Chapter 5

?

A marylis was just cleaning up, taking off her apron and her gloves, when Dr. Cox walked over and asked to see her for a moment. “Problems?”

As she walked over to her office, he stepped inside, closed the door, and quickly gave her a story she had a hard time believing. “He walked into the lab with a gun?” she asked in shock.

He nodded.

“What about the security guard?”

“He was not at his post.”

She stared at him and shook her head. “But that means…” Then she fell silent.

“Yes. That’s exactly what that means.”

She shook her head again. “So, now what?”

“Now, not to mention the fact that we have a body to process out in front of the building, there will also be an investigation as to how he got the gun through our supposed security.”

“Of course.” She pinched the bridge of her nose. “And I thought Tristan was overreacting.”

“What do you mean? Have you talked to him today?”

She quickly filled him in on the text she got.

“So, he’s been sitting out in the parking lot?”

She nodded. “Yes, he suspected somebody was coming after the key.”

“Obviously they decided that doing it secretively wouldn’t work.”

“Surely these bad guys had to expect some repercussions.”

“I think the trick here was that the bad guys were looking to see if we had the key or not. When one of the lab techs gave our gunman a dummy key, he took it and ran. When he went outside and held it up, as directed, the bad guys would have known it was the wrong one.”

She nodded. “The little car design is fairly distinctive. So now they will be wondering whether it’s here or whether somebody tried to cheat the gunman. Yet we have no way to know because he’s dead.” She walked over and grabbed her medical bag. “Is this body for you or me?”

“I suggest we both go take a look, and we will need the forensics guys too.”

She winced at that. “They won’t be too impressed if they were already dealing with him, as the live gunman in their faces.”

“I don’t think anybody is too impressed at the moment, but we will all do our jobs because we’re professionals.”

She walked out the front doors with him to see a small crowd had gathered. Tristan detached himself and walked over to join them with a smile. “Are you okay?”

“I don’t know. You keep giving me work.”

A grin flashed across his face. “In that case, I will say you’re doing okay.” He looked over at Dr. Cox. “And you?”

Dr. Cox nodded. “But you know as well as I do, young man, that we need this to stop,” he noted bitterly. “It’s one thing to have this happening out in the world, but another thing entirely when my own office is targeted.”

“Got it,” he murmured. “I did talk to the gunman, and he did appear to be pressured to do this. I tried to convince him to not go outside and to not hold up the key, but he wasn’t listening to reason.”

“And, of course, you knew it was the wrong USB key.”

He nodded at that. “Are you bringing your forensics techs down here now?”

“We’ve got the three who were up there, but I’ve asked them to stand by, to remain in the lab,” Dr. Cox explained. “I’ve got another team coming in to give us a hand with the crime scene itself.”

“I can only imagine the work involved in your morgue this week.”

“Yeah. At this point, my own damn lab needs to be analyzed as a crime scene.”

“It was a pretty clear-cut shooting,” Tristan shared, “and we weren’t the shooters.”

“That’s a good thing,” Dr. Cox muttered. He stopped in front of the body, then looked around and shook his head. “He didn’t even get off the front step.”

“His orders were to hold up the key and to show them that he had it. He probably thought there would be cover fire to give him a way to get out from under our two MPs and to ensure he got away. So much for that thought. What about your security system here?”

“That’s an interesting question. How did he even get inside with a gun?” Dr. Cox asked.

“And, for that matter, how did I?” Tristan asked.

“You had a gun too?” Amarylis asked, staring at him.

He nodded. “By the time he walked in, I had mine in my jacket pocket, so I could shoot if I needed to.”

“Jeez,” she muttered, “so our security guard was out of pocket and our scanners aren’t working either.”

“The guard was told that someone else took his shift today. We’ll check more into that. As for your scanners, I think they’ve been turned off.”

Dr. Cox closed his eyes, his face red and heading to purple. “That is something I will deal with right now.” He looked at Amarylis and asked, “Are you okay to process this?”

She nodded and walked over to the gunman. Somebody had thrown a blanket over his face. She pulled it back, took one look, and sighed.

“Do you recognize him?” Tristan asked.

“No, I sure don’t. I’ve never seen him before in my life.”

As she worked, she noted that Tristan was staying close but off to the side. When she finally managed to stand up and to step away, leaving the forensics team to process the scene, she looked over at Tristan. “You don’t think it’s over, do you?”

“They didn’t get the key, did they?”

She winced and nodded. “Do you think giving him the fake key was the wrong thing for these guys to do?”

“No. From their point of view, it got the gunman off their backs in that moment. I can’t blame them for that. They’re all just hoping to go home at the end of the day and to not have to deal with this. Plus, they probably couldn’t have fathomed what to me was a given.”

“So, you’re assuming the bad guys will return.”

“Yes. They feel they need the USB key, and, considering the information that’s on it, I doubt that they will give up quite so easily.”

She frowned and nodded. “Do you think the blackmailees did anything to get themselves killed?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know the situation these guys are in, but this one today definitely showed signs of desperation.”

“He told you that he was under pressure to do this?” she asked.

Tristan nodded. “I assumed at the time that it was blackmail related, but I didn’t get a chance to confirm it with him. He went outside with the key in his hand, unconcerned with the two MPs Jasper had stationed out here. So, as ordered, our gunman held up the key as soon as he was outside and took a bullet between the eyes.”

“Jeez,” she muttered. “Then again the stuff that’s on that key must be pretty damning.”

“It’s very damning. What the bad guys don’t know is that it’s already too late, and we have it.”

“Or had it,” she corrected, turning to face him.

“ Had it is right,” he confirmed, with a frown.

“So, do you trust the guys who ended up with the key?”

“I trust the person I was dealing directly with, yes,” he clarified. “I can understand the doubt on your part, but Mountain is as trustworthy as they come, and he’s got connections.”

She shrugged. “As long as you’re sure, it doesn’t matter to me,” she muttered. “Yet right now, all of it seems suspect.”

“That’s because some pretty big names are involved in that blackmail list, some with pretty big positions, and nobody will be very happy if any of this information gets loose, particularly if it goes to a foreign body.”

“Ouch, I hadn’t considered that potential, but I guess, once a person’s integrity is compromised to that degree, the stakes just get even higher.”

“Sure does,” Tristan agreed, with a nod. He looked around and asked, “How much more do you have to do here?”

“Not a whole lot more to do,” she replied. “Just this one scene. We’ll track his pathway up the stairs and into the lab and then back outside again, but I highly doubt we will find anything else. We have witnesses. You and the rest of the techs,” she noted. “So, once we’ve got questions asked and answered, we’ll be done, though I’m quite concerned about the staff.”

“We should be concerned. Jasper’s talking about getting some additional guards in here.”

“And yet will that make a difference?”

“The fact that today’s guy came in with a weapon is a problem, and I’m still not exactly sure how he did that. When I saw that he came straight in, I brought my weapon right in too.”

She smiled. “I guess we can be grateful for that. At least you didn’t have to use it this time.”

“No, I didn’t, but the minute I knew he was determined to come outside, it was already a lost cause for him.”

“How pathetic and sad is that?” she said, shaking her head. “Obviously somebody’s pretty desperate.”

“Desperate people make mistakes,” Tristan noted, then hesitated.

She eyed him and asked, “What?”

“Just wondered if you picked up on the fact that he was taken out by a sniper?”

She winced. “I hadn’t made that connection, but thanks for that reminder. So, are we thinking this is connected to your friend in the hospital?”

“Oh, I’m pretty sure it somehow connects to Mason,” Tristan replied, as he watched the techs work. “We haven’t been able to find out how yet.”

“And that’s the worst, isn’t it? You know that there’s a problem, and you’re trying your best to make sure that problem is dealt with. Yet, every time you turn around, there’s a new player.”

“The only player that I’m interested in at this point is the one who pulled the trigger today. This guy here was just a patsy and didn’t need to die. If he’d listened to me, we might have had a chance at keeping him alive,” Tristan explained.

“Why is that?”

“He was more than determined to keep his own secret under wraps, but now? Now I just get to rip apart his life and find it out anyway.” And, with that, he grimaced at her.

She wondered what was on his mind. “I would say lunch or coffee is out for the moment.”

He half smiled, apparently amused at the absurdity of the situation. “That was my take too. I need to head back to the office to see what I can find on this guy.”

“If you find anything of interest, please let me know,” she said. “We’ll do our job here, but, if you’ve got anything to offer or to add, it would sure be a help.”

“I hear you. I’ll share whatever I find.” And, with that, he turned and walked away.

*

Tristan walked into the investigative department to find Jasper standing there, with both Morgan and Sam glaring at him. Tristan raised an eyebrow. “Obviously things here are a little tense, so am I in the way or am I in the middle of it?” he asked.

“You’re right in the middle of it,” Sam snapped.

“Look. We don’t get in the middle of these kinds of things,” Morgan said in a somewhat calmer tone.

“That’s nice,” Tristan replied cheerfully. “So what do you expect me to do when a gunman stands there in the lab, pointing his weapon around?” he asked, tilting his head, staring at Morgan, still wearing a smile on his face. “Am I supposed to walk away, leave those lab guys to twist in the wind because it’s not my job ?”

Morgan held out his hands. “All I’m saying is that we don’t get involved in these kinds of things.”

“What do you mean, we don’t get involved in these kinds of things ?” Tristan asked in disgust. “That just makes me suspicious as hell as to what you do get involved in,” he snapped, as he looked over at Sam.

Sam’s eyebrows shot straight up, and he shook his head. “I sure as hell hope you aren’t suggesting anything irregular is coming out of this office,”

“ Irregular has been the only thing that defines this office since Jasper arrived.” Tristan crossed his arms, leaned back against the door jamb, and stared at them. “I still fail to see what you guys do while you’re here.”

“What are you talking about? We work our asses off.” Morgan had lost his cool now too.

“And yet you accomplish nothing.” That came from the boss who had walked up behind them.

“That’s not true,” Sam declared, his face turning motley red. “You’re the one who stopped us from working on one of the cases.”

The boss just glared at him and turned to look at Morgan. “Morgan, what do you have to say about this?”

Morgan shook his head. “We’re just figuring out what’s going on right now,” he said, raising both hands. “Apparently having Tristan here involved in some confrontation was okayed by Jasper. Not only that, but they also removed some evidence from the lab, and that will never go over well.”

Jasper gave Morgan a hard smile. “In that case, call retired Commander Magellan and complain to him yourself.”

Sam stared at him in shock. “What?”

“You heard me,” Jasper continued, then looked from Sam to Morgan and back to his immediate boss. “You can call him too, if that’s what you all need to get over it.”

“I already have,” the local boss snapped, then looked to Sam and Morgan, who were clearly still shell-shocked by the name drop. “That shit happens,” the boss declared, “and they’ve pulled the information.”

“That’s not allowed,” Sam argued, snarling. “We don’t have people in this world that just get to pull something collected as evidence.”

Tristan frowned, as Sam seemed to have completely forgotten that his own boss had stopped his investigation into the disappearance of their own investigator, Nicholas.

Yet, when that boss turned to glare back at Sam, it was obvious that the boss hadn’t forgotten.

“Oh,” Morgan muttered, turning to face his boss. “Is that why you had us stop the investigation into Nicholas?”

“There are things you don’t need to know about,” the boss declared stiffly, “but questioning me definitely won’t get you any answers.”

“Maybe not,” Sam spat, turning to look at him. “Yet how do we know that we haven’t accidentally been involved in some of this bloody bullshit ourselves, just by following orders?”

“You don’t,” the boss declared, staring at him. “Get used to it. That’s the way the military works.”

“Not always,” Sam argued. “This is supposed to be the job we do, investigating the people who do this shit. We’re not supposed to be the ones doing it.”

“Doing what?” the boss asked, his tone turning hard and cold. “Remember who you’re talking to.”

Sam shook his head. “I don’t have to remember who I’m talking to. I’m talking to the man who had us stop working on the case of our own missing investigator.” He was not slowing down because, in his mind, this is what led to Jasper coming on base, which led to them getting benched. “That was a lump that was very hard to swallow at the time, and it’s even harder to swallow, now that evidence has suddenly gone missing.”

“None of it has gone missing,” Jasper declared, his tone calm. “Even if nobody else in this room had been there, it’s been removed for safekeeping.”

“ Safekeeping ,” Sam repeated, with an eye roll. “In other words, brushed under the carpet.”

“I don’t think so,” Jasper stated, “but it’s definitely being handled by a higher pay grade than what you or any of the rest of us have at the moment.”

The boss looked like he had been kicked in the teeth, but he held his gaze steady.

“That shouldn’t be the way this works,” Sam snapped, staring at Jasper in frustration. “We shouldn’t have to bow to the bosses above who keep shit hidden. That’s how this stuff happens and keeps happening.”

“I won’t argue with you about that,” Jasper replied. “I’m just telling you that the information involved has been removed and that your boss here knows about it.”

“ Your boss ,” Morgan jumped on to that wording. “Meaning he’s our boss but not yours?”

“At the moment, he is not,” Jasper stated, without batting an eye. “At the moment, I’m answering to somebody else. And, if you don’t think I still have to answer to them, then you don’t have any understanding of how my phone calls and emails have been going of late,” he shared, with a flat look toward Tristan.

Tristan nodded. “We all have to account for our actions. Whether you believe it or not, none of us gets to walk away from this free and clear.”

“Yet you were there at the lab this morning. Why?”

“I anticipated that whoever knew about the missing evidence would go after it, so I requested to be on security detail for the lab. Still, I knew it would take a little bit to get put in place. So, I sat there and watched just in case, and I saw the gunman go in.”

“So what?” Sam barked. “You decided, just like that, to go in after him? What the hell?”

“Of course I did. What kind of investigators are you who wouldn’t go after a gunman?”

“We call for backup, for one thing,” Sam declared in fury.

“I did call for backup,” Tristan replied, “and then I went straight in because I didn’t want to see the lab techs have to deal with a gunman, when none of the techs are equipped with weapons. Not to mention the fact that they aren’t even trained on how to ask questions the way we are.”

“So, you jumped right in, huh ?” Sam asked, pressing on.

“Yeah, I did. I have a weapon, and I’m licensed to use it,” Tristan declared, his voice hard as he replied. “And I don’t know what problem you’ve got rammed up your ass,” he added, staring down at Sam, as his formerly cheerful aura burned away and was replaced with fury, “but you better get it out of there before it turns your attitude to shit.” Sam was about to bark a reply when Tristan went on, “And, by the way, I don’t have to explain my motives to you, and I sure as hell don’t have to explain my actions. We all have people we report to, and you’re not it.” And, with that, he turned and walked into the office he’d been using and shut the door.

A few minutes later Jasper walked in and sat down across from him. “Don’t let them get to you.”

Tristan shrugged. “I shouldn’t. I just don’t understand why they’re even still here.”

“They’re technically working their own hours at the moment. They just don’t yet know that they’re being moved,” Jasper shared. “I’m sorry for that because it seems like it’s all underhanded, and I don’t understand why.”

When Jasper hesitated, Tristan waved a hand. “I get it. I do. It wouldn’t be happening if the brass didn’t think it was needed,” he said, with an eye roll.

“We’ve also not cleared them yet either.”

“Of course we haven’t cleared them,” Tristan muttered. “That would be too easy, wouldn’t it?”

“The problem is that nobody’s making it easy,” Jasper stated.

“Of course not, and, because of that, they will lose their jobs.”

“No, they will be reassigned,” Jasper corrected.

“Which means they’re losing their jobs, their jobs right here that they may or may not have liked.”

“But we will have a completely new department,” Jasper stated firmly. “Ever since I got assigned to investigate the attack on Mason, it’s been one step forward and two back with this case. I’m not dealing with this rogue team on top of all that. So I’m letting the brass move slowly on these guys.”

“What about their boss?” Tristan asked. “That comment blew up too.”

“It sure did. Still was true though.”

“It was true, but how long do we have to hold off?”

“Until this is done,” Jasper replied. “That’s what we’re here for.”

“Maybe so, but we’re sure finding all kinds of other shit while we’re at it.”

“That’s what happens, doesn’t it? We dig, we dig, and we dig, and we find shit, more shit, and even more shit. Eventually the hope is that you find the plug that’s stopping the sewer from draining.” Jasper shrugged. “As soon as we do that, we’ll be good to go.” Just then Jasper’s phone rang. “This is Tesla. I have to get it.… Hey, Tesla. Is everything okay?” he asked, with a certain urgency in his tone.

Even Tristan heard her crying over the phone.

“He’s awake, Jasper. Mason’s awake,” she cried out. “He’s awake.”

Jasper grinned and looked over at Tristan.

Tristan waved Jasper on. “Go on,” Tristan said. “Go talk to Mason. He’s the one who’s likely to give us the best help out of all this.”

“I hope so,” Jasper noted, “because the alternative is that he knows nothing.”

“One thing,” Tristan added, with a note of warning in his tone, just as Jasper went to leave the room. “You’ve also got to consider that he might not remember anything. Not yet.”

Jasper nodded. “I’m ignoring that aspect for now and just am happy he’s awake.”

“Good, because head injuries can be a problem.”

“Not only that but Mason’s other wounds as well. I’ll let you know as soon as I hear anything more.” And, with that, Jasper raced from the room.

Tristan sat for a long moment, a smile on his face, thinking how amazing it would be if Mason made it through this. Aside from all the obvious reasons that they needed him to make it, everybody needed him to. They needed the reassurance that, at least sometimes, when it counted, the good guys won.