by S L Shelton
I smiled. “They did,” I replied knowingly. “Didn’t help them much, though.”
John let a brief microexpression of pride slip with a slight tug at the corner of his eyes and lip.
“If that software is in place on the accounting servers, I know how to get it accessed,” Mark said. “We can get names, account numbers, and a shitload of other information…more complete than the sheets I had on me when you caught up with me.”
I felt my face flush at the mention of “when you caught up with me”. John noticed my discomfort and put his hands on Mark’s shoulders. “Rest,” John said, urging him to lie down again. “The doc should be here soon. After that, we can worry about next steps.”
Mark nodded and laid back down. John and I went into the dining room after Mark closed his eyes.
“That was dangerous,” John said, returning to the subject of me arriving with Mark. “If anyone had been watching you, they would have gotten you and Mark in one swoop. And honestly, if they have Mark, they don’t need you alive.”
I sighed my acceptance of his assessment as I ran my hand along the edge of his custom woodwork on the wall. Though I didn’t see where I’d had much choice in the matter, I most certainly understood the danger of having all three of us together.
He stared at me for a long time, waiting for me to say something in defense… I’m not sure if he just expected it or if he was hoping for actual engagement. I ignored the silence and continued to inspect the amazing level of craftsmanship he had demonstrated in the construction of his safe room; the white oak paneling and chair rail detail was completely seamless. I wouldn’t have even been able to see the entry latch, disguised as a hand-carved rosette in the design, had I not know exactly where it was.
I reached out to touch it with my fingertips before he cocked his head to the side with a perturbed look on his face. “If you play with a secret too often, it stops being a secret,” he said, dissuading me from pushing it.
He grinned, putting his hand on my shoulder before squeezing and then patting it a couple of times in a move to show bonding. Will I be learning this kind of asset management at the Farm, or is that just natural for you? I wondered.
“Come on,” he said as he guided me into the living room and then looked up at me suddenly as something occurred to him. “Where’d you get the car from?”
“Used car lot in Williamsburg,” I replied quietly. “I was going to fill the tank up and return it.”
He chuckled, shaking his head. “Don’t bother,” he said. “I’ll put an invoice in and have the bean counters deliver a check with an apology.”
“Shit,” I muttered. “If I had known you were going to do that, I would have taken the Ferrari.”
He laughed. “Lay down and get some rest. I’ll wake you when the evacuation team gets here.”
“Where are you going to take him?” I asked.
“Some place safe until he’s healed,” John replied in a quiet voice as if Mark might overhear otherwise, but then he paused, mulling something over. “Then I’ll probably do what he suggested and let him go on his own. He’ll probably be safer that way…at least until we can figure out who our friends are.”
I nodded as I settled on the living room sofa. “John,” I said as he began to turn. “You could have told me. It wouldn’t have changed anything.”
“Except you would have been busy watching your back instead of training,” he replied.
“I’ve been doing that anyway.”
He nodded. “I’ll remember that next time.”
He turned off the light in the living room and I let myself drift off to sleep, comforted by the knowledge that a US Navy SEAL was guarding the door with a high-powered rifle.
What seemed like hours later, I woke to voices in the kitchen. I recognized one of them as Nick’s.
“Where is he?” Nick asked.
As I sat up, he burst into the living room, heading toward me with a menacing sneer on his face.
Nope. Not gonna happen, Nick, I thought as I stood.
He reached out to grab me by the collar. I let my training kick in without hesitation. I pushed both of his arms to the side quickly while simultaneously kicking the back of his legs. He landed on his back with a thud that shook every piece of furniture in the room.
“Calm your shit down,” I said.
He jumped to his feet, but by then, John and Seifert were there to hold him back. I’m not sure how much further I would have taken it, but I guessed they had just saved him from another broken nose.
“You fucking punk,” Nick yelled, trying to shake John and Seifert off him. “I’ve spent the last four months trying to keep you safe and you run off like you’re sneaking out of summer camp.”
“In case you didn’t notice, there were a couple of extenuating circumstances,” I snapped back, not doing a whole lot to defuse the situation.
He did seem to calm down a bit, though, and after a few seconds, they let him shake free of their grasp.
He pointed at me. “You’re dangerous,” his said, tilting his head forward.
“Val Kilmer, Top Gun, 1986,” I muttered, sticking with the theme of the night.
He shook his head and walked into the other room. We all followed him into the kitchen before I peeked my head into the den to see how Mark was doing. There, someone was tending to his wounds.
“What’s the plan?” I asked.
“You’re the one with all the answers, why don’t you tell us?” Nick snapped from across the kitchen.
“The doc’s gonna let us know if we can move Mark before he has to operate,” John said, ignoring Nick’s outburst. “You are going back to the Farm. Nick is driving you.”
“Ha,” Nick spat. “Before I—”
“Nick is driving you,” John repeated, raising his voice and cutting Nick off. “I’ve already put the stolen car in the garage. If you have anything in there that you need, go get it now.”
“Stolen car?” Nick asked, his voice rising an octave.
“As soon as Mark is away safely, I need you to do something to get the attention of the stockholders in this little coup d’état we’re working against,” John continued. “Wait until you get word from me though…and outside of this room, don’t trust anyone.”
“I’m not sure I can trust Nick,” I said with a grin.
“Why you—” He lurched toward me again.
“Nick,” John said holding up his hand before looking back at me. “It would be smarter not to antagonize the guy who’s supposed to be protecting you.”
I looked away dismissively. “He’s the one who left me alone with Miss Femme Fatale,” I muttered.
“Who?” John asked.
“Penny Rhodes,” I replied. “I conned her into taking me off base.”
John looked at Nick, who was already shaking his head, a serious look on his face. “The only ones who should have been left in the compound were security, Kobe, and Monkey Wrench.”
“Shit!” John muttered, turning to Seifert. “Tell Egermayer and Mac to keep their eyes open. Scott may have had a tail.”
“No way,” I said as Seifert turned his back and spoke over the radio. “If she was setting me up, I messed up her plan. I left my coat on the back of the chair at the restaurant and snuck out of the bathroom window to get away. And I know I wasn’t followed from the restaurant. I was very careful.”
John stared at me for a moment and then back at Nick. “How do you want to play it?” he asked.
Nick furrowed his brow for a second before responding. “Let’s play it cool for now,” Nick finally replied. “If Monkey Wrench wasn’t followed, then he may be right. He may have blown their plans.”
“Or maybe she just had the hots for me,” I added. “It has been known to happen.”
“She’s a trained operator. Trainees can’t just wink and get her to break protocol,” John said with a patronizing tone. “If you’re right, she’s in need of reassignment.”
Despite the crushi
ng blow to my ego, I accepted John’s rationale with a nod. I got up to get my stolen jacket.
“You want to eat before you go?” John asked.
“You got pumpkin pie?” I asked.
He smiled and shook his head. When I looked over at Nick, he was nodding sideways toward the door.
“Nah,” I replied. “I’ll just go say good-bye to Mark.”
After I left the room, I heard Nick mutter something though I couldn’t make out what it was. Whatever he said, it must have been funny because the other two laughed.
I stood beside the doctor until he moved to let me kneel. “Don’t die until you get these guys,” I said with a grin.
“I’ll do my best,” Mark muttered weakly.
“Seriously, Mark. I’m sorry the way shit sorted out before,” I said. “I would have been right there beside you if you hadn’t tried to kick my skull in.”
“I was in a bad place,” he said quietly. “I wish I had done it a different way… Maybe I should have shot you instead.”
I laughed.
“Merry Christmas, man,” I said as I stood. When I turned, Nick was standing in the doorway.
“You look good, DJ,” Nick said with a smirk, staring at Mark. “Keep doing that.”
Mark chuckled and nodded. “Spartan.”
“Later,” Nick said.
On the way out, I leaned over to Nick “DJ?”
“His codename…because he was good at changing the tune when shit hit the fan.”
I nodded. We could use some of that about now.
**
7:45 p.m. on Saturday, December 25th—The Farm, Camp Peary, Virginia
Nick and I were walking toward headquarters when I saw Ray coming to intercept us.
“I hope you had a good excuse getting me called back on Christmas Day,” Ray said as he approached.
Nick put his hand up. “He did.”
The seriousness on Nick’s face conveyed more than his words did. Ray stopped in front of us.
“I don’t suppose you’d care to share it with me,” Ray said, easing off his anger a bit.
Nick shook his head, prompting Ray to look at me.
“Walrus,” I said with a straight face, a slap to his ego as well as an answer to his question.
Ray shook his head as a red flush rose to his cheeks. “Worst fucking cycle ever,” he grumbled as he turned and walked back toward the headquarters building.
We walked to the mess hall where we scrounged fixings for a couple of sandwiches and started one of the coffee urns brewing. We ate while waiting for the coffee to finish, leaning against the stainless steel counters in the dimly lit kitchen. Kobe walked in after a moment.
“I see you aren’t dead,” Kobe said to me nonchalantly as he came in. “I guess the fuss was over nothing.”
“I’m sorry, Kobe,” I said as he walked over to us and set a bottle of scotch on the counter. “A situation popped up, and I had to make a judgment call.”
“How’d that work out?” he asked.
I looked over at Nick for his professional assessment.
“I guess he did all right,” Nick muttered reluctantly.
High praise coming from the world’s worst nagging nanny.
I looked back at Kobe who shrugged dismissively as if he hadn’t been worried at all.
“Is that for us?” Nick asked, pointing at the bottle.
Kobe nodded sideways toward me. “He promised to have a drink with me if I skipped lessons today,” he said, tilting the bottle toward me. “I figured you wouldn’t get a chance to pick anything up, so I brought my own.”
I smiled as Kobe pulled a piece of ham from the wax-paper package and stuffed it into his mouth.
“You would have been proud of your boy,” Nick said to Kobe.
Kobe cocked his head to the side as he chewed, waiting for an elaboration.
“You put me down on the ground without even hesitating,” Nick said to me.
I looked up at him questioningly, wondering what he was getting at. I found it odd he considered gross insubordination a positive attribute.
“I was impressed…after I calmed down,” he said. “That’s the first time you’ve responded like that,”
“No, it’s not,” I replied after swallowing a bite of meat. “In Turkey, when you were trying to give me a rash of shit over tagging the Serb.”
“I tried to hit you,” he said. “That was different.”
I shook my head and smiled. “No. It wasn’t.”
“Do you have to argue with every fucking thing I say?” he asked, his agitation level rising again, causing Kobe to chuckle.
“When you’re wrong.”
Kobe laughed out loud.
“No wonder you don’t have any friends,” Nick muttered.
I shrugged dismissively but smiled. Just then, the back door to the kitchen burst open and Penny Rhodes came stomping toward us. She stopped directly in front of me and glared for a couple of seconds before slapping me sharply across the face. I fought the urge to block it. But when the second slap came and then an attempted third, I couldn’t help myself. I raised my hand and stopped her arm, grabbing just below the wrist.
“You bastard,” she hissed, her face flushed red and her eyes puffy with recent tears. “You embarrassed me and betrayed me. I trusted you.”
In her eyes, I saw more than anger—I saw fear. That struck me as strange. Kobe and Nick stood watching in wide-eyed shock.
I didn’t even have an opportunity to open my mouth to respond before she turned on her heel and stormed out. As soon as the kitchen door slammed shut, Nick and Kobe collapsed with laughter.
“Maybe you were right after all,” Nick said. “She was hot for you.”
“‘Was’ being the operative word,” Kobe added.
“You see? Girls like me.”
“I don’t think you can put her in your ‘like’ column anymore,” Kobe said, still chuckling as he pulled three juice tumblers from the shelf behind him before pouring a splash of scotch in each. “To angry redheads…may their fire never die.”
We raised our glasses to the toast, and I let a small smile slip across my face as I continued to eat.
“I’m glad we were wrong about her,” Nick said, setting his cup down for Kobe to refill. “It would be a shame to stuff that into an orange jumpsuit.”
“I don’t know,” Kobe muttered. “Getting her in might be fun.”
As they amused themselves with locker room innuendo, I looked at the door that Penny had just stormed out of and rubbed the side of my face. It was still stinging from the two solid whacks she had delivered.
No, Nick. I think you were right. That wasn’t a love interest gone bad…that was cover.
seven
January
4:30 p.m. on January 3rd—Scott Wolfe’s condo, Fairfax, Virginia
BONNY “BONBON” LITTLE was nearly sideswiped by a pair of black SUVs as she turned onto Scott’s street in Fair Ridge.
“Fucking assholes!” she yelled out of her window as they accelerated away from her.
“There you go, making friends again,” Storc said over her phone’s speaker.
“Those assholes didn’t even stop at the corner,” Bonbon replied defensively.
“Just get Scott’s mail, and I’ll meet you at my house when I leave here,” Storc said, ignoring her rant. “And just because you have a key to his house doesn’t mean you have to go in.”
“What?” she asked loudly. “It’s not like he has anything to steal. His fridge is empty, and his computer is locked up at TravTech.”
“There’s food in his fridge,” Storc replied. “I put some stuff in there before Christmas, hoping he’d come home like he promised.”
“Yeah, well. At least you get to talk to him,” she complained. “I haven’t even heard his voice in four months.”
“He has a good excuse,” Storc said, trying to comfort her.
“He always has an excuse,” she muttered as she parked and began w
alking toward Scott’s condo.
She froze as she arrived at his door. It was slightly ajar, and there were cut marks on the frame.
“Oh shit,” Bonbon muttered.
“What?”
“I think someone broke into Scott’s house,” she said as she pushed the door open a few inches.
“Get out of there!” Storc replied urgently.
“Don’t you think I should call the police?” she asked.
“No,” he said, raising his voice. “Get out of there. I’ll call Langley.”
She pushed the door further and saw the alarm panel hanging from its wires on the wall. “Hello?” she called up the stairs.
“Bon! Get out of there!” Storc yelled.
“Hello?!” she called again as she moved cautiously up the stairs.
“Goddamn it, Bonny. Get in your car and drive away!”
“Hush,” she said. “I don’t think anyone is here.”
She peeked over the landing and looked into the living room. Inside, the furniture had been destroyed. Cushions were ripped to shreds and tables were overturned. As she moved further into the condo, the scene was the same in every room.
“Jesus,” she said. “Whoever broke in really trashed the place.”
“I called Langley. Don’t touch anything. Just go,” Storc pleaded.
“Damn! They even pulled the toilet off the wall,” she said, ignoring his plea and continuing her inspection.
As she turned to make her way back out, a sudden, high-pitched screech blasted the apartment. She jumped at the sudden auditory assault.
“Fuck!” she yelled, running to the door.
Storc said something, but she couldn’t hear him until she got outside. “What was that?”
“I said, the security people at Langley are sending a reset signal to Scott’s house alarm,” he said, laughing. “And to let them know if anything happens.”
“Well a little fucking warning would have been helpful,” Bonbon complained. A second later, the alarm stopped. “That’s better.”
“They shut it off,” Storc said. “They said to stay out of the house. The forensics team doesn’t want the scene contaminated.”
“I wonder if those two SUVs had anything to do with this?” she muttered as she crossed the court to the condos on the other side.
