by James Hunt
“And whoever doesn’t see it now is going to see at least part of it at some point,” Hopper added.
The room went silent. Angela gripped her armrests again. She’d thought she’d be ready, but she wasn’t ready at all when the image of Doug appeared on the screen, on his knees in an orange jumpsuit, his face badly bruised. His left eye was swollen shut, and he looked sickly pale.
Behind him stood a masked man in green camouflage fatigues, an ammo belt over his chest and an ISIS headband on top of his black ski mask. Angela gasped and covered her mouth. Sutherland looked at her with concern.
“You don’t have to be here if you don’t want.”
“Yes. I do,” she responded.
All eyes were on the screens as a kneeling Doug stared into nothing. Behind him, the masked man was silent. His piercing green eyes could be seen in the holes of his mask. Angela thought he had young eyes, and he wasn’t big. He had the physique of a teenager.
Doug’s eye blinked as he cleared his throat.
“What have they done to him?” Angela asked, terrified. She leaned forward, touching the screen around his face. She lifted her face, on the verge of tears. “Can’t you find him? Can’t any of you find him?” She slapped the table in desperation.
“Agent Gannon, please,” Burke said. “We’re working right now on finding the location.”
But it wasn’t good enough. The next time she saw Doug, he was supposed to be in her arms, not still in a room on his knees with some masked boy behind him. Angela was growing frantic. The world was closing in around her.
And then Doug spoke. But they weren’t his own words—that much she knew.
“For decades, our government has tried to conquer the Muslim world like tyrants. We have killed millions and tortured and raped in our battle against ‘terrorists.’ But our war is based on lies. The blood of innocents is on our hands, and we will pay this debt not just with the American soldiers we send to their doom to fight but with the lives of our own citizens far removed from combat in places we should not be.”
Doug paused with a sigh as though saying the words had pained him. Angela could see that he was close to crying, which made it even harder to hold back her own tears.
“My name is Doug Gannon. And I’m an American citizen… ashamed of my country. I’m an engineer at Hudson Optronics in Del Rio—a known military contractor. I have personally aided in the manufacturing of equipment used to kill innocent Muslims. My wife, Angela, is a Border Patrol agent who conducted an illegal raid that resulted in the death of over ten Muslims who hadn’t done anything wrong. Through all of this, my captors have shown mercy on me and will allow my release and that of my two young daughters for one hundred million dollars. Not a penny less.”
Suddenly the masked youth placed his hand on Doug’s shoulder. Doug reacted with surprise and stopped speaking as the man cut in. He pointed his long knife directly at the camera, his voice muffled by the fabric of his mask.
“Americans, your time is up, and it’s too late.”
Angela cupped her mouth in horror with both hands. “Oh God. What is he talking about?”
Sutherland took his eyes off the screen long enough to place a hand on her knee. “We don’t know. I really don’t think you should see this—”
“I’m not going anywhere!” she shouted, near hysterics.
Sutherland moved his hand and went back to viewing the hypnotically ominous spectacle.
“Our brothers are still at Guantanamo Bay, Israel still gets your money, and your government is still trying to kill us. We told you to leave us alone, but you won’t. Just an hour ago, more blood was shed. And we know this because one of our brothers got away.”
Burke slammed the desk and stood up, gaining everyone’s swift attention. “I knew it! We needed to find that man immediately. He’s the link between us and them.”
But the man on the screen wasn’t done yet. His knife went from pointing at the camera to swooping in an arc and stopping just inches from Doug’s neck.
“What the hell are you doing?” Doug said, panicked and confused.
The man looked up at the camera, eyes burning with fury, visible through the exposed slits in his mask. “We were looking to negotiate, but now you have brought this on yourselves. Now this man will mark the first casualty in our jihad against your country.”
Doug squirmed and shook, trying to keep his distance from the blade pressing against his throat, but the man had a tight hold on him. “Please! Please, no!” Doug shouted.
Angela stood up, knocking her chair over and shaking uncontrollably.
“Allahu Akbar!” the man shouted, raising his arm and with one powerful stroke of the great and shining knife slashed through Doug’s neck with one quick, brutal thrust.
Blood gushed out from the open slit, pouring down over his orange shirt. Doug’s garbled screams pierced Angela’s heart as she shrieked in horror. Sutherland slammed his laptop shut, ending the video, as the others backed away from their own screens, white as ghosts and stunned with disbelief.
“Oh my God!” Lynch shouted.
Before Sutherland could catch her, Angela threw herself on the table and pounded it with fury. If the video of Doug’s initial capture had sent her into a delirium, the incomprehensible sight of his murder was too much to bear. The video had faded to black on the laptop screens. Everyone was standing, in shock. Even Thaxton looked close to tears.
“No! Why, God? No!” Angela cried. Sutherland bravely approached her with his hand raised and about to give her a comforting touch. But she jumped up, pushing him away, and balled into her hands into fists, waving them wildly.
“Angela, please,” Chief Drake said, walking toward her. “I’m so sorry.”
“Get away from me!” she shouted—gaining the attention of everyone within earshot. She rushed past Drake and went straight to Burke, who stood at the end of the table, a sickly, ashamed look on his face. As she got closer, his eyes darted downward. But she wasn’t going anywhere.
“I trusted you…” she said, exposing a red, puffy face drenched with tears. “You said that you could find them. Now my husband’s dead. My daughters are still out there. My whole, entire life… it’s over.” She cried into her hands as Burke stood to the side, quiet and lost in his own thoughts.
“Could have been a mock execution,” Chief Drake blurted out. “For all we know, your husband could still be alive.”
Angela looked at him in disbelief and wiped her face. She had heard enough. She spoke in a slow, serious tone. Gone were any signs of hysterics, as though her emotions had been suddenly sealed off. “I have to make some phone calls. You will find my daughters. No more abandoned factories and janitor closets. Find them… and bring them home to me.” She spun around and stormed out of the room before anyone could say a word.
Despite her anger at Chief Drake, his words resonated with her. Maybe the execution was staged after all. Perhaps her husband was still alive. She couldn’t imagine her life without him. They were supposed to grow old together, purchase a ranch, and retire with a pack of grandkids running around. There was no way he was actually gone. She wouldn’t believe it. For a moment, she leaned against the heavy wooden door to the conference room and quietly sobbed.
Through the door she heard Burke say, “We need to get the president on the phone.”
“Oh no…” Chief Drake said.
“What is it?” Sutherland asked.
“They just uploaded pictures of his headless body.”
“Holy hell…” Lynch added.
“None of you are to let Agent Gannon hear about this. Got it?” Burke snapped.
“Unfortunately, she’s probably going to find out one way or the other,” Lynch said.
“Just keep a lid on it!” Thaxton said, louder than anyone. “She’s suffered enough. God help us if we can’t get those children back.”
Angela slowly backed away from the door as her legs wobbled and her head pounded. Her doubts stripped away, she
found herself running down the hall as clueless faces passed by her in a blur. Sweat poured down from her forehead as she charged into the bathroom and ran to the nearest stall, slamming the door open, falling to her knees, and releasing all the sickness that had been building in her since the sun rose that morning.
Executive Action
Angela needed to talk to her mother and spent more than an hour in a small, deserted office, crying over Doug with separate calls to Mary, and Doug’s mother, Cindy. The only hope Angela had left was to rescue Chassity and Lisa in time. She couldn’t see her life going on without them.
News vans had surrounded the Border Patrol station with their spotlights and reporters speaking against the backdrop of the building. Despite their persistence, they were kept at a careful distance and not given any official comment from department heads. The ISIS video, however, was dominating the news, and Doug’s beheading had already been seen by millions of people. If Angela thought she had seen overwhelming media coverage after the truck explosion, she was in for a rude awakening. And it was only a taste of what was to come.
Her mother had demanded that she come back home to Pittsburgh and let the authorities handle the rest, but that was something Angela couldn’t do. Her faith in government agencies had long since evaporated. She had to tune out the media, and even her friends and family, for that matter. It was the only way.
Later that evening, she walked through the station, surprised to see so many other empty offices. With all the cameras outside the building and news vans packed along the parking lot perimeter, she thought it strange that so many border patrol agents had checked out. Like walking through a nightmare, she was facing the worst horror of her life, and no one was around to help.
She continued down a dimly lit hall past several closed doors and entered the conference room, expecting to find the FBI team huddled together strategizing. Instead, only Chief Special Agent Burke sat at the table, with half the lights shut off. There was no sign of the FBI team—not even their laptops remained. The projector screen displayed a satellite image of Texas from before the raid. The video feed from alpha and bravo teams was gone.
Burke was staring down at some papers and barely acknowledged Angela when she walked in. As she approached the table, he glanced up, but his expression seemed vacant and distant. Angela couldn’t figure him out. He seemed competent enough—no nonsense and professional. But what was he really looking for? And ultimately, did he care about rescuing her family?
“I need to know what’s happening,” she said.
He studied her for a moment, saying nothing, then responded by taking a brief swig from a silver flask sitting at his side. His sad, glazed eyes told her all she needed to know. They had made no progress. She walked closer to the table and took a seat across from him, crossing her arms and staring him down.
“I’m sorry,” he said, lowering the flask.
“It’s not your fault,” she said. “What I said earlier… I didn’t mean it. What I need to know is how you intend to save my daughters.” Though part of her still did blame him, and the government for that matter, time was too critical to start pointing fingers.
Burke went back to reading the documents. Something was wrong, and Angela knew it.
“Mr. Burke,” she began. “I am grieving for my husband, and the pain is… unimaginable. But nothing, right now, is more important than finding my daughters. What about the phone trace? The terrorist website? What did you find? How hard can it be to find these monsters?”
Burke held up a wavering hand and then spoke in slow, calculated tones. “I had a wife and family. And much like you, they meant everything to me. Loretta. She was my wife. And she was beautiful. I don’t know how I got lucky enough to find her, let alone marry her, but I managed to pull it off. Our two children, Brett and Jordan, were good kids. Stunningly good. I was blessed, Agent Gannon, I was very blessed. But sometimes things happen. Things beyond our control, and we lose it all in the blink of an eye. I thought that one day I could move on. But I never fully have… and I don’t think I ever will.”
Angela leaned back, not sure what to say. The most obvious question was to ask him what had happened, but he hadn’t elaborated, and she didn’t want to press him.
“We’re all different,” he continued with a sigh. “I don’t want to tell you that things will get better or worse. They sort of just stay the same. My honest advice for you would be to surround yourself with friends and family and deal with this. Step away before you go insane.”
He paused and took a quick sip from his flask. He wiped his mouth and breathed out heavily, while Angela remained quiet and patient, though her frustration was rising. He set the flask back down and shuffled through the report, separating the pages.
“This job is pretty much all I have left. Used to think the same thing about drinking until I gave it up.” He paused, looking at the flask. “For the most part, anyway. I’ve managed to put a lot behind me. The things I’ve seen, things I’ve done, things I’ve been through. I’ve sacrificed a lot for this country and… sold my soul in a way. Been paying the price for some time.”
Angela leaned forward, confused. She had no patience for drunken ramblings. “Why are you telling me this? My husband is dead. My daughters could be next. I’m not going anywhere. You could beam me into space, and that wouldn’t do any good, because this is all that I can think about.”
She turned in her chair and pointed to the windows behind them, where the blinds were closed. “Tell me what we’re going to do, or I’ll run right outside and tell those news cameras everything. I’ll tell them how the FBI killed several Middle Eastern men yesterday without due process, many of them unarmed.”
Slightly taken aback, Burke clammed up. He held up the report and tapped it neatly against the table.
“Where is everyone?” Angela asked. “I came back here expecting answers. I understand you’ve suffered, and I appreciate your advice. It’s just…” She dropped her arms onto the table, limp with fatigue. “I’m so exhausted. My heart has been racing for the past two days, and it won’t slow down. I need resolution to this, and you seem like the only person who can help me.”
Burke set the papers down again and shifted his glance between Angela and the typed documents below. He took a deep breath and set both palms on the table. “I advise you to walk away for a reason. And just in case you feel the urge to run to the media, I will deny all of it. And your children will never see the light of day.”
Angela couldn’t quite figure out his tone. “Is that a threat?” she asked.
He raised a sharp finger in the air and pointed at her. “Do I have your word that you’ll keep this between you and me?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Burke slammed his fist on the table, startling her. “Do I have your word?”
“Yes!” she said with equal intensity.
For a moment, they just looked at each other, silently reeling from their own personal traumas.
Burke took a deep breath and regained his composure. “I don’t know what’s going on in Washington, but they’re not playing around. The ISIS video has gone viral. It’s all over the news. Your husband is all over the news. I expected a swift response from the president, but I never expected anything like this…” He paused and slid one paper toward Angela.
She took it and examined the official seal of the president at the top.
“It’s a presidential order,” he explained. “To conduct a series of drone strikes on remaining suspected holdouts throughout the area.”
Angela tried to translate the complex wording of the document to see for herself what such an order looked like. “The president authorizes the use of remote aerial strikes on key targets,” read one line. Below was the signature of the president.
“To answer your question,” Burke continued, “the FBI was called back to Washington. The drone strike order is top secret.” He paused and chuckled to himself. “I could go to jai
l, or worse, just for telling you.”
Angela looked up from the paper, stiff with shock. “So why are you telling me?”
“Because I’m not giving up on your daughters. I’m going to find them myself before this madman of a president blows them up.”
Deeply focused, Angela leaned forward. “What are the targets?”
“Don’t know,” Burke answered. “It’s classified.”
Angela held both arms out. “Aren’t you CIA?”
“Not for long.”
Frustration and rage boiled within her again. She couldn’t understand how such an action could be authorized and under what authority. “But people are going to see the explosions! How do they think people won’t notice?”
“They’ll have an answer,” Burke said solemnly. “They always do.”
“My daughters are still alive,” Angela said, spitting her words out in a fury. “And the government expects me to just sit back and let them get blown up? Are you kidding me?” She vaulted up from her chair, tipping it over.
Burke looked up at her with complete calm. “They’re not taking chances. Not the risk of a second video. This time with children.”
“So they’d rather just kill them?” she shouted. Her face felt hot, with the familiar sickness rising in her stomach. Angela had never felt so enraged or so helpless in her life. She began moving away from the table. “If you think I’m going to just sit back and let that happen, you’re out of your mind. I’m leaving, and I’m going to tell every last news camera out there about this fucked-up plan.”
“Don’t leave,” Burke said.
“Try and stop me,” she snapped back, stomping to the door.
Burke pulled out a pistol from under his suit jacket, pointed it in the air, and fired, blasting out an overhead light.
Angela halted inches from the door and turned to him, stunned. She had a pistol of her own holstered at her side, but he had a clear advantage. His 9mm had a silencer extension on the barrel to muffle the sound. The actual gunshot hadn’t been louder than the shattering of the fixture’s glass. Nonetheless, it had gotten her attention.
