Kill on Command (36 page)

“Yes and the doctor, McFarland, we talked about.   McFarland is one of the most evil men I have ever encountered.”

Sean looked at his half-eaten breakfast.

“Let’s get out of here,” he said, motioning for Sandy to get out of the booth.  Sandy left money on the table and they walked out.  They got into the old Bronco.

“You know this thing runs better than my Jeep.  I really need a new truck,” Sean said, pulling onto the frontage road and then back onto the interstate.

“The Jeep has character,” Sandy said.

Sean shrugged his shoulders.

“Waters and this McFarland would make good Nazis,” Sean concluded.

“That they would,” Sandy responded.

V

Who is she?

City of Pittsburgh Bureau of Police - Headquarters

Later the Same Day - Sunday

Brian did not sleep much after the ordeal in the hospital.  He went home and took a shower.  Bailey started following him around.  She knew something was up.  He sat down with her for a minute.

“I will find him,” h
e told her.  He was not sure if she understood, but it made him feel better to talk to her.  He put his uniform on and left the house.  As he backed out of the driveway in his cruiser and headed downtown, he was trying to figure out how to contact Sean.  Brian had sent a dozen or more emails to Sean’s personal account since all the emails bounced back from his business account as undelivered.  He was anxious to get into the department’s headquarters to find out where Willis had gotten with the prints. 

He parked the car out front and climbed the stairs to the front door of the Pittsburgh Police Department’s headquarters on Western Avenue. When he entered he saw the two officers that had arrested the jerk from Harrisburg’s lacrosse team.  They nodded in his direction as he climbed the stairs heading towards homicide.  They knew about the shootings and the rumors of his friend flying the chopper off the roof.

Brian pushed open the door to the homicide division and walked towards Detective Willis’ office.  It was pretty quiet.  It was Sunday after all.  The room carried the aroma of burned coffee that hit you in the face when you opened the door.  There was a long bank of windows on the left hand side of the room, with seven desks pressed up against them.  Opposite were a handful of offices.  There was only one man working.  He saw Brian looking in Willis’ office.

“He’s not here, “ the detective said.  The nameplate on the desk said “Jenkins.”  Brian did not recognize him.

“Where is he?”

“No idea.  I have been trying to reach him since the shootings.”

“He has the prints of the victims.”

“What victims?”  Jenkins asked.

“There were two military types hauled out of the hospital about seven hours ago,” Brian replied, as he flopped down in the chair in front of the detective.  The detective’s desk was littered with paper.  Most of it looked like he had used the reports he was supposed to file as a napkin.  He also had an old paperback flipped upside down, saving his place in the book.

“They did not show up in any morgue in the city or Allegheny County,” he explained.

“You sure?
 

“Yeah.  I called them all,” t
he detective added, getting a little irritated. 

“You call Willis at home?”  Brian asked, grasping for straws.

“I did.  Woke up his wife.  I even called the golf course.  No one has seen him.”

Brian sat for a moment just thinking. 

“His car have a GPS on it?  I know all the new cars have one,” Brian asked.

“It should,” the detective said, getting up and walking to another desk.  He sat down at the terminal and hit a few keys.  Brian stood behind him as he typed.

“Looks like it’s still at UPMC.  What’s it doing there?”  Jenkins said.

“No idea, but I am going to guess he is gone,” Brian said, knowing that Sean was caught up in something that went way beyond restaurant reviews and marketing research.

“What do you mean gone?” 

“I mean dead,” Brian replied, as the detective turned around to face him.

“What?  What happened last night?” he asked.  Brian explained what had happened at the hospital and how he had taken the prints and handed them off to Willis. 

“You said the Feds were there,” the detective said.

“Yeah, they said they were.  They had all the credentials, but there was something about them that was not right.  They looked like they could have killed everyone on that floor and not have thought twice about it.  They were not FBI.  I am certain they killed Willis to get the prints.”

“That’s ridiculous.  I am going to call the FBI field office,” the detective said picking up the phone.  He dialed, waited for a moment, identified himself, talked for a few minutes and then hung up. 

“They did not send anyone over last night,” Jenkins said, hanging up and leaning back in his chair.

Brian did not say anything.

“I’m going over there,” the detective said, going back to his desk and picking up his coat.   He headed for the door.

“I’ll call you if I find anything,” Jenkins added, as he walked into the hall.

Brian looked around the empty room for a moment.  He picked up the phone on the desk and dialed the number for Forensics.  A familiar voice answered.

“Yes.  Cindy here.”

“Cindy, it’s Brian.”

“Where are you?” she asked.

“Upstairs.  I need your help.  I have a pair of gloves that might have fingerprints on them.  They belong to one of the men shot last night at UPMC.”

“I was told the Feds were handling it.”

“They are not and I am holding the only lead we might have,” Brian said, not meaning to sound dramatic.  It just came out that way.

“Come on downstairs.  I’ll see what I can do, but I have to warn you, the chances are slim that we pull anything off of them.”

“I know.  I know.  It’s worth a try.”  Brian hung up and walked out of the homicide division and down three flights of well-worn stairs to the forensics team’s office. He didn’t see anyone.

“Cindy?”

Cindy popped her head up from behind a set of examination tables.  Cindy was her early thirties and had short, dirty blonde hair and unlike the typical stereotype of those in her profession, did not wear glasses.  She was wearing jeans and an old red sweater.

“Hey, Brian.  What do you have?” she said, walking around the table.

Brian took the evidence bag out of his pocket and handed it to her.  She held up the bag at eye level, looked at it and then at Brian.

“You know the chances of this giving us something are very, very slim,” she said again.

“I know, just try.”

“Of course.  I’ll start working on it right away.  Sometimes the forefinger or the thumb will give us a partial.  That’s where the most pressure is on the glove and some oil might have left something for us.”  She turned, still holding the glove up and went back to the table.

“Call me when you have something,” Brian said, as he left.  He walked back upstairs to the ground floor, out of the station to his car.  He did not start his car right away.  He sat there and looked straight ahead.  His radio was barking at him. He put both hands on the steering wheel and let his head rest on the wheel.

Cindy was in a better mood.  Her luck had just gone from good to great.  Whoever had worn the glove was a very oily man.  She was able to isolate a print – a partial of a thumb.  She called Brian.

“Brian.  It’s Cindy.”

“Yeah.”  He was expecting the worst.

“You pulled the glove off a greasy guy.  I already found a print.  Where are you?”

“You’re kidding!  I am sitting in my car.  I am heading in.”  Brian flew back into the station and took the stairs down to Forensics two at a time and burst through the doors.  Cindy stood up and waved Brian over.

“What do you have?”

“Come see,” Cindy said, pointing at the computer screen proudly.

“I thought you said the chances were slim.  This must be some sort of record,” he said, looking at the screen. 

“Well.  You are very lucky.  There was a good print off the glove.  It was still fresh and had not been destroyed by water, fire or something else.”

“Let’s see who it is.  This should not take long.  I think this guy was a Marine.  His prints should be on file,” Brian said, chomping at the bit.

Cindy started keying in a couple of commands to the computer and it started the search, linking to the world’s largest biometric database, the FBI’s Integrated Automatic Fingerprint Identification System, or IAFIS.  The average response time for a criminal inquiry is roughly twenty-seven minutes.

“If the computer has the print on file, it is faster than having a pizza delivered.”

However, the request did not make it to the IAFIS.  It was routed somewhere else.

V
I

T
rouble

Boston – Same Day

“Shit.”  An analyst in Boston saw an alert pop up on his screen.  He
crossed the room, avoiding the mess that was being caused by the dismantling of the office.  He walked up the stairs to the top floor and down the hall to Waters’ office.  The door was open.  He found Waters looking out the window, as if he could see Sean Garrison piloting a chopper that was headed straight for him.

“Mr. Waters,” the man said, knocking and entering the office.

“What is it?  I thought you were tearing everything down,” Waters said, turning towards the analyst.

“We have a problem.  Bob’s prints were just scanned and sent to IAFIS at the FBI.  An alert just popped up on my screen.”

“WHAT!”  Waters said, his face becoming a mixture of panic and rage.

“The request was made two minutes ago,” the man said, backing up slightly.

“Who requested it?”  Waters asked, walking over to his desk.

“The Pittsburgh Police Department.”

“Damn it!  Will the system pull anything?”  Waters asked.  He knew Garrison’s roommate was poking around.  He was certain that his men had cleaned everything up.  Obviously they hadn’t. 

“No.  I hacked into the database long ago.  There are several layers of hurdles - the last being top level clearance needed to access the data.”

“Good,” Waters said, with a bit of relief in his voice.

“Well, I don’t think I have been clear,” the man said nervously.

“Clear on what?”  Water’s said, anxiously and taking a deep breath.

“Technically, the prints are still in the system.  I could not remove them.  They are just hidden among the one hundred million prints they have on file.  I have inserted programs that will fool the FBI computer, but it is not foolproof.  In addition, the Marines also have the prints.  However, I don’t believe the Marines have made the transition to digital yet.”

“Jesus!  And you are just telling me this now?” Waters yelled.

The analyst stood in the doorway not speaking.

“How much digging will it take to match Bob’s prints and find out that he died 7000 miles away, six years ago?”  Waters said, striding towards the man.

“It should take a lot.”

“Should take a lot! Should take a lot!”  Waters said, mocking him. 

“They will have to know something is missing and then they will need to find the file, which is buried, then they will need the clearance.”

“I am not comfortable with that.  Go to your terminal.  Watch for any activity on the database.  We still have that cop’s phone tapped.  Monitor it!”

The man stood there, not moving, as if frozen or glued to the floor.

“GET OUT!”  Waters finally screamed at him.  The man turned and left.  Waters walked over his desk, sat down and took his phone out of his pocket.  He made arrangements to head to Washington that day.  He was going to have to bring Price up to speed. 

Price was going to want a solution from him and he had one.  He didn’t like it, but it was a solution nonetheless. 

He took all the project files, but one and dropped them into a medium-sized box, closed the safe and walked out of his office and down the hall.  He entered a copy room and up to an enormous shredder.  He dumped the contents of the box into the machine.  It quickly did its job, destroying the papers.  Satisfied, he returned to his office and re-opened his safe.  He took the remaining file containing all of his correspondence with Deputy Director Price from the last four years and placed it in his briefcase. 

He took the elevator downstairs where a silver Tahoe was waiting for him.  In the driver’s seat was a man Waters called John.  John was a giant version of Bill and Bob.  The right side of his neck and part of his face was a mass of scars from burns he had suffered in Iraq when an IED exploded, killing everyone in his Humvee but him.  Like Bill and Bob, Waters had given him a second chance.  John and the men in the vehicle were under investigation for the rape of multiple women in Baghdad.  They were running a “rape club” and the MPs were close an arrest.   The IED saved the military courts and the MPs some time.  Waters swooped in shortly after the accident and got him out of Iraq.  Technically he was dead, just like Bill and Bob and the other assassins Waters employed.  However, that’s where similarities ended.  John’s scars prevented him from doing the surveillance that Bill and Bob were involved in as his scars would be easy to identify.  He was huge at over 6’6” and 288 pounds.  He stood out.   Then there’s the crazy part - he was also a violent schizophrenic, believing voices were telling him what to do.  They told him to rape those women.  They told him to fire into a crowded bazaar during his first tour.  At least for the time being, the only voice he heard was Waters’.

Six feet six of crazy.  Just like Waters liked it.

“John, after you drop me off, I need for you to travel to Pittsburgh.  Contact me when you get there.  I will provide your orders then,” Waters said, as he looked out the window.

“Yes, Mr. Waters.  I assume we will need to get our hands dirty?”  John asked, looking into the rearview mirror at Waters and scratching the ugly scar on his neck.

“Yes.  We have a problem with a police officer named Ippolito there,” Waters said, returning his glare.

“I hate cops,” John said coldly, turning his eyes to the road.  He began squeezing and twisting his glove covered hands on the steering wheel.

“I know you do, John.  That’s why I think you are perfect for this assignment.”

“Just let me know where and when.”

“I will send you all of the details.  I assume the equipment you need is in this vehicle?  You will need to drive.”

“It is.  As soon as I drop you off, I will head out,” John said.  His mind was already thinking about how he was going to carry out the murder.  Then he said to himself, “Not a murder.  A slaughter.”