del Mar, closing in quickly. Single individual onboard.”

  “Coast Guard?”

  “Negative. It’s a civilian craft. Has a racing symbol on the top, an infinity loop.”

  “Eagle One, go for intercept,” the operator said, and the commander nodded his approval.

  “Copy,” Eagle One confirmed.

  Pearson stood and stared at the radar, where the civilian craft appeared as an incredibly fast-moving dot.

  “How fast is he going?” Pearson asked.

  “About eighty, I’d say,” the commander offered. “He’ll catch up with the Reina before it reaches Grand Bahama waters.” He compared the two views, the radar and the digital map, then added, “About the same time Eagle One gets to it.”