Kill Plan (Ingrid Skyberg FBI Thrillers -) (29 page)

Ingrid had already decided that if Ellis started to make things personal, she’d terminate the interview. She ignored the comment. “OK, let’s move on to your first kill.”

“I made a plan for every single one long before that.”

“You drew up a list?”

He nodded back at her. “I like to be thorough. I worked out an exact plan for each one back then too. Obviously, I had to adjust and amend the details over the years. But it was good to start out with a blueprint, a framework. The outcome was the same, no matter the exact execution method.”

“Each one based on what you saw as a weakness in the victim?” Although it was petty, Ingrid wanted Ellis to confirm another of her theories.

“I had to make it a little challenging for myself. There would have been no fun in gunning them down with a semi-automatic, now would there?”

“So, getting back to the prison guard.”

“Thomas Greerson. That name haunted me right through my teenage years.”

“That was 2002. Exactly a year after your mom’s death.”

He tensed again, this time across his shoulders. “No better way to honor her memory, wouldn’t you say?”

Ingrid held his gaze. Raised an eyebrow. “And when you shot Greerson in the chest and the face… how did that make you feel?”

“I’m giving you a comprehensive list, not participating in a counseling session. It’s none of your goddamn business how I felt.”

Ingrid leaned forward in her seat. “OK—tell me about David Brite.”

“He was called David Fuller when I killed him.” Ellis’ nostrils flared as if he’d just smelled something unpleasant. “If Brite had kept his mouth shut, none of this would have had to happen.” His eyes sparked with an intensity Ingrid hadn’t seen before. “Brite was making a fortune. And it was my dad who made it possible.”

“He was breaking the law.”

“No one really got hurt. Lots of people were making a lot of money.”

“It wasn’t sustainable.” Ingrid wondered just how deluded Ellis was about his dad’s illegal investment scheme.

Ellis shrugged.

“So you killed David Brite in 2003. What happened in 2004?”

“Nothing.”

“But you had a plan.”

“I was busy making a living. I worked on Wall Street 2004 through 2007.”

“Really?”

“Have you any idea how expensive these operations can be? I had to get some cash together.”

“So what happened in 2008?”

“Plenty.”

Ingrid shifted in her seat. She’d meant to remain perfectly still, hoping to appear supremely in control. So far she felt as if she’d been wriggling around in her chair like a five year old. Ellis, meanwhile had barely moved. Mostly he seemed relaxed, almost Zen-like in his repose.

“I could see what was around the corner,” he continued. “The crash was so inevitable it’s amazing it took anyone by surprise. Time to get out of finance. I’d made enough not to have to work again. Enough to dedicate myself to my… mission.”

For a moment Ingrid thought he was going to say ‘art’.

“Who did you kill in 2008?”

He pulled a face. “Highsmith was asking for it. To have the audacity to run for Congress after what she did to my dad? She might as well have waved a red flag. Taunting me that way.”

“Her allergic reaction in the restaurant in D.C.? That was you?”

“Would have killed her then if her aide hadn’t been carrying a spare EpiPen. How could I have known a thing like that?” He shook his head, the bitterness fierce in his eyes. “No aide to save her the second time.” In an instant the bitterness transformed into something approaching glee. “But I’m skipping ahead. You want strict chronology, I’m sure.” He leaned back in his seat and yawned. “In 2009 I eliminated the FBI agent who was second in command in Sol Franklin’s team. Agent Franklin had left the country by then, so I plumped for the next best thing—his able lieutenant. Not the order I’d planned originally, but over the years I’ve learned to be flexible. Sometimes you have to improvise.” He stared into her eyes. “Were you quite close to Sol? I saw a little tension around your eyes just then, when I mentioned his name. Was he a mentor maybe? A father figure?” He searched her face.

Ingrid was determined not to react. When Ellis realized he wasn’t going to get the response he wanted, he eventually looked away.

“There I go, skipping forward again,” he said. “Where were we?”

“Twenty-ten.”

“Oh yes, 2010 it was the turn of the reporter from the local paper. That bitch hounded my mom after Dad was convicted. She wouldn’t quit. Finding new angles to write about, anything to twist the knife just a little more.” He shook his head. “Then I found out why she was so diligent in her work. Her dad was one of the investors who lost money. It was a personal vendetta. Got so bad Mom couldn’t take it anymore. We moved towns. Ended up some place Mom had no friends, no job, no life. All she did was look after me.” He looked down toward the table. Ingrid thought she’d detected a slight moistening of his eyes. “She could have been so much more.” He sat motionless for a few moments and said nothing. Then his head snapped back up and the gleeful glint was back in his eyes. “I guess we’re nearly through. I dispatched the defense attorney in 2011.”

“The attorney who defended your dad?”

“He had to be the most incompetent lawyer ever to pass his bar exams. Assuming of course he actually did. A better lawyer may have gotten my dad off.”

There was no doubting Ellis’ dedication to his task. He certainly had been thorough.

“So, we’re practically up to date.” Ellis sniffed. “That bitch Highsmith last year. And Sol Franklin just three days ago. A complete set.”

“What about Matthew Fuller?”

“He was a bonus I wasn’t expecting. He hadn’t actually made it onto my list. He was only a kid at the time of the conviction. I came here to eradicate Franklin. But when I discovered Matthew Brite was in London too—some people really are careless with what they post to their social media accounts—it seemed too good an opportunity to pass up. Especially when I discovered he was suffering from OCD. Got my creative juices flowing.”

“So you got yourself a job at Fisher Krupps?”

“Do you know how easy it is to get into all sorts of places when everyone sub-contracts their cleaning and maintenance work? You should maybe check who else you have working here at the embassy. You might be surprised. Shocked, even.” He glanced over Ingrid’s shoulder toward the glass. Ingrid pictured Marshall scrambling for the phone, demanding a list of all the staff.

“And that’s it,” Ellis said. “A full wrap. I’ll of course provide methods, dates, times. Everything you need for the complete picture.”

“What about everyone else who got killed along the way?”

“Collateral damage. Unavoidable.”

“Do you even remember them all?”

“Sure—I can make you another list. The only one I truly regret is Marija. She was a great gal. But I needed to test the FBI response, as I’m sure you’ve worked out by now. Marija was the best way of doing that.” He slumped back in his seat. “A shame, but unavoidable.” He flashed a smile at Ingrid. “I guess we’re done. I won’t say it’s been a pleasure, Agent Skyberg. But I do rather admire your determination, not to mention your apparent cockroach-like indestructibility. I hope there are no hard feelings between us. You were getting in the way just a little too much. I couldn’t have you jeopardizing what I’d come here to do. And ultimately, you didn’t. So it all worked out for the best.” He smiled more broadly at her.

Ingrid scraped back her chair and got to her feet. “I would maybe tone down the smugness, if I were you.”

“Oh please, allow me a little self-congratulation. Twelve years ago I had quite a to-do list. And I’ve achieved everything I set out to. How many people can say that about their miserable lives?”

“Not quite everything.” Ingrid smiled down at him. “And there’s absolutely nothing you can do about it now.” She pulled out her phone and scrolled through her photo gallery.

Ellis frowned up at her, his chest rising and falling a little more rapidly. But he said nothing.

“Oh come on,” Ingrid said. “You’re dying to know what I’m talking about. Admit it.”

He glared at her.

“Now that you’ve… unburdened yourself, I thought it was the least I could do to keep you up to date with the latest developments. I thought you might appreciate that.”

“What could you possibly have to say that would interest me?”

“Something that’ll change your whole perspective. It’ll certainly destroy your sense of… completion.”

“Don’t bother trying to play games—you’re no good at it.”

“I wouldn’t dream of playing games with you. I just thought you’d be interested to know Assistant Deputy Chief Franklin says hi.”

Ellis started to laugh, but as the pain in his shattered shoulder took hold, the laughing abruptly stopped. “Really? Is that the best you can do? And you expect me to believe you?”

“Sol Franklin regained consciousness a little before you did on Wednesday afternoon.”

“You’re lying.”

“Now I expected you to say that. So I came prepared.”

She turned her phone around and showed Ellis a picture of Sol Franklin smiling up at the camera from his hospital bed with a copy of yesterday’s
Washington Post
lying across the bed covers. It had taken all of Sol’s will power and determination to pose for the photograph. He was completely exhausted afterward. But it had been worth it for this moment. Worth it to witness the bewildered, distraught look on Ellis’ face.

“I guess you didn’t achieve what you set out to do after all,” Ingrid said. “And you never will.”

—*—

Thank you for reading
Kill Plan
– I really hope you enjoyed it. If you’d like to find out when the next book in the Ingrid Skyberg FBI Thrillers series is released (and receive the occasional freebie)
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Fresh Doubt
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Here’s an excerpt:

FRESH DOUBT

Chapter One

The whole thing took less than a few seconds. A moment to shove the woman sideways, another to drag the straps of the purse from her shoulder, then finally a second more to snatch and scoop the bag into his arms. Then the young Caucasian male was away, barging into a crowd of early morning office workers making their way sedately along the Thames just east of Waterloo railway station.

Special Agent Ingrid Skyberg saw it all happen in slow-mo as she ran past. She glimpsed the woman’s mouth form a wide silent ‘O’, throw up her hands in disbelief then scream at the top of her lungs.

Ingrid had just been getting into her stride, feeling her muscles warm, absorbing the faint heat of the early morning April sun on her face.

“Goddammit,” she said to no one in particular, “why this morning?”

She pulled up fast—the perp was escaping behind her—and turned on a dime. A few seconds later she was in pursuit, all her previous momentum moving with her again as she tried to accelerate through the crowd.

“Stop!” she shouted, pumping her arms faster. “FBI!” Then she remembered herself, threw a glance over her shoulder and yelled at the mugging victim to call 9-1-1. The woman looked at Ingrid blankly. “I mean 9-9-9, call 9-9-9!”

Ingrid turned face front again and quickly realized she’d lost the perp. She scanned a sea of mildly disgruntled faces and shouted at them to get the hell out of her way. Scrutinizing the very edges of the crowd, she spotted him again, his shaven bright white head appearing a few inches above the general mass of commuters. She formalized his description in her head for later. White, male, five-eleven, one-seventy pounds, bald head, no more than twenty years of age. For a moment she considered grabbing her phone to relay the details to the local cops when the cell started to vibrate, tingling against her bicep. Whoever it was would have to wait.

The crowd cleaved in two in front of her, opening a central channel. Ingrid pumped her arms harder and gulped a deep breath, forcing air into her lungs as they were just starting to burn. She lengthened her stride and lifted her chin a little. She was starting to enjoy herself. She hadn’t felt this alert since the last Academy refresher course. And that had to be at least six months ago. No, longer. She quickly counted the weeks she’d been in the UK and realized she hadn’t been home for over four months. The embassy job was meant to be a temporary posting. How had she let it stretch out this long?

Thirty yards ahead of her the perp changed direction, darting quickly right, away from the river, and up a spiral flight of bright yellow painted concrete steps. He was tiring and Ingrid was gaining on him with every stride. “Stop! Police!” she yelled, as she took the first four steps in a single leap. She pushed hard against the concrete spiral with her arms, using the extra momentum as leverage to shoot her up the staircase faster. She looked up just in time to see a bottle of water hurtling toward her from above. She ducked quickly left, the half liter of Evian bouncing harmlessly off her shoulder.

“Sonofa…”

When she reached the top of the steps she located her quarry crossing an expanse of concrete paving, discarding items from the woman’s purse as he went. Finally he dropped the bag itself, but held on to a bright pink pocket book. He ran toward a set of steps leading down to the road at the back of the Royal Festival Hall. She couldn’t let him reach the road. There were too many escape routes at street level.

She lengthened her stride, for a split second enjoying the lactic burn in her quads. He was only a dozen or so yards ahead now. Three yards out she lurched forward and snatched at his jacket, managing to catch the hem in a fist. The sudden jerking movement forced the pink wallet from his hand and it flew into the air. Ingrid pulled up sharp and yanked hard on his jacket, then attempted to reel him in. When his head was only inches from hers, her cell phone started buzzing again. She couldn’t ignore it again. Distracted for a moment, she didn’t see the perp wriggle free of the constrains of his coat until he had slipped right out of her hands.