by S L Shelton
She was starting to drift off, so I walked over to her to relieve her of her bottle before she could drop it. As I reached my hand out, she whipped a SIG Sauer out of her shoulder holster and leveled it at my head with a steadiness I wouldn’t have thought possible in her drunken condition.
There she sat, sideways, for several seconds, pointing her weapon at me—I didn’t move a muscle.
“I just didn’t want you to drop your whiskey,” I said. “It would’ve been a waste of two bucks.”
She stared at me a beat longer and then laughed as she tucked her pistol back into her holster. “You’re cute,” she said as her head lulled back on the cushions of the sofa.
“You like that sofa?” I asked.
She rolled her head up, blurry eyed, before patting the cushion with her free hand. “Yeah,” she said. “Good sofa.”
“I’m glad you like it,” I said. “Why don’t you put your feet up and let that whiskey get to work on your cotton mouth.”
She chuckled again. “Funny too,” she slurred and then seemed to think about my proposal for a second. “Okay. But no grabby grab ass shit… got me?”
“Scout’s honor,” I said, holding up two fingers.
“God damn boy scouts,” she muttered as she pulled her feet up onto the cushions.
“Always prepared,” I replied.
“Not today they weren’t,” she muttered as she closed her eyes.
“Hey,” I whispered.
She opened one eye to a slit.
“Don’t shoot me,” I said. “I’m going to set your bottle and your gun over here.”
She shrugged as I lifted the bottle away from her before gently easing the weapon out of her holster. I set them down on the desk across the room after taking a generous drink from the bottle and ejecting the round from the chamber of the pistol.
I padded as quietly as I could into the bathroom and took the bottle of asprin from my shaving kit before filling a glass from the tap. I set them on the coffee table in front of her for when she woke up.
“Good night, Charlotte,” I said as I covered her with a blanket from the closet. “I’ll see you in the morning.
After retreating silently to my room, I closed the door carefully. My shoulder and ribs still ached, but I resisted groaning as I pulled off my t-shirt and tossed it to the floor—though, a small grunt of discomfort did escape as I climbed into bed.
“That was exhausting,” I muttered and slowly, fighting backtrail imagery from returning to my mind, I drifted off into an uneasy sleep.
September 1996—Spotsylvania, Virginia
SCOTT WOLFE watched as his father launched himself across the room toward the intruder who had just stuck a needle in his mother’s neck. Hank extracted a screwdriver from his shop apron as he sailed toward the man and plunged it into his neck. The man reared back, trying to throw Hank off of him, but his father held on tight, slipping his arms around the man’s head before ripping it to the side violently—the man dropped to the floor, lifeless.
“Hank!” the man behind his father yelled. “What’ve you done?!”
Scott’s chest contracted in fear. He had seen his father angry before. He had even seen him in a rage, throwing furniture and pounding his head against the wall, but he would have never in a million years thought his father capable of killing someone with his bare hands.
“Run!” His father yelled at Scott and his sister. “Go!”
Scott grabbed his big sister, Caroline, by the wrist, and tried to flee the room, but the other man—Roger, his dad had called him—reached out and grabbed Caroline’s arm as they passed. Scott turned to free her, but his father yelled at him again.
“Go, now!” he screamed again.
Scott hesitated for a second but then did as his father had commanded, running down the stairs, his chest heaving from fear and shock. When he reached the bottom of the stairs, he was confronted by another man who appeared out of nowhere. The stranger reached out and tried to grab Scott by the arm.
Slide, whispered a voice into Scott’s ear.
Scott let his feet drop from under him as he hit the well-polished wooden floor at the base of the stairs and slid past him.
Hit him in the doodads, the voice urged using Scott’s own term for “testicles”.
Scott quickly lashed out as he slid past and punched with everything his ten-year-old body could muster. The man doubled over on himself as Scott hopped up and continued his escape through the kitchen.
As he hit the screen door, he heard crashes upstairs and the pounding of feet coming down behind him. He looked over his shoulder and saw his father crashing into the man he had slid past only seconds earlier.
CRASH! The man dropped to the floor, still not having recovered from the punch to the balls.
Scott picked up his pace, crossing the yard to the field that would lead to the driveway and down to River Road below. When he reached the long gravel driveway, he saw a car at the bottom of the hill. He ran past it but was caught unaware by another man who had been waiting there.
The man wrapped his strong arms around Scott, sending a flash of panic through him and he began to thrash and kick.
He felt a sting in his neck. He pushed hard against the man’s hand but was cut by something he was holding. Scott's hand exploded with pain.
A knife, Scott thought. He’s trying to kill me!
eight
Saturday, September 4th
6:45 a.m.—Ramstein Inn
I woke to the sound of the shower at almost seven o’clock and immediately reached for my iPad to check my email. I only had one new message that interested me—from Kathrin. The rest were routine updates.
I pulled up her message and read:
Scott,
You look good with a beard. I can still feel it on my cheek. Next time, we plan further ahead, and I’ll get that week you promised me.
It was so good to see and touch you after so long…like we only saw each other last week. I’ll talk with you soon. Be well.
Gretle
Before I got a chance to reply, there was a knock at the door. I got up and felt for my jeans before looking around the dark room for my shirt as I pulled them on. But the pounding was insistent, so I went out to answer in just my jeans.
I pulled the door open and was startled to see Nick Horiatis standing there as I zipped up.
“Get dressed, we need to scope a plan,” he said without a hello.
“Hi, Nick,” I said with snark. “How was the flight?”
“Go get dressed,” he repeated with a bored tone—I could tell he was agitated.
Just then the bathroom door opened. I turned to see Charlotte come walking out, wrapped in a towel, and drying her hair with another.
I started to turn back toward Nick when my other voice whispered, Relax, accompanied by an almost involuntary relaxation of my neck.
I didn’t even see the punch that caught me across the chin and sent me crashing to the floor.
“You goddamned Neanderthal!” Charlotte yelled as Nick moved toward me to do more damage. “I slept on the couch! I was trying to get showered and out of here before he woke up. LOOK!” she said, pointing at the blanket and her jacket on the sofa.
Nick stopped moving toward me and looked at the sofa, seeing that the pieces of her story added up.
“Morning, Nick,” I said again from the floor, rubbing my jaw. “How was your flight?”
He turned and stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind him.
“I’m sorry,” she said, reaching her hand out to help me up. “That was sort of my fault.”
“It’s okay,” I replied. “He hits like a girl.”
A brief expression of amusement flashed across her face, followed by a little anger. “Hey,” she said bitterly. “Some of us girls pack a punch.”
“I don’t doubt it,” I said as I stood, still rubbing my jaw. I looked at her with a knowing grin. “So you and Nick, huh?”
“Get dressed,” she
said abruptly, then disappeared back into the bathroom.
“I can see why,” I muttered. “You’ve got lots in common.”
**
I pulled up a chair next to Charlotte in the mess hall, my tray piled with eggs and bacon. She looked at my plate as I sat before turning her head in disgust—I was worried she might be sick.
She pulled her sunglasses down over her eyes and slouched over her coffee cup.
“No eggs this morning?” I asked, taunting her. “Probably a good thing. They’re a bit runny.”
I watched as she suppressed a little gag before taking a sip of coffee. “You were cuter when I was drunk,” she said quietly, looking away from me.
Just then, Airman Griggs walked over to us, sporting a new black eye. “I’ve got the car out front to take you to the meeting in the hangar,” he said, trying hard not to look at Charlotte—she must have given him the black eye last night when he came looking for her.
“Thanks, man,” I said. “We’ve got a few minutes. Have you had breakfast yet? The eggs are good and runny this morning.”
Charlotte flexed her shoulders up and turned further away from me, trying to suppress another gag reflex.
“It’s not usually my thing, but the sausage gravy looked pretty good, poured over those biscuits,” I continued, aiming my words at Charlotte’s back.
Her shoulders hunched up a couple more times before she made a quiet gagging sound before getting up and running for the bathroom. I looked up at Griggs and smiled. “Go get a plate of something and come have breakfast. It’s the most important meal of the day…unless all you had for dinner was Jack Daniels.”
He chuckled and walked off to get some food.
By the time Charlotte got back, Griggs and I were nearly finished with breakfast.
“Come on,” she said with hoarseness to her voice. “We’re holding up the meeting.”
I looked at my watch and saw we still had more than thirty minutes, but I got up with my nearly empty tray anyway. Griggs shoveled a couple more forks full of gravy biscuit into his mouth and did the same before running to catch up with us.
Charlotte got into the backseat of the sedan before pulling out her phone. I got up front with Griggs and we drove off toward the hangar where the meeting was to be.
Charlotte must have been checking messages or something because she kept the phone to her ear the whole ride. When we arrived at the hangar, she got out and walked away from the car without a word.
“Thanks for the ride,” I said to Griggs before closing the door and jogging to catch up with her.
I slowed to a matching pace when I was next to her. “You were right,” I said, causing her to look at me sideways. “Some of you pack a punch.”
She sniffed dismissively as we entered the massive structure. In the back of the building, there was a small group of men in combat fatigues who were sitting or lying down on bundles of canvas, boxes, and whatever else they could find. Two were off to the side, talking quietly. As we got closer I realized one of them was Nick—he looked up as we approached.
“Where’s your stuff?” he asked me.
“Stuff?” I replied.
“Your bags, your computers…” he said. “You know…stuff.”
“Is this a move-out?” I asked.
“Jesus,” he muttered, shaking his head.
“Sorry,” I replied. “I must have missed the rest of the message between you telling me how your flight was and storming out of the room.”
He looked at me with venom in his eyes.
“I mean you may have mentioned it, but I don’t remember much after you hit me,” I responded with a little venom of my own.
He smiled a stone smile and nodded his head away from the rest of the group, clearly requesting a private conference. He put his arm across my shoulder as if making a friendly gesture but squeezed to make sure I understood he was pissed—as if I couldn’t already tell.
“If you aren’t up to this, I don’t have a problem leaving you here,” he said quietly as we moved away from the rest of the group. “If it were up to me, that’s what would happen anyway.”
“Gee, Nick. I’m sorry,” I said with mock friendliness. “I didn’t get the memo. I’ll go grab what I need as soon as the meeting is over. When are we shipping out?”
“We’re loading the gear on the plane as soon as the meeting is over and then heading out,” he said. “If you aren’t on board, you can walk to Turkey.”
“Ah! Turkey!” I exclaimed. “The first real information you’ve given me all morning. Thanks for the briefing.”
His chin jutted out and he pressed his lips together tightly, trying to suppress what surely would have been a scene if he continued.
“You’ve got the floor, Monkey Wrench,” he said, turning us both back toward the group. “Why don’t you share what you know?”
I smiled. “Thanks, Nick,” I said tensely and then looked at the men and Charlotte as they gathered around a map on the table. “The Serbs, or whoever they’re using now, know the surveillance satellite orbits. That’s why we haven’t been able to backtrail them for the past few weeks.”
I turned the map around to show the group from their side. “The truck that supposedly caused the explosion originated from Turkey but took the long road through Syria and then back up to Midyat.” I said, tracing the route with my finger.
“Supposedly?” one of the men said with some agitation. “It was pretty obvious from where I was standing yesterday…and to the five guys going home today in body bags.”
I noted the abrasions on his face and hands. It instantly dawned on me that some of the security team from the explosion yesterday were among the group I was briefing.
I shook my head. “I know the explosion happened. I just have no way of verifying the truck was the source.” I replied, slipping a tone of sympathy into the statement. “The explosives may have been in the building before the truck got there.”
“Stay on track,” Nick warned. “Stick with the trail.”
I nodded and went back to the briefing. “The truck could have been loaded up anywhere along the way, or they could have just been waiting in the building. But aside from that, we know how they’ve been hiding their trail now.”
“That’s it?” Nick asked.
I nodded.
“What about Ukil?” he asked.
“The paths haven’t intersected, but as soon as they do, I’ll be all over it,” I replied. “I haven’t drilled down on the other locations yet, but I can do that in-flight. I have the imagery.”
“So what are we supposed to do?” another one of the tactical team asked.
“We’re going to follow these bastards, grab one, and beat the fucking INTEL out of them,” Charlotte growled from the side.
“That’s not going to be our best hope of finding trail origin,” I said as gently as I could without looking timid. “They don’t know we figured out their secret to invisibility. If we lay back, we could follow them to their doorstep.”
“Bullshit,” she muttered. “The clock is ticking.”
“I know,” I replied. “But they’ve been testing our ability to track them for weeks. This is a new tactic, and the fact that they paraded that truck all over Turkey and Syria before they set the trap means they're confident they have invisibility. They would expect movement into Syria to investigate every stop if we knew what they had done—we have to avoid that. That’s why the truck didn’t have the warheads—it was another test.”
“Then what do you suggest?” Nick asked, his anger just barely disguised.
“Don’t act on any information that doesn’t come from the surveillance we normally use,” I said plainly. “If they continue to think we can’t see their movements, they’ll rely more heavily on those methods. Once they’re convinced we can’t see them, they’ll try to move the devices.”
Nick and Charlotte looked at each other and shrugged in a mild show of acceptance to my suggestion.
“That
’s how we feel here as well.” I suddenly heard John’s voice. I moved the map and saw a triangular conference call device—he had been listening to the whole thing. “The new level of detail Scott provided us won’t do any good if we tip our hand. But we need to show we are on top of the standard data so they won’t get suspicious. Any reaction to the new imagery needs to be covert—real covert.”
“How do you want us to proceed, Momma?” Nick asked John.
“I want the bulk of our response to start with the rest of the investigators,” he replied. “Delta is to provide security and any backup the forensics guys need. That garage in Turkey where the truck started from yesterday, I want a strong visible presence there so the Serbs—or whoever's leading them now—think we hit another dead end.”
“So, you want to use our primary tactical force as window dressing?” Nick asked—a little too sharply.
“No, Nick,” John said, dressing him down just a bit with his tone. “The forensics investigation operation is real. They need security, plus, it puts our guys in the area with a valid excuse rather than having them sit conspicuously on standby waiting for an incursion.”
There was no response from Nick. After a few seconds of silence, Charlotte spoke up. “You said you want the bulk of the team to be with the expected response…that means you want some resources following up on the new backtrail INTEL—right?”
“Correct,” John replied firmly. “A three man team—two tactical escorts and one tech support… Nick, you'll be the Op leader for both groups.”
“Escort for who?” Nick asked, focusing on the comment about the 'tech'.
“The tech,” John replied. “We need to get tracking on the vehicles they think we don’t know about. That’s going to require a tech.”
“Who are you flying in for that?” Nick asked with tension in his voice, his previous question not answered to his satisfaction.
“Monkey Wrench,” John said with no hesitation.
I’m going into the field! I thought as an involuntary smile spread across my face.
