dark ops 3 - Renegade (16 page)

His smile faded. “Good point.” He clapped Mason on the shoulder. “At least I know you’re safe with this guy. I assume he’s who you’re staying with?”

Jill chewed her lip.

Mason stepped into the breach. “And you know this because—?”

“We ruled you out as a suspect—for that matter, we ruled out a number of people on the base—because you weren’t even in the country when some of these crimes occurred. Obviously you can’t be in two places at once or jet back and forth in a couple of hours.”

And just as Jill had her hold-back information, he had things that he couldn’t discuss without breaking a half-dozen laws and landing himself in jail. Of course, he knew he was innocent, so it actually didn’t matter that his alibi was bunk, since the new technology he worked on could have him around the world in a blink.

But what about other suspects they may have erroneously scratched off the list?

Lee watched Mason Randolph with Jill Walczak by the curb, cop cars strobing lights over the sleepy neighborhood. Enough people had poured out of their homes so that no one would notice her.

Just as she’d expected, they’d ended up back here and found her little “gift” in the garden. She’d walked around inside for a while, curious about why such a mousy woman caught Mason’s eye, but there hadn’t been anything extraordinary to offer insights. She’d considered burning the place down—she was an expert, after all, in how to rig electronics to explode and could have incinerated the place in a beautiful fire no one could have ever traced to arson. In the end, even as much as she enjoyed the heat and beauty of flames, she’d opted for a more subtle approach. The petty thief had been a surprise bonus. At least some of her plans were coming together well . . .

Mason and Jill had their heads close together with a new intimacy, gained from their lip-lock, no doubt. Would Jill go home with him?

Lee made a mental calculation of the odds and decided not. If nothing else, Mason wouldn’t want her left alone tomorrow, and he had a flight. Most likely Jill would go hang out with that weird cop stepfather of hers. A logical assumption.

Lee took comfort in her ability to reason under stress. She was in control, damn it. She wasn’t some stalker, camping out by her prey for hours while wearing adult diapers to keep watch. She reached for the ignition, confident events would continue to roll out as planned even after she left.

Jill and Mason were snagged in the web of attraction, and fighting it would only make things sweeter when Lee made her move. For now, they were putting together the clues she’d left for them. The game was more fun that way. Life was definitely getting more interesting tonight.

Lee put the car in drive, her hands trembling ever so slightly with excitement. If Mason was half as smart as he thought—and he must be to work the types of jobs he did—then he would figure out his connection to all the dead people. If only there was some way to watch the reaction to that revelation. But the signs would come soon enough. He would be in and out of briefings with local cops and security police on base. The people he cared about would have protection.

But “protection” only offered her more options. She could already see the way this would play out, given the research she’d done on Phillip Yost. She’d been denied the satisfaction of a blaze, but there were other ways to toy with people until the time was right to end the game. If her calculations were correct—and they always were—Jill would have a specially trained dog very soon.

And pets only provided Lee with another tool to punish the deserving.

Rex Scanlon had a really bad feeling about this flight.

He set the hypersonic cargo jet on the release heading. The last time this had been attempted, things had gone way wrong, and Mason Randolph had almost died. Rex was going up with the crew this time in the pilot’s seat, overseeing, hoping like hell he could prevent a repeat of the accident.

Vince “Vapor” Deluca was flying copilot beside him, while Smooth oversaw the back with Jimmy “Hotwire” Gage offering an extra set of hands and eyes in case things went to shit again.

Peering out of the windscreen, Rex marveled at how normal it looked from up high. You’d think going this fast would look different, but unless the plane was close to the ground for something to gauge off of visually, this was just like flying in an airliner. Too bad this wasn’t a craft that needed a lot of stick and rudder from the pilots when it operated at hypervelocity. Computers and autopilots were required to keep such a fast-moving aircraft on the straight and level.

They were only a few days from unveiling this hypersonic jet to a select few in the international community. And one of those generals would have a particular Italian pop star on his arm during social hour.

He forced his hands to relax inside his gloves and glanced down at the time remaining on his center screen just as Smooth keyed the radio. “Sixty seconds to release.”

Rex thumbed his own microphone to speak to the cargo deck. “Everything good in the back, Smooth?”

“Cargo in the green and ready to go. Of course, I thought that before.”

“We’re gonna stick to the script,” Rex shot back. He knew this was a time for business, and they needed to stay focused. Especially for Smooth. His accident on the last flight could very well lead to mistakes on this one, unless he did this exactly as they planned and trained. “Ready for the doors?”

Smooth’s voice came back all business this time, “Roger pilot, back end is up on one hundred percent oxygen, and you are cleared to open the doors.”

Vapor punched a button on the screen, and the back hatch rumbled. He gave a thumbs-up and reported, “Doors show open, thirty seconds to release.”

Rex acknowledged with two clicks of his mic and scanned to make sure they were on heading and on airspeed. He activated the radio. “Control, we are in the green and ready to release. Do we have a green range?”

The range controller answered, “Roger, green range, cleared to release.”

Vapor began a countdown from ten seconds, toward release. “. . . three, two, one.”

Rex had to force himself to breathe. No matter how many flights he logged in, he never lost sight of the fact that this could be his final one. How different this aircraft was from the ones he’d started flying twenty years prior. In the old days, they were all full of gauges, switches, blinking lights, and crappy seats that left you aching for days. This beast had only five computer screens and very few other instruments, although the seats didn’t seem to have made it into twenty-first-century technology.

The radio clicked. His muscles tensed.

Smooth’s voice came over calmly. “All pallets are gone. Release appeared normal. Cleared to close the doors.”

Relief burned along his scalp inside his helmet. He would worry later about the fact that they still hadn’t uncovered the near-fatal glitch from last time. Right now was about celebrating victory. Vapor punched a button, and the doors closed, leaving the aircraft silent.

Rex said, “All releases nominal. No problems.”

Years had gone into working toward this moment. And he would have no choice but to rethink the final unveiling of the plan. Now he had to worry about people in his squadron who may or may not have been tied up in the current murder spree, since apparently the alibis some of his people had provided wouldn’t hold up in reality because of the secrets inherent in their missions.

It appeared some of the alibis used could be false if the individuals had been deployed working on this aircraft. Their schedules had been kept hush-hush, even from family, so no one would know how quickly they’d traveled across oceans.

Thank God he’d tapped Mason to spend time with the camo cop. She seemed to have an inside track in this investigation. Lives depended on the secrecy of his job—but with a serial killer on the loose, lives were at stake in another arena as well. Choices were rarely clear-cut for him, but what a damn mess.

He couldn’t imagine that any one of the men or women in uniform who worked for him could be responsible for those brutal killings, but bottom line, he couldn’t risk it. He’d started clearing security channels just before takeoff. With luck, once he landed, he would have the okay to talk to authorities.

He couldn’t reveal details of specific dates of test flights or travel schedules, but he could work with investigators to ensure everyone they’d cleared was in fact unavailable. Tricky, but doable.

One task at a time. For now, he had a flight to complete. He couldn’t assume everything was flowers and rainbows just because the cargo drop had gone well. “All right, intrepid airmen, time to get this puppy on the ground. Smooth, is everything still good with you in the back?”

“Roger that, sir. Everything’s tied down and ready to end this flight.”

“Roger that. Vapor, get us clearance back to the field, and I will slow us down.” Not an easy task in a plane that could go this fast. He pulled back the throttles while Vapor called for clearance.

“Control, we are slowing and requesting clearance direct to base.”

“Roger, you are cleared to descend to flight level two-five-zero and turn right to zero-three-zero. We have some civilian traffic just north of the range that we need to let pass before you swing around. Why don’t you strangle your lights for a couple of minutes?”

Vapor turned off their exterior lights. No need to have an airliner full of people see something whiz past their windows at Mach snot. Rex kept pulling back the throttles until they settled in at a very normal-looking 400 knots. He tapped Vapor and pointed at the airspeed on the screen.

Vapor nodded, his helmet freaking huge on the guy’s big bald noggin, and keyed the microphone. “Control, we are at 400 knots and flight level two-five-zero.”

“Roger that. Lights back on, and please squawk three-two-two-one.”

Vapor’s hands flew over the screen. “Lights configured and squawking three-two-two-one.”

“Radar contact twenty miles north of the field, cleared straight in.”

“Roger, that,” Vapor answered. “Hey, Smooth, you certainly are doing a bang-up job at keeping a close-up eye on that camo cop. Anything we should know about, Romeo?”

Smooth keyed up. “And why should you know about it?”

Jimmy Gage chuckled over the airwaves. “Actually, our Smooth here has been going through a dry patch in the dating world. I just thought it was because of all the TDYs, but now that I think about it, he mentioned crossing paths with her in the mess hall. Maybe he’s been waiting to make his move.”

He dimly registered his crew bantering back and forth. It had been—what?—over a year since Heather died, since he was able to be a part of that easy conversation among a crew. The death of his wife hadn’t just ripped his heart out, it had alienated him from these guys far more than the differences in rank ever could.

Rex lined up on the field and began to slow further. At 200 knots he called, “Flaps.”

Vince moved a handle on the control panel and reported, “Flaps in transit.”

Rex continued to slow, setting up for landing. At 180 knots he called, “Gear.”

Vince moved another handle, and the gear settled down below the aircraft. “Down and locked, three green. So what was that about Smooth’s declining love life?”

“Since you asked,” Jimmy answered, “I can’t recall him dating anyone since Erin Murphy.”

Vince shook his head and whistled low. “God, that poor woman.”

Smooth snorted. “Gee, thanks for the compliment, brother.”

The airwaves went silent for a stretch of static before Rex asked, “You haven’t heard about Ms. Murphy, have you? I can’t believe the cops haven’t questioned you, since you’re in her recent past.”

Smooth clicked his mic. “Sir, I’m getting a bad feeling here.”

Vince shot a quick look at Rex before saying, “Smooth, prepare yourself. Erin Murphy is dead. She was killed outside her apartment.”

Rex wished he wasn’t stuck strapped in this seat unable to do a damn thing for Smooth. He understood full well that moment of crushing loss, the weight of knowing someone you’d cared about was gone forever. It had taken him a whole year for thoughts of his wife to recede enough where his knees didn’t buckle out from under him every time he thought of her.

Silence popped and snapped over the airwaves again before Smooth answered. “Colonel,” his voice thudded through, heavy and dark, “we need to talk.”