stabbed Ivers’s friend,” Jim argued. “I was drunk. They were standing so close. I didn’t realize the knife was in my hand until...”
“You were drugged,” Booker stated. “Pretty much the same way you drugged Sergeant Tom Levi the night before you liberated Trygg from that military prison truck.”
Jim stiffened. “How the hell did you know that?”
“It’s typical Trygg style. Set the victim up with a friend. In Tom’s case, it was Sergeant Harold Coffey. Then Trygg kills the friend, too.”
“Coffey was a disgrace to the uniform. A lowlife—”
“They usually are,” Booker interrupted. “Gerald Ivers, a few weeks after he testified against you, ended up dead in the Potomac. He went swimming drunk one night and drowned.”
“Ivers’s death doesn’t change the fact that I killed his friend.” Jim shook his head. “I’d just lost my wife in a car accident. She’d taken a curve too quickly. I was grieving. Angry. Out of my mind.”
“Jim,” Booker said softly. “Your wife had a perfect driving record. She had driven that same route to work a thousand times. Why do you think, on that particular night, she took that curve too quickly?”
“She was a nurse. She’d worked a double shift—”
“How many times had she worked a double shift in her career? A hundred times? A thousand?”
Anger festered with the doubt. “You’re lying. The coroner’s report said it was accidental—no toxic substances were found in her blood—”
“Do you remember who performed the autopsy?”
He tried, but the memory was fuzzy. He’d read it at the bar, after he’d started drinking. “No.”
“It was the same doctor who performed my wife’s autopsy,” Booker stated flatly. “And we both know Emily didn’t die of a miscarriage.”
* * *
LEWIS STEPPED UP ONTO the ridge and unclipped his harness, disgusted. Enough with the walk down memory lane.
Another reason Jim Rayo did not deserve the respect General Trygg bestowed on him.
Lewis had his own plans. And they didn’t include General Trygg or Jim Rayo.
“You and you.” He pointed at two of the men standing guard by the Black Hawk helicopter. “Help the colonel escort the prisoners when he’s done with his conversation. I will have the pilot relocate down at the base of the ravine and meet you all there.”
“Yes, sir.” Lewis watched the two men disappear over the ledge, then climbed up into the helicopter.
“Let’s go.” Lewis slid on his radio earphones, then raised his hand and pointed down. “Take us to the ravine.”
“Yes, sir.” The pilot flipped the ignition switches and then hit the button to set the blades in motion.
A moment later, the radio beeped in Lewis’s ear.
“Pitman.”
“Lewis, it’s General Trygg. I need to speak with Colonel Rayo. He isn’t answering my transmission.”
“He isn’t available, General.” Lewis kept the satisfaction from his tone. Just.
“Have you obtained the cylinders?”
“Yes, sir. We have,” Lewis answered. “But our flight back has been delayed.”
“Delayed?” Trygg snapped. “What’s the problem?”
“The colonel is interrogating McKnight and Doctor Haddad,” Lewis responded. “I am to meet them at a pickup point down at the base of the ravine when he is done.”
“Interrogating?”
“Yes, sir.” Lewis leaned back in his seat, pictured the frown on Trygg’s features. “The colonel was questioning McKnight regarding some information on a bar fight several years back.”
“I see,” General Trygg replied before pausing a long moment. “You have the cylinders in your possession, Lewis?”
“Yes, sir.”
Another pause. “When they return to the helicopter, I want Doctor Haddad restrained. Then I want you to dispose of Booker McKnight. I don’t want him found, Lewis. Understand me?”
“Colonel Rayo won’t like—”
“That’s an order, Doctor,” Trygg snapped.
“Yes, sir,” Lewis answered. “And if Colonel Rayo objects?”
“Tell him to report to me when you land,” General Trygg said. “I’ll take care of any objections.”
The trip down to the base of the ravine took mere minutes. Beyond the windshields lay an ocean of loose sand and rolling dunes. A good place to dump a body. Give the vultures a day, and no one would ever find McKnight.
After all, he had his orders. Lewis’s lips twisted. But very few carried as much satisfaction.
“Let’s go,” Rayo yelled from the edge of the ravine, catching Lewis’s attention.
The men prodded Booker and Sandra up into the helicopter. Lewis grabbed a set of handcuffs from a nearby bag, tossed them to the nearest guard. “Cuff her.”
“What are the handcuffs for?” Jim demanded.
“General Trygg’s direct orders, Colonel. He wants Doctor Haddad and McKnight restrained,” Lewis sneered. He glanced at the man nearest the doctor. “Do it.”
Sandra winced when the handcuffs clamped around her wrists.
“A waste of steel, right,