Read Standoff: A Vin Cooper Novel for Free Online Page B

preliminary examination hasn’t found any wound.”
    “What are you thinking?”
    “She bit whoever assaulted her, and she bit him hard.”
    “Anything else, Liz?” Matheson asked her.
    The question appeared to deflate her. “No, sir.”
    “Okay, well …”
    It’s fair to say I wasn’t much liking Matheson.
    He looked at Gomez and me with a dopey smile and said, “Well, anything you need, please don’t hesitate to ask.”
    Subtext: Goodbye. And don’t come back with any demands .
    “Thank you, Commander,” said Gomez, “For your help and assistance.”
    Subtext: Fuck you.
    To Foote, I said, “Thanks, Chief.”
    Subtext: Thanks, Chief.
    “Liz,” said Foote, “can you please take these gentlemen to DOA number one?”
    “Yes, ma’am,” Liz replied.
    Gomez and I followed her outside, into the furnace.
    “No one got off a call before they were killed?” I asked.
    “No. Maybe someone tried, but whoever hit this place cut the power and took out the cell tower. They knew what they were doing.”
    “You mind explaining the number and lettering system?” Gomez asked our guide as we power walked to keep up with her toward the main terminal building.
    “Five AF – the fifth victim logged,” she said. “AF for adult female. Your man was victim number one – 1AM. The first victim – an adult male. We found him slumped on the terminal building’s doorstep.”
    I’d seen other victims on the overhead photo of the facility with the suffixes “MC” and “FC”, which I could now decipher to mean male child and female child. Jesus …
    “Who did the logging?” Gomez asked.
    “We did – EPCSO forensics with some help from PD. The woman who runs the café in the terminal building called 911 when she arrived for work and found everyone deceased.” I was about to ask where the woman was so that we could talk to her, ask a few questions, when Liz added, “She’s under sedation.”
    We came around the front of the building. A shade tent had been erected over the DOA. A couple of crime scene investigators in their coveralls and booties were standing under the tent, talking quietly, while a photographer, also in CSI gear, changed camera lenses. A bloated fly flew around my face in a big hurry to join a dozen others circling the large bloody morsel curled in a ball on the stoop – Airman First Class Sponson. Numbered tags placed on the ground around him indicated the places where shell casings had landed. I counted nine tags. The photographer casually resumed what the lens change had interrupted – documenting the evidence.
    Gomez and I stood in the sun, out of the photographer’s way so as not to interfere or contaminate the evidence.
    “Hey, Alice,” Liz called out. “You about done?”
    “Almost,” replied one of the CSI twosome. “A few more snaps for the album and we can bag and tag him.”
    “Same MO as most of the others?”
    “A spray on full auto; in this instance by two perps, we think. Nine millimeter rounds fired at close range – no more than ten feet from the vic. MP-5s, probably; certainly a submachine gun. We dug a slug outta the doorway. The shooters stitched him up pretty good across here and here.” She drew a line with her finger from her shoulder to hip one way and then the other – a cross. From the wide pool of blood around Sponson he hadn’t died fast, despite the amount of lead pumped into him.
    A familiar-looking fly crawled into his nose and then out again, rubbed its legs together – possibly with glee – turned and went back in.
    “Anything else?” Liz asked.
    “Picked up a cigarette butt. Faros, a Mexican brand – might be the perp’s, might not. Otherwise, nada .”
    “Looks like your guy, Vin,” said Gomez, getting down on his haunches to get a better angle on the DOA’s face.
    “Uh-huh.” I pulled out the photo I had in my pocket and showed it to Gomez.
    “Yep,” he said, coming up. “Might’a come here hoping to fly out under the radar. Head