Operation Zulu Redemption: Collateral Damage - Part 1 (5 page)

The Citation Sovereign delivered the team smoothly to the North Las Vegas airstrip, avoiding the overly busy McCarran International. Nuala watched as the sleek craft glided to a stop. A black Ford Expedition EL waited. As soon as the stairs were deployed, the driver’s side door of the SUV opened. A man in a navy suit stepped out as Boone hustled down the steps. They shook hands as they pulled into a shoulder pat/hug.

When Zulu reached the tarmac and huddled up, Boone made introductions. “This is Dan Baker. He’s an FBI slave now.”

Normally, those three letters would put Nuala on the run. And not for the first time. She shot a look at Boone. Was he crazy, bringing in the feds? Weren’t they trying to hide from men like this?

“
Slave
is right,” he said, his gold eyes hitting Nuala then Annie but back to Nuala. He gave her a once-over then grinned. “Boone-Dawg, you been holding out on us. Keeping the beauties to yourself.”

Nuala shifted under the attention. Among this group of soldiers, she’d never been the one to get singled out, unless she’d done something wrong. Weird that someone would take an interest in her, not Annie or Téya.

Boone laughed. “Dan is going to get us into Jess’s apartment. We’ll go in. He’s buying us a few hours. Trace will join us soon, but we need to make it quick.”

Houston lagged behind, three different equipment bags slung over his shoulders.

Dan backed up and reached for the door. “Ready?”

They piled into the vehicle, Boone up front with his buddy. Nuala sat behind Boone, watching the city slide by, wondering what Jessie had seen in this crazy city setting. Too many people. Too many buildings. Too many drugs and deaths. Though she hadn’t been especially close to Jessie, Nuala wanted her back. The brunette had provided balance to the team.

As they delved deeper into Sin City, Nuala did her best to pay attention to routes, dead ends, hiding locations.
Always have an exit strategy
, Trace had said more than once.

Twenty minutes later, the Expedition slid up to an apartment building. Paper, cigarette packs, and beer bottles cluttered the path up to the four-story structure.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Annie voiced Nuala’s thoughts.

Jessie had always been meticulous about her bunk space and apartment before Misrata. She’d lived
here
after they all split up?

They climbed out and headed into the building. Dan held open the door while they trailed in, Nuala last after Houston with his gear. She felt Dan’s hand on her lower back as he stepped in behind her. He brushed past her with a wink.

Nuala tucked her chin, the heat of embarrassment filling her cheeks.

“Landlord is in Apartment 100.” Dan walked down the hall and rapped three times on the door.

The door creaked on its hinges as a graying, older lady answered. Hair frizzed, she wore a polyester dress and flip-flops. Though she looked like a throwback from the ’70s, she didn’t have the flighty, lazy look in her expression. “May I help you?”

“You Mrs. Higginbotham?”

She touched her messy frizzy hair as if it were coiffed, clearly taken in by the smooth-talking and charming man at her door.

Dan lifted his badge from his belt. “Dan Baker with the FBI, ma’am.” He unfolded a piece of paper. “I have a warrant to look through Apartment 312.”

Dawning broke out over her plain face. “Oh. Jamie’s place.”

“That’s right,” Dan said, with a smile that poked a dimple into his left cheek. “Can you either let us in or give us a key?”

“Oh sure.” She squeezed into the hall and produced a ring of keys. Her gaze swept over the five of them. “You girls knew Jamie?”

“No, ma’am,” Annie spoke up with a fake Southern drawl. “We’re just here with Agent Baker.”

“Oh.” Mrs. Higginbotham seemed a little more nervous now but headed toward the stairs. As she climbed, she said, “That Jamie—she stuck to herself. Real quiet but real nice, too.” She clucked her teeth, her false teeth. Dentures?
Who did dentures anymore? Why not implants? “Just can’t figure why someone would go and do what they done to that poor girl. Don’t make no sense.”

Huffing by the time she reached the third floor, the woman slowed her pace but not her dialogue. “She never brought no boys around, but she was a favorite. Everyone was always sayin’ hi to her. And she helped anyone who needed it. Once, Bert Thompson couldn’t get his fancy smartphone to work and she helped him. Sweetest thang, that girl.”

Nuala traded knowing looks with Annie and Téya. That was Jessie alright. But it pained, twisted her insides, to think of her being gunned down in an alley.

“A’right,” Mrs. Higginbotham said, unlocking the door and passing the key to Dan. “There ya go. Be real kind and bring that down to me so an old woman doesn’t have to walk three flights of stairs again?”

Dan gave his agreement as Zulu entered the apartment.

Nuala was first in. Anticipation of what she’d find met with shock. “It’s ransacked.” She stepped over a scrawny metal lamp and moved toward the futon that had been sliced open, batting bleeding out.

Nuala slid toward the back wall that held a small counter, sink, and a two-burner stove. A microwave sat on the counter. Nuala recoiled when she saw something black skitter out of sight.

“Not exactly the Hilton.” Dan Baker stood behind her, a hand resting on her shoulder to steady her. “Take it you don’t have to live with those things.”

“Not in peace anyway,” she said.

He laughed then turned to the apartment. “Looks like someone beat us to it. When I was here the night she was killed, the place was messy, but not like this.”

“I’m not seeing anything,” Houston said as he looked around. “No cables, no Internet lines.”

Nuala walked the seven-hundred-foot efficiency, careful to avoid touching anything. Though the grime and disarray lingered, so did evidence of the strong woman she’d known. Jessie had a thing for all things Africa, so the tribal mask, the carved giraffe, bespoke the soldier who’d felt she was fighting for freedom.

“I don’t think we need twenty minutes, let alone two hours,” Annie said. “There’s nothing here.”

Nuala didn’t agree. There was something. . .
something
they were missing.

“Sir, a word?” Lieutenant Francesca Solomon stood at the door of Colonel Liam Stevens, her commanding officer.

He looked up over his reading glasses as he lowered the file he’d been holding. “Come in.”

“Sir, I believe I might have a lead on an unsolved murder that happened a few years ago.”

Colonel Stevens sat back. “Is this Misrata again?”

Frankie ignored the squirrels running rampant in her stomach. “Yes, sir. But—”

“Solomon, when are you going to let that go?”

“When justice is served, sir. I believe I have a new lead, one that could solve this and bring down the man responsible.”

“You do realize the difference between justice and vendetta, right?”

Frankie swallowed at the insinuation. At the same time, she took courage from the fact he hadn’t threatened to throw her out of her job. “Sir, a week ago, a woman in Las Vegas died. Official cause of death was an overdose. But I talked with the coroner and the body went missing.”

“Happens more often than you might believe.”

“True, but the person who signed for the deceased’s effects was one T. Weston.”

“You just aren’t going to leave the colonel alone, are you?”

“Sir, I just got—” No, she couldn’t let him know she’d been tracking him. That wouldn’t work in her favor. “I got word that Weston is back in Vegas. I believe, sir, he’s there to cover up what happened.”

He pinched the bridge of his nose. “And what? You want to go there?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You realize if I let you do this, and anything goes wrong. . .Lieutenant Colonel Weston can have formal charges brought against you. You see that, right?”

“Sir, if we keep looking the other way, nobody’s going to see anything.”

He groaned. “Okay, fine. Go. But so help me—if you don’t get something, don’t ask me for another inch on Misrata again.”

Trace had landed three hours ago. Spent one hour with some friends at Nellis AFB, putting out feelers, asking them to check around. Never hurt to have more boots on ground. He’d gone over surveillance footage back in Virginia, but being here again, remembering Kingston’s body in a bag. . .it made him hungry to stop whoever had unleashed this vicious game against Zulu.

He climbed the creaking stairs to the third floor, rapped on the door to apartment 312, and entered when Boone answered. “How’s it going?” His first thought that Jessie needed better housekeeping habits was quickly replaced with the revelation her place had been overturned.

“Painfully.” Boone angled around. “Not exactly much to inspect, but Houston is taking his time, inspecting every square inch with his tech.”

On his knees, Houston scooted along the floor, holding a wand to the back wall, moving slowly and methodically.

Trace hit the gaze of a man he didn’t know. “You must be Baker.”

Dark-haired and solid, the suit came toward him. Extended his hand. “Dan Baker. Nice to meet you.”

“Trace Weston.”

Baker grinned. “I know. Don’t imagine there are many of us who don’t know who you are, sir.”

Trace ignored the comment. Didn’t want to go there. Too many memories. He looked at Téya, Annie, and Nuala. Though he wasn’t that much older, he felt like a protective father. And one of their number had been murdered here. Made him want to wrap a steel vault around the whole team. “What’d we know?”

“Not much,” Dan said. “Official cause of death is overdose.”

“Which would explain the tox reports.” He hated that they had to leave the girl with a paper trail that defiled her character, but it was more imperative they cover that she’d been hit by a sniper. That would draw attention they didn’t need on this situation.

Boone watched over the girls, too. “Not much room to clear.” He glanced at Trace. “Think we should pack it up?”

“No computers?”

“Nope,” Houston spoke from where he sat on the couch, a laptop perched on his legs. “But. . .this is. . .
weird.
”

“What’s that?” Trace moved into the room, begging the guy to give them something.

“Well, there are a ton of radio waves exploding around this place, yet”—he waved his arms around the apartment—“we have zilch. No computer, devices, phone, nothing.”

“What does that mean?”

Houston shrugged. “Beats me, Boss-Man, but I’ll find out,” he said, never looking up from the laptop. “I’m checking lease information to see who her neighbors are.”

“F. Thompson, R. Wright, J. Heller, and D. Nadler,” Annie said.

Trace looked at Annie, feeling an old swell of emotion.

“What the. . .?” Dan asked. “How’d you know that?”

“Mailbox labels when we entered,” Annie said, as if her attentiveness was no big deal.

“Right,” Houston said. “Neighbor on that wall”—he pointed to the one where a cheap impressionist print hung—“is Heller, J. Across the hall. . .well, that doesn’t matter, because the signal is too strong to be over there. I think it’s the one that shares the wall.”

“I’ll check it out,” Annie said.

“I’ll come with you,” Trace said, unwilling to leave any of them alone at this point in the game. They stepped into the hall and Annie knocked on 313.

“Unlucky thirteen,” Annie whispered as they waited. The hall light seemed to form a halo around her blond curls. “Guess nobody’s home. We can talk to the landlady. She was very helpful earlier.”

Trace nodded and followed her down to the first floor, letting Annie take the lead. She gently knocked. When the door opened, the woman on the other side smiled.

“Hi, Mrs. Higginbotham.”

“Did you get locked out, dear?”

“No, ma’am. Actually, we were wondering about the tenant in apartment 313.”

“Oh, Jennifer Heller. She’s not around much, but she sure is nice.” She wrinkled her nose. “Not sure why she rented here. The girl looked like she had enough to get a nice place, but I wasn’t going to turn down good money.”

“Do you know where we can reach her?” Trace asked.

The woman straightened, adjusting her dress, as she smiled at Trace. A coy smile spread over her face. “I didn’t see you before. Are you an FBI agent, too?”

“A consultant working with Special Agent Baker,” Trace corrected her, wishing to shift her attention back to their question.

“They sure do grow them handsome, don’t they?” She giggled to Annie.

“Ma’am,” Annie said, her tone a bit more terse. “Do you have a number we can use to contact Miss Heller?”

“Oh—ya know? I don’t think I do. She promised to come back and give me one, but she never did. And she told me back last month that she’d be gone for a few weeks.”

Annie nodded. “Thank you, ma’am.”

Climbing the stairs, Annie slowed, giving him the chance to move beside her. Eyes narrowed, she chewed her lower lip.

“What are you thinking?”

They reached the top before she answered. “Just. . .maybe it’s—”

“What is it?”

She shrugged. “Jennifer Heller.”

“Yeah?”

“Jessica Herring.”

Trace saw her point. “Same initials.”

“Jessie loved things like that.”

“You think she might’ve rented 313, too?”

Annie scrunched her nose. “Maybe?”

He glanced around to verify they were alone and unwatched. “Let’s find out.” The place was borderline run down and he doubted there were high-tech locks. A simple use of his credit card freed the door.

He drew Annie in and shut the door behind them. Spotless. Spartan. A few decent pieces of furniture. First thing he noticed—no pictures. At least, not of people. There were safari images. Prints of still life, but nothing to give him a clue. He went to a closet and opened it. Standard fare. Traditional dress. But only a half-dozen pieces.

“It was Jessie,” Annie said, her voice alive.

Trace turned and found her holding up a flyer of a tribal exhibit. Emblazoned across it in white letters was the word
Zulu
.

“And look!” Annie pointed to an old-fashioned telephone on the counter. Her face brightened with a big smile as she lifted the handset from the cradle. “She had this favorite movie that she always talked about, quoted lines from. In it”—she was dialing numbers—“the hero wired a safe house to—”

Pop!

Trace reached for his weapon at the noise behind him. He aimed his weapon at the closet, wary.

Annie hurried past him. “I knew it!”

“Wait!”

She shoved aside the hanging clothes and pressed both hands on the wall. It slid to the side, out of view.

“You’re kidding me,” he muttered.

A second later, the other side of the panel slid back. Boone grinned back at him. Held up a Bible. “She left me a love note,” he laughed. “Said it’d light my path. . .”

Trace shrugged. Okay, so the two rooms were connected via the closet. By why? He glanced back into the cleaner apartment. They were too small to hide anything. The kitchen cabinets. . . Three large strides carried him to them. He cleared them. Turned around.
What am I missing? Why would she need two apartments?

“Baker had to head back,” Boone said as he joined him in the cleaner apartment, walking the perimeter, glancing out the window, then turning back to Trace. “What gives with this?”

Trace shook his head. It made no sense.
C’mon, Jess. . .talk to me.
His gaze traced the walls, the ceiling, the—“Hold up.” His gaze hit the closet again, remembering the other apartment. “Was there a closet. . .no, there wasn’t. Only a table with a Bible.”

He stalked back to the closet. Thrust the clothes to the other side and stared at the left side wall. After unhitching his SureFire, he traced the corners and floor. He pressed his fingers to the middle of the left corner.

Click.

Trace stilled, feeling the wall move beneath his fingers. He looked up, noticing only half the wall moved. He pushed a little harder. It swung back. Light snapped on. Trace crouched, bending in half to fit through the opening. He straightened to his full height, his gaze hitting an unbelievable sight.