Brad Thor - Full Black

The only thing they had in common was that celebrity was involved, and that was all that the Los Angeles newscasters needed. As macabre as it was, people loved stories like these and it was where the phrase “If it bleeds, it leads” came from. Toss in a ton of money and more than a little dash of Hollywood, and the story was destined to bust out as a national news phenomenon.

The reporters still had very little to go on. They knew that there were multiple fatalities inside the house and that the residence belonged to legendary movie producer Lawrence Salomon. There was no mention of Russian Spetsnaz. There was no mention of the two dead documentary filmmakers. And there was no mention of a search under way for either Salomon or Ralston. Ralston had no doubt, though, that it was on. Big-time.

In fact, there were probably police officers going through his house right now. More officers would be talking to his neighbors. Detectives would be pulling his phone records as well as Salomon’s to see who each had been talking to in the hours leading up to the events at Salomon’s house. When the restaurant where Larry had left his car opened up, they’d be calling the authorities and more officers would swoop down on the restaurant, the vehicle would be impounded, and staff would be questioned, all in the hope of uncovering even the smallest detail that might explain what had happened.

Even though the murders had happened further up in Coldwater Canyon, it would still be in the LAPD’s jurisdiction. That meant that some of the best detectives in the country would be working the case. Ralston wondered how long it would take for them to uncover his background. Probably a while. The Army was very protective of the identity of its Special Operations Forces, especially Tier One Delta operators. Considering the magnitude of what had happened, though, his background wouldn’t stay hidden forever.

In the meantime, he had to hope that the LAPD detectives working the case were going to look at the size of those Russians and start putting things together. What worried Ralston, though, was that without anyone to explain who the bad guys were, the Russians might be viewed as Salomon’s security, who’d all been taken out in an attempt to kidnap the famous film producer.

The more Ralston thought of it, the more he started to worry that that might end up being the working hypothesis. Salomon didn’t have lots of people up to his house. Ever since Rachael had been murdered he hadn’t been the same, and his friends and colleagues would tell the police as much. Hell, even Ralston’s visits to the house seemed to be happening less often. He hadn’t even known about the documentary Salomon had been putting together right in his home office.

As good as the LAPD detectives were, they would still be tempted to take the path of least resistance. Too often in law enforcement, investigations could be more about closing the file than about solving the case.

Without any witnesses, the police would be operating in a vacuum. They’d be going strictly on the forensics. Ralston went through in his mind what they’d probably already assembled.

Outside the home, they had his wrecked 911, a Ford Econoline van, and one very mangled body. Maybe they had found the getaway driver’s shotgun. Inside the house, the man named Jeremy lay dead in the kitchen and Chip in the home office. One dead Russian lay near the dining room, and two more lay upstairs, one having been shot from inside Salomon’s closet cum safe room. Finally, two of Salomon’s vehicles were not in the garage. No jewelry, cash, artwork, or other valuables were apparently missing.

Ralston asked himself what he’d be thinking right now if he was an LAPD detective.

The Russian on the first floor with his throat cut would be one of his primary focal points. The body of the young filmmaker, Jeremy, would be the other. One had been killed with a gun, the other a knife. In fact, Ralston had left the fillet knife right there on the floor next to the first Russian he had killed. Though no law enforcement agency had his fingerprints on file, once the prints were lifted off the knife they’d be sent for verification to the Army and that’s where the unraveling of his background would begin.

Even someone who wasn’t a detective would be able to figure out that the fillet knife had come from the block in the kitchen. It meant that whoever had cut the throat of the man outside the dining room hadn’t come to the house prepared. That said a lot about motive.

What he also hoped would be apparent was the chronology of events on the first floor. Killing the man outside the dining room with a knife meant that Ralston didn’t have a gun at the time. Jeremy had been killed in the kitchen while eating a bowl of cereal. Only an idiot would assume that Ralston had breezed through the kitchen, grabbed a knife, moved on and sliced the throat of the man outside the dining room, only to return to the kitchen and shoot Jeremy. That would just be stupid.

And while all of this seemed obvious to Ralston, he realized he had the benefit of knowing everything that had happened. He couldn’t trust that the police would put things together the same way.

Retracing his steps in his mind’s eye, he went through Salomon’s office and up the back stairs. On the floor of the hallway was another very large and very dead man. The more he thought of it, the more he realized how their look screamed “private security.”

What didn’t scream private security and should be a dead giveaway to the cops was the fact that none of them was carrying an ID. Ralston had patted two of them down and had not been able to find anything. That was a pretty strong calling card for contract killers.

Eventually, he assumed, ballistics would show that Jeremy and the man lying in the hallway upstairs had been killed with the same weapon. Would they figure out that Ralston had taken it from the dead Russian downstairs after cutting his throat?

Then there was the man in the bathroom whom Salomon had blown a hole through with his shotgun. With the fireplace tool nearby on the bathroom floor and the ripped-up drywall, even a neophyte would have been able to tell what happened there.

That being the case, Ralston still tried to imagine any other way it could have been interpreted. He couldn’t come up with anything. It was just too obvious that the dead man in the bathroom was trying to tear his way into the safe room and that someone, presumably Salomon, had blown him away. Tests for gunpowder residue inside the closet would confirm that.

Based on the wounds the man in the hallway had received, one round beneath the nose and another through the throat, what conclusions would the police draw? Ralston wondered. That kind of shot placement coupled with the knife work he’d done downstairs would signal a high degree of skill. They’d know Salomon didn’t do those things. Those things had to have been done by a professional.

Firing from inside the closet with a shotgun, though, in their minds would be consistent with something Salomon would do. The question was, would the detectives put it all together this way?

It seemed to Ralston that the evidence should be crystal clear. Salomon had been under siege and Ralston had rescued him. There was only one problem, and the movie producer had called it right at the crime scene-innocent people don’t flee.

That would be the one glaring thing that didn’t make sense. No matter how clear the evidence was, there could only be one reason in a detective’s mind for why Salomon and Ralston had fled-they were guilty of something.

From there it was only one step to any number of harebrained motives the cops might come up with. Ralston and Salomon had had an argument. Ralston had kidnapped Salomon. Ralston intended to do away with Salomon, but decided to finish the job somewhere else.