Highest Law: A Gripping Psychological Thriller

by R. J. Pineiro

  “Could you set it up for us?” Mia asks.

  Franky grabs the remote, turns on the TV, and presses a few buttons. The black-and-white image of Yanez and Jerry leaning over the body materialize on the 50-inch screen with uncanny resolution. The ME is inserting a probe just above what’s left of Dix’s left hip to check his liver temperature.

  Closing her eyes in obvious disgust while looking away, Franky passes the remote to Mia and says, “Hit rewind. It stores the last forty-eight hours.” Then she looks at me. “I can’t do this, Law. Get me the fuck out of here.”

  I look at Mia and raise my eyebrows. She nods and tosses me the keys to her SUV.

  It’s early evening and our vehicles crowd both sides of the street in front of her house under the greyish glow of streetlights. There’s Murph’s Colorado truck and Yanez’s large Ford van on this side of the street. Mia and I arrived in her Mercedes SUV, which hugs the opposite curb directly across from them. Because nobody arrived with sirens and flashing lights, there are no curious neighbors roaming about. Yet.

  I guide Franky to the Mercedes, rounding the front bumper of Murph’s truck and waiting for an approaching car to pass by before crossing over.

  “I can’t go back in that damn house, Law,” she says, latched on to my side. “Ever. What the fuck am I going to do?”

  And at that moment, Dix’s face materializes in my mind.

  Look at me, Boss… promise me… you… owe me.

  I’m about to tell her that she should stay with me, but my attention is diverted down the street, where I squint at the incoming headlights drifting toward us.

  Is this guy drunk?

  As I finish that thought, the angle of the lights increases sharply, accompanied by the engine roaring and tires spinning over asphalt.

  “Law!” she screams as time seems to slow to a crawl—as I grab her and leap onto the hood of Murph’s truck, sliding across it, and tumbling onto the sidewalk. But not before catching a glimpse of the driver.

  It’s that damned albino Russian again.

  The eye contact lasts a second maybe two, but long enough to capture that same wicked gaze I saw outside Kerns house and before that at Compound 35.

  Somehow, I manage to remain beneath Franky as we slide off the hood, cushioning her fall while slamming my back against the concrete sidewalk with her on top.

  The Chevy truck rocks forcefully, accompanied by the screeching sound of metal striking metal and a shower of sparks.

  It takes me a moment to come around, as tires spin, the smell of burnt rubber tingling my nostrils. Shifting Franky off of me, I surge to my feet, right hand reaching for the Sig.

  Releasing it from my hip holster, I recognize the vehicle as a black Buick SUV. It veers toward the middle of the street.

  As I steady the iron sights on its rear windshield, Mia’s words echo in my head about using finesse.

  But screw finesse.

  Really.

  That asshole just tried to run us over.

  So, I unload the Sig into his rear windshield as the Buick fishtails while accelerating in the night.

  The rounds spark off the glass, merely grazing it.

  I release the magazine, reload, and cycle the slide, managing to fire twice more, but striking more armored surface before the SUV disappears around the corner.

  Dammit.

  Franky is still on the sidewalk trying to get her bearings, but she seems unharmed. I run across the street toward Mia’s car to go after it, but I no longer have the keys.

  I look back toward Murph’s ride, where I must have dropped them when we jumped out of the way. But all I see in the dim streetlight is the long gouge along the entire side of his shiny new truck, where the SUV sideswiped it.

  Looking back up the street and deciding the bastard is long gone, I return to Franky after holstering my weapon just as Murph and Mia run outside bearing their sidearms.

  Porch lights now come on at a few surrounding houses before front doors inch open.

  “NCIS business!” Mia shouts. “Stay inside!”

  “Are you okay?” Murph asks as he and Mia approach us.

  “We are now,” I reply, helping Franky to her feet.

  “What the hell happened?” Murph asks, glaring at his truck.

  “Some bastard tried to run us over,” Franky replies. “That’s what the hell happened.”

  Mia does a double take on her, a woman who has gone from mourning widow to whatever this is in less than a minute.

  I just nod, trying to catch my breath.

  “Drunk driver?” Mia asks while Murph walks around the Colorado’s front and frowns at the damage.

  “Hell no,” Franky says.

  “Please tell me you got the plate number?” Mia asks while holstering her Sig.

  “Nope,” I reply.

  “Why the hell not?”

  “Because, bitch,” Franky retorts, “we were too damned busy jumping the fuck out of the way of some asshole trying to kill us!”

  Mia blinks, which I know is pretty hard for anyone to get her to do. Then looking at me, Franky adds, “I really don’t like her, Law.”

  Before Mia can reply, I say, “Franky’s right. It was definitely intentional and professional. But the most important thing is that I caught a glimpse of the driver. It was the Russian shooter.”

  “What?” Mia says. “Are you—”

  “Yes. One hundred percent. This time I saw him up close and personal. Same bastard I saw outside Compound 35 and again this morning.”

  “And what happened to all those shots? You go from decapitating one driver to completely missing the next? I need you to find that happy middle, Law.”

  “I didn’t miss,” I tell her. “Hit it several times from a distance of a hundred feet. Barely scratched it.”

  “Armored SUV,” Murph says, shaking his head. “That explains the damage to my truck. It’s—”

  “Crazy shit,” I say. “All of this is crazy shit, including Uncle D.’s fingerprints connected to that Russian asshole that keeps getting away.”

  “Well,” Mia replies. “If you think this was crazy shit, wait until you see the video.” Then turning to Franky, she adds, “Your husband… he didn’t kill himself… willingly.”

  Chapter 21

  I stand next to Mia in the living room while Murph keeps Franky sequestered in one of the MA Humvees that have arrived at the scene, along with a half dozen cruisers from the Newport News PD plus a van from the Norfolk Office’s Major Case Response Team already working the bedroom as well as the spot where Franky and I almost got run over.

  What was thought to be another veteran suicide has now turned into murder plus attempted murder with shots fired. Half the block has been sealed off with police tape to keep onlookers from contaminating the scene. And that also drew the assorted vehicles from the local media.

  Meanwhile, Mia has been on the horn with Ledet and Quantico to get an explanation why the fingerprints of my Uncle—who shows up on the database as an NCIS officer even though I’m damned sure he is not—were found on the vehicle connected to the murder of Captain Kerns. Plus, also a reason why my uncle is using a fake name. But answers from above are very slow coming, reminding me of my one-way conversations with Colonel Granite.

  But I now put all of that out of my mind to focus on the flat screen TV in Franky’s living room.

  Mia presses PLAY on the remote control, and the video starts at the moment when the motion sensor of the HD camera hidden in the book shelves detected Ponytail Jones and his associate, Mark Kessler, entering Dix’s room.

  I tighten my fists when they stand on either side of the bed as he sleeps. The latter flips a coin, apparently to decide who gets the honors to wake him up. Jones calls heads, and it looks like he wins, because he grins while Kessler pockets the coin.

 
Reaching for the clear tube running from the oxygen concentrator to the nose cannulas, Jones pinches it between his thumb and forefinger—an action that makes me think of Murph and me at Landstuhl. But at least our intentions were honorable.

  The effect is almost immediate.

  Dix gags once, opens his eyes, and blinks several times, before focusing on Jones, then on Kessler, and finally on the oxygen tube.

  “Wakey wakey,” Kessler says.

  “But no eggs and bakey for traitors,” Jones adds.

  Dix tries to reach for Jones’s hand, but Kessler easily overpowers him, grabbing his pale wrist and twisting it until the elbow faces forward.

  Gagging again, his features contorted, Dix grunts as Jones leans closer and says, “Much better, don’t you think, M.K.?”

  “Definitely,” he replies as Dix continues to choke as Kessler continues the arm lock.

  Dix’s pleading eye lifts to meet Jones’s steady gaze as he opens his mouth in ragged breaths, like a fish out of water.

  “Now,” Jones continues. “I thought we had an understanding back in Landstuhl. You keep your mouth shut and we leave you and your pretty girl alone.” He suddenly releases the tube.

  Dix takes a deep breath from his nose, then another, blinking, then coughing, and inhaling deeply again.

  “Well?” Jones says, reaching for the tube again but without squeezing it.

  “Wait!… I… told them… nothing.” He coughs, inhales again through his nose, and adds, “I swear.”

  “Oh,” Jones says. “Okay, then. Sorry to bother you, Buddy.” He compresses the tube.

  Dix starts to gag again, his eye bulging, his mouth wide open. He’s inhaling and exhaling air but it’s obvious he’s asphyxiating.

  “Motherfuckers,” Murph mumbles next to me.

  Jones finally releases the tube and Dix breathes several times, visibly relaxing as his body absorbs the oxygen. Finally, he says, “Fuck you, Jonesy… and you too, M.K. I ain’t no goddamned traitor.”

  I’ll be damned. Ponytail Jones’s name is actually Jonesy. The Agency bastard has been hiding his real name in plain sight.

  “Yeah?” Jonesy says. “Then why are your former boss and his pal’s little girlfriend neck-deep in our biz? Care to explain that?

  “Yeah,” Kessler adds. “How about it, you crippled piece of shit?”

  Dix blinks, his gaze shifting between them, obviously confused because I know he hasn’t told me or Adanna a thing about these assholes. And trust me, we’ve tried to get it out of him. But the man’s a vault.

  “I… I have no idea,” he says. “I’m telling you, guys. That’s the truth. No one knows about—”

  Ponytail Jonesy reaches for the tube but doesn’t block it. Dix, nonetheless, inhales deeply and flinches in anticipation.

  “And I’m telling you, asshole,” Jonesy says, placing his face in front of Dix while Kessler continues to twist the man’s arm to hold him in place. “I’m not buying it. Someone somehow is leaking shit to them, and the common denominator is you. And we haven’t forgotten your threats back then to go public, man. You’re lucky all you got was a dismissal from the unit. But you did it this time, didn’t you? You spilled the beans.”

  Dix shakes his head emphatically and says, “No, I did not.”

  “Last chance, man. Are you going to come clean on your own, or do you need a little… motivation?”

  “Oh, please,” Kessler says. “I’d love to motivate that little wife of his right there on that little bed. I’ll fuck her raw.”

  Before Dix can react, Jonesy blocks the tube with his right hand and squeezes Dix’s throat with his left. This time Dix’s face turns red, though I can’t tell if it’s from the lack of oxygen or from his growing anger, which I fully share. My blood pressure has already shot past Jupiter.

  When he finally releases him, Dix goes through another coughing-breathing cycle.

  “That’s an American hero you’re torturing, assholes,” Murph mumbles, reading my mind.

  “I’m… telling you,” Dix retorts with far more composure than I feel. “I took an oath. I haven’t… told another soul about… the shit that goes down in Gitmo. The abductions. The people we kidnapped. No one knows about… the clinical trials. And I mean no one. And don’t you dare touch Franky, M.K. Don’t you dare!”

  “You know, Jonesy,” Kessler says, ignoring Dix. “I think I’m gonna do the wife just for sport when she gets here. I mean, somebody’s gotta fuck her, right? Because she sure as hell isn’t getting any from this half man and his limp tootsie roll.” He raises the sheets, tears off the diaper, and they look down at his groin. And laugh.

  “Half man?” Jonesy says sizing him up. “He’s barely a third.”

  “Or a quarter,” Kessler adds, dropping the sheet. “Pathetic.”

  “Fuck you, Jonesy!” Dix shouts, his pitch increasing as tears well in his eye. “Fuck you both! I haven’t talked! I haven’t talked… I haven’t…” And just like that, the biggest, meanest, and most decorated warrior I have ever had the honor of serving with breaks down and starts to cry.

  “You know, M.K.,” Jonesy says after watching Dix weep like a baby for a minute. “I actually believe him.”

  Kessler stands there considering that for a moment, then says, “Then how the hell are those two clowns stirring the damn pot? Somebody’s gotta be feeding them something. I don’t buy that they figured it all out by themselves.”

  “Well, we know they talked to Kerns,” Jonesy says. “Maybe he told them what went down in that gunship?”

  Kessler shrugs. “So what if he did? Whatever he could have told them leads to nowhere. The only name on that piece of paper was Baker’s, and good luck trying to track down that lead. The Pentagon will shut them down in a hurry.”

  Jonesy pats Dix on the shoulder. “Okay, man. Relax. We believe you. But do not make us visit you a third time.”

  “Because it ain’t gonna be pretty,” Kessler adds.

  “The boss wants this contained,” Jonesy adds. “We have enough problems handling the day-to-day crazies on top of those damn Russians. And your friends poking their noses into our biz are not making the job any easier.”

  “You still remember what’s at stake here, man?”

  Dix nods. “I remember.”

  “Good,” Jonesy says. “We’ll cut you some slack this last time. For old time sake.”

  “Yeah,” Kessler adds. “Don’t make us regret it.”

  And just like that, they’re gone.

  I look at Mia. “Then what the hell happened?”

  “Keep watching,” she says.

  It takes Dix a little while to settle down, and he reaches for one of the bottles on the table next to him, downs a pill with some water, and just leans back.

  “Jesus,” he finally mumbles, shaking his head, and closing his eyes, and the screen goes blank.

  When it comes back on almost thirty minutes later, Dix is once again sleeping. But someone else is there, a tall figure at the foot of the bed with his back to the camera, so all we get is a partial view of his torso.

  Then slowly, the figure walks up to the side of the bed with the table holding the prescription meds.

  And I stop breathing.

  It’s Casper. The goddamned—

  “Wake up, Old Friend,” the borderline albino says with a heavy Slavic accent before poking Dix in the arm.

  Dix’s eye flutters, like it did before with Jones and Kessler, blinking in apparent recognition.

  “Yuri?” Dix says, before shaking his head a bit and blinking again, now fully awake. “What the… hell, man?”

  So, I was right. They did exchange a nod outside Compound 35. I thought I had imagined it, but Dix knows this Russian bastard. And why wouldn’t he? If the Russians were hanging out with Jones, and Dix was a part of that crew for a coupl
e of years, he should have met them or even worked with them in whatever it is they were doing.

  “It has been a very long time, yes?” Yuri says.

  “It has,” Dix replies. “You just missed… Jonesy and M.K.”

  Yuri shakes his head. “We do not work together anymore.”

  “You don’t? But I thought… this was a joint op. What the hell… happened?”

  The Russian shrugs. “As you Americans say, creative differences.”

  “Oh,” Dix replies. “But… why are you… here, Yuri? I’ve been out of it… for a while… and as you can see, I’m… pretty fucked these days. Can’t even hold my piss, man.”

  “That may be the case, Old Friend. But you are also a loose end. You know too much, and we think you have also been talking too much.”

  “Dammit,” Dix says. “First Jonesy and now you? I’m telling you, I have not said a word. I took an oath, man.”

  “That is not good enough for my new boss, yes?”

  “New boss?”

  “I am here to clean things up for him.”

  “Who are you working for, man?”

  “Someone who is really going to change the world, yes?”

  The Russian produces a semiautomatic I recognize as a Sig P220, like mine, and also a small sound suppressor, which he proceeds to screw onto the end of the muzzle.

  “Look, man, I already… told Jonesy and—”

  “It does not matter. This is why we do not work together. Jonesy has gone… soft, yes? New boss cannot afford distractions this close to making deal.”

  “Yuri, I… don’t understand. What are you… talking about. What… deal?”

  “I am sorry, Old Friend. And also about your wife.”

  Dix stares at him for a moment, then says in a pleading tone, “C’mon, man… don’t do that. Not Franky. Please?”

  “I am afraid is out of my hands. Boss wants everything clean now, yes?”

  “Franky knows… nothing, man. I swear it. I kept her completely out of all this. Please.”

  He levels the Sig at Dix’s face. “Like I said, Old Friend. I am truly sorry about—”

  “Kazakhstan,” Dix says.