Excerpts from Blood of Like Souls

            In two hours, Anthony had learned enough to know this man was the perfect target. 

            Lt. (jg) Gregory Everett Lawson was about to transfer to a recruiting station in Kansas to finish his career and retire after suffering a back injury jumping from a helicopter into rough seas on a training flight. He had three years to go for his twenty and didn't want to take a medical discharge. 

            In the course of the evening, Lawson shared that he had no close family, no steady girlfriend, and knew no one in Kansas.  He'd sold most of the junk from his cheap apartment, sold his motorcycle with intentions of buying a car when he got there, so he was taking Greyhound. 

            He was already afoot, Anthony thought.

            It was perfect. 

            Lawson must have thought it pure coincidence when Anthony bumped into him again ten days later on his way out to the gate.  “Yeah, I’m packed and out the door,” the lieutenant said.
“Cab to the bus station and a Greyhound to Kansas City at 1300.”

             “I was thinking about driving up to Las Vegas for the weekend,” Anthony said. “Why don’t you catch a bus from there?  Food’s cheap, liquor is free, and I have a place to stay with my brother,” he lied.  “You could use a last fling before Kansas.  Maybe win a little dough.” 

             “Sure you got room for all this gear in that Bug?” 

            Anthony grinned. “We’ll make it fit.”

            Hardly thinking about it, Greg Lawson readily accepted. 

            Anthony had worked out his plan until it was perfect.  Even with what little gear of his own he would take, there was plenty of room in the Beetle.  He couldn't take much, according to his plan, only took the few personal effects he had. 

            Initial conversation lagged, but feigning a couple of yawns, Anthony kept Greg talking about himself to keep him awake. 

            Anthony wished he had time to learn more, but the circumstances would take care of themselves.  The transfer put Greg in possession of every piece of documentation Anthony would possibly need. 

            Forty miles or so southwest of Vegas, still deep in the desert, Anthony took an exit to the parallel highway 604, drove a few miles, then pulled over on the shoulder and asked if Greg could drive. 

            They both got out of the car to switch places, stretching. 

            Greg drove for half an hour until Anthony had a chance to evaluate passing traffic, then Anthony asked him to pull over again so he could take a leak.  

            With adequate fingerprints from Lawson in the car, Anthony was satisfied his plan would hold.  He stood over a small rise and urinated with a smile. 

            When he returned, he opened the trunk as they stood in front of the Beetle, digging inside a duffel bag.  “Something more comfortable.  Ah, yes,” he said, pulling out a small caliber revolver.  “Just your size.” 

            The .22 caliber shot to the temple dropped Greg Lawson to his knees then face first into the sand that crept onto the shoulders of the road. 

            It was a bit messy but certainly neater than slitting his throat, Anthony thought as he slipped a plastic bag over the head to keep from getting himself or the clothes bloody.  Then he slung the body over his shoulder and carried it nearly 200 yards from the road, just over a rise so he could see cars coming from either direction but far enough the body wouldn’t be seen. 

            He stripped Lawson then made a thorough search of the body for scars and birthmarks, anything that might give the Navy reason to question whether he was Greg Lawson.  He found only a tattoo of a knight on horseback on Lawson’s left upper arm.  The Black Knight, Lawson’s previous squadron. 

            Simple enough to describe, it could be duplicated easily enough on his own arm, though the thought disgusted Anthony. 

            Just as important, should the body be found before completely decomposing, it might raise a question whether the body was Anthony Bock’s, as the Navy SEALs had strict rules about identifying marks. 

            Anthony knew the body would draw carnivores and insects, quickly decomposing in the desert summer heat. Identification would be difficult in a matter of days, likely impossible in a week, but he could take no chances. 

            He redressed Lawson's body in a pair of shorts of his own, then civilian clothes.  He took off his own dog tags and wiped them off.  Using the dead man’s hand, he managed to put a few fingerprints on them before placing them around Lawson’s neck.  He followed a similar procedure for his wallet, driver’s license and Social Security cards, military identification and a couple of twenty-dollar bills.  He replaced Lawson’s watch with his own cheap one.  Then he wiped down the gun and placed it into Lawson's hand for prints, and dropped it in the sand next to him.  Last, he removed the plastic bag from Lawson’s head.

            Then he brushed sand around the sides of the body as if it had blown and drifted there.  He was not worried about footprints in the sand near the body, just near the roadway.  Wind would take care of the rest. 

            However, back at the car, Anthony had trouble deciding whether to keep driving the Beetle or to leave it to further solidify the identity of the body as Anthony Bock. 

            If he left the car and the gun so the scene looked like a suicide, the story would arouse less suspicion.  He could walk over to I-15 and flag down a car.  Even if he walked back a mile or so and caught a ride, he couldn’t chance being stopped and questioned.  There was the possibility someone might stop to check on the car and find the body before he was far enough away. 

            It was still 50 miles to Vegas, and traffic was intermittent at best. 

            No, he decided, better to drive the car to the city, park it in a garage somewhere, and wipe it down for prints.  Leave it and become Lt. Greg E. Lawson, spend a few days drinking and gambling, meet a few people who would remember him, and catch a bus to Kansas City. 

            No one knew they had driven to Las Vegas together.  

            He'd make it look like the car had been stolen from the side of the road. 

            During the drive on to Vegas, Anthony Bock made a mental exercise of becoming Lt. (jg) Gregory E. Lawson, Black Knight and now Personnelman/Recruiter, U.S. Navy.; no living family, no past worth talking about.  Lawson had grown up in Southern California in a foster home after being abandoned at birth in a small community hospital.  He had fought his way through tough neighborhoods to get the education he had, and with no money to go to college, the military became his employer and his family.  He was certainly going to be a career man in Uncle Sam’s Navy.  Until the back injury. 

            What to do about that…  Lawson had just limped a little.  Maybe he could just get by without requiring further medical exams. 

            Not exactly what Bock would have wanted to do, but it would serve his purposes nonetheless. 

            He pulled back onto I-15 and continued north into Las Vegas, city of sin and secrets.  He parked the car in the long-term lot at McCarren International, made his way to the terminal with Lawson's two bags and one of his own, then took a shuttle to the MGM Grand and registered for two nights with Lawson's cash and ID. 

            Perfect.