progress, snapping a few shots till he climbed behind the wheel of his silver Mercedes and left the area. He seemed cool and unaffected by the meeting, but when she scanned back to the top step, she found Hadley still staring after Vance, looking openly tense now. His anger was no longer disguised, either.
She reminded herself the meeting could mean nothing but found herself worried anyway. Max Vance had seemed so very deliberate in the way he’d approached Hadley. Was this encounter linked to Captain Taylor’s displeasure at the drop yesterday? Taylor had demanded the swarthy man’s boss get in touch with his. Officially, General Hadley was Taylor’s boss. Could he be Taylor’s boss in this illegal business, as well? Could Maxwell Vance be the man her Hispanic bag carrier answered to? Had Vance come there in answer to the general’s demand? If so, he’d told the general something he didn’t like hearing.
Her heart suddenly heavy, Tricia felt as if her own hero was teetering on the brink, ready to fall off his pedestal instead of Travis’s. She wanted to reject the notion out of hand but couldn’t because it could endanger the lives of his sons, daughter and wife. She pursed her lips. Whatever the truth was, she had to find it. She sighed. This was just one more reason to find all the Diablo connections on the base and help rid the community of a growing menace.
She lowered the camera and checked her watch. Time to report in with General Fielding. It wasn’t a meeting she looked forward to, but she couldn’t keep a three-star general waiting. Not even with information guaranteed to make him hit the roof over the culpability of Air Force personnel and all the civilian interference she’d run into thus far.
Tricia went back to her office and did a quick and dirty search of Maxwell Vance’s military records. It netted her lots of questions and absolutely no answers. Vance had spent decades in the Army yet he’d retired a lowly sergeant. His family lived too well for his pay grade and they’d never lived at a duty station with him. Max Vance didn’t add up at all.
Two hours later, whether she was ready or not, she walked in and saluted Lieutenant General Charles Fielding standing at attention in front of his desk.
The general kept his nicely appointed office free of all clutter so that the highly polished mahogany desk and bookshelves gleamed in the sunshine that poured in through the windows behind him. Photographs of his late wife and grown son were dotted throughout the room between an odd assortment of mementos. The room somehow managed to look homey and businesslike at once.
“At ease, and be seated, Major,” he said. “And tell me something I want to hear.”
General Fielding was a tall man in his very early sixties who’d given up on hair when it had given up on him. He simply shaved it all off the same way he shaved his youthful face. His most memorable feature was blue eyes that had all the cutting power of a laser when he aimed them at a junior officer. She felt that heat now as she settled into the leather chair in front of his desk.
Tricia swallowed. “I’m sorry, sir. The autopsy report on Ian…uh…Major Kelly showed exactly what the prelim did. He was forced to his knees and shot in the back of the head at point-blank range. His body was moved off base, I would imagine in the hope of throwing suspicion out into the community. The medical examiner turned up no other useful evidence. But Luminol and DNA tests show Major Kelly was killed on the flight line, in hangar four. Sir, there’s a killer somewhere on base with blood not only on his hands but on his uniform, as well.”
“Unless he or she managed to dispose of it when they got rid of the body. It’s Hadley or one of his pilots, right?”
“I’d say so, sir.”
“The Air Force went to a lot of trouble to move Hadley and his wing here where they could be watched. We aren’t in the habit of temporarily shutting down bases, even one as small as Cascade.”
“That story about a geological survey showing a major fault line running under Cascade was brilliant, sir.”
Rather than smile at the comment, the general frowned. “Yes it was, Major. And this idea apparently cost Major Kelly his life. Are you closer to proving who killed him?”
Tricia hesitated. She knew General Fielding felt terribly responsible for Ian’s death, though he’d never say so. “Not yet, sir. But on that front, I tailed Captain Taylor from the Meadow Lake Airport where the Buccaneers keep their F-100 Super Sabre. Taylor went straight to the general after reporting in at the flight line. He left twenty minutes later, however. The general’s secretary wasn’t on duty during that time so he may not be involved. General Hadley’s office door and his desk line up with the outer office door and the approaching hall. The general left both doors open so I’d have been seen if I’d tried to get close enough to hear what was being said. Money was the subject, though. I heard Captain Taylor say something about it. Even though I don’t know the context, it ties in with something I heard later.”
She caught the glitter in General Fielding’s eyes before she continued. “Taylor left the general and went immediately to the warehouses close to the Colorado Springs airport. There he met with a swarthy man and exchanged the duffel bag for a briefcase. I got a few black-and-white shots of the meeting and the exchange. They appeared to argue, but I couldn’t hear all of what was said. I was able to hear Taylor demand more money then tell the subject to give a message to his boss to contact—” She hesitated. “I’d have to say he meant General Hadley, sir, but he didn’t use his name. Right after that I ran into trouble.”
General Fielding shot her his infamous scowl. “What happened?”
“Do you recall the police detective who originally had Major Kelly’s murder case?”
He narrowed his eyes slightly in thought. Charles Fielding truly had a mind like a steel trap. “Vance. He seemed annoyed but he was cooperative.”
“Yes. That would be Sam. His older brother—Travis Vance—is the trouble I ran into. He’s an ex-cop turned corporate counterespionage, counterterrorism expert. He caused me to miss the chance to follow the new subject and the bag. Nor did I get a positive ID on the subject because of him.”
Hoping the general wouldn’t want to go into what happened further, she flipped open her notebook and went over the chronology again. “I can tell you Captain Taylor landed at Meadow Lake at 1730, checked in at the flight line at 1800, met with General Hadley at 1845. He then went to the meeting behind the warehouse at approximately 1900 and immediately passed on the bag that he’d kept with him since he landed. That was when I heard money spoken of again.”
The scowl on the general’s face grew more pronounced when he slapped his desk. “It has to be drugs. I want these men, Major. Your promotion is riding on how fast I get them. Tell me how this Travis Vance stopped you from following up on the subject and where that bag was headed.”
Tricia felt her face heat and made sure her response didn’t sound too familiar. “Vance is not a small man, sir. And I gathered we were spotted when I ran into him.”
“Ran into? Literally?”
She fought the urge to grimace. “Yes, sir. That’s why he had to create a diversion, so we wouldn’t be recognized, but that meant I couldn’t follow the subject.”
“And what exactly did Vance do to create this diversion?”
Tricia gritted her teeth. She’d kill Travis for this. “He kissed me, sir. It…ah…managed to hide our identities nicely. Actually, it worked out quite well because I was able to hear the unidentified subject’s voice. From that little snippet of conversation, I’m pretty sure I was able to determine his ethnic background and social placement.”
“And that is?”
“Hispanic, and I would say at best, lower middle class.”
“And what did he say to help you determine all that in—what did you call it—a snippet?”
Tricia squirmed a bit in her seat. “He called Mr. Vance ‘amigo’ and he spoke in accented English. And—” She hesitated but the general motioned with his hand for her to continue. “He