Paladine

  ***

  Maynard’s endurance paid off. He received a phone call, not from Abigail Walker, as expected, but from Jamal Abama himself.

  “This is Jamal Abama. You wanted to talk to me?”

  “Yes, could we meet?”

  “I think it’s fine on the phone.”

  “Suit yourself. Let’s get one thing out of the way first, okay? Where were you Friday the fourth of last month?”

  “I was here, with Abigail. She told you that.”

  “Relax, I had to ask. I read the transcripts of the court-martial trial and I know what kind of work you did for Special Forces.”

  “Yeah, so what?”

  “So what is that the suspect I’m looking for has the same type of special skills and training as you.”

  “I ain’t givin’ anybody up.”

  “Then you do know someone who fits the profile.”

  There was silence on the phone.

  “You know someone?”

  “If I did, I would never give up a brother.”

  “Even if it meant putting yourself in the clear?”

  “Even if. And, besides, I thought you said I was in the clear.”

  “An alibi is only as good as its details.”

  “I ain’t got nothin’ more to say.”

  Maynard wasn’t discouraged by Abama’s lack of cooperation. His acknowledgement and the fact that the transcript also contained testimony from another Special Forces commando kept him going.

  “You know, I read the entire trial transcript.”

  “So?”

  “I know that both you and the witness they called ‘John Doe 1’ served under Colonel Jeffrey Steelman. And I know what you both did.”

  “So talk to Steelman.”

  Maynard ignored the comment. He had tried to talk to Steelman, but Steelman had pawned him off on his attorney.

  “I’m talking to you. Who is this John Doe 1?”

  Another silent pause. “Who is John Doe 1?”

  “I told you, I got nothin’ to say.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY SEVEN

  New York was the next whistle stop on Joshua Maynard’s itinerary. Wokowski and Samuels had been very helpful in briefing him on their findings, but there was nothing better than talking to the chief investigator in a case. The 104th Precinct in Queens was a free-standing brick building that made Joshua imagine what it must have been like working as a police officer in the 1920s.

  Joshua was received by Lieutenant DeFasio. DeFasio had a belly from driving the desk too long but didn’t seem to be overly concerned about his appearance. He waddled Joshua into a cubicle-sized, fishbowl office and shut the door. DeFasio took a seat and held out his hand toward one of two metal chairs in front of his grey steel desk and Maynard took a seat.

  “So what brings you all the way out here from Phoenix?”

  “Like I told you on the phone, I’m working a case back home that I think may be related to the Zahawi case.”

  “Yeah, you said you’ve also been talking to those two feds who ran over my crime scene. I didn’t much care for their attitude.” DeFasio picked at his fingernails.

  “I’m not here to offend you or to step on any toes. I just wanted to talk to you and see what you had that may have a bearing on my case.”

  DeFasio shrugged his shoulders. “You’re welcome to look at my case files.”

  Joshua reached into his briefcase and put his own suspects file on the desk. He took out the seven photos and dealt them like a poker hand one at a time to DeFasio as he spoke.

  “These are the suspects that fit the profile. I just talked to this guy – Jamal Abama – in Detroit. He’s got an alibi for my case from his girlfriend.”

  DeFasio snorted. “Probly has an alibi for every one of ‘em.”

  “That’s what I thought, too, but he called me back and was pretty straightforward. Except when I started asking him about John Doe 1.”

  “Who’s John Doe 1?”

  Maynard outlined the high points of his investigation for DeFasio, including the court testimony of Abama and John Doe 1.”

  “Sounds like this John Doe guy is afraid of being hunted by the feds.”

  “Yeah. There’s a lot of those guys out there. All they’ve learned how to do is to kill people and that’s the only thing they’re good at. They hang around conflicts, serve as mercenaries. But the things they do – it takes a toll on an average person – turns them into something else.”

  DeFasio smiled. “Sounds like you’re buying into this super hero shit. What are they calling him? Paladine?”

  Joshua looked DeFasio in the eye. “I think he’s nothing more than a glorified hit man. And I intend to track him down and bring him to justice.”

  DeFasio made a face. “I dunno. The way I look at it is, if this guy really is targeting terrorists, and this ain’t some random collection of remarkably similar cases, why not let him do his thing? Cleaning the streets of this terrorist scum is something we could never do, what with our court system and laws and such. They got too many rights.”

  Maynard disagreed with DeFasio, but it was irrelevant. He was just saying his piece. He could see beyond DeFasio’s attitude that he was a good police detective who would not turn his back on the case just because he felt that wiping terrorists out was a good thing.

  DeFasio brought Maynard up to speed on his investigation, but there was one detail that piqued his interest.

  “So you didn’t expect to find any records of treatment of the suspect’s gunshot wounds, of course, because it would have to be reported. But he’d have to have been treated somehow.”

  DeFasio grinned at Maynard. “How do they do it on your side of the tracks?”

  “Usually there’s a veterinarian or someone who will take out a bullet and sew up a wound.”

  “Same here, but it’s a little different. The underworld has their own little network of people with skill sets that match their needs, except here it works like it always has since the 30s. The wise guys run protection or gambling or what have you. Or they collect bad debts. Anyway, if it’s a pro like a doctor or dentist who brushes up against these bad guys and gets in some trouble, they’ll cut him a break instead of breaking his legs if he agrees to sew up their guys with no questions asked.”

  Maynard put his thumb to his chin. “So if we were to lean on some of these characters, maybe we could get some leads.”

  DeFasio shook his head. “These guys are in bed with the mob. You hang a jail rap over them guys and they’ll pick it over a coroner’s refrigerator with a tag on their toe every time. Plus, there’s a lot of ‘em out there.”

  “You just bring in the ones who’ve had brushes with the law. The alcoholics, the addicts, the gamblers…”

  DeFasio laughed. “You think that narrows it down? I’ve yet to meet a doctor who isn’t an alcoholic. But, still I think it’s a great idea. I’ll have my guys cull out a list and I’ll lean on each one of ‘em personally.”

  Maynard thanked DeFasio, who promised he would keep in touch. He had a couple more stops to make before heading back to Phoenix.

  ***

  Robert took off the old bandage and examined his wound. It was turning purple, but other than that, it didn’t look so bad. No puss or discharge. He winced as he doused it with alcohol and put on a fresh bandage that he had picked up at a local drugstore. He popped one of the antibiotic pills that Dr. D had given him and went back to work. Bryce Williamson had answered and made it very clear that it was in Robert’s interests that they meet in person. The question was how and where.

  CHAPTER THIRTY EIGHT

  Maynard planned to fly to California to meet with the court-martial prosecutor before heading back to Phoenix, but first he checked in with Agent Wokowski. He brought him up to speed on finding and meeting with Jamal Abama, but what he really wanted to know was whether they had turned anything up on the other two suspects – Emmanuel Lockman and Ali Salim.

  “Negative. Lockman was pulling security d
uty with a defense contractor in Iraq but we lost track of him about a year ago. Same with Salim. We’ll just have to keep looking.”

  Maynard was disappointed, but determined to run down all the leads, starting with John Doe 1.

  ***

  Major Theodore Brinkman was the Judge Advocate General in charge of the prosecution of Captain Ryan Bennington, the case in which John Doe 1 had testified. Brinkman was happy to receive Joshua Maynard in his small office on the Fort Hunter Liggit Army Base in northern California, but there wasn’t much he was willing to say. Maynard sat across from Brinkman at his desk. He glanced at the stark walls, which contained only framed diplomas from law school, his license to practice law, and his military wall plaque.

  “I sympathize with you, detective, I just can’t reveal to you the identity of John Doe 1.”

  “Well, it won’t hurt to go over the suspects with you, will it?”

  As Brinkman shrugged, Maynard took out the photographs of the seven and flipped them in front of Brinkman, one by one.

  Like a technician with a polygraph machine, Maynard examined the major’s reaction to each of the headshots. He purposely set Jamal Abama’s photo in front of him as the “control shot” and watched him react.

  “You recognize him, of course.”

  Brinkman nodded. “Jamal Abama.”

  He remembered Brinkman’s reaction to the photo in order to measure it against his expression when he saw the other pictures. Maynard threw out number two, then three, four, five, and six – which brought the raised eyebrows that Maynard was looking for. He tapped on the face.

  “And this is John Doe.”

  Brinkman said nothing. He averted his eyes. “I told you I couldn’t reveal his identity.”

  “You just did.”

  ***

  In his excitement, Joshua Maynard called Agent Wokowski on the ride to the airport.

  “I found John Doe 1. It’s suspect number seven – Robert Garcia.”

  “That’s great! I’ll run his photograph through the facial recognition software and try to pick him up on public records. Can’t promise anything, but I will let you know what I come up with.”

  For the first time in weeks, Maynard felt satisfaction. It was worth all the bitching his boss had been doing about him spending too much time on the case. It was worth all the complaining his ex-wife had been giving him about not seeing the kids as often. Once he solved this case they would realize why he had to make those sacrifices.

  CHAPTER THIRTY NINE

  Robert should have been resting so he could heal, but Bryce’s appeal to him was pretty strong. He dropped the dog off at the kennel and hit the road for San Francisco. When he arrived, he taped a prepaid cell phone to a dumpster on 30th Street, and then headed for the nearest coffee shop with free WiFi.

  It wasn’t hard to find one – there was a Starbucks at every corner – so Robert ducked into the first one he saw. He sent an encrypted PGP message to Bryce with the location of the dumpster and instructions on how to find the phone. He also advised him to get a taxi off the street to take him there – and not to call one or to take his own car. Robert rode up to the top of Billy Goat Hill where he had a 360-degree view of everything around him, including the dumpster, stashed the bike, and waited.

  About 45 minutes later, Robert saw a yellow taxi stop at the dumpster. Bryce exited the vehicle and retrieved the phone. Robert rang him almost immediately.

  “You sure you haven’t been followed?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Good. Then come up to the top of the hill.”

  “Are you kidding? That could kill me!”

  “It’s not that steep. Go slowly.”

  The only way to truly be sure that Bryce had not been followed was to watch him as he made his way up the hill. It was a bit of a hike, but he had been advised to take it easy. Robert watched Bryce and all points around the park in his field glasses.

  When Bryce reached the top, he was hacking and gasping for breath. He sat on a bench next to Robert, wheezing.

  “You’re the one who wanted the meeting.”

  Bryce nodded. “It was for you.”

  “For me?”

  “Yeah. Some hotshot detective from Phoenix thinks the same person did the Phoenix, Atascadero, McDonald’s and New York terrorist killings.”

  “So?”

  “So? You don’t care? I thought you’d want to know.”

  Robert shrugged. “It’s useful information, but you could have given it to me by PGP.”

  “I just wanted to make sure you were still in the game.”

  “You sound like a coach.”

  “This Phoenix detective, he’s a real hound dog, you know? He’ll never quit.”

  Robert brought his field glasses to his eyes and panned the bottom of the hill again.

  “He’s got to do what he’s got to do.”

  “Just watch your back. And, if I never see you again, I just wanted to say thank you.”

  “No need. Now, call yourself a taxi with that phone and throw it into that dumpster when you get to the bottom of the hill.”

  Robert watched Bryce walk away, knowing that he would probably never see him again.

  ***

  Joshua Maynard received a call from Detective DeFasio in New York. It wasn’t the news he was hoping for. DeFasio’s team had been unable to come up with a possible match on the doctor. With regard to the “Robert Garcia” that Maynard had asked him to check out, there was a death certificate on file for him at City Hall.

  “Your guy died in a fire in his apartment in Spanish Harlem about seven months ago.”

  This surprised Maynard, but didn’t shake his resolve. He had gotten excited over leads that had gone cold before. He put Robert’s dossier into the inactive pile, along with Jamal Abama’s and decided to concentrate on the others.

  Halfway through his day, he received a call from Bokowski.

  “We’ve got a positive hit on Garcia out of the Nevada DMV. He’s in Vegas!”

  Maynard was surprised, but not overly so. Apparently, Robert had come back from the dead.

  CHAPTER FORTY

  The dog experienced his usual convulsions, together with wailing and crying, to mark Robert’s homecoming. When Robert set down his backpack, the dog jumped up on him, with his paws over his shoulders, and licked his face. He pushed him down.

  “Okay, okay, I get it, I get it! Now, let’s go out.”

  The dog ran between his legs, almost knocking him down, and out the door into the early morning air. The sun was just starting to rise, but the valley had kept the heat in like a lid on a boiling pot, so it was still very warm. The dog did his business quickly, sniffed around a bit, and then came running back in to enjoy a long-awaited meal. Robert’s phone was blinking. It was one of those “antiques” with an old-fashioned built-in answering machine. He pushed the play button.

  “Julio, where have you been? It’s me. I thought we might catch a movie or something tonight. Anyway, call me.”

  The machine beeped and then played another message from Virginia.

  “Okay, I guess no movie. You must be busy. Call me later.”

  That was it – the entire display of Robert’s social life over a 90-second period – the dog and the girl. Robert didn’t have many emotions, but the dog and the girl made him feel like his mother was still alive, and that was good. But, as Bryce had warned him, the heat was on, and it could prove to be hotter than any Las Vegas summer. It was time for Robert to close accounts and disappear.

  ***

  Later that day, Robert went to the mailbox to check the mail. It was something that he did rarely, but it was the only way to open the few bills he had, buy money orders right there at the facility, and send them off. He finished all the business, and, as he made his way back to the parking lot, he heard a voice behind him.

  “Julio Ignacio? Robert Garcia?”

  Robert turned his head to see two men in suits, who were obviously FBI, and a
nother man who was wearing a lanyard in place of a tie and a cowboy hat, approaching him at a quick pace. He scolded himself for not being aware of them when he pulled up.

  “Who’s asking?”

  “FBI. I’m Special Agent Wokowski and this is Special Agent McHenry. And this is Detective Maynard from the Phoenix Police Department. May we talk to you a moment?”

  “You can talk. If I have anything to say, I’ll let my lawyer do it.”

  “You packin’, Robert?” The cowboy was sharp, better than the feds.

  “I’ve got my gun right here on my belt. Second Amendment.”

  “Right. All the same, would you mind giving it to us while we talk?”

  “I don’t surrender my sidearm to any man, Hoss, but I can put your mind at ease.”

  Quicker than they could drop their mouths or draw their weapons, and they all tried, Robert popped out his Glock, flipped open the catch, dropped the magazine, opened the chamber and popped out the live round. At that point, the three had their pistols on him. He raised his hands.

  “Am I under arrest?”

  “You try something like that again and you damn well will be,” replied Maynard. Wokowski wiped sweat from his brow with a shaky hand and then asked, “Can we go somewhere to talk?”

  “Right here is as good a place as any. Now, why don’t you boys put those guns away? You’re making me nervous.”

  They put their guns away and Robert sheathed his weapon.

  Wokowski, the sneering little snot, gleefully played with Robert’s aliases. “So Mr. Garcia, or should I say Mr. Ignacio, do you know why we’d like to talk to you?”

  “Don’t know, don’t care.” Robert spit on the pavement. It was so hot it seemed to sizzle. He leaned against his motorcycle.

  “It’s about several murders of Muslim extremists. Atascadero, Phoenix, New York.”

  “Not interested.”

  “We think you have something to do with them,” said McHenry, the normally silent observer. Wokowski glared at him.