Monster (6 page)

“I don’t think that would be a good idea, Sir,” the guard replied. “We had to put McDaniels in solitary confinement after his participation in an altercation with other inmates. He nearly killed three men.”

“Shit, Colonel!” Dreyer exclaimed. “You’ve been in here less than two weeks.”

“This isn’t the Hilton Hotel, Jim,” McDaniels said, waving off the guard and sitting down. “Nice meeting you, Senator. I’m very glad to have been of help to the little one. I trust she is feeling better?”

“She sure is. There’s no way in hell you should have ever been put in here. If this… I mean if Agent Reskova had restrained from broadcasting the circumstances of Alicia’s rescue for the eight o’clock news, we’d be having ticker tape parades for you. You’ve impressed a lot of people in places where they don’t think much about the rights of maniacal child murderers.”

“I appreciate your support, Sir, but I knew my actions would have consequences,” McDaniels replied, smiling at a scowling Reskova. “When will I be charged?”

“Never. You would not believe the public outcry over your detainment. In spite of newscasters and reporters trying to make you into Charlie Manson, the people want you canonized. You’ve even been given a nickname after the interview you gave. Look at this.”

Hokanson spread out a newspaper with the headline:
DA To Release Cold
Mountain
.

McDaniels read a little of the article. “Cold Mountain, huh? The DA is really going to release me?”

“The papers should be ready by tomorrow morning,” Dreyer put in at Hokanson’s nod. “Luckily, you were never formally charged.”

“Not that I’m ungrateful but how come three of you came over to give me the news?”

“As you may or may not know,” Hokanson went on with some excitement, “Agent Reskova heads up a task force, which investigates crimes committed by serial monsters like Hughes. They are under the jurisdiction of Homeland Security so they also work at the anti-terrorism angle frequently.”

“We’d like you to consider joining up with the task force, Colonel,” Dreyer finished.

“From prison to the FBI special task force?” McDaniels chuckled. “How do you feel about that Agent Reskova?”

“It stinks.” Reskova ignored Dreyer’s warning look. “You are arguably as psycho as…”

“That will be all, Agent Reskova,” Hokanson cut her off angrily. “Will you consider it, Colonel? We know you served with CIA anti-terrorism and you’re an expert tactician in hostage or urban warfare situations.”

“What leeway would I have within the taskforce?”

“You would be a freelance consultant,” Dreyer answered. “We would of course expect you to keep the head count down in your work.”

“That’s not funny, Jim,” Reskova snapped as both Hokanson and McDaniels laughed a little at the unkind reference to Hughes’ demise. “I admit…”

“You admit without Colonel McDaniels it’s very possible you, your agents, and my niece would all be dead, killed hideously by that piece of human excrement,” Hokanson cut her off again.

“We still do not work outside the law, Sir.”

“How about it, Colonel?” Hokanson asked, ignoring Reskova.

“It’s the best offer I’ve had in the last couple weeks. I’d like to give it a try if you can promise me Agent Reskova won’t frag me.”

Hokanson and Dreyer both burst into laughter but Reskova stared coldly at McDaniels. Hokanson stood up.

“Agent Reskova will be obtaining your release and picking you up tomorrow morning, Colonel,” Dreyer explained. “I wish we could take you with us now but it just ain’t possible. Diane will go over the details of where you’ll be going. I’ll be seeing you, Colonel.”

Hokanson handed McDaniels a card. “Call me anytime when you get to Washington. Thanks to the new Homeland Security directives about cooperation, the new task force will be stationed out of Langley, a place you’re more than a little familiar with.”

“Thank you, Sir, I’ll do my best.” McDaniels watched the two men leave before refocusing his attention on a grim faced Reskova.

“I never thought I’d be briefing you on entry into my task force. I figured the most I’d be doing is giving you a good word at your trial for murder.”

“I’m surprised you’d have done that much.”

“I know you may well have saved our lives but it was only because the entire operation had been compromised by Hokanson. You don’t really think you would have been traipsing around out in the woods with three FBI agents after a known killer with a hostage, if the kidnapped girl had been a nobody, do you?”

“That may have been why I was brought in with you three. Someone may have done some thinking outside the proverbial box and came up with a scenario where everyone involved looked good, or if the operation went into the toilet, I’d get the blame.”

“And you’re comfortable with that? It doesn’t bother you to be used as the operational whipping boy?”

McDaniels shrugged. “I’ve been used before.”

“Yeah, I’ve read your file since coming back from our excursion into the woods. How much is missing out of your file, Colonel?”

“The folks in charge would have hung you out to dry along with me,” McDaniels reminded her. “Yet you, Jen, and Tom followed me into the woods anyway, even though you all smelled a rat too.”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“Some of my file can’t be accessed at your level.”

“We can’t work at cross purposes. You would end up right back in here. I won’t cover for your brutality.”

McDaniels laughed. “My brutality, huh?”

“What was that deal with Hughes, some kind of audition?” Reskova pressed him.

“You knew exactly what I knew,” McDaniels countered. “In case you don’t know, Senator Hokanson is on the Senate Committee that oversees CIA.”

“So what are you saying?”

“I’m saying the Senator wanted his niece back. He probably talked to a few people who knew I was back in the states and were familiar with my expertise. Hokanson seems like a realist. He probably knew the chances of ever seeing his niece alive were slim to none.”

“Until he put you in the picture.”

“Why not brief me on what you want me to do as a member of your task force and then call it a day,” McDaniels suggested. “There’s no reason to keep dancing around our last little get together.”

“Okay, here’s the way I see it. You’re obviously a professional killer. Tom is the only one who has actually drawn his weapon and wounded a suspect. Jen has drawn her weapon, as have I, but we’ve never been in a combat situation,” Reskova explained truthfully. “We are virtually the best people in the FBI at investigations, computer expertise, forensics, and on site intel. I have a doctorate in forensic pathology. Tom and Jen both have masters degrees in computer engineering.”

“Very impressive. Any of you do profiling?”

“Unfortunately not as much as I know you have, which was another reason your name kept coming up. I read in your file the CIA used you as a profiler.”

“My general outlook on people is cynical and bleak. That makes me pretty good as a profiler. I’m best at tactical situations.”

“How do you mean?”

“I find out what needs to be done and then I come up with a way to do it with the least casualties. I have experience in hostage situations as well as combat.”

“But not within the continental United States, right?”

“Hughes was my first in the US.”

“Not a very good start,” Reskova observed.

“From Hughes point of view maybe.”

“Which brings us full circle. We don’t do that type of work.”

“Obviously, someone wants the option, or I wouldn’t have been asked to join. In any case, I think I know what you’ll need. We can butt heads later on how I supply what you need.”

“I don’t think I like this dual standard crap. So, when things get tough, we turn our backs while you break the law?”

“That seems to be the position I’ll be filling,” McDaniels agreed.

“In other words, the end justifies the means. I…”

“Cut the bullshit and get off your high horse, Reskova,” McDaniels broke in, an edge to his tone for the first time. “No one will be asking you to get your hands dirty or take the rap for something I do. If things don’t work out, and I’m just a liability, you can get me canned.”

“You wouldn’t be doing this at all if you hadn’t burned all your bridges with the military and CIA.”

“What makes you think that? The CIA doesn’t function anymore like a
Muppets Go To Disneyland
movie. We’re at war, Reskova.”

“So, you’re still in?”

“Once you do work for CIA, and they find what you do useful, you’re never out. I doubt I’d be much use to them with the notoriety I’ve managed to attract this last time.”

“They sent you after Hughes?” Reskova asked with a stunned look. “CIA has complicity in…”

“No, no, no,” McDaniels intoned, shaking his head. “Certain circumstances came together. I was put in a position where a few different outcomes were possible.”

Reskova stood up, clearly agitated. “I’ll be here to get you around ten o’clock. We’ll leave for Detroit immediately after. Tom and Jen are already there.”

“I guess you’ll fill me in on the way?”

“Unfortunately. Goodbye, Colonel.”

McDaniels watched Reskova walk out, admiringly. His guard approached, getting McDaniels’ attention, rather than laying hands on him.

“Ready, McDaniels?”

“That sure is one fine looking woman, huh?”

The guard grinned up at McDaniels. “To tell the truth, she looks like the kind of woman in whose company you sleep with one eye open at night.”

McDaniels shrugged, walking towards the room exit. “I sleep with one eye open anyway.”

Chapter 5

Air Marshals

Reskova recovered her personal belongings. She turned to walk away but then returned to the property cage. The woman guard inside, short haired and short tempered, looked up again with an annoyed look on her face. Her jet black hair made her pale complexion even more striking. Her thin face, with eyelids half closed, twitched a little in a ‘what do you want now’ look.

“Sorry to bother you,” Reskova said, trying not to antagonize the woman. “The other guard mentioned an altercation out in the yard where Colonel McDaniels seriously injured three other inmates. Do you know anything about it?”

The woman’s hard look softened noticeably at the mention of McDaniels’ name. “I saw the whole thing. He could have killed them if he’d wanted to. What do you want to know?”

“I wondered how it happened and if there had been a way McDaniels could have avoided it.”

“He was standing in the yard by himself. He’s so big, it’s kind of hard not to notice him. Anyway, three inmates waiting for trial decided to go over and introduce themselves. I think they saw the Colonel on the news and decided to have a go. I saw the two in front step aside. The third lunged right at McDaniels with one of those damn homemade knives we can’t keep out of here.”

“McDaniels seemed to snatch the hand and then the guy was going face first into the wall McDaniels had been leaning against. The other two rushed him. By the time we moved on them in force the altercation as you call it was over. McDaniels had his hands up against the wall as soon as he saw our trouble squad move in.”

“How bad were they hurt?”

“Broken jaw, concussion, busted face,” the woman related, smiling. “The Colonel can really handle himself. Just between us girls, I wouldn’t mind going one on one with Cold Mountain myself.”

“So you heard about the Hughes’ case?”

“Who hasn’t? I watched the news conference he gave. I taped the replay later,” the guard answered, and then laughed a little. “I just had to have him doin’ the quote from the movie.”

The guard cleared her throat, and then imitated McDaniels. “Nope, only that I like the rain. God, that cracked me up. About a hundred of those Hughes characters getting a Tia Juana haircut and I’d bet a months pay…”

“Ah, thank you,” Reskova said, cutting the guard off and turning to go.

“What were you and those other guys in there to see him about?”

“He’s being released tomorrow. I’ll be collecting him around ten in the morning,” Reskova called back over her shoulder as the guard buzzed her out.

“Hey, how do I get duty like that?”

Reskova kept walking.

* * *

Reskova and McDaniels sat together near the terminal their flight would be leaving from. Reskova looked over at McDaniels, who sat with arms folded over his chest. He watched the people filing up to check in at the seating desk intently. The two of them had already been through the lengthy process for boarding with Reskova completing protocol for boarding as an armed agent. She wore a dark blue skirt ending just below her knee, a white blouse, and matching blue jacket. Her 9mm automatic could not be detected in the tailored harness under her jacket.

McDaniels, his hair buzz cut and trimmed since going into custody, looked every inch as if he were still active military. Clean shaven, his age could have been assessed anywhere between twenty-five and thirty-five. He wore jeans, black tee-shirt, gray windbreaker, and the same hiking boots he had trekked into the mountains with. McDaniels had been reluctant to check in the pack which had been returned to him. Reskova convinced him it would be tracked. As if sensing Reskova’s look, McDaniels turned towards her with a questioning look.