All the Wrong Moves (7 page)

That’s the thing about working with highly educated civilians. They know their rights, darn it.

Heaving a long-suffering sigh, I pulled rank on the only other military member of FST-3. Sergeant Cassidy at least was obligated by law to follow the orders of the officers appointed over him.

“Noel! Front and center!”

I tried to bark the command like a crusty old veteran but it came out sounding cranky and petulant even to me.

“My psychiatrist isn’t gonna like this,” he grumbled as he disengaged from the steel cage of the gym.

Cassidy’s delicate mental state was the least of my concerns at the moment. I was more worried about EEEK’s residual stink.

“We’ll need something to block the smell.”

While I glanced around the CHU, Cassidy solved the problem for himself by dragging off his sweat-soaked T-shirt and draping it around the lower half of his face.

I was too grossed out to admire the body-builder torso thus revealed. Although it did make me wonder if your own sweat smelled as rank to you as it did to everyone else. Something to ask Pen about, I decided. Later.

I retreated to the CHU I shared with her to fashion my own face mask out of a T-shirt liberally laced with Chanel No. 5.

I’d splurged on the perfume in a moment of sheer madness. I could have trotted across the border and bought a cheap imitation but, no, I had to hit the Post Exchange and shell out mega-bucks for the real thing. Sucker that I am, I actually believed the woman at the counter when she quoted Marilyn Monroe’s famous line. The one where MM claimed all she wore to bed was two drops of Chanel No. 5. I figured what the heck. If it worked for her . . .

Wish I could tell you it worked for me. The few times I’ve squirted on the stuff out here in West Texas, all I’ve attracted is swarms of gnats.

A few bugs were infinitely preferable to EEEK’s eau de corpse, however. Tying on the makeshift mask, I grabbed my toothbrush and the spray bottle of disinfectant Pen insisted on washing our sink and toilet with twice a day. Pure spite made me grab
her
toothbrush as well.

Sergeant Cassidy and I regrouped outside the lab and went to work. We made quite a pair. Two trained warriors on our knees in the dirt, our faces muffled by perfume-and-sweat soaked T-shirts, cleaning an expensive piece of equipment with toothbrushes by the light of the moon and a strategically positioned Super Brite.

Happy I was not. For this I had turned in my ruffled panties? For this I’d abandoned the bright lights and big tippers in Vegas?

Noel wasn’t any more pleased with his demotion from Special Ops to toothbrush wielder. He alternated between glowering at me, at EEEK, at me again.

Our foul mood lightened a little when Rocky broke down and joined us. He’d swathed his entire head in a bath towel. Peering through a narrow slit in the folds, he knelt beside Noel. I sent a silent prayer winging heavenward that he wouldn’t add to our discomfort by cutting loose with one of his world-class bloopers.

Guilt or shame or the end of his chess match brought O’Reilly out a few moments later. Our resident nerd wasn’t about to pick up a toothbrush but he did condescend to hold the high-beam flashlight at a better angle.

Pen was the last to emerge. Tugging off her ear buds, she scanned the scene with a puzzled expression.

“What’s going on?”

“They’re digging for clams,” O’Reilly drawled.

Sarcasm bounces off Dr. Penelope England like bullets off Superman’s chest.

“Don’t be ridiculous. Bivalve mollusks haven’t inhabited this region since the Permian-Triassic period more than two hundred and fifty million years ago.”

Tch-tching, she poked around in her lopsided bun for a pointy object and joined our little work party.

I was feeling marginally more charitable toward my team when we finished with EEEK. Despite our meticulous scrub-down, though, he was still too ripe for the lab.

After much discussion we decided to tuck him back in his shipping container and stash him in the storage shed where we usually parked our ATVs. As I screwed down the lid I could swear I detected a look on his computerized face that promised dire retribution for the day’s indignities.

WE made the news the next morning. Not me personally. My two dead acquaintances.

I was identified only as a “military officer conducting tests on an isolated section of Fort Bliss’s range.” That kind of miffed me. You’d think I would have earned at least a few seconds of notoriety.

I got over my snit real fast, though, when one news spot showed Sheriff Alexander with about a hundred microphones shoved in his face. He answered several queries in his laconic West Texas drawl but let Paul Donati speak for the FBI and do most of the talking.

The big story was Patrick Hooker, of course. His remains had been positively ID’ed using dental records, although back-up DNA testing was in the works. The media coverage cut between his shell-shocked parents in Michigan and the sleazoid attorney who’d sprung Hooker from pre-trial confinement.

Naturally the lawyer claimed his client had never brokered stolen arms, much less been present at the shoot-out where U.S. and Colombian troops died. Neither the FBI nor Sheriff Alexander would release the exact details of Hooker’s demise, saying only that the investigation was still ongoing.

I watched the coverage for a while, checked on EEEK in his container and decided to leave him in situ while my team downloaded the rest of his data.

They were still hard at it when I drove into El Paso for my meeting with Mitch and Danny Jordan. I dressed up for the occasion in a fresh set of ABUs. Nothing like boots, baggy pants and a blouse with more flaps than a 747 to make a girl feel really special.

My first stop was the Ysleta Border Patrol Station. The station is a cluster of buildings in what used to be a primarily agricultural area that had gotten caught up in El Paso’s urban sprawl. The fenced yard was large enough to house a fleet of vehicles, most of which were out on patrol at the moment. The yard also contained a maintenance depot and a nondescript administrative building where the agents stood muster prior to going on shift.

The Border Patrol’s primary mission used to be to deter illegals and smugglers. After 9/11, priority shifted to apprehending terrorists attempting to enter the U.S. Hence Mitch’s direct involvement in the Patrick Hooker case. That much I knew.

What I didn’t know was the staggering statistics that smacked me in the face after I showed my ID and was asked to wait in the reception area.

A Hot Sheet pinned to the bulletin board indicated that on a typical day, Customs and Border Patrol personnel process some 1.13 million passengers and pedestrians entering the U.S.; 70,000 truck, rail and sea containers; and $88 million in fees, duties and tariffs. They also apprehend 2,400 folks and seize more than 7,000 pounds of narcotics.
Daily!

I was multiplying 7,000 by 365 in my head and not liking the result when Mitch appeared. He was also in uniform but his bristled with its usual twenty pounds of communications and weapons gear. Despite the assorted weaponry, he looked darned good.

Warning sirens went off in my head and I launched into my mantra.

Charlie! Charlie! Charlie!

“Sorry you had to wait.”

The chant wasn’t working so I gave it up and returned his smile. “No problem.”

“I was going to give you the two-dollar tour. Maybe when we come back.”

“Sounds good.”

We walked out to my twelve-year-old Bronco, which earned a disbelieving grunt from Agent Mitchell. Brow cocked, he conducted a walk-around.

“What did you do? Drive off the side of a cliff?”

“Only about a third of those dents are mine,” I informed him loftily as we strapped in. “The rest come compliments of my ex. So does the Bronco, for that matter. I traded my semi-new Mazda for this pile of junk and a quickie divorce.”

Despite my bad-mouthing, the Bronc turned over with barely a wheeze. Mitch waited until we cleared the gate to the parking lot to pick up on my last comment.

“How long were you married?”

“Six months, twelve days, four hours.” I turned onto the on ramp for I-10, thought about his ringless left hand and took a shot. “You?”

“A little longer.” His boot slammed the floorboard. “Jesus! Watch the truck.”

“I got it.”

I wedged in behind a new-car transport rumbling over from the GM plant in Juárez with a good seven or eight inches to spare.

“How much longer?” I asked, curious.

“Thirteen years, give or take a few months.”

He didn’t amplify and I didn’t press, although I suspected the demise of a thirteen-year marriage might have something to do with the rough patch Tess Garcia had mentioned.

Interstate 10 curved north, and we cruised toward the high-rises of downtown El Paso. Framed against the backdrop of the Franklin Mountains, their glass walls shimmered gold and coppery in the sun.

“We ran the boot print,” Mitch said, frowning as I whizzed past a string of slower moving vehicles. “It’s from a size nine-and-a-half medium Justin Rancher with a dual density EVA outsole.”

I’d spent enough time in Texas to recognize the brand, if not the EVA stuff. As the name implied, it was the boot of choice of working ranchers in the area.

“The tread was fairly new so the FBI is canvassing retail outlets in a tristate area.”

“How do rancher boots fit with military sniper rounds?” I wanted to know.

“Good question. I’m hoping your marine friend might suggest an answer.”

We took the exit for Highway 54 and headed north. The high-rises quickly gave way to apartments and residential areas. A few miles on, the family neighborhoods yielded to the bars, strip joints and tattoo parlors found within close vicinity to military installations worldwide.

The Smokehouse was considered safe in that no one had been knifed there in recent memory. Although it wasn’t much more than a hole-in-the-wall, the restaurant was at least three or four rungs up the couth ladder from Pancho’s. Its walls weren’t plastered with pictures of swim-suit models, and the only things that crunched under my boots as I wove a path through the jammed tables were peanut shells. I hope.

What made the place so popular was that its menu consisted of barbeque, barbeque, and more barbeque. You could get it sliced, shredded, pulled or still on the rib, all served with heaping sides of slaw, fries and slow-simmered beans. But that’s all you could get.

Since the owner had done a hitch in the Corps and proudly displayed the eagle, globe and anchor above the cash register, his place was usually crammed with marines from the detachment at Bliss. Those of us wearing the uniform of other branches of the service were lucky to get a foot in the door.

Danny had arrived early and was fighting off his pals to hold a table. I wove my way through the jumble of boots and uniforms in his direction.

“You’re looking good, Dan-O.”

And then some! In fact, he looked almost as good as the first time we’d met, when his razor blue eyes and quicksilver grin had drawn me like a moth to the proverbial flame.

The grin came out again, making me question why I’d let his gung ho personality douse the fire.

“Back at you, Sweet Cheeks.”

His glance cut to Mitch, noting the Border Patrol patch and the holstered Heckler & Koch on his hip. I made the intros, they did the hand crunch thing, and we all went to the counter to place our orders. The Smokehouse’s amenities don’t run to a waitstaff.

“So what’s this about?” Dan asked when we’d taken our numbers and carried our soft drinks back to the table.

“Putrefying flesh.”

“Huh?”

“I ran into some out on the Fort Bliss range. Maybe you saw the news coverage this morning?”

“That was you? The ‘unidentified military officer’?”

His sympathy for my traumatic experience lasted only a second or two. Then he recalled the identity of one of the corpses and his blue eyes went flat and cold.

“The news stories didn’t say what went down out there. Hope to hell Hooker took a long time to die.”

I left it to Mitch to reply.

“Long enough.” He leaned forward and engaged the captain eye-to-eye. “The FBI lab is working the ballistics, but it looks like someone pumped specially chambered M118LRs into both victims.”

Danny grasped the significance of those rounds instantly. “You think a marine sniper took the bastard down?”

“I think it’s a possibility.”

“If so, we should pin a medal on the shooter. Hooker smuggled the weapons that killed good men.”

“Unfortunately, that had yet to be proven.”

Dan’s upper lip curled. “Because he got sprung on a technicality. If I was Hooker’s attorney, I’d be checking my six.”

Checking six being the military’s polite way of saying the sleazy lawyer better watch his ass. Mitch ignored the editorial.

“Got any marine snipers assigned to your school, Captain Jordan?”

“None that fire anything smaller than a Stinger missile.”

“You sure about that?”

“I know every one of the instructors.”

“How about the students? How many are going through the schoolhouse at present?”

Dan sat back in his chair, his eyes narrowing. “Is this an official inquiry, Agent Mitchell?”

“Yes.”

“Why here?” He paused and let the noisy conversations and rattle of cutlery underscore his question. “Why not on post, at the school?”

“Various law enforcement agencies will contact your detachment commander, if they haven’t already. When Lieutenant Spade mentioned she had an in at the school, I figured I’d cut right to her source.”

Dan didn’t appear to appreciate being tagged as a source and shot me an unfriendly look.

“Hey, I’m not real happy about all this, either,” I protested. “My team and I were up half the night cleaning human remains off a sensitive piece of equipment. We’ve also put our test schedule on hold to process data gathered at the scene, which means we’ll be stuck out in Dry Springs for longer than anticipated. You ever been to Dry Springs, Dan-O?”

Mitch overrode my mostly rhetorical question and zeroed in on the tight-jawed marine. “How many students currently in training?”