Steven James - The Rook

“OK, I get it.” “So,” I said. “We need to find a guy who broke his left ankle, likes to wear disguises, and lives”-I pointed to the hot zone-”within this ten-block radius.”

“I’m not sure that narrows it down much, Pat. That’s got to be at least eight thousand-”

“Military experience,” I mumbled. “You said he’s got military experience, right?”

“Yes. But this is San Diego, half the people in the city are employed by the navy or work as subcontractors for the Department of Defense.”

“But how many of them are professionals at burning down buildings?”

Suddenly, she saw where I was going. “Explosive ordinance training,” she said.

“Yes. Coronado Island. Home of the Navy SEAL Amphibious Training Base, the only place on the West Coast where the government actually trains people to blow stuff up and burn things down and then get away undetected. I’m wondering if our guy might be a Navy SEAL.”

Video editing always takes longer than you expect, and with the sunlight piercing through the windows, it created more glare than usual.

Plus, Creighton’s computer had crashed once before he’d saved some of his changes. All of that had set him behind, but he was pretty sure he could still get the video edited in time.

Just a few more minor tweaks and it would be ready to send to Austin Hunter, former arsonist, future terrorist.

Lien-hua called the Amphib Base, and, after they’d verified her clearance codes, they transferred her to Leslie Helprin, a Petty Officer 2nd Class who worked with the medical records division. It turned out Petty Officer Helprin was good at her job. It only took her a few minutes to locate the records of all Navy SEALs who’d been trained in incendiary diversionary tactics and had been treated for an ankle or leg injury on the left leg over the past five years.

I typed while Lien-hua relayed information to me from the phone. “We have twelve names, Pat. Ten men, two women. Plus a SEAL who left the service last year, honorable discharge.”

“Well, our arsonist isn’t a woman,” I said.

“How do you know?”

“Posture. Frame. Weight distribution in his stride. So that gives us ten, eleven if you count the guy who left last year. Have Petty Officer Helprin email me the photos from their personnel files.

Let’s see if they match any of the faces on our videos.”

Lien-hua spoke into the phone again and then shook her head.

“No good. They don’t have photos on file.”

“How could they not have photos?”

Lien-hua relayed the question, then gave me Petty Officer Helprin’s answer. “Not in the medical files, just the personnel files. But that’s a whole different division.”

Of course it was. Typical military bureaucracy.

Our guy was into disguises anyhow. “OK, forget that for now, we can follow up on that later. See if she can get us the-wait a minute, one of them left the service last year?”

“Yes.”

“When?”

Lien-hua passed the question along and then said, “February.”

“The fires started in April. Do they have an address? Maybe somewhere they’re sending his commission checks?”

Lien-hua scribbled down a street address and showed it to me.

I zoomed the computer in on the street.

The man lived only two blocks outside of the hot zone.

And his name was Austin Hunter.

Creighton Melice attached the video of Cassandra Lillo to the email message he’d prepared for Austin Hunter and pressed

“send.”

Overall, Creighton thought he did an amazing job on the piece, but he doubted Hunter would appreciate the time he’d spent to get it right. Creighton opened the door that led to the main section of the warehouse to check on Cassandra. No change. She was secure.

She wasn’t going anywhere.

Then he went back to wait for confirmation that the email had gone through. While he waited, he sharpened the narrow six-inch-long metal shiv. It would need to be sharp-very sharp-in case Shade told him to switch to Plan B.

I needed to confirm some of my suspicions before calling Aina.

We tracked down the navy’s human services division and they emailed both Lien-hua and I a copy of Austin Hunter’s personnel files and military service records. We each pulled them up on our own computers so we could examine them at the same time.

“So,” I said. “Served for fourteen years-missions in Ecuador, South Africa, Afghanistan, even two excursions into North Korea.

Diversionary Tactics. Covert surveillance. Spent two years as a SERE instructor: survival, evasion, rescue, and escape. This guy is the real deal. But then, on a training exercise, he fractures his left fibula and-”

“Look at this.” Lien-hua pointed to the screen. “Paragraph 3-ba.

The navy covered the cost of his surgery and physical therapy, but after he recovered, they pulled him out of SEAL Team 3 and gave him administrative duty.”

I shook my head. “The guy was one of the most highly trained, elite fighters in the world, and they stick him in a cubicle to send faxes and transfer phone calls. They must have known he would resign as soon as his commission was up.”

“Which he did.” She was reading right along with me. “I guess the navy doesn’t want to worry about a SEAL’s old leg injury slowing him down on a covert op somewhere. And, of course, after his honorable discharge, he was no longer their problem. Since he didn’t complete twenty years of service-no retirement.”

“And since his leg injury wasn’t a permanent disability-no medical coverage, either,” I said. “So after spending his entire adult life as a SEAL, he leaves the special forces with nothing except for a set of nontransferable skills. I mean, what kind of job do you get after that? Night watchman? Maybe a bodyguard? Private investigator maybe?”

Lien-hua had set her computer to the side and stared introspec-tively out the sliding glass doors of the hotel room. “Not a guy with his service record.”

“Mercenary?” I said. “Or maybe work for a private security firm in the Middle East? At least then you can still blow up buildings and shoot wicked-cool guns without anyone asking a whole lot of irritating questions.”

“Did you just say wicked-cool?”

“I heard Tessa say it one time.” Then I remembered what Tessa had said to me the night before: It feels good. It’s what you do.

It’s what you like. “Or maybe,” I said to Lien-hua, “you just start burning down civilian buildings, because it’s who you are and you can’t turn it off.”

We called Aina and gave her an update on everything we’d discovered. All the evidence so far was circumstantial, but at least it was a place to start. “We’ll send a car over to Hunter’s place,” Aina said. “Have a talk with him. Good work.”

“Great,” I said. “Let us know what you find out.”

After we ended the call, I took a deep breath. “Well, it looks like we can take a little break.”

“Good,” she said. “Because you need a shower. And I need to get out of these smoky clothes.”

“All right. I’m supposed to meet Tessa at ten o’clock downstairs for brunch. Why don’t you join us? Maybe we’ll have heard something about Hunter by then.”

She accepted the invitation, left to change clothes, and I headed to the shower.

But instead of relaxing, I kept wondering what Hunter’s connection might be to the guy who started the fire last night-or if it was really a different arsonist after all.

Creighton checked his watch again.

9:00 a.m.

OK, that should be enough time.

He picked up his phone and dialed Austin Hunter’s mobile number. Shade had found a way to route the call so it would appear to Hunter that it was coming from Cassandra’s cell so he was confident Hunter would answer.