The German passport was three years old and appeared valid when compared with the example in the manual. The IDP, however, was another matter. There were a number of different examples of these in the manual, and the example of the German-issued IDP didn’t match the one that Mr. Hans Hartmann Jaeger was carrying. Most US law enforcement officers would have taken into account that the manual was three years old and therefore outdated by current anticounterfeiting technology, but, here again, very few US law enforcement officers operated at Trooper Logan’s level of professionalism.
Since hitting the mother lode back in April, he’d succeeded in convincing himself that he had a sixth sense about people, and this evening he believed that sixth sense was telling him there was something wrong about this kraut tourist. He wanted to search the German’s vehicle and find out what he was hiding, but he didn’t have probable cause, so he decided to ask for permission, knowing from his extended experience with harassing Canadians that many tourists didn’t realize — as many Americans didn’t realize — they had the right to refuse a search request in the absence of probable cause or reasonable suspicion.
He left Kashkin’s ersatz identification on the seat and walked up on the driver’s side of the SUV. “Mr. Jaeger, do you mind if I search your vehicle? It’s just routine, sir; a service we like to perform on all traffic stops after sundown.”
Kashkin went on alert, seeing the veiled suspicion on the trooper’s face. He knew there was nothing wrong with his passport or his IDP, both of them issued legitimately by the German government under the name of a dead German citizen whose identity he had managed to assume with the help of a fellow RSMB member working inside the Federal Ministry of the Interior. The SUV was rented with a legitimate credit card and the vehicle properly insured. So what was making this young cowboy so distrustful? Had there been a leak somewhere? Was the US government onto him specifically? Or was this something else? He would have to find out one way or another before continuing with his mission.
“I don’t understand,” he said with a confused smile.
“It’s just a service we like to perform, sir. The same service we like to perform for everyone after sundown.”
A service? That made no sense at all to Kashkin. “May I get out of the car while you perform this service, officer?”
“Yes. That makes it a lot safer for everyone, sir.” Logan opened the door for the older man. “I’ll give you a seat in the back of my cruiser, so you don’t get hit by a car. It won’t take long at all, sir.”
They walked back toward the cruiser with its strobes flashing in the failing light, and Kashkin began to feel the tightening in his chest again over his heart. He couldn’t allow himself to be locked in the back of the police car. When the trooper found the guns in the back, he would be trapped with no hope of escape.
When they reached the front of the cruiser, the trooper took him by the arm. “First, I’m going to need to pat you down, sir, for your safety as well as mine. Do you have anything sharp or otherwise dangerous anywhere on your person, sir?”
Kashkin patted the breast pocket of his shirt. “Only this mechanical pencil.”
“That’s fine, sir. Go ahead and place that on the hood for me.”
“Certainly.” Kashkin took the pencil from his pocket, and with blinding speed jabbed Logan in the eye with it.
Logan reeled away, grabbing his eye with both hands. Kashkin lunged forward, delivering him a right-hand blow to the side of the neck. Logan landed heavily on his knees, severely stunned by the abrupt interruption of blood and oxygen to his brain, and crashed over onto his side, crushing his Smokey the Bear hat.
Kashkin kicked him in the side of the head to send the hat flying and dragged him by the gun belt around the blind side of the cruiser, where he slugged him in the temple. Then he used the trooper’s own handcuffs to secure his hands behind his back and took the pistol from its holster, concealing it beneath his shirt as he returned to the SUV. He snatched the keys from the ignition and opened the back, taking out a folding fighting knife and returning to where Trooper Logan was struggling to sit up, bleeding from his left eye.
“Stop right there!” Logan ordered, seeing the open black blade in Kashkin’s hand, and scrabbling to get his feet beneath him. “You just stop right there! Keep the fuck away from me!”
Kashkin had seen men in the trooper’s situation many times before, completely helpless, completely doomed, and completely refusing to accept it. He pounced on Logan and jammed the blade deep into his inner right thigh, hitting bone and twisting the blade.
Logan shrieked and writhed around beneath Kashkin’s weight, unable to throw him off.
“Tell me what you know about me!” Kashkin demanded. “Tell me everything!”
“I don’t know anything about you!” Logan screamed. “Nothing! Get the fuck off of me!”
Kashkin ripped the blade up through the muscle toward Logan’s groin, and Logan let out another horrible shriek. “Tell me what you know,” Kashkin said lustily, “or I will skin you alive.”
The interrogation went on for three loud and bloody minutes before Kashkin was finally satisfied that Logan was nothing more than a nosy American lawman with nothing better to do than pester people out minding their own business. He cut one of the whimpering cop’s carotid arteries and left him to bleed out in the dark. Then he retrieved his passport from the cruiser, ripping the dash cam from its mount and switching off the strobes. Within a minute, Kashkin was gone up the interstate.
In his final seconds of life, it never occurred to Logan that he’d brought this incident upon himself. It did occur to him, however, that the vicious man who had just carved up both of his legs and his groin would probably never be caught. He would never be caught because Logan had long stopped calling in most of his petty traffic stops, wanting to cut down on being ridiculed by his fellow officers. This meant the dispatch center had received no information about Kashkin or his vehicle, and without the dashboard camera, there would be no evidence as to who had committed the murder.
Logan’s last thoughts were of self-pity and under appreciation.
21
The steel door around the corner opened and then clanged shut. A few moments later, Crosswhite looked up from his bunk to see a “full bull” Green Beret colonel standing in front of their cell with a chest full of ribbons — including the sky blue ribbon of the Medal of Honor.
“Christ,” Crosswhite muttered. “I see it and still don’t believe it.”
“Holy shit,” whispered Tuckerman.
Gil Shannon stood in the corridor, staring at them through the bars, his blue eyes hard and cold as he took in their combat boots and the black fatigues.
He crossed his arms and looked at Tuckerman. “What the fuck are you two made up for? And you’d better not lie to me.”
Crosswhite said, “It’s my fault, Gil. We were—”
“I didn’t ask you a goddamn thing!” Gil said, not taking his eyes from Tuckerman. “I asked you a question, sailor.”
Tuckerman sat up fast. “We were prospecting, Master Chief.”
“Colonel!” Gil snapped.
“Yes, sir, Colonel,” Tuckerman said, withering slightly beneath Gil’s gaze. “We were prospecting, Colonel… knocking over drug dealers and taking their cash.”
“How many civilians are dead?”
Tuckerman looked at the floor. “Counting tonight, sir… ten. Tonight was a goat fuck.”