Rogue Operator (4 page)

“Do you honestly
believe what just came out of your mouth?”

He grinned.
“Not for a second.” Twenty-two years on the force told him something more was
going on. Witnesses would conflict in their statements, and the witnesses here
did, but they all agreed on one thing. A car was pushed into the back of a
truck. The disagreement was on what the truck looked like, what the car and SUV
looked like, and the number of vehicles involved.

“Did we
get any cellphone footage?”

Jamie
shook her head. “Nada. Not exactly prime real estate here, and the few
witnesses didn’t think to haul out their phones.”

“No
teenagers then?”

Jamie
grinned.

He
swirled his hand over his head. “Check every store, see if we have anything
caught on security camera. We might get lucky.”

Jamie didn’t
look convinced. “Not exactly a camera friendly neighborhood, Boss. This is
industrial.”

One of
the officers manning the scene ran over.

“Detective,
they just found the truck, the SUVs, hell, everything!”

“Where?”

“Not
even five miles from here.”

Percy
frowned. If they had already abandoned their vehicles, there might be no way to
trace them. He looked at the officer.

“And?”

“Car in
the back of a semi-trailer, empty, two SUVs, one with damage to its front end.
Just like some of the witnesses said.”

“Shit!”
muttered Jamie. “This is big, Boss.”

Percy
nodded. “Make sure the area is secure, get crime scene over there, tell
dispatch we’re on our way.”

The
officer nodded and got on his radio as Percy jogged toward their car, Jamie at
his side.

“What do
you think, Boss?”

“I think
this is bigger than we originally thought.”

Mona Reservoir, Utah

Jason Peterson woke when his head rapped against something hard.
Wherever he was lying bounced again, and again his head smacked against the
floor. His head throbbed, his brain an unfamiliar fog, the only feeling he
could recall that was similar was the one and only time as a freshman in
college that he had gotten drunk. He had been drunk since, but nothing like
this, and never again in college.

He had never lived it down.

Goaded into drinking by his roommate and lifelong friend
to that point, he had agreed to have his first beer at eighteen. Then a second.
Before he knew it, he had lost count, and lost track, of not only the number of
drinks he had had, but the limbs he had under his control. He was told the next
day he had had a good time, but had no recollection beyond waking up, lying
across the bathroom counter of the dorm, his head in one of the sinks, with a
few photos going around of the night that were too embarrassing to want to
recollect.

The montage at the end of The Hangover
was uncomfortably familiar.

He escaped with all his teeth, and unmarried, but swore
off alcohol until he could drink around people he could trust to not put his
mouth and other God given parts where they shouldn’t be.

And the way his head felt now, was exactly how it had
felt that morning on the bathroom counter.

He forced his eyes open, praying he wasn’t back in
college. They burned and he immediately shut them. Instead he tried to listen,
to cut through the white noise that seemed to consume his thoughts. He could
hear a dull roar. And voices. Two voices. Talking loud enough to be heard over
the roar of an engine.

The boat!

He realized he was in the boat, not his college dorm,
and his heart slammed against his chest as the memories flooded back. They had
been rescued, then someone had said his name, then shot him. But hadn’t. It
wasn’t a bullet, it was some sort of tranquilizer.

That explained the hangover.

He tried to listen to the voices. He could hear one, but
didn’t recognize it. The other voice he couldn’t make out enough to say whether
it was familiar or not. Straining against the roar of the boat’s engine that
dominated his right ear which lay against the cool, metal surface, he tried to
make out the words, but it was merely bits and pieces.

“…minutes…plane…to the rally…taken…north…paid…”

It meant nothing.

The boat turned, the entire vehicle banking to the
right, sending him tumbling into the gunwale with a grunt. A grunt that
attracted the attention of someone.

“This one’s awake.” The voice was uncomfortably close.
“Should I tag him again?”

“Negative. You’re liable to kill him. We need him alive,
and he has a heart condition.”

How did they know about that?

He had only been recently diagnosed with a thickening of
the heart wall, caused by high blood pressure, the stress of his job and the
realization he was responsible for what he had created, proving too much. The
moment they had succeeded in their experiment, succeeded in the fifteen long
years of research, he had at once rejoiced, then cried at the horror of it when
activated.

It had so much potential for good.

But far more for evil.

And at that moment he knew how Robert Oppenheimer had
felt when the first nuclear bomb was successfully tested.

Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.

He felt a hand grab his shoulder, spinning him onto his
back. He looked up, the world still a blur, but clear enough to see something
dark move rapidly toward his head. An intense pain was followed by a sea of
nothingness.

Ogden, Utah

Detective Jack Percy stepped out of the car as his partner checked
her teeth in the vanity mirror, then joined him. The area had already been
cordoned off, and half the precinct seemed already on scene. It was exactly as
described. Two SUVs and a semi-trailer. The scene commander waved at him and
strode over.

“Detective
Percy, Conway,” he said, nodding to both, his eyes lingering on Jamie’s
model-like physique.

“What’ve
you got for us, Sergeant Gates?” Percy let his tone indicate the ogling session
was over. He glanced at Jamie but as usual she seemed to be ignorant of what
had just happened.

When Jamie
had made detective, every married guy had run for the hills, knowing damned
well their wives would never let them work with her. Percy had volunteered, the
poor girl not understanding why no one wanted to work with her, and seeming
genuinely hurt as partner after partner refused the Lieutenant.

Percy’s
partner was due to retire, so when he had heard what was going on, he walked
over to the desk she was sitting at outside the LT’s office, and sat down
beside her.

“Detective
Percy. Jack.” He held out his hand. She had taken it, but only briefly made eye
contact, her eyes wells of tears.

“Jamie
Conway.”

“So
you’re the new detective?”

“Supposed
to be. But nobody wants to partner with me.”

“And you
don’t know why?”

She
shrugged her shoulders. “I’m guessing they don’t want to work with a woman.”

“Think
like a detective. This is the new millennium. Most of the guys around here
post-date the old boys’ club. Separate yourself emotionally from the situation,
and ask yourself
why
they don’t want to work with you.”

She
dabbed her eyes dry, then looked at him.

“I don’t
know. What else could it be?”

He had
chuckled. “Oh, it’s because you’re a woman, all right. But again, ask yourself
why.”

She
frowned, eying the desks of two of the men who had already refused her, them
whispering amongst themselves, stealing occasional glances at her.

Her eyes
shot open and she smiled.

“Because
they’re married?”

“Bingo.”

“And
they’re afraid their wives will get jealous.”

“Two for
two.”

“But why
would they get jealous? We’re all professionals.”

“Conway,
have you looked in a mirror lately?”

She
blushed and turned away modestly.

“Anybody
not married here?”

He shook
his head. “Nope.” He stood up and knocked on the LT’s door. He waved him in and
Percy opened the door, poking his head inside. “I’ll take her off your hands,
LT.”

The LT
had blown him a double handed kiss, and Percy had taken her to lunch so they
could get to know each other a little, then invited her for dinner with his
family. His wife had taken to her right away, treating her like a younger
sister, jealousy not entering her mind. Percy wasn’t sure how he felt about
that. Was it that she trusted him, or knew Jamie was way out of his league?

Probably
a little bit of both.

And so
it had been. They had become partners, and his wife hadn’t expressed a concern
at any time, Jamie having a standing invitation to join them for dinner every
Sunday if she wanted. And once the guys at the office had got to know her, they
realized how despite her good looks she was just “one of the boys”, her ways
slightly tomboyish, with a blue streak that would make a sailor blush at times.
When she had told her “Do you wanna be the mama or the papa?” joke at the first
Friday after-work outing, he knew she was in, one of the retired old timers
actually pissing his pants.

So it
was rare now that he had to deal with guys from the department ogling his
partner so obviously.

And it
annoyed him.

“We’ve
cordoned off the area. I ran the plates. They all check out as legit, out of
state, not stolen. We’re canvasing the area, but don’t expect much. This is
mostly abandoned industrial.”

“What’s
with the dust?”

Percy
and the sergeant turned to Jamie, who was standing behind one of the vehicles.

“What
dust?” asked Percy, rounding the vehicle.

“Look,”
said Jamie, pointing at the side of the vehicle. “This side is covered in dust,
so is that one.” She pointed at the other SUV. “But look at the other side,”
she said, rounding the vehicle. “It’s clean. Both of them.”

Percy
looked at both vehicles, walking around them, then examined the ground. He
pointed about fifty yards away. “Look at that!” It was as if a large fan had
parked itself in the center of the abandoned parking lot. It was completely
devoid of litter, it all seeming to be pushed against a chain link fence to
their right, or out of the general vicinity. As well, the dirt from several
years of rain and winters, showed a definite pattern of having been recently
blown outward in all directions.

“Are you
thinking what I’m thinking?” he asked Jamie.

“Helicopter?”

He
nodded.

“Christ,
Boss, if they used a helicopter to get away—”

“This is
definitely
way bigger than we think it is.”

Cortina Street, Huntsville, Utah

Phoebe Shephard pushed open the door to the mud room as the garage
door rumbled closed. “Charlie, I’m home!” she called, not really expecting an
answer. Her son was fourteen, and was usually attached to a pair of headphones
leading to his iPhone. But announcing herself was a habit she had always done,
and would continue to do, even if it was to a house with no available ears, or
an empty one as it was on occasion.

The
fridge closed in the kitchen as she kicked her heels off, giving each foot a
quick squeeze massage, cursing her flat feet and the misogynistic bastard who
had thought it was a good idea to make women several inches taller.

“I’m
going to go upstairs and change. I’ll be down in a minute to make dinner, so
don’t eat too much! We’re having pork chops with apple sauce and mashed
potatoes and gravy. Your favorite!”

At least
she assumed it was still his favorite. As a kid Charlie had loved apple sauce,
and whenever this particular combination was served, the apple sauce was
immediately mixed in with the mashed potatoes and gravy, and every rapid bite
savored for the eternity a split second seems to a kid. The enthusiasm had
never waned, until about two years ago, when he had a sleepover at a friend’s.
Apparently the same meal was served, he mixed everything together, and was
laughed at.

He had
come home crying, and when she heard even the parents had laughed, she was
ready to go over there and tear both their throats out. Carl had stopped her,
the father of the little shit apparently being one of her husband’s
supervisors.

“Let it go,
honey. The guy’s an asshole at work, and so he’s an asshole at home. I’m not
surprised. But if we start a family feud, it could make things difficult at the
office, and things are bad enough as it is.”

It was
the first time he had made reference to things not going well at work. She had
pressed him on it, but he had refused to get into it. She had had no clue there
was a problem until that point, but with this tidbit released, she began to
notice the odd thing here and there, the sigh for no reason, the slumped
shoulders when no one was looking.

She knew
his work was top secret, some military project, so conversation was forbidden.
She was friends with Maggie Peterson, the wife of Carl’s partner, Jason. When
she had approached her on the subject a few months ago, Maggie had confessed
that she too had noticed a difference in her own husband. He was more
emotional, and on several occasions had caught him silently crying to himself,
refusing to explain why.

Something
was going on at the research facility, and what had been jubilation at an
apparent success earlier in the year, had turned into something else in recent
months.

She
entered the bedroom, eyes closed, her body working on autopilot as she pushed
the door shut behind her and began to strip out of her clothes, tossing them
blindly toward the bed. A bed that had been lonely for days.