The Investigator (Letty Davenport, #1) (119)

“Ah, my God,” Kaiser said.

Letty, stone-faced, said, “We knew that, didn’t we? We got their blood all over us.”



* * *





The Pershing task force was scattered around four conference rooms, but the main center was in what looked like a classroom into which somebody had carried all the cafeteria tables and chairs, if there was a cafeteria. Before they went in, Fix asked Letty, “You want to . . . freshen up?”

“I’m okay,” Letty said.

“You’re covered with blood,” Fix said. “Your forehead is still bleeding.”

Kaiser: “She can wash her face later. We need to find out what’s going on. How many militia have you nailed down?”

“That might not be the best question to ask,” Fischer said. “Because I think the answer is not many.”

“Or even damn few,” Fix added.



* * *





When they walked into the task force center, the dozen people inside stopped talking and turned to look at them. A tall, square, fortyish man with a graying mustache said, “Well, you guys look like shit.”

Letty recognized his voice: “Didn’t have time to put on a dress.”

He smiled and said, in a dry Texas accent, “We’ve secured your rooms at the motel. We got the first cars down there a half-hour ago. There seems to be some issue about sheets and pillows.”

“Yeah. We stole them,” Kaiser said. He scraped two chairs around, and he and Letty sat down.

Letty: “How many have you rounded up? The militia?”

“Five, at this point,” the man said. “We are troubled by that. By the way, I’m Carter Walsh, I’m a major with the Texas Rangers. I was elected to run this show . . . Have you got anything new for us?”

Letty looked at Kaiser, who said, “We believe the militia was run by four or five people. One of them we killed up near Seminole, Max Sawyer. Of the other four, Jane Hawkes, who called herself Jael, got away, as far as we know . . . unless you guys got her?”

Walsh shook his head. “No. Not a sniff of her.”

Kaiser said, “The other three, Rand Low, Victor Crain, and Terrill Duran, are dead. Letty and I killed them as they were trying to escape after the bridge explosion.”

Walsh nodded. “We heard there were dead militiamen . . . apparently that TV crew has shots of the bodies. This is critical: Do you have anything more we can work with? Our well is running dry . . .”

Letty dug in her pocket and held up her phone. “Did you know that license renewal stickers have the tag numbers on them? We couldn’t risk pulling the tape off the plates, but I’ve got photos of the renewal stickers from sixty-two trucks. Not great pictures, but you can read the tag numbers.”

In the sudden hubbub, Walsh laughed and then said, “Ah, babe: you make my heart sing. And . . . please don’t shoot me in the balls. Please. And give me that fuckin’ phone.”

Letty poked a finger at him: “One more thing that I didn’t notice until after they took out the cell phone tower—all these guys were taking selfies. You know, themselves at the invasion, like with that mob that attacked the Capitol. When you locate these guys through the tag numbers, you gotta grab their phones. Immediately. They’ll hang themselves with their selfies. A lot of them took their masks down while they were taking them.”

Walsh: “You’re . . . You guys . . . I had no idea what you could do. Senator Colles told me, but I wasn’t sure I believed it. Selfies. Jesus H. Christ!”



* * *





In the next hour, highway patrol officials began compiling names and addresses linked to Letty’s renewal sticker photos. The process was all computerized and didn’t take long. Many of the suspects lived in El Paso or within a few miles of El Paso; many of those who didn’t would still be on Texas highways. The patrol would coordinate early-morning raids by a task force of state and local cops to grab all the suspects simultaneously, and to seize their phones.

Letty and Kaiser were hit with a barrage of questions from Walsh and the others—agents from the FBI, the ATF, even an officer with the Army’s CID. The Army officer told them that the young captain they’d spoken to, Colin, used Letty’s iPhone photo to identify a soldier who Colin believed had stolen the C-4. “That’s not certain. We’re working on it. He’s a guy we’ve suspected was involved in black-market activities, selling stolen government equipment. But he’s good, so we haven’t been able to catch him at it.”

At eleven o’clock, Letty and Kaiser were faltering in their responses: they’d been asked too many repetitive questions. The news from Pershing wasn’t getting better: there were now eighteen confirmed deaths, and there were still seriously injured people awaiting transport to El Paso hospitals.

Letty got to an empty restroom, locked the door, stripped down, and took a sponge bath with paper towels. Her clothing was in shreds, but Fix, the FBI agent, was close to her size, and went to her apartment and brought back a pair of jeans and a blouse that fit well enough.

“Nothing we can do about the rust-colored gym shoes,” Fix said, shaking her head. “If I was wearing those shoes, I’d cut off my feet.”

Letty smiled for the first time that night.