The Outside Man

by Don Bentley

  While James riffled through the kit in search of a bandage, I took a look at the offending picture. I shouldn’t have. A selection of three images stretched across James’s desk—the men I’d killed at the strip club.

  “Chief,” I said, keeping my voice remarkably calm, considering, “tell me you are not making coasters out of dead sex traffickers.”

  “Keep your eyes on your own damn paper,” James said, draping a tattoo-encrusted forearm across the images. “Didn’t your momma raise you better than that?”

  “James,” Ann said, gathering the med kit up now that he’d stanched the bleeding, “don’t bring Matthew’s momma into this. Lord knows the poor woman did the best she could.”

  I probably should have felt offended, but there was no point. If I’d wanted a normal work environment, I’d have gone into real estate. For all his quirks, James was a damn good boss when the chips were down. Last time my ass had been in a sling, he and Frodo had both gone to the president on my behalf. That kind of loyalty wasn’t easy to find.

  With a nimbleness that belied her plump figure, Ann scooped up the pictures strewn across James’s desk along with the X-Acto knife.

  “You boys drink some coffee while I take these down to Thelma in imagery,” Ann said. “And try not to spill any more blood. It took the custodians three visits to clean up last time. Must have been at least a pint of O negative.”

  I waited for Ann’s lips to curve into a smile, but all she gave was a final disapproving frown before sweeping from the room in a flurry of skirts and Chanel perfume. Which meant that maybe her admonition hadn’t been a joke at all. But before I could pursue that thought further, Frodo took the conversation in a different direction.

  “Will you just ask her to marry you and get it over with?” Frodo said, settling into his favorite chair.

  “The thought has crossed my mind,” James said, reaching into his desk drawer for a spit cup and a tin of Copenhagen.

  “Quit thinking and just do it,” Frodo said. “You aren’t getting any prettier. Matty—get me some coffee.”

  “Where’s your service dog?”

  “Holding down the rug in my apartment. And not any of that store-bought shit either. I know Chief has the Turkish blend somewhere.”

  I dutifully complied, heating the water in the kettle adjacent to the conference table and then pouring the steaming liquid into the Turkish coffee that Frodo loved. I thought about adding an ice cube to Frodo’s so that the grounds wouldn’t properly mix, but resisted the urge. Frodo might have been down one arm, but he was still a former Unit commando. The next pint of O negative splashed across the rug might be mine.

  “All right,” James said once we were seated, “where do we stand?”

  And that was the million-dollar question for which I had no answer. At least no answer that James would like.

  “I think we’ve hit a stopping point,” I said, spinning my glass coffee mug on its coaster. “We turned Nazya over to Rawlings and his crew with the condition that Virginia gets to stay during the questioning. I don’t think they’ll get much more. Nazya doesn’t know anything about who trafficked her.”

  “You said she recognized the Arab assassin,” James said, and stuffed dip into his lip until his cheek resembled a chipmunk’s. “Did anyone else seem familiar?”

  I shook my head. “I showed her a picture of Charles, but no dice. I still don’t know what he was doing at the strip club, and I’ve run out of ways to find out. I surprised Charles the first time. He won’t get caught with his pants down again.”

  “What about your FBI friend?”

  “I had to come clean with Rawlings about tracing Charles’s phone.”

  “Why?” James said.

  “This is a kinder, gentler Matty,” Frodo said.

  “Come on, Chief,” I said. “It’s the right thing to do. He stuck his neck out for me. We know that FBI Headquarters is running a close-hold CI investigation, but we still don’t know the target. We’re out of threads to pull.”

  “Maybe not quite yet,” Frodo said, changing the video on the flat-screen TV from Al Jazeera to his DIA-issued iPhone. “A friend at NSA dug up something on the shooter you bagged in Austin, Matt. Sayid’s son.”

  “Fantastic,” I said, “but just out of curiosity, is your friend of the male or female persuasion?”

  “What difference does that make?”

  “You’re not gonna answer?”

  “Negative, Ghost Rider.”

  I smiled and let the matter drop. A couple of months ago, Frodo had let slip that he was seeing an NSA analyst. I’d been happy for him, but I’d known better than to push too hard. Like most commandos, Frodo had a string of failed relationships, and he was painfully private when it came to his love life. I was hoping to elicit a bit more, but once he started quoting Top Gun, I knew not to push further.

  “So, what did this gender-unspecific but incredibly attractive analyst discover?” I said.

  “Matthew, let the boy be,” James said.

  “No worries, Chief,” Frodo said, queuing up a video. “This is how Matty acts when he’s not getting any at home.”

  That hit a little too close to the mark. Fortunately, a series of thumbnail images depicting the shooter popped up on the TV, giving me something else to think about. The quality wasn’t good, which meant that the photos had probably been sifted from surveillance videos. Several showed frontal shots of the shooter’s face, but most were profiles.

  “Where did these come from?” I said.

  “Feeds from airport security cameras. Specifically, Reagan, Istanbul, and Baghdad International.”

  “Baghdad was the originating airport?”

  Frodo nodded. “That’s the earliest we found him anyway. We scrapped the digital date-time stamps from the various feeds in order to determine numerical order.”

  “Nice work,” I said. “The new NSA facial-recognition algorithms are fantastic, but I didn’t realize we shared that capability with the Turks or Iraqis.”

  “Share might be a tad generous.”

  “Oh,” I said. “So your cute NSA analyst hacked into the closed-circuit surveillance system of a NATO ally without permission?”

  “You can’t handle the truth.”

  Top Gun and A Few Good Men in the same conversation. This mystery analyst really had Frodo rattled. I needed to make her acquaintance. Soon.

  “What does this tell us that we didn’t already know?” James said. “The shooter Matty bagged hopped on a plane in Baghdad. I’ll go out on a limb and predict that the former Iraqi commandos who were with him did too. So what?”

  “We’ve got a bit more than that, Chief,” Frodo said. “I’d say that—”

  “Wait,” I said. “Spool it back.”

  “Spool what back?” James said.

  “The video,” I said. “Frodo, can you rewind?”

  Frodo stabbed a button on his iPhone, and the video reversed. The TV showed a series of shots from outside of Baghdad International. Probably footage from at least three cameras stitched together, judging by the jerky transitions from frame to frame. Still, I’d seen something. . . .

  “Stop,” I said. “Go forward. Maybe five seconds. There. Can you enlarge the image at the bottom right of the screen?”

  “So this is what it feels like to drive Miss Daisy,” Frodo said. But he made the requested adjustment all the same.

  The image filled the TV. The shooter was getting out of the backseat of a customized SUV. Nothing special. Nothing except that, for a fraction of a second, the person seated next to the shooter was visible. His thick black hair was neatly styled, and his obligatory beard was trimmed almost down to the skin. He could have been the Arabic equivalent of the guy in those Dos Equis commercials. The World’s Most Interesting Man.

  I’d thought I’d recovered from our last encounter.


  I hadn’t.

  My major muscles groups began spasming. I grabbed my pants with both hands, trying to keep my arms from flailing.

  “Matty?” Frodo said.

  “Ann,” James bellowed out the door. “Get a medic.”

  “I’m fine, I’m fine,” I said through chattering teeth. “Just give me a second.”

  Closing my eyes, I reached for my mental playlist and found the opening guitar riff to “Even Flow.” Pushing everything else away, I concentrated on following Stone Gossard’s magical fingers note by breathtaking note. The first time through, nothing happened. But by the second, the spasms began to subside. As Eddie Vedder growled the opening lyrics on my third run through the song, the shaking stopped.

  I opened my eyes to see Ann, Frodo, and James staring at me in silence. “I’m fine,” I said again. “Really. This just happens sometimes.”

  For the first time since I’d known her, Ann Beaumont did not say a word. Instead, she looked at James, who gave a short nod. Bending down, she wrapped her arms around my shoulders and gave me a squeeze. Before I could say anything, she was gone, pulling the office door closed behind her.

  “You’re still getting the shakes?” Frodo said.

  “Not as often,” I said. “Only when something triggers them.”

  “Like him,” James said, pointing a thick finger at the face in the center of the television.

  “Like him,” I said. “I don’t even know his real name. I called him Mr. Suave in my after-action report.”

  “The guy who financed the splinter cell in Syria?” Frodo said. “That’s him?”

  “Yep,” I said. “I’m sure of it. He got in my face while explaining how the chemical weapon he’d paid to develop would slowly turn me into a vegetable. We were almost nose to nose.”

  Frodo enlarged the picture again, took a screenshot of Mr. Suave’s face, and dropped the image into a facial-recognition app. The software went to work, algorithms scouring every nook and cranny of his features before returning the verdict I’d somehow expected.

  “Library’s got nothing,” Frodo said. “He’s a ghost.”

  “If it’s even the right guy,” James said, and spit a muddy brown torrent into his white foam cup.

  “It’s him,” I said, letting my irritation show.

  “See it from my side,” James said. “You were under a helluva lot of stress at the time. You saw this guy just once—”

  “Twice,” I said.

  “Okay, twice. But for what? Ten minutes? After you saw him the first time, a squad of jihadis played soccer with your head. The second time, his terrorist buddies were about to slit the throat of the paramilitary officer you were supposed to rescue. That picture isn’t even that great. I bet—”

  “Chief, you ever been certain you were going to die?” I said. “Not the it-could-go-either-way thoughts you have when bullets are flying and things aren’t looking so good. I’m talking about the dead-in-your-soul feeling that only comes from staring down the barrel of a gun. That instant when you know your time left on earth is measured in heartbeats. You ever been that certain you were about to die?”

  James stared at me without speaking for a long moment. Then he gave a slow nod. “Once.”

  “Then you understand why I’m sure. It’s him.”

  “All right,” James said, setting his spit cup on the table. “Let’s say it is. Maybe he had a hard-on for you and tried to help the son of his dead lieutenant settle the score. So what? Now the son’s dead, just like the father. Your Mr. Suave got nothing. It’s over.”

  “Maybe,” I said, staring at the black-and-white image. “Or maybe he’s waiting for a second shot.”

  “Why?” James said. “After his Austin op turned into a dumpster fire, he’d have to know he’s on our radar. Why risk coming at you again?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Figured I’d ask him that question face-to-face.”

  “The fuck you say?” James said.

  “He’s tried to punch my ticket twice—once on his home turf and once on mine. I’m not waiting around to see if the third time’s the charm. I’m gonna go to Iraq, find him, and ask him some questions. Then I’m gonna put a bullet in his head.”

  “No, you’re not,” James said. “You still haven’t recovered from your last op.”

  “I said I’m fine,” I said.

  “Son, I know you want to believe that. But believing something doesn’t make it so. That shaking shit speaks for itself. You’re in no condition to deploy. Besides, you’re not the only rough man in this organization. You want to punch Mr. Suave’s ticket? I can make that happen. But you aren’t going to be the triggerman. You follow me?”

  “Yep,” I said.

  “Matty, I know you want this. Bad. And I can sympathize. But I don’t send my operators on one-way missions. Go home. Get some sleep. Tomorrow, you and Frodo do what you do. Crawl inside this douche bag’s head. Track him down. I’ll get him added to the kill list. By week’s end, we’ll be sending a Hellfire up his ass. Now, get out of here.”

  “Chief, I’m fine to finish the day. Really.”

  “I don’t give a shit, Matthew. Until tomorrow morning, you’re not welcome here. Go home.”

  I looked at Frodo for support, but for the first time, I could see he wasn’t going to have my back. Not on this one. My little incident earlier must have looked worse than I thought.

  Getting to my feet, I gave them both a smile I didn’t feel and walked out. James’s words rang in my ears as I shut the door.

  Go home.

  Love to. I just wasn’t too sure where that was anymore.

  TWENTY-TWO

  I pulled out of the DIA’s parking lot, worked my way over to Malcolm X Avenue, and slid through the gate, just beating rush-hour traffic. My gut, the part of me that instinctively knew when a potential asset was ready to be pitched, was telling me James was wrong.

  Mr. Suave was not a third-rate jihadi. He would not have funded an elaborate assassination attempt just to mollify an angry subordinate. During our second encounter in Syria, Mr. Suave had said he was a businessman. An unidealogical entrepreneur intent on profiting from the chaos engulfing Syria and Iraq.

  But I believed he was more than that. He was also a survivor. Someone who’d thrived under the sadistic and vengeful rule of Saddam Hussein. Someone capable of turning to his advantage the anarchy that had run rampant in Iraq after the ill-thought-out US invasion. This was not the type of man who would just give up when he didn’t succeed. If anything, his failure in Austin would make him more determined. A man who ran an empire spanning three countries could not afford to show fear.

  In a culture in which generational wars were fought over perceived slights to honor, Mr. Suave was now more compelled than ever to finish the job he’d started. He would keep coming until he succeeded, and the next time, it might be Laila in a puddle of blood on a dirty Austin street instead of a hapless policeman.

  No, this could end in just one of two ways—my death or his.

  The thought of Laila made me want to call her. I loved the sound of my wife’s voice. For security reasons, we never communicated while I was operational, but she faithfully left at least one voice message in our WhatsApp chat each day I was gone. Most of these messages were benign in nature—thoughts about a book she was reading, office gossip, a funny story she heard—but their effect was profound. Something about the texture and timbre of her voice helped fill the void Laila’s absence created. I treasured listening to those cached voice messages on the long flights home.

  When I was stateside, I called Laila at least once a day just to listen to her talk. But over the past several days, I hadn’t phoned or even texted. My brain was in operational mode, so I’d stuffed Laila into the mental box I reserved for my normal life while overseas. But I wasn’t overseas. In fact, nothing was sto
pping me from calling my wife at this exact moment. Nothing but the horrible way we’d left things after our aborted dinner.

  I just want my husband back.

  I was an idiot.

  I’d pulled out my phone and was in the middle of dialing when it vibrated with an incoming call from an unknown number.

  “Drake,” I said, after thumbing the connect button.

  “Matt, it’s me.”

  Though I’d spoken to her over the phone less than a handful of times, her East Tennessee accent was unmistakable.

  “Virginia,” I said, “how are you?”

  “I need to talk. Now. In person.”

  “Sure. Where?”

  “Have you eaten?”

  “Nope.”

  “Meet me at Ben’s. I’ll call ahead.”

  She hung up before I could reply. Apparently, Virginia had a lot on her mind. The feeling was mutual.

  * * *

  —

  Ben’s Steak House was a DC landmark. A place where important people gathered and an off-the-rack Brooks Brothers suit constituted casual wear; the men and women huddled in the restaurant’s semiprivate booths preferred to shop at the trendy boutiques nestled along Connecticut Avenue. In my black fleece, boots, and jeans, I was a tad underdressed. Still, the brunette manning the hostess station offered me a warm smile. In a place flush with six-thousand-dollar hand-sewn suits, a pearly-snap shirt was a bit of a rarity.

  “Howdy,” the hostess said as I drew even with her station. Her accent was slight, but there if you knew to listen. You could take the girl out of Texas, but . . .

  “A and M grad?” I said.

  She nodded, her smile brightening.

  “And here I thought we were going to be friends. Might as well get this out of the way—hook ’em, Horns.”

  Her smile became a mock frown. “Of the five guys who wear boots in this town, I meet the UT fan. Just my luck.”

  “Guilty,” I said. “Went there for undergrad. Normally I wouldn’t give an Aggie the time of day, but since we’re probably the only Texans for miles, I’m willing to make an exception. How ’bout it?”