Then a third. They were all head shots, and bits of skull, flesh, and eruptions of blood covered the ground around the men as they went down.
The shots were so rapid and so precise that they almost seemed to blend together into one round fired.
The thing was, Robie had not pulled the trigger on his weapon.
As the last man stopped and gazed around, wondering where the hell the shots were coming from, the next round pierced his skull and blew out the back of his head.
He fell to the North Dakota soil without any last words.
Robie rose from the ground and looked around, his pistol at the ready. Just because someone had taken out his enemies didn’t mean they were necessarily his ally.
He whirled when he heard the sounds of methodical footsteps coming across the road. He pointed his gun at the interloper.
When the person came close enough for him to see, Robie was stunned for one of the very few times in his life. He lowered his weapon.
“What the hell are you doing here?”
Dressed all in black, Jessica Reel lowered her customized sniper rifle with her favorite scope attached. She looked him up and down, then surveyed the field of carnage behind them.
Gazing back at him she said, “What else? Saving your ass.”
Chapter 49
“I want to know what the hell is going on,” exclaimed Joe Kelly.
It was the next day, and he was standing next to Decker and Jamison, as they surveyed the grounds in front of the abandoned apartment building. It was strewn with dead bodies with sheets over them. Hundreds of yellow markers, denoting found shell casings and bullets, covered the ground.
“Looks like quite a gun battle went on,” observed Decker slowly.
“That I can see,” barked Kelly. “What I want to know is why.”
“How should we know?” replied Decker calmly.
“Nothing like this ever happened before you guys showed up,” replied Kelly testily.
“Doesn’t mean it’s cause and effect,” pointed out Decker.
“Have you identified any of the bodies?” asked Jamison.
“None have ID or any other traceable items. And they don’t look American to me, at least most of them don’t.”
Decker glanced at Jamison and said to Kelly, “Do you have photos of the dead?”
“Yeah, why?”
“I’d like to see them. Something might pop.”
Kelly looked at him warily and then said, “I’ll get them. Don’t go away.”
As soon as he moved off, Jamison said, “This is the building where Robie brought us to meet his boss.”
“I’m well aware of that.”
“Do you think Robie—?”
“That’s why I want to see the photos.”
Jamison gazed around. “It looks like a war zone.”
Decker nodded. “Kelly and his team have searched the building and it’s empty, but there are signs out back of another gunfight and a rope dangling from a balcony.”
“Have you tried to call Robie on that phone he left you?”
“To tell the truth, I’m afraid to try.”
“You’ll know soon enough. Here comes Kelly.”
Kelly rejoined them and handed over an iPad on which were loaded photos of all the dead men. It took about a minute to go through them. Decker and Jamison exchanged a relieved glance when they saw that Robie was not among the pictures.
“I don’t recognize any of these guys, but like you said, most of them seem foreign. Eastern Europe, the Middle East. A couple of Asians.”
Kelly took the iPad back. “It’s a hodgepodge all right.”
“Have you spoken with Mark Sumter?” asked Decker.
“Sumter, why?”
“Well, he heads up the military presence here. This might be something the Pentagon wants to know about.”
“Okay. But it’s not like the people under Sumter came here and had a pitched battle and left all these dead guys.”
“Well, you won’t know for sure till you ask him,” retorted Decker. “The government likes its secrets.”
Kelly shook his head. “It’ll take us weeks to process this scene. You think the Bureau will send up more agents now?”
“Maybe,” said Decker. “If we can show there’s a terrorist angle to this.”
“Terrorists!” exclaimed Kelly. “What would they be doing in North Dakota?”
“Well, that’s our job to figure out.”
They left Kelly and walked back to their SUV.
“You going to call Robie? I mean, he has to be involved in this.”
“The probabilities lie there.”
“But do you think he killed all those men? I mean, that seems impossible.”
“Nothing about that guy seems impossible to me.”
As they reached their vehicle Decker’s phone buzzed.
“It’s Harper Brown,” he said, checking the screen.
“Hopefully, she has some news for us.”
Decker answered the phone and Harper Brown, their friend at the DIA, said, “What the hell are you mixed up in out there, Decker?”
“I was hoping you could tell me. And how’s Melvin?”
Melvin Mars was one of Decker’s best friends. A former college football star convicted of murder and sentenced to death in Texas, Decker had proved his innocence. Mars and Brown were now dating.
“He’s great. He sends his best and told me to tell you that if you need him as a bodyguard again, don’t hesitate to call.”
“I don’t think I want him anywhere near this place. Besides, I think I have a pretty good bodyguard already.”
“Don’t let Alex hear you call her a bodyguard.”
“I wasn’t talking about her. So what do you have for us?”
“I’m thinking time is of the essence?”
“Your thinking is spot-on.”
“First things first, anyone I could find with firsthand knowledge of the Douglas S. George Defense Complex provided nothing helpful. It’s been under Air Force control since the Korean War era when it was built.”
“Has it been a radar array looking for missiles all that time?”
Strangely, she didn’t answer right away. “Well, it’s hard to tell. From what I could find out, it didn’t come online as an eye in the sky until the late sixties, well into the Cold War.”
“The Korean War was in the early fifties. What was it used for back then?”
“I don’t know. I couldn’t find out.”
“How is that possible? Don’t you have every security clearance they give out?”
“I thought I did, until I started asking questions about the place, particularly what it was doing back in the fifties. There I ran into a stone wall.”
“I understand there’s another eye in the sky around here.”
“That’s the other funny thing. The Stanley R. Mickelsen Safeguard Complex is on the eastern side of the state and is part of the Twenty-First Space Wing, and designated Cavalier Air Force Station. It’s near Grand Forks, North Dakota, and was deactivated in 1976, but it has a PARCS radar array and keeps watch out for incoming missiles and also tracks objects in space.”
“Which was how the commanding officer at the facility here described what they do. A pair of eyes in North Dakota? Isn’t that a bit of overkill, especially considering the Cold War is long dead?”
“You would think, Decker, you would think.” She paused. “What do you believe is going on up there?”
“I think the answer to that would scare the crap out of even somebody like you.”
Chapter 50
“Things are accelerating,” said Blue Man.
He, Robie, and Reel were sitting in Reel’s black SUV on a quiet road about a mile outside of London. In the distance they could see oil rigs and crews pecking at the earth with drill bits and detonation guns.