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Beside me, Alvarez said, “It’s history, Lindsay. The bastard is in the hospital under heavy guard. His right arm will never hold a gun or a comb or a spoon. He’s out of business. There is enough evidence in this room and in the videos he sent you to convict him a hundred times.”
“I know, I know, I know. It’s too much, Sonia. Too close. I’m processing that every one of my friends were his targets. He tried to kill Cindy because she refused his demand to talk about Burke. He sentmethe videos because killing me was supposed to be his finale.”
Brady said, “Let’s get out of here before I lose my breakfast.”
When we were outside, my mind was still whirling with everything I knew about Blackout. I flashed on his diary. I could see it, still in the desk upstairs in the store. I had to get that, voucher it, and most important, read every word.
If there was an answer to the black hole that was Bryan Catton, I wanted to know what it was. Why had he gone froma would-be actor with a wide-ranging and high IQ to a serial killer?
I hugged Alvarez, told her I’d see her in the morning, then took the long staircase up to the chaotic scene on the main floor. I hoped Blackout’s war journal would still be in the desk drawer.
CHAPTER 98
WHILE BRADY ASSIGNED uniforms to protect the former bookstore against looters, press, curiosity seekers of all kinds, I searched Blackout’s desk. I located the journal, took it out to Brady’s SUV and began to read. The journal’s title, “Blackout. Last Night in Helmand Province,” had been written in longhand with a fine-point Sharpie.
A quick flip through the pages had told me that this journal was about a night mission that took place during Catton’s yearlong tour in Afghanistan. He had been a helicopter door gunner in a reconnaissance chopper.
He described his mission as one of resistance suppression—clearing the field of enemy fire in advance of a squadron of heavy-lift choppers in their wake, ferrying in fresh troops to the battlefield.
Catton wrote:
“Once the troop transport following us to the Landing Zone put down, our job was to orbit the field, keeping track of and quashing additional resistance.
“Our pilot, Jamie Jackson, was nearing the end of his third tour and he was in charge. Smart guy. Well trained. Great instincts. From liftoff to our return to base, his job was twofold. Pilot the chopper and look for the enemy.
“Our gunship holds twelve people: pilot, co-pilot, crew chief; eight combat-ready Marines; one gunner who stands in the doorway with a large M240 machine gun and takes out the enemy. I’m the door gunner.
“That night our pilot was talkative.
“‘Hey, gunner, they’re down there, left side beneath those trees and they’re live. Keep an eye out and if you see them, do what you do.’
“We were flying over a wide-open terrain, very few trees, and this couldn’t be missed. It was a unit of about a dozen or so to my left and then, when we were in range, a tight burst of muzzle flare erupted below.
“I opened up on the enemy, firing, firing, holding the trigger down.”
* * *
I stopped reading Blackout’s journal to take a breath and look around the parking lot behind the store. There were cop cars everywhere, but no muzzle flare. Law enforcement and CSU were going in and out of the abandoned bookstore.
I looked down at the open book on my lap and sent my mind back to the firefight.
* * *
Blackout wrote, “We were flying low under total cloud cover, but below the chopper’s belly was a different kind of night sky, one pocked not with stars but gunfire. It’s common to be crapping yourself in situations like this, but I wasn’t afraid. I felt high.
“I had a heavy-duty gun and more ammo than I’d ever thought I’d need. I fixed on the location of enemy fire, aimed, pulled the trigger, and held it down again.
“The belts fed the ammo smoothly through the chamber and as the rounds discharged, the links came undone and a pile of metal parts and casings mounted around my feet. The ground below me was dark.
“Jamie’s voice in my ear was like that of a supreme being. ‘Catton. Thirty degrees left of center. Do you see it?’
“‘Got it, bro.’
“There was a new field of enemy fire as we were tracked. I responded in kind, knowing full well that all there was between the chopper crew and the incoming rounds was a quarter-inch of aluminum—which doesn’t stop bullets.
“Again, I fired, sending as many of those dirtbags to hell as I could.
“Jamie’s voice: ‘Okay, Bry, check fire. Do you hear me? Check fire! Stop now.’ But I couldn’t stop even with Jamie’s voice crackling repeatedly in my headset: ‘Check fire, check fire, check fire.’
