Three Minutes to Midnight (15 page)

CHAPTER 14

M
AHEGAN HELD
M
AEVE
C
ASSIDY'S NAME TAG IN HIS HAND, A TANGIBLE
clue that she had been there. It had been well hidden, as if she had purposefully left a sign.

He followed the ridge to the swampy area again, noticing the workers had made decent progress. There would be no going back to the detention cell in the daylight. Sadly, Petrov, or whoever was in charge, would most likely blame the workers for breaking into the cell. Their fate would most likely not be good.

Mahegan followed the stream north, walking parallel to the fracking location where the workers were completing the fence. He found an isolated spot about a quarter mile north of the saddle with the drill head, where he had fought Petrov, and noticed a full drilling rig was standing tall, like a mini Eiffel Tower. It took some effort to see it, but it was there. He saw the iron roughnecks connecting the drill pipe as the drill bored into the ground. The machinery lifted and fell in rhythmic grunts, guiding the drill into the ground. The operation was under way.

With afternoon clouds drifting lazily overhead, Mahegan decided to follow his unsuccessful assassins' GPS to the address listed as “home.” He navigated his way through the forest lining the stream until he saw that he was approximately parallel to the GPS street address. There were no visible roads, but he was below any reasonable sight line. He knew some of this terrain from his runs to Jordan Lake along the firebreaks. Except for the stream to his rear, the land rose in all directions. The hilltop to his ten o'clock was large and, he suspected, the most likely candidate for an operation of this size.

Stepping through the dense underbrush, Mahegan dodged a few timber rattlers and unsuspecting foxes. He was surprised at the number of quail he saw flocking near the edge of the forest. He spotted several doves that were darting low and fast, their angular bodies slipping through the air like stealth jets. No matter his domain, he fancied himself an apex predator, yet he maintained an immense respect for wildlife.

It was usually the humans he had the most issues with. His mother had taught him to respect nature, which was consistent with his Native American lineage. Every animal was to be respected, even if he had to kill it for food. He thought about the red wolves with which he had bonded in the Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge when he first returned from combat. He missed them like he missed family.

Hearing the rumble of a vehicle to his twelve o'clock, he followed the sound as it moved from his right to his left, toward the big hilltop.
Never a good idea to conduct reconnaissance in the daylight
, he thought again. He mentally recorded his location, then retraced his steps back to his vehicle. That trek took him an hour, putting him into the late afternoon as he drove back toward the town of Apex, where he lived.

He pulled into a shopping center and placed the battery in the burner phone. He had three text messages from Grace.

Mahegan typed in a short note.

Instantly Grace shot back a text.

Mahegan plugged the directions to the Cassidy home into his classified smartphone GPS and followed them through multiple suburban neighborhoods. Mahegan was glad that he did not have a life that required living somewhere like this. He was too damaged to settle into such an everyday rhythm, though maybe someday he could.

His goal now was to have a brief conversation with Maeve's husband, Pete Cassidy, and then meet Grace to warn her about her phone. As he was following the last direction of the GPS, he noticed Griffyn's Crown Victoria speeding past him, the tires smoking and squealing beneath the sharpness of the turn and the vehicle's acceleration. He did not believe the detective had seen him, but he couldn't be sure. Mahegan slowed his Cherokee and watched as the car snaked its way out of the neighborhood.

Processing what he had just seen, Mahegan parked his vehicle in front of a respectable brick-veneer colonial in the suburban neighborhood. There were similar homes packed in tight around it. Yards were small but well kept. He noticed there were few trees and guessed this had been farmland at one time. The driveway was empty, but the windowless two-car garage door was closed.

Walking up the driveway and stepping onto the brick and cement porch, Mahegan listened as if he was in combat, with a lull in the shooting, sensing what might come next. He couldn't hear footsteps, a television, or a radio. The intermittent squeals of children playing in the neighborhood rang through the air like bird-calls. In contrast, this house was deathly quiet. Mahegan would have expected a police cruiser or ongoing protection, given Pete's wife's status and the fact that they had a daughter together. Maybe that was Griffyn's duty. Or maybe he had driven by and noticed there was no protection, so he was racing off to coordinate a detail. But that didn't make any sense to Mahegan, because the smart play would have been to remain in place and sync the detail over the radio.

He pressed the doorbell, which chimed loudly. He heard no movement and pressed again. Looking down, he saw a seam between the door and the jamb. When he pulled open the storm door, it was obvious to him that someone had crowbarred the front door open. Mahegan immediately thought of the EB-5 home invasion teams. They were crude and basic. A crowbar would have been their tactic.

Mahegan removed his captured Glock 17 from his coat and pushed his shoulder against the freestanding door. Looking left, he saw a dining room, which led to a kitchen. To his front was a stairway that led upstairs. To his right was a family room with a television. Nothing seemed immediately out of order, except the door that had been jimmied.

Clearing the first floor was quick. It was a small house. In the garage he saw a blue Chevrolet Malibu. He stepped forward and placed his hand on the hood. Stone cold. Turning back into the mudroom, he found a stairway that led to a playroom over the garage. The floor was littered with stuffed animals, other toys, and children's books.

And Pete Cassidy's dead body.

Cassidy had a hole in the center of his forehead, and he had fallen backward when he died.

Next to Cassidy were a blanket and a stuffed animal. Three books were on the near side of his feet. Plastic toys were scattered on the far side.

Mahegan looked down and saw large footprints with the cloverleaf imprints of combat boots. Mahegan had the horrible thought that Pete Cassidy had been holding his daughter when a competent marksman shot him in the forehead. The child would have fallen to the floor and most likely would have cried as the home invasion team scooped her up.

Mahegan had to admit that the EB-5 commandos were omnipresent and kept the pressure on like a basketball team's full-court press. Everyone associated with this operation was being pushed, and only where Mahegan had intervened, as far as he knew, was there success in breaking down the security.

What is Maeve Cassidy's secret? Why is she at the center of this thing?
Mahegan wondered. He cleared the remainder of the top floor, including two guest bedrooms, a guest bath, and a master bedroom with a large bath. He saw Maeve's gear spread all over the bed, dumped and searched by the invasion team, no doubt. The items were familiar to Mahegan: T-shirts, uniforms, boots, helmet, body armor, and knickknacks to remind a soldier of home, such as family photos.

A four-poster rice bed was the central piece of furniture, and it was complemented by a matching dark-wood bureau and a chest of drawers. They weren't rich, Mahegan thought, but were doing okay. He pawed through the gear, noticing multiple rubber bands, and saw that the clothes had once been professionally rolled and packed for the tightest possible fit.

He sat on the bed and thought about Maeve Cassidy. Who was she? he wondered.
A geologist, a soldier, a mother, and a wife.
She had found her husband in bed with another woman, which indicated to Mahegan that perhaps the problems had begun prior to her redeployment. After a year in combat she had most likely had her fill of geology and rocks and shale formations. Their daughter, Piper, would be who she missed the most and would be the most significant point of leverage that anyone could bring to bear against her.

Was the child kidnapped, also, as insurance? Mahegan wondered.

The bedroom nearest the master was the child's room. Each wall was painted in a different pastel color. A twin bed ran across the far wall, beneath the window, and a white chest of drawers faced the bed from the opposite wall. An open chest full of toys and games sat next to the closet door. Pictures lined the nightstand next to the bed, as well as the chest of drawers. The word
Piper
was spelled out on the wall above the bed in twelve-inch stuffed cloth letters that alternated pink and purple and hung askew.

Mahegan studied each picture, as if to determine when and where it might have been snapped. Most were of Piper at various stages of her infancy and youth. Some included Maeve and Pete.

Only one included just Maeve and Piper. The picture must have been taken immediately prior to her deployment, Mahegan thought. Maeve was forcing a smile, while Piper was obliviously grabbing at her mother's ear. He studied the woman for a moment. She had auburn hair, soft eyes, and a warm, reflective smile. Mahegan also saw toughness in the countenance, which perhaps others might miss. The child's pink and blue outfit contrasted sharply with the olive digitized pattern of Maeve's Army combat uniform. She was a soldier preparing to do her duty, and that counted for a lot with Mahegan.

He noticed the picture was slightly scored and bent, while also being too small for the frame, which was also marred.

In his early days as a paratrooper, Mahegan had carried a picture of his mother in his helmet. Many soldiers did this so that they were only a quick flip of the hands away from home, and it was not uncommon to see someone staring into the middle of a helmet, as if it were a time travel portal. Once his missions became highly classified, he had sanitized his entire uniform, tacking his mom's photo on the wall of his locker in the base camp.

To Mahegan, this picture looked like a helmet photo. He carefully removed the backing, which he could already see was improperly placed in the frame, as if done in a rush. He used a fingernail to lightly remove the waffled cardboard piece between the stand and the photo. As he withdrew the photo from the frame, he saw the handwriting and knew it would be significant.

Turning the photo horizontally, he saw the faded outline of a drawing that looked similar to the pyramid on the back of a one-dollar bill, complete with floating eye. It was a rough sketch with no detail, a draftsman's outline. Beneath the base of the pyramid was the phrase
PiperCub2012
. The ink was more recent than the photo. The letters and lines weren't smeared, and they seemed to have been drawn on top of the smudges and the minor stains on the back of the photo paper.

He pocketed the photo, unsure of its relevance, if any. But to Mahegan, it seemed like a deliberate clue. He recalled the name tag he had found earlier, stuffed in the corner of that cell. Maeve Cassidy was trying to signal something to someone.

Next to where the picture had been was what Mahegan recognized as a soldier's shower kit, open and obviously pawed through. He pulled apart the opening and studied the contents: toothbrush, nearly empty tube of toothpaste, stick deodorant, disposable razor, tweezers, and two tampons. Next to the shower kit was a small bottle labeled
HENNA
. He lifted the henna bottle, unscrewed the top, and saw that it was powder extract from the plant. Mahegan knew that tribal leaders in Afghanistan often used henna to darken their beards or line their eyes, much like women applied make-up.

Mahegan also pocketed the henna, realizing that he had burned too much time in the house with his Cherokee parked out front and a dead body in the playroom. He put the picture frame back together and slid it into a bureau drawer after wiping it down with one of Piper's small shirts. He folded the shirt and replaced it in the bureau. Mahegan traced his steps out of the house, wiped down the doorknob, returned the door to its original position, and walked down the steps, where an attractive woman with a small child in tow was awaiting him.

“Anything going on in there?” she asked.

Mahegan flipped his badge and showed her his creds. “Just a routine check,” he said.

“Ain't nothing routine about what I'm hearing. Swingers' parties, wife swapping, and all that.” She eyed Mahegan. “You involved in any of that?”

“No, ma'am, and I have to get moving. You have a wonderful day.”

Mahegan heard the little boy ask, “Mama, what's a swingers' party?”

Mahegan drove to the Irish Pub, retracing Griffyn's route out of the neighborhood instead of his own entrance. He found himself on a parkway that ran parallel to his original route of entry. Seeing nothing, he doubled back toward the pub, thinking.

As he was navigating from the shattered remnants of the Cassidy home, Mahegan cycled through his thoughts. Reasonably certain that the EB-5 commandos had killed Pete Cassidy, Mahegan wondered if Griffyn had found the body. And if he had, why hadn't he established a crime scene? Also, who had taken Piper, and where was she?

He saw Grace's car in the parking lot, shut down his Cherokee, and walked into the dimly lit pub.

“You go first,” he said.

“Nice to see you, also,” she replied. He forgot that she had an anticipation of social pleasantries, despite the mission at hand, even under pressure. Perhaps, especially under pressure.