The Killing Chase (Beach & Riley Book 2) (5 page)

The team eventually passed through the perpetual
rot tid
or traffic jam of Sukhumvit Road, the main artery running through the town on its way from Bangkok south to the city of Rayong. They drove west along Thepprasit Road until the driver steered them into a side street, leading into some back-blocks of Jomtien.

The smaller and quieter sister town of Pattaya, Jomtien boasted areas of affluence and taste, but remained interspersed with pockets of dereliction and failed dreams. Uncompleted housing developments and failed condominiums bore silent witness to the Asian financial crisis of 1997. Previously gaping purse strings of banks and lending institutions had snapped shut with a suddenness that had left a great many developers high and dry. Archaic, convoluted Thai insolvency laws combined with an overwhelmed court system to ensure many years of delays in sorting out the mess, so a great many projects were left to rot where they stood on prime pieces of real estate.

Outside the elaborate but decaying gateway to one such estate, the driver parked behind some overgrowth and cut the engine. Mike Lee lifted binoculars to his eyes for a moment. “Looks like Special Branch’s intel’s right on the money. There’s a sizable compound about a hundred yards down near the end of the driveway, with a large house in the middle. Eight-foot walls with broken glass along the top – security, Thai-style.  I see a couple of big Russians in an upstairs room, and one armed guard at the gate. My guess is there’s at least one more guard inside the front door.” He handed the binoculars to Jake. “It’s your show, big guy.”

Jake examined the scene then got out of the van to look down each side border of the estate. The development spanned about fifty yards of street frontage. When he was satisfied, he got back in the van and pulled the door shut. “Tik, tell the driver to get us behind the estate.”

Tik prattled at the driver in rapid-fire Thai, and they were soon in front of the property adjoining the rear of the Russians’ estate. Another victim of the ’97 crisis, this building, basically a mold-covered concrete skeleton, had been built with a sundeck roof. Jake looked the place over, then climbed the open staircase to the sundeck. Two minutes later he was back in the van. “We’ll come back at dusk and use cell phones with Bluetooth headsets – I don’t want to risk radio squelches or scanners. Mike, you’ll direct traffic from the sundeck up there. The rest of us will enter the estate from the west boundary, track along the north wall, and wait at the corner until the exterior guard is neutralized. Once that happens, we’ll have to move fast in case he’s on a schedule for checking in.”

Jake outlined the rest of his plan. He’d devised an elaborate maneuver to deal with the man outside the front gate, but if a single variable didn’t play out as planned, they risked alerting the guard at the front door. Tik protested. She knew her boss was trying to keep her safe, but by doing so, she realized, he was reducing his chances of success. She pointed this out and demanded a different role in the game. Despite his protective instinct, Jake knew she was right. He also knew any protestations would fall on deaf ears - the woman’s fearlessness and steely resolve would not tolerate special consideration for her gender or size. The plan was set, but Jake knew they were missing one vital ingredient for success.

Chapter 5

For the second time that day, the little bungalow in Poughkeepsie was besieged by police and emergency services vehicles. A small army of local uniformed cops kept media personnel outside the yellow and black demarcation tape, while crime scene investigators worked like ants under their blinding floodlights.

What had once been the happy home of a hopeful young family would forever live in notoriety. Media attention would eventually fade, but the local rumor mill, overflowing with fresh grist, would never let the story die. Generations of neighborhood children would trade horrific tales requiring none of the usual ghoulish embellishment. Urban legends would branch off, and spread like tendrils of a choking vine, dooming the sturdy little house to demolition in order to attract any interest in the land on which it sat. The scene was set, the rot had begun.

Alan watched a paramedic irrigating drywall and attic dust from his partner’s eyes while Dr. Charlotte Chetland, an FBI consultant forensic pathologist, examined the fallen corpse. Kneeling on a surgical mat, the middle-aged medical examiner scanned every detail of the muscular body before her. She inspected what was left of the corpse’s face, carefully taking samples with her tweezers before moving on. Carefully lifting the dead man’s left hand, she turned it palm up. After staring intently for a moment, she raised the magnifying headgear from her eyes and turned to Beach. “Got a minute, Agent?”

Alan joined the consultant on her surgical pad. “Found something, Doc?”

“I found nothing – but that’s something.” She handed Alan her headgear. “Look at the fingertips and palm whorls.”

Beach donned the instrument, pulling the magnifying lens over his eyes. “What the hell?”

“My thoughts exactly. I’ve seen fingerprints ablated with acid or abrasives, but this is much more professional. I’m betting that if we roll him over, we’ll find an area of tissue removed from his buttocks to make these grafts. This is the work of a skilled micro-surgeon.”

Amazed, Beach rolled the man’s hand to get a better look. “I’ve seen missing fingerprints before, but I’ve never seen it done with grafts. This guy definitely didn’t want to be known. One thing for sure, there’s more to this than meets the eye.”

“You got that right, Agent!” A local detective had just entered the house, and overheard the last snippet of conversation between Beach and the medical examiner. “We just found an unmarked van with stolen plates parked a block away. There’s another body in it – just like the one you’re looking at now.”

Foxx brushed the medic aside. “Another body, same outfit as this guy?”

“Yup, big, fit-looking guy like this one – face all bashed in too. We’ve cordoned off the area for you, but the reporters are getting rowdy.”

Beach was dumbfounded. “What’s going on here? This is starting to look like a damned battleground!” He glanced at Dr. Chetland.

She waved him off without looking up from the corpse. “You go ahead and do your preliminary examination of the other scene. Just don’t move the body. I’ll be along as soon as this one’s tagged and bagged.”

At the van, six local police officers were physically struggling to keep news crews and reporters behind the tape. The entire scene was getting too big to contain. Freelance news stringers were drooling over the potential scoop money, and local reporters could sense possible promotion or national syndication. Tempers were running high as the crowd jostled for a better view, demanding comments from the authorities.

Foxx muscled his way through the fray, his large frame leaving a hole big enough for Alan to follow. The unruly mob, intermingled with local residents, was beginning to ignore authority. Something needed to be done to preserve the scene.

“Start arresting them!” Beach shouted to the sergeant in charge.

“On what charge – curiosity?”

“Obstruction of a federal investigation – do it!”

Despite predictable outrage, local police officers began cuffing members of the press, and reading them their rights. Within a couple of minutes, the rest of the crowd had gotten the message, and were starting to behave more rationally. There were shouts of “Harassment!” and “Police brutality!” but within a few moments things died down to a more manageable level.

The sergeant in charge pulled Beach aside. “I don’t know how you Feds do things in the big city, but these charges will never stick.”

“You really think I give a damn about the charges? I just need you to control this situation. There may be vital evidence in and around that vehicle, so keep these people out of our way!”

The sergeant, a crusty veteran, acquiesced. “I’ll order a wagon to hold the troublemakers until you’re done. We’ll release them without charges when you’re gone, if that’s okay.”

“I couldn’t care less what you do with them once we’ve cleared the scene.”

Foxx was leaning into the back of the van. “Al, you’d better have a look at this.”

Beach leaned in to see his partner’s gloved hand fiddling with knobs and switches on a strange-looking technical device, mounted to the interior wall of the vehicle. “Do you know what it is?”

“I’ve seen something similar when I was in the Marines. It’s some kind of tracking device, but way more high-tech than anything we had. Whatever it is, someone hit it pretty hard with something – it’s not working now.”

“You’re sure it’s a tracker?”

“I’d put money on it.”

“Okay, let’s get a tech over here to remove it. Tell them to send it to the lab ASAP. That thing’s our only real lead so far – we need to know what it was tracking.”

While Foxx went to find a technician, Beach looked over the scene for any other clues, but the van was clean. Whatever had been going on here, it was a very professional operation. Alan bent over to examine the other victim’s hands. They, too, had grafted skin in place of fingerprints and palm whorls. He drew a deep breath and exhaled in frustration.

“Agent Beach.” A lanky young technician had appeared at the rear doors of the van. “Agent Foxx wants you to see something in the house.”

With the van secure, Beach nodded and returned to the house. Foxx was nowhere to be seen.

“Up here, partner.”

Alan looked up to see Foxx’s hand poking down from the hole in the ceiling, pointing toward the hallway leading to the bedrooms. Following his partner’s direction, Beach looked across the room to see a self-contained staircase leading up to the attic entrance door. It was a nifty contraption, obviously built with great skill and ingenuity. The seal was virtually invisible, so it had taken some searching to find the access. A small button similar to a doorbell was mounted on the wall beside the entrance to the kitchen.

When Foxx had pressed the button, a soft whirring sound emanated from the ceiling. A panel of sealed drywall, the width of the hallway and about four feet long, lifted upward and to one side, while a hand-crafted wooden staircase slowly lowered to the floor. The access system allowed an average-sized man to walk directly into the attic as if climbing a normal staircase.

As they later discovered, the young father – and first victim of this heinous crime – had been a skilled craftsman. His carpentry and cabinetmaking skills had enabled him to relocate his young family to Poughkeepsie from Philadelphia two years earlier. The family’s plan had been to escape the hectic lifestyle and daunting crime statistics of the big city and raise their family in a more small-town environment. The tragic irony of the situation was not lost on Beach or Foxx.

While Beach was examining the scene around the van, Foxx had begun searching for the attic access and came across the seemingly out-of-place doorbell button. He’d watched in amazement as the motorized device did its job, then drew his weapon and climbed the staircase. Light emanated from the large hole in the drywall ceiling a few yards away, allowing him to see most of the room quite clearly. After checking all corners and reaches, he’d holstered his weapon and proceeded upward into the room.

A timber-planked floor, extending from the rear wall, covered three-quarters of the attic space. The area from where the body had fallen remained uncovered – a work in progress by the talented young father. There was a workbench against the rear wall, equipped with a variety of woodworking tools. A small band saw stood in one corner beyond a free-standing joinery table. The sloping roof was low at the side walls, but two-thirds of the room was tall enough for Foxx to stand. After a moment considering the end of this gifted young man’s life and craft, the big FBI agent had made his way over to the hole in the living room ceiling. Gazing through the hole, he’d seen Beach enter the living room, and called out to his partner.

The two agents quietly surveyed the attic until Foxx broke the silence. “I got nothing.”

“It’s baffling,” Beach agreed. “Why anyone would want to kill this seemingly perfect young couple is hard to understand. Throw in a couple of big dead goons with no faces or fingerprints… This is definitely one for the record books.”

“So what’s our next move?”

“Did you talk to the child?”

“Poor kid’s too young to really know what’s happening, let alone give a decent description.”

“Another one goes into the foster-care system. I assume Child Protective Services have taken him?”

“Yeah, but at least there’s an aunt and uncle in Philly he can go to.”

“Thank heaven for small mercies.” Beach was genuinely relieved. “Well, it seems to me we’ve only got two choices for now. Find out what we can about that tracker from the van, and run DNA from the two big guys.”

“DNA takes five days. That’s not going to help much right now.”

“I’m pretty sure Talbot will sign off on a rush job, but that’s still going to take about seventy-two hours. Besides, there’s no guarantee they’re on our database anyway.” Beach shook his head. “Our best bet is still the tracking device.”

“I’ll call the tech lab and make sure they’ve got their best guys on it.”

“And I’ll go and have a word with the good doctor. She was on her way to the van when I came back to the house. Then I’ll call Talbot to approve a rush on the results. Let’s meet at the SUV in fifteen minutes.”

Back at the van, local police now had the scene well in hand. The crime scene photographer had done his job, and Dr. Chetland was finishing up with the second of the two military-looking bodies as Beach approached.

“Anything new, Doc?”

“I’m afraid it’s just more of the same. Aside from the obvious causes of death for all four victims, and the missing fingerprints, nothing else stands out so far. I’ll know more when I can perform the autopsies, but that’s quite a few hours away.”

“I’m just grateful the assistant director has given us your undivided attention. I’m sure we’d have to wait at least a couple of days under normal circumstances.”

“With the current backlog, it might even be longer. The way he put it to me, this case takes absolute priority, and what Assistant Director Talbot wants is what Assistant Director Talbot gets. You’ll know any updates as soon as they come to light.”

“I appreciate it. For now, we really need to get the DNA analysis going ASAP. Talbot has signed off on a priority job – the paperwork’s going through as we speak.”

“There doesn’t seem to be anything else to do here, so I assume you’re going back to headquarters now?”

“That’s the plan, why?”

“In that case, you should take the DNA samples with you. I’ve got to stay here and deal with the paperwork for the local coroner, so you’ll get back at least an hour before me – and every hour counts for the DNA Analysis Unit.”

“Good thinking, Doc.”

As Alan walked back to the SUV, Foxx approached from the front yard of the house. “Crime Scene guys found some footprints in the flower bed, under the living room window.”

The DNA samples clanked together in Alan’s hands as the pair jogged to the scene. A crime scene photographer was still shooting pictures of the footprints as a senior technician prepared plaster to take molds. As Beach and Foxx arrived, the tech looked up from his work. “Looks like there was a scuffle here. One pair of size twelves versus one pair of size eights. Based on the size and status of your John Does, looks like the size eights won.”

Foxx raised his eyebrows. “Sounds like we’ve got one badass little dude on our hands.”

Beach didn’t comment. Deep in thought, he turned to look in the window.

“I can hear the cogs turning in your head, partner – what’s up?” Foxx asked.

Beach hesitated a few seconds. “Something feels very strange here – I can’t put my finger on it, but something just isn’t right.”

“You think? I’m not seeing
anything
right about an orphaned three-year-old and four dead bodies – two of them with no fingerprints!”

“That’s not what I mean. The victimology of the couple, the exactness of the M.O., the diminutive size and apparent strength of the perpetrator… No, the big guys weren’t part of the original crime. They surprised our perp, and he responded.”

“So, what are you thinking?”

“I’m thinking that if Brian Adler, AKA the
Orphan-Maker
, wasn’t already dead, who the hell else could have done this?”

A pair of cold eyes watched through binoculars as Beach and Foxx walked back to their SUV. The watcher dialed a number on his cell phone. “We’re too late. Two men down. We need a new signal-locating device in time for the next ping.” He listened briefly. “Roger that.” Then he turned his stern, weathered face to the back of the van in which he was the front passenger. Six deadly ghost soldiers in black fatigues, armed with tranquilizer guns, powerful tasers, and military batons awaited his command. “It’s a stand-down for the night.”