With compact movements he located a marking pen and a small pad of paper in the drawer of the desk next to the body. The man would regain consciousness soon—he had to be fast. He peeled the glove from one inert hand, uncapped the marker, and rubbed the ink on the thumb. Then he pressed it against the paper to create a perfect fingerprint. He did the same with the index and middle fingers. Anyone with a criminal record, who’d been in the military, or who worked in law enforcement would have been fingerprinted. If this man on the floor was in any of those categories—highly likely given his presence here tonight and the fact that he had a weapon—his identify would be determined. He smiled once again. It was good to be connected.
He replaced his makeshift ID kit and scanned the area. Clear. In the next moment he was gone.
***
Hiccups are gone, was the first woozy thought that Jason had as he came to. His head throbbed with each beat of his heart. He felt the spot of impact. Fortunately, no blood. It wouldn’t do to leave that here as evidence.
His gun lay several feet away. Painfully reaching out, he retrieved it and jammed it back into leather. On shaky legs he rose to his feet and almost blacked out again. He grabbed the edge of the desk and steadied himself. With a frown he noticed a smudge mark when his hand came away from the desk. Huh. His glove was off. Not only that but several of his fingertips were black.
The glove lay behind the chair. Bending, woozy, he got it and worked it back on. With his sleeve he wiped at the clear fingerprints he’d left. They wouldn’t disappear but at least he smudged them. They’d be useless to ID him.
Jason saw from his watch that he’d been unconscious for only five minutes, plenty of time for his attacker to vanish. He still couldn’t get over how fast the man had been.
With a job still remaining, Jason shuffled over to Steve Drennan’s office and pushed open the door. Even in the dark he immediately saw that the place was a mess. Jason’s predecessor had ransacked it looking for something.
As his eyes adjusted from the semi-light from outside the office to the murk within, one other item caught his attention. He hoped it wasn’t what he thought and advanced with trepidation. A curse escaped when he saw what he’d feared.
Only the heel of the shoe was visible. It was attached to much more. A foot, a leg, a torso. The corpse was face down, but the shape was familiar. The victim had been shot twice. Taken by surprise. The body lay with arms sprawled but legs tucked slightly beneath. The impact of the first bullet in the back had driven the man to his knees, the second bullet to the head thrust him forward, driving him to the floor.
Careful not to step in blood, Jason turned the head slightly to verify his impression. He’d been all too right. The man lying dead before him was Charlie Bennett.
***
This time it was a moan that escaped Jason’s lips. Nobody deserved to die this way, and his partner had been so young and eager and vibrant. Jason bowed his head and said a short prayer commending Bennett’s soul to Heaven. It was the least he could do in his backslidden religious condition.
He turned away and set to work to see if he could salvage something from this evening’s fiasco. The Gaiatic Charities file was something he still needed regardless of the circumstances.
Papers were strewn about, file folders emptied and thrown helter-skelter, the drawers ransacked. The one holding the Gaiatic file had been jimmied open. Unless it was among the mass of papers on the desk and scattered about the floor, the file was gone.
Jason thumbed through the myriad documents trying to determine whether any of them related to Gaiatic. First the desk, then a frantic search among the disheveled stacks all about him. The file cabinet had been emptied. With increasing desperation, he pawed through every paper he could get his hands on. No luck. Had his attacker taken the case file?
Jason’s shoulders slumped. Charlie Bennett dead. The file gone. All this for nothing. Disappointment clung to him like wet wool.
He slumped from Drennan’s office, and one last possibility came to mind. He opened the lap drawer of the outer desk guarding the door. He tightened his fist in jubilation. He would have kissed Drennan’s secretary that moment if she was there. Drennan must have given the file to her to send to the morgue, and she’d put it off till the next day.
A police siren shrilled from outside through the stillness. It hesitated for a moment then emitted three sharp bleats. They weren’t coming here, but he had to leave.
He tucked the file securely under his clothing and slipped from the office with one final backward glance. It would be a hectic day in the office that morning. Setting the alarm in the wake of finding Bennett was redundant, so he didn’t bother. He made his way down and out without further incident. Although he’d never felt more like it in his life, unlike the men engaged in their stealthy pursuit many blocks away, Jason didn’t blow up the CID offices.
Chapter 16
Everything but the kitchen sink hit the fan after that and Jason, even expecting it, was taken aback when he walked into the office vortex. No one was seated; everybody milled around aimlessly or stood in small groups gossiping about the homicide. Uniformed policemen and detectives in suits kept their own counsel from the CID personnel.
Nancy Evans, one of the Special Agents in another supervisory group spotted him entering. She was plump, strong—Jason had seen her bench press two hundred pounds—dowdy in the way she dressed, and often gruff. Anxiety showing in her brown eyes, Evans hurried over to him. “Did you hear?” she asked.
Her demeanor surprised him. With a sweep of his arm and assuming his most bewildered manner, he said, “No, what’s going on?”
Evans, known for her toughness, not her compassion, placed a gentle hand on his. “Oh, Jason, I’m so sorry. Charlie Bennett’s been killed.”
Hearing it spoken by someone else, although he knew everything, still rocked him. He felt a hard lump form in his chest, and the breath whooshed out of him. No need to fake it. He put a hand out to steady himself and sat in the nearest chair.
“You all right?”
Jason found that he couldn’t speak.
“Let me get you a glass of water.” Nancy Evans hurried off.
Norris Malony, Jason’s direct boss, made his way through the crowd. He said to Jason, “We need to talk. Man, what happened to your head?”
Jason touched the spot his attacker had struck him and winced. “Stumbled over my own two feet and clunked myself on the coffee table.”
“Nasty bump.” As a supervisor, Malony was all right. He’d been a good field agent and knew the ins and outs of investigation. He gave his people a free hand to think and do what they deemed the right course of action. He was a refreshing contrast to Steve Drennan, who was an administrator from the beginning. Malony provided a layer of insulation to his agents from Drennan, and for that—when Malony could do it—Jason was grateful.
Evans came back with a coffee mug filled to the brim with water. “Here, this’ll help.”
He choked on the first sip and almost spilled it. Malony pounded his back until he stopped coughing. Jason held up a hand. “I’m okay.” He took another sip and got this one down. “Thanks, Nancy.”
She smiled and said, “Look, if you need to talk, let me know. I lost a partner once, too.”
He hadn’t expected such a revelation and was startled by it. He nodded. “Okay.” She gave him one last appraising look and went back to her desk.
Malony said, “What a mess.”
“Do we know what happened?”
“Only that Drennan came in
early this morning and discovered Bennett shot dead in his office. He called 9-1-1 and CPD came running. Not long after that the FBI showed up.”
“Who’s got jurisdiction?”
“I guess they’ll sort that out. Both are claiming it right now. What you want to bet Chicago PD works the case and when they solve it, the feebies get the credit?”
“I’ve heard that story before. We’d probably do the same thing.” Jason was still having trouble coming to grips with the reality of the situation. “Man, I can’t believe it. Bennett dead.”
“Yeah. Doesn’t happen often with us, but it hurts every bit as much. Hey, if you’re okay for now, Drennan wants to see you.”
***
Steve Drennan had appropriated Norris Malony’s office. Jason could tell when they walked in that Malony wasn’t thrilled with the arrangement, but there wasn’t much he could do about it. “Here’s Jason, Steve,” Malony said.
“Great. Hey, give us a minute will you, Norris?”
Malony’s lips tightened. He paused several seconds before saying, “Sure, no problem.”
“Close the door, why don’t you?” A drop of sweat fell from his shiny forehead onto the papers lying on his desk. Drennan wiped at it and rubbed his fingers across his white shirt which poorly hid the folds of fat beneath.
After Malony departed, Steve Drennan waved at Jason to take a seat. Jason did, and waited with his arms crossed. Drennan frowned and squinted at him. “What’s that black stuff on your fingers?”
Jason realized his one hand that was visible had the mysterious indelible marker stains he’d discovered earlier that morning. “Grease, from my car. I was trying to fix something on it this morning before leaving for work. Can’t seem to get it off.” He marveled at his facility for telling lies.
“Hmm. We have a problem.” He let that hang in the air between them for a moment. Jason stayed quiet, not taking the bait.
“When I discovered Bennett this morning, shot twice, once in the back, once in the back of the skull, I had enough presence of mind to wonder why he was there in the first place. You know what immediately popped into my head? No guesses? Okay, it was Gaiatic Charities. What do you think of that?”
“You’re one cool fellow under pressure.”
“I like to think so,” Drennan said. “Yes, I thought of Gaiatic because it was the only connection that made sense. Plus a lot more. Here’s Charlie Bennett lying dead in my office. Bennett’s one of two special agents working on Gaiatic. The Gaiatic Charities file has disappeared. I wonder to myself, ‘Who could have been with Bennett? He obviously didn’t shoot himself. Must have been an accomplice. Who might that have been?’ Then I think, ‘Is the other SA who worked on Gaiatic still alive and kicking? If he is, might there be something untoward going on with this other agent? Could he possibly have had anything to do with the death of his partner?’ Certainly plenty of room for speculation here, wouldn’t you say, Jason?”
Jason didn’t like Drennan’s speculation one bit. He felt knots beginning to form in his stomach. Play it cool. “You have an active imagination, Steve. I’m impressed. Didn’t think someone wedded to the bureaucracy such as yourself could envision such fantasy.”
“Did you do it, Ruger? Did you kill Bennett? Did you take the Gaiatic file? I gave it to my secretary. She left it in her desk drawer last night, and it’s no longer there. Are you behind all this?”
“Why don’t you do this right and have CPD or the FBI interrogate me, Steve? Seems like you’re ruining their case by not invoking Miranda. Or is there more behind this? If we peel a layer from the onion does that new skin change the way it looks?”
Drennan’s mouth turned downward as if he’d taken a bite from that onion. “What are you saying? That I’m somehow behind this instead of you?”
“Two can play the game, Steve. I still don’t know why you took Gaiatic away from us. A case that promising, CID doesn’t just turn its back on it. What do you know about that? You seemed mighty uneasy about it yesterday. It’s usually politics that force an issue of this magnitude. I thought at first that you might be an innocent bystander in all this; now I’m not so sure. Who’s being paid off? You?”
“Enough!” Drennan erupted by shouting and banging his fists on Malony’s desk. “How dare you accuse me? Who do you think you are?”
“A simple peon, Steve,” Jason whispered, “but one who has the means to get to the bottom of this.”
Drennan’s face turned bright red. His eyes burned into Jason’s. “You remember your place, boy. Otherwise, you’ll get a whole lot more than you bargained for. Now get out of here.”
Chapter 17
Three days later Jason, Nancy Evans, and two other CID agents completed the final plans for their stakeout and bust for the early hours of the following morning. The case was one of several that Steve Drennan wanted them to bring to closure. Jason and Bennett had worked it for almost eighteen months and the payoff was near. Jason regretted his young partner wasn’t here to see it through.
The investigation into Charlie Bennett’s death was continuing. The police had conducted scores of interviews. With the FBI’s assistance, they’d tried to make connections between Bennett and the people with whom he’d interacted. Naturally Jason was one of the first in this line.
As Bennett’s partner Jason theoretically had the most insights into the man’s life. He provided what he could. Interestingly, no one questioned him about Gaiatic Charities, meaning that Drennan had apparently not given any indication there was an issue with the case. In the same light, it seemed he hadn’t accused Jason of complicity in the murder. For his part, Jason had no interest in raising suspicions by divulging any of the other aspects of the case that were affecting his personal life.
Because the work of CID needed to continue, Nancy Evans was temporarily assigned as Jason’s partner. As an experienced agent she jumped into the void.
The confidential informant in this particular investigation had told Jason that tonight he’d been given five hundred thousand dollars from his masters for a major drug purchase. For a lowlife, the snitch’s information had always been accurate. Jason had little reason to doubt him. The sellers were the ones CID was after, although the prospect of adding five hundred big ones to the coffers for future operations was certainly tantalizing. Naturally, Stroniff, the stool pigeon was due his ten percent cut, a major part of his incentive for cooperating. The other motivator was a little matter of his being a three-time loser who’d decided working with CID was a tad better than fifteen years in Joliet. Jason had pulled the man’s strings to perfection and tonight’s raid was the culmination of those efforts.
“Evans and I’ll watch from the front,” Jason said to the other agents. “Hiller, you and Gonzalez have the rear. We’ll have seven other men in place for backup, along with the local police. When Stroniff arrives, he’ll have the money. He’s got to check out the blow, so that’ll take some time—different bags and all to assure uniform quality. Ten minutes in and we hit the place.” Stroniff was Jason’s CI.
Hiller said, “You trust this snitch?” Mistrust seemed to emanate from his dark skin like miasma.
Jason shrugged. “I’d never wager my paycheck on one of these guys, but he’s been as good as I’ve ever had.”
“If his word’s good, he’ll be carrying lot of cash,” Gonzalez said, his intense black eyes belying the easy-going smile he normally wore.
“His problem. What we really want are the guys he’s meeting with. Stroniff’s been working his way up the supply chain. Tonight, we bring down the link to Columbia. They’re a major source in the Chicago market and the Midwest. If everything goes off like we need it to tonight, this’ll be a very sweet bust. You okay, Evans?”
She was looking nervous, fiddling with a pen and making strange doodles. She bristled at Jason’s question. “Yes. Just getting my game shoes on. I’ll be fine once we get underway.”
“Okay, guys. Go home and get some rest,” Jason said. “I’ll see
you at 3:00 AM.”
***
Evans wasn’t the only one who was wired. On nights like this, Jason could seldom get the rest he advised his team. He cleaned his pistol, a Ruger P93 series ten-round semi-automatic, stripping it down and reassembling it. Because the company that made the gun was his namesake, he’d been compelled when first joining CID to purchase the Ruger. He’d been ribbed about it any number of times by his peers and dared to prove his family connection. To his dismay he couldn’t, and his father had been no help either despite his staunch assertion that the genealogy existed.
Jason’s sleeplessness on this night led him to the twenty-four-hour health club he frequented on a regular basis. Although he’d worked out that morning, he hit the weights again with determined ferocity. The routine comprised three sets of benches, overhead presses, squats, dips, and pull-ups followed by a four-mile run, the entire workout taking him over two hours to complete. Drenched with sweat, he felt alive and burning with an inner fire.
Obsessive about maintaining his fitness, he was stronger and more agile now than during his high school playing days. It would have been easy during his workout to contemplate that, but he managed to avoid what-if thoughts about Mary Sue’s pregnancy, lost college glory, and a direct path to the pros. That was a painful road to travel, and he didn’t need more of it.
He returned home more awake than ever and blogged for the remaining time before leaving the house. There were new press accounts from around the country of children vanishing. He linked to the on-line articles and added comments to each entry, posting pictures of the missing children. The incidents disturbed him. Their immediacy to his own situation added tension to his work. He hated the people who did this to the kids and their families. Nothing would have given him more pleasure than to expose and bring them down. When he finished his blogging at 2:15, he was ready to roll.