rejoin the active force. Both knew that was unlikely.
A few days later, he loaded his Explorer and headed north out of Tampa with no place to go. He did not want to go back to Pennsylvania. It would be impossible to explain things at home. Nor did he want to be in hot sandy climates. He needed to leave the demons behind. So he headed for Middle America, working at several menial jobs, finally arriving at the Cary Country Club, which had exactly the kind of isolation and quiet piece he needed.
The Russian
Luke called Angela on Saturday morning after he woke and listened to his phone message from Ruiz. He asked her to drive to his apartment in Rosemont, which was on the way to Cary. She arrived an hour later with coffee and they departed immediately. En route, the conversation was light and distant. Luke had become increasingly aware of his affection for her and fought the urge to become friendlier. Traffic was light, so it took less than two hours for them to reach Cary.
At the station, they were escorted to a conference room where Ruiz was sitting with Peter Shields, drinking coffee. Both looked tired. Ruiz greeted them and introduced Peter to Luke. They all drank more coffee while Ruiz explained the night’s events.
The feds asked a few technical questions, wanting to know more about the shooter. Along with the arrested man, they impounded a Chevy Suburban parked along river Road near the shed. Neither the shooter nor the van had any identification, which had a New York license plate.
Luke asked to interview the gunman. After thanking Peter, the officers went to a small office that would serve as an interrogation room. The police station wasn’t set up for this kind of work and the tiny room became oppressive when the man was escorted in.
He was late middle-aged with a hardened look. His stature, face and mannerisms suggested someone extremely dangerous. Angela could not help contrasting him with Peter Shields who was obviously more capable than his appearance suggested.
“Have a seat.” Luke offered.
The man moved slowly, menacingly, toward a chair on the other side of the desk. “Would you tell us your name?” Nothing. “You must have a name? Do you speak English?”
“English, yes.”
“Can you please tell me your name?”
“No.”
“It’s a simple question, what’s your name!” Nothing.
The man had a frightening presence. Luke tried another tact, “We can resort to other means of identity: fingerprints, DNA, mug shots, if that’s your preference.” No response, yet the man maintained eye contact with Luke. He never even glanced at Angela.
“You were caught with a gun, trying to shoot someone.” Luke was direct. “You tried to kill someone to cover up another crime, a murder you committed five days ago. We also believe you killed a limousine driver.”
The man finally spoke, “I shoot rats.” He sounded eastern European.
“Rats? What do you mean rats! You shot a bed where a man could have been sleeping!”
“I shoot rats where they live.”
“Look sir, we found nine millimeter shell casings on the golf course several nights ago near the body of a murdered man, those shells will match your gun, I’m betting.” Luke could not get a rise from this guy.
“I shoot rats by golf course.”
“Why do you shoot rats?”
The man’s demeanor was steadfast, ”For practice, for fun, for food.”
“You eat them?” Angela thought she would gag.
He slowly looked at her with distain. No words. Then he turned back to Luke.
After that brief exchange, the man ignored them and the interrogation ended after about thirty minutes.
Suspicion
While the interrogation went on, Peter drove back to the golf course. He knew something about the Russian having met his type before. He’d seen him work and knew he was probably trained by the Russian military. Men of his vintage learned their craft in Afghanistan, and then applied it to illegal enterprise when the Soviet Union collapsed. The man had a thick body that had turned soft, but there was still plenty of killing power. There was an enormous scar down the middle of his head, which gave him a chilling appearance.
In the Russian mob, these were dangerous and ruthless people. The ex-Soviet soldiers often engaged in mercenary warfare, weapons trade and global assassination. He’d been face to face with them before. The FBI could be engaged in something over its head.
When he got back to the club parking lot, he made a phone call. It took several minutes to reach the Operations Center in the Pentagon. The “OC” was built during the cold war deep below ground level when nuclear missile attacks were feared. Peter asked for Master Sergeant Blomstein.
Placed on hold, several seconds passed before someone answered, “Blomstein.”
Peter Responded, “Hey, snake eater, it’s Shields.” Josh Blomstein and Peter had gone through Ranger training together and had been E5 Sergeants in the 82nd Airborne before Peter was commissioned.
Blomstein said, “Pete! Where are you? What have you been doing man? It’s great to hear from you; I heard you resigned from active?”
“Well Josh, I’m in Illinois, working at a country club and enjoying a good life.”
“You deserve it brother, I’m glad for you. In a few more years, I’ll be joining the real world myself. I followed your moves for a while, but hear you up and quit last year. Obviously, I don’t believe it. Okay, so tell me what’s really going on with you? I’m assuming you have some deeply insidious reason for calling me?”
Peter chuckled. His relation with Josh was forged in desert sand together. Josh had been at the Pentagon for three years and was Peter’s primary contact for operational intelligence used for mission planning. He hadn’t talked to him in almost a year, which was a long time for two soldiers who shadowed each other.
“You know me well brother...okay, here goes.” Peter gave his old friend a complete recounting of the situation in Cary and the inferences he drew from federal involvement.
“Josh, I’d like to snoop around to see if there’s anything involving WMDs or bad guys going on around here.” He knew it was a security violation; but he also knew Josh could handle it.
Josh was a little coy; “You know I can’t provide any information to a civilian. Anyway, I’ll check that fishing date we talked about and call you back.”
Peter gave him his cell phone number, and went to the clubhouse for something to eat. After that, he rejoined the grounds crew. With his growing reputation, work wasn’t as solitary as he wanted. At six o’clock, he went back to his shed.
Shortly after changing into jogging shorts, his cell phone range. “Shields.”
It was Josh, “Peter, guess who’s back in your life!”
His blood ran cold as he listened. Later that night, he went into his footlocker and rummaged for a small box. In it, there were military mementos, medals and such. He picked through the box until he found what he wanted and slowly lifted the thin metal chain over his head. The cold steel of his dog tags felt good against his chest.
Death in New York
Luke and Angela stopped en route to Chicago for lunch. Luke called his office voicemail and heard, “Yeah, uh, Agent Gallagher, this is Special Agent Jim Freeman at the Newark office. I need to have you call me. After you asked us to check out the casinos on Curran, I thought you should know about another shipping guy here that was whacked about the same time. So, give me a call.” Freedman left his office and mobile numbers.
Luke called immediately. “Hello--Freeman.”
“Agent Freeman, this is Luke Gallagher.”
“Oh, great man, listen, we’re checking a possible smuggling case after a freight guy was killed last week. I think this sounds like the Curran guy you had us check out, right?”
“Yeah, um, what have you found out?”
“Not much yet, but we’re looking at his financials, kinda like you’re doing.”
Luke said, “Yeah, looks
like our boy had a cool mil stuck away. Look, I’d like to compare notes in a day or so, say Tuesday, to see if there is some kind of business between these guys. How does that sound?”
“Okay call me Tuesday. I think we might have some crossover here.”
“Yeah, seems suspicious.” The call ended when lunch arrived. An hour later, he and Angela were starting to enjoy the weekend, each in their own way.
When Luke got to the office on Monday, There was a note to see Sam---ASAP. He quickly walked down the hall to the SAC’s office where a meeting was already underway. Sam waved him in and the dialogue stopped. “I’d like to introduce our intrepid Agent, Luke Gallagher, who is investigating Curran.” Two men and a woman introduced themselves. One was Defense Department, one State Department and one was Secret Service. He missed the names.
“Hi, good to meet you all.”
A man spoke, “Agent Gallagher, Mr. Lee has been good enough to outline the case, which we were not privy to prior to leaving Washington.” He must be a lawyer with all the words, Luke thought. He thought he was with State Department.
The man went on, “So, can you tell us when and how you found out about this smuggling ring?”
Luke said, “Well agent...” Luke stammered.
The man interjected, “My name again is Graves, Deputy Director of Defense Trade Controls, US State Department.”
Luke responded, “So, do you suspect something more than routine smuggling?” He knew he wasn’t answering the question yet.
“We don’t know