Motive ; One Last Day ; Going Viral

by Dustin Stevens

  “Sonuva...” Ridge muttered, letting his voice trail away.

  “Yup,” Murray said. “You said you got a peek at his file earlier. Let me guess, nothing but black bars?”

  “Like a horizontal prison,” Ridge answered. “One page after another.”

  “That’s what I got too,” Murray replied, “which is saying something.”

  Shifting slightly, Ridge bent at the waist, peeking out to make sure there was nobody nearby. At the far end of the hallway, he could see a tuft of thick brown hair and a blue suit appear, presumably his successor Willis Hodges, the sight of him only adding to the frown on Ridge’s features.

  “How so?”

  “Well,” Murray said, “most of the time, files are redacted by just covering portions of texts and making a photocopy. That way, whatever they want hidden does so without damaging the original wording.”

  “Just in case they ever need it,” Ridge reasoned.

  “Right,” Murray replied. “I mean, just because they don’t want a particular story getting out to the masses doesn’t mean they shouldn’t have it documented somewhere.”

  Never before had Ridge given a huge amount of thought to the topic, though what Murray was saying made sense. There were certainly a great number of incidents that had occurred during his time in the military - things that he and many others would like to pretend never happened – that he would prefer never reached the media.

  That didn’t mean they needed to be wiped from history, for a variety of reasons.

  “But Tarby’s?” Ridge asked, already feeling a draw deep within telling him where the conversation was going.

  “Let me put it this way,” Murray replied. “I don’t know what the hell that kid did exactly, and the way that file looks right now, nobody else ever will either.”

  Leaning a shoulder against the door, Ridge again glanced down the hall, watching as Hodges and a pair of staffers stepped out and began plodding in the opposite direction.

  Twice the man turned back and glared at his future office as he went, Ridge too far away to make out his facial features, but clearly seeing the body language that was on display.

  “Piss on him,” he whispered, bitterness contorting his features.

  “What was that?” Murray asked, his voice pulling Ridge back to the conversation, his attention away from the hallway outside.

  “Nothing,” Ridge replied, “just some bastard here at the office trying to overstep his boundaries again.”

  “Ah,” Murray replied, offering nothing more, leaving it at that.

  “Okay,” Ridge said, shoving the word out with a sigh. “It was worth a shot, thanks for taking a look, Sea Bass. I appreciate it.”

  “Well, now, hold on,” Murray said, raising his voice just slightly. “I said I didn’t find a damn thing in the file, not that I didn’t have a damn thing to offer you.”

  Pausing for a moment, Ridge considered the words, not sure quite what was being alluded to.

  “Okay,” Ridge said. “Meaning?”

  “Meaning one of the few pieces of information I was able to strip away from those pages were the letters CID.”

  After his years with the Armed Services Committee, Ridge was more than familiar with the acronym, the group serving as the investigators tasked with all felonies occurring within the jurisdiction of the military system.

  “So there was an investigation,” he whispered, linking the information up to what he already knew in his mind.

  “Yup, and it must have been something big,” Murray said, “because we’re not talking basic on-base military police here. Somebody flew these guys in to poke around for a while.”

  Again falling silent, Ridge felt his eyes narrow slightly as he ruminated on the information.

  “Flew them in from where?” he asked.

  On the other end, he could hear a small chuckle, enabling him to envision the smile spread across Murray’s face. “Now you’re starting to see, old man.”

  It was the second crack that had been made about his age that afternoon, but it hardly registered with Ridge, his focus still on the unanswered question he had posed a moment before.

  “Flew them in from where?” he asked.

  When Murray spoke again, the previous mirth was gone from his voice, the grave tone back into place.

  “CID is headquartered down the road at the Marine Corp Base, sharing space with the boys at Quantico.”

  These too were names Ridge was familiar with, the Marines and the FBI sharing a joint facility a couple of hours outside the Capitol.

  Pushing back the sleeve of the jacket he was still wearing, Ridge checked his watch, seeing it was already well into mid-afternoon.

  “Dammit,” he muttered. “There’s no way anybody down there will start willingly answering questions over the phone.”

  “Right you are,” Murray replied.

  “And with outbound traffic being what it is, it would take forever to get there right now.”

  “Right again,” Murray answered, “but luckily for you, there isn’t a need for you to go jumping into the Batmobile and rush off to save the day just yet.”

  Allowing the sleeve of his coat to slide back into place, Ridge again felt his brows come together, confusion etched in the lines outlining his face.

  “Meaning what, exactly?”

  Chapter Sixteen

  The crowd at the Iwo Jima monument was just beginning to thin, the hordes of Japanese tourists that had spent the last forty-five minutes milling around the base of it starting to disperse. Slowly, in clumps of two and three, they made their way back to the quintet of buses idling nearby, ready to take them to their next designated stop on their tour of America’s capital.

  Seated on the outer edge of the concrete encircling the structure, General Arnold Ames leaned back against the metal support behind him, doing his best to appear impassive, to look just like any other person out on the blustery January afternoon.

  Dressed down from his uniform before leaving the office for the day, he sat in jeans and a plaid button-down, a canvas coat atop the ensemble, his hands shoved into the front pockets. In that position he sat and waited, watching as people took unending photos of the iconic image before him, the afternoon sun shining down at an angle, providing the optimal light for the endeavor.

  Not that Ames was one to be bothered with such notions, photography just another hobby he had little time or patience for.

  Instead, his thoughts were on the call from a short time earlier, on the words shared from his contact in Kansas City. Matching it up against what Donner had said earlier in the day, dozens of thoughts and permutations ran through his mind, none of them seeming particularly appealing.

  “We’ve really got to stop meeting like this,” a voice said, arriving a few moments before its owner, “people are going to start talking.”

  Feeling a scowl cross his features, Ames sat without giving any other visible reaction, not even bothering to glance to the side as Leopold Donner dropped himself on the opposite end of the bench. Despite the seat being constructed of rubber-coated steel, he could still feel a small tremble pass through it, his counterpart’s bulk sending a tremor throughout.

  “Donner,” Ames said, his voice terse, letting it be known that this was hardly a time for joking.

  “General,” Donner replied, “to what do I owe the pleasure of a second face-to-face today?”

  There was no way Ames would ever refer to a meeting with Donner as a pleasure, knowing with reasonable certainty that his cohort felt exactly the same way. Theirs was a relationship of circumstance, something that had been borne out of opportunity, had remained out of necessity.

  In no other context would they even be having a conversation, much less be anything approaching friends.

  “What were you able to find out?” Ames asked.

  To the right, he could feel Donner shift to glance his way, a half-smile on his face, before turning to face forward again.

  “Wow, at leas
t you bought me lunch the first time.”

  Feeling his features tighten, his core doing the same, Ames shoved out a slow breath through his nostrils, careful to make sure it was loud enough to be heard, before speaking.

  “I really don’t think-“

  “Yeah, yeah,” Donner said, “I know. Just buttering you up a little bit.”

  Having seen this play out before, knowing that it never went anywhere good, Ames said, “Just get on with it. No amount of bush beating ever helps anything.”

  Beside him there was no response for a moment, the two of them watching as the crowd continued to thin, stragglers taking a final few selfies before drifting off toward their waiting carriages, the engines already running, the sound a steady purr providing background noise over the grounds.

  Meeting at most of the monuments downtown was so common it had almost become a cliché, that being the very reason Ames made such a point to avoid it.

  At any given moment there could be spotted a host of people in business attire huddled up, all pretending to be doing nothing more than feeding the birds or reading a newspaper, thinking they were invisible to the world around them.

  To Ames, they might as well have posted a billboard with flashing lights above them, that being the only way they could possibly draw any more attention to themselves.

  Situated on the opposite side of the river from the hub of the city, the Iwo Jima was one that he didn’t mind using, the place far enough off the beaten path to avoid most of the D.C. crowd, but sufficiently established to ensure there was always more than a few tourists on hand.

  “The woman wasn’t an easy ID to make,” Donner said. “Nothing in facial recognition, meaning no prior criminal offenses, not even a legal driver’s license.”

  Ames knew exactly what the lack of facial recognition meant, his agitation only growing, though he remained silent, wanting nothing more than for Donner to get to the point.

  “Ended up having to go through a contact in the media at a station that had reported on the little gathering with Ridge this morning,” Donner said. “Promised her a few things I wasn’t particularly proud of, but in the end, it paid off.”

  The last line was tinged with mirth, the sort of playful posturing that was better served in a locker room than in their current position.

  “And she said?” Ames asked, again spurring things along.

  In his periphery, he could feel Donner turn and stare his direction, blood rushing to Ames’s cheeks, more from the man’s complete lack of decorum than for the glare he was receiving.

  “Clara Tarby,” Donner said, “none other than the mother of one-“

  “Joshua Tarby,” Ames finished.

  “Joshua Tarby,” Donner echoed, “which, as you know-“

  “Yes, I know,” Ames snapped, cutting him off for a second time.

  “Which means you also know, that ain’t good.”

  For no less than the fifth time that day, Ames felt his acrimony for the man beside him grow, wondering what had possessed him to ever get in league with such an individual.

  “But what I don’t know,” Donner said, “is why you called and asked to meet with me first. I only just found out a few minutes ago.”

  Watching as the side doors to the buses closed up one after another, the enormous machines shifting into gear and beginning to rumble away, Ames said, “It’s actually much worse than just her being Tarby’s mother.”

  Falling silent for a moment, he waited as the buses passed, their noise too great to be heard over, before casting a quick glance to Donner and saying, “I got a call from our guy in KC. Apparently, Ridge put in a file request earlier this afternoon.”

  “For Tarby?” Donner asked, as if there was another possibility, any other reason Ames might be sharing the information.

  “For Tarby,” he confirmed, leaving his response at that.

  “Oh, shit,” Donner said.

  Not wanting to agree with the assessment, or to comment on the lack of help that it was, Ames simply sat and stared, waiting for Donner to put things together beside him.

  “Okay,” the younger man said, “that thing has been doctored to Hell and back, so we don’t have anything to worry about there.”

  “Unless somebody starts to wonder why it’s been doctored,” Ames retorted.

  “Unless that,” Donner conceded, the two rattling off things in a rapid fashion, the two more thinking out loud than having an actual conversation.

  At the conclusion, they fell silent for several moments, each staring as the sun dipped a little lower in the sky, hiding behind the outstretched legs of the last man in position, the frozen figures all fighting to plant the flag on some far-off shore.

  “So how do we handle this?” Donner asked.

  Without a doubt, it was the most cogent thing the man had said since arriving, the very same question Ames had been rolling around all afternoon.

  Right now, it was still possible that this was nothing more than a fishing expedition, Ridge placing a few phone calls to try and atone for an embarrassing meeting that morning. If such was the case, they had nothing to worry about, the redacted file being everything they needed to stymie his efforts.

  Should he feel the need to dig further, things could start getting complicated, especially if he began to assert any amount of pressure on the sort of contacts he had surely developed over the years.

  “I don’t think we need to move in yet, but the time has come for us to at least be aware of what he is up to,” Ames said.

  A small grunt in the affirmative was Donner’s first response, followed by, “Team approach or solo effort?”

  “As little as possible to get the job done,” Ames replied. “But make damned sure it gets done.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Jackson Ridge was barely more than back in his office, still hanging his formal overcoat on the polished wooden rack in the corner, when Susan Beckwith strode in. With her footfalls silent, she made it within just a few feet before stopping and clearing her throat, the sound causing Ridge to flinch, his adrenaline spiking as he turned to face her, hands clutching the coat on either side of the peg he was aiming for.

  Seeing it was her, the feeling receded, his heart rate slowing, his ears glowing a bit with embarrassment.

  “Damn, Susie...” he muttered. “Next time make some noise or something. You’re liable to give an old man a heart attack.”

  Opening her mouth, as if about to point out that she had made a noise before speaking, she closed it just as fast, the corners of her mouth turning down only slightly.

  “Of course, sir,” she replied. “I just came in to say that a Lucious McVey is here to see you.”

  Shifting his focus to the rack just long enough to finish hanging up his coat, Ridge said, “Tell him I’m sorry, but I’m not available this afternoon.”

  Leaning forward, he lowered his voice and added, “You know what I’m working on right now, the time frame we’re up against.”

  “I do,” Beckwith replied, making no effort to match the tone or the stance, “and I believe he is here to help with that.”

  Leaving her explanation at that, she turned on a heel and strode for the door, stopping just short of it and standing to the side.

  “There we are, Mr. McVey. Please, come inside and have a seat.”

  “Thank you,” a light, high-pitched voice responded. An instant later a man strode through the door that didn’t seem to match it in the slightest, his light brown head shaved clean of hair, creases on either side of his mouth seeming to frame his face in a constant grimace.

  Standing more than a head taller than Beckwith, he wore chocolate-colored slacks and a black knit sweater beneath a baggy coat, a scarf hanging from his neck.

  “Can I get you anything?” Beckwith asked. “Coffee? Tea? Water?”

  “No, thank you,” the man replied, striding across the floor and moving directly for Ridge, still standing by the coat rack.

  With each step he seemed to
grow even taller, the senator’s eyes growing large as he took the man in, rifling through his internal Rolodex and coming back quite certain he had never encountered him before.

  “Hello,” he said, extending a hand before him, not trying to mask any confusion in his voice. “Jackson Ridge.”

  “Senator,” the man replied, accepting the shake in his massive paw and pumping it twice. “Lucious McVey.”

  Still feeling uncertainty etched across his face, Ridge said, “Good to meet you. Please, have a seat.”

  Releasing the shake, the two men retreated to their respective sides of the desk, McVey unfurling the scarf from around his neck and dropping it into his lap, leaving his coat on as he settled down into his chair.

  After spending most of the day holding the likes of Beckwith and Clara Tarby, the seat seemed many sizes too small, the sight almost comical as McVey folded himself down into it.

  “There’s no way you have any idea who I am, so let me get right down to it,” McVey said, taking the lead. “The reason you don’t know my name or my face is because for the last twenty-two years I have worked for Army Counterintelligence.”

  Like a great many of the things Ridge had heard bandied about over the course of the afternoon, the term was something he had at least some passing familiarity with, his knowledge being more on the surface than to any deep level of understanding.

  “I see,” he managed.

  “And our mutual friend Sebastian called and asked if I wouldn’t mind stopping by for a few minutes to help clear up a few things for you.”

  The mention of Murray brought things a bit more into focus, explaining the man now seated in his office, the reason for his unexpected visit.

  When he had gotten off the phone a few minutes earlier, he wasn’t entirely sure what Murray was alluding to when he said help might be on the way, though this certainly wasn’t quite what he had planned on.

  “I see,” he said again. “And you just happened to be in the area?”

  Across from him, McVey leveled a stare, holding the pose for a moment, letting it be known that despite the office they were sitting in, he was very much in charge of the conversation they were having.