Search and Destroy

by JT Sawyer

  “Sure, I’ll call him later when we get to the cottage.”

  When Cal awoke in the morning, he stood on the enclosed front porch for a full half-hour, staring at the mirror-like surface of the lake beyond the front of the cottage.

  Given all the bloodshed, chaos and adrenaline of the past few weeks, he welcomed the peaceful vista.

  He heard the screen door behind him open. Viper walked out, her short black hair sticking up and the pillow wrinkles still etched on her tan face. She handed him a steaming cup of coffee then sat down at the antique wooden table to partake of her tea.

  “Helluva view. Nothing like a real, living lake with all the frogs and turtles,” he said. “Reminds me of a lake north of Billings where I used to guide elk-hunting trips with my uncle.”

  “Yeah, I like coming here. It’s where I unwind in between missions.”

  “With your family?”

  “They’d join me sometimes, but I never minded the solitude, especially after being immersed in a testosterone cocoon with you guys on the team for months at a time.”

  He thrust his chin at the family photo on the wall set amid a stunning backdrop of a weathered Christian church amidst a backdrop of older buildings dotting the Syrian countryside. “Must be hard for your parents to watch the news and see what’s become of Damascus these days.”

  “My mom misses it, but I’ve told her that it’s not the same place she grew up in.”

  “You were what, twelve years old when you and your family had to flee the country?”

  She gave a plaintive nod. “We spent two years as refugees, bouncing between countries with only the rags on our backs until my father was able to find a way to get us out and over here.”

  “Is that why you live like a nomad when you’re back here?”

  She closed her eyes, craning her head up and taking a deep breath. “There will never be a home like the one I knew growing up. It was small, with white stucco walls, but so beautiful, and with a garden just beyond my bedroom window whose jasmine flowers I can still smell to this day.” She slowly rotated her porcelain mug, staring down into the empty interior. “That was in the days before the government security forces began rounding up dissenters and the country became a graveyard.”

  “No one, especially a kid, should have to suffer through such horrors. I’ve heard you talk about your childhood before and always wished I could go back in time and yank you away from all of that.”

  She creaked out a faint smile. “You’re a good man, Cal Shepard…despite what Foley says about you.”

  He chuckled. “I’d sure like to meet your folks someday…they have to be remarkable people, raising someone as challenging as you.”

  “Shut up, you Montana hillbilly. No wonder you think eating with a fork is a luxury.”

  He tapped her leg with his boot, smiling. “Hey, thanks for coming to get me.”

  “Anytime.”

  He sipped his black coffee then took in one more gaze of the still lake in the distance.

  “So, Texas…what’ve you got in mind for breaching that ranch?”

  He unfurled the folded paper in his back pocket of the map of Roth’s ranch that Rourke had printed off, handing it to her.

  “If you can scare up a notebook and a few markers, we’ll draw up an assault plan, old-school…that is, if you’re still in for the long haul.”

  She flared an eyebrow, standing up and shoving her empty mug into his gut. “I’ll need more tea then. Pot’s still on the stove if you could fire me up another batch while I get what you asked for.”

  There was never any hesitation or pontification with Viper. You always got your answer whether you liked it or not, and you knew what to expect from her. It was one of the things he liked about her both as a friend and an operator.

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said as they entered the cottage turned war room.

  Other than a few chow breaks, they spent the better part of six hours examining the entrance and egress routes to the ranch, potential location of sentries and snipers, local response time of the small sheriff’s department, weather factors, comms issues and most importantly how to gain surreptitious access to the immense property.

  “We go with a Trojan horse then,” said Viper. “There’s no other way to get in there.”

  “Agreed,” said Shepard. “Only what’s the effigy going to be?”

  “Remember Istanbul?” she said.

  His eyes traced a crack along the floor then he grinned, giving a slow nod. “I like your thinking.”

  After they had finished planning, Viper baked a homemade pizza with fresh veggies and ham from the freezer. It was the first time in weeks that Cal hadn’t eaten something from a wrapper or pouch, and he was grateful for the meal.

  They shared stories from past missions and training events, chuckling about old times, team members, politics, and near misses abroad when Murphy intervened in their plans.

  Nearing eight o’clock, Cal got up, finishing off his beer. He grabbed his hoodie and plucked her van keys off the fireplace mantel. “Mind if I borrow your wheels for a few hours?”

  “Sure, but there’s more beer in the fridge. No need to make a special trip.”

  Cal gave a pensive nod. “Thanks, but there’s something I have to take care of before we leave.”

  48

  North Atlanta

  The streetlights at the back of the parking garage weren’t working for some reason, and Sara McAllister fumbled through her purse looking for a flashlight as she headed to her Chrysler minivan.

  She had stayed at her Pilates studio an hour longer than expected, taking care of payroll and employee scheduling, and she was more than ready to collapse into bed after a shower.

  She found the flashlight, pulling it out along with her keys just as a shadow moved from the darkened stairwell to the right.

  Her heart raced as she struggled to locate the on button of the light and blind the man moving towards her. Her eyes widened when she saw who it was.

  “Cal!”

  She wasn’t sure if she should scream for help or run, but something told her what she’d known all along—that the stories in the news weren’t true, if for no other reason than she trusted her sister Cassie’s judgement in marrying a good man.

  And right now, she was relying on her gut instincts that her sister was right about him.

  “God, is it really you?”

  He stepped towards her, staying in the shadows and pulling his hood back. “I’m sorry it’s taken me this long to reach out to you.”

  Tears streamed down her cheeks as she rushed forward, hugging him. He hesitated then embraced her, squeezing her tight as she continued to weep. “I thought I lost you too.”

  He brushed his hand along her face. “It’s OK. I just had to see you…to tell you that I would never have done anything to hurt Cassie. She was the love of my life, Sara.”

  “I know. It was obvious by the way you two looked at each other.” She pulled back, holding his hand. “But all the stories in the news about you being with the CIA…was any of that true? You always told us you worked for the State Department in embassy security. Was anything you told us—told my sister—real?”

  He licked his lower lip, letting out a long exhale. “Look, I was recruited by the agency after college, working as a field agent. Cassie didn’t even know until we were engaged and she had been further vetted. It was excruciating for her to keep it all from you, but it just comes with the territory for any of us in this line of work. Even then she didn’t know the full extent of what I did when I was gone.”

  Sara looked to either side. “You’re taking an awful risk coming here. There’ve been people outside our house for the past few weeks, parked in a car, watching me as I came and went.”

  “And monitoring your calls and emails, no doubt. That’s why I couldn’t make contact until now. I’m sorry I left you to suffer alone through all of this.”

  “What are you going to do now?”

 
“I have some things to finish, then I’ll be moving on.”

  She put her hand on his arm. “Cal, are you the one behind all those killings up in Maryland? I read an article online about the caterers at Burke’s house who were blown all to hell.”

  Shepard pursed his lips, averting his eyes. “The less you know, the better.”

  “God, Cal, I’m all for justice, but this isn’t the way. Cassie wouldn’t want this for you or the other victims who died.”

  “These people are above the law. This will never be a case that makes it to court or even onto the front pages. And if they were this brazen, then others could suffer the same fate, and I’m not about to let that happen again.”

  They both turned their heads at the faint sound of squealing tires on the parking level below.

  He hugged her again, kissing her on the cheek. “Always remember, you’re family and I love you, Sara.”

  She wanted to reach out and hold him, the last living link to her sister, and the brother she never had.

  “Be careful…I love you too,” she breathed out as Cal trotted down the stairs back into the shadows.

  49

  Six Days Later

  Carter felt like she hadn’t moved in an hour, her shoes Velcroed to the carpet in her office as she stared at the large whiteboard on the wall, which was peppered with photographs of the crime scenes and victims associated with the Burke case during the past week, along with a destroyed cartel safehouse where the driver of the catering truck had resided.

  Her eyes meandered along the images. The only thing connecting the deaths to the three crime scenes was the presence of dead Colombian cartel members and their drugs and money.

  The first house in Elkton, Maryland was little more than a crater in the ground after the explosion that ripped through the place, which was a known safehouse for Colombian cocaine dealers. The second home was an upscale residence in the Bethesda foothills owned by oil lobbyist Ian Landis, where a stack of coke and three dead cartel members were found.

  She fixed her eyes on the last photo, of the man who had died of a heart attack in his home five days ago.

  Tim Rourke…how the hell is the assistant director of the NSA tied up in all of this?

  Other than the bundle of cash atop his desk, which had blood stains connected with DNA samples found amongst the few intact bodies from the cartel safehouse, there was little to show that he even knew the others.

  Though she didn’t have any definitive evidence, eyewitnesses or surveillance videos, she was sure Shepard was connected with what felt more like a vigilante killing spree than a cartel turf war.

  She looked down at the open file on her computer, which had been heavily redacted but which showed the employment history of Rourke. The NSA had been slightly more cooperative than the CIA in providing her with some details about their staff, and Rourke’s indicated a stint at the National Reconnaissance Office, which handled satellite retasking and distribution of intelligence.

  She thought back to the conversation with the mystery man at the park whom she knew was Shepard’s handler.

  Project 284 kept echoing in her brain. She sat down at her desk, using the FBI’s search engine to pull up one of two files on the topic.

  Carter leaned back, scanning the tedious notes on the government think-tank project from twelve years ago. Some of the names and places were redacted on the open-source document, but the common thread that ran through the project was the emphasis on a prominent false-flag event. From what she understood, it involved violence perpetrated by an anti-government group opposed to the new regime, along with reliance on outside sources providing real-time intelligence to the players behind the curtain.

  This was the goddam playbook for what happened to Burke…and then Shepard.

  She thought about the circumstances surrounding the explosion and Shepard’s subsequent exposure by the media.

  He wasn’t supposed to survive the blast, so they had to get rid of him before he found out what the hell was going on.

  She looked up at his wanted poster on the whiteboard, trying to convince herself that he was a ruthless criminal trying to cover his tracks and remove everyone who got in his way.

  And yet he tried to save Tremblay’s life—and spared mine during the assault on his house.

  Her gut told her something was amiss. She reread the highlights of Project 284 then scrolled to the bottom, which showed the contributors and panel members. Her eyes settled on a familiar name.

  Shit…that’s the guy I’ve been leaving messages for at the agency all week.

  Neil J. Patterson

  Carter pulled up another screen, entering the man’s name in the federal search engine. She clicked on the link, pulling up the biography for the Director of the CIA’s Clandestine Affairs. Her mouth hung open as she looked at the photo of the man who had met with her in the park.

  Christ, he’s not just Shepard’s handler—he’s one of the top dogs at Langley, so he’s got a lot invested on many levels in Perseus and what happened at Burke’s.

  She thought over recent events and the killings at the three related crime scenes. Is Patterson letting Shepard run amuck so he buries everything related to Project 284, which he himself had a hand in creating, or is he trying to prevent it from unfolding any further? If the project was connected with a coming coup, then which government is at risk from the players behind all this shit that’s gone down lately?

  She heard footsteps approaching her office door and looked up to see James Corelli entering. The head forensics tech had a grin on his face, which usually meant he was about to spend thirty minutes extrapolating on a breakthrough he just had.

  “What ya got?” she said as he came up beside her with a laptop in his gloved hands.

  “So, I was digging deep on the data on the personal computer we got from Rourke’s house, and I was able to extract a few deleted files.” He shoved aside some of Carter’s belongings then put the laptop down, pulling up an image of a topographic map for a ranch in Texas.

  “The guy stared at satellite images all day, so big deal,” she said. “What am I supposed to be looking at?”

  “I found a few other large properties around the country, but Rourke spent the most time studying this one. It’s a 64,000-acre ranch that belongs to Vincent Roth.”

  She sat up straight. “Roth…as in the oil baron?”

  “Yeah, the same guy who was in a photo with Ian Landis at his home with those dead Colombians.”

  “Landis was an oil lobbyist, so that’s not too much of a surprise.”

  Corelli cracked a knuckle then moved up alongside Carter, minimizing the screen on her laptop and pulling up a new search bar. He accessed his computer down in the digital forensics lab, showing her a black-and-white video from a regional airstrip near Baltimore.

  “When my staff looked into Landis’ holdings, we found he had a private jet at McMillan Airport, so I had them check on the flight manifests, which weren’t remarkable in themselves, but we also went through the closed-circuit security videos from inside and outside the terminal near his plane.” He clicked on the play button for the first video clip, which showed two men meeting near the hangar and exchanging a briefcase.

  “God, that’s Tim Rourke,” she said, tapping the image.

  “And the other guy is Carlos Montoya—the Colombian cartel enforcer that you showed me before.”

  She leaned back, her eyes darting along the plethora of photographs and flow charts on the whiteboard to her left.

  “It gets better.” He clicked on another video from a few minutes later, showing a man in a suit entering the administration building and flashing an FBI badge to the woman behind the counter.

  “This guy knew where the cameras were at, so there isn’t a clear shot of his face, but check this out…” He enhanced the image of the badge. “It’s Tremblay’s.”

  Carter bit her lip, holding back a smug grin.

  Fucking Shepard, I knew it!

  She
tapped her fingers on the desk. Cartel turf war, my ass. He’s been systematically working his way up the food chain just as I thought. Which means Roth is next.

  “What do you want me to do with all of this?” said Corelli.

  “Keep it under wraps for now. We don’t need anything getting out about one of the richest men in the world being under suspicion by our agency, especially given the army of lawyers he probably has.”

  Carter swiveled in her chair, glancing up at him. “Do me a favor and contact agents Martinez and Dobson and tell them they need to meet me at the airfield in three hours.” She stood up, grabbing her jacket off the back of the chair, then paused to glance at the topo map of Roth’s ranch. “Looks like Texas is calling.”

  “Hopefully, you won’t be landing at the same airport as Shepard. He’s gotta be heading there too.”

  She nodded, wondering if there was about to be an Old West shootout unfolding in the Chihuahuan Desert, only with AKs instead of Winchesters.

  50

  From the nine other pickups in the dirt parking lot outside the Black Cat bar, Blake Weissman could tell the place was hopping inside, which meant the usual suspects were drinking away their paychecks along with several out-of-towners, which hopefully meant some pretty new faces from tourists passing through.

  He’d already eaten some barbecued ribs back at his bunkhouse on Roth’s ranch, but he needed a change of scenery, and the Friday night line dancing scene here was, if nothing else, colorful, with the local yahoos trying to hit on the rambunctious college girls who ventured out from the city, hoping for a glimpse of an authentic working cowboy.

  After performing his duties as Roth’s ranch foreman, it was time to kick back and relax for the night, and the Black Cat was the only entertainment in the town of 1,200 people.