Jack of Spades

by Diane Capri

  Better yet, maybe he’d just keep driving straight through to California. Putting as much distance as possible between himself and the Ohio police seemed like the best plan.

  Twenty-nine hours of drive time to San Diego. With a few hours’ sleep, he could be there Monday afternoon.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Sunday, February 27

  6:15 a.m.

  Manchester, New Hampshire

  The sky was full of dark clouds blocking the rising sun, but the snow had stopped during the night. Trevor watched out the window of his hotel room while Owen got the truck running and Oscar cleaned off the snow.

  He’d made a few phone calls yesterday as they left the farmhouse to acquire a new rig. On the way back to the hotel from dinner, they’d dropped off the SUV to be cleaned of all forensic evidence and dumped somewhere far from Manchester, New Hampshire.

  At the same time, they’d moved their equipment into a waiting vehicle.

  The new rig was stolen from another state and dropped at the location for Trevor’s convenience. This one was a used four-door, four-wheel drive diesel pickup truck with a full back seat. It had sufficient towing capacity to haul a heavy-duty trailer loaded with a powerful snowmobile. It was white, to blend in with the snow as much as possible.

  Owen drove along the back roads toward the destroyed motel. Trevor’s plan was to arrive at the site just after sunrise. Owen’s intel from the local cops said that the FBI had left the scene. But Trevor never relied on intel unless he controlled its source. Safer to assume the FBI agents planned to return. They’d been showing up around nine o’clock every day, Owen had said.

  Trevor planned to get in and get out before they came back to work. He figured he’d need an hour or less at the scene.

  Travel speed was slow along the backroads over the fresh snowfall, even though Trevor’s small caravan encountered no other vehicles. The trip from Manchester ate about ten extra minutes of travel time, according to the clock on the truck’s dashboard.

  When the narrow two-track that led to the motel came into view, Owen slowed and drove thirty feet past it. When he stopped, Trevor stepped outside and sent the drone up for a better view of the area. The drone flew high over the two-track and captured video of the clearing. Nothing but trees and snow for miles around. Even the burned remains of the motel had been buried by the blizzard. Just as Trevor expected.

  When he flew the drone closer to the GPS coordinates for the two bodies he’d seen yesterday, he saw three big lumps in the snow. He’d expected two. He rechecked the coordinates to be sure he’d found the right location. He had.

  Three lumps. What did it mean? Had there been three yesterday and, because of the distance or the angle or the lighting or something else, he’d missed the third one? He shook his head. Possible, but not likely.

  He brought the drone back and returned to the cab and climbed aboard. “Looks like there’s three bodies out there instead of two. We need photos and DNA from all three.”

  If the extra body bothered Owen, he didn’t show it. He simply said, “Copy that.”

  Trevor replied, “Okay, let’s go.”

  Owen reversed the truck and backed the trailer around the corner. The big engine pushed the weight easily.

  There were no visible tracks to help with navigation beyond the snow piles on either side. Which confirmed that neither the FBI nor anyone else had driven into the motel grounds since the snow stopped a couple of hours ago.

  Owen watched the rearview and sideview mirrors and used the big truck to push the trailer along the two-track.

  Last night, Trevor had studied the drone videos he’d shot at the farmhouse and identified the point in the two-track closest to the bear’s feeding grounds. Owen reached the spot less than a mile from the main road and Trevor said, “Stop here.”

  They wouldn’t risk radio communications with each other from this point forward because they could be intercepted from a distance and, eventually, unencrypted. The less said, the better.

  To save time, all three men had dressed in their white snow suits before they left the hotel. All three were armed. Owen and Oscar jumped out of the truck, unloaded the big sled, and hopped aboard while Trevor set up the drone.

  Trevor checked his watch and flashed five open fingers four times, to signal twenty minutes of total time to get out there, get the photos and DNA, and get back. Owen and Oscar checked their watches and each flashed a thumbs-up.

  Owen climbed aboard and Oscar sat behind him. Owen fired up the big machine and sped out toward the small clearing. Trevor launched the drone and kept it low above the trees to watch as the operation unfolded.

  The snowmobile’s engine could be clearly heard in the snow-blanketed woods, even as it moved farther away from the noisy truck. The sun was higher above the horizon now, providing extra daylight despite the clouds. The drone’s camera had a clear view of the brothers’ slow progress through the dense but naked trees.

  In a short time, maybe about six minutes, they approached the clearing. They had fourteen minutes to do the job and get back. Which meant eight minutes at the scene. No more and no less.

  Owen pulled the snowmobile to a stop near the first lump, which was about twenty feet away from the other two. He climbed off the machine and shut it down. Both brothers struggled through the heavy snow to reach what, with the aid of Owen’s body size for perspective, appeared to be much larger than the drone images suggested.

  Oscar used his arms to sweep the snow from the body while Owen took quick closeup photos. Even with the zoom lens, the drone’s view was not good enough to identify the body, but given its size, it could have been a human.

  The two brothers goose-stepped through the heavy snow to the other two lumps, which were smaller than the first, and spaced about six feet apart. Owen cleaned one lump and shot photos while Oscar did the other. Trevor glanced at his watch. When he looked at the drone’s video feed again, Owen and Oscar had mounted the snowmobile for the return trip.

  When the snowmobile cleared the woods, Trevor retrieved the drone and packed it away. Owen and Oscar loaded up the snowmobile and climbed into the truck. Owen pulled out of the two-track and stopped at the intersection with the county road.

  “Back to Manchester. We need to send out the DNA samples,” Trevor said when Owen shot a questioning glance across the front seat. Owen turned right, as instructed. “Were you able to identify the bodies back there?”

  “Unfortunately not.” Owen shook his head. “There were two humans, for sure. Both male, is my best guess based on the size and shape of the torsos. They’ve been there a while. Quite a bit of decomposition on both. Animals large and small had been feasting on them, too. The faces weren’t recognizable. We patted them down for ID, just in case, but didn’t find any.”

  “Any identifying marks?” Trevor was thinking about Casper Lange’s tattoos. Trevor wasn’t sure how many tattoos Lange had, but he’d seen two, one on his right bicep and one on his left forearm.

  “We didn’t strip the bodies, but the arms and legs had been torn off or gnawed to the bones. There was nothing left to identify,” Owen said. “We took photos of the dentition. Which isn’t perfect for identification purposes, but it’s something. A forensic dentist with Lange’s dental records in hand might be able to make a reasonable guess. One of them had several missing teeth. The other one’s mouth looked like a toothpaste model. For an adult male, that’s unusual.”

  Trevor nodded. Lange had perfect teeth. Never had a cavity. It was something he’d casually mentioned once when Trevor’s dentist sent him for a root canal.

  “Did you find anything else?” Trevor asked.

  “Like what?”

  “Weapons, backpacks, duffel bags, jewelry, cell phones, anything at all?”

  Owen shook his head. “There’s so much snow out there, it would be hard to see anything more than say twelve feet away, even if we’d had more time and equipment to look for stuff. But in the immediate vicinity of the
bodies, I’d say no. There’s nothing else out there.”

  Trevor nodded, wondering what happened to the duffel Lange had taken from his safe. If he’d left it in that motel, it had probably been burned to ashes. “What about the third body?”

  Owen shrugged. “A black bear. Maybe the one you saw yesterday, because it was laying on top of the old snow and under the new snow. But the bad news is that it was shot. Several times.”

  “Which means someone found the bodies and killed the bear within the past twelve hours,” Trevor nodded slowly, thinking aloud.

  “Looks that way,” Owen replied. “I’ll call my source at the local cop shop. See what they know about it.”

  “Do that. But regardless, someone was out there with the bodies and shot the bear since yesterday afternoon. That complicates the situation,” Trevor ran a palm over his face.

  Time had grown shorter in an instant.

  They’d drop off the truck and pick up another vehicle. Send out the DNA and photos to his experts. He’d have results by tonight. Tomorrow at the latest.

  And then two quick stops to make in Laconia before they left town.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Sunday, February 27

  6:05 a.m.

  Boston, Massachusetts

  Kim had been too exhausted to review Gaspar’s files thoroughly last night. She’d returned to the Laconia Inn from the hospital without stopping anywhere along the way. After a long, hot bath to chase the frost from her bones, she’d fallen into an exhausted sleep until the same room service waiter brought her a way-too-early-breakfast.

  Hours ago, she’d rushed to pack up and meet Smithers downstairs where an FBI vehicle waited to transport them to Boston’s Logan International Airport. Kim disliked air travel of all types, and Logan was one of her least favorite airports. It was always crazy busy. And the runways were configured way too close to the Atlantic Ocean to suit her comfort level. She had no desire to take an icy bath in the dark with hundreds of panicked passengers.

  Even with the Boss greasing the wheels of the security systems, traffic, weather, and crowds meant a mad dash to make the flight on time. Which did nothing to calm her churning stomach. She’d already popped too many antacids this morning, so she sucked it up in the back of the big SUV and tried to focus her attention elsewhere.

  Gaspar had sent a text saying he’d uploaded a few more files. She’d downloaded those on the way. She’d have several hours to kill on the long jet flight to San Diego. She could digest everything and come up with a strategic plan. Keeping her mind occupied was one of the best ways to survive cross-country flights since she never, ever slept on planes.

  Before they’d reached the monitored airspace around the airport, she’d called Gaspar on a new burner to check in while Smithers was talking to his team on an encrypted phone in the front seat.

  “Good morning, Suzy Wong,” Gaspar said wearily, like he’d never been to bed at all. Which he probably hadn’t. “Take my advice and never have a kid. Nothing worse than a sick baby keeping you awake all night.”

  Kim grinned because she knew he didn’t mean it. Gaspar loved his family like crazy. Five kids and a great wife. Taking care of them was his reason for living and the reason he’d left the FBI, too. More money, better hours on the outside. Or at least, that’s what he’d planned. Sounded like the reality was a lot different from the dream.

  “Thanks for the files. I’ll read them on the plane. Any word on young Jake’s whereabouts?” she asked.

  Gaspar said, “Yeah. He’s got a cell phone that pings off cell towers along the route regularly. With that and his GPS, I can see his progress. Looks like he’s making a beeline toward San Diego. He’s about six hours from Tulsa at the moment, give or take. You’ll beat him to San Diego, if that’s where he’s going.”

  “What’s after Tulsa?”

  “The route he’s got in his GPS says the next big city is Albuquerque, but I’ll keep tracking him in case he makes a change.”

  She tapped her fingers on the console. “Anybody in the vehicle with him?”

  “Like his Uncle Jack, you mean?”

  “It’s possible, isn’t it?” she challenged. “A normal guy, learning he had a nephew, might be inclined to connect with the kid, don’t you think? Could have been the real reason Jack was in Laconia originally, too.”

  Gaspar chuckled. “Maybe. But we’re not talking about a normal guy. Have you seen any evidence of any kind that says Jack Reacher has normal feelings about anything?”

  “I hate it when you’re right, Chico,” she said and she lost the connection as the driver sped along, effectively terminating the argument.

  Gaspar wasn’t wrong, though. Jack Reacher was the farthest thing from sentimental. He was a vigilante and he knew when he was breaking the law. He’d been a military cop in the army for thirteen years. He’d been well trained in the lawful way to do things. But he chose to administer his own brand of justice instead. Which partially explained why he’d been living off the grid all these years.

  Gaspar always said Jack Reacher’s choices would send him to prison for a good long time one day, just like his choices got him pushed out of the army.

  The civilian criminal justice system would not judge Reacher a hero, for sure. Not by a long stretch.

  On the other hand, beneficiaries of Reacher’s brand of justice were more than grateful for it. Kim knew because she’d benefitted herself. Reacher had saved her life at least once. He’d done it for reasons of his own, but that didn’t make her any less pleased about being alive.

  So maybe sentimental feelings were not what drove Reacher, but he still might want to meet his only brother’s son.

  Which meant that if Kim kept an eye on young Jake, she might find his uncle, too.

  Crazier things had happened.

  The conversation with Gaspar nagged her as they reached the airport and followed the crowds through security and all the way to the departure gate. She worried that Jake could change his mind. Or Jack Reacher might connect with him before he reached California. Or a thousand other things could happen while Kim was held captive on a jet to San Diego.

  Standing in the security line, she pulled out a new burner and used it to look for flights to Tulsa. She could be there before Jake arrived. She bought the ticket, still unsure about whether to take the chance that she might miss him altogether if she tried to intercept.

  But hell, the whole hunt for Reacher assignment was a crap shoot anyway. What did she have to lose? She could take a chance on Tulsa and, if she failed, have a second chance to find Jake in San Diego later. He was driving across the country, which meant she could fly to get ahead of him at any point. Not her first choice. But she could.

  While Smithers was on the phone on the drive to the airport, he had done some behind the scenes work and managed to get his ticket upgraded to first class. Now, he was seated across the aisle from her while they waited for the remaining passengers to board the flight to San Diego.

  The more she thought about it, the more it made sense to intercept Jake as early as possible. She could be with him when he connected with his uncle. At the very least, she could learn things that would help her find Jack Reacher. Maybe.

  The plane’s doors would close in the next few minutes. She had to make a decision.

  Kim looked across the aisle at Smithers briefly before she stood to collect her bags.

  “Where are you going?” Smithers asked.

  “Tulsa,” she replied.

  “Why?”

  “Intercept Jake, if all goes well,” she said.

  “You can’t wait until he reaches San Diego?”

  She shook her head. “Easier to find him before he gets lost in the crowd. Want to come along?”

  He thought about it for a full second before he shook his head. “I’ll meet you there.”

  She muscled her way through the steady stream of passengers moving through the aisle in the opposite direction and finally reached the bulkhead
door. A woman waited to one side as Kim deplaned. She hustled along the jetway to the terminal and located an electronic board listing departures to find her gate.

  The flight to Tulsa was five gates away and the gate agents were almost finished boarding passengers. She picked up her pace and hustled over. Gate agents were finalizing the paperwork and ready to close the door when Kim ran up and flashed her electronic boarding pass.

  The agent frowned at her but allowed her through. She hurried down the jetway and onto the plane seconds before the flight attendant closed the bulkhead door.

  She plopped into seat 1A, the absolute worst seat on any plane. From 1A, she could see everything the flight attendants did at the front of the plane. She could hear their conversations. When something went wrong, Kim would be one of the first passengers to know. She’d have way too much time to worry before the catastrophe happened.

  She shook off the realities, stowed her bags in the overhead, and belted herself tightly into the oversized seat moments before the plane began to push back from the gate.

  She’d be touching down in Tulsa at noon. Which would give her plenty of time on the flight to prepare to deal with Jake and read through Gaspar’s files. She ordered black coffee and opened her laptop.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Sunday, February 27

  8:35 a.m.

  Laconia, New Hampshire

  Owen parallel parked the stolen silver SUV at the curb in front of Margaret Reacher’s house. Lights were on inside against the dreary weather.

  “Wait here until I call you,” Trevor said as he opened the door and stepped out.

  The driveway and sidewalks had not been plowed since the blizzard, which made it easy to see that no one had approached or departed recently. He hustled up to the porch and stomped the snow off his boots before he approached the front door and rang the bell.