by Brad Taylor
“He runs a mosque, like they all do. Truthfully, we can’t even prove he’s bad. He just preaches bad shit all the time. We linked him to some shady charities, which put him on the no-fly list, but there’s only smoke. No fire.”
“Fat fucking good that no-fly list did. Does he have any contacts in the U.S.?”
“Some with various imams in the Northeast, but they’ve all checked out as no threat.”
“Pull ’em all in. Put the heat to them. One of them knows something.”
Kurt let out his breath. “Pike, calm down. We don’t do domestic operations, and the authorities have everything we can give them. It’s in their hands now.”
I rolled my eyes. “I know, I know. We don’t live in a police state, blah, blah, blah, but that guy is the key to this whole attack. I’m sure of it.”
Kurt leaned forward toward the screen. “You’d better be kidding about the ‘blah blah blah.’ We don’t live in a police state, and I’m not trying to start one, especially with the thin bit of evidence we’ve scraped up. All we have is a TracFone number that’s close to two years old and tied to nobody, along with a credit purchase in the same store for a guy who might be bad. One of five hundred that day. It’s not something that’ll make anyone start pulling out fingernails. Especially since you stopped the attack in Budapest by interdicting the explosives.”
I backed off. For all of my bluster, I knew he was absolutely right, but it still didn’t sit well. It’s why I was the guy who went out and thumped heads. I just didn’t have it in me to put up with the political bullshit, but I understood it.
I asked, “You got the support team headed to Ireland?”
Relieved at the change in subject, Kurt said, “Yeah. They may be a little behind you, so you might have to do a layover, but they’ll take the target off your hands.”
We had the pilot bound up in the back of the plane, and I really didn’t want to fly into U.S. airspace with him on board. It had been hard enough getting him on the plane without anyone noticing in Budapest. Going through U.S. Customs with him in a box was a nonstarter, so I’d arranged for a Taskforce support team to meet us in Ireland.
“Pimp that guy as soon as you get him. He probably doesn’t know shit, but maybe there’s a clue there.”
“Will do.”
I asked, “How’s Knuckles doing?”
“He’s getting better by the day. He’s talking now and asked about the team.”
I smiled in spite of myself. “Tell him we started smoking the shit out of the bad guys once we got rid of his deadweight.”
Kurt laughed. “I will.” He paused for a moment, then said, “Pike, you did some good work over there. Nobody’s going to pat you on the back, but let the team know. Those EFPs would be going off right now if you hadn’t intervened.”
It was a half-assed apology for his original outburst. Letting me know he still understood what happened when bullets were flying, and that he trusted the man on the ground. I appreciated the sentiment but thought it was a little early. It was only good if nobody died.
“Thanks, but this work’s not finished. I looked into the eyes of the guy in the tombs. He’s not some Johnny Jihad wannabe. He’s a killer, and he’s not going to quit.”
59
R
afik looked at the circle of men and wondered if he should tell them the truth. That the explosives had been lost and they were now on hold. Having led men in combat, both in Algeria and in Afghanistan, he understood the potential impact of the setback. Sometimes a lie was better than the truth. Sometimes the lie helped earn the victory. He had no idea of the mettle of the men before him, and worried what their reactions might be. He had seen it in untested men before. Out of the six in the apartment, four were recruits from prison. One was Abdul-Majid Mohammed, the Algerian contact from Montreal, and although he professed absolute faith, Rafik was ultimately unsure about him. Only Farouk, his remaining comrade from the original cell, could be trusted. It may be better to simply put them back into sleeper mode, waiting on my call.
In the end, he decided to tell them the truth. Whatever the reaction was, Kamil would be arriving soon to help shepherd them to victory, although he was growing a little concerned at the lack of contact with his trusted friend.
“You men were about to begin the final push against our enemies. A strike that would cause untold pain, and perhaps bring about untold rewards. But something has happened that will delay our attack. Something I couldn’t have predicted.”
He laid out what had occurred, speaking in generalities, not discussing the technology he still owned. When he finished, he expected to see a look of defeat on the men. Abdul-Majid looked relieved. Farouk, having already been told the news, simply sat with a grim face. Out of the four ex-convicts in the room, two did project defeat, but two—Keshawn and the man who leased the apartment, Carl—looked thoughtful.
Rafik said, “Unless one of you has an idea, I think the best plan now is to simply return to your roles in the workforce. Await my call.”
Keshawn said, “I can’t do that. I’ve already done too much to bring on heat. I have the lease for the warehouse in my name, and I’ve killed three people to keep our secret. We need to push forward now.”
“We can’t blindly tromp forward for a pinprick,” Rafik said. “If you go to jail, you go to jail. It is a sacrifice that must be made for the cause.”
“Bullshit! I’m not going to jail without doing something. If you think—”
Carl cut him off. “I know how to get explosives.”
The comment brought them both up short. He continued, “We only need military-grade explosives? Is that right? Something along the lines of the SEMTEX you were getting?”
Rafik nodded.
“Would C-4 work?”
Rafik knew the EFPs were specifically built with the U.S. plastic explosive Composition C4 in mind. He felt a sliver of hope. “Yes. C-4 would be perfect. Can you buy some? Secretly?”
“No, but just down the road here is a military base called A.P. Hill. It has a huge ASP that stores all sorts of ammunition for the National Capitol Region. All of the military units in D.C. come down here to train.”
“What’s an ASP? And how do you know all of this?”
“Ammunition storage point. It’s just a large area full of bunkers. It’s where units store their ammo for training. They don’t bring it with them back and forth. The ammo stays there, and they come down and use it. I know about it because I used to work on a cleaning crew that did the janitorial services for the post. The only job I could get right out of prison.”
“So how are we few men supposed to get it? Attack the post?”
“Well, yes, in a way. All we need to do is sneak onto the post after the cleaning crew leaves at four P.M., then cut the locks on one of the bunkers. I’ll know which one to hit by the signs outside.”
Rafik wasn’t sure what to make of the information. It seemed too good to be true. Keshawn explained, “Carl did a stint in the Army before prison. His job was ammunition handler. Trust him when he says he knows how that stuff works.”
Rafik slowly nodded. “Okay. How do you propose we get on the post? And deal with the alarms?”
Carl said, “The cleaning crew I worked on was a sort of jobs program for handicapped people. Some mentally retarded, others gimped out some other way. I was let on because I was down-and-out. You didn’t work every day, so as to spread the wealth around. The guards are used to different people coming and going. As for the alarms, every post I worked on had the alarms feeding into the post police station. We need to hit that, then hit the ASP. The alarms won’t matter then. They’re silent.”
“Won’t the theft cause a huge manhunt? We will still need at least three days to train each crew and give them their targets. Maybe longer. That’ll be done in Baltimore, at the warehouse leased by Keshawn. As he said, the exposure’s too great.”
Keshawn said, “I think I can help with that. A friend of mine still in prison in
New York can help. I can get there and back by tomorrow morning. A little misdirection that will cause the police to chase a ghost.”
Rafik said, “Why would your friend agree to become a scapegoat? I don’t want to involve anyone else.”
“My friend won’t be the scapegoat. Someone else who fucking deserves it will be.”
60
J
ennifer watched the DVD playing in the headrest in front of her but saw nothing on the screen. Her mind was running nonstop through the last few days, wondering if she’d started the corrosive effect on her soul that she’d seen in the men around her. And whether it could be reversed. She noticed a shadow to her right and looked up to see Pike standing there expectantly. He glanced at the screen.
“The Princess Bride. How appropriate.”
She pulled off her headphones, but he continued before she could say anything. “Can I sit down? Please?”
She nodded.
He settled into the aisle seat and said, “You okay?”
“Yeah. I’m fine. Watching a movie.”
“I could tell. Except the screen you were seeing was somewhere else.”
He rotated in the seat to face her. “Look, I’m sorry I snapped at you at the park. I was under the gun and needed you to perform. Like I knew you could. We really haven’t had a chance to talk about what’s happened over the last few days, and I want to make sure you’re all right.”
“I think I got everything I needed out of the hot wash.”
As usual, once the team had cleared Hungarian airspace, they had conducted a blistering after-action review. In what was starting to be a trend, Pike had been eviscerated yet again, this time for spiking the explosives while they were still under fire. Continuing with the trend, Pike had sloughed it off as “All’s well that ends well,” but she could tell the men were a little aggravated.
As for her, she’d finally been forced to tell how she’d taken down four armed men. How she’d decided to start from the back and work forward to prevent them from realizing they were under fire for the longest possible time. How she’d simply placed the red dot over their ears and squeezed. Making it sound easy, like flipping a light switch. When she began to tremble from the memory, she’d sat on her hands.
She didn’t discuss the fear of the moment. The paralyzing terror of dying. She also failed to mention the slow, dull ache she’d had ever since she’d committed an unspeakable act. Something that would make the next time easier, like a teenager working on his first pack of cigarettes—hacking and hating the first few, but eventually craving the smoke—and that just as the dumb teenager had begun an addictive destruction of his body, she’d begun a destruction of her soul.
She still didn’t understand how she’d done it. How she’d managed to keep shooting under the stress, but that wasn’t part of the hot wash anyway. For their part, the men had said nothing. Made no mention of her trembling. They’d listened in complete silence, staring at her with new eyes that made her uncomfortable. A group of cigarette smokers proud to have another addict.
Pike said, “The hot wash isn’t what I’m talking about. I don’t mean how you performed. I mean how you’re doing. Inside.”
She searched his face for something disingenuous, and saw true compassion. No artifice. He was worried, and not because she was simply a member of the team. He was worried about her, in a personal way.
She said, “I’m all right… I think.” She hesitated for a moment, wondering if she should let out her fears, then decided to go ahead. She found herself wanting to talk. Needing to talk.
“I’m not all right. I don’t think I’ll ever be all right again.” She reached over and stopped the movie. “I can’t do this. I can’t turn into a killer. I don’t want to. I don’t want to lose my sense of right and wrong. Like… like… those mafia guys.”
Pike caught the slip, and smiled. “You mean like me?”
She smiled back, relieved he hadn’t lost his temper. “Well, yes. Like you and the other guys. You talk about killing as if it’s a game. I don’t want to be that way. I like my sense of morality. I want to keep it. I’ve read about Nazi concentration camp guards and how they slowly turned into monsters. Normal family men who ended up twisted monstrosities. I don’t want to become that.”
“You think that’s what I am?” He waved his hand around the plane. “What they are?”
“No, no, no. I don’t think you are. Yet. But you can’t do this without losing your sense of right and wrong. You just can’t. You showed that in Cairo. I don’t think you’re a bad person. You know that. But, Jesus, Pike, you were beating that guy to death.”
And there it was. She’d let it out. Ripped off the Tupperware lid exposing the stench of rotting meat below. She waited to see what Pike would do. He surprised her.
“Remember our talk in Cairo? About the dreams?”
She nodded.
“Well, I have nightmares every time I close my eyes. Every night. I would take that action back any second—every single second—and that’s what makes me different. What makes you different. I don’t justify it in my mind because that fucker killed Bull and wounded Knuckles, because that doesn’t make it right. That history doesn’t make me more barbaric. It makes me less. Makes me understand how close the loss of my family affects my judgment, allowing me to prevent something like that in the future.”
He took her hand into his own, a tender gesture that shocked her, something she would never have expected, given the company on the plane.
“You won’t lose your sense of right and wrong. You can’t. It’s simply there. Those concentration camp guards weren’t poor souls that were corrupted. They were sick fucks from the get-go, with an evil streak looking for a way to express itself. I don’t buy any of that shit about good men going bad, because I’ve seen nobility in the worst of situations. It’s a fight, no doubt about it, but the man with the strength of character wins. The man without it turns into a monster.”
“Pike… you did turn into a monster. You’re saying the same thing I am. I know you’re not that way, but the death and destruction has done something to you. Can’t you see that?”
She was playing devil’s advocate, and she knew it. She wanted to believe that keeping America safe was inherently good, but those feelings were overshadowed by the fear of losing her moral compass. Of beginning to believe that doing evil was doing good, and that killing was just a way to make a living. She wanted Pike to convince her.
Pike stared at the floor for a moment, then returned his gaze to her. “No, I haven’t changed. I still own the difference between right and wrong.”
He pointed toward the team in the front of the plane. “Don’t belittle them because they have the courage to do the dirty work. We saved those girls in Prague because you said to. You didn’t pull any triggers there, but you did kill the men inside. If it was right to order the assault, it’s just as right to participate in it. Killing those men in Budapest doesn’t make you a monster.”
He looked at the ceiling. “I wouldn’t say this to anyone other than you, but what I did in Cairo scared me a great deal. Made me question who I am. So don’t think you’re all alone on this plane beating yourself up, but in the end, I’m not a monster and neither are you. Which is why you need to stay. We need people who can see right from wrong, regardless of the situation. Who believe in it. We work without oversight. Without anyone questioning what we do. We need someone with an internal compass who doesn’t need a person looking over their shoulder, ensuring the right thing is done. Someone like you.”
She didn’t know what to say. A part of her clung to his words like a drowning person, his explanation exactly what she wanted to believe. Another part realized they were just words. Pike might believe them, like a child believes in Santa Claus, but it didn’t make them true. It may just be his way of coping. Of convincing himself that what he does is just.
It was something to chew on, though. A potential truth worth further reflection.
> She felt Pike’s eyes on her, waiting on a response, his expression earnest and raw, a vulnerability seeping out that was completely foreign. He had never given a piece of himself to her, never let anyone into his pain, and now he had, emboldening her. She wasn’t sure when his walls would clang shut, locking her out again, so she took a chance, leaving the questions of morality and digging into something she had wanted to explore for a long time.
“Why do you want me to stay so bad? Am I just some sort of experiment, like NASA experimenting with a new O-ring? Are you just testing out a theory about female operators, and you want me to stay because you invested so much effort in convincing everyone to let me do Assessment that you’ll look like a fool if I leave?”
He grew rigid, the turn of the conversation throwing him off. “Where’s that coming from? I’ve never felt that way.”
“Never?”
“Well, maybe a little bit, but it’s always been based on your capabilities, not what I was getting out of it.”
“Just my capabilities? My ability to climb a wall? That’s it? That’s the only reason you want me to stay?”
He withdrew his hand from hers, and she could almost hear the walls clanging shut, the portcullis slamming down in front of his emotions. Protecting him from harm.
“What the fuck do you want me to say? Isn’t that enough? That I think the world of your capabilities?”
What do I want him to say?
They sat in silence for a moment, him glaring at her. Daring her to continue. So she did. Getting it out once and for all. Talking about the elephant in the room.
“No. It’s not enough. If you weren’t in the Taskforce, I would have never joined. I came because you asked me. Because I didn’t want to let you down. Not the Taskforce. You. Truthfully, after Cairo, I’m wondering if that was a mistake. An illusion I held because you saved my life. The Taskforce alone isn’t enough for the price you’re asking me to pay. And I’m no longer sure if you are, either.”
