Allison Brennan - Sudden Death

“Sorry, you woke me and I couldn’t find my phone.”

“General Hackett is dead. We’re going to Santa Barbara.”

“Hackett? Dammit, we sent agents to his house to warn him.”

“I spoke to the Los Angeles office. They said they called and Mrs. Hackett said her husband was out of town for the evening.”

“And they didn’t follow up?”

Hans paused. “They assumed that if he was out of town, the killers wouldn’t know where. See where assumptions can lead?”

Megan blanched. Hans was still angry, but she was more confident that her actions were right. “I’ll be ready.”

“You should also know that Barry Rosemont, the reporter Frank Cardenas told us about, was also murdered, and his partner is still at large. The gun that killed the two men was left at the scene, but the knife that cut Hackett’s hamstrings is missing. The detective in charge will meet us at the airport, fill in the details, and walk us through the crime scene. But the gun is the same caliber-nine millimeter-as the firearm that killed the Hoffmans. And,” he added, “same bullet casings.”

“What did-”

Hans interrupted. “We need to leave.”

“Jack can fly us. It’ll be faster, especially during morning commute time-”

“Ask him.”

She paused. Did Hans know Jack was in her room? “Okay. What about Rosemont’s partner? He just skipped out?”

“No sign of the partner at all. We don’t know if Rose-mont or the UNSUB killed Hackett, but it’s clear that Rosemont was murdered. The police are going through all security tapes and are interviewing staff and guests. We’ll know more when we get there.”

“But-” She felt Jack behind her, his hands on her shoulders.

“Thirty minutes, meet me in the lobby.”

“Yes, but-”

He hung up before she could say anything else.

“What?” Jack asked, massaging her muscles.

“Barry Rosemont. He’s one of the killers, apparently.” She turned and faced Jack. “I’m so sorry. About this, about your friend, Scout. And General Hackett, he’s also dead. We couldn’t warn him in time. I feel awful.”

“It’s not your fault.”

“Hans is still mad at me. I don’t know what’s going on with him, but he’s not acting like himself. And we still don’t know who Rosemont’s partner is.”

“Maybe by the time we land in Santa Barbara the police will have answers.”

“I hope so. Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me. I’m part of this until the end. You know that, right?”

She nodded. “We’re leaving in thirty minutes and I need to shower-”

“ We need to shower.” He kissed her. Her lips were sore from last night’s passion, but his caress was gentle, kind, loving. He picked her up and carried her to the bathroom. “Thirty minutes should be just enough time.”

On the way to the airport, Hans was in front with the taxi driver, talking quietly on his cell phone. Megan had hoped that because she and Hans were working together on the case, he had rethought his comments from the night before, but if his icy reception this morning was any indication, he was in a worse mood now. Any other time she would have called him on it, but he wasn’t himself so she tread lightly.

Jack squeezed her knee. He leaned over and was about to say something when Megan’s cell phone beeped, indicating a high-priority e-mail. She glanced at it. “It’s from my office.” She opened the e-mail and added, “It’s about the van in Sacramento.”

She skimmed the report. “It was wiped down with Clorox Clean-Up. Bleach. There were bloodstains, but they were contaminated. No prints so far, but they’re still going through it. However, there was a pair of shoes in the middle of the back of the van. Worn sneakers with blood. It’s our John Doe’s blood.” She tapped Hans on the shoulder. “Did you hear me?”

Hans turned, and pointed to the cell phone he held to his ear. She leaned back and sighed. “So we know where he was tortured, and they found two long, thin needles that appear to match the marks on the body. They sent one to the morgue for verification.”

“And nothing else?”

“No.”

Hans was on the phone the entire drive to the airport, and finally shut it off when Jack was taxiing the plane for take-off.

“That was Rick Stockton,” he said.

“And?”

“The Orlando field office is reviewing all the evidence in the Russo murder and will get back to me. He also pulled the Russo interview from CNN and ordered a transcript, which will be e-mailed to us as soon as they get it. But it was pretty much an apology for screwing up a mission. Russo took the blame. Or, as Rick said, he shared the blame with the whole team.”

“Prick,” Jack said.

Sitting behind, Hans didn’t respond.

“What do you think happened in Afghanistan?” Jack asked Hans.

“I don’t know.”

“I can tell you that Frank Cardenas doesn’t lie. If he said the reporter jeopardized the mission, then the reporter jeopardized the mission.”

“Soldiers tend to support each other,” Hans said. “When one speaks out-”

“They usually have an ax to grind,” Jack interrupted. “We take care of our problems internally. We don’t share them on Oprah.”

“A lot of good your internal solutions have been.”

“Your point?”

“The military is notorious for covering up failed missions. This time, they couldn’t.”

“You’re not going to get an argument from me on that one,” Jack said, “but failed missions are caused by many things, and leading the failures is bad intelligence, followed by assholes in public office who think they can run a battle from behind a desk and jerks like General Hackett who want to stroke the media and open our missions like a ride at Disneyland.”

“Hackett’s dead,” Hans said coldly.

“I’m sorry he’s dead, but that doesn’t mean he was right.”

“Hans,” Megan interjected from the co-pilot’s seat, not liking the direction the conversation was going, “can we get Rosemont’s medical records? Anything the military has? He must have been debriefed, hospitalized, maybe on medication.”

“The military isn’t going to share-it’s most likely classified. Rick already put in the request yesterday when we got his name, but doesn’t expect them to be forthcoming. As far as medical records, we need a warrant.”

“We should be able to get one,” Megan said. “There could be something important there.”

“I’ll make sure it’s put in. But it’s not going to bring Hackett or the Hoffmans back to life.”

“What is going on with you?” Megan demanded, turning around in her seat so she could face Hans. They were thousands of feet above the earth; no way he could avoid her this time. “You’re testy and snide and being an asshole.”

He glared at her, face hard, eyes unreadable. “I don’t have to answer to you, Agent Elliott. The only reason you’re on this plane to Santa Barbara is because Rick Stockton didn’t agree with me that you fucked up. But he’s looking into it so don’t think you’re in the clear yet.”

Megan turned away from Hans and blinked back the threatening tears. She didn’t know what to say; what could she say? His reaction to her wrong assumption about the victim in Sacramento was over the top. Something else had to have happened, and it was obvious Hans wasn’t going to tell her. Did he tell Rick? Was there something he wasn’t saying?

Did Hans know about her and Jack? Did he think she’d been unprofessional? Maybe she had been. It wasn’t like she’d planned to have sex with Jack Kincaid. And she didn’t regret it. She hadn’t jeopardized the case, or slept with a witness or suspect. Jack was essentially a civilian consultant. Hans thought she screwed up the case, that was it. But she couldn’t talk to him about it now. He wasn’t open to anything she said.