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“Like I said, I wouldn’t get a thing done,” Muller said and he smiled at Noble in a way that Bree found kind of strange.

  Noble did not respond, merely took out the three bullets that had killed Tommy McGrath, the two that had struck Edita Kravic, and the single shot that had ended Terry Howard’s life.

  “They’re all a match for this gun,” Muller said, handing over the suicide .45 in an evidence bag.

  “Says who?”

  “I dunno,” Muller said. “Someone here.”

  “I can call up the report,” Bree said, pulling out her phone.

  Noble held up her hand. “I believe you. So all you’re looking for is confirmation that the ammunition in this box matches these six rounds?”

  “Exactly,” Bree said.

  “It should be easy,” the tech said. “We have everything Federal makes in the SAF, the standard ammunition file.”

  She looked at the end of the box. “Personal-defense grade, two hundred and thirty grain. Pretty standard for a forty-five semiautomatic.”

  Noble opened the box, took out one of the fourteen remaining bullets, looked at it, and frowned. “That doesn’t match.”

  Chapter

  63

  “What?” Muller said. “You haven’t even looked at the others.”

  “I don’t need to,” Noble said, miffed. “The unfired cartridges here might indeed match the killing rounds, but they do not match the labeling on the Federal box.”

  “No markings around the primers, right?” Bree said.

  Noble cocked her head in appreciation and nodded. “That is correct, Chief Stone. All commercially made handgun ammunition has a stamp indicating manufacture and caliber on the brass around the primer.”

  “Which means what?” Muller asked.

  “Which means that these are hand loads,” the tech said. “Someone bought the components—the brass, the powder, the primer, and the bullets—and built these to custom specifications.”

  “We didn’t see any hand-loading equipment at Howard’s apartment or in the storage unit,” Muller said.

  “He could have hired someone to build the bullets,” Noble said.

  “So do they all match?” Bree asked.

  “Give me a few minutes,” Noble said, and then she looked at Muller. “You neat enough to get coffee and bring it back?”

  “On my best days,” Muller said, and he gave her that goofy grin again.

  While Noble told Muller how to get to the cafeteria, he continued to moon at her. Bree happened to look at the ammunition tech’s left hand. No ring.

  She fought not to laugh. Muller was smitten!

  Part of her wanted to mention his kidney stones or one of his other ailments, but she took pity and said nothing when he hurried off.

  “He’s an odd duck,” Noble said, starting to work on the bullets.

  “He kind of grows on you after a while,” Bree said.

  “Married?” the tech asked.

  “Divorced.”

  “Hmm,” Noble said, and she kept at her work.

  Twenty minutes later, Muller returned. The ammunition specialist didn’t look his way. She stared at the image of a bullet on her computer screen.

  He put the coffee in front of her, and she said, “The bullets in the box are a match for the used slugs. They’re all Bear Creek moly-coated two-hundred-grain RNHBs. Which are about as far as could be from the specs on the box. These were made by and for an expert to exact, competition-level specs.”

  “You mean like three-gun competitions?” Muller asked.

  “Or straight pistol on a combat range,” the tech said.

  “That’s a problem, then,” Bree said. “As far as we know, Terry Howard never competed with a pistol, never built his own bullets, and was not a gun nut. Well, not a pistol nut.”

  “Howard could have gotten the custom ammunition with the gun,” Noble said. “Bought them from the owner.”

  Bree said, “Or maybe an expert shot, someone who competes with a forty-five handgun and builds his own ammo, killed all three of them and framed Howard to get away with it.”

  Chapter

  64

  They waited until the heart of the cloudy night before turning on night-vision goggles and climbing over the chained and locked aluminum gate.

  Hobbes and Fender went over smoothly, making no sound. But John Brown’s bad knee was acting up again. As he straddled the gate, the chain clinked ever so softly.

  Brown landed on the dirt road on the other side. A dog barked once, straight to the south, five, maybe six hundred yards. Brown saw in his night-vision goggles that Hobbes was holding up his hand for him not to move.

  Another bark, and then nothing for five long minutes.

  “Like a cat, now,” Fender whispered through a jawbone microphone, and he began to pad down the dirt driveway.

  Fender wore fleece-bottomed booties over his sneakers. They all wore them and barely made a sound moving deeper and deeper into the property. The dog stayed quiet.

  That wouldn’t last long with a trained canine listening and scent-checking the wind. For the moment, however, they had it made from a scent perspective. A sturdy breeze blew right in their faces. The dog’s superior nose was disabled.

  But sooner or later, one of the German shepherds would hear something or perhaps see them moving into position. If the noise was blatant or the dog got a solid look at them, it would certainly bark and sound an alarm. Things would get difficult then, but not untenable.

  If the movements and noises they made were soft and irregular, however, the dogs would be uncertain and would come to investigate. And that would make things easier all around.

  They crossed a clearing without alerting the dogs and crept closer. Slats of light from the house were visible through the trees when Hobbes toed a rock. It rolled and tumbled into the ditch.

  The dog barked once. Brown and his men froze, listening, and heard a low growl and then a heavy dog’s nails clicking and scraping on porch floorboards. They’d anticipated something like this scenario and stayed with their plan. Hobbes stepped off the right side of the driveway into the ditch. He leaned against the bank there, both hands gripping a pistol with tritium night sights.

  Brown and Fender did the same on the left side of the drive, back to back, with Brown facing the house with his pistol, Fender covering their trail with an ultralight, suppressed backpacking rifle.

  Rather than circling to catch their scent in the wind, the dog came directly at them, trotting confidently down the driveway and into the dense pines where they waited.

  When the dog was fifteen yards away, Hobbes pulled the trigger, causing a burst of pressurized air to drive a tranquilizer dart into the animal’s shoulder.

  It made a soft yipping sound, staggered to its left, panted, and went down.

  No one budged for another five long minutes, during which Brown caught the faint sound of—cheering? And where was the second dog? Inside?

  Hobbes moved first; he stalked forward to the edge of the yard, Brown right behind him. Fender passed them and stuck to the shadows, moving to the right and up onto a dirt mound where he could get a better look at the front of the house.

  Brown paused next to Hobbes, hearing the voices of announcers and seeing the flicker of a television through the partially open blinds of the room to the right of the front door.

  “See anything in there?” he murmured.

  Chapter

  65

  A few moments later, Fender said, “College football highlights playing on the big-screen, but I’m not seeing anyone in there watching. Dark, though. Lot of shadows. Hard to tell.”

  “I’m going,” Brown said, and he moved slowly across the yard, heading past a Grady-White fishing boat toward a motorcycle. He crouched by the side of the bike and worked at a leather saddlebag strap with leather gloves.

  When Brown had it open, he drew out from his jacket a plastic ziplock bag that held a kit wrapped in dark cloth. He got the kit free of the plastic and
placed it behind a tool kit in the saddlebag.

  Then he reached into a top pocket and fished out a film canister. He opened it and spilled the contents onto the gas tank.

  “I’ve got him,” Fender whispered in Brown’s earbud. “He’s leaning forward in a chair. Just changed the channel.”

  “Kill him if you can,” Brown said, buckling the saddlebag.

  Fender’s ultralight rifle produced a sound similar to the air pistol’s. The bullet made a small tinkling noise as it passed through the screen, the blinds, and the window, and then there was the sound of lead hitting flesh and bone.

  “Done,” Fender said.

  “Done,” Brown said; he spun away from the Harley and took off in a low crouch across the yard.

  Inside the house, a woman began to scream.

  “Shit,” Hobbes said. “He wasn’t alone.”

  “Too late,” Brown said. “Get to the car.”

  They sprinted into the pines, through them, and across the clearing. When they entered the woodlot close to the road, Brown thought they were going to get away clean. The woman had stopped screaming. She was probably calling 911, but they were less than one hundred yards from the car. Nothing could—

  A form hurtled out of the woods to Brown’s right and sprang at him with a guttural snarl. The second dog got hold of his upper right arm and bit down viciously.

  “Ahhh!” Brown cried out, feeling his flesh rip as the dog shook its head and dragged him down. Brown sprawled on his side, but he still had his pistol in his right hand.

  The dog released its hold and bit again, harder this time.

  Before Hobbes or Fender could do a thing to help him, Brown let go of the pistol, grabbed it with his left hand, and, at point-blank range, fired a tranquilizer dart into the attack dog’s stomach.

  It yelped and scratched the back of Brown’s head getting off him. It didn’t make it six more feet before flopping over and panting.

  Part Four

  The Regulators

  Chapter

  66

  An hour after sunrise, Ned Mahoney, John Sampson, and I were looking into an open saddlebag attached to Nicholas Condon’s Harley-Davidson. There was a rectangular package inside, wrapped in dark cloth.

  “What’s in it?” Mahoney asked.

  “Haven’t looked,” Condon said. “Soon as I saw it, I called Dr. Cross.”

  “Before or after someone shot at you?” Mahoney said.

  “You mean before or after someone head-shot my dummy,” Condon said. “That’s exactly why I’ve got a little winch on a timer in there. Makes the mannequin move every four or five minutes throughout the night. Handy gadget.”

  I didn’t comment on the fact that the sniper had to have a decoy in order to sleep soundly; I just focused on the package.

  “No indication of a bomb?” Sampson asked.

  “No,” Condon said. “After Azore woke up, I had him sniff it.”

  “Could the lingering effects of the drug throw off the dog’s sense of smell?” I asked.

  “I’d be glad to take the package out for you if you’re not up to the job.”

  “I’ll do it,” Mahoney said, and he stuck a gloved hand into the saddlebag and came out with the package. “Heavy.”

  He set it down and started to work at the knot that held the fabric together.

  “You said they were scared off by a woman screaming,” Sampson said.

  “I said they were scared off by a woman’s scream,” Condon said. “An app on my iPhone. Goes to Bluetooth and my speakers. You’d swear she was right there, screaming her head off.”

  “How’s the other dog?” I asked. “The one you said bit one of them?”

  “Denni. She’s resting inside.”

  “We didn’t find any blood out on the road yet,” Mahoney said, finally getting the knot undone.

  “There’s blood there somewhere,” Condon said. “I could hear the guy yelling. She got into him good before he knocked her out.”

  “You wash her?”

  “No, but I caught Azore licking her muzzle, so I don’t know what you’ll get from her.”

  “Okay,” Mahoney said, folding back the fabric, revealing something silkscreened on the other side and a cardboard box.

  He lifted the box up. We could see now that the fabric was a piece of a T-shirt featuring artwork for Reggae Sunsplash, a Jamaican music festival.

  “I wondered where that went,” Condon said.

  “Stolen?”

  “Or I left it at the gym. Either way, my DNA will be all over it.”

  Mahoney opened the cardboard box. There was a large envelope inside and a .45-caliber Remington model 1911.

  “That yours?” I asked.

  “No,” he said. “Nice gun, though I prefer a Glock in a forty caliber.”

  “Me too, actually,” Mahoney said, opening the envelope.

  He pulled out several pages of architectural drawings and diagrams.

  “Yours?” Sampson asked.

  Condon looked them over and shook his head. “No. What are they?”

  Mahoney shrugged and gave them to me. I studied them and almost handed them off to Sampson before it dawned on me what they were.

  “These are drawings of the attack locations,” I said. “This one’s the factory where they killed the meth makers. And this one shows an aerial view of the tobacco-drying sheds and the road coming down the middle.”

  Condon said, “Before you say anything, there is no way those are mine. This was supposed to be a diversion. Kill me and plant evidence. Keep you guys off the trail of the real vigilante crew.”

  The more I thought about it, the more I thought Condon was right—unless, of course, he’d shot his dummy-on-a-rope and put the evidence in his saddlebag to keep us from suspecting he was part of the vigilante group.

  For the time being, however, I was going to trust him.

  “So whoever they are, they think you’re dead,” Sampson said.

  “A fair assumption,” Condon said.

  “Let’s let them think it,” I said.

  Mahoney looked at me with a raised eyebrow. “What for?”

  “Make them believe that they’ve succeeded and the investigation has shifted to looking at Condon’s circle of mercenary friends.”

  “And we start quietly looking for a victim of a dog bite,” Sampson said.

  “Among other things,” I said, trying to wrap my head around this entire incident. Why implicate Condon? Why not someone else? Why attempt to kill him?

  The only solid answer I came up with was that they knew of Condon’s past and had decided he would be the perfect fall guy.

  “I thought of that while I was waiting for you to get here,” Condon replied. “But maybe it was more than that. Maybe they were trying to kill me because I do know something about your vigilantes. Two of them, anyway.”

  Chapter

  67

  That morning, as Alex, Sampson, and Mahoney were talking to Condon, Bree was struggling to make connections between the late chief of detectives Tom McGrath, Edita Kravic, and a competition pistol shooter.

  She had the late Terry Howard’s service records up on her computer screen. Four times during Howard’s career, he’d failed his annual shooting qualification test. On his best day, he was evaluated as an average shot.

  Hardly the competitor, Bree thought and shut the file.

  But lots of police officers did compete. It kept their marksmanship sharp. So she couldn’t discount the possibility of a cop or a former cop or a former military guy, perhaps someone McGrath and Howard knew, being the shooter.

  Her desk phone rang.

  “Stone,” she said.

  “Michaels,” the police chief said. “I’m not happy.”

  “Chief?”

  “I’m hearing rumors that you’ve reopened the McGrath case.”

  “True,” she said, her heart starting to race.

  “Goddamn it, Stone, I’m going to get crucified over this. Howard’
s our guy. You said so yourself.”

  “I believed it then, Chief,” she said. “But not now.”

  She recounted her visit to the FBI lab and finished by saying, “So I think the way we look at this is, we take some lumps for jumping to the wrong conclusion, but we’ll get applauded when it comes out we were dogged enough to recognize our mistake and find the real killer.”

  Chief Michaels sighed, said, “I can live with that. Any suspects?”

  “Not yet.”

  “We’re at square one on a dead cop?”

  “Definitely not,” she said. “We’ve got new leads we’re actively working.”

  “Keep me posted, will you please?”

  “You’ll be the first to know everything, Chief,” she said, and he hung up.

  Bree set her phone down, thinking that that had gone smoother than she’d expected. Maybe she was getting better at the job, not as rattled by every crisis.

  After Sampson and I got back from talking to Condon, I stuck my head into Bree’s office. “We’ve had a couple of breaks you need to know about.”

  Bree smiled. “I could use some good news.”

  “Oh, we’ve got lots of news,” Sampson said, coming in behind me. “Can’t figure out if it’s good or bad.”

  As we told her about our trip to Nicholas Condon’s place, the planted evidence, and the possibility that the sniper knew two of the vigilantes, I sent two pictures to a screen on Bree’s wall.

  One photograph showed a wiry man in a nice suit with a face that was a fusion of Asia and Africa. He had a quarter-inch of beard and was leaning against a car, smoking a cigarette—he looked like the kind of guy who would fit in anywhere. The other picture showed a U.S. Army Green Beret officer with pale skin and a battle-gaunt face.

  “The suit is Lester Hobbes, ex-CIA,” Sampson said. “The soldier turned mercenary is Charles Fender.”