Tess Gerritsen - Vanish

Conway had been watching Gabriel, reading his reactions. “I can see you’re having problems with this terrorism angle.”

“I think it’s too simple,” said Gabriel.

“And what’s your explanation? What are these people after?” asked Silver. He had settled back in his chair, long legs crossed, hands relaxed on the armrests. Not a sign of tension in his lanky frame. He’s not really interested in my opinion, thought Gabriel; he’s already made up his mind.

“I don’t have an answer yet,” said Gabriel. “What I do have are a number of puzzling details that I can’t explain. That’s why I called Senator Conway.”

“What details?”

“I just attended the postmortem on that hospital guard. The man our Jane Doe shot to death. It turns out he wasn’t a hospital employee at all. We don’t know who he was.”

“They ran fingerprints on him?”

“He doesn’t turn up on AFIS.”

“So he has no criminal record.”

“No. His fingerprints don’t turn up on any databases we’ve checked.”

“Not everyone has fingerprints on file.”

“This man walked into that hospital carrying a weapon loaded with duplex rounds.”

“That’s a surprise,” said Conway.

“What’s a duplex round?” said Silver. “I’m just a lawyer so you’ll have to explain it to me. I’m afraid I’m illiterate when it comes to guns.”

“It’s ammunition in which more than one bullet is loaded into a single cartridge case,” said Conway. “Designed for greater lethality.”

“I just spoke to Boston PD’s ballistics lab,” said Gabriel. “They recovered a cartridge from the hospital room. It’s an M- 198.”

Conway stared at him. “ US Army military issue. That’s not what you’d expect a security guard to carry.”

“A fake hospital guard.” Gabriel reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a folded piece of paper. He smoothed it flat on the coffee table. “And here’s the next detail that concerns me.”

“What’s this?” asked Silver.

“This is the sketch I made at the postmortem. It’s a tattoo on the dead man’s back.”

Silver rotated the paper to face him. “A scorpion?”

“Yes.”

“So are you going to explain to me why this is significant? Because I’m willing to bet there are more than a few men walking around with scorpion tattoos.”

Conway reached for the sketch. “You said this was on his back? And we don’t have any ID on this dead man?”

“Nothing came back on his fingerprints.”

“I’m surprised he doesn’t have prints on file.”

“Why?” asked Silver.

Gabriel looked at him. “Because there’s a good chance this man is military.”

“You can tell that just by looking at his tattoo?”

“It’s not just any tattoo.”

“What’s so special about this one?”

“It’s not on his arm, it’s on his back. In the marines, we call them ‘torso meat tags’ because they’re useful for identifying your corpse. In a blast, there’s a good chance you’d lose your extremities. So a lot of soldiers choose to get their tattoos on their chest or back.”

Silver grimaced. “A morbid reason.”

“But practical.”

“And the scorpion? Is that supposed to be significant?”

“It’s the number thirteen that catches my eye,” said Gabriel. “You see it here, circled by the stinger. I think it refers to the Fighting Thirteenth.”

“That’s a military unit?”

“Marine Expeditionary. Special ops capable.”

“You’re saying this dead man was an ex-marine?”

“You’re never an ex -marine,” Conway pointed out.

“Oh. Of course,” Silver corrected himself. “He’s a dead marine.”

“And that leads us to the detail that bothers me most,” said Gabriel. “The fact his fingerprints aren’t in any database. This man has no military record.”

“Then maybe you’re wrong about the significance of this tattoo. And the duplex ammo.”

“Or I’m right. And his fingerprints were specifically purged from the system to make him invisible to law enforcement.”

There was a long silence.

Silver’s eyes suddenly widened as he realized what Gabriel was implying. “Are you saying one of our intelligence agencies purged his prints?”

“To conceal any black ops missions within our borders.”

“Whom are you accusing? CIA? Military Intelligence? If he was one of ours, I sure wasn’t told about it.”

“Whoever this man was, whoever he was working for, it’s now obvious he and his associate showed up in that hospital room for only one reason.” Gabriel looked at Conway. “You’re on the Senate Intelligence Committee. You have sources.”

“But I’m totally out of the loop on this one,” said Conway, shaking his head. “If one of our agencies ordered a hit on that woman, that’s a serious scandal. An assassination on US soil?”

“But this hit went very wrong,” said Gabriel. “Before they could finish it, Dr. Isles walked in on them. Not only did the target survive the hit, she took hostages. Now this is a huge media event. A black ops screwup that’s going to end up on the front pages. The facts are going to come out anyway, so if you know, you might as well tell me. Who is this woman, and why does our country want her dead?”

“This is pure speculation,” said Silver. “You’re following a pretty thin thread, Agent Dean. Extrapolating from a tattoo and a bullet to a government-sponsored assassination.”

“These people have my wife,” Gabriel said quietly. “I’m willing to follow any thread, however thin. I need to know how to make this end without someone getting killed. That’s all I want. That no one gets killed.”

Silver nodded. “It’s what we all want.”

Darkness had fallen by the time Maura turned onto the quiet Brookline street where she lived. She drove past familiar houses, familiar gardens. Saw the same redheaded boy heaving his basketball at the hoop over his garage. Missing it, as usual. Everything looked as it had yesterday, just another hot summer’s evening in suburbia. But tonight is different, she thought. Tonight, she wouldn’t be lingering over her glass of chilled wine or her latest issue of Vanity Fair. How could she enjoy her usual pleasures, knowing what Jane was enduring at that moment?

If Jane was still alive.

Maura pulled into her garage and walked into the house, grateful for the cool breath of central air-conditioning. She would not be staying long; she’d come home only to grab a quick supper, to shower, and change clothes. For even this brief respite, she felt guilty. I’ll bring back sandwiches for Gabriel, she thought. She doubted the thought of food had even crossed his mind.

She had just stepped out of the shower when she heard her doorbell ring. Pulling on a robe, she hurried to answer it.

Peter Lukas stood on her front porch. Only that morning, they had spoken, but judging by his wrinkled shirt and the tense lines around his eyes, the hours since then had taken a toll. “I’m sorry to just show up here,” he said. “I did try to call you a few minutes ago.”

“I didn’t hear the phone. I was in the shower.”

He gaze dropped, just for an instant, to her bathrobe. Then he looked past her, focusing on a spot over her shoulder, as though he was uncomfortable staring directly at an undressed woman. “Can we talk? I need your advice.”

“Advice?”

“About what the police are asking me to do.”

“You’ve spoken to Captain Hayder?”

“And that FBI guy. Agent Barsanti.”

“Then you already know what the hostage takers want.”

Lukas nodded. “That’s why I’m here. I need to know what you think about this whole crazy setup.”