The Kill List (Mitch Kearns Combat Tracker Series Book 3)

by JT Sawyer

Dev was getting frustrated with how much critical time was being wasted but she didn’t have any choice but to finish the debriefing. She needed to redirect them to the vital information on the table so they could commence with the search.

  “That’s right. He’s got a high-end satellite dish and communication system not to mention a puzzling list of names, one of which is Mitch and the other Barbara Mulhere.” Dev walked inside and pointed to the document.

  Brenner and Roth followed, encircling the table and scanning the items spread around the laptop. Brenner picked up the topographic map and studied the contour lines. “This is a pretty steep-walled canyon.”

  “Do you know what area that map is for?” said Dev.

  “Not sure; the edges are cut off but this place sure looks familiar,” said Brenner, who had snapped off a photo with his phone. “I’ll send this on to the geologic survey crew in town. They should be able to overlay it onto their existing maps.”

  Roth read off the names of people on the list, sighing at the end while pressing his balled knuckles onto the edge of the table. “Every person listed is connected with the Kruger case alright. What the hell is going on here?” He seemed to muffle out the last sentence then cleared his throat and stood upright.

  “I’m gonna step out to my vehicle and contact my crime-scene techs,” said Brenner. “There’s a lot here to pore over, not to mention anything else we might find in the main house or on the grounds.”

  Roth shuffled over, partly blocking the doorway. “Just hold tight here. We can survey the rest of the place ourselves first. Follow my lead on this one.”

  “This isn’t a federal matter, Ed, and you know it.”

  “Not yet, anyway. If all this checks out and this dead guy is connected with Kruger then your jurisdiction ends at the pavement back there. You know how things work.”

  Dev was surprised by the exchange. They had been there ten minutes and the two men still hadn’t learned much about what had unfolded. Her brief conversation with Roth on her phone before she lost the signal revealed only that there was a man of European descent who attacked her and that there was evidence of foul play in the main house. Now, Roth seemed confident that his swagger was enough to fathom the situation. Dev wasn’t able to read him at all during their brief encounter in the diner the day before but now she was really concerned about his laissez faire attitude. This isn’t the law-enforcement approach I’ve come to know in this country. Is this how they do things in small towns out here? No wonder Mitch was so disgusted when he talked about how the Kruger case was mishandled last year.

  “You want to pull rank then do it when you have some clear-cut line that shows you’re in the right,” said Brenner, sliding his hand against Roth’s arm, motioning for him to move away from the door. “I’m calling this in.”

  Brenner walked onto the porch and then stopped, turning to look back at Dev. “Miss, I’m going to have to ask you to wait in the back of my vehicle until one of my deputies can get a formal statement from you.”

  Roth didn’t budge as she neared the exit, forcing Dev to squeeze by his large frame. On the walk across the rear lawn, Brenner strode alongside her down to his SUV then unlocked the rear side doors. Dev climbed inside the prisoner containment area and reluctantly slid onto the bench while staring through the metal grate separating the front and rear compartments. As Brenner sat in the driver’s seat, radioing in his orders, Dev folded her arms and stared off into the inky forest, wondering what had become of Mitch and how she might have to go further outside of the law to locate him.

  Chapter 15

  Mitch and Lisa walked out a few feet from the log shelter and scanned the forest with their headlamps for any signs of Nicholas. After ten minutes of hasty searching, Mitch moved up next to Lisa so he didn’t have to shout in the hard-driving rain.

  She had pulled out her space blanket and wrapped it around her shoulders like a shawl, the pelting raindrops resounding off of it like it was a tin roof.

  “I don’t want to risk pushing out any further looking for him. We need to get back to the shelter because I don’t think this is gonna let up,” he said, holding one hand over his eyes like a visor.

  Before she could respond, they heard Brian yelling in the distance. He was calling Lisa’s name and telling her to hurry back to their makeshift camp.

  They picked up their pace, trying to stay upright along the slick trail that had turned to black soup from the runoff pouring off the boulders. As they neared the shelter, they saw Brian near the entrance, his body backlit by the campfire.

  “Come fast—it’s Daryl. He can’t breathe.”

  Lisa tore off her reflective blanket as she ducked into the archway of logs and knelt alongside Daryl, who was sitting propped against the back wall. His face was ashen and he was clutching his throat while emitting a raspy sound from his mouth. Julie was sitting next to him, her eyes wide with terror as she tried to console him.

  “I don’t know what’s wrong with him,” Brian said. “He drank some of my water that I’d just treated and then collapsed.”

  Lisa opened his mouth and examined his airway while Mitch grabbed the bottle of water, unscrewing the lid. He waved the opening around under his nose, his eyes squinting at the familiar scent.

  “What did you add to this?” he said to Brian.

  “Those purification tablets that were in the pack. I had already drunk a bunch of treated water. Why—you think those were poison?”

  Mitch looked over at the barely conscious Daryl, whose lips were now purple. “Only if you’re allergic to shellfish. This smells like iodine. I didn’t see any writings on the package to indicate that—they just looked like standard purification tabs.”

  “Iodine—shit,” said Brian, staring at the water bottle in Mitch’s hand then down at Daryl.

  Lisa reached into her pocket and removed the Epi-Pen from earlier. She popped off the lid and slid out the injector. “So, that’s why this was in the pack,” she said. “Clearly this was planned out with this outcome in mind.”

  Daryl’s chest was hardly moving and his eyes shut as Lisa thrust the Epi-Pen into his left quadriceps muscle, past the pants fabric. Instantly, he opened his eyes and arched his back, grabbing her shirt sleeve. His entire body started spasming and his mouth grew contorted as his voiceless screams tried to drive out past his lips but only resulted in him thrashing his lower jaw. White foam began oozing out from the sides of his lips followed a second later by blood.

  Lisa leaned over him, grabbing both his arms. “Help me turn him on his side,” she yelled.

  “What’s happening to him?” said Julie, who lifted his legs as both women rolled him partway towards them.

  “I don’t know. I’ve never seen this happen before after giving Epi.”

  Mitch and Brian moved closer, trying to contain Daryl’s violent twisting. A rivulet of blood began leaking from his nose then his convulsions stopped and his ribs sank. Daryl slumped into Lisa’s side as his grip loosened on her shirt.

  “No!” said Lisa, running her finger over his carotid. “No, this can’t be happening.” She leaned him on his back and tore open his jacket and button-down shirt then began giving chest compressions. “Goddammit, don’t die on me.” She started pressing her interlocked hands onto his ribcage. “This isn’t supposed to be happening.”

  Mitch pulled back and grabbed the discarded Epi-Pen from the ground, rolling the cylinder around between his fingers while examining it. He saw that one corner of the label was slightly upturned and he peeled it back. The sticker came off easily and revealed the handwritten word Cyanide.

  Brian moved in to replace Julie after she recoiled back from the sight. She remained huddled against the log wall with her hand over her mouth. Brian grabbed Lisa’s wrists. “Let me try.”

  “It’s no use—the syringe was poisoned,” said Mitch. He turned the exposed label towards them as they both sat back on their heels. Lisa acted as if she didn’t hear him and flung herself back into positio
n, working her compressions again.

  Mitch squatted down to her right and pulled her off the body. “He’s gone, Lisa. This was set up for someone to die when they got the injection.”

  “For me to kill him—is that it! That was no way to die—no way.” She started sobbing as she fell into Mitch’s side. “What kind of sick bastard would do this?”

  As the dimming firelight flickered along the bark-covered rafters, her anguish filled every inch of the interior while the others sat in horror. Their primitive abode had become a refuge from the elements but not from the grisly machinations of the twisted mind who was bearing down on them.

  Chapter 16

  At two in the morning, Brenner came over to the car where Dev had been instructed to wait. He offered her a cup of coffee and politely asked her to join him under the awning of the incident command post tent on the main lawn beside the parking area.

  “It took a while but we confirmed your identity with the state department and your company back in Tel Aviv. Sorry for the long wait in the car.”

  She nodded. “I’d like to help somehow. I know Mitch and have a pretty good understanding of how the world of kidnapping and ransom works.”

  “You’re still a person of interest in this case but because of your ties to Mitch I’m cutting you some slack. Plus, I could use some information about anything more you care to share regarding what he told you about his meeting up here.”

  They walked into the large rectangular tent that was illuminated with spotlights strung up off the corner rafters. It was a hastily assembled canopy of canvas and aluminum that was used for remote field settings. Underneath it were a half-dozen folding tables littered with forensic examination instruments, cameras, laptops, and close to sixty clear baggies with potential evidence waiting to be catalogued by the six-man team of deputies hovering around the property.

  Roth was nowhere in sight and Dev felt her shoulders relax. “How have you managed to keep the reporters out of here?” she said. “Based upon what Mitch told me about the Kruger case, this seems like it would be a ripe story for them to feed upon.”

  “Roth took care of that. Not sure how he quarantined off the area exactly.” Brenner took a sip on his coffee then set it down on the table. “So, you said earlier when you spoke with one of my guys that you knew Mitch well. From what I recall from last year’s manhunt, he’s a good dude. I didn’t catch your connection to him though.”

  Dev had had plenty of time to rehearse her lines to make sure she didn’t divulge too much about her company and her unusual occupation. “We met in Arizona last year. He was a friend of my father’s and we found we shared a lot of the same interests—he had been former military and I served in the Israeli Army for two years.”

  “You listed that you work in corporate safety and consulting to prevent abductions abroad—can you explain that a little more?”

  “I provide an analysis of a company’s weak spots in terms of their staff safety in third world countries and then come up with solutions to keep them from being in harm’s way if there’s ever civil unrest or security risks.”

  “Whew—that sounds like an intense job. Is that how you learned to take care of yourself? I mean, that guy you dropped wasn’t exactly a weekend warrior.”

  “I got in a timely strike, like I said. He had slipped, probably because his boots were wet, and I was in the right place.”

  “Uh-huh,” he said, giving her a perfunctory nod. “Well, good thing for you then that we got all this damn rain.”

  “Do you have any leads on Mitch or what’s going on here?”

  “We’ve confirmed that the blood sample on the dining room carpet belonged to Barbara Mulhere based upon samples they had at the Durango hospital but that’s all we know. The other cars belonged to Mulhere and to Lisa Forgey. She’s a local from Durango and was a doctor at one time not too long ago. In fact, she treated Anton Kruger when he arrived at the ER after his car wreck. Forgey’s fiancé called her in as missing earlier in the evening after she didn’t show for dinner.”

  She heard the ringtone of her phone on the table next to Brenner. “Can I answer that? My family back home is probably worried about me.”

  “It’s been buzzing constantly.” He grabbed it and handed it to her. “Stay in here with that and absolutely no word to the media on what’s going on.” He adjusted his felt-brimmed hat and then headed for the exit, pointing to one of his deputies at the far end of the tent. “I’ve gotta check on how things are going in the house so just stay put here and ask my man for help if you need anything.”

  She nodded in appreciation and then tapped in the password for her phone, quickly scanning the dozens of messages from Petra which ranged from intel snippets on his research into Kruger to concerned pleas for her to respond, heavily pronounced by exclamation points.

  Dev found an image of the old photo Petra provided which showed a man in his mid-fifties wearing a trenchcoat and brimmed hat walking outside of a bank in Switzerland. Only part of his lower face was visible. The much younger woman had her arm interlocked with the man’s but her head was turned to the right, looking at something.

  Dev scanned the rest of the texts for any enhanced images or details on the senior Kruger but found nothing. She speed-dialed Petra’s number, catching him at work in the mid-afternoon, Israel time.

  “Damn, it’s good to hear from you—I was getting worried,” he said.

  “Just some issues dealing with the law enforcement here. No wonder Mitch said leaving government work was good for his health. Do you have any new leads for me?”

  “The laptop of the former Stasi guy contained a lot of encrypted files, most of which our team has hacked through. The most significant one has the transmitter coordinates for six GPS trackers that are labeled according to individual names, with Mitch being one of them. I researched the rest of the names, cross-referencing them with Mitch and the Kruger case last year. They all have ties to one another, having met each other or interacted with one another at some point, except the warden.”

  “What’s his story?”

  “Nothing unusual jumps out. I mean, he was in charge at the time Anton Kruger died in prison but the warden’s record appears to be clean otherwise. Very squeaky clean, in fact.”

  Dev tried to recall Mitch saying anything about the warden but just drew a blank. “Keep tracking down anything on this woman with Kruger. Maybe she’s involved somehow. And let me know if you can locate the source of the GPS signals.”

  “What is your plan now?” he said with a hint of concern in his voice.

  She knew Petra was asking more as a friend and less as a work colleague. She felt like her leg was shackled to the table and was unsure what else she could do to speed things along with the investigation. The fact of the matter was that she had to stay put and wait for a breakthrough on Mitch’s whereabouts. Brenner seemed like a solid guy but she had to tread lightly around Roth, who was hell-bent on following his own agenda, whatever that was.

  “Just keep in touch with me and let me know when you’ve got something. And one more thing—do some digging around on Ed Roth.”

  ***

  Two hours later, as the crime scene and forensics personnel were still examining Mulhere’s property, Ed Roth stepped out onto the back porch away from the bustle inside. Despite the cold temperature, he felt a bead of sweat roll down the back of his neck. He pondered what bizarre twist of fate had led to the disappearance of Barbara Mulhere and several others connected with the Kruger case. He wondered if it was linked to his doings at the start of the Kruger manhunt last summer. I was too careful to cover my tracks with those counterfeit plates last summer. There’s just no way anyone could have known I’d taken them. And if they did, why wait for almost a year?

  He thought back to the night that Kruger was admitted to the hospital. Roth was the first federal agent on the scene when Kruger emerged into a semi-conscious state and he was eager to learn the whereabouts of the rumored counterfeiting ma
ster plates that were supposed to have been in Kruger’s possession. Roth had read through a case file on Kruger that was sent down from a DOJ intel analyst in Denver that night and he was intrigued by the criminal. Roth didn’t see any harm in doing a little preliminary questioning before the Denver guys arrived; plus, he felt his blood pressure rising at the annoying thought that they were on their way to Durango to dip their meddling fingers into his domain.

  Roth had the young deputy wait outside the room while he tried to question the heavily sedated criminal. All he could discern was that Kruger had stowed the plates in a false panel in the passenger’s side door which had remained intact during the vehicle rollover.

  Roth knew about the net worth of such an object on the black market and decided to see if Kruger was telling the truth. Roth had his chance to check the vehicle while the rest of the law-enforcement agencies focused on the aftermath of the manhunt in the ensuing weeks and after he discovered that Kruger was unable to recall his first few hours in the hospital due to mismanagement of his pain medication by the admitting physician.

  When things had calmed down enough in Durango, Roth made his way to the federal car impoundment lot and examined the wreck, finding the counterfeiting master plates. His withering conscience almost won out and he considered turning them in to the DOJ guys but he held on to them instead. Once he learned of Kruger’s sentencing, he decided to wait on locating a buyer for a few months until things settled down in the news. Roth saw to it that he was the federal case officer in charge who handled the transportation from the courthouse in downtown Denver to the state penitentiary. He presented Kruger with an ultimatum: release the name of his buyer in the U.S. or he would suffer at the hands of rival crime family members incarcerated at the prison.

  Kruger followed through and Roth found himself proceeding forward with his plans. Only there was too much attention put on his agency with the publication of a scathing article in the LA Times by a pesky woman reporter who was doing too much digging on the internecine conflict between the federal agencies involved in the manhunt. Roth decided to lie low for a while longer until he discovered that the reporter had put in a request to speak with Kruger for a book she was writing.