by J. C. Fields
Shaking his head, Wolfe placed the laptop in the backpack. “I already thought of that. Someone did a professional job of sanitizing it. There wasn’t a hair left. Bobby wasn’t much of a housekeeper so I noticed it the night we got back from KC. The place was way too clean.”
“Why did you not say something?”
He was quiet for a few moments. “Until I had the DNA results, it really didn’t matter. Now it does.” He glanced at his watch. “I need to drive back to Jana’s.”
Nadia closed her eyes. “There you go again. We are in this together, Michael. We need to drive back to Jana’s and then come back here. Right?”
Smiling, he nodded.
Chapter 15
Near West Plains, MO
I t was nearing four p.m. when they parked in front of the hair salon. Nadia went in under the pretense of getting her hair trimmed. She reappeared at the Jeep in less than five minutes, her eyebrows drawn together. In a measured voice, she said, “Jana did not show up for work today.”
Wolfe raised an eyebrow. “She didn’t call in?”
Nadia shook her head. “The owner was furious with her. She told me everybody in the shop had to work harder to cover all of her appointments.”
After backing the Jeep out of the angled parking slot, he drove the vehicle away from the downtown area. “Did they try to call her?”
Another shake of her head. “No. She also told me this was occurring more and more recently. When I mentioned the death of Bobby, the woman just shrugged and asked me who I wanted to trim my hair.” She paused and stared at Wolfe. “She did not care that Jana might be in trouble or something might have happened to her. It was more about her being inconvenienced today. Michael, why do people act that way?”
“I have no answer.”
“I hate this place.”
“The salon or the town.”
“Both.”
Realizing anything he said would escalate her aggravation, he remained quiet.
Twenty minutes later, he drove the Jeep slowly by the old farmhouse. The old Ford F-150 remained in the same spot as their last visit, but Jana’s car was not parked behind it or visible from the road.
Nadia said, “It does not appear she is home.”
Wolfe did not respond. He parked the Jeep fifty feet past the drive. “I saw something we need to check out. Bring your purse.”
“What?”
He shook his head, “It might be nothing, but…”
The rural county road where Jana’s home resided saw few vehicles transiting its path. What little traffic it did see came from other residents of the remote area.
Extracting the Walther PPK from his ankle holster, Wolfe exited the SUV. He held the gun close to his thigh as he approached the home’s front porch. Nadia followed, grasping the Glock 43 hidden inside her purse.
As they stepped onto the porch, he pointed to the slightly ajar front door. Nadia nodded. Neither spoke as they prepared to enter the home. Wolfe opened the screen door and yelled. “Hey, Jana. It’s Nadia and Michael. You here?”
Silence answered from the dark interior. He repeated his greeting. More silence. He turned and nodded at Nadia. She withdrew her Glock and held it with both hands pointed down.
Quietly, he opened the inner door and surveyed the living area of the home. Chaos greeted them. Overturned furniture, scattered books, broken picture frames, smashed house plants and torn curtains dominated the scene. He cautiously moved toward the stairs and the upstairs bedrooms. With Nadia close behind, he mounted the steps two at a time. These rooms resembled the lower living area with bed linens flung onto the floor, cut mattresses and torn pillows.
Wolfe turned to Nadia and whispered, “Check the other bedrooms, I’ll check the bathroom.”
What he feared might be there was not. The room appeared untouched. Carefully, he searched the vanity. He found several objects in the second middle drawer on the right—a man’s razor, a can of shaving cream, a Right Guard deodorant stick and a hairbrush. He removed the cap of the Right Guard and found what he hoped for, hairs from the underarm of the user. Next, he checked the brush and saw additional hairs with roots still attached.
When Nadia appeared from the other bedroom, he asked. “Anything?”
“No, but there is a pattern to the destruction.”
“I agree.” He showed her the hairbrush and deodorant. “Let’s check the kitchen. I need a Ziploc bag for these. Maybe we can learn who the man I thought was Bobby really is.”
Wolfe called the Sheriff after they returned to the Jeep to report the disappearance of Jana Meyers.
Wolfe leaned against the front quarter panel of his Jeep now parked in front of the house. He watched Howell Country deputies scurrying in and out of Jana’s home.
Nadia sat in the passenger seat with the door open, looking up at Michael. “How much longer do you think they will need to determine she is not there?”
He chuckled, glanced at her and shook his head.
Both grew quiet as Sheriff Bright walked toward them. With his hands on his hips, he pinned them with a glare. “Why were you two out here?”
“Nadia uses Jana to trim her hair. We stopped by the salon and were told she hadn’t shown up for work. We got worried. Seems we had a reason to be.”
The sheriff stared hard at Wolfe. Finally, he nodded and wrote something in a small notebook. “Did you go in?”
Wolfe shook his head. “When we got here the front door was ajar, so we looked in. That’s when we called you.”
Another nod. “She’s not here and her car is gone. From what we can tell this happened last night after she got home from work.”
“Oh?”
“Where were you and Nadia?”
Smiling, Wolfe tilted his head. “Condo in Branson. We ate at the Olive Garden. Want a receipt?”
Ignoring the comment, the sheriff flipped a few pages back and read from his notes. “Can of soup was on the stove, opened and ready to pour into a pan sitting there. A bowl and silverware were on the counter. The kitchen looks relatively untouched. All the bedrooms and living areas are trashed.”
Wolfe closed his eyes and shook his head. “What’s going on, Sheriff?”
“I wish I knew, Mr. Lyon. I wish I knew.” He turned and walked away.
Wolfe glanced at Nadia when Bright was out of earshot. “We probably need to go back to Branson and get an Olive Garden receipt.”
She chuckled and nodded.
Though the return trip to their condo took two-and-a-half hours, neither of them spoke until they were thirty minutes from their condo, Nadia turned to him. “What if the DNA from the hairs you have match the DNA from Bobby’s Marines records?”
“It won’t.”
“But what if it does?”
“Trust me, it won’t.”
“Do you think he staged his own death?”
Wolfe shook his head.
She stared at him, waiting for an answer.
Finally, he glanced at her. “You mentioned you saw a pattern in how the house was torn up. Care to share what you observed?”
She glanced briefly at him. “Same thing you saw.”
“Which was?”
“There was no method to it. The whole scene looked random, like someone just started throwing stuff around.”
He nodded. “What else?”
“I didn’t see any signs of a struggle or any blood.”
“Neither did I. Don’t you find that odd?”
Nadia turned to look at him again, “Do you think she staged it?”
“Yes, and I think she had help.”
“Send the DNA samples to the following PO Box.” Joseph recited the address as Wolfe wrote it down.
“Joseph, I need another favor.”
After a moment’s hesitation he heard. “Such as?”
“How hard would it be to have airline passenger manifests searched?”
“Depends on the reason. Why?”
“I’m curious about something.”
�
��What might that be, Michael?”
“We didn’t see any signs of a struggle at the house. Nadia and I believe it was staged to make whoever investigated her disappearance think it was a kidnapping. It was a diversion designed to limit the search for her and her accomplice.”
“What do you mean, limit the search?”
“Keep it local. My guess is they’ll find her car in some remote location.”
“Okay, how can you be sure?”
“Think about who Nadia and I worked for. We were trained to notice deception.”
Joseph chuckled. “You apparently see something more sinister in this than I do.”
“That’s why I need the DNA analysis as quick as possible, plus the passenger manifests.”
“Which airports?”
“I’d check Memphis, Springfield, although that might be too obvious, Little Rock, Tulsa, KC and possibly St. Louis. Memphis is a bigger hub—I’d start there.”
“Do you think she’s traveling under a false name?”
“Getting authentic-looking fake identification documents you can travel with isn’t that easy. Plus, it takes a lot of money, something Jana didn’t have. My guess is, if she and her companion flew, it would be under their real names.”
There was silence for a few moments. “FedEx won’t deliver to a PO Box. Overnight the samples to my home address.” He recited the information. “I’ll get them to the lab the same day.” He paused. “If your suspicions are correct, what are the implications?”
“I wish I knew, Joseph. I wish I knew.”
The call ended and Wolfe closed down the laptop. He looked up at Nadia, who had listened to the entire conversation. “What do you think?”
“I do not know the implications either, Michael. If what you suspect happened, someone posed as Bobby for all these years and then killed the real one to hide it.”
Wolfe shook his head. “Something else is going on here. Something we aren’t seeing. There are too many questions without answers. I think we need to wait for the DNA results before we start speculating.”
She stared at him for a few seconds, then just nodded.
Chapter 16
Virginia Countryside, Southeast of Alexandria
K endra Burges woke early and rolled over, her outstretched arm finding only empty space on the bed. The absence of Gerald Reid brought her to total alertness. She always rose before him. Where was he? She stood after throwing back the covers and rushed toward his office at the opposite end of the hallway.
No Gerald. The room was dark with an inactive computer. Her mind raced as she hurried to the kitchen. There she found him pouring water into the Cuisinart coffeemaker. “Gerald, what are you doing?”
He turned, a faraway look on his face. “Making coffee.”
“You never make coffee and you never get up this early.”
“Couldn’t sleep.”
“What’s wrong?”
“He’s out there alive somewhere. I know it.”
She did not respond but watched as he scooped more coffee into the filter. Finally, she said, “That’s enough.”
He turned. “Beg your pardon?”
“Enough. That’s enough coffee grounds.”
“Oh…” He stopped. “You sure? Doesn’t look like enough.”
She stepped over to glance at his preparation. “More than enough.” She closed the coffeemaker and pressed the start button. “What’s wrong?”
“I know Wolfe’s alive. He’s mocking me by avoiding detection.”
She took a deep breath. “It could have been a false-positive on the facial recognition. It’s happened before. You know the software is not always one hundred percent accurate.”
He shook his head. “No, he’s alive. I never did believe he and Picard were killed in Mexico City. They’re too smart.”
She stared at him. “Why are you so obsessed with this? It’s not like you to fixate on something so—trivial.”
His nostrils flared and he screamed. “TRIVIAL! Michael Wolfe may be a lot of things, but he is not trivial.”
She narrowed her eyes and crossed her arms. “Then what is it? Why are you so concerned about the possibility he might be alive? It’s been over two years. Don’t you think if he were alive, we would have heard by now.”
Staring at her, his face turned crimson. The room fell silent except for the hiss and sputtering of the last drops of water heating on the coils of the coffee maker. Then, just as quickly, his expression softened. He turned, “Want coffee?”
With the sudden change in his demeanor unnerving, she stared at the back of his head while he poured a cup. He turned and offered it to her. Accepting it, she remained quiet.
As he poured another he said, “Michael Wolfe was one of the best Marine snipers ever trained. He made impossible shots and had the patience of Job.” Reid looked over his shoulder, “Rumors flourished about who assassinated an American ex-pat living on the Island of Madagascar in 2014. It was a windy afternoon on the eastern shore of the island near a town called Toamasina. Retired three-star General William Little was entertaining a few guests on the veranda of his 10,000 square foot mansion.” He paused and sipped his coffee. “Did I mention that General Little was suspected of pilfering millions of dollars of artifacts from both Kuwait and Iraq during Desert Storm?”
She shook her head but remained quiet.
“We in the CIA knew about it, but before we could touch him, he disappeared and later showed up in Madagascar with millions of dollars from the auctioned-off antiquities. Did you know Madagascar does not have an extradition treated with the United States?”
“Common knowledge.”
“Yes, that’s why Little was there. He was safely out of the US government’s reach. Anyway, in the middle of the veranda, while talking to his guests, his head suddenly explodes.” Reid smiled as he said. “Brain tissue and blood splattered everyone around him.”
“Gerald!”
He looked at her. “It’s true. I...” He paused for a heartbeat. “read the report. His security guards couldn’t figure out where the shot came from until they found a disturbed area on the beach 1600 meters from the veranda. The sniper left the spent shell on top of a sheet of paper with all the names of the men who died under Little’s command in Desert Storm.” He took another sip of coffee. “Do you know how far 1600 meters is?”
“No.”
“It’s a mile. The sniper made a headshot from a mile away, on a hot, windy afternoon in Madagascar. Not too many men in the world have the skill to make a shot like that, Kendra. Michael Wolfe does.”
“So, what does this have to do with your obsession with Michael Wolfe?”
“I’m getting to that. As a sniper during Operation Desert Shield and Desert Storm, he earned the reputation as one of the deadliest snipers in-theater. No one knows the total of his confirmed kills. I heard estimates it was somewhere between Carlos Hathcock’s ninety-three confirmed and Chris Kyle’s one hundred sixty.”
“Surely the Marines must know.”
He shook his head. “Officially his Marine total is only twenty-seven. After leaving the Marines, he graduated from Georgetown University with a degree in International Business Management. The CIA recruited him and he worked for us from 1999 to 2004. He met an Israeli woman, fell in love and moved to Tel-Aviv. There are rumors he still worked for the CIA at this time, but I can’t confirm it. He and the woman married and he assisted the Mossad when they needed his skills.”
“This isn’t the Picard woman, is it?”
“No, the wife was killed by a Palestinian suicide bomber in an outdoor market six months after the wedding.”
Kendra nodded.
“From what I was told, by a source within Mossad, Michael never got over her death.” He paused and sipped his coffee. “He possesses an innate ability with languages. He’s fluent in French, German, Spanish, Hebrew and last I knew passable in Arabic and Urdu.”
“Was that why the Mossad recruited him?”
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sp; Reid nodded. “Yes, since he didn’t look Jewish, he could slip in and out of most European and Middle Eastern countries without being noticed.”
“What did he do for them?”
“My source would not tell me, but I can guess.”
“Assassinations?”
“More than likely.”
“Why did he leave Israel?’
Shaking his head, Reid refilled his coffee. “That part is vague, but it occurred several years after he started living with Nadia Picard. My source believes it was a disagreement with Asa Gerlis.”
“Isn’t he dead?”
Reid gave her a sly smile. “Yes.”
“So, what about Wolfe. What happened to him?”
“He returned to the states and fell off our radar.”
She smirked. “I don’t believe that, Gerald.”
“It’s true. However, during this period a lot of suspected terrorists met with untimely deaths, particularly in Belgium, which was becoming a hotbed for Islamic Fundamentalism in Europe.”
“So, you think Wolfe was responsible?”
Reid shrugged. “Officially, the agency will not acknowledge it, but I believe it was him. So, you see, my dear Kendra, Michael Wolfe is not trivial. He is a menace. A menace with the skills of a trained assassin. It is my mission to find this threat and stop him from doing whatever it is he has planned.”
Joseph Kincaid’s cell phone chirped as he looked at the time. Twenty-two minutes after six in the evening. He smiled at the caller ID and answered. “Sorry, I’m running late tonight, Mary.”
Mary Lawson was tall and slender, with shoulder length tightly curled black hair. Her heritage came from Jamaica, France and for attitude, a bit of Louisiana Cajun. After graduating in the top ten from Columbia University Law School, she had spent her entire career at the Justice Department and retired as the deputy director of the Office of Violence Against Women. Having met during the first few years of their careers working for the government, she and Joseph had fallen in love over time and were devoted to each other. Despite their affection, both pursued separate paths, but not other lovers. Now retired and married living in a rural part of Southwest Missouri, she and Joseph had made a deal with the current occupant of the White House. Joseph would serve as the National Security Adviser for the first year of his presidency. He was nine months into the arrangement.
