"Fear is the foundation of most governments."
John Adams
Thoughts on Government
Reading Castle's final day summary of the coroner's inquest hearing into Comet's murder, Gray Manor sensed a smoldering fury about to erupt and ruin his evening. His post-retirement vow to curb a fiery temper that had been legendary among hard-nosed U.S. Marines was in serious jeopardy.
Castle's report about absurd testimony by an elderly female witness—who couldn't even describe Erik's location correctly, let alone what transpired in those incredibly brief two seconds, before Officer Olek Krupa fired the shot that ended Comet's life—confirmed a perception that had been taking shape for several days: Clark County Assistant District Attorneys, who had conceived, scripted and directed the farcical inquest, were bleating, in effect, "We can spin any outrageous fairy tale that suits our purposes, and you commoners can't do a damned thing about it!"
Annoyance morphed into irritation, then to full-fledged outrage, as Manor read a second document on his crypto-secure computer. It was a report prepared by a talented former Special Operations Forces psychologist Manor had tasked to assess the testimony of every inquest witness, using Filter 400, a classified software algorithm. Irreverent GIs and Marines had nicknamed the tool Whopper Whacker.
Adapted from a Central Intelligence Agency system developed in the mid-2000s, the sophisticated software had proven surprisingly effective, during interrogations of captured al Qaeda and Taliban terrorists. Filter 400 detected and fused minute visual and aural cues, then compared them with a huge matrix of psychological and physiological characteristics to determine when a person was lying.
Extensive lab testing, augmented by real-world data accumulated in the field, had brought Whopper to a consistent ninety-four-percent "hit" rate. When a terrorist was lying, his interrogators knew it.
Manor's ex-SOF psychologist had conducted hundreds of interrogations in Iraq, Afghanistan and locales that would never be disclosed. As the nation's foremost Whopper expert, his analyses and conclusions were indisputable: At least eighty-five percent of the Steele hearing witnesses had committed bald-faced perjury.
The Checkmate chief was particularly disgusted by the finding that every Metro police officer and detective had lied on the witness stand. Badged public servants, who had sworn to live by civilized society's highest standards of trust, had unflinchingly spewed a long string of falsehoods—while under oath!
Manor scanned Castle's terse report again and locked onto a single statement that appeared to be an afterthought: Sofia's private investigator interviewed several Ho's employees, who had seen… ." The rest was jaw-dropping evidence, which Sophia had deemed "Legal Top Secret," until revealed in court.
Smart move, Sofie, Manor smiled. When Counselor Knight dropped that little nuke before a jury, Ho's legal case would be on its butt. Frantic corporate lawyers would be begging to settle.
But their appeals would be too little, too late. Sophia's secret thunderbolt would destroy the $93-billion-a-year corporation. Tragically, Ho's top executives, who had pointedly ignored the Steele shooting, had no inkling that one of their own trusted employees had conspired to cover-up the truth. Now, a judge would hand the Steeles a multi-million-dollar legal victory.
A front-page Wall Street Journal story about the eye-watering judgment would drive Ho's stock into low single digits. The market's fury would be exceeded only by that of Ho's customers hurling millions of membership cards at store managers.
Hajji Taseer's arrogant exercise of tin-god authority not only killed Erik Steele, it had ruined a giant, successful company.
The demands of overseeing an increasingly complex, domestic counterterrorism campaign had prevented Manor from watching much of the Steele inquest hearing via Internet. However, he had made a point of reading Castle's summary every night, augmented by video clips automatically downloaded from streamed TV coverage.
Manor had seen enough to conclude the entire six-day coroner's inquest proceeding was a nauseating violation of American due process. How this abomination could exist anywhere in today's United States was inconceivable.
Manor closed his laptop and sauntered into the kitchen. He emptied a pot's decaf into a mug, ensured the high-end coffee brewing system was turned off, and opened a set of French doors.
A cool breeze hinted that October was around the corner.
He leaned against the rustic deck's rail and surveyed a star-studded sky. It was unusually clear, free of summer's muggy haze. The Milky Way swept across a dome of blackness, trailing a bazillion twinkling embers.
Like a streaking comet, he mused.
Comet. Erik Steele. Promising covert Checkmate operator.
Hard to believe that handsome patriot's life had been lost to such senseless inanity.
Having studied the Ho's security video—which supposedly didn't exist, according to inquest testimony—Manor was privy to an incontrovertible tidbit: Officer Olek Krupa, a low-functioning ex-prison guard, who should never have been entrusted with a badge and gun, had committed an appalling, deadly error. He'd mistaken Erik's BlackBerry phone for a semiautomatic handgun, panicked and fired.
But, rather than admitting the trigger-happy brown-shirt had made a tragic blunder, Las Vegas Metro detectives and their superiors, aided by the District Attorney, Public Administrator, Ho's managers, and God-knows-who-else, had conspired to destroy and manufacture evidence, concoct a cock-and-bull story about Erik being "drug-addled," and brazenly intimidate dozens of witnesses.
For what? To protect integrity-devoid cops, who should never have been hired in the first place? To bolster the reelection prospects of a hopelessly corrupt sheriff? To preserve the image of a glittery metropolis that lived or died on its reputation for winking at any and all activities, no matter how unscrupulous and demented?
Manor sipped tepid decaf and analyzed an edgy unsettledness that gnawed at his well-defined sensibilities. Vegas corruption bugged him, but something beyond that was corroding his spirit. Something didn't fit into an orderly, spit-and-polish, gung ho world of a career Marine.
Letting his mind roam, probe and prod gradually forced a mist to retreat into the star-sprinkled night.
Honor.
There it was, the element so vital to America's fighting forces, yet so lacking in Las Vegas public servants. Rather than protecting and serving, Las Vegas Metro cops were killing and covering.
But malfeasance wasn't confined to the police force. The Public Administrator's office, Checkmate had discovered, was running its own seniors-ripoff scam, stealing millions of dollars from its most vulnerable citizens.
Throw in conceited police union thugs, a compromised judiciary, and imperious politicians beholden to nefarious public employee unions and Strip billionaires, and the Vegas culture of corruption became the absolute antithesis of honor.
Manor sighed. He'd never encountered such a bottomless pit of venality, a collection of so many dishonest human beings under the heading of "government," as existed in Southern Nevada. That such a soulless den of iniquity and depravity could flourish in his America was deeply disturbing. He felt violated, duped.
After devoting his best years to protecting this beloved country, he found it inconceivable that fellow Americans could take such callous advantage of his sacrifices. And those of Erik Steele, Erik's father, brother, grandfathers, and millions of other patriots, who had honored oaths similar to those uttered by the law enforcement vermin who had killed Erik.
Gray Manor, witnessed by billions of distant stars and galaxies, had fully accepted the basic truth that underpinned Todd Bright's Operation Gold Shield campaign: The U.S. federal government and the good people of Nevada were incapable of excising a cancer devouring the heart and soul of Las Vegas and Clark County.
There were no identifiable tumors that could be carved out by a Department of Justice investigation. Las Vegas had become precisely what Win Steele had dubbed it: A Cartel of Corruption, a web of cancer that infected every sector of the city.
It was Checkmate's job to destroy that malignancy, before it could metastasize and devour the rest of America.
Manor admitted that he'd been dragging his feet, reluctant to unleash the full power of Gold Shield, until the Steele inquest hearing was over.
Part of him had hoped Las Vegas Metro's investigation of Comet's murder-by-cop would demonstrate a smidgen of professionalism and integrity. Like Win Steele, Manor had given the benefit of doubt to Metro cops, the district attorney's office, Ho's employees, and a host of eyewitnesses.
But the farce of an inquest had proven their wait-and-see courtesy had been naive and undeserved.
Las Vegas "official-dumb" had signed the city's death warrant. The full intensity and technological fury of Operation Gold Shield would be unchained. The hell Win had predicted in those early interviews was about to descend on Sin City.
The Vegas Cartel of Corruption had better pray for God's mercy, because none would be forthcoming from Checkmate.
* *
"Damn it, Mikey! That Steele hearing has become a national catastrophe!" Antone Galocci fumed, flapping an arm. He was pacing behind his control-center desk, yelling at a speakerphone.
"Old man Steele's blog postings are making Metro and those district attorney clowns look like Oscar-candidate schmucks! He's now calling your stupid inquest hearing 'lousy reality TV!'"
He snatched a printout from his desk, resumed pacing, and read aloud:
"Even though thousands of people were watching, the Coroner's Cop-Clearing Circus received extremely poor viewer ratings, because the amateurish script was so preposterous. Televising the fiasco backfired on Sheriff Alex Uriah. People saw firsthand that the Clark County inquest hearing is a ridiculous, money-wasting exercise in buffoonery, masquerading as a legal proceeding… ."
"Hey, don't sweat Steele's rants, Tony," Mikey Greel scoffed, his words amplified by the speakerphone's excess volume. "He's just hacked off that we totally destroyed his son's reputation. You saw what we did to Mr. West Point-Duke MBA Prince Charming!"
Galocci was impervious to Greel's scornful dismissal.
"Are you shittin' me? That dopey charade was an unmitigated disaster, Mikey," the billionaire roared. "Our people in Cleveland watched every stinkin' minute of that inquest, and they do not appreciate the backlash now exploding all over Las Vegas! Hell, my boss was embarrassed for us!
"I personally oughta castrate you bright sparks, who decided to televise the Steele inquest! For thirty years, the coroner's inquest served our purposes well, because it was confined to Vegas. Now, the whole damned country has seen what a half-witted process we have here! What's that gonna do for tourism?"
Greel clenched his teeth. Shielded by the cover of a cell phone, he popped a one-digit California salute to the Mob boss. Vader didn't give a rat's ass what Tony Galocci thought anymore.
Thoroughly exhausted and unable to form a coherent thought, Greel was totally bereft of patience. He had his own life-threatening issues! Those horrible symptoms the doc had predicted were manifesting rapidly. Soon, the cagey Vader wouldn't be able to conceal his deteriorating condition, and Galocci would simply dump him.
The old mobster was still bitching about something. Greel struggled to focus on a flood of invectives belching from his cell phone.
"Mikey, we gotta contain this jacked-up situation, before it turns into a very expensive debacle. Visitor counts are in a free fall, dropping like Uriah's poll numbers.
"So, here's what you're gonna do, Mr. Captain of Homicide: Shut… Steele… up! Now!"
The unvarnished decree caught Greel off guard. "You mean… ?"
"Hell yes! Cut his gonads off and stuff them up his nose! Run him off a damned mountain road! Shoot the SOB in the head!
"Just make sure Win Steele is wiped off the face of Planet Earth! Gone! I want Steele to vanish, Mikey! Is that plain enough for ya?"
The old geezer was totally unhinged. Greel imagined Galocci's purple-splotched face yelling at the speakerphone, flecks of spittle at the corners of flaccid lips. Tony G losing control was a repulsive sight.
Greel drew a weary breath and replied, "Got it, sir. I'll take care of it. Trust me."
"Damn it, Mikey! I'm done trusting you! This Steele shooting has been a goat-rodeo from the get-go! I don't want to hear from you, until Steele is as dead as his redheaded kid!"
Galocci slapped the speakerphone, ending the conversation.
Greel tossed his phone onto the passenger seat and leaned against the car's headrest. He was totally fried, barely able to throw one foot ahead of the other. He'd trade his entire Cayman bank account for five minutes of sound sleep. But sleep never came to Mikey Greel. Never.
Mentally slapping himself, Greel called the only Raven still on administrative leave, Officer Brad Oswald. A three-day inquest hearing a month before the Steele proceeding had exonerated Oswald for shooting Lashawn Miles, despite overwhelming evidence that Miles had been murdered.
Even the assistant DA—always a dependable Metro ally—had expressed amazed disbelief in Oswald's account of shooting the black kid in Miles' own bathroom, noting that the coroner's report did not comport with the officer's claims.
"Your bullet entered the front-left side of the victim's cranium at a downward angle," the ADA said, "suggesting that Miles was not facing you, when you fired the fatal shot. And no gun was found at the scene. Officer, how could you possibly have determined that Miles posed a threat?"
Oswald had stuck to his well-rehearsed script: "The suspect pointed something at me, which I believed to be a small handgun. Fearing for my own safety and that of my fellow officers, I fired immediately."
Of course, with only that oft-repeated account from the singular on-scene "witness" as evidence, the inquest jury had held its collective nose and ruled the killing of Miles Justified.
However, its irrational verdict had come within a whisker of causing the entire Las Vegas Valley to erupt in racial violence. Thanks to impassioned pleas from church leaders and Metro Lieutenant Jim Johns, Sheriff Alex Uriah's political challenger, the fires of minority indignation and anger had been banked—for the time being.
Having narrowly dodged the bullet of full-fledged riots, Uriah wisely sidelined Oswald. Putting that loose cannon back on the street was asking for trouble that might not be containable.
Greel phoned Oswald and gave him a new mission and detailed instructions for carrying it out. The dimwitted Oswald was more than glad to take "mental health" leave and fly to Colorado.
Vader doubted that the Raven would succeed, but was so damned tired he scarcely cared.
* *
It was snowing heavier as Win Steele worked his way up a faint trail through soaring, motionless pines blanketed in white. He waded through several inches of fluffy, weightless snow—what a ski-resort publicity genius had dubbed "Champagne powder." The forest's cold crystals reflected the early morning's weak light as a bluish tint.
In Levi’s jeans, an arch-brimmed ball cap and a dark-blue jacket with its cotton hood bunched across his shoulders, Win squinted into the snowy gloom. He climbed a long hill, following a shortcut that he knew well. Still, his toe stubbed a snow-concealed root, pitching him forward.
An angry wasp whizzed across the nape of his neck, snatching the jacket's gray hood. Simultaneously, Steele heard a sharp Crack!
Gun!
He dived to his right and rolled—shoulder, hip, back—until shielded by a thick tree trunk and beefy, exposed roots. Feet pawing for traction, he scrambled to tuck his legs behind the meager cover.
Zip-crack!
Chips of ponderosa bark splattered his cheek. He curled into an even tighter ball to become one with the pine and snow-covered Earth.
His mind was pinging between disbelief and heart-pounding fear. Somebody was shooting at him! At him!
Steele ripped a fleece-lined leather glove off and jammed his right fist into a coat pocket. Fingers closed around a small Sig Sauer P238 pistol. He pulled it free, thumbed the safety off and cocked the hammer. Ready to fire.
Pow! Pow!
A pause, then a third Pow! Muffled, sharp reports.
Win instinctively hugged the ground, lying on his left side, protected by that thick pine and its wing-like roots.
Those shots sounded different. And no slugs had slammed into his cover.
He waited, heart thumping, eyes wide. He knew where the sniper was hiding. That strange, backward-L-shaped "Ute Prayer Tree" about forty feet uphill. He'd stood at the tree months before, imagining that its chest-high horizontal leg would make an ideal gun rest, if shooting at someone on the shortcut trail below. Since Erik's murder, his overactive imagination ran to such scenarios.
Gripping the P238 semiautomatic, he coiled, preparing to shoot. In the space of a few pounding heartbeats, his overheated mind outlined a survival plan: Quick peek. Snap-shot uphill. If no return fire… .
"Hey, Win!" somebody called. "We got the shooter! You're clear!"
The deep voice was vaguely familiar.
But, what if it was the killer, coaxing him into the open?
"ID yourself!" Win yelled, cheek planted against the ponderosa's rough bark.
Smells like vanilla. Must be more than eighty years old.
The totally incongruous thought flashed and was gone.
Shit! Some jerk's trying to kill you! Focus!
"It's Bull! Your neighbor!"
"Yeah, sure! What's your house number?"
A rumbling chuckle. "One-five-eight-two-four. Across the street from Casa de Steele—and some grumpy old Air Force fart!"
Win exhaled. Danny "Bull" Ferris, his neighbor, a no-shit Army Special Forces operator. And a world-class sniper with four tours in Afghanistan under his belt.
Win cautiously shot a glance around the tree trunk. A blocky, silhouetted figure waved an arm, signaling him uphill.
"The bastard's down," Bull assured, barely audible.
They were about seventy yards from the nearest houses that bordered a 450-acre, natural-forest county park. Fortunately, the heavy snowfall created a semblance of sound barrier between Bull and those homes.
Win straightened, self-consciously slapped the snow off his butt, and started climbing. He flicked the P238's safety on, but kept the pistol in-hand, muzzle down. When he could make out Ferris's features, Win moved the small semiautomatic to his left hand and extended the right. Bull gripped it firmly.
"You alright, buddy?" he growled. The mountain of a man stood about six feet and tipped the scales at two-forty. All muscle, dark beard and a few tattoos.
"Yeah. Took one through the hoodie, but my head wasn't in it."
Win's knees were wobbly, but he felt unexpectedly calm. Hyperalert, with a pounding heart, but mentally calm.
He eyed the crumpled figure at Bull's feet.
"Sorry we didn't drop this shithead, before he got a couple off," Bull apologized. "It started snowing real hard and I lost him for a minute. Was gettin' closer, when I heard the shots, and… ."
"What the hell are you doing out here, Bull?" Win interrupted. Relieved to see his warrior neighbor, Steele hadn't considered why the Green Beret was standing over the would-be assassin, scoped rifle in hand.
Ferris grinned and spit a thin stream of brown into the snow. "Well, we got a tip that some asshole might be gunnin' for ya. We've been keeping an eye on you and Layna for a coupla days."
Win squinted against the snow, struggling to make the pieces mesh.
"We? Who's 'we'?"
Looking to the east, Bull raised a green-and-brown camouflaged rifle horizontally over his head.
"Tank and I. He fired the third shot. Just in case I'd missed."
Through a curtain of thumb-size snowflakes, Win saw another figure raise an arm, then start uphill, skirting a cluster of young pines.
Win stared down at the sprawled figure. A dark patch was spreading on the chest of a fleece jacket. One side of the guy's head was gone. A bloody mass of flesh, shattered bone and gray matter oozed from the cavity. The remainder of a face was splattered with gore.
There would be no visual ID.
"Thanks a ton, Bull. I'm damned glad you showed up," Win said. He was disoriented and light-headed, but that didn't excuse shoddy manners. When a neighbor dropped by to blow a killer's head off, you owed him a sincere and prompt "Thank You!"
"Tank" approached through the white, kicking up white rooster tails.
Ferris punched Win's shoulder.
"What the hell were you going to do with that?" he laughed, pointing at Steele's gloved hand.
Win opened his palm, revealing the Sig Sauer P238. "Shoot the son of a bitch who was shooting at me!" he grinned.
Bull's compadre arrived, prompting cursory introductions. Bull stuck with "Tank," pointedly not using the man's real name.
"Also a Tenth Special Forces sniper?" Win asked.
Tank shrugged and glanced at Bull.
"He doesn't talk much," Ferris chuckled. "'Scuse me a second."
He put a cell phone to his ear and barked a couple of commands, interrupting himself long enough to peer at Tank's GPS receiver. Bull read a set of coordinates, accurate to seconds.
Shoving the phone into a military vest's pocket, Bull tossed the rifle over his shoulder, letting it hang by a tan sling.
"Dude, you'd better get the hell out of here," he ordered. "We'll take care of this asshole."
"Right… but, who sent you?" Win asked. "And why you guys? Since when do Army snipers… ?"
Bull scrutinized Steele closely, a half-smile creasing unshaven features.
"Well, first off, Erik was a brother. A professional Army officer and… ." He cleared his throat.
"Second, you have some powerful friends, sir. Damned powerful! Somehow, they're wired into the dirtbags who killed your son, because they knew this dumb ass was coming. Don't know who they are, though.
"Ya see, I get a call from my contact, and I start following my old-fart ex-Air Force neighbor. Tank tracks your missus. Two days later, this dickhead shows up and starts casing your casa. We shift gears and stick with him. He wanders into the park this morning, before you show up, and we trot along behind him. He takes a shot at you, I pop him twice, Tank puts one more in him, for good measure.
"One-each asshole, seriously dead."
"Thanks, again, Bull. Any idea who this guy is?"
"Naw. Others will get an ID on him later today. We just tag 'em and bag 'em.
"My guess? He's a cop. Dumb ass tried to nail you with a police standard-issue Glock nine-mil adapted to take a screw-on noise attenuator. Stupid shit setup. Worthless for sniping."
Bull looked over Win's shoulder and waved. A four-wheeler was bouncing up the hill, dragging a low-slung trailer.
"Time for you to haul ass back home, sir," Bull ordered.
"Rog. But… why you, Bull?" Win persisted, unwilling to let his questions be sidestepped. "Being tapped for Steele babysitting seems more than a little random!"
Ferris grinned broadly and punched Win's shoulder again. "You really think we moved into that rental across the street by chance?"
He laughed heartily and gently pushed Win aside, allowing the four-wheeler to reach the victim.
"Might wanna change the pattern of your daily walkabouts," Ferris admonished. "Take different routes, when you're out for a constitutional. And vary the time of day. You're waaaay too predictable! Just like a damned head-up-and-locked Air Force puke! Now, get outta here!"
The brawny special operator clipped a series of orders, as Steele trekked downhill. At the bottom, Win watched a couple of Bull's troops cover a lump in the trailer.
Bull angrily waved, shooing him along.
By the time Win reached a narrow path lined with split rail fences, marking the housing area's border, the Army Special Forces team was no longer visible. The four-wheeler's engine kicked to life, muted by the heavy snowfall. Win listened long enough to determine the rig was headed toward a parking lot below Spruce and Aspen lakes.
Realizing he'd dropped a glove at the base of his cover tree, Steele briefly considered going back to retrieve it. But only briefly. Logic said there was about a minus-ten-percent chance of a second shooter being up there, but he wasn't about to tempt the gods. He'd paw through the snow and find it tomorrow. That is, if he took the same trail.
He hustled up the street, relishing the sensation of cold flakes tickling his nose, glad to be alive. Reflecting on the close call, he thought, Damn lucky I tripped over that root.
… Or was I pushed? Had Erik put a hand in his back and face-planted ol' dad in the snow?
Thanks, Big Son. God, I don't know who logs the "save," but thanks… again.
Slogging through powder accumulating in his driveway, Win recalled a question posed to him years ago, after he'd bailed out of that doomed business jet: If you were spared for a purpose, are you living up to that purpose?
As then, he wondered.
He levered the front door handle and made a decision to not worry Layna by telling her about the sniper. Chances are, she would never notice the jagged rip in his jacket's hood.
* *
Brrrrt!
Captain Mikey Greel rarely heard his doorbell. Carly Singer's unannounced drop-ins were via the garage. Otherwise, he never had visitors.
Stuffing his Glock into a rear pocket, he shuffled to the door and checked a security peephole. Some kind of delivery guy in a ball cap. Always cautious, he cracked the door.
"Michael Greel?" The young man was wearing a FedEx uniform. The company's distinctive logo was splayed across a step van at the curb.
"Yeah, that's me."
"Special delivery for you, sir. Must be important. I don't see many of these cold packs."
Puzzled, Greel signed for the insulated package and bolted the door. In the kitchen, he examined the parcel carefully. Silver, metallic tape sealed a high-density-foam cube measuring about ten inches on a side. Very lightweight. No return address.
Not a bomb, he decided.
Paranoid, yes, but healthy suspicion had served him well. He sliced a swatch of tape that sealed a foam lid in place.
Mikey Greel had a lot of enemies, but very few friends or close family. Maybe someone back east had heard about his illness and sent a gift to cheer him up.
He indulged a pang of remorse. The doc said Greel didn't have long to live, and he had little to show for his four-plus decades on the planet. And damned little to be proud of.
At arm's length, he pried the foam lid up and wiggled it free, accompanied by a squeal of protesting Styrofoam. A wisp of mist followed, the remnants of evaporated dry ice. A single page of ordinary typing paper was folded and wedged into the chilled foam. Removing it exposed two brownish sausages.
Greel recoiled in horror, loosing an involuntary screech. The "sausages" were bloody index fingers, chopped off between the first and second knuckles. Both fingernails were blue and streaked with dried blood. The cut end of each member was flattened to an oval of dark meat. A cleaver or ax had whacked the fingers off, exposing splintered stubs of bone.
The homicide chief broke into a sweat, eyes bulging and his heart galloping. With trembling hands, he unfolded the paper and read a hand-scrawled note:
Captain Greel: Digits are courtesy of your killer-boy, Officer Brad J. Oswald, Las Vegas Metro Badge #8546. This lowlife tried to assassinate Mr. Win Steele, like he did Lashawn Miles. He failed. You and Erik's killers are now in our crosshairs. We never fail.
Not since he was caught standing over his partner, gun in hand and three New York Police Department officers yelling, "Drop it!" had Vader been so damned scared.
Death was knocking.