Retribution (Secrets & Lies #3)(27)
With trembling fingers I put the image in Katrina's image analyzer, just in case we can find a clue as to where Isis is. I doubt it, Isis knows what she's doing, each image is taken in a blank background. This one is taken on a bed with white sheets underneath her lean body, and I shake my head as I close the script and shut down my e-mail, opening up a normal web browser to check the Times-Picayune to see what the local news is. After a picture like that, I can use some sports scores or maybe rumors about what the Saints are going to do this off-season.
What I see instead turns my stomach. Local chauffeur third victim of sniper in past week. Michael Barr, 41, of New Orleans, was the third victim of what some are already calling the “Delta Sniper,” after the infamous Beltway Sniper pair of John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo, who terrorized Washington, D.C. in 2002. Barr, a driver for the Top Star Limousine Company, was preparing his car for work yesterday when he was shot in the chest by a large caliber round. New Orleans police stated that Barr was shot from at least four hundred yards away, and that while they do not have any clues yet, they are working with forensics officials from the FBI to identify the exact type of weapon used.
“I can tell them what type,” I whisper to myself, looking at the crime scene photo in the Picayune.
“She hit again?” Jackson asks behind me, and I turn, seeing him coming out of his room dressed for a workout. He and Katrina are working hard at what they can, although I can sense everyone wishes they could do some firearms training. When your enemy is reaching out and touching her targets from hundreds of yards away, working joint locks and takedowns seems like a waste of time. Still, it gives the two of them and Carson something to take up their time and energy, which is just as important if not more important than the actual skills. Fear is the mind-killer, and all that. “What is that, four?”
“Five actually, if what Darcy told Katrina the other day is correct. Three sniper hits, and two others who were associates of Peter DeLaCoeur, all dead in the past ten days. She hit Mike yesterday.”
Jackson, who'd had Mike drive him around for years, probably interacted with Mike more than any other member of the DeLaCoeur staff. He goes silent, then shakes his head. “Damn. Mike. I hadn't thought of him in a couple months at least. After that last time he drove me, Peter had Mike not interact with me at all. I mean, he wasn't a friend or anything, but he did try to look out for me when I had my head up my ass.”
“That he did. I don't understand this one, either. Isis would not have put a bullet in Mike without instructions from Peter to do so, she doesn't kill without orders. But Mike was one hundred percent loyal, and Peter intentionally kept him in the dark,” I muse, running my hand through my hair. “Mike spent most of his time running you, Margaret, and Andrea around town. He only drove Peter on legit business. What was he doing on a hit list?”
Jackson shakes his head. “Maybe Peter's just gone over the edge. After the Grammercys turned on him and we put Orloff in the ground, we did push him. Maybe it was just a push too damn far.”
I shrug. “The good part though, if Isis is doing all of these, then she is also keeping other people off of the contracts. I bet she has put the word out, New Orleans is her territory for now. Whatever the case, I need to talk to Katrina. She and I need to coordinate our tracking of this bloodbath.”
“Mind if I ask why?” Jackson asks, rolling his wrists to start to loosen them up. “Not saying that Isis isn't dangerous, but what's the point of tracking what she's doing down there? I'm sure Jeff and the boys from NOPD already have the feds involved, and they've got files on Isis, they probably already know who she is and everything down to her favorite color for Jimmy Choos.”
“Last I knew, Isis Bardot's never been fingerprinted or anything approaching normal identification,” I reply, tapping my lips with my index finger. “She's even more of a ghost than Katrina. Fake IDs, all of it. Twenty years ago she had passports from half a dozen countries. Nowadays, I am betting it's even more. Hell, I don't even know for sure if her real name is Isis Bardot or not. When we were active in Kurdistan, the locals from Aisha's village did recognize her, and she's certainly related to Aisha, but as for the Bardot part, or the part about how she ended up being only a half-sister, well... I just don't know.”
Jackson hums. “How did that happen, anyway? Dad f*cked around on mom?”
I shake my head, standing up. “According to Isis, it was actually that she and Aisha shared a mother. She was just a Kurdish woman who was working on the air base, working while her husband and daughter were living in Kurdistan, and they had an affair. She got pregnant, but her father kept her safe until after Isis was born. Being a married woman who had an affair, her mother abandoned her to her father, going back to her Kurdish family afterward. It wasn't until after she was back in Kurdistan that she revealed the truth to her husband. He accepted Isis as his daughter for a while, but soon sent her to live with her real father permanently. It could be true, it could be bullshit. I don't know. Doesn't really matter anyway.”
Jackson hums, nodding. “True. So where are you going now?”
“Now?” I ask, looking around the big main room. “I think I will check our wood supply, then get some exercise. Tell your wife that I’m not ready for our little sparring match, but soon. How is she looking?”