by Barry Lancet
“Stu, don’t you dare order an attack.”
“Not an attack, Joan. I am ordering Homeland in. Snipers will be in place shortly to protect our men, but this is an unstable situation. In consideration of your role, I will hold them off as long as possible. I suggest you advise your man to stand down. If we do not receive cooperation soon, I cannot guarantee the situation will not escalate. Further, if—”
“Stu, you better listen to me and listen good. If you don’t, I swear I will—”
“It’s out of my hands, Joan. I’m sorry.”
The ambassador hung up.
On FLOTUS.
We were dead in the water.
CHAPTER 52
PEREZ shook his head. “Listen to the ambassador, Brodie. Give it up before the sharpshooters put some holes in you.”
Joan said, “Was that the ‘hostage’ Stu was on about?”
“You got it.”
I watched Swelley walking resolutely toward me. He was talking on his mobile. Thirty seconds later he disconnected. He wore camouflage pants and a black T-shirt that flattered his muscled, V-shaped bulk, and unlike his personal team he had forgone a Kevlar chest covering. His men flanked him. Two oversize Homeland agents to the left. Two to the right.
“Joan, stay on the line,” I said.
There was a chance they wouldn’t shoot as long as the connection remained active. By now the ambassador would have informed Swelley of the first lady’s interest. They would know she could hear everything I could. But they would be working on a way to jam the signal.
Which wouldn’t be too hard.
Or take too long, once the right equipment became available.
“You bet I will,” Joan said. “Is there anything I can do?”
“I’m working on it.”
I stared at our captive.
Resentment no longer suffused his features. The gleam in his eye had swung to anticipation at the upcoming takedown. There had never been any outright fear. Just an ever-present tension and a readiness to spring into action if the opportunity presented itself. And disappointment as he realized neither Noda nor I were dumb enough to allow it.
I put my hand over the phone’s mouthpiece, turned to the soldier, and nodded at his nametag. “The J is for what? Juan, Jose, Jesus, what?”
“Jacobo.”
Turning my back on the camera in the corner, I returned to the first lady. “Joan, I need you to put in a commendation for a Marine corporal by the name of Jacobo Perez. He’s going to take me and my partner into custody in a moment and then use good judgment of officer caliber and hold off handing me over to Swelley and his Homeland mob until he hears from his superior.”
With a deep frown, Perez shook his head in a way that implied that was the last thing he would do if he regained control of the situation.
“Although,” I said, “he does seem a tad resistant to the idea.”
Perez’s upper lip curled. “A tad? First off, it’s an insane plan. Second, I’m going to smack you down so hard when I’m back in control, pygmies will be looking down at you.”
“Nice turn of phrase,” Joan Slater said. “Pass him the phone.”
I did, and though her voice was faint, I could make out the first lady’s words.
“Corporal Perez, this is Joan Slater.”
Despite his resistance, Perez straightened involuntarily. As if someone had just rammed rebar up the back of his shirt. “I recognize your voice, ma’am.”
“Do you see the man standing in front of you?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“As a personal favor to me, I want you to take very good care of him. If you do that, I will not forget it.”
Perez’s face worked furiously as he sorted through this new wrinkle. He’d listened to my exchange with the first lady, so he understood the new framework I’d just proposed, which landed him in the kettle with us. I’m sure he also understood the plan made a hundred-to-one long shot for the Japan Cup out at Tokyo Racecourse seem like money banked. His job was to protect the ambassador. FLOTUS was not part of the chain of command Perez had taken an oath to obey, but she was the first lady of the United States of America and married to the commander in chief. And she was on the phone with him.
“I’m not sure I can do that, ma’am.”
“Did you hear my conversation with Stewart Tattersill?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Let me assure you the president will be on board with this, Mr. Perez. Despite ‘Inflexible Lex’s’ protestations, the ambassador will reverse himself.”
Perez grinned at the nickname in spite of himself. “He is a diplomat.”
“Precisely. You want to be on the right side when the dust settles, Corporal Perez.”
He hesitated. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Can I count on your support?”
The Marine’s eyes bounced from me to Noda to his captured weapon to the rescue team beyond the glass of the booth.
Decision time.
Time to see what Perez was made of.
Many people joined the Marines to bring order to their personal lives. Lives that were otherwise chaotic and unfocused and often without proper parental role models. The Corps gave them a set of rules and regulations to follow. Gave them a necessary boost up to adulthood. But once you absorbed the rules and regulations, you needed also to be able to apply them to the real world outside the framework of military situations, and the real world had a way of not playing by the rules at times.
This was one of those times.
Could Perez make the leap from the blind obedience drilled into him by the Corps to one of applying the rules in an unprecedented situation? Would he march forward like an automaton, or jump the hurdle?
“Can I?” I heard Joan Slater ask again.
If it were possible, Perez’s body grew more rigid. “Ma’am, yes, ma’am.”
“I like your enthusiasm, Corporal. The president and I will not forget your decision. I know it is a tough one. Now shake your head like you’re disagreeing with everything I’m saying; then, if you wouldn’t mind, please pass the phone back to Mr. Brodie.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Perez cast a look of disgust at the phone, then thrust the device back at me.
I held it up to my ear. “I’m here.”
“That should help.”
“We’ll see soon enough,” I said, casting a curious glance at Perez. “Not to offend, but any sign of the president?”
“No, sorry.”
Any window of opportunity Noda and I might have had on this side of the Pacific had been slammed shut by Swelley and his crew. They were fanning out. Swelley’s lead man held a crowbar in case they got a chance to pop out the windowpane in our booth.
The barrel of a sniper’s rifle poked over the ledge of a second-story window across the street, and two more muzzles rested on windowsills on the next floor up.
There was no reason to be coy. They were coming and our chosen cover offered no more than temporary protection. There would be steel plates in the guardhouse walls, but the sharpshooters would have selected ammo that would plow through the metal like a truck through a haystack.
No one would activate the snipers with FLOTUS on the line, but Swelley’s men might tear the booth apart. That would give them a chance to extract a measure of revenge before carting me off. Perez was not a viable hostage. They figured, rightly, that we wouldn’t shoot him. Swelley held his phone up two inches from his ear. He neither spoke nor listened. He was waiting for the final go-ahead call. With FLOTUS in the loop, that would be pretty high up the chain. Higher than Tattersill.
“Not to seem selfish,” I said, “but Homeland is getting ready to pounce.”
“I understand,” Joan Slater said in a tone that told me this was not the first time she’d been up against it.
We hung up. Salvation rested on a return call from halfway around the world. There was nothing to do but wait until the first lady could pry her husband loose from the Sit
uation Room. I shoved my phone into the front pocket of my jeans, bowed my head in case someone outside or on the other end of the visual feed could read lips, and told Perez to look down. He complied.
“We good?” I asked.
“Yes, sir.”
“Glad to hear it. Going forward, probably best to ditch the ‘sir.’ ”
“I can do that.”
I asked him if he understood Japanese. When he replied in the negative, I said, “Okay, I’m going to give some instructions to my colleague here in Japanese. When you see your opportunity, take it. You understand what I mean?”
“Yes.”
“Then we’ll get along just fine. Until we don’t.”
I looked up. Hope had returned to his eyes.
CHAPTER 53
A MOMENT later I mumbled a few words to Noda without moving my lips. The chief detective glanced at the growing forces mobilizing on the street. The overwhelming display of manpower seemed to distract him. His gun hand drooped. Perez sprang forward, snatched the firearm, then pointed the weapon at my chest and ordered us both toward the back end of the guard booth, then down on our knees with our fingers laced behind our heads.
We complied.
* * *
From five yards away, Swelley raised his hands and began a slow, exaggerated clapping in appreciation of Perez’s takedown. The rest of his team joined in. The Japanese cops looked on without expression.
Squaring his shoulders, Swelley approached the booth with a big grin. The silver-gray bristles on his tan scalp glistened under the streetlight.
“Well done, son,” he called through the glass barrier. “You make all of us proud. If you’ll open up, we’ll take it from here.”
“I’m still waiting for final orders, sir.”
“Well, I’m high man on-site, so you can hand off to me.”
“Excuse me for asking, sir, but who exactly are you?”
Swelley whipped out a badge holder from his back pocket and spread it open with one hand, a silver DHS badge on the right, a picture ID at the left.
“Tom Swelley, Homeland Security. I’ll take your prisoners.”
“Can’t do that, sir. Chain of command. I need to hear from my direct superior or the ambassador.”
“You’re a hero, son. We all saw that. I’m asking you to kindly stand down, in the name of national security.”
“Sorry, sir.”
“I’m asking nicely now, Corporal, but I can get mean. I want your captives and I want them yesterday. They are enemies of the US of A.”
Perez glanced over at us, down at the phone in my pocket, then back at Swelley. “I can guarantee neither of these two will be making my Christmas list, sir, but I cannot release them into your custody without—”
“Enough!” Swelley shouted. “Not another goddamned word, Marine. You are only a corporal. Low on the totem pole. I am in command here and I won’t tolerate disobedience. Either you release those prisoners into my custody this very minute or I will personally see you court-martialed, your military career destroyed, and your family sent back to whatever shithouse American-hating country south of the border they came from. No one will be able to help you. I get real mad, you might not be coming up for air for a long, long time. Am I making myself clear, Marine?”
From the first derogatory Marine, Perez’s features had begun to petrify. Now his jawline protruded and his eyes shot daggers. I knew the look. Swelley had adopted the wrong course.
“Sir, you can insult me all you want, but I am a Marine. While I am on duty I will not leave my post. However, sir, as soon as I am off-duty, I request permission to kick your ass all the way down this street and back again. Sir. In the meantime, I must ask you to step away from the booth. You are not—I repeat, not—part of my chain of command. I answer only to my direct military superior, or the ambassador.”
Now’s a good time to bring on your husband, Joan.
“Then we’ll call the ambassador. After that, your ass is mine, and I’m shoving it down a black hole.”
Pulling out his personal cell phone, Swelley backed up, dark eyes locked on Perez, clearly measuring him for one of the more exotic appliances in a Homeland dungeon.
Perez turned his back on the cluster of agents, undeterred. One of them drew a gun and snapped back the slide.
Stiffening, Perez slanted eyes in my direction. “Did one of those halfwit goons just draw down on me?”
“Yes,” I said.
“At my back?”
“Center mass.”
“Dumb.”
“You’d think they would know bulletproof glass when they saw it.”
“Dumb on that count too.”
* * *
It took Swelley two minutes to raise the ambassador. Noda, Perez, and I listened intently for a ringtone from the secure phone inside the booth. Several times Perez glanced at my mobile.
Swelley waved his phone at Perez.
We were out of time.
Perez started to unlatch the door.
“I wouldn’t advise that,” I said. “They’ll rush you as soon as you open it.”
Perez looked out and saw the agents behind Swelley had risen up on the balls of their feet.
“Son of a bitch,” the Marine said under his breath. “This is the trash they hire to protect our nation. Long view, we’re on the same damn side. Man, I may have to find another line of work.”
“Or get in there yourself and upgrade the talent pool,” I said.
Pointing at the secure phone, Perez shouted to Swelley, “Ask the ambassador to call me on that line.”
“Mine is secure, Corporal.”
“And so’s the door. House line or nothing, sir.”
Swelley swore at the Marine, then spoke a few words into his phone and disconnected. “Tattersill’s calling now.”
The console buzzed and a miniature red dome lit up. Perez punched the button below it and lifted the receiver from its cradle. “Sir?”
“Perez, you’re back in control now, are you?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I want you to—”
Just then my cell phone rang.
“What was that, Perez? It sounded like an alarm.”
“No, just incoming.”
“Are you in danger or in control?”
“I’ll let you know in a minute, Mr. Ambassador.”
Perez waved the gun for me to answer, which I did.
CHAPTER 54
MR. Brodie?” an assured male voice asked.
“Yes?”
“Hold for POTUS. He’s calling from the Oval Office and asked me to inform you that both the secretary of state and the secretary of Homeland Security are in attendance. Stand by, sir.”
The buzz on the line softened then I heard a click.
“Jim?”
“Hi, Mr. President . . . uh, Joe.”
I heard a smile in his voice. “You’re learning.” Then the good cheer dissipated. “My people tell me we have a situation.”
At we, relief swept over me. “We do.”
His gun still trained on us, Perez pressed the phone receiver to his chest, blocking the sound. “Is that him? Really him?”
“Yes.”
Perez grinned. It was his first smile of the night. “Oorah! Then let’s kick some ass.”
“Brodie, what’s going on?” the president said. “Is that the Marine?”
“It is indeed,” I said.
He chuckled. “I’m looping you in as a silent third party. Listen but don’t talk. Under any circumstances.”
“Got it,” I said. “The guard’s got Tattersill on another line.”
“No problem. I’ll light a fire under the bastard’s ass. Now stay quiet, hear?
“Will do.”
I heard a click, then Joe Slater said, “Jonathan, patch me through.”
Covering the mouthpiece, I said to Perez, “You want in on this?”
“Hell, yeah.”
“You sure? It means blowing your cover w
ith Homeland outside and the guards at the house watching the camera.”
“I know.” He raised the receiver to the console phone. “Sir, something critical’s come up. I have to put you on hold for a minute.”
“Perez, do not—”
The Marine cut him off, rushed over, and leaned in. I put my finger to my lips. He nodded.
We heard a click, then a dead silence, a second click, and the ambassador’s voice.
“Mr. President, to what do I owe the honor?”
“To the emergency unfolding on your doorstep, Stu.”
“Sir, I can explain.”
“There’s no time, but I would be grateful if you would give Brodie whatever he asks for.”
“Sir, I don’t think that’s advisable. In fact, I would argue for—”
“There’s to be no more arguing, Stu.”
“But, Mr. President—Joe—I think it very unwise to—”
“This is not a political issue, even though we are on opposite sides of the aisle. I’ve kept you on in your position because—”
“I assure you, sir, that politics plays no role in my—”
“Stu, no need to say more. I believe you. My people have caught me up. By ‘my people’ I mean the secretary of Homeland Security and the secretary of state. Carl, say hello to Stu over there in Tokyo.”
Carl Jordenson, the secretary of Homeland Security, headed all branches of the agency. Helen Mitchell, the secretary of state, oversaw foreign policy and the diplomatic corps, for starters. The first was Swelley’s overlord, the second Tattersill’s. Joe Slater took no chances.
“Hi, Stu,” the secretary of Homeland Security said. “It’s been a while.”
“Yes, Carl, it has.”
“I want you to know we are the active lead in this operation and the DoD secretary has been looped in since the NSA is also involved.”
The National Security Agency operated under the umbrella of the Department of Defense.
“Helen?” Joe Slater said.
“Hi, Stu. We’re so sorry to get you up at such an ungodly hour.”
“Terrors of the job, Helen. As we all know. We have a live situation unfolding here and first lady wasn’t on-site. If you will just give me a few more minutes, I can sort it out and you won’t have to bother.”
