Electing To Murder Read Online Free PDF Page B

was missed.
    Having taken care of Stroudt, Kristoff and Foche reviewed what the blogger had in his backpack. Stroudt and his partner saw too much in Kentucky. What had Kristoff worried was that whoever was with Stroudt in Kentucky probably possessed the same information and photos that Stroudt did. Kristoff knew what the election plan was and if someone knew what they were looking at in the photos and put the pieces together, the fallout would be massive.
    Kristoff and Foche had to tie off the loose end from Kentucky.
    So who was with Stroudt last night?
    Kristoff was certain it was Stroudt’s blogging partner Adam Montgomery. The two of them flew together to Nashville and stayed at the same hotel. For now, it appeared that Montgomery had fallen off the grid, exercising far more caution than that exhibited by his now late business partner. Montgomery’s cell phone was turned off, there was no credit card activity and they had been unable to track his whereabouts since Kentucky. He did not make his Nashville flight nor had he taken any other flight, unlike his business partner. Kristoff had a team conduct a search of Stroudt’s home and office in the early morning hours. The team was still reviewing everything from the search but thus far they had no leads on how the two bloggers knew of Kentucky.
    Montgomery would surface eventually. Kristoff’s men were tracking Montgomery’s cell phone, e-mail, Facebook, Twitter, website, credit cards and cash card. Sooner or later he would show up on the electronic grid, they always did. Kristoff just needed Montgomery to come out of hiding in or near a place where he had assets available to be deployed.
    In the meantime, Kristoff and Foche decided to monitor the Stroudt crime scene. They’d been watching The Snelling for a half hour when the Black Yukon arrived bringing the first suit to the scene. “Younger guy,” Foche said hopefully.
    “Do St. Paul cops drive high-end Yukons?” Kristoff wondered out loud as he picked up his cell phone and made a call. “I need you to run a Minnesota plate.”
    Fifteen minutes later he had the rundown on the Yukon on his phone. “This could have gone better,” he muttered.
    “Why?” Foche asked.
    “The Yukon is not department issue but the personal vehicle of Michael McKenzie McRyan. He’s a detective and from the look of things, a fine one. Magna Cum Laude graduate from the University of Minnesota and William Mitchell College of Law. He joined the police department after law school and has some rather impressive police work to his name.”
    “Guy with that background becomes a cop for a very specific if not personal reason,” Foche said with some insight. “Something must have happened to him or a family member to make him become a cop.”
    “You may be right. Part of the answer may be that police work is something of the family business. Apparently there are many a McRyan in the St. Paul Police Department. His late father was Simon McRyan, a detective of some regard years ago. Perhaps young Michael McKenzie here simply followed the calling to the family business.”
    “What has he done that means we should hold him in such high esteem?” Foche asked.
    “You remember hearing about that shoot-out in St. Paul with some professionals who worked with the military contractor PTA?”
    “I do,” Foche answered, sitting up in his passenger seat and dropping the binoculars from his eyes to look at Kristoff. “I knew the man with PTA. His name was Webb Alt. I worked with him two different times when he was CIA, they called him Viper. He was
very
good.”
    “While at PTA, this Alt got into some off-the-books arms sales business that this McRyan discovered. McRyan took him down. There was a chase through downtown St. Paul and McRyan got the drop on Alt and shot him in a parking ramp. Then summer before last there was a kidnapping case, where the St. Paul police chief’s and a prominent lawyer’s daughters were kidnapped. It was a