Beyond Limits (Tracers #8)(39)

Her attention snapped to Gordon.

“Come with me.” He crossed the room. “Lieutenant Vaughn?”

He led the three of them down a narrow corridor and into a windowless room. From the ancient coffee-pot parked on the counter, she took it to be the break room. Potter sat at the end of a faux-wood table, talking on his phone and jotting notes on a legal pad. He ended his call as Gordon pulled out the chair beside him and everyone sat down.

Everyone except Derek. He leaned his shoulder against the wall and gave Elizabeth a look she couldn’t read. Glancing at the faces around the table she realized it was the group from Coronado, except this time Derek was the only SEAL.

Gordon looked at Elizabeth. “Tell me about the morgue.”

She took a breath and tried to collect her thoughts. “The assistant ME was called in to do the autopsy.”

“He had to be called?”

She looked at Potter, then glanced at the clock on the wall. “Well, it was already nine, so yeah, it’s after hours. Normally they’d wait until morning, but given the circumstances, they’re getting started right away. Agents Holmes and Chen are standing in to observe.”

“And you collected the personal effects?”

That had been her purpose in going there. “Got everything sealed up and delivered to our lab guys,” she reported. “Some of the analysis can be done here, but for DNA, I think they’ll send it to Quantico.”

“What’d you find?” Gordon asked.

She stifled a shudder as she pictured the bloodied clothing that had been cut from the body, the clumps of brain matter stuck to the jacket.

“Your basic clothes, shoes, belt, all domestic brands.”

“Pockets?”

She glanced at Derek and remembered him checking Rasheed for weapons. “Not a lot,” she said. “Lieutenant Vaughn took the knife off him during the takedown. He had some pocket litter—loose change, Marlboro Reds, eighty-three dollars in cash.”

“Wallet?” Torres asked.

“No. And no driver’s license. So no tentative ID, at least not from the ME’s office.”

Although the story of the suicide jumper had made the local news, without an ID, there was no hint of connection to something bigger, so it hadn’t garnered much attention. But that could change.

Gordon watched her, his look intent. “So what do you think happened?”

She stared at him. She’d spent two hours recounting what had happened to no fewer than four senior agents, including him.

“You want me to rehash—”

“I mean on the roof,” Gordon said. “I’ve been going over the video footage. I want to know what happened up there. What prompted him to jump?”

“I—” She glanced at Derek. “I can only guess. He knew he was about to be arrested. Interrogated.”

“Tortured.”

At the sound of his voice, she shot Potter a look.

“If the ‘takedown,’ as you call it, was any indication of how he was going to be treated,” Potter said, “then he knew he was going to be subjected to extreme measures.”

“Extreme?” Derek’s voice was ice. “What the fuck’s that mean?”

“It means—let’s be honest here—the apprehension was a little rough.” Potter glanced at Gordon. “She should have waited for backup so the suspect could be secured properly, and this whole situation could have been avoided.”

“The suspect?” Derek didn’t move a muscle, but his face was taut. “Barely three weeks ago, this piece of shit walked in front of a video camera and slit a woman’s throat.” Derek looked at Gordon. “A few hours ago, he went after your agent with a combat knife. And by the way, where the fuck was her backup then?”

“We were on our way,” Torres said, and Elizabeth could feel the tension ratcheting up.

“Too bad they didn’t get there sooner,” Potter said. “Our key suspect wouldn’t have had a chance to kill himself before he told us anything valuable.”

“What, are you blind?” Derek stepped away from the wall. “He told us plenty. This man covertly entered this country for the sole purpose of carrying out a major attack.”

“A major attack?” Potter folded his arms. “We haven’t confirmed that, Lieutenant. In fact, we know very little about his plans, and now we may never know, because he’s dead.”

“Let’s look at the facts,” Derek said, clearly struggling for patience. “U.S. forces raid an Al Qaeda safe house and recover intel pointing to a terrorist attack in Texas. Soon after, a top Al Qaeda operative is smuggled into Texas through a narco tunnel controlled by one of Mexico’s most powerful cartels.”

“Two operatives,” Gordon said.

“What?”

“Rasheed had a traveling companion. Zahid Ameen.”

Derek shot Elizabeth a look that told her he knew exactly who Ameen was—and he was not happy to have been left out of the loop.

“That just proves my point,” Derek said. “Another person provided transportation in Del Rio, and today yet another person Rasheed had never met before was meeting him at the mall.”

“How do we know he’d never met him?” Torres asked.

“The red hat,” Elizabeth said. “It seemed to be a signal.”