. .oOo.

Chapter 6

The short flight out to Tuweep required both of the small Cessna planes that the rangers had access to. Kinkaid would have preferred to make his own arrangements in something more comfortable, but Mitch had insisted that these were the largest aircraft that would be permitted out there.

Ranger Wallace was there when the small planes landed on his makeshift airstrip. He drove his old battered pickup truck out to what served as a tarmac and waited as the men climbed out and stood near the planes. Only when the general was also standing with them, did he move forward and extend his hand.

Words were not spoken, there was an understanding between all of them. He was more than willing to do what he could to help in this investigation, having unwittingly become part of it himself. To say that Wallace was upset to have been treated the way he had in DC, was an understatement. Someone had an agenda and he was determined to find out what it was.

Initially, Wallace had considered the impromptu trip to Washington a complete waste of time. The committee, that had asked him to be there, did not even address the issues that he had been asked to come and talk about. They had run out of time, he was told.

One of the senators had come up to him afterward. Wallace thought that he seemed distracted, got the distinct feeling that he was being brushed off by this man. He did not appreciate that. When he was asked if he would he come back during their next session, the ranger just stared at the man in disbelief. Without hesitation, he said no.

Now, Wallace was angry. That someone took advantage of the fact he was not here, to sneak in and dump a body, really rubbed him the wrong way. He was ready to do whatever it took to find who had done this. He tossed the keys to the general. As arranged, Kinkaid got behind the wheel and half of the team piled into the old truck and headed to Wallace's house. It would serve as their command center, as it was the only place within miles that had access to satellite internet.

The other members of the team followed Wallace over to his small helicopter. The old model Bell Huey had been his project for a couple of years. It wasn't pretty, but it had seating for seven and it could get them to where they needed to go, and back.

The men who climbed in were dressed in their gear and were ready to hook to the lines that would lower them down into the dump site. It was the quickest and easiest way for them to get their own look at the place the body had been found. Whether there were any clues left to be found was anyone's guess, but they were equipped and motivated to find it, if it was there.

It was an even shorter flight this time, and less than twenty minutes later the men were on the ground. Ranger scoped the area. Though they had flown over many deep gorges with sharp cliffs on their way here, this spot in a long narrow canyon was fairly flat. Chunks of limestone in huge ragged boulders scattered the area. His hopes for finding anything that the Rangers had missed were slim. There would not be many clues, not when the body had just been dumped. But his instincts told him that there was a chance that there could be something here.

Behind one of the boulders, a large dark brown stain marked the spot where Chef had been found. From the amount of blood that had been left behind, it was evident that he had been disposed soon after being shot. He had bled out here.

It may have been possible that he had been killed in the plane and then thrown out. There were no splatter patterns on any of the surrounding rocks, supporting Gielens assertion that he had just been dumped here to lose the body.

All of the bits of evidence would have to be put together before they had a good idea of what had happened, but they still did not know who had done this or exactly why. There was also a possibility that they would never know all of the details. He had mixed feelings about that.

After examining the place his body had been, all of the men spread out over the small target area. Ranger watched them for a few moments. Chandler was taking photos of nearly every surface. Raj, AKA Shadow, was hunched over, looking like Sherlock Holmes, all he needed was a magnifying glass to complete the look. His guys were good. The best. So Ranger suppressed a smile.

The minutes passed as every inch was combed over, their hopes diminishing with each of those minutes. Opinions varied about what Chef had become, but no matter what he had done, they all agreed that he deserved better than this, and they did not want to let him down.

"What the ..!" Bowie cried out as the loose rocks slid underfoot and he lost his balance. Ranger spun around to see what had happened. Chandler quickly aimed and took a shot to document the moment. Not a word was said now, but they would have fun teasing him about his graceful moves later.

The flash blinked a few times before the shutter clicked, and for a split instant, it reflected off of something behind Bowie. "Don't move!" Ranger said moving forward, keeping his eyes on the place he'd seen a quick glint. Carefully he moved the rocks around, the other guys came closer, watching, waiting.

Finally, Ranger stopped, his fingers had sifted through the disturbed rocks and now he picked up something small. Slowly he stood and held it up. Everyone recognized it immediately. They all still wore their own dogtags too. Ranger rubbed the dirt away to reveal the engraved letters, holding his breath to see what name he would find.

"It's Chef's," he said solemnly. Heads bowed. It was not entirely unexpected, but the body had already been identified, so everyone was disappointed they hadn't found something more useful to their investigation. Most of them turned away, on the search again.

Bowie stood and was brushing the dirt from his pants, the same reddish gray dirt that clung to the black rubber silencers and dusted the metal tag in Ranger's hand. "Sorry man," he said with a shrug.

"Wait a sec," Ranger said, turning the piece of metal over in his hands several times. "There is something odd written here."

He handed it to Bowie, pointing to the line below the name. "That's not a social," he said. "And look at what it says for blood type and religious preference. Bowie held the small tag up in the sun, squinting at the letters punched into the metal.

He nodded slowly, Ranger was right, the standard information that was on all of their tags had been replaced with something else, all while keeping the same look as a regular tag. One by one the others noticed what was going on and came back over to see. A small discussion started. Ranger listened silently, but he had his own ideas about what it could mean.

And now he was thinking about the person who had already filled in some very important details about Chef. With this information and her skills, Ranger knew that she could give him some more answers now. He needed to talk to Stephanie.

Again, with regret, he realized that his communication with her during the past few days had been sorely lacking. All that was happening couldn't have come at a worse time. His thoughts took him back to the night at Pino's. They'd spent hours with each other and had had such a great time.

Sure, that evening had included the rest of the group, but Stephanie had been sitting so close to him that could feel the electricity that coursed through him every time their knees accidentally bumped, or when she would briefly touch his arm, his hand, his shoulder as they laughed and told stories. She didn't know what she did to him. That night had confirmed his feelings, he was ready. Ready to tell her that he needed her in his life. Always.

This was not something that he had rushed into, far from it. It's just that he had finally come to the realization that his life was so incomplete, worthless without her in it. He had endured all of her 'on' periods with the cop, and now that they were 'off' again, permanently this time, he knew he had to let her know how he felt. Unfortunately, he was just no good at this sharing thing and he had been agonizing over how he could change that part of himself.

And then she had gone and surprised him. With a fierceness that he had not seen before, she had tried to protect him from the hurt she knew he would feel about Chef. A profound warmth filled his chest when he remembered how reluctant she had been to share the information that she had found. She didn't want to be the one who brought it to his attention, but at the same time, she had respected the fact that he needed to know about his friend.

She was such an enigma in his mind. To most, she seemed to be bumbling through her life. They did not see that she had an inner strength that kept her going even in the worst of conditions. They couldn't understand her craving to be herself, even if it was so far out of the Burg's accepted 'norms'. How they could not admire her courage and her grit, he just didn't know. More than anything, he wanted her to know that he loved all of these things about her.

Yes, he needed to talk to her, soon. But right now, he needed her help again. With her intuition and tenacity, she was the one person that he could count on to find the answers that he needed. He just hoped that she was not too upset with him. The past weeks had not helped at all with his hopes to connect with her. He was still upset that he had missed her again before leaving to come here. Someday soon, he needed to make that up to her.

Overhead the helicopter came back into view. Their time was up. Dirt billowed up in a cloud all around them as the ropes were dropped from either side of the chopper. Two by two, the guys hooked on to have the winches pull them up. With everyone back on board, Wallace pointed the nose toward home. Nothing more was left for them here.

. .oOo.

At Ranger Wallace's place, Tank and the rest of the team set up what they would refer to as the home base for the day. It was a surprisingly spacious house with vaulted ceilings and picture windows that took in the view of the red rock canyons. At some point each of the men probably looked out and appreciated the sight, but most of their attention had been focused on their own laptops.

Eric, or "Red" as he was known to the men in the team, sat with his back to the stone wall that was part of an enormous fireplace. Now that he was back with the guys, he had to wonder, again, how his parents had named a child with red hair, Eric. Of course, as a member of the elite team, it had been more than a nickname, it was his moniker, an honor, if he let himself go that far.

With an ease that few of the others had, Red was sifting through pages of media coverage, extracting only what he wanted. These items were transferred into a separate file and periodically sent over to Tank whose job it was to keep all of the results in one place.

On the opposite side of the room Cort was frowning at his screen. While he was in the military files that had been kept on Chef, Cort McKay, Mac, as he was still going by these days, had decided to cross reference all of the accounts that were listed under Benjamin Rivers Davron. Detailed information was listed under performance, payroll, education, and benefits, which included complete medical and life insurance.

The benefits file is what now held Mac's attention. Melissa had been listed as a dependent and also a beneficiary up until a year ago. After the divorce, that had changed. Then, just three months ago, it had been changed again. Everything was back in Melissa's name.

Not only did she have her medical insurance reinstated, but the life insurance policy once again named her as the sole beneficiary. And the amount of the policy had been doubled. Melissa Davron now stood to receive a million dollars from that policy.

Mac sat back in his chair, still glaring at the screen. Kinkaid was right, the Melissa that they knew was plenty greedy, and her heart was cold, but she was definitely not smart enough to figure out how to cheat the US Army. The question that he was asking now was, who was helping her? And why?

Tank was constantly reviewing and organizing the information being sent to him. A few times, he shook his head at what he was reading, but suddenly his head popped up and he looked around until his eyes met Mac's. With a slight nod, Mac agreed with him. Ranger was going to be very interested to see this.

. .oOo.

In Washington DC, two days ago.

Sarah worked a later shift than usual tonight. A special event at the White House that would benefit them both. Vasya waited patiently for her call. He stared out of the window of his penthouse apartment, holding his favorite vodka in his hand. The view from here was spectacular. He was going to miss it.

Turning away, he took a drink, allowing the nearly frozen liquid to slide down his throat. His nerves were on edge. For close to a decade he had been playing this game, but he was going to be gone soon. That fact was going to come as quite a surprise to many people. He found it funny all of a sudden, and he laughed.

He was very popular here in DC. At least the person he was pretending to be was. Many people wanted to be seen with such a wildly successful entrepreneur, and he did his best to accommodate as many as he could. It was all part of his plan. A man in his position had to be careful.

A shiver, that had nothing to do with his frozen drink, shuddered up his spine. Spies, like he was, needed to be creative. He had chosen this cover for a reason. He wanted to hide in plain sight, figuring that it would make it harder to accidentally disappear one day, as so many of his associates were prone to do.

These were not pleasant thoughts, but it was not exactly a pleasant business that he was in. He prided himself in maintaining control at all times. Not an easy thing to do in his line of work. And that was the number one reason that he was ready to retire now, while he was still on top.

If he was lucky, he could disappear to start his new life without any interference. He had been very good at what he did, he hoped they would remember that. They owed him this chance to walk away. There had only been one time when he let them down. Vasya thought of that often, the only mar on his record still bothered him, and it had not been his fault.

A year ago, the chef had just disappeared one day, leaving him to scramble to get a new contact in the White House. Looking back, Vasya knew that the only mistake he had made was assuming that nothing would interrupt his arrangement with the chef. Things had been going so well, smooth and flawless. It had been a pleasure to watch the man work. He was a charmer, everyone he met fell under his spell.

Vasya had scored an invitation at the White House years ago. It had impressed him to see the man, the chef, come out and mingle with the guests. He was a star, they all wanted to meet the man behind the magnificent food. He was attentive, hovering as if to assure that everyone was enjoying the dinner, the dessert, the wine. And most importantly, Vasya had noticed that they had wanted him there.

No one knew that he was listening, recording them. The man was a genius, working the room and gathering information that he could sell to the highest bidder. For so long, that highest bidder had been Vasya. He had paid Davron well for the type of secrets that were told between the heads of state who took care of their business over a tender Beef Wellington, or a decadent Crème Brulee. Wine, served by the chef himself, flowed with the meal, the perfect accompaniment to their evening. And the perfect way to loosen tongues.

One day the chef had been there, business as usual, then the next he was gone. Not my fault, Vasya repeated in his mind. He still wondered what had happened to the man who had always surprised him with the detailed information that he seemed to be able to find.

Losing him as a contact could have been a big disaster. It could have ruined him, but Vasya had come through, he had found Sarah. As a wine steward, hired to help the new chef, she had filled his needs satisfactorily. The intel his superiors needed had been uncovered and delivered and life moved on. Still, he was uneasy about his future. Maybe it would be prudent to do a disappearing act of his own. Sarah was able to do the job, but she lacked the finesse and charisma that the chef had had. It could be just a matter of time before she was no longer effective. Yes, he decided, it was definetely time to leave.

When Vasya Kostenka made his exit, he would no longer exist. He had mixed feelings about that, but he had enough money now to buy the life he wanted. It would be a secret life this time, no adoring fans.

Vasya sank down into the closest chair. Carefully placing his glass on the marble coaster sitting atop the highly polished wood of the coffee table, he let his mind play out what that scenario would look like. A smile crept to his lips at the thought.

Suddenly his phone vibrated in his pocket. "Sarah" he muttered as he looked at the screen.

"Rendezvous." was all the message said. That was all he needed. Vasya stood and grabbed his keys and slipped his ice encased bottle of vodka into the silver ice bucket sitting on the counter. This would be one of the last times he would see Sarah. He might as well make it good.

. .oOo.