by Carr, Jack
JOSH HOLDER
MARCUS BOYKIN
SAUL AGNON
STEVE HORN
CHAPTER 33
REECE MANAGED A FEW hours of sleep before he awoke with the sun shining into his eyes through a slit in the curtains. He put a cup of last night’s coffee in the microwave and changed into his running clothes. He ran for an hour, pushing himself hard during two-minute interval sprints and slowing to a measured jogging pace for a minute in-between. He spent half of the run on the beach, staying in the soft dry sand instead of the easier track at the tide line. Finishing his run, he blended into the vacationers at the Del and steered for the main lobby. He connected to the Wi-Fi signal and logged in to his Signal app. No messages from Katie, but he had one from his friend Elizabeth Riley. He touched the screen to decrypt the message.
Reece, here on wings if you need me. Thinking about y’all,
—Liz
Liz Riley was one of the toughest human beings Reece had ever met and as loyal a friend as one could have. He could definitely use her help on what was to come. He typed a response:
thanks for the kind words, Liz. i may take you up on that. how flexible is your schedule these days?
He tapped the screen to get to his contacts and chose Katie Buranek’s name.
lots to tell you. we should meet, somewhere secure, I can come to L.A.
He walked to a coffee station in the lobby and filled a paper cup from the urn. He was trying to kill a few minutes, hoping that Katie would respond. The good news was, these days, staring intently at the device in your hand was about as innocuous an activity as you could find. No word from Katie, but a message from Liz Riley appeared.
Boss is out of the country, sitting on my thumb with gas to burn. You say when and where and I’ll be there.
—Liz
Reece set the coffee down and typed a response:
thanks. will keep you posted, won’t be this week.
Eighteen years as both an officer and enlisted man in Naval Special Warfare had forged some extremely loyal friendships for Reece, and his actions throughout multiple combat deployments put more than a few of his colleagues into his debt. Perhaps no one was more loyal to James Reece or had more in his debt column than Elizabeth Riley, though Reece never would have thought of it in those terms. Liz Riley was an Army aviator who’d grown up beneath the shadows of passing Blackhawk and Apache helicopters in South Alabama, just outside the gates of Fort Rucker.
Every Army helicopter pilot in the country learned to fly over the planted pines and peanut fields of the Wiregrass region, and while most residents ignored the noisy machines overhead, Riley spent her childhood looking skyward. Her mother left when she was young, leaving her to be raised by a tough but loving former Marine NCO father and a genuinely kind stepmother. Her teachers laughed when she told them that she’d fly one of those helicopters one day, but she was undeterred. By the time she was old enough to enter the Warrant Officer Flight Program, the Army had begun accepting female applicants. The tomboy turned cheerleader’s proudest moment came when her father pinned her wings to her uniform.
Riley was flying a close air support mission over Najaf, Iraq, when her OH-58D Kiowa Warrior was hit by an RPG round. The resulting crash killed her copilot and severely injured Riley’s lower back. A group of Shiite insurgents surrounded the crash site within minutes, determined to capture and torture any survivors. Despite her wounds, she killed half a dozen men with her M4 before escaping into the urban maze of the ancient city. Facing unmentionable torture and degradation if captured, she was determined that she would not be taken alive.
Reece and his four-man sniper team were holed up in an overwatch position of a heavily IED’d street corner when they saw the helo go down a few blocks away. Reece had radioed back his intention to move to the crash site to check for survivors but had been ordered to remain in overwatch while an assault force mobilized a response. When information came back that the assault force was two hours out, Reece ordered his men to prepare to move. Hearing Liz’s M4 start to mix with the cracks of the insurgent’s AKs, Reece and his Team moved toward the sound of the guns.
Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Militia controlled most of the city at that time and Reece’s team faced extraordinary danger by going in as a four-man element. They took over a house closer to the crash site and herded the family into a bedroom to keep them quiet. Reece found the keys to the family’s battered old minivan while one of his snipers took position on the top floor inside a small bathroom. The other watched the front door and kept an eye on the family.
Figuring out where Liz had found refuge was not difficult. Reece and the two other snipers in the second floor of the home watched as eight black-clad Mahdi Militia members converged on one particular building across from the crash site.
Reece and his snipers dropped all eight with suppressed shots from their Mk11 7.62 sniper weapons systems. Then, leaving one sniper in overwatch and the other still watching the entrance and the family, Reece and Boozer borrowed the sequestered family’s minivan and parked in an alley adjacent to what they suspected to be Liz’s position. Reece left Boozer in the driver’s seat under the watchful eye of his team’s best sniper, surveying their movement from the home down the block.
More Mahdi Militia were converging on the scene as Reece made entry into the target building, forcing him to run through a wall of PKM machine gun fire to reach Riley’s location.
The adrenaline from the crash had worn off, and her back injury was so severe at this point that she was unable to walk. Reece put his own body armor and Kevlar helmet on Liz before gently hoisting her onto his shoulders and running his way back through the .30-caliber hornet’s nest under the suppressive fire of his sniper to Boozer’s minivan, parked just behind the cover of a thick wall in the nearby alley. An enemy round ricocheting off the street felt like a baseball bat when it passed through Reece’s calf, but he was able to stay on his feet long enough to get Riley into the alley where Boozer was waiting with the van. Reece placed Liz onto the floor of the vehicle as carefully as if he were putting a baby into a crib before Boozer sped back toward the house where the other half of the sniper team was waiting.
They all exfiltrated via the “borrowed” van back to base, where Riley was airlifted to Balad for emergency surgery before being flown to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany for more advanced care.
Reece was called on the carpet for insubordination for failing to obey the order to stay put even though his decision to move saved the Army pilot’s life. Things calmed down when Riley’s commanding officer called to express his sincere thanks to Reece’s entire chain of command for taking such decisive and courageous action. He followed up by forwarding Army Commendation Medals with Valor to Reece’s sniper team.
Liz Riley’s spine injuries ended her military career but didn’t sap her desire to fly. She worked herself to exhaustion during months of brutal rehabilitation, which paid off when she regained full range of motion and functionality in her back. Medically retired, she found a great gig as a private pilot for a Texas oil tycoon. He spent most of his time jetting around the world with two other pilots in his Global Express jet, but when he wanted to fly into small backcountry airstrips to fly fish or elk hunt, Liz flew him there in his single-engine turboprop Pilatus.
In Liz’s mind, she owed Reece her life, and she had built a lasting friendship with him and Lauren over the ensuing years. She was single and, with no children of her own, had treated little Lucy like a favorite niece. Their deaths hit her hard.
Reece strolled out of the lobby and back toward the beach for his walk home. His mind began racing as he started to formulate the specifics of his plan. He was so preoccupied with his thoughts as he stepped off the curb to cross Orange Avenue that he was nearly hit by a yellow Crown Victoria taxicab. He jumped backward as the driver blew his horn, turning heads from the bustling crowd of pedestrian shoppers. Reece quickly realized that he was going to get himself killed if he didn�
�t get his head back in the game. Whoever was pulling the strings on this no doubt still wanted him dead, and if they were willing to wipe out an entire element of special operators and an innocent woman and child, they’d sure as hell take Reece out on the streets of Southern California.
Reece knew of a sandwich shop up ahead with free Wi-Fi. He sat on the bench in front of the shop, this time with his head on a swivel. He connected to the Wi-Fi and logged back into the app on his iPhone. There was a message from Katie:
Can you meet for lunch? Great Wall Chinese on Broadway in Chinatown. Super old school, no one even speaks English. Can you be there by 1?
Reece looked around for a few seconds before responding.
see you then.
CHAPTER 34
Los Angeles, California
IT MIGHT TAKE TWO HOURS to get to L.A. this time of day, or it might take four. You never knew about the traffic. Reece ran home to shower and change so that he wouldn’t be late. He pulled on a pair of semi-clean jeans, a dark T-shirt, and his Salomon shoes. Before leaving his bedroom he opened the drawer of his nightstand and picked up his Glock 19 handgun. He used his left hand to pull the slide back just enough to confirm that there was still a round in the chamber, a technique called a “press-check.” It was loaded with sixteen rounds of 77-grain ammo from DoubleTap. The solid copper hollow-points were designed to work at near rifle velocities and would do extensive damage while minimizing the risk of overpenetration. He secured the Glock into a BlackPoint Tactical mini-wing inside the waistband holster and slipped the holstered handgun between his boxers and jeans. The holster had two small clips that folded over the top of his pants and secured the rig to his belt. He slipped a spare magazine into his back pocket and clipped a small knife to the inside of his right. Reece had an extensive collection of knives but preferred to carry the cheaper ones for his daily carry so that he wouldn’t have a heart attack if he lost one.
Overseas, he didn’t go to the port-a-potty without a firearm, but California was a different story. Even a SEAL had to jump through hoops every other year to get a concealed carry permit. It was a pain in the ass dealing with the local sheriff, but Reece hadn’t been about to let something happen to his family because he was too lazy to get a permit. Now that he’d failed to protect them, all he could do was keep himself alive long enough to exact vengeance upon those responsible for their deaths. He grabbed a Padres visor from a hook in his closet and headed out the door.
Traffic going north was relatively light and Reece made it to L.A. in just over two hours. Katie was smart to choose a spot like this one, where there weren’t surveillance cameras on every corner and where the locals knew how to keep their mouths shut. The unwillingness to get involved that had plagued Reece and his Teammates’ efforts to fight terrorism and insurgencies among populations across the globe would now be to his advantage as he worked to avoid whoever it was that wanted him dead.
Reece had fifteen minutes to kill before his meeting with Katie and he spent it putting his best counterintelligence skills to work, making a series of random turns while looking for any familiar cars in his rearview mirror. With no signs that he was being followed, Reece parked several blocks from their meeting spot and walked a circuitous route to the restaurant, stopping several times to pretend to talk on the phone or to look into store windows, using the reflection to study passersby. Despite his best efforts, he could not spot anything out of the ordinary. Of course, if they were using drones or other sophisticated means of tracking him, he’d never know it until it was too late.
Reece arrived at the restaurant and was somewhat surprised when he walked in the door, as doing so was like crossing onto another continent. The sound of dozens of voices across the dining room speaking rapid-fire Mandarin was overwhelming. China’s cigarette culture was in full swing. Despite state law, virtually every patron was smoking. The interior was dimly lit, with candles in red glass jars illuminating each table and combining with the haze of grayish-blue smoke to create a surreal show of light. He scanned the chaotic scene, but there was no sign of Katie.
He approached the hostess and motioned toward the dining room, holding up two fingers to indicate the size of his party, unsure whether she spoke English. She nodded and turned to a shelf where she looked under and between stacks of paper, looking for an English language menu, Reece correctly guessed; obviously they weren’t needed very often. She found them and motioned for Reece to follow her, weaving her way across the dining room and inviting him to sit in a red pleather booth near the back corner of the restaurant. He sat facing the door and gave the room a more thorough look for potential threats or signs that he was being watched. Despite the fact that he was a fish totally out of water, the other patrons seemed to pay him no mind whatsoever.
He saw Katie’s silhouette come through the front door and caught himself smiling. The hostess pointed to where Reece was seated and Katie made her way across the room to Reece’s booth. He stood to greet her and, this time, was prepared for the hug when it came. He hoped he’d reacted less awkwardly this time around. She was dressed in jeans, high-heeled ankle boots, and a tight tank top with an olive green cotton blazer over it. Her hair was pulled back into a ponytail and she was wearing the same small black-rimmed glasses that he’d seen at the Starbucks. For some reason, her appearance matched Reece’s idea of exactly what a young female journalist should look like. She slid into the booth across from him as he sat back down, looked both ways, and leaned forward across the table as if she were about to tell a secret.
“Isn’t this place insane?” she said with a smile. “It’s like you’re in China. The smoke is terrible but there’s no way anyone here is going to overhear what we’re talking about.”
“Perfect spot, and you’re right, it’s definitely loud enough. Thanks again for coming, I feel guilty every time I involve you in this.”
“Don’t be silly, Reece, you know that I’m all in. I know a good story when I see one.” She grinned again, as they both knew she wasn’t sticking her neck out this far for purely journalistic reasons.
“So I’ve got a ton of information to give you. Don’t ask me where it came from, just trust me that it’s all credible.” Reece slid a fat manila folder across the table that contained photocopies of all the relevant documents that he and Ben Edwards had recovered from Josh Holder’s computer and gave Katie the executive summary.
“It involves the players that you found in those photos: Agnon, Holder, and another guy named Boykin. They don’t specifically mention Steve Horn by name but he’s obviously Agnon’s boss and is referenced plenty. Here’s the short version: I think they were using me and my guys as guinea pigs for some kind of new drug. When they found out that it was giving us brain tumors, they had us all killed. They somehow arranged for the ambush overseas, and when that didn’t finish the job, they went after us back home.
“What? That’s crazy! Why would they test drugs on SEALs? They can’t do that without your permission and an IRB would never approve something like that. Even if the drug worked, they could never use the study to gain approval.”
“You obviously know more about this stuff than I do. What’s an IRB?”
“Oh, it’s an Institutional Review Board. Basically it’s a committee that reviews biomedical and behavioral research when humans are involved in the testing. They were a response to what amounted to human rights violations by both the government and private institutions during the Cold War. You’ve probably heard of the Stanford Prison Experiment from the early seventies?”
“Rings a bell. That was the one about the psychology of imprisonment, right? Got out of control, as I remember, with some of the guards really losing it.”
“That’s right. Did you also know that it was funded by the Office of Naval Research?”
“Really? I had no idea.”
“Yep. That study along with the Tuskegee syphilis experiment, Nazi physician experiments highlighted at Nuremburg, and classified CIA mind control studie
s brought to light by the Church Committee in 1975 unearthed a web of relationships between financial institutions, the military, the CIA, pharmaceutical companies, hospitals, and universities, with the unwitting subjects being prisoners, college students, and, you guessed it, members of the armed forces.”
“Unbelievable,” Reece said, shaking his head. “And that wasn’t really that long ago.”
“No, it wasn’t. IRBs were put in place to ensure that that type of research and abuse never happened again.”
“Well, somebody didn’t get the memo, and it’s clear from the documents here that that’s what they were up to. I don’t have a clue as to why they did it the way they did it. I just know that they did it.”
A waiter approached and Katie ordered tea for both of them, surprising Reece by doing so in Chinese. Clearly she was the kind of girl who wasn’t afraid to take charge. The waiter retreated, and she turned back to Reece.
“My Mandarin is horrible, but I know enough to get by. Benefits of a semester abroad in college.” Katie smiled.
“Wow. Impressive,” Reece said earnestly.
“None of this makes sense, Reece,” Katie said, getting back to business. “A private equity firm running a clinical trial on a group of commandos without their consent and then having them killed to hide the side effects? There’s more to this story.”
“I’m sure you’re right and I can promise you that I’m going to find out, no matter what it takes.”
“Reece, I understand that you’ve got to do some things that I don’t want to know about. First of all, I can’t blame you. I can’t fathom how much pain you’re in after all that’s been taken from you. I want you to know that I’m with you on this. No matter what you do, no matter what, I’m in.”
