“The killers can’t get to him.” To Jack, he said, “Sit down, Jack. We need to work through this.”
Jack continued standing.
Megan said, “We don’t know how many killers there are, we only suspect two. There could be three, ten, an entire conspiracy.”
“Meg, I think you’re stretching it-”
She put up her hand, then winced when she remembered how much she hated it when the jerk from CID did it to her. “Yes, to illustrate a point. We have
“So until we know
Hans interrupted. “This crime is too masculine.”
“Why? Because it doesn’t have a sexual component?”
“Most male-female killing pairs are enacting sadistic sexual fantasies, or the female is bait, luring the victims for her dominant male partner.”
“But this isn’t sexual sadism, this feels like revenge. Whether directed toward these men because of who they are, or what they represent, I don’t know. But why not a woman? A wife or sister of a dead soldier?”
“I don’t know. There hasn’t been any hint-”
“Except for the female stranger in town. Profiling is based on statistics, Hans. You taught that in Criminal Psychology 101. If four out of five serial killers were abused as children, that still means that twenty percent
Hans nodded. “Okay, we follow that trail. I’ll ask the Rangers to send a sketch artist for Father Francis to work with.”
“Sketch artist?” Padre said as he stepped into the kitchen. “For what?”
“The woman you saw at the church late Tuesday night,” Megan said. She glanced at Jack. He was still standing at the table, but the tension and anger had left his stance. He seemed intrigued and contemplative. He caught her eye and gave her a slight smile. She turned away. “Do you have the list of missions?”
Padre put a notepad in front of her. “Here.” He looked defeated.
“Thank you, Padre.” Megan read his notes. All the missions where the dead had worked together were in Afghanistan. “All eight of you were on each mission?”
“No. I also included missions where I didn’t go as part of the team, or Jefferson didn’t go. Since we’re both still alive.”
“What type of missions?”
“They’re classified.”
“I can’t work with something that’s ‘classified,’ “ Megan said. “If something that happened on one of these missions is somehow de facto responsible for these men being targeted, then I need to know.”
Padre seemed to have changed overnight. More hard edges and temper than the priest who had picked up her and Hans the night before at the airstrip. Megan ached that the man had to cough up his past demons, but she also knew that if he didn’t, more people would die.
“Some of the missions were assassinations. Some were extractions or liberations.” Padre left it at that.
Jack asked quietly, “How successful?”
“The third mission was a disaster. Our intel was wrong and we nearly got ambushed. Aborted and regrouped two days later. The last mission was also a failure. We lost a man. Thornton. I told you about him last night.”
“Orders?” Jack asked.
“Seize a high-ranking Taliban member. He was a weak link, had a regular mistress. High security, but no change in habits. We’d been gathering intel on him for months. We went in, but-” He stopped.
“And?”
“The P.R. department had us bring a civilian with us. Open-door policy.”
“A civilian? On a Delta mission?” Jack couldn’t keep the shock out of his voice. “They’ve sent reporters and cameras to the lines, which is foolhardy, but on one of
“Another reporter, a big guy, had done it the year before with great success, according to the powers that be. But I found out later that that reporter had spent three years in the Marines. He went in because he’d gone to basic with a guy who could get him in. He had experience and could take care of himself. We didn’t know any of that, of course, only that afterward the Marines had a lot of favorable press and write-ups, lots of backslap-ping and goodwill toward man.” Sarcasm hung in the air.
“Your civilian was a reporter?”
Padre nodded. “An idiot. He screwed up the mission, and worse, he got Thornton killed.”
“What?” Megan asked when Padre didn’t continue. “Is he dead, too?”
“Barry Rosemont didn’t do what we told him to do. We knew we were being surrounded, and there was no way to get out. We had to call in an extraction team, breaking radio silence, which alerted the Taliban to our exact location. Russo ordered us to split into two teams and left Thornton with Rosemont in what we believed was the most secure location. They were supposed to stay in the rocks, radio silence, no matter what they heard until the Blackhawks arrived.
“Rosemont panicked, exposed himself. Thornton sent Morse code that their position had been compromised, and we did everything we could to get back there, but by that time it was too late. Thornton was dead and the Taliban had Rosemont.”
“They took him hostage?” Megan asked.
“We didn’t know that at the time. Then, we assumed he was dead and they took his body and Thornton’s to parade over the airwaves and demoralize us. It would have worked. We’d been making great inroads in Afghanistan, something like this would have really damaged our position.”
“But he wasn’t dead.”
“No. They held him hostage for three months. Another Delta team extracted him and brought him back to the States.”
“Do you know where he is now?” Hans asked.
Padre laughed humorlessly. “I don’t want to know. The bastards desecrated Thornton’s body. I blamed Rosemont. It was hard to forgive him. I did-I had to- but I don’t want to think about him. Thornton was a good man. He had a family.”
Padre excused himself and left the rectory.
“Do you want to go with him?” Megan asked Jack.
“He needs to be alone.” The concern in Jack’s eyes for his friend was heartbreaking.
Megan’s cell phone rang, and caller I.D. showed an unfamiliar Sacramento number. She answered. “Megan Elliott.”
“You’ll never believe it!”
“Who’s this?”
“Simone. We have the body.”
“The body?”
“The John Doe. Price.”
“You’ve lost me.”
“The dead guy in the alley? CID just dumped him back at the morgue. They ran his prints. It’s not George Price.”
Megan’s stomach flipped. “But we had his prints. Why didn’t we know immediately?”
“We don’t have access to the military database. Only criminal and DMV databases. The guy’s prints didn’t show up, but we weren’t concerned. If he had no record, no reason to be in the system, we wouldn’t have them. We would have naturally checked the military next, but they had the body. They didn’t tell us until this morning!”
Megan was in shock. “But it’s the same M.O., the I.D., we have a connection with the other victims-”
“I don’t know what’s going on, but I thought you should know. CID gave us a photograph of Price-the one
