Veil of Civility: A Black Shuck Thriller (Declan McIver Series) (27 page)

10:48 a.m. Eastern Time – Monday

Verndale Drive

Roanoke, Virginia

Seth Castellano looked over the living room of the house located at the end of a long driveway on Verndale Drive in the northern part of Roanoke County. If not for the fact that the home was set apart by an acre of forest, it would stand in direct contrast to the working middle-class neighborhood that bordered it. Behind the stone-columned gate, the long paved driveway and the forest, the house wasn't the anomaly it would otherwise have been, but instead a neat gem hidden perfectly in a little valley. He'd been here once before, but hadn't gone inside. Everything he'd needed to do he'd accomplished inside one of the two garages on the property.

"Found another one, sir," a young man in a suit and tie said as he entered from the basement steps and walked down the short hallway to the living room, carrying an AR style rifle.

"That makes nine," Castellano said. "Put it on the kitchen table with the others."

"What the hell do you think this guy's doing with all these weapons anyway, sir?"

"No idea, Agent Carter, but my guess is he wasn't planning a safari."

The agent laid the rifle down on the oval kitchen table next to the others they'd found stashed in various locations throughout the house. In total there were nine guns; six semi-automatic pistols, two AR style rifles and a Mossberg pump action shot gun. "You want me to start on the master bedroom?" Carter asked.

"No," Castellano answered. "I'll handle that. Head out back and help the others search the garage. I'm betting there's more hidden there than there is in the house."

"Yes, sir."

The young agent disappeared out of the back door that led onto the wrap around porch. As the door banged closed Castellano withdrew a pair of nitrile gloves from his pocket and put them on. He walked slowly around the living room, looking at the two curio cabinets filled with pictures. Declan and Constance McIver certainly looked like the typical, upper middle-class American couple and in addition to the photos of the smiling couple, their house testified to it.

Despite its private setting, the house was small by most upper crust standards with only three bedrooms and two bathrooms. One of the bedrooms upstairs was used as an office and two technicians from the FBI's Computer Crimes Division were there searching the filing cabinets and two computers located in the room. He doubted they'd find anything. Although Declan McIver clearly had a penchant for concealing weapons, they'd found nothing else to indicate that he was involved in any criminal activities. As far as Castellano could tell there was nothing that would help him tie either of the McIvers to the murder of Abaddon Kafni, but that was okay. He had placed all the evidence they would need.

Craning his neck to look out of the home's windows for any of his men that might still be nearby, he slowly pulled out a gallon-sized ziplock bag from the oversized pocket on the side of his overcoat. Inside was a suppressed pistol that he'd obtained from Ruslan Baktayev through an undisclosed shipment with DHL. While it was technically against the company's policy to ship firearms, what they didn't know wouldn't hurt them. Opening the bag, he walked down the hallway off the living room towards the master bedroom which, except for being cleared of any occupants upon their initial arrival, had yet to be searched.

Inside the bedroom it looked as though someone had left quickly and he had no doubt that someone had. The comforter and sheets on the bed were tossed back as though someone had gotten out of bed and a pair of pink fleece pajamas lay crumpled on the floor near a pair of slippers. The local police had found the bodies of two men that he knew had been watching the McIver house and from the scene at both locations it was obvious what had happened. Declan McIver had killed the two men who ambushed him on the highway and had driven their vehicle to his house where he'd found the other two men waiting. He'd then called his wife and used her leaving the house as a decoy to draw the remaining assailants into a less populated area so that he could take them out as well, which he'd done with the kind of precision only an experienced killer could muster.

The bedroom, like the rest of the house, showed no signs of anyone having returned since then for clothes or anything else, so wherever the McIvers had gone it was obviously a place that had been prepared in advance. That fact, coupled with everything else, played right into the idea that Declan McIver was some sort of terrorist in hiding.

Checking his surroundings again, Castellano lifted the edge of the mattress on the side that hadn't been slept in and placed the suppressed gun underneath. Its presence in the home and the ballistics tests that would be done on it once it was found would be more than enough to prove Declan McIver had killed the guard in front of the Briton-Adams mansion and would cast serious doubt on his story of having seen terrorists kill Kafni. Castellano stuffed the ziplock bag back in his pocket and left the room.

"Agent Schultz?" he called, as he reentered the living room.

A man dressed in a dark blue Windbreaker with yellow letters on the back reading
FBI
appeared from one of the upstairs bedrooms and looked over the landing bannister. "Yes, sir?"

"Kindly start searching the master bedroom, will you? I've got to make some calls."

"Yes, sir."

Castellano heard the agent's footsteps on the stairs as he walked into the kitchen and left the house through the back door. He fished his cell phone from the inside breast pocket of his coat as he strode across the porch to where his car was parked on the wrap around driveway. Opening the door and getting inside, he pushed and held a key on the phone until the sound of a number being dialed could be heard.

"What do you have?" David Kemiss answered.

"I've got enough illegally converted automatic weapons to put Declan McIver in jail for the next twenty years if we take the charges before the right judge."

"Good, but we still need a motive."

"I've got men upstairs pulling their personal financial records now and I have a warrant to search the company's offices as well. With the real estate market being what it has been over the last few years I'm sure we won't have a problem finding a financial motive."

"That'll work. I don't care if this guy brings in two hundred thousand a year. All we have to prove is that he's brought in more in previous years and that he's not happy about the cut in pay."

"Like I said, shouldn't be hard." Castellano looked up into the rearview mirror as he heard a vehicle pull in behind him. "Let me call you back, David. Someone's just arrived."

He closed the phone and opened the car door, stepping out at the same time as a stocky woman from the white mini-van behind him. "Can I help you, miss?"

The woman looked stunned at the number of unmarked police cars in the driveway.

"I guess I uhh came at the wrong time," the woman stammered.

"Why are you here?"

"I'm Carol Minnix from up the road. I'm here for the dog, Shelby."

Castellano looked towards the house. "There's no dog here that I'm aware of. Did the McIvers call you and ask you to come?"

The woman shook her head. "No. I always take care of Shelby when Declan and Constance are away."

"And how do you know they're away?"

"I just figured they were because of what the news was saying."

"I see. Well, as I said, there's no dog here."

"She's under the couch. That's where she hides when someone she doesn't know is around."

"We've searched the entire house, miss. There's no dog. Agent Carter, did you find a dog?" Castellano asked, as the young agent strode up the driveway from around the other side of the house where the garage was located.

"No sir, but I found traces of ammonium nitrate fertilizer in an old Jeep inside the garage."

"I'm sure you did."

"May I go in and get her, sir? I know where she is," the woman pleaded.

Castellano pointed at the door. "Don't touch anything. Get the dog and get out."

He followed the woman onto the porch and watched as she stepped inside. "Oh," she said solemnly as she saw the assortment of firearms laid out on the kitchen table.

"'Oh' is right," Castellano said. "Do you have any idea why the McIvers have so many weapons?"

"No, sir. I didn't know they did. I didn't even know Constance knew how to fire a gun."

"Of course not, it's just like an episode of the Greatest American Hero around here, or so everyone tells me."

The woman looked ashen as she stood there apparently wondering what to do next.

"The dog," Castellano said, pointing into the house.

"Oh, right. Okay," the woman stammered as she moved quickly into the living room and sank to her knees in front of the couch. She whistled and said, "Shelby, it's Carol. Come here."

Castellano watched as the woman reached under the couch and pulled a beefy beagle out by its collar. "I'll be damned," he said. "Some guard dog, huh?"

The woman picked up the dog and moved quickly out of the house.

"Do you have any idea if the McIvers have any properties that they stay at for vacations or anything?" Castellano asked, as he followed her out.

The woman shook her head as she loaded the beagle onto the passenger seat of her van and closed the door. "No," she said as she moved around to the driver's side. "They travel a fair amount, but not to the same places, so far as I'm aware. I'm usually jealous when they go out of town, to be honest. They've been all over the world. Paris, Madrid, all over."

"I see; and what about Mr. McIver? Does he have any place that maybe he'd go without his wife?"

"Declan's got property all over the place, sir. He's in the real estate business. Always buying and selling something. Constance mentioned a fishing cabin that he liked to go to sometimes, but I don't have any idea where it is."

"A fishing cabin," Castellano said, raising his eyebrows. "Interesting, and you have no idea where it is?"

"No. She never told me. To be honest I'm not even sure if she knew where it was."

Castellano nodded. "Thank you. You take care of that dog now," he continued with a smirk. "It looks a little underfed."

As he turned away from the woman he heard his phone ringing in his car. Walking over and opening the door, he reached in and picked up the device.
Call From (434)565-2674
flashed on the screen. "Castellano," he said as he thumbed the display and brought the phone to his ear.

"Agent Castellano, this is Michael Coulson from Liberty University."

"What can I do for you, Dr. Coulson?"

"You asked me to call you if I saw or heard from Declan McIver, sir. He's just left here a few minutes ago."

11:03 a.m. Eastern Time – Monday

7
th
Street & Pennsylvania Ave.

Washington D.C.

David Kemiss watched as the wait staff moved promptly around tables set in well-defined rows. He was in the large rectangular restaurant that made up the ninth floor of the Frederick J. Cooper building. No clanking dishes or noisy push carts. No breaking china or dropped silverware. No banter with the clientele, as there was in most restaurants. Like phantoms that appeared and disappeared at the most opportune moment they went about their jobs silently, every move planned well in advance like a Black Ops team whose goal it was to liberate dirty dishes and half-eaten entrées, safely extracting them beyond enemy borders before allowing them to make a sound. Such was the atmosphere of the exclusive 701 Restaurant, adjacent to the United States navy memorial and six blocks from the US Capitol building.

Between the hours of twelve and two the ornate restaurant and jazz lounge would be packed with congressmen, senators, aides, lobbyists, attorneys, wealthy businessmen and anyone else who had the connections to garner a reservation. But it was eleven, and the crowd had yet to arrive from the nearby government institutions.

Kemiss sat alone in the corner of the room, the morning edition of the Washington Post open on the table in front of him. Without a word, a waiter deftly set before him the club's signature Scottish salmon then retreated as the senator's guest approached. Kemiss closed the newspaper and looked over the table with a question on his face as the maître d' pulled out two chairs instead of one. Looking up, he saw the man he was meeting had a guest of his own. He looked over the two men as the maître d' set down two menus, and silverware wrapped in dark red cloth napkins, before leaving at a brisk pace.

The first man, the man Kemiss had been expecting, was wearing a blue pinstriped suit with a red tie and wore a pair of gold bifocals that sat high on his nose. His demeanor was confident but not cocky, and his receding, brownish-gray hair formed two horns on his forehead.

"Good morning, David," Lane Simard said, as he took his seat. There was a slight British hue to his voice. As the CIA's Station Chief in London, Simard spent most of his time in the British capital and had apparently picked up a hint of the accent. Simard looked up at the man who accompanied him. He was a broad man with a rosy complexion, dark hair and a neatly trimmed mustache, flecks of gray throughout both. He unbuttoned his charcoal suit as he sat and loosened his burgundy tie.