Stealth Attack

by John Gilstrap

  The first image to go viral was that of Patrick Kelly’s corpse crumpled on the ground, surrounded by piles of spent brass. Blood smeared the vehicles on either side. The caption accompanying the photo read, “This is the man the FBI is seeking as a ‘person of interest.’ I think they can stop searching.”

  One video, clearly shot from behind cover, seemed to show Angelina as the aggressor, as the only person shooting. A lot.

  Another, a photograph likewise taken from behind cover, showed a better perspective of her engaging with the other shooter. That one came with the caption, “Correct me if I’m wrong, but this FBI agent looks very much alive to me.”

  At this point, the whole thing was just silly. The secret had leaked, and maybe that little girl wasn’t going to survive, and that was a shame. For her part, all Angelina wanted to do was get back to work.

  * * *

  Silva listened with feigned interest as Billy Monroe relayed the demands of the Alexander family.

  “Who are they to make demands?” Silva asked. “Does she think that I am bluffing? Does she for a moment believe that I would not kill her son?”

  “I tried to relay that to her, sir, but she insisted. She said that this was the requirement of her boss—the man with the money. If it were left to her, she would just pay, but she says that this Jonathan Grave guy is a hard-ass.”

  Silva considered this. From the way Ciara spoke, and later the way that the boy spoke, this Grave fellow seemed like a father to him.

  “This is a bluff,” Silva said. “They won’t let the boy die for the sake of a couple of million dollars that Mr. Grave can obviously afford.”

  “Businessmen can be funny about their money here in the United States,” Monroe said. “I don’t know this man, but I know others who would think the same way. Yes, they would pay anything for the return of their child, but not merely on the chance.”

  “I will kill the boy.”

  “All the more reason to make the promise,” Monroe pressed. “From your own words, it is reasonable for Mr. Grave to suspect that such are your plans, irrespective of what actions they take.”

  Silva felt his blood pressure rising. He hadn’t wanted to get involved in this kidnapping to begin with. He didn’t need the money, and he didn’t need this show of disrespect.

  Monroe went on, “Perhaps if you lower the ransom amount to a number that the mother could manage herself—”

  “This is not a negotiation, Mr. Monroe. We are not auctioning off car parts. We are charging a ransom for the return of a human being.”

  “Whom you have no intention of returning,” Monroe said.

  Something about the way the lawyer delivered those words angered Silva. “Be careful how you speak to me.”

  “Mr. Silva, I am your attorney. My job is to present you with the facts as they are. My job is to make sure that you make decisions based upon the most factually accurate information that I can supply. The decision itself is up to you, sir.”

  Silva sensed that the lawyer wasn’t done yet, so he waited him out.

  “Of course, I do have something for you to consider,” Monroe said. His tone sounded less cocky.

  “I am listening.”

  “All right, then. Why don’t we come up with a plan to drop the boy off at a specific location? We arrange the timing to be such that the other side cannot have assets in place to attend the handoff, but we can provide live video evidence of you letting the boy go. With that imagery done, they will make the wire transfer. When that’s done, you can do whatever you’d like with the boy.”

  Silva continued to listen without comment.

  “Are you there?”

  “Is that your entire plan?”

  “For my part of it, yes. As I said, the final decision is yours, but if I were in your position, I would think that a reasonable chance of two million dollars in your bank account is better than no chance at all.”

  “So, what is my next step?”

  “We arrange a place for the drop-off to be made. I pass that along to the kid’s mother, and then we’re good to go. They’ll want it to be a public place.”

  “Of course they will. More demands.”

  “I have an idea,” Monroe said. “The reason I’ve been so long getting back to you with all of this is because I wanted to do the legwork for you. There’s a shopping district. . .” He went on to describe a place that Silva had visited many times. “I know it’s kind of far away, but I figured that you would not want the place to be very close to you. When there’s very little time left, I will contact the family with the means to monitor a camera I will have someone set up on their behalf. When they see the boy, they’ll transfer the money and you can kill the camera feed. After that, you have nothing but options.”

  “Since you are suggesting a ruse, why not just set up a camera nearby and save myself the trouble of a long drive?”

  “You’re not going to go yourself, are you?” Monroe sounded mildly panicked by the thought.

  “Of course not. But someone will have to make the drive. Why have them do that when it is not necessary?”

  “There’s a concerning level of sophistication to your hostage’s mother,” Monroe said. “I sense that she has advanced computer skills. She will no doubt be able to trace the actual location of the camera we use. The drop-off needs to be at the place we say it will be.”

  “Fine,” Silva said. “Tell them whatever you want. I will follow through on my end. What happens, happens. Are we finished here?”

  “Um . . . No, sir, we’re not.” Monroe’s tone turned dreadful. “About Patrick Kelly’s final mission. He, uh, failed, sir. The agent is still alive, and Kelly is dead.”

  * * *

  Gail Bonneville parked near the roll-up garage doors, in the center of Billy Monroe’s driveway, effectively blocking egress by automobile. He lived in a nice house in a rapidly developing part of Haymarket, Virginia, in Prince William County. Nothing in the neighborhood appeared to be more than ten years old. This was a place of new money and young professionals. It was a place of nosy neighbors and rumor mills, both of which could work for or against Gail’s purposes.

  Monroe lived in one of the larger models among similar brick-and-vinyl-siding homes. The front façade featured a towering Palladian window over the door. The shrubs in the front appeared to be newly planted and hearty, but barely as tall as the front windows. It was dark enough for the lights to be on. As Gail approached the door, she saw Monroe in his office, which was located off the front foyer. She’d seen the interior in a thousand other houses, and in her mind saw the soaring ceilings inside the door and the sweeping staircase that led to a bridge across the second floor.

  She watched Monroe through the window as he hung up from a cell phone call.

  “Mother Hen, are you there?” she asked the air. A bud in her left ear connected her to Security Solutions headquarters via a radio clipped to her belt.

  “I’m here. You’re loud and clear.”

  “All right, I’m going to VOX,” Gail said. Without looking, she reached behind her back and toggled the switch on her radio. “Still there?”

  “Affirmative.”

  “Okay, you should know that Monroe just now finished a phone call and now he’s smashing the screen into the corner of his desk.” After that, he broke the phone in half and removed what must have been the SIM card, which he then put somewhere behind him and near the floor.

  “I think he just shredded the SIM card.”

  “That means whoever he was talking to, it was via a burner phone,” Venice said. “Shredding the card is a wise thing for him to do.”

  Gail had a pretty good guess as to who might have been on the other end of the call. In a perfect world, this was not a visit she should be making on her own, but backup was hard to come by when the rest of the team was a thousand miles away. On the positive side, Billy Monroe had no history of violence. Seeing his portly form through the window made her feel a little more confident that he wa
sn’t much of a fighter.

  But she’d been wrong before. And she had the limp and the hospital record to prove it. Prudence trumped bravado every time. If only she could convince Digger of that.

  Once again, Venice had blown Gail away with her computer skills. The offshore account that the mysterious caller had given them traced to a shell company called Three Seas, LLC, which apparently did nothing other than occupy space on the internet. The ownership of the company was murky, at best. Venice could no doubt track it to ground if she’d wanted to—and maybe that’s what she was doing now. The real find, though—the one that sent Gail here to Billy Monroe’s house—was the name of Three Seas’ registered agent, William Belmont Monroe, a.k.a. Billy.

  The same Billy Monroe who was counsel of record for Fernando Pérez, son of Santiago Pérez.

  It wasn’t exactly a smoking gun, but it was close enough to warrant further investigation. Now, she needed to decide her approach. Since Monroe was a lawyer, she decided to become Agent Culp again.

  “Are you ready for this, Gunslinger?” Mother Hen asked.

  “We’re about to find out,” Gail replied.

  She attached her badge to her belt, withdrew her ersatz credentials from her pocket, and knocked on the door. When Monroe hadn’t answered after thirty seconds, she pounded on the door. “William Monroe! Open the door! This is the FBI!”

  Perhaps he was a criminal, perhaps he was not, but he was a resident of this suburban oasis and that kind of noise was sure to draw attention and spin up the rumor mill.

  Ten seconds later, the door opened and there he stood. Taller than she’d expected, he was also older and more disheveled. Perhaps it had something to do with the substantialness of his gut. She’d noticed many times that large men with large bellies have difficulty keeping neat. He still wore his suit pants and dress shirt, but his collar was open and he’d loosened his tie to the second button.

  “Jesus, lady!” he exclaimed. “You’ll wake everyone!” Exactly the reaction she was going for.

  “William Monroe?” she asked, louder than was necessary.

  “Yes. Obviously. What the hell is this?”

  Gail presented him with her creds case. “I am Agent Gerarda Culp with the FBI. I need to speak with you.”

  Monroe craned his neck and pivoted his head left to right to see if people were watching. Then, he seemed to realize what he was doing, and he pulled back. “Come in, please,” he said. He never even looked at the credentials. People rarely did.

  “Thank you,” Gail said, and she stepped into the foyer. It was exactly as she had expected. “Are we alone? Anyone else in the house?”

  “No. Just me.”

  “Your wife?”

  “We’ve separated. This time next year, I suppose this will either be hers or we’ll have had to sell it in a settlement.”

  Gail didn’t care. She led Monroe into the dining room on the left-hand side of the foyer—away from his office. Desk drawers all too frequently contained firearms and other weaponry that she didn’t care to deal with.

  “Have a seat,” she said, indicating one of the chairs around the rectangular table that was disproportionately short for the room.

  “What is all this about? What are you doing here?”

  “Sit.”

  Monroe lowered himself into the chair at the head of the table, his back to the front window. Gail walked around him and chose the chair at the angle, facing the foyer.

  “You are the registered agent for Three Seas, LLC,” she said. It was an accusation rather than a question.

  Monroe’s eyes widened, but he otherwise made no response.

  “I understand that you’re expecting a large payment soon,” Gail pressed.

  Beads of perspiration blossomed just under his hairline.

  “Now, disrespect me again by asking why I’m here. See how that goes.”

  Monroe tried to hold her gaze, but he couldn’t pull it off.

  “Who were you on the phone with right before I arrived?”

  “I want a lawyer,” Monroe said.

  “And I want to reunite a couple of children with their families,” Gail replied. She kept her tone even yet intense.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Lawyer.”

  “Yeah, well, that’s not going to happen.” Gail had anticipated this moment and planned for it. From the right pocket of her sports jacket, she withdrew a Ruger SR 22 outfitted with a threaded barrel, and from the left, she withdrew a can suppressor, which she made a show of screwing onto the muzzle.

  “This is bullshit,” Monroe said. He issued a nervous laugh. “You’re not going to shoot me.”

  With the suppressor set, Gail fired a shot past Monroe’s left ear. The sound of the action was louder than the gunshot itself, as was the sound of the shattering of the glass speaker’s trophy on the bookshelf on the far end of his office. Monroe slammed his hand up against his ear.

  “Shit!”

  “I was sitting next to Ms. Alexander when you two spoke,” Gail explained. She stood from her chair and, never breaking her aim at his chest, twisted closed the venetian blinds on the dining room windows.

  When she caught him casting a quick glance to the ceiling behind her, she said, “Global Protection Security Company. I know. We’ve had their system hacked for a very long time. I assure you that your system is down.”

  “You can’t do this!”

  “Evidence to the contrary notwithstanding. I need you to tell me where Roman Alexander is, Billy.”

  “I demand to see a lawyer!” As he spoke, he slammed his right hand down on the tabletop.

  She shot his thumb, nearly severing it at the root.

  “Ow!” he shouted. “God damn it!” The digit flopped as he hugged it to his chest.

  Gail’s heart pounded as if to bruise itself. Never in a million millennia would she have imagined a time when she’d descend to this level of depravity.

  “Billy, you need to understand that I am not the sort of person who does this kind of thing. You need to understand that Roman Alexander is very, very important to me. You are not.”

  “I–I don’t even know what you’re talking about.”

  Her next shot relieved him of the tip of his right elbow, causing his arm to jerk and slam the thumb into the table. He howled in pain.

  Gail fought the urge to vomit. “It’s too late to deny,” she said. “Your face shows everything.”

  “You bitch! I’ll have you put in prison for the rest—”

  “Just stop!” Gail yelled. “You’re going to do nothing but suffer and bleed, Billy. I can plink away at you all night, and the only way to limit how crippled you’ll be tomorrow morning is to tell me what the arrangements are for delivering Roman Alexander and Ciara Kelly back to their homes.”

  “When the police get ahold of you—”

  Gail coughed out a laugh. Genuine amusement. “You do that,” she said. “I can’t wait to hear the recording of the phone call.” She did finger quotes with her free hand. “I let a crazed assassin into my home, and she tortured me until I gave up the details of the kidnappings I suborned. That will play well in the media, counselor.”

  “I’m taking you down,” Monroe seethed.

  She shot a trench into the flesh of his right shoulder. “Look at what I’m doing to you,” Gail said. Her voice caught in her throat, and she swiped tears from her eyes. “How can you possibly take me farther down than these depths where I already am?”

  She let her words hang in the air, felt encouraged when Monroe looked away. The flesh of his face had taken on a gray hue. It couldn’t have been from blood loss, because she hadn’t hit any major vessels, but the pain must have been nearly unbearable.

  “Make no mistake, Billy,” she said, hoping that this would seal the deal and allow this horror show to stop. “I will continue to shoot chunks off of you all night long if I have to. For both our sakes, please don’t make me do that.”

  Monroe’s eyes reddened, and
his lower lip began to tremble. “It wasn’t supposed to be like this,” he said. “I was a good lawyer once. An honest lawyer.”

  “I’m not your priest,” Gail said. “Every second is precious to those young people. I need to know where they are and what the plan is to trade them off.”

  “I–I don’t know where they are,” he said. The pain had started to take hold, and his tone had turned desperate, pleading. “I swear to you.”

  She believed him. “Are they with Cristos Silva?”

  Instant confirmation in his face. “How can you know that?”

  “Tell me the plan,” Gail said. She owed him no information, and she sure as hell was not going to waste time answering his questions.

  She listened for the better part of ten minutes as Monroe relayed details of the drop-off. When he was done, Venice said into her ear, “I got it all. Ask him what number he called before you arrived.”

  “It’s safe to assume that you were speaking to Cristos Silva when I arrived, right?” Gail asked.

  Monroe considered lying, then changed his mind. “Yes.”

  “I need that number.”

  Horror. “I–I . . .”

  “Stammering is not answering,” Gail pressed.

  “I don’t have it memorized.”

  “It’s written down, then?”

  He again wrestled with the thought of lying. Finally, he nodded. “It’s over at my desk.”

  Gail took a step back and motioned for him to stand. “Go get it.”

  “I’m not sure I can get up.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with your legs,” Gail said. “Yet.”

  Clearly in agony and listing to his right, Monroe struggled out of his chair and steadied himself before taking tentative steps toward the foyer. Blood dropped in heavy spatters from his wounds, and he moaned with each step.

  “God damn this hurts,” he said.

  Gail said nothing. As they passed from the area of closed blinds to open ones, she lowered her pistol down to her side but remained on point, fully aware that he was crossing into new territory. Whereas the dining room table was clear and every corner could be assessed with a glance, the first floor office was a study in clutter.