Veil of Civility: A Black Shuck Thriller (Declan McIver Series) (30 page)

"Relax," Declan said. "These are the four men who tried to kill my wife and me Saturday night."

"But you got them first," Sweat said, as his grip on the gun loosened again.

Declan nodded.

"How? I mean, I'm a twenty-year police veteran, I know a dangerous man when I see one and those four guys were dangerous. Ex-military for sure, maybe even Special Forces. They were killers. I could sense it."

"I guess I didn't have time to be scared."

"Yeah, right, what were you, British military or something?"

Declan shrugged. "Something like that."

Sweat nodded. "Yeah, I thought so, the way you carry yourself and all. That's why I thought you were one of them."

"We need to get these files to someone who can tell us if the information is real or not. Maybe that will help us find out who they were working for, because they definitely weren't alone."

"No one's getting these files."

Declan looked up as Sweat backed away from him and raised the revolver. "I'm not risking anyone coming after my family," the white haired security man said.

"So that's your answer to this? You're going to blow your brains out and just hope that whoever these men were working for will leave your family alone when you're gone?"

Sweat grimaced, tears streaming down his face. "What other choice do I have? If I'm dead I can't talk and they've got no reason to hurt anyone."

"These guys have the word 'henchmen' written all over them. They were doing someone's dirty work. I've seen people like this operate before. If you think they're going to leave your family alone because you're dead you'd better reconsider. Men like that don't leave loose ends hanging."

Declan heard the sound of gravel crunching underneath the wheels of a vehicle outside; he reached towards the picture window and flipped up a single section of the blinds. Outside a police cruiser had pulled onto the company's parking lot. He could see the officer inside was on his radio, his attention focused on Declan's blue Mercedes alone in front of the building. Moments later a second cruiser came up the road and made a left into the lot, stopping beside the car already there. Declan had no doubt that they were there looking for him. Just as he'd thought would happen, Michael Coulson had called Castellano and now the police were closing in. He'd found what he was looking for, information that identified the four attackers, but now he needed to get it and himself out of here fast.

"Who is it?" Sweat asked.

"The police."

"The police?" Sweat said, as he strode towards the window with a hand out.

"No, wait," Declan said, moving to stop the man, but he was too late. Sweat reached the other window, pulled down a large section of the blinds and looked out. Over his shoulder, Declan watched as the sudden motion in the upstairs window attracted the attention of the officers sitting in their cruisers. The officer in the first car brought his radio to his mouth and began talking, without taking his eyes off the window.

Sweat backed away quickly as he sensed Declan behind him. "Stay back," he yelled, raising the gun to his temple. "I'm not going to jail!"

"You don't have to do this," Declan said urgently. "I can help you. We just have to get out of here!"

The sound of crunching gravel as more vehicles pulled onto the lot reached the second floor office and Declan held his hands out in a stop motion. "Let's go! We can make it out the back door before they get the—No!"

Sweat's hand tightened as he pressed the stout barrel hard against his temple, closed his eyes and pulled the trigger. The report echoed through the small room as blood and brain tissue spattered the white drywall. Sweat's body fell to the floor with a heavy thud.

"No! Dammit!" Declan yelled, throwing his hands in the air and turning away from the grisly sight of the man's eviscerated head. He could feel liquid warmth on his face, droplets of blood that had been cast from the self-inflicted wound. He wiped his face with the sleeve of his coat. His mind raced as car doors slammed shut outside and officers left their vehicles, having heard the gunshot. He scooped up the four files and placed them under his arm. Sitting underneath them was a note written in chicken-scratched handwriting, a capitalized T and an S obvious in the signature at the bottom. Declan shook his head and moved quickly towards the stairs. Taking them two at a time, he looked through the tinted front windows as he reached the first floor. The police presence had multiplied to at least a half dozen and a group of officers was at the front door trying to get it open.

"Hey! There's someone inside!" one of the officers yelled, his voice muffled by the glass but still audible. Without making eye contact, Declan ran through the office to the hallway leading into the fleet garage. "He's going out the back!" he heard an officer yell.

Declan ran between the eight cars parked in the garage and reached the back door as the shouts of officers swarming over the front fence reached his ears. Tearing the door open, he exited the humid garage into the crisp spring afternoon and ran straight for the fence at the rear of the property. Jumping onto the hood of one of the parked Dodge Durangos, he ran over the roof and jumped the fence behind it, landing with a painful gasp from the eight foot drop.

"Where's he at? Where'd he go?" voices shouted from the fenced-in lot as the police reached the rear of the building. Declan darted into the thick brush that surrounded the building, branches tearing at his face as he pushed past the trees trying to get out of sight. He crested a small hill and stopped, breathing heavily. With his back against a tree, he craned his neck towards the building. Through the thick brush he could see parts of the fenced-in lot, now thirty yards behind him. Officers searched between vehicles, others gathering at the back door and preparing to enter. They hadn't seen him jump the fence, but he knew it wouldn't take them long to figure it out.

11:50 a.m. Eastern Time – Monday

Offices of Sweat Security

Moneta, Virginia

Seth Castellano slowed the dark blue Crown Victoria as the female voice on his GPS unit told him he needed to turn right and that he had nearly reached his destination. "Damn," he said aloud, as he saw the mass of police cruisers in the parking lot. He'd told the local dispatcher to make sure the deputies didn't approach the property until he got there and he had reiterated that statement to the Franklin County Sheriff minutes later when the man had returned his call. How could they screw up an order so simple? Clearly Seth's decision to call them in to make sure Declan McIver didn't leave the area before he could arrive had been the wrong one.

Pulling the car to a stop, he shifted it into park and stepped out. He folded his badge over the breast pocket of his suit coat as he walked around the vehicle towards the front of the building. Men in brown police uniforms looked up at him as he approached, but clearly saw the badge and chose not to address him. Maybe he was lucky and they'd managed to apprehend McIver. While that would be problematic in another way, at least he wouldn't be running around loose where he could cause other problems.

As he neared the front door of the building he saw a hastily written sign saying
closed until further notice
and wasn't surprised. He'd sent a team of agents to this building the previous morning to obtain as much of the company's paperwork as possible and to interview the employees about the company's involvement in the car bombing outside of the Barton Center. The interviews had turned up exactly what he wanted them to: nothing. None of the employees had known about the four men placed inside Sweat Security, which meant that the company's owner had done as he was told. Likewise, the paperwork would show no record of them either. The glass door swung open and a broad man with salt and pepper colored hair stepped out.

"Are you Castellano?" he asked. Castellano nodded. It was clear from the white shirt of the man's uniform that he was the Sheriff and his introduction a moment later confirmed it. "I'm Steve Scruggs, Franklin County Sheriff."

"ASAC Seth Castellano, Sheriff. What the hell is going on here? I thought I told you not to approach the property."

The man seemed to bristle for a moment at the obvious rebuke. Taking a deep breath, he answered. "Two of my deputies heard gunshots from within the building and decided to enter the premises."

Castellano grimaced. As much as he'd like to, he couldn't really argue with that kind of judgment call and it was clear from the Sheriff's expression that he knew it. "And what did they find?"

"They witnessed a man coming down the stairs from the second floor as they attempted to get the door open. The guy ran through a hallway towards the garage, but he was gone by the time my deputies got over the fence and around the building."

Castellano closed his eyes and sighed. Fighting hard to control his anger he asked, "Does this man have a description?"

"Blonde hair, about six foot, and thin. He was wearing a black raincoat and blue jeans."

"Sounds like my guy. Any idea what the gunshot was about?"

The Sheriff pointed over his shoulder with his thumb. "Upstairs," he said, as he turned around and held the door open. As they entered Castellano saw the typical handiwork of a crew with a search warrant. Desk drawers and filing cabinets were wide open and papers that had apparently been outside of the scope of the warrant littered the floor. The sheriff led the way through the rectangular office to the left side of the room, where a door led to a set of steps. Following the sheriff up, Castellano turned the corner to a second set of stairs and saw two large holes and a pile of crumbled drywall on the landing above them.

"What happened here?" he asked, as they topped the steps and he looked closely at the holes and the drywall. "Looks like gunshots."

"That's what I thought and this seems to confirm that," the sheriff said, as he stepped further into the room.

Castellano followed the man and saw blood spatter on the wall near one of the two windows that overlooked the parking lot. As he stepped around one of the desks he knew what he was about to see wasn't going to be pleasant. He grimaced as the body of a large man came into view. Around the man's head a massive pool of blood mixed with the gray commercial carpeting and created a dark halo. In the man's meaty hand was a .38 caliber revolver.

"Who is he?"

"Tim Sweat. He owns the company. We haven't touched anything so what you see is exactly how things were when my men arrived. It looks self-inflicted to me and there's a suicide note on the desk."

"Or it was made to look that way," Castellano posited.

"Exactly," the sheriff confirmed. "I spent a decade investigating homicides in Richmond before moving here so I've seen my share of bodies. I'm sure your people can tell for sure by the presence of gunshot residue on the hands."

Castellano nodded and looked from the position of the body to the holes in the wall near the stairs. "Those holes look consistent with gunshots so I'm going to go out on a limb and say he was shooting at someone who came up the stairs."

"My thoughts exactly, and we found evidence of a break in by the garage. Someone used a manual tire jack from one of the vehicles to pry open a garage door."

Castellano fought a smirk as he looked from the body to the gunshot holes. If he didn't know better he would swear that Declan McIver was trying to help them frame him, because he sure wasn't helping himself. Not only was he on the run, as far as the public knew, but now they had another body tied to him and no witnesses to offer an alternative version of events.

"What's the suicide note say?"

"It's right here on the desk. It's an apology to his wife and children and talks about some men threatening them, fits the murder idea more than the suicide one if you ask me. I've known Tim Sweat for nearly twenty years and he's not a man to be threatened by anyone."

Castellano nodded and turned around to look at the legal-sized piece of paper sitting on the desk, blood droplets soaking through it onto the wood beneath.

"It says something about some files with the identities of the men doing the threatening," Sheriff Scruggs continued, "but I don't see any folders nearby. My deputies said the guy running away was carrying something, but they couldn't tell for sure what it was. Sounds like a motive to me."

Castellano felt a sinking feeling in his stomach. Just when everything seemed to be going his way there had to be some bad news. Had Sweat somehow managed to get information on the four men, or did the files just contain pictures? He dismissed the bad feeling. Surely the four had been smart enough not to give their real names and it wasn't like he had to worry about them talking to anyone. Declan McIver had again solved that problem for him when he killed them.

"Then we need to find him before he has a chance to destroy those files. Any idea where he could have gone?"

"Well, we're guessing the blue Mercedes out front belongs to him because Tim Sweat's BMW is in the garage. So that means he had to have left here on foot. He must've jumped the fence before my men got around the building. I made a call to a guy with some dogs. He's on his way. We'll get a scent off of something in the car and start tracking him."