Page 100 of A Deeper Darkness

DOD wasn’t talking. Roosevelt had called three times, pushing hard. He was about to play his last card, which was going public with the information in an attempt to bluff them into telling the story. Fletcher wanted him to do it right now, but Roosevelt fancied a few more tries to see if he could work the back channels.

Fletch even thought about calling Felicia, beg and plead for her to talk to Joelle again, but they were running out of time.

That damn phone call. That’s what got the ball rolling. But there was nothing to indicate that the Raptor offices were Donovan’s end goal—he could have been meeting anyone anywhere. For all intents and purposes, it looked like a fluke that his direction took him toward the Raptor offices. Donovan’s boss, Deter, hadn’t called him in. The other guy, Culpepper, was in Iraq at the time. Fletcher had interviewed the personnel there three times, and didn’t have a single hit.

So Donovan was headed somewhere else. But where?

Fletcher paced around the room.

He thought back to the conversation Sam had with Taranto. He brought out his notebook and went through the code names again.

King, that was Perry Fisher. Doc was Donovan. Shaky Guy was William Everett. Mutant was Whitfield, Jackal was Croswell.

There was another name on that list. Taranto said when Karen Fisher heard that her husband might had been killed by one of his compatriots, by one of his friends, she went to another, Orange, to get the truth.

So who the hell was Orange?

Orange was his killer. He had to be. And something about Perry Fisher’s death exposed the man, or woman, who operated under that nickname, and as a result, they needed to minimize the damage as quickly and efficiently as possible.

And the best way to make sure no one talks is to permanently shut them up.

Had Susan Donovan figured out the truth? Fletcher resisted smacking himself on the head. Of course she had. She’d found the missing pages from the journal.

Could she be responsible for her husband’s death?

Shit. That couldn’t be. She was missing. But had she gone on the run? No. He was firmly convinced the killer was part of Donovan’s unit overseas.

He called Roosevelt.

“Where are we with the DOD?”

“Third time’s a charm. I’ve been invited to the Pentagon. Fifteen minutes.”

“That is fantastic news. I’ve got a couple things for you, too. Knock on my head must have sprung loose some nuts. You need to go find Karen Fisher. Taranto supposedly had her hidden away. She is involved, though how I don’t know. Check Taranto’s credit cards—he told Sam he was keeping Karen somewhere safe, so he probably got her a hotel room. And while you’re at the Pentagon, see if you can find out who was saddled with the moniker Orange while they were over there. Someone in Donovan’s unit was called Orange, and that’s who our killer is. I’m sure of it.”

Roosevelt was quiet for a minute. “Seems I should let you get shot, lost and hit on the head more often. How would someone get saddled with the nickname Orange?”

“Fuck if I know. Maybe he likes orange juice, or is from Florida or California. Remember that show, the O.C.? Orange County? Or has red hair. Doesn’t matter. We just need to find out who he or she is.”

“Your wish is my command.”

Fletcher laughed. “Call me back.” He closed his phone and went to the table of forest service guys.

“You got anything?”

The lead kid, and Jesus, he was a kid, nodded. “Four sites they could be, sir. Spread across the mountain. All very remote. Permanent camps on private property. It’s going to take a few hours to get to any of them.”

“Show me.”

The topographical map was just a bunch of lines and squiggles, circles and four small redXs. All of them were in an area within the greatest concentration of lines, scattered across the map like miniature campfires.

“What do those lines mean?” Fletcher asked.

“Oh, you don’t know how to read a topo? That’s an elevation indicator. Pretend it’s in 3-D. If you can imagine the lines as rising into the air, as the concentric gets smaller, that’s the higher up the mountain it is.”

“I failed Boy Scout 101. How far are these from us?”

“Closest one will take two hours. Farthest is five, minimum.”