Highest Law: A Gripping Psychological Thriller

by R. J. Pineiro

  “It’s Tony, Mia, and please, take a break. You don’t have to be an asshole every breathing moment.”

  The comment draws a smile from Beatriz.

  “What else have you got, besides attitude?” Mia asks.

  Grumbling something I can’t make out, Rossi works the keyboard and says, “We also just got this.”

  A yellowish photo fills the screen. It’s of seven soldiers posing in front of two Humvees in the desert with mountains in the background I recognize as those typical of southern Afghanistan. They’re all wearing standard ACUs with the “MultiCam” pattern better suited for that operational theater. They’re armed with a mix of MP7s, M249 machine guns, and one is carrying a Barrett TAC-338 sniper rifle. The image must have been taken with the late afternoon sun to their faces as they’re all wearing mirror-tint sunglasses that reflect a burnt-orange sunset.

  “We might find more from the archives, but the Pentagon sent us this one as soon as Harry identified the body,” Rossi adds. “Rourke’s third from the left, during his days with the Seventh Special Forces Group. It was taken some fifty miles west of KAF in early 2010, roughly a month before he went MIA—according to the clerk who emailed it to me.”

  Something catches my eye. The two guys at the end, next to Rourke. They remind me of—

  “Could you zoom in on these two, Agent Rossi?” I ask while getting up and pointing at a large guy, roughly the size of Dix, standing next to a shorter but equally muscular man.

  “Sure thing, Commander,” Rossi replies.

  Their faces now fill the screen, and I get right up to it. Although the magnified version is getting a little pixelated, I can still make out that the smaller soldier has a pronounced scar running down his right cheek. And the larger one is bald with a mustache, has a square chin, and definitely a space between his front two teeth as he smiles.

  Scarface and Linebacker?

  Son of a bitch.

  “Son of a BITCH!”

  “Law?” Beatriz asks as she stands with Mia while Rossi remains sitting but also looking my way. “Are you—”

  “These two guys,” I say, feeling my heartbeat rocketing. “They… they look… I think they could be two of the contractors accompanying Ponytail Jones back in—”

  “Are you sure?” Mia asks.

  “I said could, as is not really sure.” I look at them again. “Unlike Jones, I only met them up close that one time on the mountain, but they sure look like younger versions of those two assholes.”

  “Did the Pentagon release their names, Tony?” Beatriz asks?

  “Ah… yeah,” Rossi replies, leaning closer to the laptop and narrowing his eyes. “All seven of them. The large one is… Corporal Greg Hostetter. The one with the scar is, uh… Lieutenant Mark Kessler. Both were with the Seventh SFG.”

  “M.K.,” I say more to myself than to Mia and Beatriz, now standing side by side.

  “Who’s M.K., Law?” Mia finally asks while Beatriz looks on. I notice for the first time that both women have the same pose, legs spread shoulder-width, arms crossed, heads tilted slightly to the right as they study me.

  I realize I left out that detail from my explanation to Mia this morning, and I probably never mentioned it to Beatriz. “That’s what Dix called the smaller of the two contractors behind Jones at Compound 35 the day before the attack: M.K. Mark Kessler. Has to be him.”

  Mia turns to face Rossi. “Where are they now?”

  Rossi shrugs. “Only asked about Rourke, but I’ll check with the clerk at the Pentagon.”

  “You do that,” Mia says. “And also see if they have better photos of Hostetter and Kessler.”

  My head is starting to spin. The ash-blond Russian who probably killed Rourke was with Hostetter and Kessler—and ponytail Jones—on that mountain. And now Rourke happens to be in the same damn picture with them.

  How are they all connected?

  What were they doing with all that gear in Compound 35?

  Why the need to obliterate that village the following day?

  What was in it that required such level of violence followed by a cover-up that apparently has gone as far as killing members of my team, as well as Adanna’s, plus two Air Force officers?

  What were Jones and Hostetter doing in Landstuhl?

  And how is General Baker involved?

  And how about Granite and even Uncle D.? I can’t discount the fact that Jones and Hostetter showed up at Landstuhl basically at the same time as Uncle D. and shortly after I started making waves with Granite on that Skype call.

  I briefly close my eyes, knowing quite well where the key to start solving this mystery resides: Newport News.

  Turning her brown stare toward me while apparently reading my thoughts, Mia says, “I think we need to pay your old war buddy a visit.”

  I slowly nod but say, “Yeah. All I can do is try again with Dix.”

  “If he is being threatened to stay quiet, I can offer him federal protection.”

  “That’s an interesting thought.”

  “And call Murph,” she adds. “See if he can meet us there. If Dix’s as hardheaded as it sounds, we’re going to need all of the muscle we can muster to get him to talk, especially in light of everything that’s happened today.”

  I guess today is as good a day as any for an intervention, including Mia’s offer of federal protection. It might just be enough to flip the man.

  So, I send Murph a quick text to meet us at Dix’s ASAP. Then we start for the door, but Mia’s phone dings.

  She stops, looks at it, and says, “I’ll be damned.”

  “Something you wish to share with the class?” Rossi asks.

  She looks at him and says, “Yeah. My IT guy just located a copy of the missing ME files.”

  “At the offsite archive?” I ask.

  “Yep. I’m having him send them to Harry now. See what he can dig up.” And she continues toward the door.

  “Hold on there, Mia,” Rossi says, also standing. “I’ve done everything you’ve asked. Now it’s your turn.”

  “Come,” she tells him. “I’ll do better than a useless grainy video and a decade-old war photo.”

  He frowns at that but asks, “Where are we going?”

  “To visit a disabled vet at his home in Newport News,” she replies, reaching for the conference room door and swinging it open while Beatriz follows her.

  I’m right behind them when my phone dings. It’s Murph.

  SURE. MEET YOU THERE IN A FEW. BACK FROM VIRGINIA BEACH. ADANNA HAS TRACKED DOWN A MEMBER FROM HER OLD PLATOON—RADIOMAN I THINK—AND IS TRYING TO SET UP A MEET.

  I show the note to Mia as we walk out of the conference room. She raises her brows and nods. “Tenacious Lil’ woman. Maybe I should try to recruit her for—”

  “Why?” Rossi asks as he closes his laptop, pulls the cables from its back, and scrambles behind us.

  “Why what?” Mia asks back.

  “Why are we going to see a disabled vet?”

  Mia looks at me and says, “Tell him why, Law.”

  “Because,” I say. “We’re about to get low down and dirty.”

  Beatriz offers a wide-eye stare at the apparent rapport between Mia and me after just a few hours working together.

  Before Rossi can reply, his phone beeps twice.

  He stops in midstride to look at the message while Mia already out in the hallway, does a one-eighty, pauses, and, hands on her waist, gives him an exasperated look. “You coming? I need a smoke.”

  “Shit,” Beatriz says as Rossi tilts the screen in her direction.

  “No shit,” Rossi adds.

  “What? What?” Mia asks.

  “Update from the MCRT at Portsmouth,” Rossi says. “They lifted a couple of prints from the van and got a hit.”

  “We got an ID on the d
river?” Mia and I ask in unison.

  “No. Not the driver.”

  “The shooter?” I ask, though I clearly remember the Russian wearing gloves.

  “Don’t think so,” Rossi says while he keeps staring at the screen. “This guy’s definitely not Russian. He’s… NCIS.”

  “C’mon Lil’ T.,” Mia says. “Spit it the fuck out. Who is—”

  “Special Agent Mike Patterno.”

  He angles the screen towards us, and I suddenly feel the blood draining from my head and my legs turning to putty.

  Chapter 19

  “What the hell’s wrong with you?” Mia asks, hands still on her waist.

  All three agents make a semicircle as I stand with my back against the wall trying to process what I’ve just seen.

  “You okay, Commander?” asks Rossi.

  “Law?” Beatriz says. “You look like you just saw a—”

  “That’s not his real name,” I say, trying to connect the dots. Unfortunately, for the life of me I can’t possibly explain why Rossi showed me the picture of—

  “What are you taking about?” Rossi says, pointing at the screen. “It says here that—”

  “Dan Pacheco,” I finally have the strength to mumble. “His name is… Daniel Pacheco.”

  “You mean your Uncle D.?” Beatriz asks.

  I manage a deep breath, before adding, “He’s supposed to be deep in SAP work… somewhere.”

  “Is that the guy you left a message for in addition to Granite on our way back from Portsmouth?”

  I nod.

  “So, he’s not NCIS?” Beatriz asks.

  “I… don’t think so. But he obviously knows people in Quantico—enough to get me the interview with Ledet that led to this assignment.”

  “And apparently, he has the ability to create a fake ID in our system,” Rossi states.

  “Okay,” Mia says. “Assume for a moment that he’s deep undercover. What could he possibly be doing connected to that van?”

  I just shake my head because I don’t have the slightest clue, though once again, there’s my uncle showing up when I least expect it and always somehow connected to Jones and crew.

  But why?

  And how?

  And why isn’t he returning my call? I just left him a very colorful message on his answering service and—

  My phone rings. I look at the screen but frown. It’s just Murph. Frowning, I slide my finger across the bottom and bring it up to my ear. “Hey, man, you won’t believe the shit I just—”

  “Law… Jesus Christ. Oh, Dear God,” he interrupts in a voice that sounds as if he’s almost crying.

  “Murph? What’s wrong?” I ask as I feel a wave of concern displacing the surprise of seeing my uncle’s picture. Murph has never sounded like that, not even after getting both legs blown off.

  “It’s Dix… and Franky. You need to get over here. NOW.”

  Chapter 20

  The SEALs never prepared me for this.

  They trained me to operate covertly, to strike with ruthless violence, to inflict terror into the heart of the enemy, and then vanish without a trace.

  I learned to improvise, to overcome, and to win.

  But not today.

  Clasping the same door threshold to Dix’s bedroom I latched onto last night, I fight the urge to scream, forcing back the tears while taking a deep breath of resolve.

  Slowly, I muster enough courage to approach the bed while Mia and Murph give me some space by remaining in the narrow hallway. Beatriz and Rossi went off to Quantico to try to get some answers on my elusive uncle.

  Franky is curled up on Dix’s lap, head on his chest while whispering something I can’t make out.

  My former brother-in-arms, the largest and toughest warrior I’ve ever met, lays dead on his bed, his single-eyed stare fixated on the ceiling, his arm hanging by the side of the bed. The spilled contents of a half-dozen open bottles of prescription meds litter the small table next to the bed. Some fell on the floor.

  I regard the multi-colored pills with a heavy sigh, which makes Franky lift her head and gaze my way. She’s dressed in faded jeans and a plain white T-shirt, and she’s barefoot.

  “I found him… like this,” she mumbles.

  “Franky, I—”

  “Why, Law?” She stares at me with eyes swollen from crying. Her nose is a light shade of red, and dark mascara lines run down her cheeks.

  I step up to the side of the bed and lean down and over her. “Come,” I whisper, running my arms under her legs and behind her back, like I did last night.

  She tenses, tries to resist.

  “No!” she cries, though it’s almost a whisper. “Leave me alone.”

  “Franky. Please.” I hug her, and as I straighten my back, I lift her off of Dix’s chest and press her gently against mine.

  She makes tiny fists and pounds my chest in protest, but I just hug her tighter, ignoring the dampness of her tears against my shirt.

  “Goddammit, Law.”

  I step out of the room and pass the pair of onlookers. Murph can’t meet my gaze, but Mia does, and she’s already slipping into a pair of nitrile gloves. Although it looks like a suicide, I know the drill. She has already called Yanez and also the MCRT to scrub the place and make sure there wasn’t any foul play. After all, the number one suspect involving the death of a spouse is the other spouse, and the optics here don’t look so great given the dire circumstances. But my focus is on Franky, who I try to deposit on the same sofa where we had drinks last night, but now she is not letting go.

  “Hold me,” she whispers in my ear as I sit down and cradle her like I did hours ago. Murph joins us and sits next to me.

  “Why did he do it? Why?” she asks, looking up at me and then Murph with a heart-wrenching stare. I wipe the dark lines below her blue eyes with a finger before kissing her on the forehead while Murph rubs her back.

  “I don’t know, Sweetheart,” I say. “I… just don’t know.” But as I glare into Murph’s eyes, I do know, and so does he. Dix, as debilitated as he was, managed to succeed where we failed miserably. He never wanted to put his wife through this kind of life and ended it for the both of them. Was he just waiting for me to promise I would look after her?

  Mia joins us a moment later and sits in the recliner facing us.

  “Miss Hope,” she says. “I’m very sorry for your loss, and I can’t begin to imagine how difficult this must be for you. But I need to ask you just a couple of questions. Won’t take long.”

  I turn to Mia with a could-this-wait look. But she just lifts her shoulders slightly and says, “Miss Hope, I really need to–”

  “It’s Franky,” she interrupts, looking up from my chest at Mia, before using her fingers to dab beneath her eyes. Slowly, she also slides off my lap and sits in between Murph and me.

  Taking a deep breath, she runs fingers through her shoulder-length hair with both hands to push it back behind her ears.

  “Alright, guys,” Mia says to Murph and me. “Why don’t you let me have a word in private with–”

  Franky places a hand on each of our thighs to make sure Murph and I remain put, flanking her. “Go ahead. Ask what you need to ask,” Franky says, “but these two stay right here. They’re the only family I have left.”

  “Okay,” Mia says, before glancing at Murph, then me, and back to Franky. She produces a phone, sets it to record, and places it on the cocktail table between us. “Miss Hope, I need to record this conversation. Is that okay?”

  She nods.

  “Miss Hope, I need you to acknowledge out loud and give me permission for the recording.”

  “Yes,” Franky says. “Go ahead.”

  “Alright. You said you found your husband, Sergeant Leslie Hope, like this?”

  Another nod. “I went out to run a few erra
nds at the VA, the grocery store, plus the minivan needed new tires. Then a quick stop at the pharmacy to pick up his prescriptions and…” She turns to me and starts crying again. “Oh… Dear… Jesus.”

  I put an arm around her shoulders and gently shift her toward me. We give her the time she needs to regain her composure. After a minute or so using my uniform as a handkerchief, she pulls away, and once more wiping her eyes, she says, “Anyway, I was gone for longer than usual because of the damn tires. When I got home… I found him like this. He was sleeping when I… left him.”

  “That’s okay,” Mia says in a reassuring tone. “Do you remember the precise times where you were at each location?”

  “So, I’m a suspect now?” Franky blurts out while standing, going from sadness to anger in a fraction of a second.

  “Standard procedure,” Mia replies, visibly unfazed by her and waving her to sit back down. “And no, you’re not.”

  She remains standing for another moment, until I tug her gently on the sleeve.

  With a slight groan, she complies.

  Over the next five minutes, Franky steps us through the times when she left and stopped at each place. By then Yanez and Purplehair Jerry have arrived and started their work.

  “But look,” Franky adds at the end, pointing at the TV. “You can see for yourself what happened… what Dix did when I… was…” She leans into me while making me put my arm around her shoulders. This time she sobs quietly.

  “See what exactly?” Mia asks, leaning forward.

  “There’s a motion-sensitive web cam in the bedroom linked to the DVR below the TV,” I explain while hugging her.

  Mia does a double take on me, apparently irritated that I answered the question.

  “I’m sure it’ll validate her statement,” I add.

  “Why would you have a camera in the room?” she asks Franky, staring directly at her.

  I decide to explain why, to Mia’s growing annoyance, but I don’t care. I need to protect Franky. She has gone through enough, and I intend to honor Dix’s final request of me, even if it puts me at odds with my new boss.