by Peter Darley
Jacques raised his hands calmly. “Hey, Ty. I appreciate you explaining. Come to think of it, it may be a stroke of genius. But what’s wrong, buddy? You seem as tight as a knot.”
Tyler gave Jacques an apologetic tap on the shoulder. “I’m sorry, Rob. I have a lot on my mind.”
“I can see that.”
Tyler pointed through the booth window. “That’s Kyle, our glockenspiel player. It’s an entirely new creation in rock. You’re familiar with the term ‘lead guitar’?”
“Of course.”
“Well, I give you . . . lead glock.” Tyler relaxed and winked at Jacques, who responded with an amused chuckle.
Tyler’s cell phone rang. He took it out and checked the caller ID to see it was Belinda. “I need to take this.”
“Sure.”
Tyler walked out of the booth, into the corridor, and answered the call. “Belinda? Where are you?”
Her voice came through the receiver sounding emotional and shaken. “I’m with David Spicer, not far from Fort Bragg. Tyler, I’ve seen Brandon.”
He felt as though his heart had stopped beating. “You’ve seen him?”
“Oh, God, Ty. You wouldn’t know him. He killed my mother right in front of me and Emily.”
He fell against the corridor wall and slid down onto the floor, devastated.
“Tyler? You still there.”
“Yeah . . . I’m here,” he said weakly. “What are you doing at Bragg?”
“It was the safest place I could think of.”
“Do you have any plans?”
“Not yet. David just left. He’ll be back later.”
“OK, thanks for letting me know. Keep me posted, all right? I’m so sorry about your mom.”
“Sure. Thank you, Ty.”
Tyler ended the call, sat back against the wall, and wept.
***
Belinda put her cell phone down and looked up sharply.
David burst into the room and reached his hand out to her. “I need the keys to the Porsche.”
She stood slowly and looked him in the eye with knowingness. “He’s found us again, hasn’t he?”
“Not yet, but I don’t know how close he is. All I can tell you is, I have to get that car far away from you as quickly as possible. I’ll explain everything when I get back.”
She took the keys out of her pocket and handed them to him. David hurried out again.
Belinda walked over to Rachel. “How is he finding us?”
“That was one of his specialties. He would use anything he could get his hands on to get done whatever job he had to do.”
Belinda sat down on the couch again, shivering.
Spicer ran along the apartments’ sidewalk until he came to the last door on his right and knocked urgently.
After a few moments, a tall, dark-haired man in his early thirties opened the door.
“Sergeant Major,” Staff Sergeant Barry Stockton said, and saluted.
“I need your help.”
“Sure. What’s going on?”
“It’s not official. It hasn’t got that far yet, but we don’t have a moment to waste. I need you to follow me in your car.”
“I’ll get my keys.”
“Hurry.”
David pinched his knuckles as he waited. He knew he wasn’t handling this as calmly as he should, but it was as personal as it was essential.
Stockton stepped out of his quarters and closed the door behind him. “Sir, can you give me any indication of what we’re gonna be doing?”
David’s pace quickened. “I’ve given shelter to two civilians. They’re being hunted, and the tracker has a homing device attached to their car. I have to get it away from here. It’s the only way we’re gonna catch him. We’re close enough to the base, and I don’t think he’ll be stupid enough to try breaking onto the grounds.”
Stockton stopped at his red M5 sedan. “Sir, why aren’t you letting the police handle this?”
“Because they can’t handle this. I’ll explain later. Let’s just say, for now . . . we’re going to snare a scorpion.”
A hint of suspicion crossed Stockton’s face. “No way. He’s—”
“Not!” David cut him off and pointed just ahead of him. “I’m driving that Porsche over there. I need you to follow me. We’re gonna dump the Porsche, and I need you to give me a ride back.”
“From where?”
“Get ready for a one-hundred-fifty mile ride.”
“You got it.” Stockton climbed into his sedan.
David kept his eye on the rear-view mirror for two hours in order to ensure he hadn’t lost Stockton. He knew the danger they were in, and hoped he’d got the Porsche away from the Bragg area quickly enough. This was his only chance to guide Drake away from Belinda and his sister, and his one chance to set up The Scorpion’s capture.
None of that changed the fact that Drake could have been around every corner tracking the homing beacon magnetized to the Porsche’s bumper. David was more conscious of the other cars behind them than he would’ve been otherwise. Neither he, nor Stockton, stood a chance against Drake in the event of a confrontation. His choice of destination was not only a means of leading Drake away from a populated area. It also had a historical connection for them all.
He finally came upon a rundown shack on the roadside and spun the Porsche into an inlet, just ahead of the shack. Stockton pulled up behind him.
As David climbed out of the Porsche, memories came back to him. Beyond the shack, on the other side of the shallow hill, was a vast plain of desert land. It was the site of their last official training exercise with Drake—the place where Drake had punched out Colonel Woodroffe for ordering him to do something he didn’t want to do.
David ran to Stockton’s sedan and noticed the road ahead of him, heading west. The day he first met the Brandon Drake who’d been a stranger to him came back with such sadness. In his mind’s eye, he could see the look of anguish in the eyes of a man of courage and honor when a kidnapper took his woman. He recalled the explosions as the kidnapper hurled grenades out of the window at them. He remembered jumping out of Brandon’s SUV to avoid the explosion, and Brandon pulling him up the side of the canyon with a spider cable. He hadn’t known at the time that the Brandon Drake he’d met that day was the man the world would come to know as The Interceptor—a pop-culture legend.
Nothing made any sense. Drake had become the perfect hero. The Interceptor worked. Why would the government turn him back into a psychopath? They had the ultimate soldier in their grasp.
In a strange turn, Woodroffe always seemed to have the same opinion as Wilmot. The colonel saw the wartime virtues in Drake’s psychopathy, but David never could.
He opened the passenger door to the sedan and climbed in. “Get us out of here, Stockton. I’ve got to call this in.” David took out his cell phone and made a call, which was answered almost immediately. “General, this is Sergeant Major David Spicer.”
“Yes, Spicer,” General Thaddeus Grant said.
“Sir, we have an extremely delicate situation on our hands. I’m currently providing safe harbor for two civilians. I have reason to believe their lives are in serious danger.”
“Please explain, Spicer.”
“Well, sir, this is going to sound very strange, but it seems Brandon Drake is still alive.”
There was a tense silence on the line.
“Sir?”
“I’m here. As I recall, you gave a eulogy at Drake’s funeral a few months ago, over my personal objections. He was no friend of the Eighty-Second Airborne Division, Spicer.”
“Your objection was duly noted, sir. We believe his death was faked as part of a covert intelligence operation, and now he’s on the rampage.”
“Tell me everything you know, Spicer.”
“The two people I’m sheltering are Belinda Reese and Drake’s sister, Emily. Apparently, Drake killed Reese’s mother two nights ago, and it’s believed he was responsible for slaying a team of se
curity guards at Faraday Ranch in Dallas. These killings can be verified via the media.”
“I’m aware of the Faraday Ranch incident. How do you know it was Drake?”
“Belinda Reese and Emily Drake told me they were face to face with him in Boston. They believe he’s tracking them.” David paused for a moment as he contemplated how he was going to explain the tracking device. He’d known what it was only because he’d seen an identical model over two years earlier during an unlawful meeting with Brandon. According to the rules of conduct, he’d been duty bound to turn Drake in at the time. It was all a matter of how he worded it. “I then discovered what appeared to be a homing device on the back of their Porsche. I had to get it away from the area without delay. This may be our only chance of stopping him, sir.”
“Where’s the car now?”
“I felt the most responsible move was to take it to some place away from a civilian population. Staff Sergeant Barry Stockton and I delivered it to an inlet on the south side of Cherry Mountain Plain. If Drake’s following the homing device, that’s where he’ll show up.”
“You did the right thing, Spicer. Come on back, and I’ll handle it from here.”
“Thank you, sir.” The call ended.
David glanced at Stockton anxiously as the sedan sped along the dusty road.
Thirty-Four
Trusted
Wilmot paced his office in Langley. Whenever he was alone, his mind was in turmoil. Not only was Drake still out there wreaking havoc, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that something was going down internally. Firestorm. It’s going to come to that. I can feel it.
His cell phone ran and he answered it. “Wilmot.”
“This is General Thaddeus Grant at Bragg.”
“Yes, General, what can I do for you?”
“You asked me to send a unit to L.A. three months ago, and I agreed, despite my own personal reservations.”
“Indeed you did, General. It was a splendid job.”
“Except for the fact that I had no idea what the hell you were doing.”
“What do you mean, General?”
“You faked Brandon Drake’s death!”
Wilmot shuddered. How the hell could Grant possibly know? “General . . . what are you talking about?”
“Don’t play games with me, Wilmot. One of your covert operations blew a gasket, didn’t it?”
Wilmot was silent. No matter what he said, he knew it would be incriminating.
“Now listen to me,” Grant said. “Brandon Drake is tracking his girlfriend and his sister. That’s now been mediated. He’s currently tracking a homing device to the south side of Cherry Mountain Plain in North Carolina. I suggest you contact the FBI or the National Guard to clean up this mess.”
“General—”
The line went dead.
Wilmot felt the blood drain from his face, and urgently took out his other cell phone. His call was answered after four rings. “Slamer? Where the hell are you?”
“Heading south,” Slamer said. “Look, I’m driving. It’s been a heavy few days. I’m on my way back from Boston where Drake killed Reese’s mother.”
“How far are you from North Carolina?”
“Just comin’ up to it now.”
“I just spoke to General Grant at Bragg. He knows Drake is alive, and that he’s gonna be showing up at the south side of some place called Cherry Mountain Plain. Look it up. We can’t afford for the FBI to pick him up.”
“I know where Cherry Mountain Plain is. I’m right on it.”
“Take him out, Slamer. You can’t afford to fail.”
General Grant gazed at his phone in a state of dilemma. Something was very wrong. Wilmot was not someone he could trust. Drake had always been a hazard and a stain on the name of the Eighty-Second Airborne Division. He was an arrogant, disobedient maniac, who always managed to evade sanction. There had never been any justice where his behavior was concerned. He’d escaped from Leavenworth, he’d cheated death, and now he was on a killing spree, which would likely continue. Grant knew that as a matter of conscience, he couldn’t leave the matter in Wilmot’s hands. Drake was too dangerous.
Despite the unlawfulness of what he had to do, he picked up the phone and punched in an extension number. “Colonel Woodroffe, this is General Grant.”
“Yes, General. What can I do for you?”
“I need to see you right away.”
***
Senator Michael Adams was startled by the sudden entrance of Robert Bolton into his office. “What’s going on, Bolton?”
“Sir, Jed Crane is on the line, and he wants to talk to you.”
Adams stood rapidly. “Patch him through right away. And get Brenham on the line.”
“Yes, sir.”
Bolton stepped out of the room as Adams sat down again. He was quickly alerted by a beep and a red flashing light on his phone, and switched on the speaker. “Adams speaking.”
“Senator? This is Jed Crane.”
“Mr. Crane, I can’t even begin to tell you how glad I am that you’ve called. I can assure you, you have nothing to worry about.”
“Have you spoken to Director Brenham?”
“Yes, I had a meeting with him yesterday. I’m pleased to say he’s of the same mind as you. He’s already on to Director Wilmot.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, and he’s eager to speak to you. All of this is being kept under wraps because he has no idea how far it extends. He’s extremely cautious about making a move that may alert any of Wilmot’s operatives.”
“That makes sense, but I’m still not ready to come in until I have something concrete.”
“What do you have in mind, Mr. Crane?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“Would you be willing to talk to Director Brenham?”
“Can you get him on the line?”
“I’m arranging it as we speak.” Adams glanced at the phone cradle and another flashing light appeared. “In fact, I think we have him here. Stand by and I’ll connect you.”
Jack Brenham sat in his office in Langley holding the phone to his ear, his heart pounding with anticipation.
A familiar voice came on the line. “Director?”
“Jed,” Brenham said, beaming. “You have no idea how relieved I am to be speaking with you.”
“I know, sir. The senator told me.”
“I can’t imagine what you’ve been through, but maybe you can help bring an end to this goddamn nightmare.”
“I hope so too.”
“Tell me what you know. Do you have anything at all on this faction? Any names other than Wilmot’s?”
“I don’t have much, but it may be enough for you to get the ball rolling. I have four names, including Wilmot’s.”
Brenham sank back with relief. His greatest fear was that Crane knew no more than Wilmot was involved. Even if it was only one more name, it may have been enough to bring them down. “Who are the other three besides Wilmot?”
“OK, are you ready for this?”
Brenham picked up a pen and held it against a pad with the phone braced under his chin. “Go ahead.”
“All right. Wilmot is the leader, and I know Kerwin and Rhodes are in on it too.”
Brenham scribbled down the names and stared at them, aghast. “Are you sure?”
“Very.”
The director listened as Crane disclosed the only other conspiracy member he knew. As much as Brenham needed the information, it was heartbreaking to hear, nonetheless. “Thank you, Jed. Can I talk you into coming in?”
“I want to, believe me. I’ll just feel a hell of a lot safer when I know these bastards are in custody.”
“I understand. Where can I reach you?”
“I’ll contact you tomorrow. Is that enough time?”
“I’ll do my best. Because of the necessity of secrecy, I’m working on much of this alone.”
“All right, sir. I’ll be in touch. You have my word.”
<
br /> Brenham placed the phone back on the cradle and studied the three names on the pad.
After tearing the paper off, he got out of his chair, exited the office, and walked briskly along the corridor. He arrived at April Hayes’ door and entered without knocking.
Sitting behind her desk, Hayes looked up with a start. “Jack.”
“We need to talk. I’ve just spoken to Jed Crane.”
“You have? Where is he?”
“I don’t know. Mike Adams put me through to him. Crane gave me three new names of personnel he believes are connected to the conspiracy with Wilmot.”
“Who?”
He took out the slip of paper and handed it to her, studying her eyes for a reaction. It took moments for him to detect her concern.
“Are you sure this is for real?” she said.
“As sure as I can be. I need your help.” He pulled out the chair opposite her and sat down. “I trusted these people. I didn’t like Wilmot, but I trusted him. Hell, I even trusted Treadwell and Payne. Now I can’t trust anyone. I need to put someone on this.”
“What do you have planned?”
“I need an operative to put Kerwin and Rhodes under surveillance.”
“Cullen,” she said without hesitation.
“I need you to be sure about this, April. I have no way of knowing who’s connected with them, and no way of finding out without potentially alerting them.”
“Cullen’s the one who came to me with it as soon as Jacobson told him about Mojave. I could tell he was genuinely concerned. He can be trusted. I’d bet my life on him.”
“You may be doing just that.”
She looked at the paper again. “What are you doing about the other one?”
“I can’t afford for anyone here to get involved,” Brenham said. “I’m bringing the FBI into it. This needs to take place away from CIA headquarters until we know more.”
“All right. I’ll get hold of Cullen.”
Brenham stood. “When you do, tell him I want to see him right away. He’s not to say a word to anyone. Now, I’ve got to get over to the Federal Building.”
