A Long Day for Dying

  Praise for the Gripping Military Thrillers of National andNew York Times Bestselling Author Patrick A. Davis

  THE COMMANDER

  “A chilling murder mystery…. Davis combines convincing police procedure with plenty of head-scratching clues, twists and dead ends…. A bona fide thriller.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “A crafty, detail-rich mystery…. Deft characterizations keep us engaged.”

  —Booklist

  THE COLONEL

  “A plausible conspiracy thriller that keeps getting more and more complicated until all the threads are tied together, pretty much at the last possible moment…. Fans of Nelson DeMille will find this one entirely satisfying.”

  —Booklist

  “Gripping twists and turns and the revelation of a top-level conspiracy will keep readers on edge.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  THE GENERAL

  “A terse, gung-ho military-thriller debut…. Lots of action.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  AnOriginal Publication of POCKET BOOKS

  A Pocket Star Book published by

  POCKET BOOKS, a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

  Copyright © 2003 by Patrick A. Davis

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information addressPocket Books, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

  ISBN: 0-7434-8642-0

  POCKET STAR BOOKS and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  Visit us on the World Wide Web:

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  TOCAPTAINAVYNFUMIOYATA,

  USAF ACADEMYCLASS OF 1979,

  ANDLIEUTENANTCOMMANDERMARSHALLATKINS,

  US NAVALACADEMYCLASS OF 1979.

  THE GOOD DIE YOUNG.

  Acknowledgments

  A number of people were crucial to bringing this novel to fruition. First and foremost, I’d like to express my gratitude to my good friends Bob and Katie Sessler, who once again labored through the early drafts and helped me refine the story into something readable. Thanks also to my informal circle of proofreaders for their perceptive comments and their brutally honest critiques: Bobby and Kathy Baker, Dennis and Becky Stefanski, Martha Jones, Andrew Hobbs, Cecil and Barb Fuqua, and Marilyn Page.

  In addition, I’d like to express my appreciation to my Air Force Academy classmates Colonel Dennis Hilley and Lieutenant Colonel (Ret) Mike Garber, for keeping me straight on the military aspects of the story, including the dramatic changes in the Pentagon, since the 9-11 attacks. My deepest thanks also to Dr. Bill Burke and Dr. Carey Page, for patiently imparting their medical and forensic knowledge to a layman; to CMSgt Maximus Smith, for shedding light on the nuances of the C-32 aircraft; to Louise Burke and Lauren McKenna at Simon & Schuster/Pocket Books, for believing in my ability to write entertaining stories; to Chris Pepe at Putnam, for helping launch my career; and to my agent and confidante, Karen Solem, whose steadfast faith in our eventual success never wavered.

  Finally, I’d like to thank my wife, Helen Davis, and my parents, Bill and Betty David, whose faith, support, and love still inspire me.

  Author’s Notes

  To those military readers who are familiar with the Pentagon, I’d like to say that I was intentionally vague or misleading on some of the locations of key Pentagon offices. In light of what happened on 9-11, I didn’t feel comfortable in precisely placing their positions. Could terrorists with mayhem on their minds learn the placements of these offices? Of course. But not from me.

  I also followed this same cautious approach when describing the entrance into the private compartment of the C-32 aircraft. While the details are generally accurate, there are a few key differences from the actual way the mechanism works.

  Ironically, my concerns over these points reflects how America has changed since 9-11. Even while writing a fictional story, I was constantly aware that I didn’t want to put down anything that an Al Qaeda wanna-be could somehow use. Hopefully, I’ve succeeded.

  Thank you for understanding.

  PATDAVIS

  A LONG

  DAY FOR

  DYING

  1

  MORNING

  Iheard the faint beating of the rotor blades long before I saw the approaching helicopter.

  It was a cool spring morning, a little after sunrise, and I’d just stepped out onto the porch of my rambling farmhouse in rural northern Virginia. I gazed toward the east, past the grass airstrip my crop-duster father had built thirty years earlier and the farm fields he no longer owned. Searching the horizon, I finally saw it. A speck, coming out of the glow of the sun. I checked my watch. Almost seven-twenty. Right on time, and I wondered what I was getting myself into.

  My regular job is chief of police for Warrentown, Virginia, a quiet town of four thousand, roughly seventy miles west of D.C. Occasionally I also moonlight as a consultant to the Office of Special Investigations, the air force’s primary criminal investigative branch. I’d taken the job as a favor to then-OSI commander Brigadier General Gary Mercer, who’d lost a lot of his experienced personnel to the better-paying jobs in the civilian world. To stem the bleeding, Mercer hired on a few former investigators like myself—I’d put in twenty years in the OSI, retiring as a light colonel—to consult on the more “sensitive” cases. By sensitive, General Mercer meant things like espionage, major drug rings, murders—anything that might garner the attention of the press or Congress or the four-star constellations at the Pentagon.

  Since the military isn’t exactly a hotbed of crime, the consultant workload is pretty light, and I average maybe three cases a year. In the past, I’ve always looked forward to getting called out as a change of pace from the Andy-of-Mayberry routine. But not today.

  The reason the helicopter was flying out to pick me up stems from a conversation I’d had earlier with Colonel Charles Hinkle, the current OSI chief. I’d been in the shower when the phone rang. Mrs. Anuncio, my live-in housekeeper, had banged on the bathroom door until I finally yanked it open, a towel cinched around my waist, dripping water all over the place.

  Ignoring my scowl, Mrs. Anuncio stuck a portable phone up to my face. “Man say must talk. Important.”

  “I don’t care. Tell him I’ll call back when I’m dressed.”

  Mrs. Anuncio made like she suddenly didn’t understand English. She stood there, holding out the phone, her square face locked with a stubborn gaze.

  Christ.Sometimes I wondered who really worked for whom. I repeated irritably, “Mrs. Anuncio, tell him I will call after—”

  That was as far as I got before a familiar voice chirped out at me. “Marty, pick up the goddamn phone.Now. ”

  Mrs. Anuncio smiled smugly. I sighed, blinked water from my eyes, and took the phone. As she turned her bulky frame for the door, she announced breakfast was ready. When I asked for an omelet, she bluntly replied that she’d made waffles.

  I could only smile at her response. Mrs. Anuncio had worked for me for almost a month before I figured out that her gruff exterior was mostly an act. She just had a military DI’s attitude toward running the household. The way she saw it, after three years of looking after my daughter Emily and me, I should know the rules by now. If I’d wanted an omelet, I should have asked before the waffles were made.

  As I toweled off, the man on the phone began calling out to me again. With a last swipe at the blond cre
w cut that passed for my hair, I put the receiver to my ear. In the background, I heard the sound of clicking keyboards and ringing phones. Office sounds. No surprise that Colonel Charles Hinkle was already at work. Since the 9-11 terrorist attacks, the OSI had been humping around the clock to plug security leaks.

  “Marty? Marty? If you don’t pick up, so help me—”

  “Remember your blood pressure, Charlie. Now what’s so damned important that I couldn’t finish my shower?” Even though Charlie was my boss, I could talk to him this way because we’d known each other since our days as young captains. I wasn’t all that concerned about Charlie’s anxious tone, since he tended to overreact, often blowing the most mundane events out of all proportion.

  Ignoring my crack, he said, “I’m only going to say this once, so listen up. You got anything scheduled, cancel it. I want you to be ready to roll ASAP—”

  “Sorry, Charlie. I’m not available.” I hung the towel over the shower rail, let him sputter for a moment, then went over to the bureau and began to dress.

  “Why the hell not?” he demanded.

  “Personal reasons.”

  “For instance?”

  “Emily’s turning thirteen tomorrow. We’ve got a big party planned.”

  Silence. There was nothing he could say. Since my wife’s death from cancer three years earlier, he knew that my daughter Emily was the priority in my life.

  He cleared his throat. “Look, I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important—”

  “No, Charlie.”

  “I could order you.”

  A bluff. I quoted him the clause in my consulting contract, which specifically stated I could decline an investigation.

  “Don’t pull that legal crap on me. You’ve already been assigned to a task force—”

  “Unassign me. Give it to Erik Olson or maybe Bob Whitcher—”

  “Ican’t. The SECDEF assigned you to the task force.Personally. ”

  I was tugging on my underwear and almost toppled over. “Jesus…”

  “Yeah. This thing is big, Marty. I just got off the horn with General Markel, the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs. He ordered me to send a major crimes forensics team to Andrews and said that the SECDEF specifically requested that you and Major Gardner be assigned to a task force that’s being put together.”

  I slowly donned a T-shirt as I tried to take this in. Major Amanda Gardner was another OSI investigator who happened to live next door, on a couple of acres she’d sweet-talked my dad into selling her. I asked Charlie why the secretary of defense would ask for us.

  “Hell, I figured you two must have run across Secretary Churchfield on a case in the past. You didn’t?”

  I told him I’d never even met Churchfield and was damned certain Amanda hadn’t either.

  “Well, someone with a helluva lot of pull must have passed on your names. You connected, Marty?”

  He meant politically. “You know better than that. Who else is assigned to the case?”

  “From the OSI, just you two and the forensics techs. Doc Bowman will be the ME.”

  Dr. Billy Bowman was the extremely capable yet mildly irritating deputy head of the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology. I said, “So we’re talking about a homicide on Andrews—”

  “Not so fast, Marty. You in or not?”

  As if I really had a choice now. “I’m in.” Stepping into my closet, I plucked out my Sears special navy blue suit. Even for active-duty military investigators, civilian clothing was standard attire because wearing one’s rank tended to hinder investigations. Enlisted members felt intimidated when grilled by someone they knew was an officer, and officers often proved less than cooperative when questioned by someone they outranked.

  “The answer,” Charlie grunted, “is that I don’t know any specifics. According to General Markel, the task force is operating under a TS/SCI clearance.”

  A top-secret/special compartmentalized information clearance meant that only those with a strict need-to-know would be privy to the details of the investigation. While it was unusual that a criminal matter would be tagged with this lofty security classification, it was even more unusual that Charlie, in his capacity as OSI chief, would be kept out of the loop.

  For once, Charlie wasn’t crying wolf. Something big had happened.

  As I finished dressing, Charlie gave me the rest of what he knew, which wasn’t much. No, he didn’t know who would head the investigation or which agencies would take part. Yes, he suspected the FBI would probably honcho the thing, since they were the glory boys of the investigative world. Major Amanda Gardner and I were to meet the forensic team at the Andrews AFB passenger terminal, where we would receive further instructions.

  The location of the terminal suggested we might be flying to the location of the crime. When I asked, Charlie said not to bother packing a bag. The team wasn’t flying anywhere.

  That, of course, wasn’t quite true.

  While I was at the breakfast table, notifying my office that I’d be out of pocket for a few days, my call-waiting beeped. It was Charlie, telling me that the two-plus hours it would take Amanda and me to fight the rush hour traffic to Andrews was unacceptable. A helicopter would land on the grass strip in front of my house at 0730 hours, to pick us up. He asked me to pass on the change to Amanda.

  When I tried, I got her machine, so I went out onto the back patio for a look.

  Amanda lived in a modest ranch house a couple of hundred yards away. It was a tidy place fronted by flower beds and a lawn big enough for a game of touch football. In keeping with her rural upbringing, she’d recently added a small barn, where she kept a menagerie of animals, including a horse, a potbellied pig, and a couple of ducks. I located her in a corner of the fenced-in backyard, filling the water dish for her two dogs, a German shepherd and a golden retriever. I hollered twice before she glanced over. When I held up the phone, she nodded, tossed a ball for the dogs, and walked quickly toward the house.

  Amanda had a nice walk. She’s long and willowy and, at thirty-three, still moves with the easy strides of the athlete she once was. A tomboy since she could remember, she’d earned a tae kwon do black belt by the time she was sixteen and lettered in swimming at the Air Force Academy. She also has big-time smarts, graduating with degrees in engineering and physics. A tenacious investigator, she’d impressed me on the first murder case we’d worked, and I’d assumed she was one of those annoying people who did well at everything.

  Then she told me about her track record with men.

  I would have expected Amanda, as an attractive woman in a predominantly male profession, to get asked out constantly, but she doesn’t. Since we’ve been neighbors, I’ve known her to go out on only two dates. Neither guy ever called again. The only thing I can figure is that men find her self-assurance intimidating. Her blunt assessment is that no guy wants a relationship with a bright, competent woman who can also kick his ass.

  Amanda acts like it’s no big deal not having much of a social life. She’s often mentioned how she prefers being single and having the freedom to do as she pleases. Besides, it wasn’t like she hadtime for a relationship. Not with the demands of her job and a new house to worry about.

  Sometimes, I almost believed her.

  I thumbed the redial as Amanda disappeared into the house, and she picked up immediately. After I dropped the dime on curbside chopper service, she said, “I’ve been surfing the news. Nothing. Whatever’s going down, they’re doing a good job keeping it under wraps.”

  “It’s got to be a homicide. Why else would they call Doc Bowman out?”

  “Since when do they classify homicides?”

  The million-dollar question. Andrews Air Force Base housed the military’s aircraft fleet that flew the government’s elite, from the president on down. In light of the terrorist threat, I suggested that someone might have taken out a heavy hitter, which might explain all the secrecy.

  “I dunno, Marty. Security on Andrews is damned tight. I don’t see
some Al Qaeda wanna-bes making it past the checkpoints.”

  I resisted the urge to say they wouldn’t show up in beards, wearing “Bin Laden for President” T-shirts. Still, she had a point. Andrews was probably only a staging area for the team to meet without eyebrows being raised.

  “How about the SECDEF?” she asked. “Any clue why Churchfield requested us?”

  “Obviously, we were recommended.”

  “By who, if it wasn’t Colonel Hinkle?”

  “It’s puzzling.” By definition, the OSI was a secretive, close-knit organization. It’s unlikely anyone outside the immediate chain of command would be familiar enough with our abilities to recommend us by name. Yetsomeone had.

  As I was about to hang up, she said, “I’m kind of surprised you took the case. I mean, with Emily’s party tomorrow—”

  “Can’t turn down the SECDEF.”

  “You okay with that?”

  My silence confirmed what she knew; I wasn’t. Missing your kid’s party may not seem like a big deal, but it was to me. Before she died, my wife, Nicole, made me promise that I’d always place Emily at the top of my list. Over the years, I’d kept my word. Emily’s soccer matches, school plays, band recitals—you name it, I was always there, sitting right up front.

  “You tell Emily yet?” Amanda asked.

  “She’s getting ready for school. She’ll be okay. Helen will be here.” Helen was my stepdaughter from Nicole’s first marriage. After Nicole’s death, Helen had lived with Emily and me, running the crop-dusting business my father left me so I could play cop full-time. Six months ago, Helen moved out. It was a financial decision; business had been drying up because a lot of the area farms had been gobbled up by developers. Helen bought a place with a small airstrip about a hundred miles west, in tobacco country. I gave her the two planes on the condition that she retain the name Collins Aviation. When my dad retired to Florida, his dream had been for me to keep the business going. Since I hated flying crop dusters, having Helen take over was a no-brainer. Dad was happy someone in the family was still flying planes with his name on the side, and I was happy that person wasn’t me.