Killer Focus

One

Present day

Lieutenant Commander Steve Fischer stepped into the records room of the Jackson Naval Air Station, Florida, and handed the clerk a list of the files he wanted to view. There were nine in all. Eight didn’t require a security clearance; one did. On request, he produced his ID and security clearance and waited for his details to be verified against the computerized register.

Several minutes later, the files were deposited on the counter, checked and signed off by a second records officer and Fischer was cleared to carry them through to the cramped work cubicles that ran the length of one wall.

Taking a seat, he placed the eight files he had chosen at random, and in which he had no interest, to one side, and selected the file labeled Akidron. In a recent overhaul of the filing system, Akidron had suddenly appeared. The reference number tied it in with a group of files containing material on operations in the Middle East, but the coincidence that Akidron spelled backward was Nordika had been enough to pique his interest.

He examined the security classification and a seal that had been put in place in 1984 and had never been broken, indicating that he was the first person to view the file since it had been taken out of circulation. The fact that the file had been off-limits for over twenty years and had a high security rating was notable but not unusual. Jacksonville was the center for the Southeast Command, which included twenty-one naval installations, among them Guantanamo Bay and Puerto Rico. With Cuba on their doorstep, a number of files contained sensitive material that could affect the security of the United States.

He broke the seal and opened the file. On the first page Akidron was reversed to spell Nordika.

He skimmed the pages that detailed the information supplied by George Hartley, a wealthy manufacturer based in Houston, and which had been passed on to Monteith. Hartley claimed that ex-Nazi SS officers, in league with Marco Chavez, head of a major Colombian drug cartel, were involved in smuggling arms and drugs. The arms were bound for terrorist and military factions in South America and Cuba, the cocaine was moving stateside. Military personnel were reportedly involved, although Hartley hadn’t been able to supply a list of names. When the divers had gone missing, an attempt to follow up on the details Hartley had supplied had been stalled by Hartley’s unexpected death. According to the coroner’s report, the fatality had been caused by a lethal cocktail of prescription medications and an excess of alcohol, and had been deemed an unfortunate accident.

Suddenly the lack of information available on the wreck of the Nordika and the disappearance of eight navy personnel made sense. Monteith had not only run from the scandal of the loss of an entire SEAL team and the ridicule that would result from a failed Nazi hunt, he had been afraid for his own life. Hartley had been executed, and Monteith had recognized that he would be next.

In a botched attempt to kill the affair, he had concealed all the evidence he’d obtained by renaming the file and closing it. He had banked on the fact that twenty years after the Nordika tragedy, there was likely to be little interest in a follow-up investigation. Monteith had died just eighteen months later, reportedly of natural causes.

The back of his neck crawling, Steve flipped through the last set of pages, which contained the mission brief and the orders issued to Todd Fischer and his men. The documents had been signed off by Monteith. As he turned the last page, an envelope attached to the rear file cover with tape that was cracked and perished by age detached. Glossy prints and a set of negatives spilled across the desktop.

The first photo—a splash of bright turquoise and the primary yellow of a mask and snorkel—was of himself at age eight, underwater, in the family swimming pool. The second was a shot of his best friend, Marc Bayard, the third of his cousin, Sara.

The fourth print was of Todd Fischer, sitting on the bottom of the pool, holding his breath and waiting patiently while Steve had fooled with the camera, trying to get a cool shot of his dad.

Chest tight, he picked up the print, careful to handle only the edges, and stared into a piece of the past he had never expected to find. He remembered the afternoon the photos had been taken as clearly as if it had been yesterday. It had been approximately two weeks before his father had disappeared. The weather had been hot and sultry and his dad had been home on leave, giving them snorkeling lessons and, when they’d pestered him, a lesson on underwater photography. Normally, they weren’t allowed to touch the camera, because it was an expensive piece of equipment and the shutter release was ultrasensitive.

In the next photo the luminous turquoise of pool water changed to cool blues and lilacs. Seawater. The absence of red and yellow tones in the coral indicated the depth as being from between forty to sixty feet, maybe a little more.

Through the murk he registered the focal point of the shot, the stern of a vessel and three numbers. The reason Monteith had kept the film, which should have been passed on to Eleanor Fischer, was now obvious. The numbers, remnants of Lloyd’s Register numbers, were familiar. Two years previously Steve had spent a few days in Costa Rica, chartered a launch and had found the wreck of the Nordika. Because of its remoteness, the site was not a popular dive location, but it was noted on the sea charts. He had dived on the wreck and had taken almost the exact same photo.

A set of prints depicting the cargo hold and the ancient diesels in the engine room followed. The sensation, as he flipped through the prints, was eerie as he viewed the same scenes he had photographed, only this time seen through his father’s eyes.

The next photo made the tension in the pit of his stomach escalate: a diver and, off to the side, the shadowy, encrusted shape of the Nordika’s hull. The final two snapshots were markedly different. The first was an off-center flash of a face distorted by a diving mask and a cloud of dark fluid—blood. The second, aimed upward, as if the camera had dropped to the sea bottom and the shutter mechanism had triggered, capturing the divers suspended above, one arching back as a spear punched into his shoulder.

Steve stared at the print. The snapshot was skewed, but the picture it had produced was sharp enough. He could make out the U.S. Navy marking on the wounded diver’s scuba tank, as well as the tattoo on Todd Fischer’s bare shoulder—the same tattoo that was visible in the holiday snap of his father sitting in the bottom of the Fischer family swimming pool.

For a split second the image of his father that he had “seen” more than twenty years before was superimposed over the print. He had never told his mother, or anyone, the full truth, that somehow in the last few seconds of his life Todd Fischer had reached out and connected with him. That he had experienced the moment of his father’s death.

The phenomenon had been singular and frightening. As the days following his father’s disappearance had passed and the search had continued, Steve had waited for news, aware that even if they did find his father it was too late. Todd Fischer had died on October 21, 1984, at approximately three o’clock in the afternoon.

The weeks of waiting for confirmation of what he had already known had burned deep. But just days after the funeral, when the press had published a leaked naval report citing Fischer and his men as deserters, Steve had been stunned. He had grown up with a number of calm certainties in his life. One of those had been that his father was a bona fide hero and a patriot. There was no way Todd Fischer would have deserted his family, his command or his country.

Shortly after the funeral, he had overheard his uncle discussing the fact that Todd had been working on something sensitive enough to hit a nerve with naval command, and the possibility of a cover-up. At eight years old, Steve hadn’t grasped the concepts of collateral damage and ex-pendability fully, but he had understood enough. Something had gone wrong and his father had been sacrificed. He could understand his father giving his life for his country—Todd Fischer had talked about that risk often enough—but he couldn’t accept that sacrifice going hand in glove with the disgrace of being labeled a traitor.

He hadn’t known all of the men who had died, but he had met some of them. They were mostly married with families. They hadn’t been any more expendable than his own father had been, and he was certain that in no way had justice been served.

Now, finally, he had proof. Instead of investigating the crime, Monteith, along with his personal staff, had covered the deaths up and walked out.

Extracting a notebook from his briefcase, Steve made a note of the personnel who had been involved, not only with the mission but with the reporting process, including the filing clerk who had authorized the closing of the Akidron file.

Maybe it was overkill, but Monteith, a decorated admiral, had been frightened enough by Hartley’s death to not only resign, but to commit an act of treason by concealing a threat to national security, and an indictable offense by concealing evidence of a mass murder. Steve could only put that fear down to two things. Monteith had obtained further information that wasn’t contained in the file, and he had been afraid for his own life.

Replacing the photographs and the negatives in the envelope, he slipped them into his briefcase along with the file, locked it and returned the remaining files to the front desk. After all these years the possibility that he could find his father’s remains was remote, but at least he had clarity on one point: Todd Fischer and the seven men under his command had been murdered while serving their country.

Frowning, the clerk counted the files, checked them against the register then recounted them. “Sir, there’s a file missing.”

He stared at the space Lieutenant Commander Fischer had occupied on the other side of the counter just seconds before. He was talking to air.

Fischer had already left.

* * *

Two days later Fischer walked into an interview room at the office of the Director of National Intelligence in Washington, D.C., and handed a copy of the Akidron file to Rear Admiral Saunders. The only other occasion he had met Saunders had been at his father’s funeral, although he was well aware of Saunders’s career path. Since 1984, Saunders’s rise through the ranks had been swift, moving from commodore to rear admiral with a raft of commendations and honors for active service in the Gulf. Following a stint in naval intelligence reporting to the Joint Chiefs, his career had shifted to another level entirely when he had been head-hunted by the Director of National Intelligence.

Saunders invited Fischer to take a seat and opened the file. Minutes later he placed the photos that had accompanied the file in a neat pile beside the open folder. The photos were dated, numbered and indisputably had come from Todd Fischer’s underwater camera. The first four photos were family snaps, the next ten, working shots of the Nordika. The final three clearly depicted a murder in progress.

Saunders’s jaw tightened at the frozen violence of the last two photos. He had known Todd Fischer personally, and liked him. He had never found it easy to stomach the actions that had been necessary to keep Monteith’s Nazi-hunting junket under wraps. The fact that Monteith had gotten his men to the scene, recovered Todd Fischer’s camera and sealed away evidence that would not only have cleared Fischer and his men of all charges but sparked a murder inquiry, was an unpleasant shock.

The even more unpalatable fact that he now faced public exposure for his actions in the Nordika cover-up was a very personal and immediate threat. He reported to the Director of National Intelligence, who advised the president and oversaw the entire intelligence community. When it came to matters of national and international security, the slightest miscalculation on his part could cost him his job. “I presume you have the originals.”

Fischer’s gaze was remote. “And the negatives.”

Saunders steepled his fingers and studied Steve Fischer’s tough, clean-cut features, the immaculate uniform. Todd Fischer had been competent, likable and damned good at his job. His son was in another category entirely. In anyone’s terms, Steve Fischer was a high achiever. He had cruised through basic training, completed BUDS without a hitch and graduated from the College of Command and Staff with honors. With a string of awards and medals for active service with the SEAL teams in the Gulf and Afghanistan, he had fast-tracked his way through the ranks. A lieutenant commander already, according to the assessments of his superior officers, Fischer would make commander by the time he was thirty-five. If a new theater of operations opened up, the promotion would be effective immediately. “What do you want?”

Fischer slid a letter outlining his resignation from the navy across the polished walnut of Saunders’s desk. “A job.”

Two

Washington, D.C. Eight months later

The barnlike chamber of the library was chilly, the central heating cranky and inconsistent, so that some areas were warm and others existed in a flow of icy air. FBI Agent Taylor Jones was unlucky enough to be sitting in a room with a windchill factor somewhere in the arctic range.

Huddling into the warmth of her lined woolen coat, she scrolled the microfilm until she reached the date she was searching for and began to skim newspapers that had been published more than fifty years ago. Outside, the night was black, the wind fitful, driving sporadic bursts of rain against tall, mullioned windows. Somewhere a radiator ticked as if someone had just turned up the heat. The sound was comforting and oddly in sync with the yellowish glow of the lights, and walls lined with books that had moldered quietly for decades.

She made a note on the pad at her side then continued to scroll. A clock on the wall registered the passage of time. One hour, then two. The ache in her shoulder and wrist that had developed from hours spent making the same small movement over and over became more insistent. Taylor dismissed it in favor of sinking into the familiar cadences of sifting through information, and the well-worn comfort of being in utter control of her world. If the pain became sharp enough to interfere with her concentration, she would take a break and do a few exercises to free up the muscles.

Somewhere behind her a chair scraped on the tiled floor. The measured step of the only other occupant of the room, a thin man wearing bifocals, registered. The double click of a briefcase unlocking was distinct in the muffled quiet of the room.

A terrible alertness gripped her.

Eyes glued to the screen, she concentrated on controlling her breathing. Stay calm. Stay focused. The tightness in her chest and stomach, the sour taste flooding her mouth, were a mirage, leftover symptoms from a nightmare that had ended months ago. A nightmare she had worked hard to forget.

She had read the psychiatric reports on the effects of the four days she had spent as a hostage; she’d had the therapy. She had even gone back for further sessions so she could understand and control the anxiety attacks which, according to her therapist, were her mind and body’s remembered response to the experience. The way out was simple: instruct the mind that there was nothing to fear and so invalidate the body’s responses.

Inhaling again, she forced her focus outward, away from the coiled tension, away from the memories. Her gaze skated over shelves of books, a wooden stepladder, and snagged on her own reflection, white faced and strained, in a window.

Not a dim, claustrophobic shed with bars at the window. Endless shadows, the snick of a briefcase, the sting of a needle. The smothering paralysis as the drug anesthetized her body, leaving her formless, floating, eyes wide, staring into a darkness that shifted, reformed—

Stop.

Don’t let the mind go back.

It was late. Instead of working she should have gone home and eaten dinner. She was tired; her therapist had warned her that tiredness and stress were, in themselves, triggers.

As dangerous as briefcases and needles.

She drew in another controlled breath and checked her watch, anchoring herself in the normality of that small gesture. The hostage crisis was over, finished. Earl Slater was behind bars, Diane Eady and Senator Radcliff, the man whose property she had been held on, were both dead. She had escaped; she was safe. But Alex Lopez, head of a Colombian drug cartel, and the man who had drugged her with a powerful hallucinogen called ketamine hydrochloride, had gotten away.

Rain swept against the windows, and the sense of cold increased.

Don’t go back.

But in order to catch Lopez, she had to.

He was dangerous, a psychotic killer, and she needed him caught. When he had injected the first dose of ketamine he had stated that he would kill her, regardless of whether Rina Morell—Lopez’s former wife and a federal witness—handed herself over in exchange for Taylor or not. The only question was when.

Normally, that kind of rhetoric wouldn’t have shaken Taylor. Lopez was powerful and influential; if he had wanted her dead, she would be dead. But caught in the grip of a hallucinatory drug, her normal reasoning process hadn’t worked. She would never forget the experience, and she was going to make sure it didn’t happen to anyone else.

Apart from her own determination to capture him, her appetite for the hunt was further whetted by the fact that Rina Morell was a personal friend. The damage Lopez had done the Morell family was a matter of record now, but that didn’t alter the horror of the ordeal Rina and her parents had endured.

She registered a second click as the briefcase was closed. Jaw tight, she swiveled around in the chair and studied the owner of the briefcase who was strolling toward the front desk, the box of microfilm he had been studying tucked under one arm. He was midforties, about one hundred and forty pounds, six feet tall, give or take an inch. Height was always the most difficult detail to estimate.

She wondered what he had been doing here this late on a Sunday night, but the flare of curiosity was brief. It was automatic for her to notice people. The clinical assessment was part of the job, but for as long as she could remember she had been aware of the people around her, how they looked and what made them tick. Her mother’s standard complaint had been that she hadn’t produced an eight-pound baby girl, she had given birth to a cop. It had been a mild form of rebellion for Taylor to become an agent instead.

Still on edge, she returned to the screen. A heading caught her attention, drawing her once more into the past. None of the key search words she had noted down were included, but the name was familiar.

She flipped through the files in her bag until she found the relevant one. It contained research she’d done while she was recovering from the hostage situation and the depressive effects of the ketamine. Locked out of the office for a month on mandatory sick leave, she’d had nothing better to do than attend therapy sessions and try to break open the Lopez/Morell case, which had unaccountably stalled.

She’d combed FBI files, the Internet and microfilms of old newspapers for anything to do with Lopez who, aside from drugs charges, was wanted for illegal entry into the United States, collusion in the theft and sale of decommissioned missile components, fraud, grievous bodily harm and murder.

Lopez’s real name was Alejandro Chavez, and he had been living in the States under a false identity from the age of twelve, courtesy of a brutal series of mass murders in Colombia that had made it impossible for him to live in his own country. Marco Chavez, Lopez’s father, had orchestrated the murders to force his son’s release from prison. Marco had succeeded in obtaining a pardon for Alex, but with the public outcry surrounding the massacres and a number of death threats, Alex had been forced into hiding.

She was also searching for anything to do with Marco Chavez, now deceased, and—just to pull this one into the region of the seriously weird—international banking and Nazis. The Nazis, according to the testimony of Slater—one of the few arrests they had made in the case—formed the backbone of a secretive cabal that had bankrolled Lopez and his cartel.

She opened the file, found the reference and returned her attention to the microfilm, a Reuters report dated 1954. Noted Jewish banker and self-professed Nazi hunter Stefan le Clerc had disappeared and fears were held for his safety. His last known location, New York, had been established from a letter he had posted to his wife, Jacqueline le Clerc, who was appealing for any information about her husband’s whereabouts. Apart from the years he had spent in international banking, le Clerc had founded an organization that worked to reunite families separated during the war and help survivors recover family money and assets. He was also noted for his campaign to track Nazi war criminals, and had been searching for a group of SS officers who had escaped Berlin in 1944 just weeks before Hitler had committed suicide in his bunker.

According to le Clerc, the officers had hijacked a cargo ship, Nordika, from Lubeck and escaped, taking with them an enormous quantity of looted goods and a group of children with IQs that ranked them as geniuses, part of a research project designed to establish a superior genetic seed pool for the Reich.