Once Quiet (Jack Widow Book 5) Page 14

  He also had a penchant for the younger boys. Only the two of them knew of it. The great granddaddy had seen something in him, more than just a young boy. He had seen that twinkle in his eye. The twinkle of a kid who was cut from the same cloth.

  Even though they had never found any connection between him and the two missing boys from Spokane, Washington, they still held him for the pornography. He claimed that he had stolen the laptop from a family he worked for three counties south. He claimed that he couldn’t remember the name of the family. All lies, except that the laptop had, indeed, been stolen, but he had swiped it off a table at a Starbucks down in California one summer.

  It was a cheap thing, easy to hack. He had the memory wiped clean and uploaded his own content. That was the part that the Feds, or the cops, or ICE hadn’t picked up on.

  They had believed him when he had said that he didn’t know where the porn had come from. They had believed him to a point. They believed that he had nothing to with it. What they had believed was that the oldest brother was a pervert. They believed that he had uploaded it to the laptop and that he watched it, a lot. They believed that he liked to watch it when he was alone, at night, just before bed.

  They were right about that part. But they had been wrong to assume that he had nothing to do with it. They had demanded to know the name of the website that he had purchased it from. And he gave them a link to a site that was probably run out of Eastern Europe somewhere. It was a real website, with real content of underage boys and girls too. But he didn’t much care for the content with the little girls.

  The mistake that ICE and the Feds and the cops had made was that they assumed he had purchased the content on the laptop. They assumed that it was from the internet. They believed him that he had bought it off a website.

  They were wrong. He had made it.

  The content was uploaded to the stolen laptop from a stolen camera that he used when he filmed it.

  He had gotten very lucky that the camera had broken after he used it and that he had had to throw it out.

  The only reason why he didn’t have film of the two boys that went missing from Spokane was because the camera had broken.

  After he had fooled the cops, the Feds, and then ICE into believing that he was just a sick guy who had a problem, they had booked and convicted him of trafficking child pornography, a lesser charge than he would’ve gotten if they had discovered the truth, certainly.

  After the oldest brother had gotten a ten-year sentence from the judge, he felt relieved because it could’ve been much, much worse for him.

  His ten-year sentence had been reduced to five due to good behavior and he had gotten out before he knew it.

  CHAPTER 25

  THE FIRST WATCHER knelt next to his older brother, who was on his belly, looking through the M40’s rifle scope. The second oldest asked, “What is it?”

  “There’s a guy.”

  “What guy?” the second oldest asked.

  “A big guy.”

  “Who is he?”

  “I don’t know. Never seen him before,” the oldest one said, as he slowly moved the rifle, following his target.

  The second oldest didn’t repeat his question. He just waited for his older brother to make an identification. His older brother was the hardest of all four of them, except for himself, of course. And he trusted the oldest to know what to do. So he waited.

  The oldest looked through the scope, breathed calmly, took his time.

  He watched the stranger for a good long thirty seconds and then he said, “The guy is big. Looks ex-military. He must be six-five or close. White guy. Kinda lean. Could be pretty muscular. Hard to tell. But certainly he is lean, not skinny, but thin.”

  Which made the oldest brother naturally think of his own gut, which was not lean or thin. At best, he was thought of as a beer drinker. Not that it had mattered because he wasn’t interested in women. Although, he wouldn’t mind taking a shot at that Sossaman woman. She was one of the few women that he had joked about with his brothers and actually meant it. He wasn’t pretending like he usually did when they’d talk about women.

  The oldest wasn’t sure if his second brother suspected that he liked boys or not. None of them knew why he had really been in prison. He’d told them drugs, which was believable enough. He didn’t really care if his second brother found out or not. But he did care about his son.

  His son had been the only time that he’d even ever been with a woman, by choice. She’d been a waitress that was nice to him, years ago. She was dead now, cancer, like his daddy.

  The oldest brother said, “He’s with the kid.”

  “Which one?”

  “The older one,” he said, and thought, Not the cute one. Not the little one.

  “Isn’t his name Casey?”

  The older brother said nothing to that. Instead, he said, “Should we be writing this down?”

  The second oldest said, “What for? Your kid is sleeping. Let him sleep.”

  The older brother said nothing. He continued to study the stranger for another minute without a word and then he said, “His clothes.”

  “What about them?”

  “They look dirty.”

  The second oldest said, “He must be a cowhand then.” Then he thought for a moment and asked, “Why would they hire one new guy when they just dropped ten others?”

  The oldest said, “I don’t think he’s a cowhand.”

  “Why not?”

  “He don’t look it.”

  “What’s he look like?”

  The oldest said, “I don’t know. But he don’t look like he’s ever even seen a cow before. Least not a live one. No how.”

  “So what’s he doing there?”

  The oldest said, “I don’t know. Looks like the kid is showing him around. Like a guest. Think he’s family?”

  The second oldest asked, “Whose family? We already know all the players.”

  “What about a cousin?”

  The second oldest said, “Beats me.”

  They both just continued watching.

  CHAPTER 26

  JACK WIDOW FOLLOWED CASEY through a door that didn’t belong where it was. The first instincts that Widow had were cataloging, categorizing, and making second-natured adjustments. In other words, all cylinders were firing and they were all focused on the glints of reflection that he had seen. But his civil side was telling him to ignore it. Sometimes, even instincts are wrong, especially in a civilized world. Widow’s primal brain was never engineered for today’s world, but that was the world he was given.

  He made the proper mental adjustments required and told himself to forget about the glints of light. It could’ve been from water, raindrops perhaps that were stuck on a leaf, or a trick of the light, or a glass bottle someone left out in the woods. In fact, the very last thing it would’ve been was a giveaway of a sniper’s scope and position.

  Casey took Widow into a big library or a den; he wasn’t sure what they called it.

  He had thought that this was the room that Casey had meant to show him. It looked like it didn’t belong in this house. It was another room with high, vaulted ceilings and an old Victorian style. There were books and many, many more stuffed animal heads, mostly deer, but there were also elk and bison, and even African animals. Widow was sure that many of them weren’t legal kills, such as a huge stuffed grizzly bear in the corner by the window. Between the stuffed animals were shelves and shelves of books, many of which were the old leather bond editions, symbolizing a different time, an older time.

  Widow said, “This is really cool. Whose library?”

  Casey said, “This is nothing.”

  That’s when he led Widow over to a door that was virtually stuffed into the corner. It was slim, but high. It looked heavy and reminded Widow of a dungeon’s entrance in one of those old black-and-white movies.

  Casey said, “This is all my dad’s stuff.”

  “Where’s he?”

  Casey didn�
��t answer. He just pulled the door open and said, “Come on. Check it out.”

  The door pulled open and squeaked on the hinges.

  Widow had expected the door to open to a stone spiral staircase that led down into the darkness, but it didn’t. Instead, it opened to a tall, narrow room. On the other side of the door, Widow saw electronics, security monitors that were shut off, and electronic locks on the inside of the door.

  The lights in the room flickered on without a switch being flipped. Widow figured that motion sensors had kicked them on.

  At the end of the room, on the far wall, Widow saw a small kitchenette, including counter space, a sink, a single burner stovetop, and a small refrigerator. There was a long sofa that Widow assumed pulled out to a bed.

  On the opposite wall, Widow saw what Casey wanted him to see. Under light, like it was being displayed, Widow saw Navy officer keepsakes, his eyes honing in on an unloaded Heckler and Koch MK25, which was a personal favorite of his and most other SEALs. The MK25, along with the Sig Sauer P226, have been long-standing weapons for the SEAL teams.

  Widow scanned the chest candy of medals and ribbons decorated on the admiral’s coat that hung from a small coat bar with all the other awards and shelves of framed photographs from a time, long ago. He assumed that the name on the nametape would’ve been Sossaman, since everyone had referred to the ranch as the Sossaman ranch and the family’s name was Sossaman.

  But Widow had never heard of an Admiral Sossaman before. So, he took a peek at the name. Before he could get the name off the nametape, they heard the obvious sound of a throat being cleared.

  Widow and Casey turned around to find Mrs. Miranda, the housekeeper, standing in the doorway.

  She said, “Mr. Casey, you know that you are not supposed to be in here!”

  Casey said, “Sorry, Señora. I was just showing Widow Grandpa’s old military stuff.”

  “It doesn’t matter what you were doing. Your mom told you time and time again to stay out of here. This isn’t your stuff. This is a panic room. It’s not intended to be shown to strangers.”

  Casey started to say something back, but Mrs. Miranda lifted her head and stuck her nose up, like she was giving him a look that said, “I won’t tolerate any more back talk.”

  Casey hung his head and just nodded, while staring at her feet.

  Widow said, “Don’t be mad at the kid. It was my fault. I asked about the door.”

  Miranda stared at Widow, but didn’t respond to that. Instead she asked, “It’s a little early for dinner, Senor, but I have leftovers from lunch. Are you hungry?”

  Widow said, “You know that would be nice. Also, do you have coffee?”

  CHAPTER 27

  FBI AGENT ESCOBAR looked at her phone mounted on a case on the dashboard of the Crown Vic that she had signed out from the FBI motor pool. She drove it out of Seattle and pulled over off the interstate after an interstate cloverleaf and stopped on the shoulder.

  She didn’t pull into a gas station or a rest area or a strip mall parking lot because those places tended to have surveillance cameras. The last thing that she wanted was to be caught on camera at any point.

  She put the car in park and took her foot off the brake so that the brake lights were off.

  She looked in her rearview for a good long minute before she was satisfied that no one was tailing her. None of the other agents were clued to her plans, which was good.

  The one thing that the Bureau loved was catching bad guys, hiding behind their badge, pretending to be good guys. There are a lot of criminals that law enforcement officials despise, the top of the list being so-called “cop killers.” But second down from them were traitors, agents who insulted the badge by being criminals hiding in plain sight.

  The thing that Halle Escobar couldn’t hide was that her twin sister had been murdered ten years ago. That was public knowledge as far as the Bureau was concerned. She had been working a case, in which Liam Sossaman had been arrested on charges of treason.

  Sossaman had turned himself in to NCIS in Bahrain.

  He agreed to roll over on his business partner and Lucy Escobar was the agent assigned to his case. Before Sossaman gave up his partner, he and Lucy were ambushed.

  Lucy was murdered.

  She wasn’t there for her sister’s ambush. How could she have been? She was on assignment down in Kansas. Halle Escobar worked financial crimes. She wasn’t any kind of elite special agent, not back then and not now. None of her superiors would’ve called her “special” if it wasn’t for the word being a part of her official title, Special Agent Escobar.

  Escobar looked at the road ahead and then in the mirror one last time. She looked at her reflection in the mirror.

  There was no turning back now. She’d dug up enough to know that the investigation into her sister’s death wasn’t an investigation as much as it had been a cover-up.

  She had given up on learning the reasons why the Navy and the FBI wanted to cover up her sister’s murder. She never understood why no one would talk to her about it. She never understood why no one would give her the details.

  Qatal had told her that the Sossaman wife knew something. So Escobar would ask her in person.

  She opened her email and stared at the photo of her dead sister again. It was horrible.

  She closed her eyes, tried not to look at it. She thanked God that Qatal had contacted her. That he was on her side. That he had sent her the photograph and the clues to help her find the truth.

  She was grateful that someone had finally given her answers.

  CHAPTER 28

  WIDOW HAD ENJOYED a hot cup of coffee, black, no sugar, no cream, and he had watched the housekeeper brew it from start to finish.

  He sat on a barstool on the opposite side of that large, gray counter-topped island in the kitchen.

  He drained the cup down halfway before he finally spoke.

  Casey sat to his right and the housekeeper stood on the opposite side, which seemed to be her favorite spot, like the kitchen was her office. She stood with pride. Widow figured that she might’ve grown up with dreams of being a chef, opening her own restaurant or café or coffee shop one day, but she ended up housekeeping and cooking for a rich family in northern Montana.

  He said, “This is delicious. Good coffee. I don’t recognize the bean. Is this Guatemalan?”

  He was guessing that it may have been from her home country.

  She smiled and said, “No. I’d never use beans from Guatemala.”

  She said it in a matter-of-fact tone like he should’ve known that she wasn’t a fan of Guatemala. Then she said, “I’m from Venezuela.”

  He picked up that she didn’t like being confused with another geographical location other than the one she was from and technically they weren’t close. Venezuela was in South America and Guatemala was in Central America, next to Mexico. Widow was way off base, not that he saw what the big deal was, not at first. Then again, if someone had said he was from Alabama and not Mississippi, he might get a little bent out of shape too.

  He said, “Is it from Venezuela? Do they have good coffee beans?”

  “Of course they have good coffee. It’s Venezuela.”

  Widow stayed quiet.

  Miranda said, “But this is from Starbucks.”

  Widow smiled, said, “Starbucks? I never would’ve guessed that.”

  Which was true because he avoided Starbucks, in general and as a matter of principle. Not that he had any personal dealings with the coffee giant that would persuade him to avoid them. It was just because Widow liked small places. He liked to support local economies over corporate America.

  He took another drink from the coffee and decided maybe he should revisit and reevaluate this policy. It was damn good coffee.

  Casey asked, “Where are you from?”

  Widow said, “Originally?”

  Casey nodded.

  “I’m from the South. Deep South.”

  Casey didn’t ask a specific plac
e. He said, “You don’t have an accent.”

  “Most people I grew up with don’t. Of course, a lot of people do, but I think that’s mostly the older generations. People tend to sound like the other people in their environment. Ever since the invention and mass production of television, more and more people sound like the people on TV.”

  Casey said, “Were you raised by TV?”

  “No. Not really. I never had much interest in it. My mom raised me. She didn’t have much of an accent either. Guess I didn’t get one because of her and the kids in my school.”

  Casey said, “You said that you were in the military?”

  Widow stayed quiet.

  “What branch?”

  Widow thought about not answering that or just flat-out lying, like he had done so many times before, but in the end, he figured why lie? He said, “Navy.”

  “Cool! Were you on battleships? Did you go underwater in a submarine?”

  Widow stared at his cup and then looked at Casey and Miranda. He said, “Yes.”

  “Which one?”

  “Both.”

  “Wow! That’s pretty cool!”

  Widow smiled and said, “It was pretty cool.”

  Casey asked, “You ever see one of those cannons on a battleship go off?”

  “We don’t call em cannons. And you mean did I ever see one fired?

  Casey nodded with a big smile on his face.

  Miranda leaned in like she was interested in the answer too.

  Before Widow could answer, Crispin entered the kitchen. She had changed her clothes. She wore a white-and-red sundress and she looked good in it.

  Widow wondered if she ever felt the impact that she had on other people when she entered a room. He imagined that she probably ignored it. He couldn’t imagine the feeling of never being comfortable because all eyes were on her, even in her own home.

  Crispin walked up next to Casey and placed a hand on his shoulder. She asked, “What are you guys talking about?”

  Casey said, “Widow was in the Navy, like Grandpa.”