Jack nodded and quietly stepped inside. “Semper Fi.”
The cop met his gaze. “That’s the only thing keeping me from locking you up right now.”
Jack folded his arms, his patience snapped. He was tired of being shuffled off without answers. And he wasn’t leaving without them.
Peter Wickum bagged the weapon and handed it to Cisco. “No prints,” he said.
Cisco held it up to the light. “No firing pin either.”
“A cleanup crew?”
Cisco shook his head, his ponytail slipping across his back. “They’d have taken the body, or at least hidden it.” He handed the gun back, then squatted near the body of the intruder. “Whoever was here, didn’t care what they left behind.” He pointed to the footprints. “Cocky sucker.” A pause and then, “Like you, Wick.”
Peter snickered to himself and squatted, too. “This guy didn’t pull off his own mask,” he said. “With a wound like that he would have been dead before he hit the ground and the impressions in his skin from the knitting says he was talking to Lucifer around then.”
“Cute, Wick.”
“I try, sir.”
Cisco opened the dead man’s jumpsuit, peeling back the folds.
Wick swallowed at the sight of torn flesh and blood as his boss pulled something from the lining. “What’s that?”
Before Cisco could answer, Agent Hodges rushed up to the scene.
“Jesus, you’re pale, Hodge,” Wickum said as he rose, and the agent glanced between the two. Cisco stood.
“We have a problem.”
“A bigger one than I have now?” Cisco gestured to the body at his feet.
“Oh, yeah.”
It was the first time Pete Wickum had seen Agent Gabriel Cisco run. He usually stalked an area like a wolf on the scent, slipped quietly away in a dark sedan, but rarely did he get worked up over much. He didn’t take anything personally. At least not in the three years Pete had worked with him. Cisco was ruthless in his pursuits and emotionless while he performed them. Wickum hurried after him.
Cisco stood rock still near a lump on the ground and Pete’s first thought was: they’ve found a body that’s been there a long time. Small, too. His stomach tightened and he reached for his Maalox tablets. Please don’t be a kid.
Cisco lifted his gaze from the body. “A Gilly suit?”
“We have it from the Fish and Game that some men from a hunt club were out here thinning the doe herd,” Hodges said, handing Wick what they found on the body. “I guess the deer were getting into traffic, eating garbage. Destroys the ecosystem.”
The Gilly suits were used by military in combat to hide their approach in the field. It made them invisible and part of the terrain, and it wasn’t something that could be easily bought. Of course there were copies, but this was the real McCoy.
Cisco squatted. “What do you see, Wick?”
Peter took a hard look. Cisco liked testing him. “I don’t see any signs of a struggle. Two sets of footprints, this man’s and one other.” He pointed to the dead man’s boot cocked sideways. “This guy has small feet, the other marks were from someone with the same boot, same tread, but larger. Weapon and ammo were left behind. But”—Wick leaned out for a better look—“it’s been disabled, like the other guy’s.”
Cisco reached for the netting.
“It’s a head wound, sir.” Hodges looked ready to puke.
“Did you look further?”
“Not yet. Pictures are done.”
Cisco nodded. “Gonna be ugly,” he murmured and lifted the netting hood. He looked, and dropped the cloth.
Wickum handed over a wallet. “He’s a Marine.”
Cisco stood, and flipped to the ID.
“There are two more,” Hodges was reluctant to say.
Cisco didn’t speak, his expression unchanged as Hodge led him to the next man. And then the next.
“About a hundred yards apart,” Cisco said, his voice tight with disgust. “Regardless of what Fish and Game says, dressed like this, we can’t ignore that these men could possibly be part of the attack. Maybe staking out a spot to kill anyone who escaped the Cradle, but someone got to them first.” The dead man on the hill? Cisco did a three-sixty, his attention flicking high and low. In this dense forest, anyone could hide well.
“But those are hunting rifles,” Wick said.
“With high-powered scopes.” Military types liked having state-of-the-art, even for game, but Cisco had to exhaust all possibilities. “I need facts. Hunting licenses, records, associates, family, friends, duty stations, everything.”
“The bodies?”
“They’re ours for now.”
Wickum moved off, radioed for stretchers and a forensic team. Hodge and another man were laying the first victim flat on the ground. “Treat them as you would your mother, Hodge.”
Cisco glanced, eyeing him for a second, then walked off. But his anger was just below the surface. Wick had learned that that narrow look and long stride said stand clear or be knocked clear.
Gabe Cisco stopped beside the last man, thumbing open his wallet. Carl T. Lyons. Gunnery Sgt. USMC. He wasn’t even thirty yet. Then he found pictures. He hated seeing this. Pictures made it personal. He slid them back into the plastic cases, ignoring the face of a little girl smiling at the father who’d never come home.
“Cisco,” Wick called. “CBC is here.”
Cisco turned, scowling. Chemical Biological Containment. Army. He tossed the wallet to him. “Bag it.”
“The tourist side is secured.”
“Air quality?”
Wick spoke again into the lip mike, then looked up. “Contained in Mother and so far in the corridor only.”
Cisco nodded. Sarin gas lacked color, odor and taste. Invisible and deadly. “Do not begin excavation until CBC give you the okay.” Excavation would be slow and dangerous.
“What’s down there?”
Cisco just stared at him.
“Never mind, forget I asked,” Wickum said, knowing better and expecting the worst.
Lifting his gaze to the mountain, Cisco watched the choppers circle, the noise like the beating wings of a hawk. Time to march on the locals.
With the door cracked a bit, Jack listened to the noise, picking out one voice and holding onto it. They couldn’t move on the mountain and the cops were getting pissed. Who was messing with their jurisdiction, they kept asking, but Jack could have told them that. Your government dollars at work.
He needed to see that videotape, and when Pearl headed toward him with it, he thought, finally. But someone called the man back. Jack moved to the door, leaned out just enough to hear better. Gut instinct said stay hidden. The gas leak was a warning that it was smelling pretty bad around here and was only going to get worse. The lack of equipment and the wrong people to contain it screamed when it should have whispered. He watched, listened. Reconned.
A tall man with dark hair pulled back in a ponytail swept into the station like a winged creature. Two men followed, each wearing dark clothes, long coats. The first guy looked ready to eat a small child, his eyes cold, blue, and moving over the faces in the room. Nothing in there, Jack thought. Must be hell being that empty inside.
Ponytail