After reattaching Wallace’s license plate to his car, I opened the driver’s door and disabled the passenger side airbag with the keyed switch located in the left side of the dash.

To prevent the illuminated “Passenger Side Air Bag Disabled” light on the overhead console from being noticed while we drove to our destination, I affixed a strip of black electrical tape over the light.

Wearing Pike’s oversized boots, USMC embroidered hat, and jacket, I left the garage and walked behind Wallace’s home, to the water’s edge. I pressed my feet deep into the mud and then returned to the garage. Once inside, I left a few muddy footprints before traipsing mud into the floorboard of the Wallace’s car.

With a gloved hand, I slid the open—and now empty—bottle of Jack Daniels in front of the driver’s side seat. I then went inside to retrieve my next victim.

Prior to going to Pike’s, I’d forced Wallace to drink a dozen shots of whiskey. The twelve ounces of alcohol were enough to have his blood-alcohol content at three times the legal limit.

I led the drunken Wallace to the car and loaded him into the passenger seat. His hands were secured behind his back with leather BDSM-style restraints. Using lambswool-lined leather cuffs through the completion of my plan would leave his wrists free of any ligature marks.

I reached across his chest and buckled his seatbelt. “Not a fucking word out of you when we go through the gate. You do nothing but nod your fucking head, understand?”

I’d led him to believe we were going to the office to get a copy of the intel sheet on Shep’s murder. I had another trip in mind for him. It would be the last trip he’d ever take.

He looked at me but didn’t respond. He was too inebriated to resist—verbally, or otherwise.

I opened the garage door with the remote control and backed the car out. After shutting the door, I checked my watch. Where we were headed was a mile from Pike’s home, and eight miles from where Wallace lived. During the drive, I went through the plan in my head.

My sports mouth guard was in my right front pocket. I was wearing Pike’s hat, which would soon become covered in the powdery residue from the airbag deploying. Pike’s hair and blood were in two separate Ziploc bags.

The bottom of Pike’s fingerprint-laden whiskey bottle had been cleaned of his DNA with an oxy-acetylene flame and wiped clean with an alcohol swab. His muddy boots were on my feet.

Val was on her way to pick me up.

To the best of my knowledge, I had everything I needed to fool even the most well-informed investigation team.

We turned onto River Road. I was pleased to see the two-lane trafficway was free of any traffic. I flipped the headlights to bright, illuminating the roadway as far ahead as possible.

In the shallow ditch in the distance, a steel telephone pole was my focus. I double checked my seatbelt, and then glanced at Wallace’s seat belt release button.

Although the route could be used as an alternate to the base at Quantico, it was chosen because of the shallow ditches, steel telephone poles, and minimal weekend traffic.

The telephone pole was dead ahead half a mile. I checked my watch. 1739. I was two minutes late. I glanced in the rearview mirror.

The road behind me was empty.

With the telephone pole a hundred meters in the distance, I reached in my pocket, pulled out my mouthguard, and slipped it into my mouth. As I bit down hard on the black cherry-flavored rubber, Wallace looked at me with drunken eyes.

He had no clue what was happening.

Using my gloved right hand, I pressed the red button on his seatbelt release. It unraveled, quickly retracting into the headliner beside him.

He may have been drunk, but he wasn’t too drunk to realize what was happening. He writhed in his seat, attempting to free his hands from his restraints.

“What the fuck…are you doing!?” he muttered.

At the last instant, I swerved off the road and pointed the car directly for the center of the pole. In accordance with my RECON training on how to prevent injury when intentionally wrecking a car, I folded my forearms across my chest and pressed my back hard against the seat, bracing for impact.

The car careened through the ditch and headed directly for the steel pole. The last image I recalled seeing—short of the horrified look on Wallace’s face—was the speedometer.

64 miles per hour.

The car slammed into the telephone pole with the force of a speeding freight train hitting a brick wall. When I regained consciousness, the acrid smell from the airbag’s accelerant filled the interior, nearly choking me from taking a breath.

I glanced to my right.

Wallace’s mangled body was slumped against the dash. A blood smear, hair, and skin stuck to the shattered windshield gave hint as to how forceful the impact of his skull was against the glass.

I unbuckled my seatbelt and shoved the mouthguard into my pocket. After momentarily removing my glove, I reached to feel for a pulse, wincing from pain in the process.

His pulse was faint.

I slipped on my glove and gripped the base of his skull with one hand and his chin with the other. With one forceful yank, I twisted his head with all my might.

The sound of his neck snapping was enough for me to know his spinal cord was severed. The investigators would assume it happened in the wreck.

I felt for a pulse once again.

Nothing.

I found my bag on the rear floorboard. I removed Wallace’s restraints and placed them in the bag. Using the heel of my palm and Pike’s cap, I pressed an indentation into the sun visor, where his head was likely to hit. In the center of the impact point, I smeared some of Pike’s blood. Then, I pressed the hairs I’d taken from his scalp against the blood, allowing a few to remain in place and the others fall to the floorboard.

I scraped up some of the glass fragments from the passenger side seat and secured them in a Ziploc bag for later use. Turning the passenger airbag switch on and removing the electrical tape from the overhead console were the last two steps.

I placed everything in my bag and exited the car.

Headlights in the distance illuminated the tree-lined ditch. I flattened myself against the grass, hoping to remain out of sight to the passerby.

The vehicle slowed. I lifted my head enough to see the roadway. The passenger door swung open. Val’s profile came into view.

I grabbed my bag and stood.

One more stop, and the first phase of my plan would be complete.