Safe and Sound

by J. D. Rhoades

  “Yeah. He’d been getting some e-mails from home. People telling him what was going on with his kid. What the Fedder woman was like. It was making him nuts.”

  “You said you needed two keys.”

  Powell spoke up. “The second key was held by a guy in Kabul. DeGroot got his guy to give up the address and the name. We went down to Kabul and got it.”

  “And killed the second guy,” Keller said.

  “Like I said,” Riggio replied, “an asshole. Or working for assholes. He won’t be missed.”

  “So what went wrong?” Keller asked.

  Riggio sighed. “We were supposed to meet up after Kabul. Put the keys together. Download the cash into numbered Swiss or Caymans accounts. But before any of that could happen, Dave called home to check on the kid. Carly Fedder answered the phone, drunk off her ass. That was the last straw. He went to the CO and got compassionate leave. He was gone the next day.”

  “He took the key with him?” Keller said.

  “Yeah,” Riggio said. He caught Keller’s look and quickly added, “But we knew he wasn’t selling us out. By then, we were starting to have second thoughts. We were thinking maybe this wasn’t a good idea. Still, it was a shitload of money. DeGroot was still up in the hills, due to come down in two weeks. So we had a little time to think about it. We agreed we’d meet up when we got back to the States.”

  “Where?”

  “A place we knew. Up here in the mountains. We trained a lot up here. There’s a safe house we used sometimes.”

  “Did he make the meeting?”

  “Yeah. And he had the kid. But he was AWOL. And by that time, so were we. Someone ratted us out. We’re not sure who. Maybe one of the locals. We had Agency types crawling all over us, asking about DeGroot. And Dave. So we decided to disappear for a while and decide what to do.”

  “Not easy to disappear from the Agency.”

  “We always leave ourselves a backdoor, Keller. Especially with the spooks.”

  “Nice to know who you’ve got on your side.”

  “Comes with the territory. Sometimes we’re in places we’re not supposed to be. Someone gets burned, the Christians In Action want to be able to stand there in front of a congressional committee going ‘Who, me?’ You count on anybody but yourself and your people, you’re a fucking idiot.”

  “So you made the meeting,” Keller said. “What did you decide?”

  “We decided, ‘Fuck this,’ ” Riggio said. “The shit had just gotten way out of hand. We didn’t want to spend the rest of our lives running from the Army and the Agency both.”

  “And ourselves,” Powell said quietly.

  “Yeah,” Riggio said. “We’d forgotten who we were. Dave reminded us of that. So we decided to come back in. Dave was going to go back down, make contact with our command, and we were going to try to cut a deal.”

  “A deal?” Keller said disbelievingly.

  Riggio shrugged. “What we do, there’s a little more room for freelancing than most. I’m not saying they’d let us off the hook Completely. But maybe we wouldn’t end up in Leavenworth if we played our cards right.” He sighed. “Except we didn’t know DeGroot had made it to the States. He must have picked Dave up as soon as he surfaced.”

  “Did he have the key with him?”

  “No,” Powell said. “He wouldn’t have died for that. And DeGroot wouldn’t still be coming after us. He must have hidden it somewhere.”

  “Why wouldn’t he have given it to you?” Marie asked.

  “We told him not to,” Powell said.

  “You didn’t trust yourselves,” Keller said.

  There was a long pause. “No,” Riggio said finally.

  “But you trusted him,” Marie said.

  “Yeah,” Powell said. “He was always the best of us. He was…” He stopped, unable to go on.

  “Okay,” Keller said. “So we follow through with your original plan. We’re headed back to Fayetteville. You can call your people at Bragg and make arrangements. We’re going home.”

  “That may not be such a good idea,” Powell said. “DeGroot’s still out there. And I think he’s a little pissed.”

  “He’s right,” Marie said after a moment of silence. “He’s after anyone he thinks might know something.”

  “So we go back to the safe house,” Riggio said.

  “Okay,” Keller spoke up. For the first time, he aimed the shotgun away from Powell. “We’ll go there. Marie and Ben can stay there for a while. You guys can work things out with your people.”

  “What about you?” Marie said.

  Keller chewed his lip, thinking. Finally, he said, “I’ll decide what to do when you two are safe.”

  “Where are we going?” Ben spoke up sleepily.

  “We’re, ah, we’re going to do some camping,” Marie answered.

  “I don’t want to go camping,” Ben complained. “I want to go home.”

  “We will, baby,” Marie soothed. “In a little while.”

  “Is Grandpa coming?” Ben asked. No one answered him. After a moment, Marie spoke up. “Jack,” she said.

  “Yeah,” Keller said. “I know.” He pulled his cell phone off his belt and flipped it open. The NS light blinked at him.

  “You got a signal?” he asked Marie.

  “No,” she replied.

  Keller turned to Powell. “We need to get to somewhere where we can make some calls.”

  “What’s up?” Powell asked.

  “There are some people out there,” Keller said grimly, “who your buddy might try to use to get at us. We need to warn them.”

  “You think he knows.”

  “We don’t know how much he knows,” Keller snapped. “We’ve got to try to cover all the bases.”

  “We’re going to need some supplies, too,” Marie said. “Ben can’t wear these same clothes day after day.”

  Riggio sighed. “Jesus Christ.”

  “She’s right, bro,” Powell said. “It’s a long drive. We need to top up on gas, anyway. We need to get off the Parkway.”

  “Pull over,” Keller said. “I’ll drive.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  DeGroot’s eyes snapped open. He didn’t know where he was for a moment, and adrenaline jolted him to hyperalertness. He snatched the pistol from underneath the pillow and swung it toward the door, seeking whatever sound it was that had awakened him. There were voices outside the door. A man’s voice called out. Another answered. DeGroot’s finger tightened on the trigger. Then there was the sound of a car door opening and closing and an engine starting. He looked around the room at the rough wood paneling, the cheap prints on the wall, the simple furniture. It came back to him then. He was in a tourist motel. What he was hearing was probably nothing more than a family group coming back from a day’s outing. He relaxed and let the gun drop to his side. He was feeling better than he had in days. In his years of warfare, he’d learned how to make even a brief rest count, and the sudden energy boost when he woke up had him feeling sharp and on top of his game. He checked the time. It was late afternoon. By now, he might have a few responses to his posting. He took the time to shower and shave before leaving the room.

  The motel was tiny, only eleven rooms, with a cramped office at one end. It was clean enough, however, and perfect for his purposes, since it was the kind of small family-owned operation that wouldn’t be fazed by someone paying cash for a night’s lodging. Even better, it was within an easy few minutes’ walk from the café where he had logged on to make his posting. He strolled down the narrow street, enjoying the coolness of the air and the view of the nearby mountains that loomed over the valley town.

  The café was nearly as deserted as it had been in the morning. The only other customers were a pair of young men in hiking shorts and boots, sipping slowly at their lattes and conversing in weary voices. The girl behind the counter had been replaced by a dour man with a gray crew cut. From the look on the man’s face and the sour way he looked over the nearly deser
ted establishment, DeGroot surmised he must be the owner. He paid over his money and took another “granday” coffee. He sipped it as he sat down at the computer and nearly gagged. It tasted as if it had been sitting in the pot since morning. Perhaps it had. He put the coffee aside and logged on. He arched his brow slightly in surprise at the number of responses. Times being what they were, he had expected a shortage of the type of skilled labor he sought. He sorted through the responses. No one, of course, used a real name or number, but he recognized a number of familiar noms de guerre. Some he didn’t know quite well enough to propose this sort of operation; some, he knew, would have qualms about the nature of what he was proposing to do, fortune or no fortune. Some were too far away to meet with in the time frame he needed. He sat for a few moments, weighing the need for more hands against the desire to split the money among as few people as possible.

  Finally he settled on four names. They were men he knew, dependable men in their own way, especially where there was money to be made. And, more importantly, they were all either within the borders of the United States or close by. He could assemble them within a day or so, if…He opened another window on the Internet browser and did a quick search. He sighed. The nearest airport with the kind of access he needed was over two hours away. He’d just have to lose the time. This was the sort of business that could only be organized face-to-face.

  He scratched the names and numbers down on a pad by the computer. Now all he needed was intel on his targets.

  He glanced toward the front room. The hikers were gone. The proprietor was sitting on a stool, his arms folded across his chest, staring at a baseball game on a small television above the counter. The place was as good as deserted, and DeGroot didn’t intend to give any truly incriminating details on an unsecure line.

  Still. He tossed the half-full coffee cup into the trash. The owner didn’t acknowledge him as he left. He walked back to the hotel. Safe in the dim confines of his room he pulled out the sheet of paper and a cell phone. He had specially prepared the device with a “cloned” number stolen from someone else’s account. No calls made on the phone would ever be traced to him. He began punching a set of numbers he knew by heart. A voice answered, reciting the last four digits of the phone number by way of greeting.

  “Howzit, bru?” DeGroot said.

  There was no response for a moment. Then: “Is this a secure line?”

  “Secure enough,” DeGroot said.

  “You’ve been causing quite a stir,” the voice said.

  “It’s not what I wanted,” DeGroot admitted, “but here we are.”

  “What do you mean ‘we’?”

  “Playing innocent? That doesn’t suit either of us, does it?”

  “No,” the voice said. “Neither one of us.”

  “The difference, boet,” DeGroot snapped, “is that you’ve got a lot more to lose than I, hey? Farther to fall. Me, on the other hand, I’ve nowhere to go but up. And I might be tempted to trade certain information about certain, ah, incidents in exchange.”

  “Considering you just killed half a dozen federal agents, including an FBI SIAC, I don’t think you’ll find anyone in a bargaining mood.”

  “Maybe not. But maybe I’ll just give them a few names, just as a gesture of good will. See what happens.”

  There was a pause. “What do you want then?” the voice said wearily.

  “You remember the three fellows we worked with, about six months ago? The delivery team?”

  The voice sharpened. “You know where they are?”

  “Not exactly, no. But I have a general area. Maybe you can help narrow the search.”

  “How would I do that?”

  “Please,” DeGroot said. “Don’t insult my intelligence. You have your fingers in everything.”

  There was a pause. “What area?”

  “They’re somewhere in the mountains in the state of North Carolina.”

  “Good place to disappear in. It took them five years to find that guy who bombed the Olympics.”

  “I can see that. But this group has a child with them. And a vehicle. They aren’t likely living rough in a cave.”

  “Good point.”

  “They’ve got a safe house somewhere. Someplace not even their immediate command knew about. Help me find them.”

  “And what then?” the voice said.

  “I’ll put together a team,” DeGroot replied. “I’ll do the recruitment and the mission planning.”

  “With the mission being…”

  DeGroot chuckled. “Best you not ask that question, hey?”

  “It’s like that then,” the voice said.

  “Yeah,” DeGroot replied. “Just like that.”

  “It’ll take some time.”

  “Time is something I don’t have a lot of.”

  “You have a little more than you think. Your strike was very effective. You took out some of their key people in the area. The FBI’s taking some time to regroup. But in a day or two, every agent on the East Coast is going to be arriving in those mountains.”

  “Kak,” DeGroot swore softly.

  “Why don’t you let me find you a place?”

  DeGroot laughed out loud. “Right. Dankie, but I don’t think I’ll put myself in your hands right now. I’ll call you tomorrow.” He pushed the button that ended the call. He checked the names and numbers on his note pad and dialed again.

  ***

  The heat draped itself around Danny Patrick like a wet blanket as he slid out of the front seat of the limo. He did his best to ignore it, his eyes sweeping the sidewalks and doorways on his side of the car. God damn, this suit was hot, though. For the amount of green it had set him back, the designer could probably have afforded to put in an air-conditioning unit. But the clients demanded a certain level of class in the appearance of everyone around them, including the bodyguards, even if that meant wearing clothes that would slow him down if any real shit ever started. Not that anything serious would ever go down with this client. Nothing Danny would regard as serious, at least. The worst the spoiled little shit would ever face would be a love-struck fan or an overly aggressive paparazzo, and the little shit’s management had been quite clear about a hands-off policy regarding those people. The last thing the little shit needed was another lawsuit. So Danny and his team had to intimidate, without actually getting physical. It worked on most fans, but the paparazzi knew that the team couldn’t actually break cameras and heads anymore and acted accordingly, smirking as they snapped away, the flashbulbs going off like tracer fire.

  Sometimes the explosions of light transported him back to combat for a second. He felt the rush of adrenaline, the fear-rage combination that had once fueled him on the battlefield. He kept it under control, though. He didn’t do to the photographers the awful things he knew he could, no matter how much he felt like it. But the intrusions always made the little shit furious, and he took it out on the security detail. Danny sometimes worried that he was going to start losing teeth soon, he spent so much time grinding them in frustration.

  He finished his threat assessment. He’d found nothing and expected to find nothing. This was Coconut Grove, not Fallujah. He opened the limo door.

  The little shit blinked up at him, his eyes red and squinting. Danny fought the urge to curl his lip in disdain. Not even six o’clock and the nation’s newest teen pop idol was stewed to the gills. A few more expensive brandies at dinner, a few lines of blow in the restaurant crapper while the management looked the other way, and he’d be a raging monster. Danny sighed to himself. It was shaping up to be a long night. The little shit staggered out of the limo, followed by his current bimbo, the teenage star of a couple of slasher movies. The girl’s eyes were as red and puffy as the client’s, and one strap of her designer dress was askew, almost falling down in front.

  “Ma’am,” Danny said politely, gesturing toward her dress. She recoiled from him as if she’d been struck, then glanced down and giggled. She looked up at Danny with a nasty smile
and tugged the strap down further, revealing her breast to him for a second before pulling it back up. Her smile grew wider, smug and triumphant. Made you look, she was obviously thinking, made you look at something you’ll never have. She followed the little shit to the restaurant, where another member of the security team was already holding the door open. Danny felt a flush of rage rising to his cheeks. He briefly entertained the fantasy of stepping up behind her and snapping that skinny neck like a chicken’s.

  He actually took a step toward her before he stopped himself. He thought about the message he had seen earlier on the bulletin board. What ever the job was, he decided, he was going to take it. Fuck this shit. He was a soldier, not a goddamn babysitter. The phone buzzed in his jacket pocket. He pulled it out and flipped it open. “Go,” he said.

  “Long time, no see,” a familiar voice said. “You got my message?”

  “Yeah,” Danny replied. “I’m in.”

  DeGroot sounded surprised. “You don’t want to know what it is?”

  “You said there was a possible big paycheck,” Danny said. “That still true?”

  “Yeah,” DeGroot said. “But there’s some risk.”

  Danny glanced up. The team leader was gesturing at him angrily from the restaurant door.

  “Good,” Danny said. “I’m bored off my ass.”

  DeGroot chuckled. “Lekker,” he said. He gave Danny a time and a place.

  “North Carolina?” Danny said. “What the fuck’s in North Carolina?” He shook his head. “Never mind. I’m still in.” He snapped the phone shut. The team leader was walking toward him. He caught a flash of movement from the corner of his eye. A man with a large camera bag dangling from his shoulder was dismounting a small motor scooter a few feet away. Danny walked toward him, pushing past the team leader. The paparazzo came on, raising the camera, grinning from ear to ear. Danny could tell what he was thinking. A scuffle between two members of the security detail might not be as good as one of the little shit himself in some embarrassing situation, but it might be worth a few bucks. Danny grabbed the camera and jerked it away from the paparazzo. Then he whirled completely around in a 360-degree arc, generating the maximum momentum as he smashed the heavy camera into the side of the man’s head. The paparazzo didn’t have time to scream as he collapsed. Danny threw the camera down on the paparazzo’s bleeding skull as hard as he could and turned to face the team leader. The man was standing there, his mouth open in shock. He shut it with an almost audible snap. His face contorted with rage. “You crazy bastard,” he yelled, “What the fuck?”