by Bob Mayer
“The rest of the first cache report,” Golden said.
“Yes,” Masterson said. “Given to a young boy at the scene. All he can recall given his shock is that the man’s face was scarred.”
“In what way?” Gant asked.
“That data is not available yet,” Masterson said. She held up a hand as she typed into the computer. “She was engaged. Her fiancée, Chief Warrant Office Mark Lankin, is a helicopter pilot in the reserves. When he is on active duty he flies for the Night Stalkers, the Army’s classified helicopter unit.”
“The timing isn’t coincidence,” Gant said, remembering what Golden had said about the taunting. “This girl was killed so that we’d get this report now. Today.” He stood. “Do you have a copy of the rest of the report?”
Masterson nodded. “Yes. The lake in the partial is Reelfoot Lake in Kentucky.”
“We’re on our way,” Gant turned for the door.
Nero nodded, even though Gant was already moving. “Mrs. Masterson, please start running background on Lankin and Cranston. We need to find the link.”
Gant paused at the door. “It won’t be in the computer.” He glanced at Golden, who was still in her seat. “You coming?”
CHAPTER SIX
Emily looked once more at her abductor’s face and was disappointed by what she saw there. He was so ordinary. He looked like anyone else you’d find wandering the aisles of a library, picking up some milk on the way home, or walking out of a barbershop. There was nothing overtly evil about him. Nothing was even interesting about him. That was her initial impression.
A closer look at his eyes though, and she saw how he was like no one else she had ever been around. Emily was used to being noticed. Whether it was because she was young, or female, or simply because she was another human being; Emily, like most people, was conscious of other people seeing her. This man did not notice her. He was three feet away and staring at her, as he had been now for almost a half hour but he did not notice her. She realized that so far this was the most horrifying moment of this ordeal. To this man, to this person who controlled everything about her down to the moment of her death, she was of no interest. She was not even human to him. She was nothing, just a means to an end. What the end was, though, she had no idea.
Emily returned his stare. Only hers was not blank: it was filled with judgment and loathing. Then she saw the scar. It was mostly hidden by his short dark hair. But on the left side of his head there was a furrow that ran from just behind his temple to the rear of the skull. She tried to imagine what could cause such damage but drew a blank, not being aware of the vagaries of bullet trajectories once they encountered flesh and bone.
“I’m not going to kill you.” He repeated it as if the statement negated all that came before it.
“Why me? What did I ever do to you? Why did you pick me?” Emily was determined not to cry one more time for this asshole.
He looked at her with genuine puzzlement. “I know you didn’t do anything to me. I didn’t pick you. You picked me.”
“You’re kidding right? How the hell did I do that?” Emily liked getting angry. It felt much better than being terrified.
“To be more exact, your father brought you to me.” He had a look of sincere truthfulness on his ordinary face.
“My father?” Emily felt a cold chill settle over her. She only had the roughest idea of what her father did in the Army, but she knew he was involved in a lot of secret stuff. He’d been gone most of her life, off to some corner of the world doing things he could never talk about. “How is my father involved? How did he bring me to you?”
The man folded his arms, not answering.
“Will you let me go? I won’t tell anyone about you. You’d be safe. We could pretend this never happened.” Emily saw the futility immediately. For him this was already over. “How can I believe you’re not going to kill me? You’ve kidnapped me, drugged me and marched me to this godforsaken place. Why shouldn’t I think that killing me is the whole idea here?”
“Because it is not.”
“Then what is the idea, damn it?”
He zipped up his pack, looked around as if he were missing something and finally stood up. “You curse a lot you know.”
Emily stared up at him in blank amazement. “You’re kidding, right.”
“Why would I do that?” He turned and looked around at the small clearing, and then he chose a different path than the one that brought them to this place. He began to walk away.
“Wait a minute. Where are you going? Hey, look at me! Turn your fucking psycho self around and come back here. You can’t leave me here. Wait! God-damn you, wait. I’ll do whatever you want. Motherfucker! You motherfucker. You can’t just leave me here.”
He turned his head before he stepped into the covering of the dense wood. “You really do curse a lot. Your father will understand what is happening.”
Emily sat in stunned silence as he disappeared. She was momentarily shocked into silence. Then she screamed.
CHAPTER SEVEN
“Who’s Jimmy?” Gant asked.
They were seated in the back of the Lear Jet, the muted roar of the engines filling the cabin. Bailey was seated across from them, talking on his secure satellite phone, lining up support for them in Memphis, their current destination.
“My son,” Golden said.
Since this morning no one had been very forthcoming with information. Gant stared at Golden for several moments, waiting for more, then when he realized it wasn’t coming he put his feet up on the table, leaned back and closed his eyes. Normally he could fall asleep within moments, a trait learned when one had to grab sleep whenever possible under harsh conditions but images of his brother intruded, keeping him on the cusp of sleep and sorrow. His right hand was absent-mindedly running along his left forearm where shrapnel from an RPG round had torn the flesh long ago. And it wasn’t just his brother, there was also the image of Jesse.
“Have you notified the local authorities?” Golden’s voice intruded on Gant’s memories. He opened his eyes and noted that Bailey was off the phone.
“Negative,” Bailey said. “We want first crack at the site. We have a helicopter waiting in Memphis to get us to the cache.”
“Whoever is there could be alive,” Golden said.
“You really think that?” Gant asked.
“There’s always hope,” Golden argued.
“Hope is not a good thing,” Gant said. “It blurs reality.”
Golden looked like he’d just slapped her. “Hope is all we have sometimes.”
Bailey’s cell phone buzzed, cutting through the sudden tension. He opened it and listened for a few moments, then closed it. “Someone’s already at the cache site.”
“Who?” Gant asked.
“The FBI.”
“Why?”
“Someone found a body there.”
“Who?” Golden asked.
“Some kid hunting with his old man,” Bailey replied.
Golden shook her head. “No. Who is the body?”
“They don’t know yet. FBI just got on scene.”
* * *
A thunderstorm was off-shore, lightning playing above the Gulf, the thunder rolling in over the beach. Caleigh Roberts was on her first Spring Break and while the Florabama was packed, the crowd parted as she made her way to the back deck. Blond hair flowed over tanned shoulders. She wore a short blue jean skirt and a belly revealing tank top that was pink and spelled Princess in tiny rhinestones across her chest. She slid in among her friends from Ole Miss.
“Call daddy?” one of the frat brothers yelled.
Caleigh blushed, only highlighting her high cheekbones. She was his only daughter and it was the one requirement he’d placed on her at the same time he’d given her a Platinum Card.
The Florabama is a roadhouse straddling the Florida-Alabama border. It had started as a small clapboard liquor store that grew room by add-on room toward the shoreline then further into either
state. It is surrounded by a tall corrugated fence like those around a junkyard.
A bad band was playing rock, making up for lack of talent with volume. There were three bars within sight of the deck serving shots in little plastic cups that other places put ketchup in. People were below the deck, dancing in the sand. A group of frat brothers were urging Caleigh and her girlfriends to do another shot of some sweet stuff called Tongue in Your Panties. They were all giggling wildly and Caleigh quickly forget her check-in phone call and her Dad’s words.
It was only 8:30 in the PM and over a thousand people were crowded into the various rooms of the Florabama, all already in various stages of drunkenness. No one was focusing on any one thing or person, all feeling a bubbling hysteria. Caleigh was dancing and half drunk and having a very good time. She felt pretty and desirable. A special time when special things happened. Frat brothers had been flirting with her all evening but she’d grown up with them. They were just excited little puppies.
In the shadows off the deck, just outside the door into the Florabama a tall, dark-haired man leaned against the wall. He appeared to be in his late 20’s, maybe early 30’s, with weathered, tanned skin that gave him a sophisticated, experienced look the frat boys lacked. Caleigh had spotted him about an hour earlier. In some ways, although it was crowded, he was apart from the others. Every time she looked at him and he returned the gaze with his dark eyes, she averted her own. She continued to dance with the boys.
When she looked up once more, he was gone. She felt a moment’s concern, surprised at the intensity of the feeling cutting through her drunken haze. She swept her gaze around the deck and saw him standing by the stairs to the beach, leaning against a pole, drinking a Corona and looking straight at her. As he lowered the bottle, she saw he was smiling.
He motioned for her to come over and in the crowded party no one saw her move toward him. She stopped about two feet in front of him, not quite in his personal space, but close. He mouthed something, but she couldn’t hear over the band. He smiled once more and nodded toward the stairs.
Caleigh glanced over her shoulder. Her friends were among the crowd, all drunk, all young. When she turned back, he was half way down the wood stairs. She reached out for the railing, a little dizzy, and followed. She caught up to him and he tossed his Corona into a barrel, the hand continuing to move and sliding around her waist as they walked down the beach.
He stopped, facing the ocean, the surf pounding less than five feet away. There was no moon and the cloud cover was thick. He held his left arm up. “Florida.” He dropped it to his side and lifted his right. “Alabama.”
Caliegh laughed, a bit uncertainly.
“Areas of operation,” he said.
“What?”
“Do you know what that means?”
Caliegh shook her head.
He reached forward very gently, one hand sliding up her neck into her hair. She felt herself pulled forward as if in a dream, her lips meeting his. They kissed. Again and again. She felt the surf against her ankles, her calves. It was like a dream, one she’d used to have as a young girl. He was so sweet and gentle and strong and—
She was weightless, and then the air exploded out of her lungs as her back hit the sand hard. All she could see was his dark form over her. His other hand was on her throat. There was something strange about it. It was cold, Caliegh realized. Cold and unyielding. Not warm flesh. How could that be?
A wave broke over her face and she blinked, trying to get the salt water out of her eyes. She was stunned, unable to move for precious seconds. His other hand was on her arm, twisting her over. She felt sand scrape against her cheek, shocking her into action. She kicked, but he was too strong, too large, and she was small. His strange hand let go of her throat and she gasped for air, sucking in a wave, coughing, trying to spit out the water, only in time for another wave to wash over her.
The hand grabbed the back of her head, finishing the turn and shoving her face into the wet sand. She felt incredible pain as sand granules cut into her wide-open eyes. Her mouth was full of sand and water, but she tried to breathe anyway. It felt as if red hot lava was pouring down her throat.
He was so mean.
Daddy. Daddy. He’d seemed so nice.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Gant let Bailey take point in dealing with the FBI. Bureaucracy had never been his forte and that lack had been one of the reasons he’d made the decision to move from the military to the Cellar when Bailey came calling. Even in the Special Forces, the long hand of the big green machine had made itself felt. For Gant the last straw had been the decree to shave beards off while he and his team were deployed in Afghanistan because some general back in the States had seen SF troopers — in the midst of saving the Afghani President’s life from assassins — looking scruffy and called the Pentagon to complain. The concept of being a clean-shaven corpse hadn’t sat well with Gant. Skewed priorities, even in the midst of combat, had shown Gant the reality of working inside such a large organization as the army. The Cellar was indeed much smaller, and Gant had generally been left to his own devices on missions, the results being the only thing that Nero cared about. This was another reason why Golden’s, and to a lesser extent, Bailey’s presences were a bit of a mystery to him.
Of course, there had also been the issue of his brother and the work he had done for the Cellar over the years. Even though they were twins, he had always felt one step behind his brother, following his path. It had been Tony’s decision first to apply to West Point and Jack had followed. Then Tony had been the first in the Ranger Battalion, then Special Forces and on to the Cellar. And first with Jesse. And now his brother was dead. Gant felt an unusual sense of unease, which he quickly dismissed as he tried to get some sleep while he could.
It took just over an hour flight by helicopter from Memphis to reach the desolate woods of Reel Foot Lake. Darkness had fallen and Gant knew the night was going to be a long one as the chopper came in to a hastily established landing zone in a clearing and they disembarked.
According to the information he’d read, Gant knew the area was a popular hunting site and camouflaged men from the entire southeast passed through the region during the season. But hunting season was still a month off. Gant checked the slim data sheet that Bailey had printed out, forwarded from the Cellar as they got in a Blazer and were driven toward the site. According to the report, the lake had been formed in the winter of 1811–1812 when a series of earthquakes had sent the Mississippi river flowing backwards and leaving in its wake the large body of water where land had once been.
The body had been discovered just after dark, and because of cell phones had been reported quickly. The local police had called the crime into the bureau sight unseen. If the condition of the boy who discovered the body was an accurate measure then the small lake area police force figured they’d best stay out of it. The body was exactly where the now complete cache report had said something would be, a fact that Gant had no doubt Bailey was not informing the FBI or local authorities of.
Gant looked around the vicinity and saw nothing but unending loneliness harshly lit by car headlights from FBI vehicles. When hunting season ended so did the human habitation of the area. He watched the FBI men and one woman standing by the body. They had all carefully positioned their line of sight outwards, as if out of sight out of mind really meant something. Gant waited for Bailey to finish speaking to the head FBI man. Golden was next to Gant, apparently not very anxious to view the corpse. At least she wasn’t asking any more questions.
The circle of FBI agents broke up as their boss came over and said a few words. They moved away with many a dark glance at Bailey, Gant and Golden. Bureaucratic pissing over turf, something that Gant usually ignored as the Cellar always had pre-eminent domain wherever it stretched its dark hand. Bailey indicated for Gant and Golden to move up. Gant slowly walked forward, taking in the feel of the location. He stopped ten feet from the body.
Golden was perfectly still next
to him.
Gant catalogued the area in his mind. There was a tall pine right in the center of a small meadow. Around the base of the tree was a chain. The chain ran a few feet to the body. It was fastened to the girl’s leg with a shackle. She was lying in a fetal position. The body was swollen and splotched with lividity. Gant stared a long time trying to make sense of what he saw. The ankle below the shackle was mangled and covered with dried blackened blood. A blood spattered stone lay close by. There was an arrow sticking from her upturned shoulder.
“If this is what he’s done to Emily—“ Golden’s voice trailed off.
Bailey was squatting with his brief case open, thumbing through some folders.
“Who is she?” Gant asked.
Bailey paused, and extracted one of the files. He checked the black and white photo with what he could see of the victim’s face. “Tracy Caulkins.”
The name meant nothing to Gant. “And her father is?”
“Michael Caulkins. Drug Enforcement Agency. South Region commander.”
Gant nodded. This was going to be a Sanction. And it was going to get worse before the end.
* * *
Emily Cranston had her knees pulled up tight to her chest and her back to the oak tree. Like most people she had never been outside in the middle of nature at night entirely alone. She’d never have believed the woods could be so noisy. Branches snapping, leaves rustling, the intermittent cries of birds and other creatures she couldn’t identify.
What she feared the most, though, was hearing the sound of footsteps. She did not want him to return.
She straightened out the leg with the chain, feeling the weight of the shackle around her ankle. Her eyes darted up as something swooped across the clearing between her tree and the surrounding forest. She pulled the chained leg back in tight to her chest, wrapping her arms around her knees and rocking back and forth. A muffled cry escaped her lips and tears flowed down her cheeks.
