The Sniper frowned at her smile and change in demeanor. It filled the lens of his scope and he placed the reticule right on her white teeth, his finger sliding over the trigger. It would be so easy to take away the smile and her entire essence.
But he was not that tempted. She was a piece of the plan. There were bigger and better things in store for her. She was the linchpin around which the entire plan revolved. He put the rifle down and leaned back in his camp chair set in the three-foot deep hole. He’d built the blind two hundred meters away from the oak tree, carefully camouflaging the top and leaving just a small slit in front so that he observe the target. There was a large hole in the back so that he could come and go without being spotted.
The Sniper knew what would wipe the smile off the girl’s face. He reached in to his pocket and pulled out a small piece of plastic. He looked at her picture on the license. She had not been smiling when the photo was taken.
That had been smart of her, dropping it. But after chaining her to the tree, he’d checked their back trail, making sure it was covered, and found it just as she’d intended, except, of course, in the hope some would-be rescuer would have picked it up.
He took the license and ran one hard corner along the scar on the side of his head, trying to cure the itch that burned there.
It didn’t help. He knew it wouldn’t. There was only one thing that would cure that itch.
When the plan came together.
He slid the license back into his pocket. He would take the smile off her face tonight.
Gant watched Golden sleep. It was a short flight to Pensacola, and then there would be a drive to the coast. Golden had fallen asleep as soon as she fastened her seat belt. He was unhappy with her presence, especially after realizing her previous relationship with Colonel Cranston. Gant knew that Nero would never bow to any external pressure regarding a Sanction. But the woman behind the desk, Masterson, he knew nothing about her. Was Golden here because she was to truly be an asset or because Cranston, or someone Cranston knew who had some real power, was pulling strings? So far Golden had contributed nothing to the investigation in Gant’s opinion.
“Better watch out; your head is going to burst into flames.”
Gant looked into her now open eyes. “You have a bit of drool on your chin.”
She didn’t take the bait. “Lets just talk about it. No way are we going to be able to work together when you’re acting like you got the slow girl in a three-legged race.”
“What do you mean?” He tried to look surprised.
“Please do not treat me like an idiot. I know you don’t want me tagging along, but that’s ok. You don’t know me, and you don’t know my work. I understand that I haven’t proven myself to you, but I don’t understand this other thing: this dislike you’re carrying around when you specifically don’t know me.”
“I don’t know why I need a psychologist on this mission.”
She reached into her backpack and pulled out a small laptop. “Because of what I know and what’s in here.”
Gant didn’t like being baited into asking the obvious, so he waited.
“Speed is of the essence in tracking these perps down,” Golden finally said.
“If the Cranston girl is still alive,” Gant noted.
“You know she’s alive,” Golden shot back.
“How do I know that?”
“Because she’s bait.”
Score one for the shrink, Gant thought.
“The bait for what?” Gant asked.
Golden shrugged. “That, I don’t know. If it were simple revenge, Emily would be dead. There has got to be a reason they’re keeping her alive.”
“You said perps and they.”
“Are you asking how I know there’s more than one or questioning my choice of terms?”
“Both.”
“If you’re going to ask me things you already know,” Golden said, a trace of irritation crossing her face, “then we’re going to waste a lot of time. You know there’s got to be more than one person doing these crimes simply because of the logistics and distances involved.”
Gant nodded, giving her that point.
“As far as the term perp, that comes from my background with the FBI. I was with Behavioral Sciences in Quantico for eight years before going to Fort Bragg.”
Gant wished someone would have told him that. But it made her actions at the first site near the lake kind of strange. Unless she had never done field-work.
“I call them targets,” Gant said.
“You would.”
“You didn’t do field work,” Gant said it as a statement.
“You know I didn’t from observing me with the body.”
Gant began to wonder if they needed to talk about anything. She seemed far along the curve of his thoughts, which made uneasy. “Why did you leave the FBI?”
“I didn’t. I was sent to Bragg to help Special Operations Command set up its own database. I was still assigned to the Bureau.”
“A database of perps in Special Ops?”
“Profiling isn’t just for bad people.” Golden flipped up the lid to the laptop. “You can profile anyone. I did profiles of everyone serving in SOCOM. I also worked on profiling various positions and the type of person who would best be suited for filling that position.”
Gant frowned. He’d never heard of this but it made sense. “And that’s how you met Colonel Cranston?”
“Yes.”
He noted she wasn’t being forthcoming about that. “I still don’t see how your profiling can help on this Sanction.”
“I was at Special Operations Command to ostensibly evaluate personnel for assignments.” Golden spread her hands. “But it’s obvious someone else had something else planned since I’m here now. I suspect someone had something secondary in mind, especially given my background working with perps.”
Nero, Gant thought. Always planning. Always seeding people. Sometimes waiting years for the seeds to grow and bear fruit. Which made him wonder about Masterson and how she had been seeded and cultivated. Gant waited on Golden to continue, tired of the sparring and digging.
“When I was with the FBI I was still a psychologist; I just didn’t see patients any more. I was building a nation-wide database to catch serial killers by using available information. I took clues, evidence or an actual list of suspects, and tried to identify the one person whose past most closely fits the evidence of the present crime.”
Gant nodded. “As you said, you’re a kind of profiler.”
Golden shook her head. “Not exactly. I was doing something new, something different. A profiler uses the evidence to describe the type of human being capable of the crime. My section took the profile, and tried to find the human being capable of that type of evidence. We had records beginning from the early 50’s, which is about the time that information collection became common. We used anything from emergency room records to a school nurse’s recording of a child’s peculiar scars.”
“So you think you’re going to find these guys by checking out their high school truancy report?”
“That’s a stupid remark. My program at the FBI faltered because the country’s population was so big, and the available information on each particular person so scanty. To prove my program worked, I needed a smaller number database with more available information on each individual.”
“The Army.”
Golden nodded. “Yes. And not even the entire Army, but rather a specific subsection of it, Special Operations, where there are extensive records on each individual and their backgrounds and their training highly scrutinized and recorded.”