his side. When the junior operative was gone, Coleman said, “I’m not sure he’s cut out for this job.”
Rapp wasn’t sure either, but he couldn’t be mad at Hubbard. “If Darren Sickles had been my boss God only knows how I would have turned out.”
Coleman kept his blue eyes focused on the door and said, “If Darren Sickles had been your boss, you would have killed him. Hell, Stan was your boss and you almost killed him and he’s one tough bastard. Sickles is a pussy.”
Rapp thought of Stan Hurley, the man who had trained him. Pound for pound, Hurley was the toughest man Rapp had ever known-one mean son of a bitch. That was more than twenty years ago, though. More recently, Hurley had begun to show his age. His mind was still sharp as hell, but he was looking frail. “They don’t make ’em like Stan anymore.”
Coleman cracked a smile. “They sure don’t, but you’re not too far off.”
Rapp feigned insult. “Are you trying to say I’m some crotchety, setin-his-ways old man who drinks and smokes too much and still chases women like I’m in my twenties?”
“You’re more like him than you’ll ever admit. If he was here the two of you would have gotten in a fight over who got to stick a gun in that terrorist’s face.”
Rapp laughed. “Yeah, and he would have won and then he would have flown up to Kabul and done the same thing to Sickles.”
“Well, the day’s far from over. I’d say there’s a better than fifty-fifty chance you and Sickles will have it out.”
Rapp cursed under his breath. One more thing to deal with, he thought to himself. He heard his name called again and walked to the bottom of the stairs, stepping around the dead bodyguards. He looked up the flight of stairs and said, “What’s up?”
A brunette poked her head around the corner and said, “I think you should come up here. There’s something you need to see.”
Rapp started up the stairs, keeping his feet near the wall so as to not step in the trail of smeared blood. Sydney Hayek was the newest member of Rapp’s team, and it had been Kennedy’s idea to have Hayek fill a vacant spot. Rapp had been less than enthused for several reasons. The first was pretty straightforward-his line of work didn’t lend itself toward trusting people. The room for error was thin and the stakes were so high that Rapp preferred running an op with an understaffed team over risking a new recruit who might get the entire team killed. The second reason for his apprehension was obvious-Hayek had come to them from the FBI.
Rapp hit the top landing and asked, “What’s up?”
Like the rest of the team, Hayek was wearing an olive drab field jacket, the pockets stuffed with the various tools of the trade. As directed by Rapp, she wore her flak jacket under her field jacket to draw less attention. She was also wearing a pair of jeans, a pair of Merrell hiking boots, and a blue Detroit Tigers baseball cap with a light and a small fiberoptic camera clipped to each side of the visor. She looked at Rapp with her almond eyes and asked, “Scott told you about the safe?”
“Yeah. Any sign of forced entry?”
“No. I’m afraid it looks like it was opened by Mr. Rickman.”
Rapp frowned. “Let’s not jump to any unfounded conclusions.”
Hayek shrugged. “I never met the man, but I assume he was the only person within a couple thousand miles who had the code.”
It was more like seven thousand miles, but Rapp didn’t bother to correct her. Hayek had grown up in Detroit, the only daughter of Armenians who had emigrated from Lebanon. She was fluent in Arabic and, most important, she could walk down the streets of nearly any Middle Eastern city without anyone giving her a second glance. In response to her accusation, Rapp said, “He was the only one with the code.”
“Well, the safe was opened using the code. There was no tampering with the locking mechanism and as best I can tell it wasn’t hacked.”
“You’re sure.”
“As sure as I can be after being here less than an hour.”
Rapp tried to picture how it had gone down. “So he was forced to open the safe at gunpoint.”
“I didn’t know the man, so I can’t say.”
After working with her for seven months Rapp was starting to get a sense of how Hayek operated. It was more what she didn’t say than what she said. “You have some concerns.”
“I always have concerns.”
“Share them.”
“Some things don’t make sense.”
“Such as?”
She hesitated and then said, “Come here and I’ll show you.” They started down the hall. “Careful where you step.”
Rapp looked down and stepped around a sizable pool of blood. That was when he noticed the splatter on the wall. “What’s this?”
Hayek looked over her shoulder. “One thing at a time. I want to show you the office first.” She entered the room and walked behind the desk. There were no windows, the walls and ceiling were covered with acoustic foam, and the floor was covered with a series of rubber squares. Behind the desk, a narrow door covered in foam was open. Behind it was the open safe.
“What am I looking for?” Rapp asked.
“Nothing.” Hayek turned off the lamp on the desk and then hit the UV light on her visor. She looked down at the floor in front of the safe and then expanded the area, sweeping the light back and forth. “No blood. Not a drop.”
“I still don’t get it.”
“Come here.” She walked across the room and stepped into the hallway. She hit the light switch and extinguished the hallway lights. The UV light on her visor lit up splotches and splatters of blood. “Lots of blood out here, but none in there. Now, I don’t know Rickman, but I’ve heard he was a pretty serious man.”
“Your point?”
“I’ve been around you long enough to guess that someone would have to beat you to a bloody pulp before you’d even think of opening that safe.”
Rapp nodded.
“There’s no blood in the office.”
“The rough stuff could have started anywhere… down in the kitchen.”
Hayek shook her head. “And there would be blood in that office.. even if it were just small traces, but there isn’t any.”
Hayek’s theory was slowly sinking in. “What else do you have?”
“This mess.” Hayek pointed at the blood on the wall. “Best guess is it belongs to one of the bodyguards downstairs.”
“The one missing half his face?”
“Yeah.” Hayek edged closer to the wall. She pointed at a gooey chunk. “I have samples of everything and I’ll be able to test them for verification when we get back stateside, but I’m 99 percent sure this is brain matter with a little bit of bone and blood. Consistent with the gunshot wound received by John Doe number four downstairs.”
“And this should interest me how?”
“Look at the pattern of the splatter.” Hayek acted as if she was holding a gun. “The bodyguard would have been facing this way toward the stairs. The person came up and shot him from behind. The bullet tore through his head, exited, leaving this large splatter on the wall, and then the bodyguard fell facedown here. That’s why there’s the big pool of blood.”
Rapp studied the blood splatter on the wall. It all lined up. “I agree. So what’s your point?”
“Three of the four guards were shot in the face… makes sense. They were reacting to the intrusion. Going to meet the threat. This one, though, is shot in the back of the head. Doesn’t make sense. He should have been shot over there at the top of the stairs, by the perps coming up the stairs.”
Rapp ignored her police talk. He was a little irritated with himself for not seeing it sooner. “How closely did you look at the bodies downstairs?”
