SAFE HAVENS: Shadow Masters (A Sean Havens Black Ops Novel Book 1) (2 page)

There were four corpses being covered. They had once been a family, not the blanketed heaps that they were now. At first glance, the victims appeared to be a woman and three children based on their sizes and the age-appropriate clothing now shredded and soaked, adhering to the bodies.

“We found another vic upstairs!”

Five.

Little Mexican vacation statuettes adorned a knick-knack table between small tabletop pictures of the household’s greater Latino family. Happy moments.

A wedding picture hung on the wall. It was likely not more than five to eight years old judging by the sequence of photo milestones in the room, the ages of the deceased lying about, and the unchanged hairstyle of the bride. The groom’s hair had remained the same throughout all of the photos in the room. Closely cropped. High and tight.

The man was not here among the dead.

Where is the dad?
The thought puzzled Lars as he rescanned the room for any more meaningful clues.

Chief Forensics Crime Scene Investigator Lars Bjorklund had been scanning the full sickening aftermath of horror, and he understood why the police-secured entryway and front bushes were a combination of freshly ingested coffee and bile-egg-breakfast sandwich-donut vomit. Few of these newly hired men would ever encounter such a scene in their careers.

Bad crime scene to cut your teeth, but they still need to step up. If they can get through this, the next twenty years will be cake.

Lars, on the other hand, had seen far too many death scenes. His stomach growled from hunger. The morning’s lox and capers on top of cold leftover pizza was enough to get him to the scene but not enough to hold him over. He’d be here for hours, provided there was no interference with his work or authority.

The examiners could likely rule out the post-event taint from potential evidence, but the cleanup may wipe some potential footprints and other forensic trace from the foyer.

Damn, what a mess. Can’t worry about contaminated evidence in the front at this point. Need to write it off in my notes.

“Did anyone capture the shoes from the first on-scene uniform?”

No response. No eye contact.

Lars called again out to no particular police officer in the room.

“Does anyone know where the husband is?”

“Afghanistan,” a uniform replied. “Neighbor said Mr. Gonzalez, or whatever his rank or title is, was supposed to come home in a few weeks. The Department of Defense’ll get him home right away now, I suppose.”

The officer’s voice trailed off as he now looked to the ground, shook his head and muttered, “
Now
they’ll get ‘em home. Shit.”

Someone else said under their breath, “Welcome home. Thanks for your service.”

Glaring, disapproving eyes honed in on the officer who made the remark.

“What? I am not saying anything bad. This is bullshit. Guy is serving the country, we’re supposed to watch the families, and this shit happens. I’m sorry. It goes down as our watch. How do you look that guy in the eye to give him the news? We had the easier of the jobs. No one mortared our station last night. Car didn’t blow up in front of my house when I got the paper. It’s messed up.”

The glaring looks left the officer and returned to the graphic scene with slight nods in agreement. How
will
this soldier be told?

The incessant typewriter-like sounds of the photo duel continued. Flashes in accompaniment to the camera snapping still ruptured the already numbed human senses. Some officers winced at the light from the stressing sensory overload.

Lars Bjorklund exited the room. He walked through the kitchen and opened the sliding glass door to the patio. Spotting a comfortable looking plastic deck chair he brushed off the seat with a kerchief clearing some water-pooled dirt and debris, then sat down. He closed his eyelids, hoping his mind’s eye would guide him through the seemingly disorganized murder scene back in the house. Lars was trying to enter the crime scene again from this vantage and reflect on what he had missed.

I have to piss.

Refocus.

It is a planned offense. That makes it organized not disorganized. The attacker or attackers must know the victims. That’s organized. Were there signs of aggressive acts prior to death? No use of restraints. Wait. There was redness and bruising on the mother’s wrists above the point where her hands were severed. Had her wrists been bound? Check that. Why kill the kids? That’s power display. No weapons present, that could mean organized. Shit. Had to be more than one killer. A goon and a thinker? With that many people in the room controlling the acts, three killers would be ideal. Could there be more?

OK, the perps are in the house. How do two or three guys come in? Where would…

“Chief?”

Begrudgingly, Lars opened his eyes. He regarded an officer with the residual stain and wetness of vomit on his uniform breast and black low-top assault boots peeking from the house’s back doorway, “They thought you may want to see this. Can you come back in? Right now?” The officer paused. “What are you doing out here anyway?”

Lars clenched his jaw in irritation as he threw a brief mental tantrum.

As Lars fought to extract his large frame out of the chair while re-taking in the officer’s soiled attire from head to toe, his eyes continued in a downward assessment and noticed a small piece of paper on the brick patio stone a couple inches from the entryway stoop.

What do we have here, little fellow?

Taking a branded FBI Behavioral Sciences Unit ink pen from his jacket, Lars walked over, squatted down, and gently touched the receipt with the pen’s metal tip.

The paper was dry and clean.

Two days ago it had rained. Then the weather had cleared enough to dry things up a bit but this paper, had it been discarded or blown here more than twenty-four hours ago, would have been soaked and potentially stained from dirty rain runoff and pooled water.

This scrap has been recently dropped or blown
. Lars looked at the yard from the ground to tree tops. He saw no movement in the wide spans of back-to-back yards adorned with towering oak, elm, and maple trees. The chained play gym swings also remained motionless in the calm of nature. There was no other debris on the patio. No grass clippings, no dead leaves, no clothes dryer lint or pollen spores. Partially dried bird droppings were scattered around the area which ruled out a spray down.
Wouldn’t have blown here in the past few hours
.

Lars regarded the royal blue ink print on the receipt as he remained squatting down. He read the word ‘Mexico’ on what appeared to be a border ticket.
Mexico? You are a long way from the border here in Chicago.
As a seasoned detective, this wasn’t passing the sniff test
. Evidence eye candy? Maybe, but why would something be planted? From Mexico nonetheless…

Damn. Stuff here in the house is from the Mexican border. That statuette on the table. Was that Jesús Malverde, the angel bandito of the poor? Need to look at that again.

Lars had recalled asking about a similar figurine when he was in Mesa, Arizona for a bachelor baseball vacation to watch Cubs spring training. He had felt compelled to pay a visit to a law enforcement friend in the Nogales-Tucson area. His buddy had a similar statuette on the desk and said it was the Mexican saint of Sinaloa’s narco-state.

“Hey, Chief, you coming?” the officer persisted while hovering over Lars in the rear entryway.

“Yeah, can you step back so your pecker sack isn’t hanging over my head while I am looking at things down here. Get one of my guys to snap this and bag it for the lab. I want it documented. Have them put me in for discovery chain of custody notes. I want this whole back area captured. Document any of the details that could potentially change with time.”

Lars was pissed now that he may have tainted some trace evidence, impressions, or any other physical forms that would have aided in recreating the crime or identifying the perp—or maybe perps, given the management of killing so many people.

On the other hand, could one person herd all of them in the room jumping around from one to another like a crazed maniac? No. Impossible.
Lars feared regretting his careless crime scene actions later.
Shit. I come out here to play Forensic Yoda and end up throwing off the case myself.

One o’clock baseball game today. Crap. Won’t make it.

The officer stepped back to give the investigator space but couldn’t contain himself any longer.

“They found a shitload of drugs in the basement. Heroin. Coke. Methamphetamines. Scales. Bags. Another vic with a head severed. Unbelievable.”

Six.

“Head was lopped off and propped on the table with a penny taped to her mouth. Pretty fuckin’ weird, if you ask me. Like voodoo shit. Looks like mama and this other lady were payin’ the bills distributing while daddy was away in the sand. Maybe the dad was shipping heroin from the sandbox. Maybe it’s like that Haitian voodoo Santa Ria Santa Rita stuff. I think that’s what it’s called. Is that Haitian?” He stopped when he realized he was talking only to himself. Nevertheless, contained himself for only a moment.

“What’s that, Chief? Is it paper you’re looking at?”

Lars tilted his head, gazing at the officer. His patience was long gone but his outward temperament remained direct, yet controlled. “I have a million and ten smart ass responses to all your questions. Get one of my guys, get out of the way, and shut the hell up.”

Lars stepped through the door and realized he didn’t know where he was supposed to go or what he was supposed to see.

Some crime scene Jedi I am today
.

He turned around to see the officer with one arm crossed over his protruding belly tucked in an armpit and the other arm half cocked extended with a finger pointing to a door.

“Thanks. Sorry,” Lars said sheepishly. The man pissed him off, but Lars had a job to do. It was about the job. Most importantly, it was about answers and about making evidence stick when his ass was on the line.

“Dick,” the officer said matter-of-factly under his breath.

Lars gave a final look back towards the living room before going downstairs. His probe sought the cluttered tchotchke table and the little ceramic man sitting upon it. Plain as day, that little mustachioed bust was Malverde. And among the other items was a tribute drawing of Juan Soldado, the patron saint of illegal aliens, as well as the boy pilgrim Santo Nino de Atocha, saint of prisoners and travelers. Also on the table was a candle of St. Jude, patron saint of lost causes.

Damn five and dime criminal shrine. Gotta be drug cartel
.

Although not fully surprised at his own deduction, the reality of an apparent drug-related massacre of this magnitude being in Chicago was still astonishing, even for an investigator with as many years under his belt as Bjorklund.

And this homeowner was a soldier too? Sweet Jesus.

“Hey, Chief! FBI is here. They want to know who lead investigator is.”

Shit.

Part I

“Certainly there is no hunting like the hunting of man and those who have hunted armed men long enough and liked it, never really care for anything else thereafter. You will meet them doing various things with resolve, but their interest rarely holds because after the other thing, ordinary life is as flat as the taste of wine when the taste buds have been burned off your tongue.”

—Ernest Hemingway, “On the Blue Water,”
Esquire

Chapter 1

TWO YEARS LATER.

W
ith head low and dark eyes darting in all directions Sean Havens fought through the early morning market crowd.

Ah yes, another glorious, muggy morning in the fine Republic of Yemen. Sea, sweat, and shit.

A slide show of filthy places and unpleasant operations played in his head as he shuffled past merchants hawking their wares.

Kenya. Fucking Kenya. We shouldn’t have staged from the river. Should have just pulled smoke and bailed.

He navigated the dense waves of crowd as a sea captain reads and drives through the chop. His movement flowed gracefully through the sporadic pace and rhythm of pedestrian traffic in the souk, Arabic for market. But while he moved with purpose, he appeared to walk in a benign manner that blended with the surroundings.

Syria. Same thing. What a nightmare that was.

Havens noticed that an approaching souk patron’s eyes appeared locked on something, and then witnessed a very slight nod. Was there something or someone now behind him to worry about? Havens wasn’t sure if the look was a true ‘tell’ or just a misread out of suspicion. Had to be just a case of the jitters. Sean was clean in this country. Regardless, the odds now increased of a tail present. Havens was careful. Beyond careful. That’s why they sent him alone when discretion and precision mattered most to his country.

The Sana’a district souk was full of patrons this Friday morning, which made full motion video tracking a bit more difficult from a satellite. All of the patrons seemed connected as they were eagerly exchanging morning greetings, sharing the latest gossip.

Sean Havens, while walking among the Yemenis and cursing his surroundings, was indeed under watch. His master was also at the souk, albeit virtually through cyber feeds, viewing from somewhere safe as an eye in the sky, high above the city out of view, sitting in a government-purchased faux leather chair, drinking filtered bags of Folgers coffee from a stained ceramic NSA anniversary mug.

Far from such air-conditioned comforts, Havens knew what he had to do today. He was to hunt down someone else’s master. It would be a bad day for that principal target. For that matter, it would be bad for just about anyone who got in the way of the mission.

Havens’ direct orders were not actually to kill. They were never quite that explicit. His commands were to follow his instinct and direct his own missions as appropriate. In this case, he was to create an effect for display as part of a careful orchestration to send this city into strategically planned disarray through a combination of sectarian and tribal civil conflict.