Primary Valor by Jack Mars (booksvooks TXT) 📗

strange dreams, nightmares about the victims of horrible crimes. Spendingthe days following up on leads, chasing the nightmare, closing in on it, thenchatting pleasantly with the spouse on the phone during downtime. This hadnever been his life before now. He didn’t know what to make of it.

Becca, for her part, seemed tolike it. It was what she had been hoping for when he joined the SRT.

“How did the interview go?” shesaid now.

“It went all right,” Luke said. “Wemight have gotten some things we can use. Not sure yet. We passed it up theline. Trudy Wellington and Mark Swann and some other people are digging intoit.”

The lies were still part of this. Thathadn’t changed. He made no mention of traveling here under assumed identities,of how they extracted the information from Louis Clare, or of the three deadchildren they’d found as a result of that information. He would never, if theylived to be 100, tell her about the child they found in the ice chest.

He also made no mention of drivingthrough the night, or the rental van owner appearing with a shotgun thismorning. He made no mention of being arrested by the FBI, the same agency heostensibly worked for, or of the fact that he and Ed were probably off the casenow.

All he and Ed had done so far,according to this conversation, was interview one man. It had run late, so hehadn’t called her to say goodnight. They were at the hotel now, would probablyspend one more night, and come home in the morning. They were just waiting forinstructions.

Police work. Following up leads. Sendingin the information. Waiting for further instructions.

“That’s good,” Becca said. “Itsounds like you’ve done your part.”

“Yeah,” Luke said. “Maybe so.”

“Well, Gunner and I miss you. Wecan’t wait to see you.”

“I miss you, too,” Luke said. Andhe meant it. One some level, he would just as soon walk away from this life,from career criminals and alligators and nasty surprises lurking in the back ofabandoned trucks parked in the middle of nowhere.

He could easily imagine a life ofjust him, Becca, and Gunner spending the vast majority of their time out at thecabin, time passing, the seasons changing, Gunner slowly growing to manhood.

It was so idyllic, in fact, that…

A knock came at his door. The handthat made the knock was heavy enough that Luke knew right away who it was.

“Hold on one second, honey,” hesaid. “Yeah?” he called.

“Stone. It’s Ed. We’re doing aconference call with SRT in five minutes. My room. They tried to reach you, butyou’re not answering your phone.”

“Hon, I have to go,” he said toBecca. “I have a meeting.”

“Okay, sweetie. Call me later.”

Luke hung up and went to the door.He opened it and Ed stood there in a dark blue SRT T-shirt and athletic shorts.Everything Ed wore clung tightly to his body.

“Going for a jog?” Luke said.

Ed didn’t smile. “I was sleeping. Ijust woke up. But I talked to Trudy briefly. We’re back on the case. No moresneaking around. No more fake names. The Special Response Team has been broughton board. They’re making it official now.”

He gave Luke a funny look.

“But we’re on a short leash thistime.”

* * *

“It was a long night,” Ed said. “Butwe’ve had longer.”

Ed’s cell phone was on the desk inhis room. He had the speakerphone feature on, which made this something like aconference call. Luke could picture the rest of them in the conference room atSRT headquarters, talking into the black plastic octopus on the long table.

“You boys were busy,” Don said. “Goodwork.”

“Thanks,” Luke said.

He glanced at Ed. Ed was not hisnormal self. He had exactly zero sense of humor left. He had stopped smilingentirely. Luke wasn’t the staff psychologist, but it wasn’t hard to put afinger on it. Ed had a baby on the way, and he was worried. Luke knew thatfeeling very well.

Also, Ed had a traumaticexperience when he was younger, an experience with a girl he knew beingabducted. Now they were on the trail of another girl who had been abducted, andthey had no idea what they were going to find at the end of it, or if theywould even find the end.

In the course of it, they hadfound a dead child, thrown away like trash. And there were two more at thatsite. They’d had to deal with a man whose specialty had once been traffickingpeople, including children. If Luke hadn’t been there, Ed would have killedthat man. But he would have tortured him first.

Ed was nearing some kind ofbreaking point. Luke had seen it before, in combat. And this had all started assome kind of favor. You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours.

“Wellington will bring us all upto date about the developments since this morning,” Don said. “Some have beensignificant. Trudy?”

“Hi, guys,” she said. She spokemechanically, as if to keep her emotions walled off from the situation.

“First off, the warehouse inFlorence. The children are two Jane Does and a John Doe. There is very littlein the way of fingerprints or identifying features left to go on. Their DNA isbeing matched to a database of missing children, in an attempt to get someclosure. In terms of who the perpetrators may be, the South Carolina Bureau ofInvestigation is sweeping the truck and the warehouse for fingerprints, hairsamples, DNA. The place has not been used in a while, but at one time, therehad been a fair amount of activity. There is a working kitchen, with food leftbehind in the cupboards. Much of it was consumed by rats or mice. There arealso several rooms sectioned off with drywall. The best guess is they were usedas cells in which to keep prisoners.”

Luke let that sink in. He realizedthis case was affecting him, too. The changes coming over him were not as starkas the ones coming over Ed, but it was clear to him they were happening. Thepeople they were dealing with were not combatants. They were predators. Andtheir behavior was premeditated. They didn’t fight for any cause. No religiousdogma or nationalistic glory. They just defiled the innocent for some sick,twisted pleasure that was impossible to