Rarities Unlimited 04 - The Color of Death

you think Kirby was a Ranger?” Sizemore asked Sam, closing the door after everyone was in the room.
    Sam gestured Kate in and looked at Kennedy, who nodded curtly.
    “Answer him,” Kennedy said.
    Same old shit, Sam thought. Sizemore and Kennedy and to hell with the rest of us.
    Sam looked at Sizemore and wondered, really wondered, if he was dirty. Or if Kennedy was. Much as the idea appealed to him on a purely personal level, on a professional one it had no appeal at all.
    “Kirby fought like he’d been trained,” Sam said evenly, “and I don’t mean the usual smash and slash method they teach army grunts. He was unexpected. Quick. I was damn lucky to take him down.”
    Kennedy grunted. “You always had high marks in shooting and unarmed combat, as well as in case clearances. It added up to just enough to keep your head above water with the Bureau.”
    Why do you think I did it? Sam asked silently. You think I got off on punishing myself at the firing range and gym?
    “Anyway, the mutt’s ex-Ranger,” Kennedy said. “Fingerprints just came back. Army, then DEA. Retired with pension and two ex-wives to support. He ran with another ex–Special Forces type, one John White. A SEAL. White is a sweet piece of business. Barely got an honorable discharge.”
    “So he was a U.S. citizen?” Sam asked.
    “Yeah. At first we thought he was South American with an alias, but it didn’t come down that way. Maybe some of his pals. We’re checking it.”
    “What did he do to get bounced out of the military?” Sam asked.
    “Some really expensive special-ops equipment went missing one night,” Doug said. “White was the only one who could have taken it. But considering his past good service to the country, yada yada yada.”
    “They cut him loose,” Kennedy said. “He left the country and worked around the world. South America, mainly.”
    “Mercenary,” Sam said.
    Kennedy shrugged. “Fancy name for a thug with an automatic rifle.”
    “Okay, so Kirby was American, ex–DEA, with two ex-wives to support and he hung with former special-ops men,” Sam said. “Anything else?”
    “We’re checking into that right now,” Sizemore said.
    “Does he have a record?” Sam asked Kennedy, ignoring Sizemore.
    “Kirby is clean. White has been smacked for speeding, drunk and disorderly, beating on his girlfriends, that sort of thing,” Doug said when Kennedy just glared at Sam. “Clean for last six years, which isinteresting, because his only job is about one step above burger flipper, yet our preliminary investigations indicate he spent money on cocaine and women.”
    Kate looked from face to face. Even without Sam’s terse explanations in the past, she would have known that Kennedy didn’t like Sam, and Sizemore positively despised Sam, and Doug was trying to oil the troubled waters.
    “Kirby and White lived in L.A.?” Sam asked Doug.
    “Santa Ana.”
    “Close enough,” Sam said. “Was either of them ever hired by or connected in any way to Sizemore Security Consulting, Mandel Inc. or—”
    “What the hell are you suggesting?” Sizemore snarled, shoving his face into Sam’s.
    “I’m saying that Kirby was hired for a hit on Kate by someone who has a stake in keeping this investigation swimming around in the toilet until the department flushes it—and us.” Sam’s voice was calm, but his whole body radiated a desire to pick Sizemore up and throw him through the closed door. “Someone, by the way, who’s in a position to know every fucking thing the Bureau knows as soon as the Bureau knows it.”
    Sizemore’s face turned red and his hands fisted. “Are you accusing me?”
    “Should I?” Sam asked.
    Doug stepped between them. “Nobody is accusing anyone. Right?”
    Sam met Doug’s eyes for a long minute, then nodded. “There are several people and/or organizations that might be dirty,” Sam said. “Sizemore’s company is just one of the pack.”
    “Why, you son of a bitch!” Sizemore yelled, reaching for Sam around Doug’s sturdy body.
    Sam shook off Sizemore’s grip with a swift motion of his hands that could just as easily have broken the other man’s wrists.
    “Back off,” Kennedy said in the kind of voice that reminded everyone the SSA had once been in the Marines. “Both of you.”
    The words penetrated Sizemore’s anger. He visibly reined in his temper.
    Sam hadn’t lost his temper, but he’d really been looking forward to doing it all over Sizemore.
    “Ted,”