Highest Law: A Gripping Psychological Thriller

by R. J. Pineiro

  See what I mean? There’s no way he doesn’t know that Jones and Linebacker were here hours ago. Too much of a coincidence. Yet, he just gives me a slight shrug.

  “You’re telling me you don’t know those OGA guys?” I persist. “The assholes responsible for what happened to me and my team in—”

  “Kid. Stop. I don’t know what you’re talking about and I don’t want to know. I’m here alone, as you can see.”

  “Fine,” I say. “Why are you here?”

  “Oh, about that,” he says casually while drinking more coffee, studying me closely with those cold, dark eyes over the rim of the white mug. “Jimmy sent me.”

  “Granite?” I’m now very confused. Last time the colonel and I discussed my uncle during that breakfast at KAF, Granite acted as if he had not heard from him in ages. Now he suddenly decides to dispatch him to Germany?

  “The one and only.”

  “Why?”

  He sets the cup down, leans back, and crosses his arms, assuming the same damned look he used to give me back in the day, when I was a contentious teenager.

  “To take you away from this place, Kid,” he finally says.

  “What?”

  Standing, he adds, “Jimmy told me to tell you—and I quote—that you needed to get the fuck over it and rejoin the real war out there.”

  I exhale heavily, then use my cane to tap on my prosthesis. “No offense to you or the colonel, but how exactly am I supposed to do handle Talis with this?”

  Shaking his head at me, he says, “That’s not what we have in mind, Kid. Not at all.”

  PART THREE

  OVER HERE

  Chapter 10

  “Remember your training!” I shout over the fast rattle of the M4 carbine reverberating down the stairs from the second floor of the Hampton VA Medical Center in Hampton, Virginia.

  I look at the NCIS Resident Unit Hampton team behind me that I have trained in paramilitary tactics for the past six months, since Uncle D. dragged me out of Germany and somehow managed to get me this training gig with the criminal investigative arm of the U.S. Navy—even though he claimed he didn’t work there.

  And I hope they’re ready.

  I force myself to ignore the damage the shooter has already caused on the first floor, as the hospital staff starts to treat the wounded littering the hallways.

  Man, the bastard made quite the mess in the three minutes it took my team to get here from just across the street. One of the doctors applies pressure to the shoulder wound of an MA, a chief petty officer second class dressed in an NWU Type III sporting the universal cloth badge of the masters-at-arms over the name QUINN. MAs are the U.S. Navy equivalent of the U.S. Army’s MPs--Military Police.

  Quinn, who managed to hold back the shooter for long enough to prevent an even worse massacre on this floor, hisses, “Fucking Franklin,” before flinching in obvious pain. The MA is referring to Petty Officer Third Class John Franklin, who turned on his fellow MA security guards without warning.

  “Not sure how… he got ahold of that M4,” he hisses through the pain. “We stick to… Sigs while on duty here. Bastard… ran upstairs the moment… he spotted you storming in here. Two of my guys… went after him.”

  “We got it, sailor,” I say, standing at the front of the stack.

  Normally, an NCIS REACT team would handle active shooters. The Regional Enforcement Action Capabilities Training, or REACT, is the SWAT-style organization created in 2013 by the NCIS to handle these situations. NCIS boss Andrew Traver had formed it two months after Aaron Alexis killed 12 people and injured three at the Washington Navy Yard. At the time, the first NCIS agent who responded to the shooting had arrived armed with a coat and tie and his Sig P228. Unfortunately, REACT teams couldn’t be at every location on the map, so two years ago, the NCIS director began a new initiative to provide all of its 1200 special agents with Close Quarter Combat training to bridge the gap.

  And that’s where CQB experts like me come in.

  My trainees are all gunned up per my requirements, which includes body armor, Heckler & Koch MP7s chambered in the powerful 4.6x30mm cartridge, .45 ACP P220 Sig Sauer pistols as backups, and my own personal collection of concussion and fragmentation grenades. But it’s the CQB techniques I’ve tried to ingrain in them that will ultimately make the difference.

  “Muzzle control!” I add, before starting up the emergency stairs wearing a prosthesis that very painful and frustrating months of therapy has finally forged into second nature. And this version I’m wearing even has a spring-loaded heel that gives me an extra bounce when I need it, allowing me leap two or three steps at a time.

  Special Agent Beatriz Howard, the senior-most agent of the small NCIS RU Hampton, is next in the stack, covering my left flank. Special Agent Jason Morgan, her second-in-command, tails Beatriz handling the right flank. Two junior agents bring up the rear. The four of them form the basis of the small resident unit.

  Keeping it tight, we move fast, as one, just as we rehearsed, when time is of the essence. Every second that shooter is up there he can unleash dozens of rounds. With the SWAT team from the Hampton Police Department still five minutes out, MA reinforcements ten minutes away, and the closest REACT team from Quantico almost two hours away, it falls on my NCIS RU Hampton to neutralize the threat.

  The thundering intensifies, mixed with cries and screams, as I reach the top of the stairs. It’s definitely an M4 carbine, which fires the 5.56x45mm cartridge from a standard 30-round box. Its fast rattle is mixed with the sporadic 9mm pops from the sidearms of the MAs shadowing him, trying to put him down.

  The shooter has the weapon on full auto, meaning he’s sucking up ammo at the rate of 700 per minute, or around four seconds of actual firing time. My team keeps their MP7s in semiauto mode—that’s a single round fired with each trigger pull, like the real operators I’m pushing them to become.

  I gaze into Beatriz’s green stare behind her clear tactical glasses and she gives me a nod. She’s ready, and so is her team.

  I charge the instant the racket stops, signaling reloading time for the shooter.

  Dashing through the doorway and into the hallway, I catch him in plain view roughly a hundred feet away, by the nurse’s station. Four bleeding bodies litter the floor. Two look like nurses. The other two are the MAs, their side arms laying useless next to where they fell.

  When will the powers that be understand the futility of putting up 9mm pistols against assault rifles such as the M4 or the venerable M16A6? The energy packed in those weapons will overshadow anything those Sigs can dish out.

  Those MAs never had a chance.

  The shooter, also dressed in an NWU, is changing magazines from a rucksack slung over his shoulder. But before I can center him in my sights, Beatriz, who cleared the doorway right behind me, already has him aligned.

  She fires twice. The first round goes wide, pounding the wood paneling along the front of the counter of the nurse’s station. The second is a tad high, nicking his shoulder instead of his center mass.

  God, I miss my old team.

  Murph, Chappy, or Dix would have nailed the bastard with a single shot, and Cope would have blown his head off from a thousand yards.

  The rogue MA screams in apparent pain and leaps over the counter with an agility that momentarily surprises me, evoking images of those Talis at Compound 35 a lifetime ago. I still manage to fire once before his nimble figure springs over the nurse’s station like a jungle cat.

  This guy’s fast.

  But not fast enough.

  The round goes through his left thigh before splintering the wood paneling behind him as he falls to the other side.

  The screaming intensifies as I scramble down the hallway, jumping over bodies, trusting that the team is tracking me. I keep the MP7’s sights locked on the top of that counter, waiting for the bastard to make his m
ove.

  And it comes a moment later, after he reloads and surges from behind the counter, eyes wide open, gazing at me wildly, like a wounded animal—again reminding me of those hajis with the crazy eyes.

  But he is no match to the kind of evil I have faced and defeated.

  I pull the trigger once just as Beatriz, who has caught up to my right, also fires once.

  Both shots smack him squarely in his center of mass, punching holes through his chest before he can let off a single shot.

  He falls back behind the station already a corpse, hitting the floor like the sack of shit he is while the carbine slaps the top of the counter.

  “Threat neutralized,” I speak into my MBITR, the radio strapped to my chest and coiled to my throat mike that’s also linked to the hospital’s security system, which is also linked to the incoming SWAT, REACT, and MA teams. “Get help up here right away.”

  “Law,” Beatriz says. “I—”

  “Flinched on the first shot,” I tell her while walking around the counter and making sure the shooter is down for the count.

  “Dammit,” she groans, remaining by my side, almost shoulder to shoulder, flipping the safety lever on her weapon. Beatriz is my height, almost five eleven, tall for a woman and also muscular but on a slim frame, with narrow waist and shoulders. Her body lacks the classic female curves, but man, she is buffed, hitting the gym almost as much as me, and is quite proud of her six pack and the very defined and slim muscles in her arms and legs.

  Kneeling by his side I remove the rucksack and browse through its contents. She takes a knee next to me.

  Leaning closer I say, “Don’t be too hard on yourself.” I point to his bleeding shoulder. “You got him there on your first shot.”

  “Sure. I saw how much that slowed him.”

  “I also missed the kill shot on my first round, and I’ve done this awhile. It happens. Your team did fine—and you did great.”

  She blinks in surprise because I seldom compliment my trainees—a habit from my SEAL days. “You put him down on the last shot. Had I not been here, you would have gotten it done.”

  She lets out a heavy sigh and nods.

  We count six full magazines, plus Franklin’s loaded service Sig with three extra magazines.

  “That’s over 250 rounds he didn’t get to fire,” I say.

  “Bastard,” she mutters under her breath, before handing the rucksack to Morgan as she transitions to her special agent role. “Bag it as evidence, Jason. Ditto on the M4.”

  “Yes, Ma’am,” Morgan says, reaching for his own rucksack and producing a number of clear evidence bags of assorted sizes, as do the two junior agents.

  Turning to her NCIS RU Hampton team of three, she adds, “Keep this area clear until MCRT gets here.”

  She’s referring to the Major Case Response Team from the NCIS Norfolk Field Office (NFFO), which oversees the mid-size resident agencies and resident units in the region. In addition to Beatriz’s Hampton resident unit, there is the NCISRA Newport, NCISRA Portsmouth, and NCISRA Little Creek. The Norfolk Field Office occupies a large building on Bellinger Boulevard, which also houses the MCRT team. I was there only once for the interview that Uncle D. set up for me back in early January with the NFFO chief, Special Agent in Charge Roy Ledet. Though as it turned out, Ledet was never informed who had actually set it up, only that the request came from the office of the NCIS Deputy Director.

  I sigh at how much I really don’t know about the work and the power of influence that Uncle D. or anyone else in SAPs possesses. But whatever he did or said—or didn’t do or say—worked. A couple of weeks later, I was assigned to work with Beatriz, who leads the smallest resident unit under Norfolk’s purview.

  The resident agencies and the smaller resident units under NFFO are strategically spread out to cover the needs of the more than 80,000 sailors and Marines living and working aboard Naval Station Norfolk, as well as their 112,000 family members. Home to 75 ships docked along its 14 piers, and over 130 aircraft in its 11 aircraft hangars, NS Norfolk is the largest military base in the world.

  “This is about to turn into a shit show,” Beatriz adds, “and I don’t want some wandering asshole contaminating the scene before MCRT and the medical examiner get here. Clear?”

  There are a total of 27 MCRTs stationed around the world, each staffed with a dozen or so experts at processing crime scenes and collecting evidence, and each led by a seasoned forensic specialist. MCRT includes the folks tasked with photographing the scene, dusting for fingerprints, and collecting biological trace and other such evidence. MCRTs allow case agents such as Beatriz and her team to focus on pursuing leads, conducting interviews, making arrests, and other time-critical aspects of a case. But MCRT personnel are not to be confused with the staff from the OCME, the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner of the Virginia Department of Health. Contrary to what Hollywood wants you to believe through movies and TV shows—including the popular series NCIS—the naval investigative agency does not conduct its own autopsies. In the state of Virginia, NCIS partners with the state’s OCME, which provides board certified forensic pathologists, death investigators, and morgue personnel, and operates out of four district offices. The NCIS Norfolk Field Office uses the OCME for the Tidewater District, which is located just down the road in Norfolk.

  Since there are multiple bodies to be processed, the MCRT folks will work with personnel from the OCME to collect all necessary field evidence before OCME takes the bodies to its Tidewater District morgue for processing.

  Beatriz receives multiple nods from her team as they also transition to traditional NCIS special agents.

  Thirty minutes later, Beatriz is finished updating her superior, the special agent in charge of the Hampton Resident Unit, who in turn will update the SAC of the Norfolk Field Office—Roy Ledet—who will, in turn, update NCIS headquarters in Quantico, Virginia.

  She and I are outside, by the two black Chevy Suburbans we used to cover the few blocks separating us from the hospital. We’re trying to stay clear of the growing flurry of activity, and not only from the hospital staff. The Hampton PD SWAT finally arrived in a black tactical van, along with a dozen Hampton PD cruisers, five more from the Virginia State Police, three cruisers from the Norfolk County Sheriff’s Office, plus four Humvees packed with MA personnel armed now with M4 carbines. And, of course, the scene wouldn’t be complete without the news vans from multiple networks setting up shop behind the police yellow tape. The only thing missing are ambulances because the shooting took place in a hospital.

  Beatriz has already called off the REACT team from Quantico, still an hour away, and dispatched them back to the D.C. area.

  “My job’s done today,” I tell her, removing my gear and stowing it in one of our Chevy SUVs. Although I carry an NCIS badge and ID, I’m not a traditional special agent, like her.

  Beatriz is a sworn civilian who trained at Quantico alongside FBI and DEA special agents. Her charter is to conduct U.S. Navy-related investigations, execute warrants, and make arrests. I’m a paramilitary assistant with the charter of training NCIS agents in some of the same techniques I mastered in the teams.

  “Yeah,” she says. “Now it’s my turn to figure out why a decorated sailor with no priors and an MA rating went bat-shit crazy.” She removes her tac helmet, which reveals very short auburn hair, a boyish cut. It crowns a triangular face that ends in a pointy chin. But the thing you notice most about Beatriz is her tomboy appearance, reminding me of Actress Meg Ryan, but without the fragility. Just the opposite, her slim but firm build evokes the tough images of Actress Linda Hamilton in the movie Terminator 2. Add to that a pair of soft green eyes that still have a lot of light in them, and you have someone who resembles more a track and field college athlete than a hunter of military criminals. But like so many females in law enforcement—attractive or not—Beatriz has not had the best of luck at relationshi
ps, barely thirty and already divorced.

  She removes her utility vest, titanium plates, tactical glasses, and the rest of the gear and tosses it in the back of the Chevy, stripping down to her tactical pants, boots, and a tight-fitting NCIS navy-blue T-shirt. Pulling out her NCIS ID from one of multiple side pockets in her pants, she lets it hang from her neck at the end of a metal chain. She also clips her gold badge to her belt and keeps her Sig in place by her right hip.

  “Good luck with trying to figure out crazy,” I say over the cacophony of sirens that have descended onto the medical complex.

  She is about to reply but her phone rings. She fishes it out of a side pocket, listens for a moment, then blinks in apparent surprise. Slowly, she looks at me while narrowing her stare, which crinkles her forehead, and says, “Yes, sir. He’s right here… that’s right. Like I reported, it was Commander Pacheco and me who… yes, sir. I was right next to him with the rest of the—what? Seriously? But we still haven’t completed—yes, sir… I know, sir, but this was our first real… of course, sir. Right away, sir.”

  Disconnecting the call and pocketing the phone, she glares at me for a moment with a pointed gaze that also forms lines around the edges of her eyes.

  I’ve seen that look before when she’s starting to get mad.

  “That was the deputy director,” she finally hisses through barely parted lips.

  “Of NCIS?”

  “No, Law, of Disney-fucking-land.”

  “Oh. What did he want?”

  “Looks like they’re taking you away from my office.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Apparently, you’re wanted at the Norfolk Field Office in the am.”

  “Norfolk? Why?”

  “How the hell should I know?” She shrugs. “That was the DD himself. He wants you to report to the NFFO SAC, Roy Ledet, at oh seven hundred.”

  “Ledet?” I say. “He’s the guy who—”

  “I know. But you wouldn’t be training his team because the man has no team. He’s just a suit behind a desk at that shiny Norfolk building.”