Page 2 of Nora
They’d all stopped asking that question long ago, though. He’d never give them an answer, and after several years in the game, they agreed that how it came about wasn’t important. His devotion to, and support of, the four of them was unflagging, and that was all they neededto know. But that support came with a cost. Franklin tended to leave her and her friends with more questions than answers. Not a comfortable place for four intelligence agents to be.
“What’s that?” Nora asked, nodding to the file Franklin had set on the table. He slid it over and she opened it. Scanning the first page, she frowned. “I’ve heard of this program, but what does it have to do with me?” She closed the folder, hoping that Franklin would be in a rare mood to answer questions.
“Group Six of the NATO K9 project will be arriving in Massachusetts on Monday. They are starting the second year of the two-year course. This will be their fourth training session together. It’s a three-week program, and I need you to be the on-site veterinarian throughout.”
Nora eyed him, then reopened the folder. The NATO K9 project was an elite training program for K9s and their handlers. NATO had launched it a few years earlier and each year, twelve pairs—handler and dog—were chosen to attend. The project was intended to build skills and strengthen ties among NATO countries. Most of the participants were military who deployed with their dogs. But some were search-and-rescue or law enforcement.
It didn’t surprise Nora to learn they had a resident vet at each session. The dogs were extraordinarily valuable assets to their countries. The question that hovered on her tongue, though, was “Why me?”
She skimmed the training schedule for the next session, taking place not far from Cos Cob in Western Massachusetts. The land was a former army base that the military had decommissioned eight years earlier. Now it served as a temporary training ground for all sorts of activities, including the NATO K9 project.
The first few pages were brief bios of the participants: four women and eight men from six different countries. There were three search-and-rescue dogs, four combat dogs, and five patrol dogs. Finding nothing to pique her interest, she flipped to the next set of documents.
Her eyes scanned the first page and when she reached the end, she looked up and met Franklin’s gaze. He nodded for her to continue, and she dropped her attention back to the file. She read the first page again, then flipped to the second, and then the third. When she finished, she looked up.
“Three murders during each of the three prior training sessions?” she said, more than asked. Franklin nodded. “And this is just coming to your attention now?”
He tipped his head, accepting the subtle rebuke. “With the exception of the first, all the murders took place more than ten—though less than fifteen—miles from the training grounds. The MO may be the same across each of the three sets of murders—one stabbing, one burning, and one strangulation—but within each set, it’s different. Local authorities never connected the three murders to each other, let alone to crimes in other countries.”
Nora turned her attention back to the folder. Setting the three summary pages in a row in front of her, she scanned the details side by side. The victims were ethnically diverse, a mix of men and women, and represented a fairly broad age range.
“Hardly standard for a serial killer, is it?” she commented, mostly to herself.
“Which is yet another reason it went unnoticed.”
“Until?” she prompted.
“Until the family of Loretta Campion hired a PI. The PI didn’t link Ms. Campion’s murder to the strangulation or burning that occurred in the same area, but she connected it to the other two stabbings from the prior sessions. All three victims were stabbed once on the right side of their torso, puncturing their lung and nicking an artery. Death wouldn’t have been instantaneous, but it would have been mercifully quick.”
She glanced at the files again. “The PI linked it to the training sessions?”
Franklin shook his head. “A member of the local constabulary did,” he answered. “Ms. Campion was murdered last August in a small parish on the outskirts of New Orleans. In the PI’s search for similar crimes, she discovered the murder of Michael Hampton. Mr. Hampton was killed in a small village in the Highlands of Scotland four months prior to Ms. Campion’s death. The PI rang the local constabulary to share notes. The locals had all but chalked up Hampton’s death to being the result of a deranged hiker. But after the PI’s call, the lead detective started reexamining the case. The only thing out of the ordinary happening around the time of Mr. Hampton’s murder was the NATO training session held at a nearby army base. Once he realized that, healerted the local army officials.”
Nora frowned, then took a sip of her latte. “He didn’t think of that before?”
“He was an army man himself, didn’t want to consider the possibility. Also, Mr. Hampton was killed thirteen miles from the training location, and none of the handlers have cars.”
“Ever?” she asked, then clarified. “They don’t ever have cars when they are in session?”
Franklin shook his head. “They aren’t in lockdown, but they aren’t allowed to drive. If they can get a ride or walk, then they aren’t prohibited from going places.”
She looked down at the pages again. The first set of murders had occurred while training in Turkey. The second in Scotland. The most recent in Louisiana. From the minimal information she had, it certainly looked as though someone from the program was a serial killer. Although his or her MO was like none Nora had ever studied before.Studiedbeing the operative word.
“I’m not sure what you think I can do, Franklin. Serial killers aren’t what I’m used to dealing with—not like this one. Treason, sure. Espionage, no problem. Arms trafficking…you know I’ve been there a time or two. But a serial killer? Wouldn’t this be the job of Army CID or naval intelligence or something like that? Jordan isn’t even a member of NATO.”
“Which is one of the reasons you’re the right person.”
“Oneof the reasons?”
“Another is that we don’t want to bring anyone new into the equation. It could risk alerting the killer to our suspicions in a way that sends them into hiding. A new veterinarian, we can explain. A new person with no particular role, we can’t.”
She shook her head. “I don’t have authority to operate in the United States, you know that.”
At that comment, a small smile played on his lips. “You act as if that’s stopped you before.”
Nora bit back her reply. He had a point. Over the past year, her friends had found themselves in some rather interesting situations. All of which had occurred on US soil. And all of which she’d provided significant backup for. But still…
“It’s one thing to have something fall in our laps that we needed to take care of. This is different, and we both know it. This is intentionally inserting myself into an ongoing criminal investigation that implicates six countries.”
