Chapter 13

It took time to get everyone together and on the phone. Lt. Colonel Simmons didn’t like being kept in the dark but quieted down when Taylor explained who else needed to be in on the conversation. It was one thing to be thrown into sudden command several steps above your pay grade and another thing altogether to hear you have to talk to a four-star general. Shortly before they had everyone on the line, Davis also showed up, but kept quiet, which was a surprise. His appearance however did keep Taylor from being surprised when the new secretary of defense also signed onto the call.

The only thing missing was the bevy of officers and functionaries that would normally be on a call like this. Taylor had made it clear in his message to Leland’s aide that the information he had was sensitive, and it would be best if they kept it to ‘need to know’ personnel only.

“Okay, Agent Taylor,” Secretary Yohe said nearly as soon as he showed up on the call. “We’re all here. What is this information you have to share with us? Have you found the people behind this black market ring?”

“We don’t have the people behind the thefts yet, but we do have the person who’s been murdering people both on the base and around town. We also have evidence that most of the murders in Silver Plains over the last three years were committed by this person.”

“I thought we made it clear we didn’t want this expanding more than it had, Agent Taylor,” General Leland said.

“I understand, but we followed things where they went.”

“Fine, who’s this murderer you’ve found.”

“General Lane, the base commander.”

Four people said ‘WHAT’ all at once, in varying degrees of shouting. Taylor waited patiently for the yelling to subside, at least to the point where he could make out one person’s questions and demands over the others.

“How can you be sure it was General Lane?” Secretary Yohe asked.

“We found trophies he’s taken from some of the victims in his home, while trying to find him. He went missing shortly after someone tried to kill my partner and me. We were already aware that trophies had been taken from most of the murders in town over the last three years, and have been operating under the theory that the murders were serial in nature. We aren’t yet sure if that makes them unconnected completely with the thefts or if there is a connection there we don’t understand, but we’re working on that.”

“Simmons,” General Leland said, surprising the lieutenant colonel out of his very focused not speaking.

“Yes, sir.”

“Whatever Agent Taylor needs, you are to provide it to him. Keep the base on lockdown until we find General Lane. That’s all. You and Mr. Davis need to leave the room.”

“Mr. Secretary, I think its best...”

“Lawrence, I need to keep what is said next just between the three of us for the moment. The president can decide if she wants it to go further than this.”

“Please leave the room, Mr. Davis,” The secretary said.

Davis wasn’t happy about it, but he wasn’t going to argue with his boss, only giving Taylor a look as he left.

“They’re gone,” Taylor said once the door shut behind Davis.

“What I’m about to tell you should not be repeated to anyone, but I think it has enough bearing on this case that you need to be brought into the loop. During Lane’s previous command while he was stationed in Iraq, we had an issue with the deaths of locals in the area. He was told to get his area under control and, when he couldn’t, we transferred him and most of the senior command out, both to try and get the problem handled, and as a sop to the locals, to show them we were doing something.”

“Wait, he ran a base where there were killings of locals and then it started happening here, and no one thought to mention it?” Taylor asked, incredulous.

“My thoughts exactly,” Secretary Yohe said.

“It wasn’t thought relevant. There are a few things to remember. One, killings of locals in Iraq wasn’t uncommon. Remember this is a combat zone where the insurgents are indistinguishable from the locals. You, of all people, should know that Sergeant Taylor. Sometimes the men get overzealous, especially when they’ve been receiving regular attacks. Two, it’s impossible to tell what killings are done by our men who get out of hand and what killings are done by locals in the name of sectarian reprisals. While we did hold General Lane responsible for maintaining order in his A.O., there was no way to connect him directly with the deaths. It wasn’t like the deaths around Fort Chilton started as soon as he transferred over, and there were plausible explanations for what was happening.”

“I still think someone should have told us what was going on. It’s pretty obvious he was the source of both, and all you did was sweep a serial killer under the rug so he could keep murdering people.”

“It’s easy to see that in hindsight, but you’ve been there for days, dealing with him, and it seems you didn’t see it either. Keep in mind, we asked for your help getting a potential public relations disaster under control. Airing more of our dirty laundry would really be counter-productive to that end.”

“While I think we need to reevaluate how we deal with situations like this in the future,” Yohe said. “I think right now we need to focus on the situation at hand. Is there any way we can get Lane in custody without this becoming publicly known?”

“I don’t see how,” Taylor said. “He killed a popular local sheriff. They’re going to be pressing you for what happened. Regional news is also sniffing around, and we’ve thrown up roadblocks. We didn’t tell them anyone specific, just gave them a very general description and asked them to stop any active duty military, regardless of rank.”

“And you don’t think they’re going to be able to work that out?” Leland asked incredulously. “They know what General Lane looks like.”

“Probably, but we’re running short on options. We don’t know where the general is, and there’s a good chance he made it off base. He’s the key to everything that’s happening here.”

“We’ll work out the public relations on this,” Yohe said. “What we need you to do is catch him, and do it quickly. We can’t spin anything until we have a resolution. Is there anything else on the black market ring?”

“Maybe, but I need to chase down a few more things before I’ll be ready to brief you on that. Whitaker’s called the JAG corps trying to get a warrant for a local bank where we believe Lane has a safety deposit box. We think there may be more information there that we will need to track down the thefts on base. While you’re getting us stuff, I’d like to see a copy of the general’s psych profile. I had to have several and I was just a grunt, so I’m assuming you make the people who get handed the keys to bases get them, too.”

The one benefit of this case being part of the military is there were a lot fewer protections against law enforcement accessing records than there were in civilian lives. Most civilians would probably never realize how much of the freedoms they took for granted a soldier signed away when they joined. Taylor wasn’t sure what he was going to find in the files, but after seeing the envelopes in the general’s closet he wanted to get a little more insight into the general first. He also wanted to look inside the safety deposit box, since the record they found gave Taylor an idea of how the murders and thefts fit together, although not one he was ready to share yet.

“I’ll get you what we have and see what I can do to smooth things over with that,” Leland said. “Just find Lane.”

“We’ll do our best, General,” Taylor said, disconnecting the phone.

Taylor found Whitaker back in the general’s house, still on the phone trying to sort out everything they needed. Several more MPs had shown up and they were now seriously tearing apart the house, which Taylor assumed had been Whitaker’s doing. He applauded the effort, but he guessed that the hide in the closet was the only thing they were going to find. The fact that Lane had a safety deposit box showed he understood the need to keep things tied to him to a minimum. Sure, he still had the most damning evidence, but things like that, it was probably a compulsion. Serial killers liked keeping trophies of their kills, and Lane definitely qualified as a serial killer by this point.

“Anything?” Taylor asked when Whitaker hung up.

“We should have a warrant in ten minutes. How’d the meeting go?”

“Turns out Lane got pulled from his last command because a bunch of Iraqi civilians were getting murdered and he couldn’t put a stop to it. So, they transferred him here.”

“You’re joking!”

“Nope. They thought it was either an overzealous soldier or local on local violence and wrote it off. The only reason Lane got transferred was because they needed to show the Iraqi’s that they were taking it seriously.”

“So, there’s a chance he’s been doing this for a while.”

“Which makes sense, right? You’ve done more of these kinds of cases, but I understood that trophy taking was in the later stages, as they figured out what got them off.”

“Not always. Sometimes it starts with taking trophies and then leads to murder as they learn there’s a better way to get them. I’m not a psychologist though and we don’t know enough about Lane’s background to know for sure.”

“They’re getting me his service psych evals. Knowing the army, he probably all but admitted he liked murdering people and they just considered it quirky.”

“This has got you really riled up.”

“I just can’t believe I missed it. Again. It’s pissed me off.”

“Don’t get to target locked. We still have the black market ring to deal with.”

“Maybe.”

“What do you mean, maybe?”

“I think we’re going to find some answers when we get to the safety deposit box. Lane being a serial killer makes all the murders fall into place, but the black market ring springing up at the same time still feels wrong. I take back what I said before. I think they are connected, but I think it may be the thefts connected to the murders, instead of the murders being connected to the thefts.”

“I don’t follow.”

“It’s ‘cause I’m not making sense. I need more information to form an actual theory, but everything starting when Lane got here, and him previously murdering civilians in Iraq, makes me think he’s the center of all of this. The timing makes anything else impossible.”

“So, I guess we wait and see what we find at the bank,” she said as her phone dinged. “That was fast. We have our warrant. Let’s print it out so we have something to hand them and get to the bank.”

It took longer than Whitaker made it sound to get off the base. Chenier had taken the order to lock down the base seriously. Ultimately they had to get approval from Lt. Colonel Simmons before the gate guards would let them drive off towards town. Whitaker used her time well. Since it was still very early, just past dawn, she had to call ahead and have the bank manager waiting for her. The thing that surprised Taylor was that the man didn’t complain much about it. Maybe it was the fact they were in the middle of nowhere, the death of the sheriff, or people starting to notice all the commotion at the base and the roadblocks on the roads out of town, but every other time Taylor had joined in the execution of a search warrant, they’d received nothing but complaints and weak attempts to stop the search.

True to his word, though, the bank manager was standing on the front steps of the bank waiting for them when they pulled up. Whitaker handed over the search warrant as the man let them in and lead them to the box that matched Lane’s key. Whitaker had suggested they wait until the manager was out of the vault and left them alone to actually open the box. During her early days in the Bureau, she’d been a junior agent on a serial killer case where the killer kept his particularly gruesome trophies in a safety deposit box, and they’d opened it in front of bank employees.