Wrongful Death by Robert Dugoni

card, reading the word “Visitor” upside down. “Do you think you’re being a little paranoid? Maybe it’s just to show we’re visitors. A lot of companies require this.”
    “Do those companies pick locations that butt up against a military base that limits access to designated checkpoints?” Jenkins asked.
    Sloane looked over at him.
    “This place abuts Fort Lewis,” Jenkins said. “I doubt they picked it by chance.”
    True to the guard’s word, as Sloane neared the third building, a woman stood waiting at the foot of two concrete steps. When they got out of the car, she approached Sloane with a rigidly outstretched arm.
    “Mr. Sloane? I’m Anne, Captain Kessler’s assistant.”
    Anne had the lean features and weathered skin of someone who ran long distances. It had aged her. Sloane guessed she was early thirties or younger but looked forty. Her handshake was rock solid. She looked at Jenkins as if uncertain about him. No wonder. With his sunglasses and black coat, he looked like Arnold Schwarzenegger in one of the Terminator movies.
    “Mr. Jenkins arranged my meeting with Mr. Kessler,” Sloane said, as if to explain Jenkins’s presence.
    Anne gave a pleasant smile. “I’ll escort you to the captain.”
    They stepped through a heavy metal door into a nondescript interior of paneled walls and a drop-down tile ceiling with dull fluorescent lighting and protruding sprinkler heads. It looked more like the interior of a construction trailer than the offices of a billion-dollar conglomerate. Because of Jenkins’s comment about the buildings not being numbered, Sloane looked for names and titles on the doors they passed, but found none. There were no name plates on the desk cubicles either.
    “What kind of business is Argus?” Sloane asked, playing dumb.
    Anne spoke over her shoulder. “We make agricultural chemicals.”
    “Pesticides?” Jenkins asked.
    “Some.”
    Anne stopped outside a closed door and knocked twice before turning the knob and entering. Sloane followed her. The man behind the desk waved them further in and gestured to two seats across from him. He looked to be talking to himself until he turned his head and Sloane saw a wireless earpiece.
    Captain Robert Kessler wore a cream-colored dress shirt pressed to perfection and looking like it should be emblazoned with medals. His tie was equally perfect, cinched tight, the knot flawless. As Kessler spoke, the muscles in his neck undulated, and a vein at his temple bulged. His close-cropped hair was more salt than pepper, a contrast to his youthful features and an indication that perhaps he hadn’t left the military completely behind. Behind him, a map of the world, marked with several dozen red triangles, hung on the wall.
    A beam of light drew Sloane’s attention to a pitch-black, floor-to-ceiling, plate-glass window. With effort he detected movement on the other side of the glass.
    “All right, that’s enough for now,” Kessler said.
    A burst of light illuminated what appeared to be a village of flat-roof, stucco, and stone homes set behind exterior walls. Debris and the burned-out shells of cars and military vehicles littered potholed streets. It looked like the back lot of a Hollywood set.
    Kessler gestured to the window. “Welcome to Iraq.”
    But for the metal beams and ductwork crisscrossing the ceiling, the skeletal framework of a huge warehouse, the village looked just like pictures Sloane had seen in magazines and on the front page of countless newspapers. Half a dozen men dressedin black camouflage, their makeup smudged by perspiration, filed out from behind a wall carrying automatic weapons and wearing helmets equipped with night-vision goggles. Following them were men and women dressed in nightshirts and headdresses. Though almost all were Caucasian, they were obviously playing the role of Iraqis. The men’s arms had been bound behind their backs.
    “Take a break. We’ll run it again,” Kessler said. “We want to be