Danger Close

by James P. Sumner

  “Thank you, Jericho. For everything.”

  “Any time,” he replied.

  “So, what will you do now? What’s GlobaTech’s plan?”

  Jericho shrugged. “I imagine our future will remain uncertain for a while. But until we hear otherwise, we’ll continue to do what we were paid to do. We’ll stick around and help you get back on your feet.”

  “I would surely welcome your counsel,” said Montez, extending his hand.

  Jericho shook it and smiled. “I appreciate the sentiment, but I’ll be heading back to the States on the first flight you allow out of here.”

  “I see. Do you have more work to do?”

  Jericho shook his head. “No. I have a woman waiting for me who, frankly, is better looking than you.”

  Montez laughed. “Even better.”

  26

  May 8, 2020

  * * *

  The sun beat down on Santa Clarita. Despite the early hour, steam rose from the gravel and blacktop of the compound as the temperature continued to climb.

  Outside, the herd of reporters and news crews had thinned significantly for the first time in almost a week. As more and more details became known about the nature—and the end—of the Palugan crisis, national interest shifted, and the broadcasters accommodated.

  GlobaTech was no longer the story.

  Jericho had arrived back on U.S. soil the previous day, along with a number of operatives all eager to return home. After being checked out by medical personnel, he headed straight for Julie’s quarters. Their reunion began frantically, then relaxed into one of relief and joy.

  Inside the main building, on the top floor, Buchanan sat behind the desk in his office. His elbows rested on the arms of his chair, and his fingers were bridged in front of his face. In front of him, his laptop stood open, displaying wallpaper emblazoned with the GlobaTech logo.

  Over by the window, a tired and sore Collins stood looking at the daily activities unfolding below him. Men and women moved around the small town, all motivated by a common purpose.

  The silence was comfortable. Both men were operating on little sleep. From the moment they had landed two days ago, they and Julie had worked every bit of information, evidence, and theory they had to try and figure out what was really going on.

  They had drawn nothing but blanks.

  Collins turned to address Buchanan. “So, nothing more from the suits in Washington?”

  His inquiry was met with silence.

  “Boss?”

  Buchanan looked up, dazed. “Hmm?”

  “I just asked if ya had any news from Washington.”

  “Sorry, I was distracted.” He shook his head. “I’ve heard nothing from the U.N., no. Nor have I heard anything more about the hearings.”

  “Do ya think we’re in the clear?”

  “I spoke with President Schultz last night. He’s up to date with our working theory about what happened and what’s to come. I suspect he will put in a good word for us with the people who matter. It will buy us some time, at least.”

  “Well, that’s something, eh?”

  Just as Buchanan checked his watch, the door to his office opened. Julie walked in, followed closely by Jericho.

  “Sorry we’re late,” said Julie.

  Buchanan rolled his eyes. “You’re not. We were early.”

  He stood and made his way around the desk to greet Jericho, who had just closed the door behind him. They shook hands, and Buchanan patted his shoulder.

  “Truly outstanding work, soldier,” he said.

  Jericho looked around awkwardly. “Thank you. I was just doing my job.”

  “I was sorry to hear about Colonel Ramirez.”

  “He was a good man. We wouldn’t have survived without him and his men. He saved my life.”

  “Both sides suffered considerable losses,” said Buchanan, taking his seat again. “I’ll be committing a third of our initial manpower investment to stay on the ground in Paluga free of charge. Help out however we can.”

  Collins approached Jericho, smiling. They bumped fists, then embraced.

  “Damn good to see ya, Jerry,” said Collins.

  “Good to be back, brother.”

  “I tell ya, it’s a good job ya got back when ya did. Jules here was half a day away from moving on.” He smiled when Jericho rolled his eyes. “I swear, she was gearing up to elope with me. I mean, I knew I was a rebound, but I’d have dealt with it, ya know.”

  He flinched as Julie punched his arm from behind.

  “Hey!” he said, turning to face her. “Is that any way to treat the man whose arms ya were about to run into? Jeez…”

  They both smiled and laughed. Jericho soon joined in, relieved to be back with his team. With his family.

  “All right, settle down,” said Buchanan after a minute. “We ain’t out of the woods yet.”

  Collins perched on the windowsill over where he was standing before. Jericho leaned his enormous frame against the door. Julie sat opposite Buchanan.

  “What was the damage in Paluga?” she asked. “Any idea of final numbers yet?”

  Buchanan shook his head gravely. “Nothing concrete, but we lost at least two hundred people. The military lost almost double that—both the general’s and the colonel’s men.”

  Jericho sighed heavily. “So much of that could’ve been avoided. This whole thing was—”

  “I know, Jericho. But it happened. We dealt with it as best we could, and as callous as it sounds, we need to look ahead to what comes next.” He looked at Julie. “Did you bring him up to speed?”

  She nodded. “He knows what we know. He knows what we need to know. We dropped off one of Tristar’s weapons with Devon on the way here. We’ll see what he can make of it.”

  “Excellent.” He looked back at Jericho. “So, having been on the ground there this whole time, what’s your assessment of everything?”

  Jericho pushed himself away from the door and paced over to the windows, stopping beside Collins. “I think we’re probably right on the money. I don’t believe the assassination was unrelated. I don’t believe the general’s coup wasn’t premeditated.”

  “Based on?”

  “Forgetting for a moment the issue of not knowing Tristar were even in the weapons manufacturing business, every single soldier under his command was armed and ready for that civil war. Only way that happened was if the weapons were in the country before Herrera hired GlobaTech. It couldn’t have happened after his death because the country was locked down tight. No way to get the weapons in or out. So, they were in already. That means whoever placed the order with Tristar knew General Guerrero and his men were going to need the weapons beforehand.”

  Everyone in the room exchanged looks of concern.

  Buchanan nodded. “I agree. Do we know if the general’s talked at all?”

  Jericho shook his head. “I called for an update first thing, but I’m getting stonewalled.”

  “Unfortunately, the general’s interrogation and the inevitable war crimes tribunal are outside of our sphere of influence. We’ll be lucky to get any information about what he says. Do you have a hunch?”

  Jericho thought for a moment. “Honestly? I think he was played, just as we were. I think the Palugan situation was simply convenient for whomever is really pulling the strings here.”

  “Ya mean Orion?” said Collins bitterly.

  “Most likely, yeah.”

  “Fisher, any update on the shooter?” asked Buchanan.

  “Nothing,” she replied with a regrettable shake of her head. “We have a team working around the clock, monitoring satellites and security footage from all over the country. We’ll find her.”

  “Still no idea who she is?” asked Jericho.

  “Nada,” said Collins. “Crazy bitch is a ghost.”

  “Yet you managed to sleep with her…”

  Collins shrugged. “That was just some weird luck, man.”

  Julie looked over and shot him a cur
t glance. “Luck?”

  “Hey, the fact she’s an assassin doesn’t change how hot she is.”

  Jericho rolled his eyes again. “Christ…”

  Buchanan sighed. “Knock it off. All the shit we’ve been through this last week, and we’re sitting here with more questions than ever and no answers. That is not acceptable.”

  “We know,” said Julie. “But what more can we do? Every turn leads to a dead end.”

  “Then we need to start over. From the beginning.” He looked at Jericho and Collins. “Go over everything you know about Tristar. That warehouse operation you stopped—they were smuggling weapons, right?”

  “Yeah,” confirmed Jericho.

  “So, start looking into why they were smuggling other people’s weapons when they apparently make their own.”

  “Huh. Good point,” said Collins.

  “Thank you,” he said sarcastically. He looked at Julie. “You need to find the shooter. I think she’s the key to all of this. If we can get her to talk, we’ll find out who hired her and who supplied her with the guns and ammo. That will fill in a lot of blanks.”

  She nodded. “Of course. What about you? Do you have anything else left to do with the U.N.?”

  He shook his head. “No. For now, they’ve gone quiet. Their biggest concern was PR. Now that we’re the good guys again, there’s no image problem for them to lose sleep over. So, I’m going to track down your friend, Mr. Roachford. See if he can help us.”

  Julie sighed. “Boss, I’m telling you, that’s a non-starter. When we spoke last, he was pissed at us for not helping him in New York. He also blames us for getting him involved in the first place. He won’t talk to us.”

  Buchanan fixed her with a hard stare. “He’ll talk to me.”

  Collins wandered across the room. “Who the hell is this guy anyway? You’re making him out to be some kind of a big deal. How come I’ve never heard of him?”

  “He used to work for Tristar,” explained Buchanan. “He was involved when our guys got hit in Cambodia. He still has the information we procured from Tristar’s servers, and they’re probably the only people in the world he hates more than us.”

  “The enemy of my enemy…” mused Jericho.

  “Precisely.”

  “Is that why he John McClane’d their office building in New York?” asked Collins.

  “It is.”

  “What actually happened there? Do we know?”

  Julie shrugged. “It was all over the news, Ray.”

  He smiled. “I know that, love. I asked what actually happened.”

  Buchanan sat forward and began tapping away on his laptop. A moment later, he got to his feet and gestured to the screen. “Take a look for yourself.”

  He walked around the desk. Collins moved behind it and sat in Buchanan’s chair.

  “What’s this?” he asked.

  Buchanan pointed at the laptop. “That’s the unedited security feed of the building during the mass evacuation and lockdown at the end of the siege.”

  “I’m guessing you didn’t tell your friend at Orion you have that?” asked Jericho.

  Buchanan looked over at him and smiled. “Y’know… I may have forgotten to mention it.”

  Julie got to her feet. “What do you think Orion’s next move will be? Assuming the attempt at cancelling us in the media was their doing, they’ll be pissed it didn’t work.”

  Buchanan tilted his head as he shrugged. “Who knows? But until we have any actionable proof to begin a formal investigation into Tristar or Orion, we have to assume they will be looking for other ways to get to us. We just need to remain vigilant and keep our noses clean.”

  Jericho moved to Julie’s side. “Is their problem with us really that we started snooping around Tristar?”

  “What else would it be?” asked Julie. “We’re assuming they’re behind everything. That means they know exactly what Tristar were doing. Not much of a stretch to think we would eventually uncover evidence of their involvement if we were looking hard enough.”

  “Well, we haven’t yet,” said Buchanan. “But it’s only a matter of time. If we can tie all this together, we can get some real backing to take the fight to Orion. Put them in front of a few Senate hearings and see how they like it.”

  Jericho nodded. “A company that size, worth as much as they are… it would be unprecedented if it came to light that they were into illegal activity. No wonder they’re prepared to do anything to protect what they have.”

  “Exactly,” agreed Buchanan. “And GlobaTech isn’t an easy fight. Not many corporate entities in the world are on our level. But Orion’s definitely one of them. We just have to—”

  “What the actual shit!” shouted Collins.

  Everyone turned to look at him. He was staring at the laptop screen, his jaw hanging open, his eyes wide.

  “Mr. Roachford is a force to be reckoned with, isn’t he?” said Buchanan.

  After a moment, Collins looked up at him. “What? No. I’m not looking at him. I’m looking at this.”

  He spun the laptop around so that the three of them could see. It was a wide shot of the main entrance to Tristar’s head office. It showed a man being dragged out of the building, past police and SWAT officers.

  “That’s Brandon Crow,” said Julie. “He was one of the key figures behind Tristar’s involvement in Cambodia. He was also behind the kidnapping of Roachford’s sister and the attempts on his life. Roachford told us his fingerprints were all over the data we lifted off their servers.”

  Collins stood, huffing impatiently. “Not him… her!”

  He pointed to the person dragging Crow out of the building.

  “We don’t know who that is,” said Buchanan.

  “I do,” said Collins. He looked at Julie. “And so do you.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Julie.

  Collins tapped on the screen, enlarging the frozen image. He zoomed in on the figure pulling a clearly injured Crow clear of the building.

  “That’s Jay!” he exclaimed. “She’s the shooter!”

  Julie leaned forward, squinting at the screen. “What? It can’t be.”

  “I’m telling you.” He manipulated the image slightly to sharpen it. Only half of her face was visible. He pointed to a tattoo on her neck. It was a butterfly’s wing. “That’s her.”

  “You’re sure?” asked Buchanan.

  Collins sighed. “Look… I know me inadvertently banging the assassin who took out Paluga’s president ain’t exactly a career highlight, but trust me—I’ve seen that woman from all angles, and that is her. One hundred percent. Same tattoo, same body, same everything.”

  Silence fell as everyone in the room exchanged glances of concern and excitement.

  It was Jericho who spoke first.

  “Ray, if you’re right, then this means…”

  Buchanan slammed his hand down on the desk. “This means we’ve got the bastards. This proves the shooter works for Tristar.”

  Julie continued the collective brainstorm. “That’s enough to open a formal investigation.”

  Collins nodded. “Aye, which means we can legally get access to their servers.”

  “And legitimately bring to light the link between Orion and Tristar,” added Jericho.

  Buchanan moved back around his desk, ushering Collins out of the way. “With unfettered access to the company’s information, we can hopefully find evidence of weapons manufacturing. If that includes making a particular type of bullet…”

  Julie punched the air. “Then we can nail the bastards legitimately. Maybe we can get them to roll over on Orion.”

  Silence fell again. Looks of excitement spread across each of their faces. This was the first breakthrough they had had in months. Uncertainty and doubt had given way to hope.

  “Okay, listen up,” said Buchanan. “We have to do this right. The moment Orion get wind of what we know, they will come at us with everything they’ve got. And I can guarantee the next time will be w
orse than some negative social media posts. We need everything lined up, verified, and supported before we breathe a word of this to anyone outside this office. Understood?”

  The three of them nodded.

  “So, here’s what we do. Ray, I want you to track down Roachford.”

  Collins frowned. “Why me? I thought you were—”

  “I’m going to have some calls to make. The guy doesn’t know you. A neutral face might make it easier. But if we’re running with this, things will get worse before they get better. We’ll need all the help we can get, and that man’s an asset. Find him. Bring him inside.”

  Collins held his hands up submissively. “You got it, boss.”

  “I’m also going to bring in some outside help. Julie, Jericho… before you get involved in this investigation, I want you to brief a team on everything we know. I’ll use them to track down the shooter. She’s clearly dangerous and good at hiding. I don’t want our time taken up with a manhunt that could lead to us having to do things that might jeopardize our ability to deal with all this.”

  They both looked at each other and shrugged.

  “Sure thing,” said Julie. “Who’s the team?”

  Buchanan and Collins exchanged a cautious look.

  “What is it?” asked Jericho.

  Buchanan cleared his throat. “Okay. This doesn’t leave this room. Understand?”

  Both Julie and Jericho nodded their agreement.

  “The meeting Collins attended a few days ago. It was to act as a consultant on a top-secret project commissioned by President Schultz, codenamed Blackstar. The president and I have been discussing the potential threat Orion International poses for a long time. By his own admission, he knows GlobaTech has made a lot of what the government has redundant. We’re better equipped than the military, smarter than the NSA and CIA, and have a better rep than the FBI. The world’s evolving. The bad guys are evolving with it. He himself stood in this office when GlobaTech realized this and started to fight back. So, he decided it was a good idea for the U.S. government to do the same.”

  “And this… Blackstar is part of that?” asked Jericho.