Trigger Effect (A McConnell Novel, Book 2)

By Will Van Allen

John McConnell has killed three men. Granted, they had it coming. Reconciled with his daughter, dating a beautiful woman he doesn’t deserve, stolen money in the bank, McConnell’s ready to hang up his guns. But the American Doctrine for Democracy are still murdering Americans. The reclusive hacker Hammurabi convinces McConnell to return to the shadowy highways and byways of America one more time to try and rectify that. Killing bad people for good reason is still murder and FBI agent Oral Duffield wants to put McConnell behind bars. Elise Hutchens wants the Travelin’ Soldier’s story. The Doctrine just want him dead.
Trigger Effect is the second book in the McConnell Novels, and continues the resistance to the deep state's machinations.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Will Van Allen
• Release date: Jul 20, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370787739

Will Van Allen

Will Van Allen lives in the Pacific northwest with his wife and a garrulous chocolate lab named Cabo. When not toiling in cloud technology, he finds solace in the immortal pen as he has a few stories to tell and knows the robots are coming. He can often be found on a BMW motorcycle carving the twisties in the Cascades or partaking of something delectable while reposed on a beach in Maui.Will writes across genres, including thrillers, fantasy and contemporary fiction.

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

OCTOBER 2008

New York, New York

She gargled Pepsi and semen and spat the sweet and salty froth into the sink.

Sent to the bathroom once again, just like with the old man. What was with these people? She looked herself over in the mirror: leather corset, thigh highs, black panties and black heels. They had cut her blonde hair short and dyed it black, too. She liked the dominatrix look, though she didn’t carry it as well as the badass bitch out in the suite.

The music thumping through the door changed to techno shit that raced with her heart. She daubed lipstick, smudged, wiped it clean, reapplied and smacked. Fire engine red—her dad called them fuck-me lips. She licked at the crescent scar at the corner of her mouth, her gift for finally telling him where to shove it on her twelfth birthday, four years of midnight rapes plenty, thanks. Daddy hadn’t liked her tone. She hadn’t liked his rings.

She licked her teeth. Coming down now, though you couldn’t tell it from her big glassy eyes. Hadn’t tasted blow as sweet since the last time these people set her up with that crazy old fucker back in Denver. Made her sit in the bathroom while he yapped on the phone, then told her to dance and didn’t even watch, just stared out the window at nothing. Paid her, told her to tell everyone she had a good time and that was it. Asshole.

She was getting paid five times as much this time. She was quite the negotiator now, the art of the deal, you learn to read people after three years on the street. They even flew her out on a private jet—later Mile High, hello Big Apple! Wasn’t going back, neither. Maybe they’d hire her full time, they were shitting money, always renting suites and—

Bang-bang-bang on the door. Candy Cane! Let’s go. Time to come out and play.

Candy Cane. Maybe that would be her stage name when she was old enough to strip and could stop turning tricks, but for now, tricks were for kids.

Their John, still tied in the chair, rolled his head from side to side, any moan coming from around the ball-gag in his mouth drowned out by the techno as the bitch, who had matching cropped black hair, drilled her stiletto into his dick—where her fuck-me lips had been not ten minutes ago. Fresh lines were cut on the glass table just waiting for a girl like her and she attacked them with vigor. Her eyes teared. Oh yeah. Fuck yeah! She felt gooood.

Give me your panties, the bitch ordered and she did (it was the bitch’s show after all, her John, her coke, her panties), laying the lace in the woman’s black-gloved hand. The bitch shoved the lace around the gag. Wipe your nose, sweetie.

She did that, too. He looks kinda freaked.

The John’s eyes bulged as his naked, flabby body strained at the bondage that kept his arms and legs bound to the chair.

No, he’s having the time of his life, sugar. Aren’t you baby? The bitch winked, slapped the John across the face.

Her three years on the streets had taught her a truth: All men were pigs but some of them wanted to be treated like worms. Step on them, sit on them, spit on them, piss or shit on them. Pigs and worms and shit.

She bounced her bare ass on the huge bed, licked her lips. What’s next?

The bitch tossed a small, round black bag next to her. She unzipped it and found a couple U-100s, a spoon, cotton balls, a yard of medical hose and a small vial. Not a big fan of sticking but what the hell, when you’re flying high what’s a little more altitude, and it was New York, you gotta fucking live a little.

You know how to fix, Candy Cane?

Since she was twelve. It was a seminal year. She busied about emptying a little blow from the vial into the spoon.

The bitch slapped their John hard across the face—once, twice, three times a lady! He liked it. Grunted and squealed, just like a fucking pig. Fucking worm. The bitch wiped at the blood coming from his nose with the panties sticking out of his mouth. How we doing, Candy Cane?

Awesome. She retrieved water from the mini-fridge, sucked up a couple CCs in the syringe, spurting it back out on the fluffy white powder in the spoon. Stirred that with the plunger, balled up a cotton ball, drew up through it, then did up the other rig while the bitch put on clothes over her dom outfit. Going for the sexy secretary look: lavender blouse, black skirt with black nylons and heels. This John must’ve paid for the full package.

Alright, Candy Cane. Let’s do loverboy here first. Wanna shoot him up in his cock?

She snorted at that. Now that would be funny.

Squirming, moaning, the John put on a show of struggle and the bitch smacked him again, then pressed her heel back into his sack and he growled in satisfaction. Weird fucking worm. She’d met weirder. All yours, Candy Cane.

She tied off his arm with the hose, flicked a ripe blue candidate vein in the crook of his arm. She was getting horny. She was content with the bitch just beating the shit out of the worm. But after all that blow, fucking sounded good. Really good.

She stuck him, plunged the solution in smooth and slow. His eyes went wide, an ocean of jagged red-cracked white around an island of pale blue. He blinked rapidly, spit flew as he huffed air around the gag, really squirming now, his cock pointing due north.

What’d I tell you? Time of his life. The bitch patted his cheek. This is what happens to bad boys who don’t listen. You’re up, Candy Cane.

She sat on the edge of the bed, tied herself off, entertained a moment of clarity.

I’m pretty fuckin’ high. Maybe I should wait a bit.

You don’t wanna wait for this, sweetie. Trust me.

Trust was a dirty word. She didn’t trust anyone. She trusted money, and was getting paid, though, so what the fuck. She flicked, stuck, drew, plunged. A moment later, though they were on the thirty-seventh floor, she could hear the train a comin’. Heard it loud! It roared between her ears, reverberated with the techno around the room, up inside her pussy, at the edges of her clit, through the door, down the hall, browwllll, browwwllll, browwwllll. Her heart jolted, her nipples went hard, her jaw slid around in her head.

Ohhhh… came from her mouth.

Mount up, Candy Cane.

Head pounding, heart thudding, the bitch guided her lurching steps. The John had pissed himself, a geyser of urine had soaked his stomach and the chair but she didn’t give a shit, she straddled him anyway, sliding around until her slick pussy slid down his piss-wet cock.

Ohhhh….

She started to grind. The roaring drowned out the world. Her eyes wouldn’t stay open.

…ohhhhh….

He went rigid, then spasmed. Coming already? Fuck. Didn’t matter. She could still fuck and fuck and fuck and….Her eyes fluttered open like opium-laced butterflies. His rolled back, up, the blue trying to see the inside of his own skull, yellow foam squeezing out around the panties in his mouth as his body convulsed and a weird eeennhhh! escaped through his nose.

…ohhhhh…

The train was leaving the station and she was on it. Roaring through the night, a thousand miles an hour, AND SHE WAS FUCKING ON IT!

He stopped jerking and his head drooped to the side. Pink slobber dripped from the corner of his mouth. She glanced up at the woman smoothing out her skirt.

Wa’ da’ fu…

The bitch patted her cheek. Her black glove felt rough. Well done, Candy Cane. She slipped her head on. Not her head. Hair. Long, blonde hair.

Then she saw the ceiling as her body seized and she jerked backwards, her breath locked in her throat, sailing…flying—Smack! Hard into the floor. Sinking into it.

She tasted blood. Biting through her tongue, couldn’t stop, her nails dug ruts into the plush carpet, heels drummed the floor as she puked up Pepsi and semen and bile and inhaled and choked on it. She coughed and sputtered and bled and choked some more. And then the train left the tracks. And she was on it.

Somewhere over western New Mexico

The pages Amanda Ruiz held in her hands were gilded with gold, both from the fading afternoon light streaming through the oval window and their treasure trove of content. Pouring over them again, the furious buzz of propellers facilitating her absorption, she deliberately ignored the glares and woeful sighs of her histrionic seventeen-year-old daughter in the seat across from her.

A nasty habit, printing out her email. She did a story a few years back on how the introduction of the personal computer was supposed to reduce paper consumption by half but in fact easy access to printing had factored it eight times over, and here she was, one of the villains contributing to the problem. But hard copy always made whatever she was reading more real, more substantial, and was the subject matter in these sixty-seven pages substantial. The email from The Sons of Katie Elder had been tracked to a Russian hosting company who readily (even proudly) acknowledged their slack security, but so what, buyer beware you pesky, greedy capitalist pigs. She hadn’t needed the LA Times IT department to confirm that the sender was neither John Wayne nor Dean Martin, but who had sent it? A whistleblower? Disgruntled soldier? Foreign intelligence agency?

Glancing up she caught Serena’s lachrymose pout through her long dark hair. We rarely get to see your grandparents, she reminded.

We just saw them in June! And now I’m gonna miss homecoming! Serena lamented.

We’re visiting not moving to Santa Fe.

"Still." Her effort to squeeze out a tear was admirable.

Why don’t you go up to the cockpit and annoy your father for a while?

Roll of the eyes. Didn’t want to take flying lessons when I was fourteen, fifteen or sixteen. What makes you think I want to now?

You know he took time off just to spend with you kids.

She huffed and puffed and threatened to blow the plane down before stomping up the Beechcraft C90. David’s baby, he loved to fly her when he could find the time, had hoped to pass on the passion to their daughter but it looked like Owen was the one who aspired to be a pilot one day. Which was good news, he’d likely have to financially support his sister whose only aspirations were boys, surfing and oh, the new one, snapping her gum while texting and driving.

Here came her grumpy-faced son now. Serena said you said we’re too heavy and we hafta lose ballis’ and throw me outta the plane.

"Ballast, and I did not and you know it. Come keep Mom company, O." She patted the executive seat facing her.

He plopped onto the leather cushion. She called me a little a-hole again, too, under her breath so dad wouldn’t hear.

She doesn’t mean it.

Sure seems like it. He crossed his arms. Why’s she so mean?

Give her ten years, she’ll be nice again. Remember when she was nice to you?

No. A wicked grin flashed on his face. I called her pig vomit.

Creative.

He produced his Nintendo DS.

Mute, please.

He nodded, already engrossed in killing, maiming or shooting something.

She heard laughter and glanced up to see Serena giggling as she took the yoke, David’s face lit with a broad grin. He was thinking retirement, his heart no longer in the work, and Amanda had told him to do it, they could live comfortably on her salary and his early pension, already had enough socked away for the kids’ college. He always talked about teaming with his brother and flying charters. Even being gone a few days a week they would still see him more around the house than they did now. It would mean the world to the kids. And to her, of course.

She turned her attention back to the pages. First thing when they touched down in Santa Fe she needed to call Janet to see if anyone else had the story. Second, check her voicemail; she’d placed inquiries to CID, her Pentagon contacts and a couple connections in D.C., and even her nuanced, economical description around what she held in her hands was bound to raise flags up and down the Beltway. Third was lodging a complaint with both TSA and her congressman. It was one thing for TSA to violate their constitutional rights when trying to leave or enter the country but quite another to demand her laptop on a domestic trip via private plane without offering any probable cause whatsoever. The two scary-looking men in plainclothes demanding her compliance hadn’t counted on David asserting his authority. It never hurts having a Los Angeles District Attorney on your side, especially when he’s your husband. The two glared murder. It gave her a cold shiver but David was unfazed, crossing his arms as they walked away empty-handed, cellphones to their ears. The war was over there, idiots.

So why did it seem like they were living under martial law here? Patronizingly polite at times, but martial nonetheless. Killing with kindness was still murder.

She glanced up at the cockpit again. David was laughing, hands laced behind his head. It was supposed to be a no-work weekend, and she felt a little guilty about that but this had fallen into her lap and he would understand. How many times had she accommodated his distracted glances and nods as he poured over briefs in bed? And this was different, this was special, one of those once-in-a-lifetime stories. She could feel the weight of the Pulitzer as if it were in her hand already.

Mom, wha’s that? Owen pointed out the window.

She did a double take. I dunno, O, what is that? She leaned forward, squinting, her face almost touching the glass.

The dying sun’s last rays glinted off something racing up towards them rather fast.

What—

"Oh Jesus!" David exclaimed as the plane tilted hard right. Serena screamed.

"What is it?" Amanda screamed back as the fear in her husband’s voice infected her with panic.

Then the world lit up with fire.

Chamisa Wilderness Study Area, New Mexico

The fiery debris fell like an angel cast down from Heaven. Wasn’t his first time to see a plane shot down; it was the first he’d witnessed it in the homeland.

Homeland. A notion to make people feel safe. Tan’s experience had shown that security was a false narrative—an illusion. Unlike that blazing reality returning back to earth.

He signaled and a soldier nodded, spun on his heel, barking orders drowned out by the whirring rotors of the Blackhawk. Soldiers were black shadows among the dimming darkness as they scrambled among equipment and trucks. Rivera finished casing up two FIM-92s and gave a slash with his hand when both Stingers were secured. Tan nodded, hopped aboard the helo, icily eyed Lucas as the pilot took them up to look for their fallen seraph. The Criminal Investigation Division agent looked like he’d prefer to be anywhere but here. Tan imagined Amanda Ruiz felt the same way, if she could still feel, wherever she was now. We all make choices.

If Amanda hadn’t said yes and married a D.A. she would be alive right now, miffed at losing her laptop but alive, her two children alive beside her. Rooker and Kravitz opting to play the heavies instead of the we’re here to protect you, ma’am security agents was foolish but even so she had made her choices. She chose to marry the D.A., chose to disagree with Alpha, chose to fly anyway. The freedom to choose wasn’t the freedom to be right. Or alive.

The family, collateral damage. Never fond of the phrase he had never shied from its necessity. He felt nothing for their loss.

They rode low over the moonlit swells and dark pockets of no-man’s land, crested a ridge, and the smoldering wreckage came into view, a gout of gloomy smoke spilling off sundered metal still licked with flame. The pilot set down fifty meters upwind as the last daylight seeped from the horizon. Warrant Officer Chad Lucas followed him beneath desert-cold stars and they strolled among bleakness and debris, the smell of fuel and burnt metal pungent. Tan’s cell rang as he stepped over what looked like a child’s arm.

Milk run, sir. Cassie’s tone was subdued.

Did he offer anything up?

Nothing. I’m not sure he’d even read his email yet.

The girl?

Cassie was silent. Getting soft? Followed directions like a well-trained dog. That was the soldier he knew.

More collateral. He felt nothing. He had felt nothing about feeling nothing for a very long time. It dulled the mind. Thankfully, there was work to do. "Zeta has acquired five targets. You’ve been assigned two of them, Captain."

Package already received, sir. ETC 0500.

Both in New York?

One on the outskirts. Other’s down in Reston.

He grunted as the sickly sweet smell of burnt flesh reached his nose, carried on a breeze redolent of mesquite. There were several trees on fire.

Messy business, she echoed his thoughts.

Since man first walked upright. He snapped the phone closed as the trucks appeared at the top of the ridge, watched them wind their way down.

Rooker leveraged out of an SUV and lumbered over, followed by Kravitz, who reminded Tan of an obsequious rat. Rooker flashed a smile at Lucas who was busy averting his senses from what lay at his feet. The warrant officer did not look well.

Two hours, Tan said, kicking a flaming seat cushion out of his way and stepping over another that was remarkably intact.

Two hours! Rooker’s jowls shook with a roar and the soldiers picked up the pace unloading dozers from the flatbed. "Zeta’s already fielding calls regarding UFO sightings. Not many this far out but they’re bitchin’ anyways. Say they’re a tech-team, not a damn Mumbai call center."

Tan ignored him.

Whattaya think about hitting Vegas? Wanna get your freak on in Sin City, Tan? Rooker sniggered.

Tan saw himself sending the flat of his palm against the man’s blubbery, veined nose, compacting the semisolid mass of cartilage up into his brain. The thought was dissatisfying. Just as Sin City would be.

Lucas shrieked. He had stepped backwards into a disemboweled fleshy ribcage and was trying to work his boot free. Rooker and Kravitz laughed. Tan appraised the incompetent CID agent by the flickering firelight. He considered the broken box of organs. There was breast meat still attached. Hers or the daughter’s, Mr. Lucas?

Lucas spun and heaved up the contents of his own guts, earning more guffaws.

Tan listened to the retches and laughs with indifference.

Zeta had traced the original email sent to Ruiz back to Russia but the trail died there, their quarry no neophyte to cyber subterfuge. The General was right—a definite leak, no mere conjecture, which was why Lucas was here. The General was displeased, and when he was displeased it turned to Tan to make others displeased until they were back on course. The leak had occurred under Lucas’s watch. He was weak and weakness was both dangerous and contagious. Tan held little hope for the man.

No one had disappeared from Doctrine operations so it was possible the traitor was hiding in plain sight among them. It was also possible the sniper shootings in California and the potentially damaging leak to the reporters were coincidental. Possible but improbable. Two random acts of obstructionism seemed highly unlikely. Tan was sure the treason fell with the chicken-hawk leadership of the Doctrine, who held no real sense of duty or loyalty other than to their sanctimonious meritocracy. The sniper was just a physical manifestation of the betrayal readily apparent within their cowardly ranks. Tan would like to see most of them dead. Unfortunately, dispatching them was above his pay grade, at least until the General told him it wasn’t. His mission now lay with finding the shooter, downing errant reporters an auxiliary action towards that cause; in other words, cleaning up Lucas’s mess.

He preferred overseas, away from this illusion of security. It was annoyingly hostile to his sense of the world. He detested the complacent citizenry even though he was sworn to protect them. At least there was the blessing of the hunt, though it would end soon enough. The sniper was in the wind but Tan had his scent.

He spat. His mouth tasted of fuel and fire and smoking flesh. Reminded him of better times. Better or bitter? Yes.

Death’s dancing shadows were slowly snuffed out by soldiers dousing the wreckage with chemical extinguishant. Twisted, blackened metal, smoking ruin and charred remains, all that was left of the Ruiz family vacation. Of the family itself.

He felt nothing.

Reconsidering the appendage-less, smoking torso, Tan dipped a well-shoed toe in among the splintered ribs and felt something squish. He pressed further in, was rewarded with a pleasant squelch, like the innards of a pumpkin.

Tan cocked his head. There…there was something.

CHAPTER 2

OCTOBER

Los Angeles, California

Elise Hutchens scanned the shiver of reporters and their respective remora camera crews as they swam among the early bird protesters, sniffing the chill air for something to devour. She liked to pretend she was nothing like them, and that was the reason her career had foundered. Denial—go big or go home.

Two months ago, her California sniper story had garnered her daily live reports but with no recent killings and little headway in the investigation she’d been relegated to the backwater of domestic war coverage. Not quite the B-Roll pasture of human interest but damn close. Today they were covering an anti-war protest, the elder statesmen of which, grayed ex-hippie Baby Boomers, were just arriving in their Volvos and BMWs, joining the fray of anarchists and Gen X/Yers who had been trickling in since first light, putting finishing touches on signs and banners and Egg McMuffins. Police presence minimal, not even a symbolic arrest on the agenda, which was good since tee times were booked, tanning and high colonics too, Ikea was having a sale not to mention screenplays needed polishing and organic hummus ordered. She disliked LA like she disowned her journalist peerage.

Catching her reflection in the van window she sneered at her shorn blonde hair. Gave her gravitas, the network said, because a vigilante sniper wasn’t grave enough, the bastard—how could he just up and quit on her like that? She kicked at a pebble, scuffing the toe of her favorite Jimmy Choos. You’re angry at a killer because he stopped killing. For a moment, she could actually feel her soul shriveling.

Smoothing the pale blue skirt that matched her eyes, she squinted up at the cold sun through a remarkably thin layer of smog. Why was she wearing this stupid, short skirt? It was damn cold, must be close to fifty degrees. Southern California had made her soft, especially living in San Diego the past two years. In the mid-seventies down there, like always. She felt tense, anxious. Waiting, waiting….Maybe she just really needed to get laid. She had been feeling a bit frisky, lately.

You ready, Elise?

Ears burning, Kurt? Don’t I look ready? She threw him a winsome smile.

Yee-ah. You look hawt.

We should get dinner tonight. At the hotel.

His dark curly-haired head tilted to see around the camera. We, as in you and me?

Les smirked. She glared at him over Kurt’s shoulder and smiled at the dunce at the same time. That was one of her talents. Yeah. Up for it?

Yee-ah. Someone’s nephew from up high, Kurt wasn’t much in the brains department but he was a pleasure to look at.

Be a dear and get me a soda? She pouted her lips.

He bolted off in the direction of the food trucks down the block.

Les’s narrow shoulders shook with mirth as he wiped a hand over his balding head.

Shut up. She shrugged. A girl’s gotta eat.

It’s 2008. No one says ‘soda’ anymore, except us old folks.

I’m twenty-five. He looked over his glasses at her. Twenty-nine. So what. She dismissed him and the protesters in their preparations with a wave. No one cares about this crap. Especially not with the election around the corner. Why hadn’t they put her on that?

You’re supposed to make people care. It ain’t sexy but it’s important.

She wrinkled her nose but said nothing. A room full of dusty awards to show for thirty-five years in the field, Les Miller’s wife had finally lassoed him home. The only reason he was shadowing her was their meet cute the night they were both awaiting a flight in Atlanta. She had offered to be his protégé while batting her eyelashes over ten-dollar drinks in the airport Chili’s, and he had confessed he wanted to man a desk as much as she wanted to cover centenarian eating habits. It was a win-win.

Think he’ll kill again? she asked.

Kurt’s more a serial date-rapist than a murderer.

Les.

Bit early for wishful homicide, isn’t it, Elise? Who?

Who what?

Who gets the honor of being killed? So you get your story?

A bad guy. Dreg of society. Another pedophile. I’m not picky.

Obviously. He nodded to a shambling Kurt, the albatross camera still on his shoulder. Les shook his head, produced a cloth, took off his glasses and started cleaning them. Maybe your sniper decides to start going after daycare providers because one didn’t rub enough powder on his tushy when he was a tot.

She scuffed her other shoe.

Kurt panted up, handing her the soda.

Les put his glasses back on and grinned at her. His phone rang, he answered and his face drained of all its glee. I just saw her a couple weeks ago…No, at the Berkeley thing… He turned away, talked a minute and solemnly closed the phone.

Les?

Mandy Ruiz was killed.

Really? How?

Flying up to New Mexico. Their private plane, engine had a fuel leak, burst into flame and exploded. Her husband, son and daughter, all dead.

That’s horrible. Look at that. Her soul hadn’t abandoned her quite yet. You were friends?

We came up through the ranks together. She was a good reporter, competitive as hell. He let out a long sigh. Man, first Bradley Adams and now Mandy.

Adams, the dogged host of the long-running PBS investigative series Keyhole had overdosed in a hotel room with an underage hooker. Les knew him, too. We finished a few bottles of Blue Label over the years. Only man I ever saw drink Hitchens under the table. He shook his head. Man.

She turned to Kurt. Hey sweetie. Gotta cancel on dinner. Rain check?

Oh. Yeah…okay. Disappointed. Good.

Don’t hate me. She pouted, glanced at the Coke in her hand. "Oh. I meant diet. She handed him back the Coke. Be a doll?"

This time Kurt set the camera down. Kid was learning.

She resisted the urge to yell, Run Forest! Run! and slipped her arm into her mentor’s. Wanna get drunk tonight?

Les didn’t say no.

San Diego, California

Special Agent Oral Duffield slapped the side of the computer on his desk. He tried the power button again. The screen did nothing. Again.

Lind! He warned Abbey with a look. She zipped her smirking lips with her fingers.

Lind, the slight half of the Wonder Twins, appeared at the open door. Sir?

I’m about to throw this computer out the window. He smacked it again.

That’s the monitor, sir. Lind pointed below the desk.

Duffy followed the finger to a white tower with buttons all its own. He pressed one. The whir of a fan and a beep mocked him as the screen up top came alive. Show off. That’ll be all, Lind.

The agent-in-training made his exit.

Even on the rez we know the difference between a computer and a monitor, Duffy, Abbey Red Deer said. She was wearing a navy jacket and skirt. She didn’t wear skirts often, he noted, as she recrossed her sienna legs, which he noted, too. She twirled her long, brown hair. What are you going to tell the ADIC?

Same thing as yesterday and the day before. Pete Jackson and Pincer Parish’s killer remained at large. There was no movement on the case. Why Arsenault wanted a daily update on a fat zero was upper-echelon bureau nonsense. The good news was he didn’t have to pretend to give a shit about that much longer. The bad, even though the California sniper had fallen off the public radar, his last case would go unsolved, at least by him.

He checked his email. Retirement procedures, exit forms to fill out. No case files, no requests to approve, no evidence to pore over. Just…the end.

Want me to reach out to Goldwyn, see if his JTTF has a terrorism case for us?

His sharp look shut that down. Abbey knew better. He might stumble into mandatory retirement but he sure as hell wasn’t going to make up for it with some trumped up entrapment of an illiterate Muslim immigrant.

She stopped twirling, rose and spun on her heel to leave, spun back. Hutchens called. Elise Hutchens was about as annoying as the ADIC. Wanted the same thing.

No word from Dugan?

Still on foreign assignment.

Duffy stood up, paced. Abbey started to speak, thought better of it and left him to his paces.

He was thankful for that. You didn’t date your co-worker. You especially didn’t date her when she was thirty years your junior. But somehow that’s what he was doing. Well, she wouldn’t be his co-worker for long. He rubbed at the scar at the corner of his forehead, where the hair refused to grow back. He needed a smoke, patted at his jacket pocket, found it wanting.

He left with a glance towards Abbey bantering with Morales and Auerbach, experienced agents, about her age. Virile. She was putting on her warm façade, or so he thought, maybe she was warming up to them. With him gone soon…

The day was warm, the sun shining, that’s what it did in San Diego. It picked up his spirit. He drove leisurely to the Circle K, tapping the wheel to some Sweet Home Alabama.

Special Agent Duffield! Maria called out from behind the register.

Hey, Maria. He grabbed a cup of noxious coffee, glanced around. Gimme a pack of Raleighs.

She dropped the pack on the counter. You know that shit’s goin’ kill you one day.

So you keep telling me. He paid her, double-tapped the pack on the counter, his eyes falling to the floor like the two dead Mexican gangbangers had two years ago. The one still had enough juice to try and make it for the door before being shot in the back—

Special Agent Duffield?

Before he dropped back to the tile for good.

"Special Agent Duffield." He looked up. Maria’s eyes were sober. Her eyes flicked to the security camera above them, the one that had caught the bangers’ death but not the shooter.

Have a good day, Maria.

You too, Agent Duffield. As he reached the door