Act of Vengeance

by Michael Jecks

  ‘No explanation?’ Frank said.

  ‘What do you think?’

  Jack hissed.

  ‘There he is.’

  Frank looked up to see the man stumbling down the pathway to the road. He walked to an old Saab and climbed inside. Soon the lights sparked and the car began to pull away from the sidewalk. It lurched as it started, as though he had jerked the clutch, and then was off up the road.

  With his own car started, Frank watched as the Saab did a U-turn and headed back down the road towards them.

  ‘Heads down,’ he instructed, and waited until Sandford had passed them, before drawing out after him.

  ‘I hope he’s not going to the Agency,’ Debbie said.

  ‘Not likely. Not with the issues he has just now. If he was working legally, he’d just call his boss and tell him there was a problem. The fact he’s looking to drive away means his boss doesn’t want to hear anything over the phone, which means it’s dangerous.’

  ‘Or,’ Debbie said, as they turned out onto the Dolley Madison Boulevard, ‘it means that they know we could be chasing him, and they’ve decided to try to catch us.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Frank said.

  The Saab took them north east on the dual carriageway, but went past the entrance to the CIA at Langley.

  ‘Come on, Roy. Where are you taking us?’ Frank said, as he punched a speed-dial number into his phone and was held it to his ear.

  ‘Where is this?’ Jack asked.

  ‘We’re heading toward the Chain Bridge Road,’ Debbie said. Her eyes were narrowed as she kept her eyes on the Saab now five cars in front of them. ‘That means we’ll soon be in DC.’

  ‘Who’re you calling, Frank?’ Jack asked.

  Frank finished his call.

  ‘Just told my friends where we are. One’s coming up here to help, Tony Knussel. The other guys are staying with Amiss to watch him. Debbie, take my phone. Phone through to this number when we change our route. I need Tony to know exactly where we are going, OK?’

  *

  21.28 Langley; 02.28 London

  The road was one Roy knew well. He’d commuted here when he was a very raw recruit and had been working on the protection of the communications of senators and government officials. The main job had been to design firewalls on the computer networks in use, and Roy had early on learned that any Senators who regularly viewed porn were to be quietly reported to his supervisor. Any information that could be used against a Senator was always to be kept on file. His supervisors believed in the maxim ‘forewarned is forearmed’ – if they were likely to be blackmailed by foreign powers, the CIA wanted to know about it first.

  This route would take him in to the west of Washington DC, and from there he’d be able to cut down the Canal Road, which led him along the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal as it followed the Potomac. There was a little bar near the Thompson Boat centre, overlooking the expensive vessels moored on the Potomac’s banks, where Stilson had said to meet him. He had to tell Stilson what had happened just now with Debbie and Jack. Jesus! How could Jack have got in among the FBI? He was supposed to be wanted, a murderer, and now here he was, with Debbie! He had to tell Stilson.

  The familiar surroundings of the bridge and the memories they evoked helped to calm his heart. He had been so scared – sickened and scared. The poor man he’d killed. It wasn’t Amiss’s fault, of course. He wasn’t the man who’d tortured the poor soul. Amiss was at the head of an organisation, and it was natural that one or two men below him would be less than honourable compared with him. Amiss wouldn’t have…

  But Amiss had been there when Stilson held his Glock to Roy’s head. Surely the deputy director wouldn’t have allowed him to be killed there, right in front of him? Roy shuddered. The memory of the man’s face screaming as he shoved him into that well would never be erased. He knew that. And Amiss had not blinked. He was used to death. Used to the sight of it. Fuck, in Vietnam he’d probably committed enough killings to be immune to this kind of weakness.

  It was weakness. That was all. Once Roy had been up at the senior level for a bit, he’d be used to it too. A man had to be determined to protect the country.

  He didn’t know that he ever wanted to be used to it, though. He didn’t want to feel this dirty ever again.

  He glanced behind him as he pulled over to take a right to join the Canal Road, and noticed the sedan.

  Roy Sandford was no expert at covert surveillance, but he had learned the basics, and when he looked in his mirror, there was something about the car three behind him, sticking out a little far, with a passenger craning her neck…

  ‘Fuck! Fuck!’ hissed, and his anxiety returned as he recognised the silhouette of Debbie.

  In an instant his mind went into overdrive: They were chasing him now, with the English spy. How did he fit into this? Was he after Roy too, because they’d learned he was reporting to Amiss, or had they just lucked out when they saw the Chapel and saw Roy leave it? They’d said about the Chapel, hadn’t they? Said it was where they saw him. Said they saw Amiss too. Did they mention Stilson?

  There was a hoot behind him. He threw a look into the rear view. Yes, he could make out Frank Rand two vehicles behind. Shit!

  He booted the engine just ahead of a car coming toward him. It screeched as the wheels locked; the driver was too shocked to even give him the finger as the Saab span a wheel and then flew on down right to the Canal Road. He pushed it on, the speedometer climbing rapidly, the Saab’s old turbo whining, and his mind racing.

  He saw a car ahead and thought: can’t ram it… a gap, overtake, make as much distance as possible between the Saab and the bastards back there. Keep going. Another car ahead, no space to get round… impossible… dangerous… space – boot it again.

  Then he heard the turbo scream, and felt a kick in the spine as it spun and squirted more gas into the cylinder. A Pontiac appeared around a curve, and then went back into the lane as the sweat sparked from the pores in his forehead and his back. His shirt felt wet already, and he had to wriggle his back against the car’s seat to try to stop the rivulet reaching his waistband.

  There was the left turn there, a long fork up to Reservoir Road, and he dithered until it was almost too late, before swinging the wheel and standing on the throttle to howl up the road. It wasn’t a safe road – trees at either side, a grassy embankment, and, when he looked down, he was doing seventy. It was enough to scare him, and he almost took his foot off the pedal, but the quick glance behind him told him Rand was still with him, and he turned ahead with his scalp tightening in fear at the thought that he could be captured.

  He was guilty of murder, after all.

  There was a pothole. The shock absorber banged like a grenade going off. Up ahead was the reservoir, the Georgetown, and then he was hurtling past one junction, up the road a little further, and right on to MacArthur Boulevard, while a cacophony of horns and hooters surrounded him. There was a little corner, and he took it, sweeping round to follow the reservoir, swinging around slower cars all the way, past a slow truck, past a Lincoln, past a Jaguar, and darting in quickly to avoid a Jeep coming the other way, before pulling out again to overtake a battered old blue Ford, and then, while he was halfway past the Ford, he saw lights. Someone was pulling out from a side road, and they hadn’t looked his way. Why would they? No one overtook on this little road. He pressed the horn, hoping the car could move. The car stopped, across his path, and he saw an old man inside with his mouth wide in a scream of terror, and Roy screamed, swerved, hit the Ford, heard the crunch of metal as he connected, and tried to push himself over, to avoid the car in his way. He shrieked as he covered his eyes just before the hideous moment of metal on metal…

  *

  21.48 Langley; 02.48 London

  Frank winced as he saw the crash. There was a loud crunch which he could hear over the sound of his own racing engine. Then he saw the Saab lift, the left side rising up over the car it hit, shards of glass and metal exploding from the fron
t wing as it lifted, and then it was over, still in mid-air, and turned onto its roof. Then it was hurtling forwards, upside down, and the remaining headlamp shone in his face and span away as the Saab rotated, sliding on its roof, gushes of sparks from the steel washing like fireworks over the blacktop, illuminating the scene.

  He drew to a halt, attaching his blue, magnetic lamp on the roof to warn other drivers before popping the door and trotting to the stricken Saab.

  It had stopped spinning, and was merely rocking slightly, front to back, balanced on the roof. A groan and whimper came from the driver’s side and he looked down at the bloody face of Roy Sandford.

  ‘Roy, you all right? Roy?’

  He looked dreadful, hanging upside down from his seatbelt. His face was a mass of cuts from flying glass. The airbag had deflated already and lay like a giant punctured grey balloon, half out of the window, and all over its surface were the pinpricks of blood where he had hit it. The windshield was gone, and the laminated glass lay twisted and crackled all over in the road a short way behind them. The side window had shattered and it was those razor-like particles of glass flying into his face that slashed him so badly as the car rolled onto its roof.

  ‘Roy, can you hear me?’ Frank wondered whether to cut him loose from the belt, but daren’t. If there was any damage to Roy’s neck, it could be fatal. Better to wait until the ambulance arrived. Debbie had called it already.

  ‘I couldn’t help it,’ Roy was saying. His voice was a mix of misery and agony. ‘God, I didn’t want to do it, but they made me!’

  ‘Made you what, Roy?’ Jack demanded. He had walked up behind Frank, and now he was crouched on one knee beside the injured driver.

  ‘Made me kill him! They made me! I didn’t want to, but Stilson said he’d shoot me if I didn’t. He had a gun to my head! What could I do?’

  ‘Why were they going to shoot you?’ Jack asked.

  ‘If I didn’t push the man down the hole. The well. They said they’d kill me if I didn’t. I had to prove myself to them, they said. I had to prove I could obey orders, prove I could kill for them. Do anything for them.’

  ‘Who were they, Roy?’ Frank asked.

  ‘I can’t tell you,’ Roy moaned, his head moving from side to side.

  ‘Amiss and who else?’ Frank said. ‘You’ve already told us about Stilson and Amiss. Who else?’

  ‘They’ll kill me too if I tell you,’ Roy groaned. ‘And they’ll torture me, like they did him! I can’t take that. I won’t be tortured!’

  ‘Who did they torture?’ Frank asked.

  ‘I don’t know. I never saw him before. Just a guy from Afghanistan or somewhere. He spoke Pashtun, said he was innocent, but they made me push him down anyway.’

  ‘In the chapel?’

  ‘Underneath it,’ he moaned. ‘There’s a chamber underneath, and a stream flows at the bottom of the well in the middle. They had me throw him down it, and he was washed away and drowned.’

  ‘Calm down, Roy,’ Frank said. ‘We’ll get you out of there soon. Where were you going?’

  ‘To see Stilson. Explain about you guys coming and questioning me.’

  ‘Where were you going to see him?’

  ‘Thompson centre – the marina. There’s a bar overlooking the boats called Bahama Bay. He said he’d see me there.’

  ‘OK. Now hold on, Roy. You feeling OK? Just a little longer and we can get you out of there.’

  ‘So what? What can you do to stop me being a fucking murderer?’ Roy screamed.

  He started fumbling, trying to release the belt, Frank thought, but Jack reached in and took away a pistol, which he passed to Frank.

  ‘Give it back to me! I need it! Let me end it!’

  ‘Roy, you aren’t getting it. You’ve been taken for a ride by some bad characters. It’s not your fault – it’s them. With your help we can put them away,’ Frank said.

  ‘I can’t help you with anything.’

  ‘You can help have the worst offenders arrested, Roy. You aren’t alone in this mess. There are too many people dying.’

  ‘They want to protect us!’

  ‘By killing me?’ Frank said.

  ‘What do you mean, killing you?’

  ‘Amiss sent two men to kill me and Debbie. They nearly succeeded, Roy. It’s gone too far. Amiss is murdering anyone who doesn’t agree with him. That’s why he set up Jack in the first place. Because Jack was close to the truth.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Jack said.

  ‘There must have been something about Lewin that was dangerous. Something Lewin knew.’

  ‘He was recruited to help with torture,’ Jack said.

  ‘That’s what he’s doing,’ Roy said. ‘Catching people and bringing them here to find out all he can from them.’

  ‘Well, Lewin was brought here to do it, and he refused,’ Rand said.

  ‘But he left proof of it,’ Jack said.

  ‘Yeah?’ Roy said in a quieter voice.

  Jack could hear a siren approaching.

  ‘Look, Roy, you could save people’s lives here. Innocent people’s lives.’

  ‘How can I do that?’

  ‘Tell us what you heard: Who was there? What did they say? How can we get to them?’

  ‘Yeah. OK. I’ll tell you everything,’ Roy mumbled.

  There was a blare of sirens, and a pair of police cars arrived, with an ambulance immediately behind. Jack and Frank were pushed out the way as two paramedics arrived and squatted down at the side of the stricken vehicle, so the two men made their way back to the car. An officer held them up, but Frank showed him his badge, and held a short conversation with him. He was soon free and returned to the car, sitting in the driver’s seat.

  ‘OK, then, Mister Case. What is this about proof that Lewin left behind?’

  *

  22.18 Langley; 03.18 London

  The bar was a mixture of old colonial woodwork and cocktails, with the kind of expensive artwork expected by the rich patrons who flocked here every Friday and weekend. Stilson looked about him with disdain at the oak furniture and the imitation sailing ship interior, with walkways and handrails like an old clipper. Flags adorned the walls, and bills of lading were framed on the walls. Above some tables were enormous barrels that had once held rum. The owner had paid a designer a small fortune to recreate a genuine Bahamian bar, and the result was as unlike the original as could be imagined. This was a rich man’s meeting place, where the Washington Harbour weekend sailors came to pretend they still lived in an era of hemp and manila.

  He was not comfortable tonight. Usually the atmosphere in this place would calm him down – the smell of mustiness around the old ropes, the cocktails and wine – but ever since Roy Sandford’s call, he had been on edge. The man had sounded so scared. It was all he could do to shut him up and tell him to come here. It was bad tradecraft to give away the location on open telephones, but there was no time to arrange something more effective. Stilson wasn’t going to go to Roy, not if his house was already under surveillance. And how long had it been? Stilson didn’t like to think that his photo was already appearing on a police file somewhere. He valued his privacy.

  Still no sign of the man. Where the fuck was Sandford? He’d called less than an hour after Stilson left him at his home, demanding an urgent meeting, mentioning the FBI, and Stilson had shut him up there, telling him to get here. But if he wasn’t here soon, Stilson was going to walk from the place. It was late, and he didn’t like this. It made him feel as though he was being set up.

  He gave Roy until half past, and then he stood, finished his bourbon, and walked from the bar.

  Outside the lights played over the cold waters of the Potomac. Opposite was the island on which the Theodore Roosevelt memorial stood, and the island stood dark against the sky. It was a fitting memorial to such a great leader, Stilson thought. He had great pride in his country, and the strong-willed men who had helped make it what it was today. Theodore Roosevelt had all the attributes o
f an American: brave, a fighter, but polite and smart too. He was the kind of man Stilson admired. He wouldn’t have bent to terrorists. Just as he’d urged his nation to join war against Germany in 1915 and on, he’d have wanted to take the fight to those who threatened his country. Just like Amiss and the Committee. Just like Stilson himself.

  But there were always those who would seek to derail a great project. They couldn’t see the bigger picture. Stilson was here to protect his country, and he would do so, no matter what. If that meant torturing a few ragheads or shooting them from a drone, so be it. He wasn’t going to let any assholes take over America without a fight.

  He crossed the parking lot to his car, climbed in, and started the engine. Then he slowly drove away up 30th Street NW, and under the Whitehurst Freeway. He turned around a little further up, heading west, parallel to the harbour, and found a space on the street where he could stop and watch the harbour building from his seat. If Roy had spoken out, the cops would be here soon. Idly he turned on the police-band radio and listened to the squawks. Nothing to call people to the harbour – no warnings. And when he looked about, there were no vehicles racing this way. Only a mixture of parked cars, and he saw no heads in any of them. It looked as though he was clear.

  *

  22.21 Langley; 03.41 London

  Frank listened carefully as Jack told him all about the journal and the list of names he had found at the back, the roll of clippings, the story of Lewin’s life, and the self-hatred he had displayed in the book. By the time he had finished, Frank had drawn up and parked on a street overlooking a large building that proudly declared itself to be ‘Washington Harbour’.

  ‘That’s it?’ Frank asked.

  ‘Yes. The journal was proof of Lewin’s involvement in the torture of prisoners, both in Iraq and in other locations where he witnessed and advised on how to break men. When he grew convinced that it was a failed policy, he couldn’t live with the implications.’

  ‘And you, a British spy, are telling us all this?’ Debbie demanded. ‘Why the fuck should we believe you? If you were a real spy, you’d keep this kind of shit to yourself, wouldn’t you?’