JT [02] Horns of the Devil Read online

  Copyright © 2012 Marc Rainer

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN: 1480030236

  ISBN 13: 9781480030237

  eBook ISBN: 978-1-62346-720-3

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2012918557

  CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, North Charleston, SC

  To all the men and women who serve and protect.

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Acknowledgments

  Other Books By Marc Rainer

  Chapter One

  Washington, DC, August 8, 7:32 a.m.

  “Unit Twenty-Four.”

  “This is Twenty-Four, dispatch.”

  “Unit Twenty-Four, see to report of an injured party at 1400 16th Street, Northwest. EMTs are en route.”

  “Twenty-Four, roger.”

  Officer Timothy Wisniewski of the Washington, DC, Metropolitan Police Department turned the marked unit southward onto 16th Street and activated his lights and siren. He glanced at his watch, noting the time he’d have to enter on the report when he wrote up the call.

  Zero-seven, three-two hours. Seven thirty-two a.m.

  He pulled to the curb in front of the building. A crowd had gathered around a figure lying on the sidewalk just inside the green barrier fence that ran along the curb.

  They’re sure not getting too close to the guy, he thought.

  The spectators had established an invisible barrier of about fifteen feet between themselves and the man on the ground. Some shook their heads, some covered their mouths with their hands. Some turned and ran away. One mother ushered her child away from the scene, glancing back over her shoulder in horror.

  Nobody wants to help. Nobody wants to get involved.

  Wisniewski jumped out and jogged around the front of the cruiser. A male, dressed in jeans, tennis shoes, and a Philadelphia 76ers jersey was lying on his back, feet pointed north. His shoulders were facing south, toward Lafayette Park and the White House. A narrow rivulet of blood had left a dark-brown stain flowing down the sidewalk. Wisniewski leaned over the railing and looked at the figure, then reached for the microphone on the shoulder of his uniform.

  “Dispatch, Unit Twenty-Four.”

  “Twenty-Four.”

  “Cancel the medics on that call for 1400 16th Northwest. Start homicide and alert the medical examiner.”

  “Medics are en route Twenty-Four. Are you sure—?”

  “Yes, I’m sure. Turn ’em around. This body has no head on it.”

  He returned to the cruiser for a roll of crime scene tape and traffic cones, and was cordoning off the area when a green Buick pulled in behind his cruiser. A large figure in a navy-blue suit emerged, his shaved black head shining in the sun.

  “Hello, Dix. I heard you’d gone back to Homicide.”

  “Tim.” Detective Dixon Carter barely acknowledged the patrolman; he was already looking over the scene.

  “Anybody here see anything?” Carter asked, still looking at the body.

  “Haven’t really had time to do anything but roll out the tape. You got here pretty quick. From what I’ve overheard in the crowd, he was lying here when folks started showing up for work this morning.”

  The bystanders closest to them overheard the exchange. Wisniewski saw them start to pull away, hoping to avoid the questions that were sure to delay them. They had things to do. Coffee to drink, newspapers to read. It was only another murder, after all. The District had hundreds every year.

  “Just stay put for a minute, folks.”

  Carter’s deep baritone froze them. He pulled out a small notepad and pen and started working the crowd.

  “Anyone here see how this body got here? Anyone see any vehicles pulling away from this area?”

  A chorus of no’s answered him.

  “Anyone have any idea who this might be?” Carter shouted.

  A tall, distinguished-looking man pushed his way to the front of the crowd, flanked by four younger men in business suits. He looked down at the body, his shoulders slumping.

  “It is my son.”

  Carter was by the man’s side instantly. Wisniewski pushed the crowd back, assisted by four other uniformed officers who had just pulled up to help control the scene.

  “How do you recognize him, sir?” Carter asked, his eyes sweeping the entourage that had followed the gentleman. Two of the four men kept reaching inside their coats. The older man saw the concern on Carter’s face. He turned and spoke to his escort in Spanish, and they seemed to relax.

  “Please forgive me, officer,” the older man said. He was tall and slim with streaks of gray lining the temples in his otherwise coal-black hair. “I am Juan Carlos Lopez-Portillo, the ambassador to your country from El Salvador.”

  “Mr. Ambassador,” Carter nodded, accepting the claim for the moment. “Can you tell me how you were able to make it here so fast, assuming this is your son, as you say?”

  “My embassy is inside this building. Suite one-hundred.” The man’s voice was hollow and breaking, his gaze still fixed on the body on the sidewalk. “I am sure it is my son, Armando.” He pointed toward the body. “The birthmark on the left arm. There is a high-school class ring on his left hand. You will find his name engraved on the inside.”

  A medical examiner’s van arrived, backing in at the front of Wisniewski’s cruiser. A second van had also pulled in behind his car. Wisniewski recognized it as one of the District’s crime scene vehicles.

  “Where will you be taking him?” Lopez-Portillo asked Carter.

  “He’ll be going to the morgue for an autopsy, Mr. Ambassador,” Carter said. “We’ll need to take a statement from you. If the ring confirms what you’ve said, we’ll certainly let you know, and the body will be released to you. The medical examiner will want to get some DNA samples from you, too. We have to preserve any evidence at this point. When was the last time you saw your son, sir?”

  “Three days ago. He didn’t come home from school.”

  “Did you call the police or file a report of any kind?”

  “I’m afraid not. It is not the first time.”

  “Do you have any idea who might have done this, sir?”

  “No.”

  The ambassador motioned to his escort and turned to leave. He handed Carter a card.

  “You can reach me at this number. Please call me when we can take him home. If you’ll excuse me, I have to call his mother.”

  “Of course.”

  The ambassador walked back toward the building, his escorts separating the crowd for him.

  The crime scene technicians were finishing with their photographs. There wasn’t much else for them to do on this one. No shell casings. No footprints. No personal effects dropped by the victim. No neighborhood to canvass for witnesses. This was a business district, and the bystanders who had seen nothing we
re already trying to get away from the scene. Just a headless corpse dumped on a sidewalk. They’d comb the immediate area anyway, in case the head had been tossed into a trash can or bloodstains could be located nearby, but they’d probably find nothing. Carter nodded to the medical examiner’s crew, who began to load the body onto a gurney.

  “An ambassador’s kid?” Wisniewski asked.

  “That’s the way it looks for now,” Carter nodded. “An ambassador who knows more than he wanted to tell me.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “He acted like he’d seen this coming,” Carter said. “His reaction was more like a father getting the news that his kid didn’t make it through a risky heart surgery. No shock, just grief. I asked him if he knew who could have done it, and he paused just a second before saying no, meaning he has some idea, but didn’t want to say anything. His kid’s headless body is lying on the sidewalk, and he doesn’t sob, doesn’t even cry out in anger.” Carter shook his head. “This one’s going to be weird.”

  Inside the embassy, the ambassador returned the telephone to its cradle. His wife now knew. He dispatched an aide to be with her, telling the subordinate he would be on his way home shortly. He felt numb, sick, impotent. He picked up the phone again and dialed the international call from memory. When the voice answered, he did not say hello.

  “You were right, old friend. I should have listened to your advice earlier. They have murdered my son. I want you here as soon as possible.”

  The man in San Salvador hung up. He adjusted the black patch over his left eye before picking up the cell phone again and selecting the third number in its memory. When the ringtone stopped, he spoke in Spanish: “I need six. Get them immediately. We’ll be leaving this afternoon. Put them in a suitcase with a lock on it and meet me at the airport.”

  San Salvador, El Salvador

  August 8, 3:05 p.m.

  As the blue sedan pulled into the passenger-unloading zone in front of the Comalapa International Airport in San Salvador, Special Agent Jason Mays of the Drug Enforcement Administration pulled the digital camera up to his eyes with his right hand and held a radio to his left ear with the other.

  “You in position?”

  “Yep. We’ll make the grab soon as he’s inside.”

  “Stay out of sight for now. I’ll let you know as soon as he heads that way.”

  “Roger.”

  Mays swatted a fly away from his face and leaned against the tree. He adjusted the zoom and watched through the camera’s viewfinder as the driver of the sedan pulled a stainless-steel suitcase from the trunk of the car. Instead of heading into the terminal, however, the driver stood with the suitcase on the sidewalk, obviously waiting for someone.

  “We may have a change in the ops plan—” Mays began.

  He was about to direct the team outside, to the front of the terminal, when he saw a well-dressed man wearing an eye patch take the suitcase from the driver. The case was then transferred immediately to a team of six bodyguards who were following the man with the patch. One of them slapped some large, bright stickers on the outside of the case and tossed it on the top of a luggage rack already loaded with several other cases that all bore the same set of stickers. Mays hit the auto-shutter button and clicked off as many shots of the group as he could before lowering the camera in disgust.

  “Dammit.” He raised the radio to his ear. “Abort.”

  “What? Why, Jay?”

  “Just abort the damned operation. See if you can tail the guy who made the drop. I’ll tell you why back at the office.”

  At 4:45 p.m., the man with the eye patch and the others left El Salvador on Transportes Aéreos del Continente Americano Flight 580, bound for JFK.

  Washington, DC,

  August 8, 10:17 p.m.

  Diego Morales smiled nervously at the gathering of twenty-five tattooed men who had surrounded him in the backyard of the house in the 3100 block of Georgia Avenue, NW. He had looked forward to this moment for months, but had also dreaded it.

  “You did well, Diego. Very well.”

  The leader of the group—a solidly built Hispanic male with a shaved head—nodded approvingly, and tapped the numbers inked into his left shoulder.

  “Now it is your time.”

  “Sí, Esteban.”

  The leader nodded again and held up a stopwatch as six of the gang members stepped forward, circling the boy.

  “Begin.”

  Diego covered his head as well as he could while the blows rained down on him. He felt the impact of a leather glove as it slammed into his forehead, opening a cut that started blood flowing into his left eye. He dropped to a knee and tried to bring his arms over the top of his head, but he was losing the battle now, his arms drooping from the pain of the punches and kicks. He felt himself sagging to the ground just before he lost consciousness. The beating continued.

  “Not too hard. We don’t want to kill him,” Esteban cautioned.

  He watched as the second hand approached the mark on the dial, signaling the end of the thirteenth second.

  “Halto.”

  He motioned again, and the six men who had beaten Diego picked the boy up and carried him gently toward the house.

  Chapter Two

  Washington, DC, August 9, 11:18 p.m.

  Dixon Carter watched as Assistant Medical Examiner Kathy Davis cut the jersey from the upper half of the headless body. It was a procedure he had watched hundreds of times before. The corpse lay under the sterile white lights, stretched out on the stainless-steel autopsy table. Drainage holes waited to dispose of the fluids which, hours before, had sustained a life.

  Kathy was short, only about five-four, and she was standing on a step stool as usual, working on the top of the body. She completed the cut with the scissors and pulled the jersey open, revealing the torso.

  “My God.” Carter couldn’t help himself.

  The kid had been through hell; his chest had been used as a carving board. The letters “MS” and every possible variation of the number thirteen—Arabic, Roman numerals—had been sliced into his flesh.

  She pointed to the body’s wrists. “Ligature marks on the wrists and bruises on each forearm. Straight lines. Looks like they had him tied to a chair with his arms behind him. They sure did a number on him, and all this happened before they cut his head off. See, the bleeding from all these cuts indicates that they’re ante mortem.”

  “No cuts in the jersey, though,” Carter observed. “Other than yours.”

  “Right, Dix. Just bloodstains. They put the jersey on him after all the slicing and dicing, and probably after the decapitation.”

  She held the shirt up with gloved hands.

  “See? No cuts in the fabric. You were right about this being a body dump, too. Lividity shows he’d been laying face down somewhere after he was killed. The blood—whatever didn’t spurt out after the decapitation—had pooled on the front side. You said he was lying on his back in front of the embassy?”

  Carter nodded. “Any tats or old scars?”

  “Just one tattoo,” she said. “Or what’s left of it. You’ll have to come over to this side.”

  Carter walked around the table. Kathy’s gloved hand pointed to the two numerals that had been inked into the right shoulder. Several cuts had been made into the shoulder through the tattoo.

  “Looks like someone wasn’t happy about it,” she said. “It’s as if they tried to remove it.”

  It was the only conclusion Kathy offered that Carter disagreed with. If someone had really wanted to remove the tat, it wouldn’t have been difficult, especially after the decapitation. Instead, the cuts through the symbol seemed to be more of a sign of contempt that the killer—or killers—had for the number eighteen.

  The door to the autopsy room opened, and a tall, thin figure with silver hair and bright blue eyes entered. He walked up behind the assistant ME and kissed her on the cheek.

  “Hi, babe.” He nodded toward Carter. “What do we have, D
ix?”

  “Cap.”

  Carter still used the older, familiar title for Commander Willie Sivella, the chief of Homicide and his boss. It was his third stint under Cap’n Willie. The first had been as a patrolman, the second a long tour in the District of Columbia’s Seventh District as a detective. When Sivella had been promoted out of 7D to take over Homicide, he’d persuaded Carter to come with him.

  Carter hadn’t been surprised to see his boss at the morgue. It was a gruesome case, with plenty of shocked citizens on the street gawking at a headless corpse, an ambassador’s son as the victim, and certain press interest to follow. Sivella would have questions to answer, which is why he’d asked Kathy Davis, his live-in girlfriend of seven years plus, to do the body exam ASAP.

  Carter pointed to the jersey.

  “Seven plus six equals thirteen, Cap. And there’s an ‘18’ tattoo on the kid’s shoulder.” Carter paused for a moment. “Didn’t Barry Doroz just move over to the gang task force at FBI?”

  “Yeah. I’ll give him a call. He’ll let us work the case with him if they want to pick it up, and he can deflect some of the shit storm in the press. Did we confirm this was the ambassador’s kid?”

  Kathy picked up a ring from a metal tray on the side of the examining table.

  “The inscription was pretty clear once I rinsed off the blood.”

  “Armando Lopez-Mendez.” Sivella returned the ring to the tray. “Hispanic surname. First one’s the dad, last one’s the mom. You’ll need to get DNA from the parents for confirmation, Dix.”

  “I already told the ambassador. He’ll be expecting it. Do we have a prosecutor assigned yet?”

  “Yeah,” Sivella winked. “I called Bill Patrick at the US Attorney’s office right after you radioed from the scene. Told him we needed his best on this one. It’s Jeff Trask. Any objections?”

  Carter shook his head. Trask was the best he’d seen in the US Attorney’s office, with the possible exception of Bob Lassiter, and Lassiter was dead now. Trask was the best choice Patrick could have made. Aggressive, no-nonsense, and smart as hell.

  “No, and I don’t think Agent Doroz will have any, either.”