by Ethan Cross
“Don’t bother. Verify the records, but don’t contact Easton’s son. That family’s been through enough. I don’t want him to feel somehow responsible.”
Munroe said goodbye, hung up the phone, and leaned back in his chair, organizing the various strands in his mind. Things were starting to make sense. Wyatt Randall had taken his discovery to Brendan Lennix. Randall then learned that Lennix had borrowed money from the cartels and stole evidence to give to General Easton. But that still didn’t explain how Corrigan tied into everything and why the disgraced soldier was so important. Munroe guessed that Corrigan connected to Wyatt Randall’s so-called miracle drug somehow, but he had no evidence. The dots were there, but he had yet to connect them all, and he couldn’t prove any of it. But maybe he could at least verify some of his suspicions.
Munroe stood from the desk and said, “Mr. Black, let’s take a walk.”
“Where are we going?”
“I thought maybe we’d drop in unannounced over at the executive wing.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
By floor area, the Pentagon was the world’s largest office building. The iconic headquarters took up around six and a half million square feet, and over thirty thousand people went to work there everyday. It was the nerve center of the American military, and a self-contained city of its own. A worker at the Pentagon never had to leave during the day. The building housed dentists, doctors, a myriad of retail stores, a fitness center, and just about everything else in between. But Damian Lightoller, the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics, appreciated the food choices the most. Lightoller was not a small man and had always enjoyed food. He hated eating the same thing day in and day out. Variety was the spice of life, after all. Luckily, the Pentagon provided as much variety for food choices as any shopping center the world over—everything from Subway to McDonald’s, Pizza Hut to Panda Express. And most importantly for those that burned the midnight oil in defense of the nation’s freedom: Starbucks and Dunkin’ Donuts.
Lightoller had tried just about every diet on the market, and he had no problem finding the discipline to lose the weight in the short term. It was sticking with it that posed the issue. Fortunately, a low carb diet (with the weekends off, of course) seemed to suit him fairly well. So, keeping with the diet, he sat at his desk and sipped a sugar free vanilla latte made with whipping cream. When the door to his office opened without any introduction from his secretary, Lightoller nearly spilled the latte down the front of his Brooks Brothers suit.
“Mr. Lightoller, I tried to stop them,” his secretary said from the next room.
“Hello, Damian. I need a word. National security and all that,” Deacon Munroe said from the doorway. A large and stern man stood next to the DCIS agent. The big guy radiated an aura of physical confidence, like the bouncer at a strip club, though Lightoller sensed the big man was more than just bravado.
“It’s okay, Becky,” he said as he stood and offered his hand. Munroe didn’t reach out for it, and Lightoller experienced a moment of guilt when he realized that Munroe couldn’t see the proffered greeting. “Please, have a seat.”
“Thank you,” Munroe said. The big man roughly pushed Munroe into the chair, earning him a look of disgust from the blind man.
“So what can I do for you, Special Agent Munroe? I’m afraid that I’m leaving for an appointment soon.”
The big man took up position to the blind man’s left but remained standing. Munroe adjusted his dark sunglasses and said, “I won’t take up much of your time, and since you have other engagements, I’ll get right to the point. What can you tell me about Lennix Pharmaceuticals?”
Lightoller swallowed hard. “I’ve heard of them, but that’s about as far as my knowledge goes. Just what I’ve seen in the papers.”
Munroe’s head tilted to the side. “Really. That’s very odd.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“I just find it strange that the man in charge of acquisition, technology, and logistics isn’t familiar with a company that’s in bed with the DOD and DARPA.”
Lightoller leaned back in his chair. “I’m sorry, Deacon. Yes, we do have a contract with them, but you know that I can’t discuss the details of classified projects.”
“It’s on a need to know basis?”
“That’s right.”
“Well, I need to know. All this ties back to the reason General Easton was murdered and a Marine that’s about to be executed.”
“I thought Easton committed suicide.”
Munroe smiled. “If you buy that story, then your elevator’s stuck between floors.”
“I still don’t see how I can help.”
“You know, this whole thing started a couple years back with the Marine. John Corrigan. You were sitting in that same chair at that time, and I figure that means there’s a pretty good chance you were involved in whatever cover-up went down.”
“First of all, I don’t appreciate you barging into my office. You want to speak to me, make an appointment. Second, if you intend to make wild accusations, you had better come to me with more than a three hundred pound gorilla on your side. You had better have some proof.”
The big man’s eyes narrowed, and he cracked his knuckles. Lightoller immediately regretted the gorilla comment, but it was too late to back down now. He said, “Your time’s up, Munroe. See yourself out.”
Instead of getting up, Munroe leaned back in the chair and crossed his legs. In a calm, friendly voice, the blind man said, “Did you know that I lost my wife to cancer within only two years of losing my sight? That was a difficult time. A very dark time for me filled with a lot of anger and confusion. When I learned that my wife had only a few months to live, I couldn’t deal with it. I called a taxi and checked in to a hotel. To this day I can’t explain exactly why I did it. It was probably the most cowardly thing that a man could do in that situation, but I suppose that I just couldn’t deal with losing her and sitting idly by as she withered away.”
Munroe turned toward the far wall as if he were reliving the moment. Then he lowered his head and intertwined his fingers as if in prayer. Lightoller said, “I’m very sorry to hear all that, but—”
“It took less than a day for me to come to my senses,” Munroe interrupted. “My wife wasn’t even angry. She seemed to understand that it was because of how deeply I loved her that I felt I had to leave. But I was angry enough with myself for the both of us. I still think about the time that I missed by leaving. Even though it was only a few hours, I would give anything to have those moments back. To have the opportunity to spend them with her now.”
Munroe stood up, placed his hands atop the desk, and leaned toward Lightoller. “After that moment, I vowed I would never run from a fight again as long as I lived. I’ve lost two friends over this, one of them the oldest and dearest friend I had in this world. There’s no force in Heaven or Earth that will stop me from seeing it through. I’m going to find those responsible, and I’m going to burn them down. Make no mistake about that.”
The big man gave Lightoller one last contemptuous glare and then led Munroe from the room. After they had gone, Lightoller just sat there for a moment, trying to calm his thundering heart and plan his next move carefully. Then he picked up his desk phone, tapped one of its many buttons, and said, “Becky, get me Brendan Lennix on the line immediately.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
The Pentagon had always reminded Jonas Black more of a shopping mall or hospital than a military complex. Wide corridors, off-whites, a maze of halls—he could have been magically transported to any large medical center and not known the difference between the two, except that the other people filling the halls would have worn scrubs and white jackets instead of suits and military uniforms.
Munroe was quiet at his side, and Black wondered if his new boss’s thoughts still dwelled on old memories. “L
ightoller was lying,” Black said.
“About Lennix? Obviously.”
“Not just about that. I got the distinct impression that he knew that Easton was murdered and Lennix was connected to it.”
“What makes you say that?”
Black debated on how much of his own story to share, but Munroe had already referenced his checkered past when they first met so it likely wouldn’t be a surprise. He said, “Have you ever seen a movie where a group of mafia types have someone tied to a chair and one guy is asking questions and another guy is beating the piss out of the dude in the chair.”
“I suppose so.”
“Before I became a Marine, that’s pretty much what I did for a living.”
“You were an interrogator?”
“No, I was the guy that gave the beatings. But you do enough of those and you start to develop a sense of when the person is lying or telling the truth.”
“Hmm,” Munroe said, “It sounds like you developed a talent for kinesics.”
“What does that mean?”
“Take the next right.”
Black cocked an eyebrow at his companion. “You know where we are?”
“I always try to have a general sense of my location relative to my surroundings, especially in places for which I’m intimately acquainted.” Black took the next turn, and Munroe continued, “And kinesics, for future reference, is the science of observing and analyzing the body language and verbal behavior of witnesses and suspects. Certain people have a natural talent for it. You’re likely subconsciously picking up on those types of cues. People with a natural aptitude toward it make the best kinesic interrogators. Maybe that’s a skill you should consider developing.”
“Does that mean you’re getting used to having me around?”
Munroe ignored the question. “I believe we’ve arrived.”
Black glanced around the hall. The sign by the closest door read The Reflection Room. “Arrived where?”
“This used to be a storage closet, but after 9/11, this place became known as The Reflection Room. It’s dedicated to those from the Navy family who lost their lives here and on the aircraft during the attack.”
Black opened the door and led Munroe inside. The room didn’t contain an elaborate memorial or intricate adornments. The walls were the same off-white and the floor the same dark blue marble as the corridor leading to the space. A simple stone tablet containing a list of names flanked by the American and Navy flags rested in a niche along one wall. Stone benches sat in the room’s center. The lights had been dimmed, and the room was currently unoccupied. Black felt an inexplicable weight fall upon him when he entered—a power or resonance that nearly brought him to tears.
Munroe sat down on the bench facing the list of names.
“Were you here when the attack happened?” Black asked.
Swallowing hard, Munroe replied, “I’d like to be alone, Mr. Black. Grab us some coffee and then come back for me. Take your time.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
The attacks of September 2001 still weighed on Black’s mind, and so he decided to pay a visit to the interior portion of the Pentagon 9/11 memorial. He wandered the hall until he reached the space designated for those who had senselessly lost their lives that day. The walls were some type of brushed metal, and obsidian displays lined the room. Over the center display, large black lettering read America’s Heroes. Beneath that was a seal embossed with an eagle and the words, “A Grateful Nation Remembers.”
He would certainly never forget where he was that Tuesday. Home on leave, he had been visiting his brother. Michael went to work, and Jonas had driven to a local shopping mall to pick up a gift for his nephew. On the drive there, he remembered the disc jockeys joking that some idiot had apparently flown a Cessna into a building in New York. He hadn’t thought much of it, but within a few moments, the radio personalities apologized and gave more details. When he arrived at the mall, he and a group of other people stood in front of an electronics store and watched the attacks replaying on twenty different screens of various size. The smell of cinnamon rolls and donuts hung heavy in the air from a nearby Dunkin’ Donuts as he watched the destruction. It was a good thing that he had never been partial to sweets, since the mental association forged that day had forever turned his stomach against any fresh baked donut, roll, or pastry.
As the day progressed and more attacks occurred, he remembered distinctly feeling that it was the end of the world or at least the end of life as most Americans knew it.
Munroe had told him to take his time, and so he padded slowly back and forth across the dark gray carpet, examining each obsidian slab with care. A table attached to the center display held binders detailing the biographies of all those who had died. He skimmed through it, examining each smiling face. The binders also listed the names of those military personnel awarded the Purple Heart from that day and the select civilian DOD employees who had received the Defense of Freedom medal.
As he glanced through the lists, his eyes caught on one name—one of those DOD employees awarded the Defense of Freedom medal. Printed in small black lettering on the page was the name Deacon Munroe.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Munroe’s thoughts swam in a maelstrom of pain, anger, and confusion. He thought of all that he had lost. His sight. His wife. His best friend. Not for the first time, he considered how much easier it would be to just lay down and die, to give up, save himself from the burden of living and the pain of remembering. But one name that he knew to be etched into the simple plaque in front of him kept him from giving into the darkness. It was the name of a Navy officer who had saved his life on September 11th 2001. He owed it to that man to live, to do something worthwhile with the life that a brave soldier had exchanged for his own.
The door opened, and Munroe thought at first that Black had returned. But the footfalls and cologne didn’t match the big man. It was probably just another pilgrim paying homage. He didn’t say anything to the newcomer. This was a place for quiet contemplation, not idle chitchat. The person moved up behind him, and he shifted to the edge of the bench to allow room for the stranger to sit.
The attack occurred so swiftly and expertly that Munroe barely reacted. The stranger’s hand slid over Munroe’s nose and mouth and a piercing pain shot up his left side. Cold tendrils of agony and then numbness swept over him.
He tried to move his limbs, to fight back somehow, but the shock was too great. His strength left him. He feebly clawed at the stranger’s hand over his face.
Keeping the hand over his nose and mouth, the stranger laid him back on the bench. He felt the blood pumping out of his body through the wound in his side. Nausea. Fear. Confusion. Cold chills. A desire to fight but no strength to do so.
The stranger searched through Munroe’s pockets and pulled something out. The flash drive.
The sound of retreating footsteps. The door closing. He tried to call for help, but his scream came out as a wheeze. Laying his head back against the bench and accepting his fate, Munroe turned to the memorial and thought of the name etched there, the name of the man who had saved his life.
He felt guilty for wanting to give up and apologized to the Navy officer. And then darkness surrounded him, embraced him, devoured him.
PART THREE
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
At a make-shift airfield located in Alexandria, VA that was little more than a long patch of grass, Antonio de Almeida watched the Cessna Corvalis TTX make its approach. The sleek little single engine plane looked more like a private jet with its smooth, aerodynamic lines and rounded cockpit. Despite the uneven terrain, the pilot put the plane down gently and maneuvered it to a gradual stop between the white pines and hickories that bordered the runway. The doors on both sides of the Cessna opened, and the pilot and two large Hispanic men hopped down from the craft. The protectors scanned the area and gave Almeida
a nod. Then they assisted the plane’s final occupant to the ground.
Ramon Castillo’s black pin-striped suit didn’t even look wrinkled from the flight. The cartel boss wore a silver shirt, no tie, and wire framed spectacles. Black hair, streaked with gray, swept back from a bearded, handsome face that had only recently begun to show the signs of age. Ramon was a third generation cartel leader, but this hadn’t caused him to be decadent or spoiled. The people called him Vaquero, meaning cowboy, because a rumor had spread that Castillo had descended from the original herdsmen who first came to California with the Jesuit priest Eusebio Kino in 1687 and were the first cowboys to visit the region. Unlike many of the other cartel bosses, the people loved Ramon in addition to fearing him. He had a reputation for only being ruthless when necessary and only toward those who stood against him. To the people of the regions he controlled, he had always shown compassion and mercy and had actually greatly improved their standards of living.
Almeida approached Castillo with open arms, and the cartel leader embraced him firmly. “It’s good to see you, Vaquero,” Almeida said.
“And you, my son.” As they walked toward a black Mercedes GL550, Castillo growled as he slid in a patch of blue-gray mud. “Dammit, I should have just landed right on the fairway instead of all the way over here.”
Almeida laughed. “The guests at the country club may have noticed, Vaquero.”
A pair of businesses concealed the Castillo Cartel’s base of operations in Virginia. One was the Hill Crest Landfill, and the other was the Hill Crest Golf Course and Resort. The landfill housed mostly construction and demolition debris, while the resort catered to the rich and famous.
Castillo asked, “Has Mr. Lennix calmed down yet?”
