Contract to Kill (12 page)

He selected the text message icon and frowned.

“Chip,” he called. “Get the woman back in here.” He let Haynes see the text message on Mara’s phone. “Did you know about this?”

“No! I swear.”

“What’s your phone’s passcode?” Mason asked.

“What about Mara?”

“You’re in no position to dictate terms, Mr. Haynes. But I’ll give you my word we’ll definitely hurt her if you
don’t
give me your passcode.”

“T-H-X-one-one-three-eight. Uppercase letters.”

“Clever. I’m a George Lucas fan myself.” Mason tapped the passcode and opened the photos app. He saw the triangle indicating a video and tapped the clip. Haynes’s face appeared, looking rather stressed. “How long is the recording?”

“A few minutes. I’m not sure.”

“Did you send this to anyone?”

“No.”

Mason opened the email and text apps; they didn’t show a recent message being sent. Haynes also hadn’t made any recent calls. It was possible Haynes had already erased the logs, but Mason had to be sure either way.

“Where’s your computer?”

“It’s in the spare bedroom. I backed up my phone before I made the recording.”

“Why did you do that?”

“In case I decided to wipe its memory.”

“And you’d do that because?”

“I didn’t call the police—doesn’t that mean anything?”

“We’ll explore that later. Does your computer have a log-in screen?”

“It’s the same code as my phone.”

“Sit tight, Mr. Haynes.”

Nathan now understood why Mason had chosen this particular spot. Despite being in the middle of a huge city, the location was ideal. There weren’t any light standards for night play. When the sun went down, this place went to sleep.

So far, they’d avoided walking on any nongrass surfaces that would leave footprints. Once this place became a crime scene, the investigators were going to scour the entire area. As long as they stayed on the thicker areas of grass, they should be okay.

Every twenty seconds or so, Harv scanned for heat signatures. A dead body continued to radiate for a while, but the cold conditions would accelerate the cooling. Still, given the time elapsed, the thermal imager should reveal any objects, human or otherwise, with a warmer signature than the background.

Based on Toby’s description, Nathan believed the dead men would be in or near the center of the complex. He angled to the left slightly, believing that would take them in the right direction. Straight ahead, a line of trees emerged from the mist. As they got closer, they found a gravel access road.

“We need to watch our footprints,” Nathan said. “The police will take notice of our missing cleat patterns, and my size thirteen isn’t especially common.”

“Ya think?” said Holly.

“We’ll cross the road up ahead to our right. I see an area where there’s more gravel.” Nathan noticed the road wasn’t just a road: it doubled as a parking aisle and it was at least fifty feet across, probably closer to sixty.

Harv stopped short. “There’s no way we’ll get across this without leaving some prints. You go first and I’ll walk inside your tracks. Holly can follow inside of mine. Can you see well enough to do that?”

“Barely,” she said.

“We’ll come back across in the same spot. Look for a landmark.”

“We’ll use that big tree at two o’clock as our anchor point. Walk straight toward it.”

Nathan avoided puddles and soft mud, stepping on areas that were mostly gravel. On the opposite side, they paused at the trunk of the tree.

Harv used the thermal imager again. “I’ve got something. Two signatures at eleven o’clock, maybe fifty yards out. Neither looks bright enough to be alive.”

Nathan checked the entire area with his NV and saw the prone forms. “Let’s double-time it out there.”

They ran at a good clip and slowed as they approached the two motionless forms. It looked as if Toby had seen things pretty accurately. Their hands bound behind their backs with nylon rope, two dead men lay on their sides. The gunshot wounds to the backs of their heads couldn’t be missed: both of them were bald. The rest of their exposed skin was covered with expensive tats. Oddly, each man had a 1,000-peso bill tacked to his forehead with a pushpin.

“Check it out,” Nathan said. He handed the scope to Harv.

“Weird. It looks like some kind of signature killing.”

Harv passed the device to Holly.

“I’ve seen this before . . . ” she said slowly.

“I’ll turn on the IR illuminator.” Nathan knew the naked eye couldn’t see the infrared light. “We’ll maintain our perimeter while you check these guys out.”

“Toby didn’t mention the money pinned to their foreheads,” she said.

“He probably couldn’t see it,” Harv added. “They aren’t breathing, but I’m gonna check for a pulse anyway.” Harv removed a glove and took a knee. He looked up at Nathan and shook his head. The other man was also dead. Harv put his glove back on and scrubbed the area of their necks he’d just touched to eradicate any possible prints.

“Check for IDs,” Nathan said.

“Be careful you don’t move the bodies,” added Holly.

Harv removed their wallets and used the flashlight app on his phone to illuminate the IDs. “One of them’s from Mexico City; the other’s from Seoul.”

Holly suggested Harv take pictures of the IDs.

Harv nodded. “The mist should mask the flashes. I’ll take a couple of overall shots and get some shots of those bills tacked to their foreheads. Their tats as well.”

“I’m sure I’ve seen this before,” Holly said.

“The money thing?” Nathan asked.

“Yes. I think it was a few years ago—some kind of ATF operation.”

Nathan looked at Holly. “I don’t think we should call this in tonight. It’s better to let the bodies get discovered in the morning. I know it’s important for the police to begin a murder investigation as soon as possible, but we already know who did this.”

Holly asked, “Are you thinking Toby’s sick call might create a possible link?”

“It’s a long shot, but the timing’s what worries me. Toby doesn’t go to work on the same night his boss commits a double murder. Look, if you insist we call this in, we’ll do it. No questions asked.”

She didn’t answer right away. Nathan knew she was considering all the consequences.

“Since we have an eyewitness to the crime, I’ll agree to delay reporting this under protest, but I was never here. I never saw this.”

Nathan turned off the IR illuminator. “Let’s get back over to Toby’s and figure out our next move.”

Back at Harv’s car, Nathan felt strangely deflated. Even if those two dead men were mixed up in a criminal organization, they might’ve had very different futures ahead of them. Now they’d never have the chance. Nathan had seen his share of death over the years, but it never got any easier.

He again opened the front passenger door for Holly, then climbed into the back.

“Let’s find a drive-through and grab some coffee and breakfast sandwiches. We don’t know how long we’ll be tied up with Toby tonight.”

Harv said, “I know a place. It’s not far out of our way.”

“That okay with you, Holly?”

“Yes.”

“Maybe we should start some kind of surveillance on Mason.”

“That won’t be easy,” said Harv. “He’s BSI’s chief of security, and he’s just committed a capital crime. He’ll be wary of tails and surveillance, the works. Don’t you think?”

“How about his second-in-command? Hahn?”

Harv shrugged. “Same problem, I’d say. Maybe between the three of us we could manage it.”

“Holly can’t help us with that; she needs to be back in DC tomorrow. It would be useful to get some personal information on Mason, Hahn, and Lyons, though.”

“I’ll see what we have on them,” Holly said.

“If this blows up, that could put you in a difficult spot,” Nathan said.

“Define ‘blows up.’ Never mind. It’s better if I don’t ask.”

“Well,” Nathan said, “that brings up the big question: What’s our endgame here?”

“Mason and his people need to be held accountable for murdering those men.”

“And there are two ways to do it. Through the legal system or . . . privately.”

“Nathan, for obvious reasons, I can’t sanction any
private
activity.”

“Nor should you. I’m only speculating, but I don’t like the idea of Toby and Mara living the rest of their lives worrying about Mason coming after them.”

“Before you speculate any further,” Harv said, “there may be a way to take Mason down within legal boundaries.”

“Short of Toby’s eyewitness testimony, how would we do that?”

“A confession,” Harv said flatly.

Nathan knew what Harv had in mind. “Let’s keep that option in reserve for now.”

“There’s something else we have to think about,” Holly said.

“What’s that?” Nathan liked how she’d said
we
.

“If Toby ends up testifying in court, he’ll need a reason for why he didn’t report it right away.”

Nathan said, “He could truthfully claim he feared for his life. BSI is not only his employer, it’s a powerful company with thousands of employees, and some of them are probably gung ho types who will resent being ratted out. If Toby reports this, he’d be seen as a turncoat, especially by Mason and his inner circle. There’s no doubt in my mind if Toby goes to the police, his life will be in danger. Can we all agree on that?”

Harv nodded. “Mason just killed two men execution style, so, yeah, Toby’s at risk.”

“Holly?”

“Those men were kidnapped before they were murdered. The Lindbergh Law might give us jurisdiction. Either way, the US marshals can keep Toby and Mara safe.”

“For how long?”

“As long as it takes,” she said.

“We don’t have to decide this now. Let’s see what Toby has to say first.”

They made the fast-food stop as brief as possible, electing to eat in the car. The coffee wasn’t strong enough, but it was better than nothing. Nathan glanced at his watch. A little over thirty minutes had passed since leaving Toby’s apartment.

“We haven’t dealt with the bigger picture here,” Harv said. “The people this might affect. George Beaumont is friends with your father, and we certainly don’t want to bankrupt Beaumont’s company and put thousands of people in the unemployment line.”

“More than that,” Nathan said, “we don’t want to end up in BSI’s crosshairs.”

Holly asked, “Don’t you mean Mason’s?”

“I’m not sure what I mean at this point.”

“Doesn’t this boil down to one simple variable?” she asked.

“What’s that?”

“Is George Beaumont complicit? Think about it: if he doesn’t know about this, telling him shouldn’t pose a risk to us.”

“And conversely,” Harv added, “if he
is
involved, all of us will be at risk, including you, Holly. There’s no telling how far Beaumont will go to cover this up in order to save his company.”

“I guess a lot depends on how well your father knows him,” she said.

“You mean: Will my dad know if he’s lying?”

Holly nodded.

“That’s a big if. What’s our best-case scenario here? Beaumont doesn’t know about this and chooses to deal with Mason privately, leaving the police out.”

“I didn’t hear that,” Holly said.

“Without knowing Beaumont’s relationship with Mason,” said Harv, “we can’t predict what either of them will do.”

“Holly, we need to investigate the front end of the crime and find out how those two men ended up on Mason’s hit list, or at a minimum, if they have an association with him or BSI.”

“You’ll need access to the NCIC and other law enforcement databases for that.”

Nathan and Harv didn’t say anything.

“I’ll see what I can do.”

“Don’t jeopardize your job,” Nathan said.

“I’ll be okay, but you know, you could just ask your dad for help. He has direct lines of communication to every law enforcement agency in the country—at home and abroad, and he’s friends with Attorney General Paul Ames.”

“I’ll need to make an appointment with my father.”

“Come on, Nathan, that’s not fair,” she said. “Your dad’s always been available to you. Twenty-four-seven. If you dialed his cell right now, he’d take your call. I thought you’d patched things up.”