by Harper W.
Gloves on and ready to search, and let ourselves into the victim’s apartment. As we were searching for something substantial to link her to our previous victims, Kaie noticed something between the mattress and box springs, toward the foot of her bed. She carefully reached in and pulled out a laptop. This seemed like a funny place to keep a laptop.
Taking the laptop into the kitchen, Kaie set it on the table and turns it on. It’s password protected, of course, and after a few guesses we decided to stop and take it to Cortez in CSI. I found some flash drives hidden in a waterproof container and tucked in in the tank of the toilet. Things were looking a bit suspicious for our pretty blonde victim.
We took the laptop and flash drives to Cortez, who immediately put his best computers forensics guy. We stood beside him while he worked his magic, and had gained access to all the laptop. There we found communications regarding the sale of missiles and the portable launching pad semis. Someone had ordered ten working missiles and five semis, and had already forwarded several millions dollars as an advance. The flash drives contained more details, including electronic bank receipts for the money.
Black, Beams, and now Ms. Hancock were all involved, one way or another, in one step or another in the production and sale of US Navy missiles. Morrison was unusually interested in drones and remote control vehicles. We didn’t have a motive or a suspect yet, but we were one giant step closer to finding out.
We left Cortez and his crew scrutinizing the files to see what info they could pull out. We still needed to find that semi before somebody else got killed.
Chapter 6
The next morning we had the Texas Highway Patrol and the state troopers looking for the missile launching semi (or semis, which we hoped was not the cause). Cortez and his computer forensics guy had worked almost all night, but where beginning to put some pieces together. We knew who was manufacturing the trucks, and he was able to help us track down the location of all but one of them. That would be the one our killer was traveling in.
We got called into the chief’s office. “I know you are making progress on ‘the who’, but what about the why?”
Kaie looked to me to answer. “Chief, we know there is some kind of illegal missile deal involved here, and that plays a role in the motive. We don’t know anything else for certain,” I replied. The chief nodded his, and dismissed us.
I don’t think Kaie and I have slept much at all since this gruesome case started. My wife Amy had accepted this aspect of my job, but I wondered how Kaie and Cal were dealing with it. As we walked back to our desks, I decided to casually ask. “So, how are things with Cal?”
Kaie looked straight ahead. “I broke up with him. I caught rifling through the files on my laptop. Turns out he was trying to find some gruesome autopsy photos related to the case so he could upload them to some weirdo web site.”
“Did he tell you all that?” I asked. I tried my best not to let on that I knew about his unusual predilection.
“Yep,” she replied, still staring straight ahead.
“How did you get him to admit what he was up to?” I pressed her a bit further.
I saw a smile creep across her face as she began to explain. “Combat” Kaie, it turned out, had pulled her service weapon on him and terrorized him into confessing. I could certainly see that happening. I would confess, too.
“I’m sorry, Kaie. You’ll find a good guy, just like I found my Amy.” Kaie grunted a response, and I decided that was my cue to change the subject.
“How long do you think it will be before they find the missile launching semi for us?” I said, referring to the state troopers that were combing every inch of Texas roads right then.
“Soon, I hope,” Kaie answered. When we got back to our desks, there was a message for us that Ms. Hancock’s parents were waiting to speak with us. They had driven in from Tushka, Oklahoma the night before and identified her remains that morning. I went with Kaie into the conference room where they were waiting, but she knew I was going to leave the majority of the questions up to her.
“Mr. and Mrs. Hancock, we are so sorry for your loss,” she started out. The couple were in their late sixties, and looked like they had been really suffering. Kaie continued, “We just need to ask a few questions about your daughter to help us find out who’s been doing this.”
Mr. Hancock spoke up aggressively, “If you had already caught that maniac she wouldn’t have died! How many people are you going to let him kill before you get up of your lazy butts and find him!” His wife patted his arm.
“It’s not their fault, Ralph. Please forgive him … She was our only child, and was a daddy’s girl,” said Mrs. Hancock. “What can we do to help you?”
Mr. Hancock jerked his arm away from his wife and folded both arms over his chest as he leaned back in the chair. He leveled a cold, hard glare towards us. Mrs. Hancock leaned forward, her hands folded on the table in front of her.
“We understand your daughter was a real estate agent,” Kaie started. “Did she have any other business interests that you know of?”
I saw Mr. Hancock throw a glance to his wife. She drew her arms back in her lap and said, “We really didn’t know much about what she was involved in.” Kaie and I knew she wasn’t being upfront with us. Her body language was enough to tell us that. Keeping in mind that while their daughter was apparently guilty of a crime she was also the victim of a gruesome murder, Kaie changed the subject. We wouldn’t gain much pursuing this line of questioning.
“Did she have any hobbies, like, say, crafts or electronics?” Kaie asked.
“No,” said Mr. Hancock authoritatively. “How come our daughter gets killed and you two act like she was a suspect in some kind of crime? I’ve had enough. Come on,” he said as he jumped up from the table, stomped over to the door, stepped out, and slammed it with authority. We were used to people acting out of the norm when their family has just been torn apart by a tragedy, and we certainly weren’t going to take his behavior personally.
Kaie quickly stood up and offered her hand to Mrs. Hancock. “We didn’t mean to come across that way. You are free to go,” she said.
I asked Kaie why they drove instead of having us fly them in like we did Mr. Morrison. “Oh, I tried but they refused. I think they wanted to make sure they kept their stories straight. I think you got the feeling, too, that they were covering up something.”
“Yes, I did. We can track that information down without making them suffer anymore,” I replied. Kaie nodded her head. We headed back to our desks to see if we unravel why the killer was doing this.
We did get a report back that the cars belonging to all of the victims strapped to missiles had been located and were now in the CSI crime lab. Two of them had been in parking garages, and we assumed that was where our killer had snatched them. He must have another vehicle he’s using besides the portable missile launcher. We asked CSI to follow up on the parking garage footage to see if they could find out anything. The other car had been parked at the DFW International Airport. It seems that Mr. Morrison had just gotten back in Dallas the day he was killed. The killer probably snatched him at the airport parking lot.
A few hours later, we heard back from CSI. We headed down to their lab and saw the first glimpse of our killer from one of the parking garage security tapes. What we saw was a thin, tall man in a pair of jeans, hiking boots, dark colored gloves, and a dark hooded sweatshirt walk up behind Ms. Hancock as she was opening her car door. In his hand he was clutching a tire iron. As she turned to look at him, he struck her once on the head very quickly. She collapsed into the car.
Another car was apparently approaching, so the hooded figure quickly pushed her into the car and acted like he was talking to her, the tire iron tucked out of sight. When the car passed, he roughly pulled her out of the car and onto the ground. Grabbing her by her ankles, he drug her across the way and out of sight. A few moments later a white delivery van drove by. We assumed the delivery van probably belonged to the kil
ler.
The CSI tech said, “We ran the plates. They were stolen. And the killer has his face concealed by the hoodie so we can’t get a good enough look to use any kind of facial recognition. We checked the footage when he left, and he purposes kept his face hidden. Sorry.”
Kaie smiled. “At least he’s not quite so mysterious anymore.”
Chapter 7
About mid-afternoon we got a call from our main contact at the highway patrol. One of their cruisers has the semi in sight. We dashed to my car, which is unmarked, and started maneuvering as quickly as possible through the metroplex traffic so we could intercept the semi. The cruiser had changed places with an unmarked car so the semi wouldn’t get suspicious.
He was on 635, south of Garland and headed toward Mesquite. He was in an all-white tractor-trailer, and apparently following the speed limit. I took every shortcut and backroad I could think of to avoid traffic and get on 635 near his location. We caught up with him and the cruiser just north of Mesquite. Everybody was tense, and more unmarked vehicles were joining in the pursuit – waiting for us to give the word to “apprehend.”
He took an exit that would take him into Mesquite, and then pulled into a large parking lot in the industrial district that belonged to an abandoned warehouse. The front of the warehouse extended the length of the parking lot, facing the street. There was another abandoned warehouse on one side, and an overgrown patch of land on the other side. He pulled in and maneuvered so that the driver’s side faced the overgrown lot.
By that time only Kaie and I were following him closely, while the other vehicles hung back to avoid detection. We had no doubt as to what he was stopping for, and called for the other vehicles to come on in ASAP. As the unmarked cars began to pull in around the truck and blocking any avenues of escape for the truck, we saw the nose of a missile begin to appear at the top of the truck. Slowly it began to life into the air. As it did so, we could see a man strapped to the top of it, apparently drugged because he wasn’t struggling.
It was time to put a stop to his mad man’s massacre. Two swat teams jumped out of unmarked SUVs. They had prior instructions to bring him in alive if it all possible, because the victims and the public deserved answers. He had just finished entering the launch instructions when one of the SWAT team shot him the arm – through the passenger side door window – to stop him. One second later and his finger would have been on the launch button. As they swarmed the inside of the cab of the truck, Kaie and I waited about ten feet from the driver’s side of the truck. The man attached to the missile was conscious again, and screaming desperately for help.
We waited as the SWAT team handcuffed our suspect and wrestled him out of the truck. As they pulled him out the passenger’s side, he fell to the ground, and I noticed the handcuffs were in front of him, rather than behind his back. Instantly he took advantage of the mishap and rolled quickly under the truck. He was heading for that overgrown lot. It might – just might – provide enough cover for him to make an escape. The SWAT team drew their weapons and were ready to shoot to kill. We did not want this man dead, yet.
In an instant Kaie was headed to the driver’s side of the cab by dashing around the front of the truck. I couldn’t believe her! She didn’t even have her weapon out. The SWAT lead ordered his men to hold their fire. As she rounded the corner of the cab, she slid to the ground. Her weight was resting on her palms and her left ankle. Honestly, she looked like she was about to break dance. Break was the right word for it, let me tell you.
As our suspect scurried out from under the cab, ready to make a break for the overgrown lot, Kaie was waiting for him. She swiftly and gracefully pulled one leg back, and then swung her boot directly at his face. One swift kick to the face disoriented our suspect.
She flipped over on her stomach, and grabbed the chain of his handcuffs. She sat up and gave the chain a very hard jerk. I was standing behind her with my weapon drawn, half in shock. I aimed my gun at his knees in case it looked like he was going to try to get away again. Not releasing the handcuff chain, she stood to her feet and drug him out from under that truck. Once he was clear of the truck, she securely pinned him to the ground by pulling his handcuffed arms up and away from his head (rather painfully for him, I might add) while she stood with one foot on his back. She then read him his rights. Once we had that taken care, she and I pulled him to his feet while one of the SWAT members put some shackles on his ankles.
When the SWAT team was dispatched, the Dallas PD had tracked down a Navy vet with experience in working with surface-to-surface missile launchers. Once the suspect was out of the way, he quickly hopped into the cab of the truck and lowered the missile. We joined in on trying to remove the victim from the missile. One of the guys was trying to loosen the tethers when Kaie pulled out a knife out of her boot and begins to saw the tethers apart.
The guy was screaming and crying hysterically. Just as we got him loose the paramedics arrived and carried him off to the hospital. We were worried that he might have been overdosed like the first missile man. He didn’t look like the rest of our vics, though. I didn’t know who he was, but I figured he had some kind of spotty past. I noticed as the paramedics loaded him up that he had to empty gun holsters.
We had attracted no small amount of attention in that industrial neighborhood, and more and more people were surrounding the parking lot. State troopers and Mesquite PD were cordoning off the area and keeping the crowds back. Thank goodness this time there were no gory crime scenes for them to take pictures of. A news helicopter even showed up, filming everything from above. I teased Kaie that she was going to be a TV star, because I knew they had been there long enough to film the suspect’s attempted escape. She turned to me and winked. “You know, I almost became a stunt woman.” I didn’t doubt it!
Chapter 8
That evening we were exhausted, but at the same time we couldn’t wait to interrogate our suspect. There were plenty of answers that the public needed. The first was the identity of the killer: his name was Darren Williams, and he worked for a defense contractor that did research and development on the missiles. He was the project lead on their latest evolution in the design of the Tomahawk missile. He had a M.S. in electronic control systems and a Ph.D. in aeronautical engineering. At one time he had been considered one of the great minds in the field of missile defense.
When we arrived back at headquarters, the chief called us into his office said that the reporters were wanting to talk to us. Kaie pointed at me, saying “He can represent us both.” I started to object, but the chief was already pulling me toward the interview. Kaie waved goodbye to me as I shouted, “Wait for me!” I knew she would.
After I gave a statement to the press, I rushed back to find Kaie. Our suspect had been processed and was waiting for us in interrogationHe looked at us defiantly as we entered. He had refused legal representation, so there was no lawyer present. He was sitting, handcuffed and shackled. He glared at us as we entered. There was a large bruise forming on the side of his face where Kaie had kicked him.
“Why?” asked Kaie.
“I had to bring the public’s attention to the awfulness of these weapons,” he replied.
“Explain,” demanded Kaie.
“I have spent the last twenty years of my life wrestling with the laws of physics to find better, more efficient ways to kill my fellow man. I did not realize the evilness of what I was doing until several months ago I saw video footage from the ground where one of my missiles – a missile I had spent years perfecting – had been somehow sold to the enemies of our country and used against our own soldiers. I saw the photographs of the aftermath – the torn and shredded bodies of young men defending our country.”
He paused for a moment, as if collecting himself. “I took a sabbatical, and used the time to make my own investigation into who sold the missiles to an enemy group. The results of my investigation are on a laptop in the sleeping quarters of the truck. I found out every single person who betrayed our co
untry. I took it to my supervisors. You know what they said? ‘We can’t let this get out, or it could cause a panic in the nation and cost us all of our government contracts. We’ll handle it internally.’ You know what that meant, detectives?”
Kaie answered him, “They were on the take?”
“Yes,” he replied. “I played their little game, agreeing with them and pretending to turn over to them the full results of my investigation. I had a copy hidden elsewhere, of course. I played dumb, innocent, naïve … but all the while I was planning their deaths.”
“You didn’t get everyone involved, though,” replied Kaie.
He angrily slammed his fists on the table the best he could with handcuffs on. “I would have! There are six more on my list: one in Texas, five in California. They deserve to die!” He was getting excited and loud.
Kaie got just as loud, but no louder. “What about the kids in the playground? What about the passengers on that bus?” She stood to her feet and leaned slightly over the table towards him. “Don’t play ‘holier than thou’ with us. You did kill innocent people in your revenge plot. You are every bit as much a murderer as the people you were after.”
“Collateral damage, my dear. Collateral damage cannot be avoided. I am not a murderer, but an avenger.” His voice was calm and even-toned again.
Kaie sat down and took a deep breath. “Why did you strap them to the missiles?”
“I wanted them to feel the same fear felt by those who were the victims of their illegal missile trade. I wanted them to feel the same pain and tearing that the American soldiers felt that were struck by the missiles they gave to our enemies.”
“We found something in Mr. Black’s blood …” she started.
“Ah, yes. You found a sleeping drug that I gave him. He recognized me, you see, from years ago. When I showed up in the parking lot of his office building, he knew something was wrong. I knocked him out with a tire iron, and then drugged him. I think I may have given him too much, but I didn’t give it to him until right before I strapped him to the missile. That was about ten minutes before it was launched. If I hadn’t, he would have probably injured me. I did the same thing to the gentlemen I was about to dispatch today. He was simply too powerful for me to safely strap to the missile otherwise.”
