Dead Aim (10 page)

Metal gleaming blue in the lights of Ken's helicopter.

"Do you see it?"

"I see it."

"Then you have to be able to see his face. Lips?"

"Thin."

"Cheekbones?"

"High."

"How high?"

"His face is kind of . . . diamond shape."

"Good." His pencil was flying over the pad. "Eyebrows?"

Eyes squinting as he aimed the rifle.

"Bushy."

"Eye color?"

"I can't see them. Dark, I think."

"Nose?"

"Straight. Short. Slightly flared nostrils."

"Okay. We've got a start. Give me a minute and I'll let you see it and we'll make the changes." He bent over the pad.

That had been the procedure all afternoon. Morgan had probed and questioned and made her remember details she had forgotten. Working on the sketches of the first two men had not been easy, but it was on the last one that she had drawn a blank.

A blank Morgan had not let her maintain.

He was tireless and his concentration seemed, if anything, more intense while he was working on this last sketch.

"What about his neck? No double chin?"

"No. The line was firm, sharp, and he-- What's wrong?"

He'd frozen, his pencil still, as he stared at the sketch.

"Nothing. Just making sure I got everything." His pencil began flying across the pad again.

A few minutes later he glanced up at her. "You did well."

"You forced me to do well."

"And you resent it."

"No. Well, maybe on one level. But it was necessary for me to remember. No matter how much it hurt. It was my job." She sat up and braced herself. "Are you ready to show me the sketch?"

"Are you ready to see it?" He smiled faintly. "Hell, yes, you are." He turned the pad around. "The shooter."

He'd sketched in the rifle pressed against the face of the man.

She flinched and then forced herself to concentrate on the face. "He looks too . . . smooth. The face was thin, but there were wrinkles around his eyes when he squinted."

Morgan turned the pad back and began to work. "Ears."

"Close to his head, I think. I didn't see. . . . The rifle was--"

"Think about it." His tone was hard, incisive, demanding, as his pencil moved over the pad. "You remembered the sideburns. You have to remember the ears."

"I'll remember. Give me a minute."

"Just spit it out. You're on a roll."

"For God's sake, give me a break."

He glanced up at her. "Is that what you want from me?"

Hardness. Coolness. Without mercy.

No, she didn't want a break from him. She wanted exactly what she was being given. Intelligence. Dedication. Determination. "Hell, no."

"I didn't think so."

She closed her eyes, remembering. "He had small ears, close to his head, and his lobes were full, almost plump. . . ."

"I think we're as close as we're going to get." Morgan got to his feet. "We'll go over them again after you've taken a nap."

"I don't need a nap. I can look at the sketches now."

"You could look, but would you see them? It's been seven hours. You're getting woozy. I wasn't easy on you."

"No." Her gaze was fastened on the pad. "Those likenesses are really close, Morgan. Are we going to send them to Leopold?"

"Maybe."

"What?"

"Don't get edgy. We'll get an ID. There are other sources that may be faster." He moved toward the door. "Take a nap while I clean these up. We'll talk later."

"I want to talk now. I didn't work my ass off to get those sketches right to have them end up anywhere but in the hands of people who can find and ID these men."

"One's already been ID'd."

Her eyes widened. "What are you talking about?"

He held up the second sketch they'd worked on. "George Lester. He was the man who was driving the blue Toyota and tried to put you down."

"How do you know who he is?"

"I called a friend, and he checked and found that the police had done a fingerprint and dental check on him. Definitely George Lester from Detroit. Very ugly customer but a loner. That's going to make it difficult for us."

"Dental check? You make it sound--" She stopped. "He's dead?"

He shrugged. "I didn't know we'd need him."

"You killed him?"

"He was going after you. It would have been only a matter of time before he got you. It seemed the reasonable thing to do."

"Killing is never reasonable."

"I beg to disagree. But this time it wasn't smart. I was only interested in getting him off your case, not finding his connections. Now we'll have to start at square one."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"It would only have upset you. You have a soft heart. You didn't even kill Al Habim when he targeted you. It seemed the most efficient way to protect you."

So casual. So cool.

He glanced back over his shoulder as he opened the door. "That's right," he said, as if reading her mind. "One cold son of a bitch. But there are uses for men like me. You'll probably find a few before we're done."

She stared at the door after it had shut behind him.

She was filled with shock, confusion, and a sense of foreboding.

There are uses for men like me
.

But she didn't know anyone who would dare to try to use Judd Morgan.

Okay. Rest. Think. Analyze the situation. Decide if she could place even a small amount of trust in a man who had killed a man because it was efficient.

Chapter 5.

"Shit!"

Powers snatched up the report off the fax machine, scanned it, and then dialed Betworth. "The report just came in from Quantico on the man in the stairwell, sir."

"Morgan?"

"How did you--" Sometimes he thought the bastard was psychic. "Yes, they had trouble with the video or we would have had the ID sooner. You expected him to turn up here?"

"It was always a possibility. We didn't think Morgan could make the connection, but we weren't certain. And according to his file, you never know how Morgan is going to jump. But I would have thought he'd show up right after the dam break. I had the CIA ready to gather him in if he decided to do a little snooping. I was a little worried about John Logan's connection with Graham."

"Logan?"

"He was pulling every string he could to have Graham put in a safe house after his wife was shot. And it was Logan who tried to get the sanction lifted on Morgan several months ago. He's got a lot of influence. I had a hell of a time blocking it."

"We've had Logan under surveillance since Graham disappeared. He's at his home in California and hasn't tried to make contact."

"Have you been able to monitor his phones?"

"No way. He's got a state-of-the-art security and communication system."

"Then I suggest you'd better figure a way to find out what we need. I understand he's very fond of his wife. Good-bye, Powers."

"I have sketches of the other two men Alex saw at Arapahoe Junction," Judd said as soon as Galen answered. "I need to know who they are."

"Alex gave you descriptions? You know how tricky memory can be. Can you rely on her?"

"Yes."

"No doubts?"

"No doubts."

"Can you fax them?"

"I think you'd better come and pick them up."

"You're halfway across the country. Why?"

"I may need you here. I have a bad feeling. . . . Have you told Logan about Alex's injury?"

"Not yet."

"It's just as well. I don't need Logan upset enough to get in my way. How soon can you get here?"

"I'm on my way." He hung up.

Morgan sat down at the kitchen table and pulled out the sketches. He threw the other two sketches aside to look at the one they'd worked on last--the shooter. He drew a deep breath and then slowly let it out. He'd almost blown it. Exhausted as Alex had been, she'd noticed his reaction. He had to be more careful.

Careful? The idea was laughable. He'd known that safety was out the window the minute he finished that sketch. Until then there had been a chance that the dam break didn't have anything to do with Z-3.

Okay, he could still back off and disappear. He could find another way to keep Alex safe.

Alex.

What the hell? He'd give it a little more time. He'd clean up these sketches while Alex was napping and get a final approval before giving them to Galen. It should be only a matter of hours before he arrived. Galen never wasted time when he went into motion.

"You shouldn't be up." Morgan got up from his chair and came toward her. "Why didn't you call me? I would have helped you."

"I'm fine." She brushed by him and went toward the fire. "A little cold."

"You need time to heal, and I pushed you hard today. You're tired and your body temperature probably dropped. You should try to get more sleep."

She held out her hands to the blaze. "I didn't mean to sleep at all." She had thought she was so disturbed she would lie there for hours, but she'd dropped off almost immediately. "What have you been doing?"

"Cleaning up the sketches. Waiting for Galen."

"Galen?"

"A friend. He's coming to pick up the sketches and make sure that I haven't totally maimed you."

"What business is it of his if you have?"

"Now, that's not in keeping with your philosophy. Isn't everyone supposed to be their brother's keeper?"

"In a perfect world. This world isn't perfect. Why is this Galen worried about me?"

"He recommended me to Logan."

"So it's pure self-interest."

"Not entirely. Galen is one of the good guys. He's generally a cynical bastard, but he's like you--he wants to go around righting wrongs. He even tried to right a wrong done to me." He smiled faintly. "Everyone makes mistakes."

"If he's your friend, I wouldn't call that a mistake."

"There are friends and then there are friends."

"What's that supposed to mean? No, don't tell me. You wouldn't get close enough to commit to a friend."

"Not willingly. But even I'm not perfect."

"What does this Galen do? Is he a criminal like you?"

"He's an information specialist. He has contacts all over the world. He arranges things and smooths paths that need smoothing."

"Legally?"

"Sometimes." He handed her the sketches. "Look at them. If there are any changes, let me know."

She glanced through the sketches. "They look good to me. I can't see anything I'd want to change. You're really very good. I don't know how you-- Wait. This isn't right." She was staring at the sketch of the shooter. "You've given him a tiny scar on his left cheek."

"Didn't you tell me to put that in?"

She shook her head. "I'm sure I-- Maybe I did. I was so tired."

"That's an understatement. You were exhausted."

"It's hard to remember. It looks right. . . ."

"I can take it out."

"No." She shook her head. "Let me think about it."

"Whatever you say." He took the sketches from her. "I'll set them up against the wall. I put your camera over on that chair. I'd like you to take some shots of the sketches before we turn them over to Galen."

She nodded. "Good idea." She moved across the room. "I still think we should give the sketches to Leopold. You may trust this Galen, but I don't."

"Well, then you'll have the photographs, won't you? Galen has contacts in areas that Leopold doesn't know exist. Logan has had him working on gathering information since your friend Sarah's shooting."

"Then I assume he's a criminal too?"

"Not exactly." He finished setting up the sketches. "No Leopold. Lester's demise will make things very difficult for me with the authorities. It doesn't matter that he was a scumbag and a murderer. It wouldn't matter that he tried to kill you. I'm the one who'd land in jail for a year or two while I waited for the courts to get around to me. They don't understand vigilante justice."

"Neither do I." She focused on the first sketch. "You could have called the police instead of killing Lester."

"Too much red tape. People get killed wading through red tape."

She shook her head.

"Look at it this way. Suppose you could have run across an associate of one of those kamikaze pilots in the ruins of the World Trade Center. Would you have called the police and trusted that the courts would kill him for you?"

Smoke, tears, pain, and helpless rage
.

She took the picture. "It's not the same thing."