by Ken Fite
I looked past the guardhouse at the gate, then glanced back and used my Glock to break the glass window and reached in to open the door from the inside. I holstered my weapon. The guy was crumpled facedown on the floor. I bent down and put two fingers on the old guy’s neck to check for a pulse. There was none. I stood. Looked at the controls and kept pressing buttons until the gate opened.
The gate remained open for ten seconds. I watched it close and waited for it to come to a stop before I pressed the button that worked again. I quickly stepped out of the guardhouse and jogged through the gate. I went over to the armory, thinking I should load up on ammo. Found my badge and swiped it, but it didn’t work. I cupped two hands on the glass and looked inside. I saw no one. I turned and saw Willis’s Tahoe and headed toward the building where Simon was. I swiped my badge when I got to the door.
I heard it unlock. I grabbed my Glock. Pulled the handle and entered slowly and quietly. Saw nothing. Kept moving through the entranceway and saw the elevators and opted for the stairs. They required me to swipe my badge again. I did so and stepped inside. Made my way up to the second floor. Swiped again and saw the large open space. I stepped inside and caught the door before it shut all the way closed. Made sure it didn’t make any sound whatsoever as it closed the whole way, and I moved quietly around the perimeter.
The room was silent. I could hear a faint hum from computer equipment. I moved carefully, trying to find Simon. I saw his workstation in the middle of the mass of empty cubicles. His desk light was on and shining brightly. But Simon wasn’t there. Then I moved toward Parker’s office. The light was off, and I couldn’t see anyone inside it. I checked the kitchen as I passed by. I was halfway around the space when I heard it. A phone ringing, deafening in the silence, coming from Simon’s desk. I moved toward the sound. But when I got to the phone, it just stopped ringing. I was staring at it when I sensed someone approach behind me. I spun around. Aimed. Willis was walking behind Simon with a gun to his temple.
FIFTY-FIVE
WILLIS WAS HARD to see in the dark. But I could faintly make out a smile from the light on Simon’s desk. I ducked behind a cubicle and raised my Glock and aimed it in his direction. He moved to his left and took Simon with him as I scrambled around to another cubicle. We were slowly moving around a perimeter of empty workstations near Simon’s desk, using the light to understand each other’s positions.
“Thought I’d taken care of you, Jordan,” he said, firing a round over my head.
“I told you not to use the seventeen,” I said back and returned fire. “Not enough stopping power.”
He fired at me again. I ducked, and a chunk of particleboard from the cubicle wall exploded above my head. I shot back up and fired to the right of him. The bullet went through a tall glass window that spanned from the floor to the ceiling. I heard it crack. I looked and saw it had formed a spiderweb pattern from the force of the impact. Willis fired two more rounds and moved left again, pulling Simon with him.
I scrambled around to another cubicle and fired back, keeping track of how many bullets I had left as Willis sent another volley of rounds over my head. I looked up again and saw he’d taken another couple of steps to his left. I made the same adjustment and fired another round. I heard the bullet pierce the tall window again. I was careful not to hit Simon, just trying to keep Willis on his toes and moving to his left.
“I underestimated you,” called Willis. “Didn’t realize Simon had tipped you off about me until after he hung up. Just needed him to call your friend to find out how far along the Bureau was. But you answered.”
“I figured you out,” I said. “I know you took out Omar Malik’s men. I know you left Malik there to get later.”
“You don’t know anything about me, Jordan.”
“I know enough.”
Willis said nothing.
“I know you accessed the shared drive the Bureau had set up with the NSA. You’re the one who stole the schematics for the override device. Then you found Robert Hayes so he could make the device work.”
Willis fell silent for a spell. I stayed crouched with my hands gripping my weapon, waiting and thinking.
“I didn’t leave Malik there so I could return and be some kind of hero,” he said. “I left him there so I could come back and kill him. Slowly, taking my time. Torture him the way he deserved to be tortured.” Willis paused. “Omar Malik was someone the Bureau had been tracking for a long time. I spent months trying to find him with my team. Long nights and weekends. Some nights I didn’t even come home from the office.”
He fired again and sent two rounds my way. They tore through the cubicle wall I was ducking behind.
“Lost a lot of time with her, Jordan,” he continued. “Time I’ll never get back.”
“I should’ve known,” I said, peering out, staring across at him. “When Mulvaney saw you, he said he was sorry about how everything happened. I didn’t understand what he meant. I thought you quit to join DHS. I was wrong. I should’ve known you’d been fired, and you stole the schematics for Malik on your way out.”
“I wasn’t fired, Jordan. I quit. Already told you why.”
I said nothing.
“Because my fiancée was murdered.”
There was silence in the room. All I heard was Simon whimpering as Willis used him as a human shield.
“She was home,” he said. “Planning our wedding. Always until late at night, waiting for me to get home. Somebody broke in. She was home alone and they killed her. I should’ve been there, but I wasn’t.” Willis paused. I could hear him breathing hard. Simon was breathing harder. “I came home the next morning after pulling an all-nighter. Walked into the house and saw broken glass by the front door. I found her on the carpet with dark, dried-up blood all around her. She’d been there for hours. Just left there to die.”
“That wasn’t your fault,” I said.
“The hell it wasn’t,” he replied. “Know why I was working those late hours, Jordan? Because my team left. Every damn one of them. When you make thirty thousand a year and the president uses your salary as a bargaining chip to try to force change, people don’t hang around. They go and get another job. Security guards pay more. So there I was, running the FBI’s New York City Field Office, trying to hunt down a terrorist in my spare time. The agents working the case all quit on me. So I had to do it all myself.”
“But then you found him,” I said.
“But then I found him,” repeated Willis. “Got a call from an informant. Said they knew where to find Malik. They wanted money in exchange for information. Money the Bureau was quickly running out of. They strung me along for a while. Made it seem legitimate. So I pulled money out of my own bank accounts. Had to. I had to get results, or Mulvaney would find someone who could. Know who the informant was?”
I said nothing.
“The guy I killed in the apartment. The same guy who killed the woman I loved, I came to find out. He was working with Omar Malik. They wanted to understand how much the Bureau knew. I did some digging. Found out the informant was the one who killed her. I never told Malik. Played it off like I had no idea. They thought her death would derail me.” Willis fired another shot. “Eventually, I got to Malik, but he convinced me that Keller was to blame. I agreed to steal the schematics so I could get to the president. So I went along with it. Then I left the Bureau and took the job with Parker. I took out the informant for what he did, and I killed the president because it’s ultimately his fault. Now I’m just covering my tracks.”
“Blake, help me,” Simon said in a soft voice.
“Shut up,” barked Willis, and I watched him press the muzzle harder against Simon’s temple.
“Where’s Robert Hayes?” I asked. “Where’s the override device?”
Willis said nothing.
“You assassinated a president,” I said.
“He took my life away from me,” Willis replied. “What happened to the woman I loved never would’ve happened if I’d b
een there with her. But I wasn’t. So Keller had to pay. And Omar Malik will be blamed.” Willis moved again. My eyes were adjusting to the dark room. I saw his back against the tall splintered window. “I’m going to give you to the count of three to come out,” he said, keeping the muzzle of his gun pressed hard against Simon’s temple. “One.”
I looked at Simon. His eyes were closed and he was looking away.
“Two.”
I looked behind me at the entrance, wishing I had told Chris and Jami what I was doing.
“Three.”
“Okay,” I said.
I dropped my Glock on the floor and stood. Simon opened his eyes. He stared at me and his eyes grew wide, realizing he was about to die. In one quick motion he reached up and grabbed Willis’s wrist. He pushed his arm up into the air. I hesitated for a moment; then I started running. Willis fired. Chunks of ceiling tile exploded overhead. I yelled for Simon to move as I ran toward them. Simon let go and stepped aside as I dove onto Willis and hit the man with such force that we broke through the splintered window.
FIFTY-SIX
I GRABBED HOLD of the front of Willis’s jacket as we fell the two stories and landed on the ground. I used him to soften the impact, but it was harder than I imagined it would be. He hit his head hard on the sidewalk that encircled the building, and I felt my ribs give as we hit the ground. I ended up five feet away from him on my back with the wind knocked out of me. I stared up at the broken window. I couldn’t move. Couldn’t talk. Just stayed there on my back for a whole minute before I was able to push myself up.
Willis was staring straight up into the sky. It had stopped raining, but the ground was still wet. I saw him blinking. Saw that most of his body was on the cold, wet grass. He’d managed to hit his head on the edge of the sidewalk. I crawled over to where he was and put a knee on his chest. Grabbed his face with my left hand and balled my right hand into a fist. Brought it up. Held it there and forced the man to look at me. His eyes shifted to mine. He started to smile. “Where’s the override device?” I asked.
Willis said nothing.
I pulled my right hand back. Clenched my fist even tighter. “Tell me where it is, you son of a bitch.”
He laughed. Then the smile disappeared and he started coughing up blood. I stared, waiting for him to talk. “When this is all over,” he began, keeping his eyes on me, “I’ll be remembered as a patriot.” Willis sucked in air, and I felt his body starting to tremble. “I’ll be remembered as someone who stood up and did something. Someone who actually made a difference.” He paused. “But you—you’ll just be forgotten.”
I stared at him and lowered my fist. “You said you were covering your tracks. Tell me what the target is.”
Willis coughed up more blood. He breathed. “I knew you were coming here,” he said, his voice now raspy. “I know how you think. You’re just like me.” He paused briefly as he struggled to take another breath. “So I ordered Hayes to do something for me, just in case something happened to delay me.” Willis stared.
I brought my fist back up. Kept it raised in the air. My hand was shaking.
“I gave him coordinates to initiate one final drone strike if I wasn’t back in twenty minutes.” His smile faded and his body grew limp.
I lowered my hand back down. Felt the adrenaline wearing off. My ribs hurt more than ever. I felt faint. Let go of Willis’s face and rested my hand on the ground. I eased myself off him and fell onto my back and stared up. I saw Simon at the window. He asked if I was okay. I made no reply. Simon disappeared from view. I stayed on the ground for another minute, thinking about Jami and Matthew in the silence.
Simon exited the building. He ran over to me. Offered his hand and helped me get to my feet.
“You saved my life,” he said as I stood and held onto my ribs, wincing in pain. “Thank you.”
I looked past him. Noticed Willis’s Tahoe. Glanced up at the building. “Simon, we need to find Robert Hayes and the override device.” I looked back at Willis. “Did he bring them here? Could they be upstairs?”
Simon shook his head. “I don’t think so,” he said. “Willis caught me by surprise. He pulled a gun and had me call Chris Reed’s cell phone. That’s when you answered. I didn’t see anyone else here with him.”
I started pacing. Tried to think through everything and figure out where Willis had gone before he’d come here. I stopped next to his Tahoe. The passenger-side window was directly in front of me. Saw my reflection. I stared at it. Then I remembered something inside. I glanced back at Willis. Went over to him and dug through his pockets. Found his keys. Turned and unlocked the door. Simon said nothing. Just watched in silence. I reached inside and grabbed my cell from the front seat. Saw that it was still on, but the battery was low, and the indicator was red. I turned back and held it out and showed it to Simon.
“Can you tell where my cell phone’s been? The locations?”
He nodded.
“Go back to your desk. Do it now.”
FIFTY-SEVEN
I WATCHED SIMON as he left and reentered the red-brick building and disappeared back inside. I was breathing hard and put a hand over my ribs. Felt pain every time I took a deep breath. I stood there for a minute, thinking. Then I went back over to Willis. Checked for a pulse just to be sure the guy was dead. Stood up again and held onto the keys to his Tahoe and stared down at the man responsible for killing all of those people at Creech and the Pentagon. And the man responsible for killing my friend James Keller.
My heart was beating fast. I turned and went to the Tahoe. Opened the door and slid into the driver’s seat. Got the motor going and adjusted the rearview mirror and backed it out. I didn’t know exactly where I was headed, but I knew the vicinity. After Willis had taken out Omar Malik’s men, he’d taken Robert Hayes and the override device somewhere before coming back to the NAC to silence Simon and cover his tracks. Wherever Hayes and the device were, I knew they had to be somewhere between the safe house and here.
I turned and the guardhouse came into view. I pulled up to the gate and it opened automatically. It was set to open up for anybody exiting. Drove past and looked to my right instinctively, like I was expecting to see the old guy still sitting inside nodding at me. Just saw the single bullet hole instead. It bothered me. Why kill the old guy? It was unnecessary. But I didn’t expect anything less from Willis. I kept driving, waiting for Simon to call. I glanced at my phone. Wondered if Patricia Hayes had been reunited with Maddie. I thought about calling Jami, but the battery was nearly drained. I’d have to be careful using it.
Then the phone buzzed in my hand. “This is Jordan,” I said, answering it.
“Blake, it’s Simon. I have Morgan on the line with me.”
“Go ahead,” I said as I sped down the road.
“Morgan has more experience pinging the cell towers than I do, so he looked at the logs for me.”
“I’ve got the address, mate,” said Morgan. “P Street in Georgetown, about three miles south of you.”
I held onto the steering wheel with my left hand and cradled the phone against my shoulder as Morgan rattled off the address. Used my right hand to punch it into the SUV’s navigation system. I watched as it calculated the route and told me to continue driving straight. I stared at the map and furrowed my brow.
“Something’s wrong,” I said as soon as I realized where the GPS system was taking me.
“How so?” asked Morgan.
“That can’t be the address,” I said. Silence on the line. Nobody spoke. “That’s the FBI’s safe house.”
“You don’t think Hayes is there somewhere with the device?” asked Simon.
“No, I was just there with Chris Reed. We checked the entire residence. Morgan, we found Omar Malik at that address. Willis had taken out all of Malik’s men, and then he took Hayes and the device and left. Willis had to have taken Hayes somewhere before going to the NAC.” I breathed. Felt sharp pain in my chest. I heard Morgan typing frantically in the backgrou
nd as I took my foot off the gas and let the vehicle coast.
“Okay,” he said a minute later. “Looks like ten minutes before the safe house, he stopped along a highway.”
I put my foot on the brake and guided the Tahoe to the side of the road and stopped hard. “No.”
Morgan said nothing.
“That’s when he shot me,” I said. “I was still with him at that point, and I’d been with him for a while.”
I heard more typing in the background. “I’m sorry, mate,” he finally said. “There were no more stops.”
“There had to be,” I said. “Simon, you’re sure Willis didn’t say anything about Hayes or the device?”
“No,” he said. “He showed up alone, like I told you. He told me he’d shot and killed you and said if I wanted to live, I’d better do what he asks. He made me call Chris Reed. Said he wanted to find out how much the FBI knew. He wanted me to check in with Reed so I could find out for him. But you answered.”
“Then what happened?” I asked.
“After I hung up with you, he said there was a change in plans. He held me at gunpoint and made me go to the window. He waited there for you to arrive. He took me into Parker’s office and turned off the lights. Made me call my desk phone from the office as he watched you from the window. Then he forced me out.”
“Then what happened?” I asked again.
“You know the rest,” he said.
I heard Morgan curse under his breath. He said an interagency bulletin just came through.
“What is it?” I asked.
“There’s a drone initiating a launch sequence,” said Morgan. “Looks like it’s getting into position somewhere over the Washington, DC, metro. Won’t have an approximate location until it stops moving.”
I thought about Willis and the final order given to Hayes. What did Willis need to make sure happened? What would he want more than anything? A thought came to mind. He wasn’t trying to cover his tracks at all. My blood ran cold. “Morgan, call Chris Reed,” I said. “Tell him to get everybody out of the safe house.”
