Perfect Weapon. Amy J. Fetzer

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СКАЧАТЬ him blandly. “I take it back, I wanna be you.”

      Cisco scoffed, pushed off from the tree and started walking.

      “You really think she had something to do with this?”

      Cisco didn’t answer, and Wickum drew his own conclusions.

      Four

      Never leave a man behind.

      It clawed at Jack, brewed in his chest with the grief he’d suppressed for the last couple of hours. He dealt with it the way he always had. He shoved it to the back of his mind while he addressed the here and now. There’d be time enough later to drink to the dead.

      Parked in an alley a couple blocks from his house, he watched his place, smoking a stale cigarette he found in a crushed pack under the seat. He didn’t know if the cops and NSA had shared information yet, but he wasn’t taking a chance at getting hauled in before he learned more about Hale and what really happened on that mountain.

      Time to call in some favors. He dialed his cell phone. The pick-up was instant.

      “Hey, Jack.”

      Caller ID at NCIS. He’d have to remember that. “Hutch, I need a favor.”

      “Name it.”

      “You been contacted by NSA?”

      “No.” A pause and then, “What’s wrong?”

      “I can’t say. Not yet. Run a check for me.” He pulled out the ID tag and read off the name.

      Jack heard the computer keys tapping.

      “Nothing. No record, no address. You sure this woman exists?”

      Her image popped into his mind; small, long reddish-brown hair, bloody clothes and leaving bodies in her wake. “I’m sure. Go level five.”

      “Negative.” Dennis Hutchinson’s voice was muffled, whispered. “Not authorized.”

      Jack battled for a second then said, “Decker, Lyons, and Martinez are dead, Hutch. Murdered while we were hunting at Luray. She’s the reason.”

      “I’ll get back to you on that.” The line went dead.

      Hutch would come through. He owed Jack for pulling him out of a little mess in Iraq a few years back.

      With NSA swinging the big dick around, trying to sweep the murders under the carpet of national security, he had to back up and regroup. He’d already tossed the dead deer in a Dumpster near the park, and went to a self-serve car wash to rinse out the blood. The ranger’s clothes joined the carcass and Jack was wearing jeans and a sweatshirt he’d planned to change into after the hunt and had stashed in a duffel in the truck.

      He was freezing his ass off. He scanned the area, his two-bedroom house outside Quantico and was locked as he’d left it. Most of his neighbors were still at work. He couldn’t wait till nightfall. People would be coming home, kids would be near and vulnerable. If the intelligence network connected, they’d be looking for him before morning. He was a material witness, and when NSA figured it out, Jack would have to turn himself in. He was hoping his military record spoke loudly enough for him when NSA learned he’d slipped away from the rangers. Breaking the rules wasn’t something Jack did easily. Ever. But three dead Marines made the difference.

      Leaving his truck and edging down the alley, he slipped in his back door.

      Inside, he didn’t turn on lights. He pulled the shades, feeling like an escapee from prison. He kept his cell phone near. After a quick shower, he changed, then took inventory of his Ops gear, and stuffed it into duffels and packs, loading it by the door. He started to dial Lyons’s wife, then stopped and dropped into a chair. What would he say? He’d lost men before. When they knew the enemy and saw them coming. But this?

      A goddamn massacre. And he couldn’t give their families answers yet.

      He stared at the phone, then laid it down, and gripped his head, fought the grief, the images of shattered skull and blood. The expressions and tears he knew he’d see when he told his friends’ loved ones their husbands and sons were dead. It was his duty to be the one to inform them. But with the sad news, he needed to tell them why, and that the murderers were behind bars. In caskets, would be better.

      Pushing out of the chair, Jack went to his liquor stash over the stove, and poured himself two fingers of twenty-year-old scotch. He held it up in salute, murmured, “Semper Fi,” then tossed it back in one shot. It burned over the ache swelling his throat. He gripped the glass, his vision burning.

      It should have been me. Dammit. The glass popped in his fist. He stared down at the shattered glass, the blood blooming on his thumb. You’re alive for a reason, he thought. Get control. He rinsed his hand, gave it a quick first aid, then sitting in front of his computer in the darkened house, he went online to search for Doctor Sydney Hale.

      College photos and newspaper clippings of numerous awards digitized on the screen. Child prodigy, gifted. A masters in microchemistry at Clemson, another in microbiology, then a freaking doctorate from Johns Hopkins in chemical immunology. Jesus, did this woman even have a life beyond school? Then, five years ago, everything stopped. Using his access codes he had only because he was a team leader, Jack bent a few more rules, skewered his ethics, and accessed files few could. Still, nothing came up in the last five years. No water bill, no mortgage, not even a driver’s license. She’d been wiped out, and that meant someone didn’t want Sydney Hale to exist.

      Her image gelled on the screen again, and Jack memorized her face, the curvy body and bright eyes. The man in him recognized her beauty. The Marine in him saw the answers to his friends’ death.

      Who are you, Dr. Hale? What were you making up there?

      The cell phone rang. Jack looked at the number and answered.

      Hutch spoke briefly, then cut the line.

      Cisco sat alone inside a long, black windowless van, the satellite communications phone to his ear. His skin turned a slightly darker shade as the director raked him over the coals. Mother had failed and it was Cisco’s responsibility. “I’m looking at the satellite thermal shots now, sir,” Cisco argued. “Three escaped. No sir, the two bodies we have were wearing thermal liners.” The director asked how he knew only three escaped. “Aside the bike track, those men were running uphill, and their body temp didn’t keep up with the cold liner suits under their clothes. Obviously they’d planned to ride double.”

      Cisco scanned the photos, the doors of the van closed. Outside, several agents waited in the cold evening. Gabe wished they were in here facing the big guns instead of him. “I’d ask that you not inform anyone of the dead Marines, sir.” Cisco didn’t want to tip any hands just yet.

      “The council and the Under Secretary must be informed,” the director said.

      “We have a leak, sir, and until I cap it, I insist. I’m sure you’ll agree it’s best that the country doesn’t know that three Marines—on leave—were murdered anywhere near the Cradle.”

      “Agreed, however, watch yourself. You’re inches from accusing a member of the council of a criminal act.”

      “With СКАЧАТЬ