Man of War

by Sean Parnell

  The nurse saw them coming and whispered something to the airman, who stood upright, smoothing his uniform top and adopting an official-looking scowl.

  “Serious little guy, isn’t he?” Demo joked in Arabic.

  “And a major to boot. This should be fun.”

  “Gentlemen, I am Major Taylor, and I will be accompanying you to the security ward.” There was something familiar about the man’s face that stirred Steele’s memory.

  “I knew a Taylor in the Army. You don’t have a brother, do you?”

  “Yes, sir, I do.”

  “Damn, you’re right. He looks just like ol’ Brad, except his hair,” Demo said, pointing at the airman, “isn’t all gray.”

  The major grinned and ran his hand over his jet-black hair. “Do you know him, sir?”

  Steele nodded. “I was with him in Afghanistan when he was a major. His team HALO’d into Kandahar, word is he killed fifty Taliban with an E-tool. Good man.”

  “I heard he is writing romance novels now, is that true?”

  “That’s him.” Taylor chuckled. “Writes under the name Ray Ironrod.”

  The major badged them through a few doors and into the secure wing of the hospital.

  “He’s in room 201.”

  “Major, if we could hold up a second,” Steele said, looking at the desk where three beefy-looking airmen sat in front of computers. There were cameras everywhere and Steele needed to set some ground rules.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I assume you were given certain orders regarding us.”

  “Yes, sir. I was told by the base commander to help you in any way possible.”

  “Major Taylor, do you plan on making a career out of the Air Force?”

  “Plan on staying as long as they will have me.”

  “Excellent. The reason I ask is there are some questions we are going to ask the prisoner, and it is probably best if you and your men have plausible deniability.”

  “Okay . . .”

  “What I’m saying is, I need you to cut the cameras in the room and make sure you erase any pictures of us.”

  Steele and Demo waited in the hall, just out of sight of the cameras, for Major Taylor to brief the men at the security desk. Steele watched the nearest camera, focusing on the red power light, and when it went out they continued down the hall.

  They stepped inside the room and Steele looked at the man he had saved in Málaga. He was heavily bandaged and secured to the bed by handcuffs and leg irons. Demo set the attaché case on the chair and popped the locks, causing the man to look over at his guest.

  “Remember me?” Steele asked.

  “Piss off.”

  Demo took a black object from the case while Steele walked to the head of the man’s bed and looked down at him.

  “Before they took you to surgery I went ahead and ran you through the database,” Steele began casually. The man watched him, but remained silent. “Fingerprints were a bust.” Steele grabbed the man’s hand, which was balled into a fist, and slowly worked his fingers open.

  The man fought against him, beads of sweat forming on his forehead. It wasn’t long before he was sucking air. “Nurse, nurse!” he yelled.

  “Nobody here but us,” Steele said, peeling his fingers back until he was looking at the white scars where his prints should have been. “Lye?”

  “You’re wasting your fucking time with me,” the man huffed, pain clouding his eyes. The IV machine beeped, administering a dose of something that instantly relaxed him in the bed. He smiled up at Steele, the pain evaporating.

  “Have it your way.”

  Steele let go of his hand, turning his attention to the bags hanging from the hooks at the top of the pole. The larger bag was saline, and he ignored it, knowing that the doctors had hung it for hydration purposes. Next to it was a smaller bag with a label identifying it as morphine.

  “Put thirty minutes on the clock,” Steele said.

  Demo nodded, fingers clicking on the plastic, and then set the object on the bed next to the patient. The digital readout was already counting down.

  “Do what you want, I’m not telling you a damn thing.”

  Steele unlocked the IV pump and disengaged the morphine drip. It wouldn’t take long for the last shot to wear off, and he knew the pain would change the man’s mind.

  “The thing is, I already know who you are. Peter Villars, age thirty-nine, from Pretoria, South Africa,” he said. “In South Africa they might still use prints, but the rest of the world knows that it’s all about the eye,” Steele said with a wink. “I know you were with the South African Defence Force and spent seven years with the 5 Special Forces Regiment. The only thing I want to know is where the hell West is going.”

  Steele moved to the door, pausing before stepping into the hall.

  “Loyalty is a strange thing, Pete, and it only works if it goes both ways. When the pain starts, I hope you remember that you are suffering for a man who left you to die.”

  “You think they have coffee around here?”

  “We have thirty minutes to find out.”

  They were on their second cup when Demo’s watch beeped. Steele’s keeper hit the button without looking up from the old magazine he’d found in the break room.

  “Says here Brad and Angelina are breaking up.”

  “Everybody knows that,” Steele lied, not really sure what he was talking about.

  “Oh really?”

  “Yep. Man, look at the time, we probably should get going.”

  Demo leaned back in his chair and shook his head. “Not until you admit that you have no idea who I’m talking about.”

  “Brad what’s his name. The basketball guy, right?”

  “Nope.”

  “Okay, I have no idea who you are talking about.”

  “Brad Pitt, the actor,” Demo said getting to his feet.

  “Never heard of him.”

  Steele held the door open for his keeper and followed him down the hall. When they turned the corner Villars was screaming for the nurse.

  “That didn’t take long.”

  “Dude is burned up like a fish stick, should have put fifteen minutes on the clock.”

  “Nah.”

  Steele cracked the door and stuck his head in. Villars’s face was bathed in sweat and his bandages were soaked through.

  “You ready to talk?”

  “Turn the fuckin’ drugs back on, mate. I’ll tell ya whatever ya want to know.”

  Demo slipped into the room, heading for the IV pump.

  “Please,” Villars begged.

  “You know the game. Where is West?”

  “I don’t know the exact spot, but he is headed to the States.”

  “Yeah, I figured that out myself,” Steele said, picking up the stopwatch. “Hey, Demo, how do you bump this up to an hour?”

  “The button—”

  “I’m serious, he never told me shit. West is a fuckin’ bastard, mate. I would have killed him myself if I didn’t need the money.”

  “So you expect me to believe that you have been working with West, but have no idea where he’s going?”

  “The States, mate, that’s all I know.”

  “Where in the States?”

  Steele punched the button and called off the numbers as they increased. “Thirty-five, forty, forty-five . . .”

  “Okay, okay. I don’t know the target, but I know there is a house somewhere near D.C. The guy Baudin owns it and it has a landing strip West was going to use.”

  It made sense, but before Steele put his trust in Villars he was going to check it out himself.

  “I am going to see if you are telling the truth,” he said, holding up a phone. “If I find out you are lying I am going to come back in here and put two hours on the clock.”

  Chapter 69

  While President Cole was being transported to Bethesda Naval Hospital, the Secret Service drove Rockford and his wife back to the White House.

  “Poor Nancy,
” Lisa said.

  Rockford wasn’t listening, his mind still replaying the moment Cole went down, the memory repeating over and over on an endless loop.

  Rockford took the steps two at a time. Cole was falling, but somehow Rockford got there before the President’s head hit the ground, masking his friend from the cameras with his body.

  “Sir, sir, can you hear me?”

  His voice bounced off the ceiling, magnified by the microphone connected to Cole’s lapel. Rockford ripped it off and threw it away, aware of the flurry of movement around them.

  Cole’s eyes rolled back, lids fluttering and face white as the grave. He started to seize, the tremor shaking him from foot to head. There was white foam forming at the edge of the President’s lips, which were turning blue. Rockford’s grandfather had suffered from seizures, and he remembered how the old man lisped because he had once bitten off the end of his tongue.

  Get something between his teeth.

  Rockford yanked a pen out of his pocket, the one Emma had given to him when he was sworn in, pried the President’s jaw open, and jammed it between his teeth.

  “I’ve got him, sir,” a man said, dropping a large red bag on the ground.

  Rockford recognized the White House medic, but couldn’t make himself let go of his friend.

  “Sir, I’ve got him.”

  Rockford sat back, watching the medic pull an oxygen mask over the President’s face. The agent in charge of Cole’s security detail was there, leaning over his boss. He was asking the medic something Rockford couldn’t hear, and then he turned and looked him straight in the face, a hand moving up to his mouth.

  What is he saying?

  More agents arrived, but instead of circling Cole as they were supposed to, they formed a perimeter around Rockford. “Sir, we need you to come with us.”

  “Not until I’m sure he’s okay,” he snapped.

  “That wasn’t a question, sir.” Strong hands slipped under his arms, lifting him off his knees.

  “Let’s go, let’s go.”

  “Denton!” he yelled.

  The phone in the center console rang, pulling Rockford from his thoughts. It was Lansky.

  “Boss, I found something.”

  Rockford knew his chief of staff wouldn’t be calling right now unless it was vital. “What is it?”

  “Styles had a girlfriend, she just got picked up by the Capitol Police for public intox.”

  “Okay.”

  “I’ve got a guy who works in central holding. He says that she is talking about poisoning President Cole.”

  “Ted, I’m not following you. What does this have to—”

  “Boss, she was Cole’s nurse.”

  “I want her in federal custody in the next five minutes. Take her to the black site in Bethesda and wait for me there, do you understand?”

  “They are already on their way.”

  Chapter 70

  Rockford couldn’t get used to the idea of being addressed as Mr. President. The hospital called him regularly, updating him on Cole’s condition. His friend was in a coma, hanging on, but it was obvious he would never be the same. The phone on the desk rang and Rockford snatched it up.

  “Yes?”

  “Mr. Vice President,” Eric began.

  Steele’s voice hit him like a stab to the heart. Shit, he doesn’t know about Cole.

  “Sir, are you there?”

  “Yes . . . yes, Eric, sorry, we almost lost the reception.”

  Tell him, you selfish asshole. But Rockford knew he couldn’t, not now at least. He needed Steele to be thinking clearly, not on the man who meant so much to him, who was at the moment lying in a coma. Yes, it is selfish, but that’s the job.

  “What do you have?”

  Rockford listened while Steele filled him in. It wasn’t the news he’d been hoping for, but right now as long as the nuke hadn’t been detonated, he considered that a win.

  “What do you need?”

  “I need to know if Henri Baudin has any property that fits what this guy is saying, and if so I am going to need a ride.”

  Rockford jotted the name on a piece of paper and handed it to his chief of staff. Lansky read the name, nodded, and headed for the door to check.

  “I don’t like this,” Rockford replied.

  “Me either, but as long as we have a trail we have a chance.”

  “Do what you have to do.”

  “Yes, sir, I am going to need you to make a call for me. Are you familiar with the Skunk Works?”

  “Lockheed Martin’s advanced test lab?”

  “That’s the one. They have an aircraft, the SR-92 Aurora. Would you mind giving them a call and telling them that I need a ride to the States?”

  Chapter 71

  The Gulfstream G650 had the speed and the range to make it to the States in ten hours, which gave West plenty of time to think. Proper planning and good luck had gotten him this far and proved the merit of keeping the operation compartmentalized. Everyone under him was on a need-to-know basis, and that included Villars and especially Henri Baudin.

  It was a lesson West had learned the hard way when his family was killed.

  The only person you can trust is yourself.

  It turned out that he had received two wounds, both superficial. The shotgun pellets had grazed his arm, and the first one made a big tear that looked terrible, but Liam had sewn it up without any problem.

  The second pellet must have hit his vest, because when Liam pulled it out of his pectoral the lead shot was flattened. “I hope your tetanus is up to date.”

  “When we land I’ll be sure to go to the emergency room.”

  Liam pumped him full of antibiotics and offered a shot of Novocain. The medic couldn’t believe that his boss didn’t feel the scalpel or the needle.

  West stopped drinking and left a few fingers in the bottom of the bottle. He had a nice buzz and his eyes were getting heavy. But before he could rest there was something he needed to do.

  Going after Bassar had been a risk, West knew that on the front end, but it was necessary. Breul had designed the bomb around a fusion booster, which allowed him to make the device small and powerful. West had read about boosting and knew that the idea was to fire a small amount of fusion fuel into the core prior to detonation. The fuel created a two-stage thermonuclear device, which increased the yield by 27 percent. The bomb dropped on Hiroshima had wasted 80 percent of the plutonium packed into its core, and now West faced a similar problem. His failure to grab Bassar meant that his device would be inefficient. Instead of using the booster, he was going to have to rig the core to detonate.

  It will still be nuclear, he thought. But instead of killing millions, looks like I’ll have to settle for a few hundred thousand, at least until the fallout starts killing everyone.

  West tottered to the workstation and logged in to the encrypted computer mounted to the mahogany desk. Baudin had everything a man could need on the plane, and after the pilot helped Jonas disable the transponder, West knew the Gulfstream was untraceable. He easily reconfigured the computer terminal, locking Baudin out of his own network, and logged on to one of the public forums he used to communicate with his network of sources and fixers.

  The men weren’t cheap, but West had thought of that one too. Baudin had bankrolled the operation out of the Caymans, giving West access to the money he’d need. Knowing that he might need an emergency fund, West had been secretly siphoning cash from the myriad of accounts, hiding them in a rainy day fund of his own. He knew the balance was two million dollars, and with that kind of money he could get anything he needed.

  The first thing he did was drop a handful of bread crumbs among a group of sources he knew were on the payroll of the U.S. government. West knew from years of experience that the American intelligence apparatus had a network of spies and informants who worked for money and that even after the failures in Iraq and Afghanistan the United States would rather pay for information than train its operatives to get t
heir own.

  All he had to do was whisper in the right ears.

  Time to drop some dimes.

  He sent four messages, all relating to Baudin, the only one left who could really hurt him. West knew it was only a matter of time before they linked him to the Frenchman. The key was to keep the “unblinking eye” looking somewhere else.

  He told the snitches exactly where to find his employer. He knew by the time they checked the intel out, sent a team to grab him, and transported him to a secure location, West would be in the States. Even if Baudin knew what he was planning, there wasn’t enough time left for him to do anything about it.

  When he was done, West brought up Skype and logged in. It was a favorite means of communication all over the world because of its sophisticated encryption package. He dialed the number but kept the camera off, and after a few rings a man with a southern accent answered.

  “Yeah?”

  “I need a team and they need to be heavy.”

  “Jesus, do you know what time it is?”

  “I don’t give a shit what time it is. Do you want the money or not?”

  “How soon do you need them?”

  “Right now the location is stateside, so you won’t have far to go.”

  “It’s going to cost you.”

  “I’ll give you two million if you can have them there in the next three hours.”

  There was silence on the other end.

  West was paying three times the normal rate, and that kind of money meant big risk. It also meant that the man could retire as soon as the wire hit his account.

  “Done.”

  “I’m sending half now, the other half on delivery. You good with that?”

  “Yes.”

  “One more thing, I only want the pipe hitters. If they don’t have confirmed kills, don’t bother bringing them.”

  Chapter 72

  “Welcome home,” the pilot of the SR-92 said as the jet slipped over the coast, feet dry for the first time since leaving Spain.