Motive ; One Last Day ; Going Viral

by Dustin Stevens

  “I need the file for Corporal Joshua Tarby sent over to me immediately.”

  “Okay, sir, I can do that, sir,” the man replied. “Fax or email?”

  “Both,” Ridge said, rattling the needed information off in short order, his tone never once rising above frigid. As he spoke, he could hear the man repeating it softly back while jotting things, ending the conversation the moment he was done.

  Slamming his phone down, he kept the receiver in its cradle and pressed a single button along the bottom of the front panel, a single tone sounding out. A moment later, a female voice could be heard piping through the speakerphone, filling the interior of the office.

  “Hello, Senator, how can I help you?” Ashley asked from the front desk.

  “I’ve got a fax coming in from Kansas City any moment now,” Ridge said. “Can you bring it in as soon as it arrives?”

  “Certainly, sir,” she replied.

  “Thanks,” Ridge mumbled, cutting off the discussion and leaning back again in his chair. Focusing on the computer monitor on the far right side of his desk, he stared at his incoming email program, waiting for a new line item to appear.

  Given his druthers, he would much prefer actually seeing the file printed out and would wait until Ashley brought it in before reading it. Still, he wanted to see how long it would take for it to arrive, if the man would be brazen enough to send it from his own email address.

  The answer to the first part of that turned out to be two minutes, a ding sounding out from the screen as a boldface entry appeared at the top of the screen. Sliding open the top drawer beside him, Ridge grabbed a pair of reading glasses, unfolding the arms and resting them on the tip of his nose.

  The second part of his question turned out to be just as he had imagined, the message arriving from a generic military email, the name assigned to some department within the National Archives.

  Feeling one corner of his mouth curl up slightly in a smile, Ridge muttered, “Chickenshit,” his attention still on the screen as a quick double-tap could be heard against his door.

  “Come on in, Ash,” he called, raising his voice to be heard. Keeping his gaze on the screen a moment longer, he waited until she was just in front of his desk before turning her way, not bothering to remove the glasses from his nose.

  “Here you are, sir,” she said, “seventeen pages in total.”

  “Thank you,” he replied, watching her bow slightly at the waist before retreating from the room, closing the door in her wake.

  Leaning forward in his seat, he grabbed up the stack of pages and pulled them over before him, running his focus down the length of the first page. Found there was nothing more than the usual basic information, including Tarby’s name and rank, his date of enlistment, his hometown, and the unit he was assigned to.

  Shuffling ahead to the second page, he saw that the young man had done his training at Fort Benning in Georgia, a mainstay that had been pumping out soldiers by the thousands for decades. During his time there, Tarby had received solid if unspectacular marks, his instructors all praising his discipline and willingness to learn.

  Moving quickly on to the third, he felt his insides begin to clench, the air pulling from his lungs as he processed the scant information before him. Shuffling the page off to the side, he went through the fourth page just as fast, followed in order by the fifth and sixth.

  By the time he made it to the seventh, there was no point in reading further, his core feeling as if an iron spike had been driven into the center of it, his entire digestive tract wrapped around it, trying in vain to process the lunch he’d thrown down a few hours before.

  Snapping the glasses down off his nose, he left them upside down on the pages before him, leaning back in his seat and closing his eyes, using a hand to rub hard at his forehead.

  “Now what the hell am I supposed to do with this?”

  Chapter Ten

  The afternoon sun was clear and bright overhead, though there was no warmth to it as Arnold Ames stepped outside the enormous vertical walls of the Pentagon. Stopping just beyond the front doors, he ignored the steady flow of foot traffic that streamed by him on both sides, his eyes hard as he stared into the distance.

  On the roadway nearby, afternoon traffic had already begun, the term being a very literal moniker, the cars starting to line up around lunchtime each day, commuters having adjusted their schedule so that it started well before the sun, ended well after dark, all with hopes of avoiding the dreaded crawl of sitting in their car.

  What on paper might have made sense, may have even worked out for a while, had long ago lost any semblance of reasonability, the city so overpopulated, the number of government jobs downtown so robust, that there was no way to ever avoid the slog.

  Hearing their errant honks and the occasional squeal of brakes, Ames turned west, putting his face into the brisk breeze, moving parallel to the Potomac River. Flowing in the opposite direction, the surface of it was a hazy silver color, darkened by the rise of buildings behind it, only the occasional flash of light reflected from the pale sky above.

  With his shoulders square, his cap pulled low over his cropped hair, the general walked for more than ten minutes at a steady pace, making it far enough that the Pentagon receded from view behind him.

  Along his left, the iron gate surrounding Arlington National Cemetery ran along the sidewalk he was on, stretched out for well over a mile before him, the far end of it demarcated by a steady throng of tour buses all pushing to get inside.

  Why anybody would want to travel across the country, or further, to take pictures and gawk at the resting place of heroes and patriots, Ames had no idea, the notion still inciting ire within him, something he would no doubt carry for the remainder of his days.

  Just past the corner of the cemetery, the general fished his cellphone from his pocket and gripped it in his right hand, inserting the small Bluetooth device into his opposite ear. Opening his bank of text messages, he moved down to the most recent entry and highlighted the name attached to it before pressing send.

  The moment it began to ring, he slid the phone back into his pocket, the tiny ear bud the only external sign he was making a call, his left cheek just a couple feet from the fence beside him.

  Three times the line rang before being snatched up, the voice on the other end panting slightly, as if out of breath.

  “Good afternoon, General,” the man said. “Sorry about that, I was on my way back from the head when I heard the phone ringing.”

  As he made the apology, the sound of a door rattling against its casing could be heard, the man shutting himself into his office. Even though there would be precious little actual information shared, both knew there was the extreme need for privacy.

  “What is this about?” Ames asked, ignoring the opening and the attached apology.

  The day had gotten off to a rocky start for Ames, beginning with the initial request to meet from Donner, only growing worse over the course of their conversation. By the time he had made it back to his desk, a tempest of thoughts and concerns were at work behind his steel gray eyes, the Lagavulin and accompanying cut of beef being the only two things that had gone remotely right since he woke.

  Receiving the text message he had just referenced an hour after returning only made things worse, deep frown lines etched into either side of his face, neither appearing like they may leave anytime soon.

  “This is about the list,” the man said, keeping his answer intentionally vague, just as he had been instructed to do.

  “The list,” Ames repeated.

  “Yes, sir,” the man replied. “We’ve been pinged.”

  Forcing himself to keep his pace even, his eye level high, not giving the slightest external sign that anything was amiss, Ames said, “Pinged?”

  “Yes, sir,” the man said again. “There’s been a file request.”

  Ames’s initial reaction was to ask who it was for, though he refrained from doing so.

  That too wa
s part of the long established protocol.

  “Cause for concern?” he asked instead. Already he knew the answer to the question, just as he knew the reason why Donner had asked to meet that morning.

  The particulars of either situation weren’t overly important, but the fact that these men were reaching out to him meant something was wrong.

  That simple fact was about the only thing that these men seemed to share with the ones he oversaw from his desk each day at the Pentagon.

  “I wouldn’t be calling otherwise.”

  Drawing his lips into a tight line, Ames pushed a long breath out through his nose. Beside him, cars continued to move in an unending snake, all running forty or more miles an hour, none allowing more than a couple of feet between their bumper and the rear of the one in front of them.

  Reaching the fence post that demarcated an exact mile and a half from his desk, the general stopped abruptly, rotating on the ball of his foot and heading back in the opposite direction.

  “Call it in. You know the rest.”

  Sliding his left hand up to his ear, he swapped the Bluetooth out and pressed the button on the side to end the call, sliding it back into his pocket. Keeping both hands buried inside the warm trousers, he retraced the steps he had made just a short time before, nothing more to the curious observer than a man that had needed a few minutes away from his desk.

  Even to the trained eye, there was nothing to give away what had just taken place.

  Just as there would be precious little to hint at what surely lay ahead.

  Chapter Eleven

  Standing over his desk, both palms pressed flat against the polished cherry top, his weight shifted onto this right foot, his left heel elevated just slightly, Jackson Ridge leaned forward, feeling the stretch in his shoulders, his glasses balanced precariously on the tip of his nose.

  “You know what the easiest way to draw attention to yourself is?”

  For a moment there was no response, nobody even in his office to reply, before Susan Beckwith entered, a slip of paper between the index and middle finger of her left hand.

  “Hmm?” she asked, not bothering to offer anything more, trusting that the question was rhetorical.

  “Trying too damned hard to hide,” Ridge replied, shaking his head slightly as he stared down at the papers.

  Across from him, Beckwith walked forward until she was even between the chairs she and Tarby had used a short time earlier, the quartet still in place before the desk.

  “And who is trying too hard?”

  Waiting a moment, continuing to stare down at the pages strewn across his desk, Ridge heard the question. He felt it resonate within, ping-ponging across his mind, though no answer came back to him.

  Pushing himself back to upright, he extended a hand at the mess of papers, sliding the glasses from his nose with his opposite paw.

  “I mean, look at this. How the hell is anybody supposed to make heads or tails of this mess?”

  Glancing down, only her eyes moving, Beckwith flicked her gaze over the expanse of the desk before looking back to him.

  “I’m guessing that’s the idea?”

  Fixing his stare on her, Ridge said, “Yes, but why? This wasn’t some highly classified operation, this kid wasn’t on a clandestine mission somewhere he wasn’t supposed to be.

  “This guy was a truck guard, as nameless and faceless as a thousand just like him, yet somehow this is what his file looks like?”

  On the last part of the sentence, he again jabbed a finger at the pages before him, disgust plain in his tone, on his face.

  With the exception of the first four pages – the most basic of information from Tarby’s enlistment and early training period – most everything else had been redacted. Page after page of nothing but thick black bars, most of them stretched the width of the page, others stopping long enough to just allow a few stray words in odd places.

  Cumulatively, they effectively managed to wipe out anything of use, almost all of Josh Tarby’s time in service, certainly every minute spent in Afghanistan, effectively gone.

  “No,” Ridge said, twisting his head and glancing up to Beckwith, the woman remaining as impassive as she had in their briefing first thing that morning. “Something’s not right here.”

  Considering the statement, Beckwith allowed the top of her head to dip just slightly to the side. “The man was dishonorably discharged. Perhaps something happened that needed to be struck from the record.”

  “But wouldn’t that be all the more reason to leave it there?” Ridge fired back. “There needs to be some explanation as to why the military suddenly kicked what appears to be a pretty good kid out on his ass.”

  Taking a half step forward, Beckwith extended the piece of paper she held across the desk, the small white square still tucked between the first two fingers on her left hand.

  “And just weeks after his death,” she added.

  “Right,” Ridge snapped, raising a hand at her, his voice growing more animated. “What the hell?”

  Saying nothing, Beckwith wagged the paper in his direction, waiting as he reached out and accepted it before slowly starting to withdraw from the room.

  “Hopefully, he can help.”

  Looking down at the paper, Ridge unfolded it to see a name and a phone both scrawled across it in plain blue ink.

  “Thanks, Susie,” he mumbled, his Chief of Staff raising a hand and fluttering her fingers at him as she exited, saying nothing.

  Placing the piece of paper down on the desk, Ridge stared at it a moment before reaching out and grasping his phone. Raising it just a few inches, he immediately reconsidered, lowering it back into place.

  Bending at the waist, he instead went into the top drawer of his desk, into the same space his glasses had been, the small wooden box his only repository for personal items in the office. Nudging aside his wallet and house keys, he grabbed up the ancient flip phone that had been with him for a decade and snapped it open, the hinges creaking slightly from the effort.

  Peering down his nose at the paper atop his desk, he punched the digits into the phone and pressed it to his face. Stepping out from behind the desk, he moved over and stood before the window along his left flank, feeling the cool outside air permeate the glass, the sun already beginning a slow descent in the western sky.

  “Hey, it’s me. You have time to meet right now?”

  Chapter Twelve

  There was never a question of where the meeting would take place, the site being one that had been used countless times over the years, this being the first in the better part of a decade.

  Much smaller in stature than the other monuments dotting the National Mall and the area surrounding it, the World War I Memorial was first erected in 1981. Little more than a marble gazebo, columns supported a domed roof above an open air floor, the total structure no more than fifteen feet across. Tucked away in the corner of Pershing Park, it afforded a decent view of the nearby pond and gardens, well off the beaten mall footpath, frequented only by picnickers and others looking for a few moments of solitude within the city.

  It was in the latter category that Jackson Ridge found himself as he cut a diagonal path across the grass between the sidewalk surrounding the Reflecting Pond and the memorial. Bent forward at the waist, the stiff breeze pushed the short hair atop his head back and forth, riding along the inside of his overcoat.

  Underfoot, the ground was frozen nearly solid, the grass having just a slight give as he maneuvered his way through errant pockets of snow.

  When he had first arrived in the city, not far removed from the ranching life of Wyoming, the East coast version of cold had barely registered with him. While there was a certain undeniable edge to the extreme moisture that was always in the air, the city had nothing on the open expanses of his home state, where temperatures dropped precipitously below zero, winds tearing through and pushing things down even lower.

  In those first days, it was the opposite end of the calendar that bo
thered him far more, the mid-summer heat and humidity leaving his clothes damp with sweat, a condition that seemed to arrive in early June and not depart until well after football season had started for the year.

  The thought brought a hint of a smile to his face as he moved forward, pushing one foot out in front of the other, his gait suggesting he was stepping through an invisible field of knee deep snow.

  Now, both of the extremes seemed to bring out the worst in him, the summer giving the impression he was perpetually melting, the winter causing him to ache to the core.

  East coast living had made him soft.

  His parents would be ashamed.

  “Excuse me, sir, might you have the time?”

  The voice snapped Ridge from his thoughts, his head remaining aimed forward as his eyes swept the area around him, seizing on the man he had called just an hour before. Seated on a park bench less than fifty yards from the memorial, the man had a small paper bag in his lap, puffs of popcorn extended from the top.

  Dressed in dark jeans and a black leather coat, a black-and-white plaid scarf was wrapped around his throat, a pageboy cap tilted on his head. A ring of gray hair was visible beneath the bottom of it, what little skin that was exposed to the elements the color of milk chocolate.

  In front of him, a bevy of white and gray pigeons hopped about, imploring him to continue tossing more of the feast their way.

  “Time?” Ridge said, glancing around to ensure they were alone before settling onto the opposite end of the bench. “Time seems to be the only damn thing I have a lot of these days.”

  A small chuckle rolled from the man, the gesture lifting his shoulders just slightly. “You and me both, brother.”

  Breaking their usual posture for just a quick moment, Ridge pulled his right hand from his coat and reached across his body, feeling the chilly air grip his fingers.