Total Mayhem

by John Gilstrap

  This time, there was no hiding the tears.

  And Grosvenor went for the kill. “You have my word on this, too, Porter. While she’s sitting in jail, I will make it crystal clear to her that she’d be living a normal life if only her daddy—who’s already in jail—had loved her enough to cooperate.”

  The U.S. attorney sat back in her cushion, seemingly satisfied. Jonathan had never seen awfulness served with such smugness. Such glee.

  Irene said, “Porter, look at me.”

  He did.

  “I’m really sorry it’s gone this way. But you know the stakes. We must stop these Black Friday attacks. We sense that something big is coming. Is it?”

  Brooks tried to cast a glance over his shoulder, but Jonathan took care to stay out of his gaze.

  Grosvenor said, “Do you have a proprietary phone at your house that is your primary contact with Iceman?” She uttered the name conversationally, as if he were a celebrity.

  He sat quietly. Clearly, he did not want to answer.

  “Focus, Porter,” Grosvenor said.

  “Yes, ma’am, I do.”

  “Is the proprietary phone the means Iceman would use to contact you?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Brooks said.

  “Yet on the night of the massacre at Capitol Harbor, he contacted you on your home line. Why was that?”

  He looked up as it fell into place for him. So, that’s how he was caught. “I knew that would bite me in the ass,” he said.

  No one said anything as they waited for him to connect the rest of the dots. “I ignored the throw-away,” he said. “I just wasn’t in the mood.”

  “Yet you talked to him on your landline,” Irene said.

  It was killing Jonathan that he didn’t get to ask any questions.

  “I didn’t want one of the kids to pick it up,” Brooks said. “I mean, my God, it was a huge violation of protocol. I didn’t even know that he had my home number.”

  “What did Iceman tell you?” Irene asked.

  Brooks gathered himself. “He told me that there’d been a breach in security, that the FBI had intervened and caused their major op to pull the trigger too early. He sent an abort code.”

  “So, what’s the next step?” Grosvenor asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “But there is a next step?”

  Brooks hesitated.

  “This is not a time to hold back,” Grosvenor prodded.

  Brooks nodded. “Yeah, I think it is.”

  Jonathan’s cell phone buzzed in his pocket, drawing an annoyed look from Irene. He couldn’t ignore it. So few people knew the number, and of those who did, they all knew better than to call it unless there was an emergency. “Excuse me,” he said the others.

  He stepped away toward the windows and lowered his voice. “This is a really bad time,” he said.

  He’d been expecting Venice’s voice, but got Gail’s instead. “I have terrible news,” she said.

  He tightened his gut against the dire tone of her voice. “Wait a second,” he said. Then, to the ladies and their prisoner, he said, “I need to take this in the other room. Give me a shout if you need me to shoot the sonofabitch.”

  He walked back through the foyer and turned right into the master bedroom, whose architect had to be an Arab sheik. No bauble or flash of gold was unwelcome. He walked to the windows and said, “I’m back.”

  “Megan Bobbins and Cody Johnson are both dead,” Gail said.

  It took Jonathan two seconds to place them in his head as his new investigators.

  “It’s beyond terrible,” Gail went on. “Doug Kramer told me and showed me a few crime scene photos. Apparently, they were together—apparently, they had a relationship—and they were both murdered. They were disemboweled, Dig.”

  “Oh, God,” Jonathan groaned. “They were the two—”

  “Looking into Kellner, yes.” She sighed heavily. “There’s a detail I hesitate to share with you, given where you are.”

  He waited. He wasn’t going to ask for what he knew would come, anyway.

  “The murderer painted the words YOU WERE WARNED in blood on the wall.”

  Jonathan clicked off without a word. There was nothing to say. Not to her.

  When he exited back into the living room, he was facing Grosvenor, and what she saw in his face made her jump to her feet. Irene followed suit and pivoted.

  “Digger?” she said. He wasn’t Agent Bonner anymore.

  Brooks tried to respond, too, but he never had a chance. Jonathan grabbed him by his shirt collar between the skin and the fabric and hauled him backward out of his comfy chair, stuffing bits of his flesh under his fingernails as he did.

  “Hey!” Brooks yelled, and as he hit the floor, a lamp came with him.

  The front door to the suite flew open, and the remaining Tweedle brother entered with his weapon drawn.

  “No!” Irene yelled. “You! Back outside!”

  The guard looked perplexed.

  “Out!” Irene shouted even louder. “None of this is happening, do you understand me? Your only job right now is to do what I say and to get out. And to keep anyone else out.”

  The guy retreated like a turtle’s head returning to its shell.

  Once Brooks was on the floor, Jonathan changed his grip to the knot of the agent’s tie. He lifted Brooks about three feet off the floor, then slammed his fist like a sledge hammer into his nose and mouth. He felt teeth shatter.

  As he recocked his arm for another punch, Irene Rivers got inside of it and locked her elbow inside of Jonathan’s and heaved back. “Stop it!” she yelled in his ear. “Just stop it!”

  Grosvenor had retreated back toward the windows. “What the hell is going on?”

  Jonathan withdrew his punch but retained his hold on Brooks’s tie as he pulled him to his feet. “This sonofabitch just got two of my people killed,” he said.

  “Oh, my God,” Irene gasped.

  Jonathan slammed Brooks into the wall. The impact dented the drywall and knocked two paintings off their mounts. Blood streamed from the agent’s nose and mouth.

  “You told Iceman about me, didn’t you?”

  Brooks’s eyes were wild with fear and pain.

  Jonathan punched him hard in the liver.

  “Digger!” Irene shouted.

  “I’m calling the police,” Grosvenor said.

  Irene turned on her. “You’re not doing anything, Sandy!” she snapped. “Set your butt in a seat, and we’ll talk all this through.”

  Jonathan kept Brooks from falling or even doubling over. “I can do this all day, you miserable piece of shit. Yes or no. You’re the one who told Iceman about me.”

  Brooks nodded vigorously. “I had to.”

  Jonathan slammed his liver again. “Bullshit.”

  “I don’t know anything about killing anybody who works for you.”

  “What you don’t know doesn’t matter,” Jonathan seethed. “You set it in motion. You caused them to be eviscerated. Gutted alive.”

  Another liver punch. If that one didn’t tear the organ, Jonathan would be surprised. He let go of Brooks and let him slide to the floor.

  Jonathan kneeled in front of his face. “What does ‘x-ray zebra’ mean? And please don’t make me start breaking bones.”

  Grosvenor was on her feet again. “This is outrageous!”

  Irene strode over to her old friend. “I’m not telling you again to sit down,” she said. “This will make sense when it’s over.”

  “This is your moment, Porter,” Jonathan said. “Truth or dare.”

  “Just stop hurting me,” Brooks said. “Yes, I sent a picture of you to Iceman. I didn’t tell him who you are because I still don’t know who the hell you are.”

  “X-ray zebra,” Jonathan prompted.

  Brooks closed his eyes. He didn’t want to do this, that was clear. Jonathan gave him time to get his head right. But he wasn’t kidding about breaking bones next.

  Brooks turned his head
to the side and spat a wad of blood and a tooth along with it. “X-ray means abort,” he said. He took a huge breath. “Zebra is an alternative plan. It will be broadcast on one of the standard broadcast days. Not later than a day in early November. The third or fourth, I think.”

  “What is a standard broadcast day?” Irene asked.

  “Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. In the morning.”

  “What’s the alternative plan?” Jonathan asked. He hoped that the glare he sent to Irene would be justly interpreted as a signal to shut up.

  “What’s going to happen to me?” Brooks asked.

  “I’m going to beat you blind if you don’t stay on point and answer my questions,” Jonathan said. “Now, what’s the alternative plan?”

  “He hasn’t told us yet. That’s what we’ll get on the standard broadcast day. I had nothing to do with the operations themselves.”

  “What is your role?” Irene asked. Behind her, it appeared that now that the punches had stopped, Grosvenor was reengaged.

  Both of Brooks’s eyes were beginning to swell shut. “If I learned that the Bureau knew anything about their plans or if the investigation into them got any traction, I reported it to him.” He bowed his head and started to cry again. “I’m sorry about your people.”

  “Like I care what you’re sorry about,” Jonathan said. “Where’s your burner phone?”

  Brooks smiled through the bloody mess that was his mouth. “In my jacket pocket. Not the kind of thing you want to leave around the house or the office.”

  Jonathan patted him down and found the old-school folder in his inside right-hand pocket. Then he stood and slid the phone into his own pocket.

  “That’s evidence,” Grosvenor said.

  “Not yet,” Jonathan said. Before stooping back down, he pulled a capped hypodermic needle from his other pocket. He tried to keep it out of Brooks’s view. He pulled the cap off, then he jammed the needle into the agent’s thigh and depressed the plunger.

  Brooks tried to object, but then he was out. He slid sideways onto the polished hardwood floor.

  “Night-night,” Jonathan said.

  “Someone tell me what’s happening here,” Grosvenor demanded.

  Jonathan gestured toward the furniture. “Let’s sit down for this.”

  They all settled into the same seats as before. Jonathan nodded for Irene to take the lead.

  Wolverine leaned forward, her elbows on her knees. “First of all, believe me when I tell you I’m sorry to involve you in all of this. Agent Bonner here is a tremendous asset to the United States government.”

  “That’s not his real name, is it?”

  “Of course not. He is a covert asset. In fact, today notwithstanding, he is as covert as an asset can get.”

  “One who steals important evidence,” Grosvenor said.

  “Evidence is only important if it is admissible,” Irene countered.

  Grosvenor cocked her head. “What aren’t you telling me?”

  Jonathan said, “She’s telling you that my team and I are going to take care of the terrorists, and no one is going to take credit. There’ll be no perp walk, there’ll be no glory. The attacks will just stop, and society will be safe. For now. Until next time, God forbid.”

  Grosvenor cast a shocked look to Irene. “Why have I not been informed of this?”

  “You are being informed,” Irene said. “That’s part of what this meeting is about.”

  “This is not a meeting,” Grosvenor said. “This is a felony.”

  “Sadly,” Irene said, “a felony to which you were a party.”

  The U.S. attorney’s features darkened. “What are you suggesting?”

  “I’m suggesting that you stay out of the way,” Irene said. “To look away and not ask questions that are bound to occur to you.”

  Grosvenor wasn’t getting it. “So, that incontrovertible evidence I told Agent—excuse me, Mister Brooks about—”

  “Is all real,” Jonathan said.

  “Just not usable in court,” Irene added.

  “Then what’s the use of having it?” Grosvenor asked.

  The question startled Jonathan. “To solve the problem.”

  “The problem is not solved as long as the perpetrators go free,” Grosvenor insisted. “And from what I’m hearing, you’re making it impossible to prosecute. How is that justice?”

  Jonathan left that one to Irene.

  Irene said nothing, just waited for U.S. Attorney Grosvenor to catch on.

  “Oh, my God,” she said. “With what did you inject that man?”

  Jonathan said, “A sedative. He’ll be fine.”

  “What are you going to do with him?”

  Jonathan smiled without humor. “He’ll be fine.”

  Through her horror, she asked, “Irene, why on earth would you involve me in this?”

  “Because Brooks is an insider, and he’d consider any prosecutorial threats to be a bluff unless it came from you, and he’d act accordingly. I needed you for . . . believability.”

  “So, is that what you think of me, Irene? I am merely a pawn in your games?”

  Wolverine sat back in the cushion of her sofa and crossed her legs. “We’ve known each other for years, Sandy. We’ve been through a lot together, and now we’re both presidential appointees in jobs that mean things. We make decisions that make life better for people. You certainly know me well enough to know that what I do, I do for good reason.”

  “So, now that I know, what am I supposed to do with all of this?”

  “Try to forget it,” Irene said. “Just like you forgot that Grammercy case back when you were an assistant district attorney in New York. You were there for that confession. You watched as those officers beat the confession out of your songbird and did nothing as he died.”

  Grosvenor wouldn’t have looked more shocked if Irene had slapped her. “You bitch,” she breathed. “I told you that in confidence. And Grammercy had buried a child alive!”

  “Did you get the child back?” Irene said. Her tone had softened, but her eyes had narrowed.

  Tears rimmed Grosvenor’s eyes.

  “That’s what I thought,” Irene said. “You aided and abetted the killing of that witness, and there’s no statute of limitations on murder.”

  It all appeared to be more than Grosvenor could handle. “Are you blackmailing me, Irene?”

  “I’m incentivizing you to do what’s right. As far as I’m concerned, we never need to speak of this again.”

  As Irene stood, Jonathan and Grosvenor did likewise.

  “My God, Irene, what have you become?”

  “A realist,” she said. “I think it’s time for us to leave. Agent Bonner?”

  “I’ve got this,” Jonathan said. He watched as they exited the suite into the hallway, wondering how in the world they were going to explain things to the other Tweedle.

  When he heard the door click closed, he walked through the foyer to double-lock it and engaged the chain. “Okay, Big Guy,” he called. “They’re gone.”

  Boxers emerged from the second bedroom, his H&K 45 still in his hand. “You okay, Boss?”

  Jonathan didn’t answer. “Get the trunk and the air set. Let’s get out of here.”

  Packaging Brooks didn’t take that long, maybe twenty minutes. They folded the unconscious man into a good-size travel trunk with four manifolded air tanks that would keep him oxygenated for at least twelve hours—plenty of time to get him transferred to Site Juliet. After that, Jonathan didn’t give a shit what happened to him.

  They called a bellman for a luggage cart, then rolled the trunk down to the Batmobile, and from there, Boxers would take him to the airport, where the ground crew would help load the trunk without asking questions.

  Before leaving the hotel himself, Jonathan stopped by the manager’s office to apologize for the damage that was caused by a minor disagreement. No police action was required, he said, because the disagreement ended on friendly terms. And, of course, t
he company that rented the suite, Belfast Properties, Ltd., would be happy to pay for any damages. To prove his commitment up-front, Jonathan handed the manager two thousand dollars in cash.

  All was settled, no questions remained.

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Again, the waiting game was killing Jonathan. It was November third, the last day to expect the message from Iceman to his troops, and the entire team, plus Derek, sat in the War Room with little to do.

  “Are you sure you didn’t miss it?” Jonathan asked.

  “You know, you’re free to do something else,” Venice said. “There’s no need for you to sit there watching us wait.”

  “This isn’t something you could do at your office at the NSA?” Boxers asked.

  “I thought you’d be in a hurry to respond after the call is over,” Derek said. He looked up over his glasses. “Whatever this call turns out to be, it won’t be the kind of thing that I could relay via Puzzle Palace landline.”

  Jonathan checked his watch. “It’s nine forty-five,” he said. “And it is November third, right?”

  “It was a few minutes ago,” Boxers said.

  “Could it be that NLT in the message meant something other than not later than?” Gail asked.

  “I guess anything can be,” Jonathan said.

  “Let’s not forget that November third runs till midnight through thirty-seven time zones,” Derek said. “We’re just assuming that the nine-to-ten rule is still in play.”

  “Twenty-four,” Boxers corrected. “There are only twenty-four hours in the day. There are twenty-four time zones.”

  Derek gave him the kind of look that most people don’t dare to give to Boxers until they’ve known him for a long time. “Given what I do for a living, do you really think this is a good thing to challenge me on?” he said with a knowing smirk.

  “You know I could eat you alive, right?” Boxers said.

  “I’ll keep that in mind when you start looking hungry.”

  This kid’s stock was growing for Jonathan. It took guts to stand up to—

  Every computer in the room dinged, and the burner they took from Brooks hummed on the table.

  “This is it,” Derek and Venice said in unison.