Gant pulled the black Chevy blazer they had requisitioned at Pope Air Force Base up to Cranston’s house. He left the engine running as he opened the door.
“What are you doing?” Golden asked.
Gant indicated the driver’s seat. “You take this to Special Ops personnel. You’re cleared to access all their records. Update your database.”
“I want to go in with—“
“No.”
“Sam is—“
“No.” Gant leaned toward Golden. “You do your job and I’ll do mine. There’s no need for both of us to talk to Cranston. Let me get what I can here and you do your thing. Then we compare notes. We don’t have time to be arguing.”
Golden looked like she was going to say something, then she simply nodded. She got out of the passenger seat, walked around, and took the driver’s. She slammed the door shut and drove off with a squeal of tires. Gant wasted no time reflecting on her anger, focusing his attention on the house as he strode up the short walkway. He rang the bell and the door was opened within a few seconds — Cranston had been expecting him after a phone call from Ms. Smith at the Cellar. Just as someone at Special Operations Command would be waiting for Golden when she got there. When the Cellar called, doors opened, no questions asked.
Before Cranston could say anything, Gant pushed his way in as he spoke. “We’re looking for three men, maybe more. Not one. They were part of a mission involving Michael Caulkins of the DEA, you, Mark Lankin a reserve pilot in Task Force 160, and Jim Roberts of the CIA. We know two of the men we’re looking for were wounded or injured somehow: one lost a hand, the other’s face was scarred.”
“Three men?” Cranston’s brow was furrowed. “How do you know that?”
“I’m asking the questions,” Gant said. He stood, waiting, as Cranston went over to the small kitchen bar. Gant saw that there was an open bottle of Scotch and a half-full glass. He could tell by the slight slur in Cranston’s voice that the Colonel had been indulging. Trying to dull the pain.
“I’ve been thinking, remembering, trying to put things together,” Cranston said. “I don’t remember the pilot’s name. They’re just figures in the front of the chopper and God knows how many helicopters I’ve been on. I checked and Caulkins and Roberts were in Panama the same time I was. I was Southern Command’s Special Operations liaison to — well, you know, the other organizations down there. Which meant I coordinated Task Force Six missions — counter drug operations. We did around ten or so. Several involved three man teams. Usually sniper teams — sniper, surveillance, security, standard set-up. Most of the times just observing and reporting. A couple of times taking down high profile targets in the drug trade. Different places. Colombia, El Salvador, even in Panama.”
“Let’s narrow it down,” Gant said. “Which of the missions got fucked up?”
Cranston finished off the half glass and poured himself another. “We lost one of the teams. In Colombia. But it can’t be them.”
“How do you know that?”
“They were killed in a chopper crash. Accident.”
“When?”
“A little over a year ago. In Colombia.”
“Were the bodies recovered?”
Cranston’s eyes shifted to the right. “No.”
“So how do you know they died?”
“The chopper went down at sea right off the coast. No survivors.”
Gant watched as Cranston gulped down half of the new glass he had just poured. He considered the fact that one of the men whose family had been targeted was a helicopter pilot. But a pilot who was still alive. That didn’t add up with a chopper crashing with no survivors.
“What about Emily?” Cranston asked. “Any idea where she is?”
“No.” Gant waited, but Cranston said nothing. “Other than the team you lost, any of the other missions have something happen where the team members might want to have some heavy payback against you and the other players running the ops?”
Cranston shook his head, too quickly in Gant’s opinion. “No. We didn’t lose anyone else. They all went fine.”
Gant had had enough. He walked toward the Colonel, stopping on the other side of the bar. As Cranston brought the glass up to finish it off, Gant struck out with his right hand, snatching it out of the Colonel’s hand, then throwing it into the sink, where the glass shattered.
“What the hell—“
“Your daughter’s life is at stake and you’re sitting here getting drunk and bullshitting me,” Gant said.
Cranston rubbed his hands across his face. “I’ve told you all I know.”
“I don’t think so,” Gant said. “Give me your car keys.”
“Why?”
“You’re going with me to SOCOM. And I’m driving.”
The Sniper wore night vision goggles as he followed the blood trail. It was a difficult task, but the Sniper had been trained by native-born trackers in Borneo as part of his Special Forces schooling. He’d learned many tricks, one of the most important of which was not just to follow the sign, but to think like the quarry and project the course it would take.
The dog was in pain and bleeding. It would not suspect something was following it. Thus the Sniper knew it would be on a relatively direct path to find someplace to hide while it literally licked its wounds. Someplace it probably already knew about.
So the Sniper was able to move fast, projecting a straight line from each piece of blood spatter he found, taking into account the lay of the land, knowing the dog would instinctually try to maintain a level course in addition to a straight one.
A half-mile away from the cache site, the Sniper came to a halt and sniffed the air. There was the faintest hint of blood in the air. He got to one knee and shrugged off his backpack. He pulled out an Army issue Meal-Ready-to-Eat. He ripped open the packet containing meat and tossed it ahead of him about five feet and then waited for the scent to reach the dog.
It took over a half hour, during which the Sniper remained perfectly still. Finally he heard the dog coming forward, drawn by its instinct and desire for food. It came forward, head down, sniffing. Through the night vision goggles, the Sniper could see how starved the dog was, how its ribs protruded. He could also see the bloody furrow the bullet had dug across its neck.
The dog reached the food packet and hunger over-rode everything else. It tore into the meat. With one smooth movement, the Sniper lunged forward, knife extended. He slit the dog’s throat, letting the blood spray down into the ground.
The dog was dead within ten seconds, its lifeless body sprawled in the dirt. The Sniper straddled the body and reversed the knife, serrated edge down, and went to work.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
A rather unhappy-looking major with the insignia of the finance corps was waiting for Golden in the lobby of Special Operations Command. He escorted her through the security check-point and they got on the elevator to ride to the floor holding the personnel records.
“What’s so important that it can’t wait until morning?” the Major asked.
Golden looked at his name-tag. “Major Taggart. You have your orders, correct?”
Taggart glanced at her. “All I was told by my CO was to give you access to whatever you wanted.”
“That’s all you need to know.”
“I remember you.” Taggart said it not as a question but as a statement. “You used to work here.”
“I did.” Golden couldn’t ever remember meeting Taggart before, but she knew the building was a cauldron of rumor and gossip.
“You’re the profiler. From the FBI. I heard some stuff about you.”