“I wouldn’t want your son and his friends to get into trouble for helping me.”
“Too late. I’ve told them some of the unsung things you’ve done in service to your country, and I happened to mention some of the times we’ve been in the soup together. Do you think I could keep them away if I wanted to?” asked Buzz.
“Well… please tell them I’m grateful,” said Kit humbly.
“We can make Chino Hills in an hour and a half, no problem. And we won’t go light,” said Buzz, meaning they would be heavily armed.
Buzz Van Wyke was retired from a distinguished thirty-year career with various federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies. But he still worked as a part-time CIA contractor, mainly as a pilot. A smart, levelheaded strategist, Buzz was often sought by Kit for his unofficial counsel on covert operations. A widower and father of three grown children, Buzz wore one of his trademark cardigan sweaters as he chewed on the stem of a pipe, looking more like a soft-spoken professor than a cagey field agent.
“Okay, sounds good,” said Kit. “I called one of my mom’s neighbors, who told me sheriff’s deputies are all over the place. The cops know I’m flying in tomorrow, but I haven’t spoken with them yet. Find out what you can at the crime scene.”
“Will do. I can get us a safe house, too, if that’s okay. The CIA has a few in L.A., and I can access one.”
“Unofficially?” asked Bennings.
“Very unofficially.”
“Do it.”
“Kit… how are you?” asked Buzz with fatherly concern in his voice.
“I’m focused, Buzz. I’m focused. See you tomorrow at LAX.”
Chino Hills contracts with the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department to provide law-enforcement services to its more than seventy-five thousand residents. Homicide Detail Detective Bobby Chan stood in the foyer of the Bennings house and shook his head as he surveyed the maelstrom of activity. Dumb like a fox, he stuffed an entire Snickers bar into his mouth, stuffed the wrapper in his pocket, and wiped his hands on his dark slacks held up with black suspenders.
There was a time when Asians and Asian Americans were generally of smaller physical stature than other races. Those days are long gone, as forty-one-year-old Bobby Chan stood testament to. He measured in at a hulking six feet three inches and was a combination of muscle and flab, weighing in at 285 pounds. He loved watching stand-up comics on TV and was always joking around, mostly as his way of processing the horrible results of violence he witnessed on a daily basis.
“I haven’t seen this much blood since my ex caught me cheating with that Eskimo hooker,” said Chan, trying to get a laugh from some crime scene techs.
“Yeah, but you don’t bleed red, Bobby. You bleed yellow from all the cheap beer you swill,” teased a female crime scene techie.
Chan turned around and saw Sheriff Jim McCain enter the house with an aide. Bobby figured the sheriff would be showing up about now, and he had a spiel ready for his boss.
“So, Bobby, what do you have here?” asked McCain, who sipped from a cup of gas station take-out coffee. The fifty-one-year-old sheriff wore a sharp business suit, colored his hair dark brown, and looked more like a lawyer than a cop.
“This ain’t the kind of crime we see in Chino Hills, that’s for sure, Sheriff. Hell, the last real investigation we ran here, and it’s been a few years, was that rancher who got pinned by his horses up against a gate and was crushed to death.”
“Skip the history and give me the current events.”
“Well, aside from the two victims here—Mr. and Mrs. Carrillo—bloodstains and trails going all the way down the driveway indicate three or four other victims were removed from the scene. Based on the amount of blood, I’d bet at least two, maybe three of them have assumed room temperature by now.”
“What?! You’re saying maybe five homicides here?”
Chan nodded. “Staci Bennings, age thirty-one, is missing. That’s her Audi out front. The Benz belongs to the dead couple here. Forensics will tell us if Staci’s blood is here in the house. If so, chances are she’s worm food, because she didn’t get taken to any area hospitals. But there was a gun battle here, and I’m guessing the other two or three missing bodies are bad guys.”
“Christ almighty, was this some kind of drug beef?”
“No indication of that right now, Sheriff. Bennings and the Carrillos co-own an aviation company out at Chino Airport. Were they up to no good? Give me some time and I’ll tell you.”
“Any neighbors see anything?”
“No, but the neighbors are in agreement they heard maybe fifteen shots. Fifteen to twenty maximum. But we’ve found sixty-seven shell casings and counting. Different calibers. That tells me suppressed weapons. The phone line was cut, the alarm systems are off-line. The attackers shot open the front door. This was one hell of a whack job. A big-time professional hit with enough shooters to make sure the bad guys would win. The perps came in through doors and windows all around the house.”
“So, Bobby, if this Staci Bennings’s blood isn’t present in the house… hell, even if it is, we might have a kidnapping here.”
“I’ll give those knob jobs at the FBI a heads-up. Oh, Staci Bennings has a brother named Kit who’s active-duty military overseas. He called a neighbor and said he’s flying in to LAX tomorrow. I already called DHS and got his flight number,” said Chan, referring to a scrap of paper that contained the flight information provided by the Department of Homeland Security.
The sheriff moved in close to Chan and spoke softly. “I don’t have to remind you that I’m up for reelection, and a whole lot of rich campaign contributors live here in Chino Hills.”
“I’d like a new big-screen TV, so I’m happy to know you’ve authorized unlimited overtime,” said Chan.
“I’m not just talking about OT. I’m signing off for you to bust the budget on this one. Do whatever it takes, and do it yesterday. Send some people to meet Mr. Bennings at LAX and bring him in for questioning.”
“I might just go myself.”
“Take Ron Franklin with you. Partner up with him on this case. I want to know what the hell was going on in this house.”
Six heavily armed men in two vehicles reconnoitering a busy crime scene on a quiet residential street were the ingredients for a recipe Buzz Van Wyke didn’t care for. So, having arrived in Chino Hills before noon, he sent his son and the other three navy SEALs to the safe house in El Monte, about thirty minutes away. The SEALs were loaning the use of weapons, ammo, radios and communications gear, optics, audio and video surveillance equipment, and other exotic goodies you can’t find at Walmart.
So only Van Wyke and Angel Perez, an army master sergeant currently assigned to the Activity and a longtime friend of Kit Bennings, went to the house in Chino Hills. While Perez waited in the car, ironically enough at the same turnout the killers had used, Van Wyke simply jogged up in running shorts, sweating like a pig, and showed fake credentials, identifying himself as a retired police officer, to a deputy standing at the driveway leading to the Bennings house.
Buzz also pretended to be a local homeowner and soon enough got the deputy talking. Within ten minutes he had most of the same details the sheriff had been given by Homicide Detective Bobby Chan. And what he heard, he didn’t like at all.
CHAPTER 11
For the last eighty years, Spaso House, on 10 Spasopeskovskaya Square, has housed American ambassadors in Moscow. An opulent neoclassical mansion, the residence is ideal for entertaining. Over the decades the historic building has hosted countless meetings, balls, receptions, parties, dinners, concerts, and ceremonies. Bennings had attended two cocktail parties there during the past few months, and so he knew the symmetrical floor plan well.