by Stephen Frey
Of course, it wasn’t like Walker knew what “protect the peak” meant, either. Agent Beam was a newbie, but Walker had been with Red Cell Seven for more than a decade. None of the other RCS vets to whom Agent Walker was close knew what it meant.
Supposedly, the words had been handed down as the second part of the cell’s formal greeting since its founding, four decades ago. Just like “decus septum” had as the first part. “Decus septum” made perfect sense even though it was spoken in Latin. Translated, it meant “honor to the seven.” “Protect the peak” made no sense despite being spoken in English. No one knew what peak had to be protected—or why.
“We’ve gotta do the right thing here,” Agent Beam spoke up. “And this isn’t it, goddamn it.”
“I don’t know what you mean by that.”
“Don’t give me that. Don’t act all innocent, Major Trav—”
“What was that, Agent Beam? There’s no way I heard you right.”
“Sorry, sorry.” Agent Beam held up both hands, acknowledging his procedural blunder. Using real names in this situation was forbidden. “I—I mean, Agent Walker.” The younger man took a deep breath and tried to calm down. “You don’t have your go-ahead from COC. You’ve gotta wait. It’s your duty as an officer, Agent Walker. It’s your duty as a human being.”
“My duty, Agent Beam, is to acquire information any way I can. Do you understand?”
“But you can’t—”
“You heard the transmissions, Agent Beam. You read the transcripts.”
“It could all be bullshit.”
“You’ve been with us for six months and you’re going to tell me what’s bullshit?”
“Wait a little while. It might only be a few minutes before they call.”
“And it might be hours.”
“Have patience.”
“I don’t have time for patience, Agent Beam.”
Agent Beam smirked at the play on words as though it was the dumbest thing he’d ever heard. “How could waiting a few minutes really matter, Agent Walker?”
Major Wilson Travers stared intently at the young man who was asking all the annoying questions. Travers was a tall, broad-shouldered African American soldier. He’d been protecting the United States for more than twenty years, invading Iraq as Marine PFC Travers in 1991. Agent Beam barely needed to shave, and he’d never been close to a battlefield—except on his high school field trips. Even more aggravating for Travers, Agent Beam was acting like a battle-tested veteran. The arrogance of it all was absurd.
“Forget minutes,” Travers said. “Seconds could make the difference in this—”
“That’s ridiculous. You have no idea if seconds could—”
“Don’t ever interrupt me again, Agent Beam.”
When it came down to it, Travers didn’t give a rat’s ass what this kid thought. And seconds absolutely could make a difference.
“Something big is on the way,” Travers said confidently. “I can smell it like a skunk in the woods, and we’re running out of time to stop it.” Trust your instincts, trust your instincts. “People are in danger, and my job is to protect them with any and all means at my disposal.” He jabbed a thumb over his shoulder at the stone wall behind him. “Believe me. That man in the next room knows what’s coming. Don’t let him fool—”
“He doesn’t know a damn thing, Agent Walker.” Agent Beam sneered. “You’re just manufacturing the situation out of thin air so you can—”
“It’s coming at us like a thunderstorm on an August afternoon, Agent Beam.”
“What you want to feel is your hands around his throat.”
“Easy, Mister.”
“You can’t act on feelings, Agent Walker. Besides, that man in the next room, as you called him, is really just a boy. He’s not even eighteen.”
It was Travers’s turn to sneer. “He’s at least twenty-four.”
“No way, Agent Walker. Those legendary instincts of yours are off on this one. You need to go on facts, not bullshit, especially when it comes to something like this. We’re talking about a man’s life here.”
“I’m the ranking interrogator,” Travers replied evenly. “I go on anything I want to, Agent Beam. I have that license and that privilege. And by the way, that is definitely a man in the next room, not a boy. I don’t care how old he is. Ten, ninety, or anywhere in between, it doesn’t matter. Age is defined by actions, not years.”
“What if you were wrong for once in your life?” Agent Beam shot back. “What if he’s done nothing? What if he knows nothing?”
“I’ll take that chance.”
“He’s a United States citizen, for God’s sake. I saw his birth certificate. I saw his social security card.”
“So what?”
“So what?” Agent Beam looked to the ceiling and exhaled heavily so his aggravation could not be missed or mistaken. “Despite your job, don’t you still have to remember little things like the Constitution and due process?”
“What I have to remember, Agent Beam, is that you probably still know the first song the band played at your high school prom.”
Travers glanced down at the nasty scar that ran the length of his right forearm. He’d suffered the wound saving the life of a seven-year-old Afghan girl as a car bomb exploded on a crowded Kabul street. Just one glance into the eyes of the parked car’s driver had told him what was coming. If not for his instincts working perfectly on that late afternoon half a world away, the eight-inch piece of metal that had impaled his arm would have sliced the girl’s neck open instead.
“And that you’ve never been in battle,” he added.
“You’re worried COC won’t give you the okay, Agent Walker.”
“Oh, yes they will. This is just red tape. Someone’s gone fishing in Montana, and I don’t have time for them to catch their trophy rainbow.”
“You’re sick. You want to torture that boy. That’s what this is really about.”
“You’re the boy,” Travers retorted, tapping Kohler’s chest hard. “That’s what this is really about.” He nodded over his shoulder at the stone wall. “I’m going in.”
Kohler stepped boldly between Travers and the doorway leading to the interrogation room. “I can’t let you do it, Agent Walker,” he said firmly, raising his fists and squaring up. “Maybe that guy in there doesn’t get due process in a court of law, but he’s getting it from me. You’re gonna wait for a call from the chain of command, even if it is a few hours away.”
It took all of Travers’s considerable self-control not to react. Kohler was a big blond kid who was only a year past starring in Ivy League football and dating its prettiest cheerleaders. But he wasn’t nearly ready to swim in the deep end of this pool. “Get out of my way, Agent Beam,” he ordered calmly. “You’re making a fool of yourself.”
“No, you bastard, I’m doing what’s right, and you know it. You’re the fool.” Kohler stuck out his chin defiantly. “Do you know who my father was?”
Travers nodded deliberately. “I do know, and I don’t care.” That was a lie. The only reason he’d allowed Kohler this much leeway and disrespect was entirely wrapped up in who the kid’s father was. “All I care about is keeping this country and its people safe. Nothing else.”
“You don’t get it, do you? You think you actually have a say in what goes on in the world. But you’re just a pawn, you stupid nig—” Kohler caught himself but not nearly in time. It was a massive gaffe. Still, he managed a smug smile. “You better watch yourself, boy.”
Travers stared into Kohler’s arrogant eyes for several seconds. “I’ll give you one more chance, Agent Beam. Step aside.”
“Fuck you!”
Travers glanced over Kohler’s shoulder at the stocky man standing in the corner, the only other person in this room. “Agent Smirnoff.”
“Yes, Agent Walker?”<
br />
“Attack.”
Agent Smirnoff raised a Taser gun and fired, sending 50,000 volts of electricity and 1.7 joules of power exploding through Kohler’s body. The young man dropped to the cement floor like a sack of dirt the instant the charged projectile struck him and began convulsing and begging for help with barely intelligible moans.
Travers nodded grimly. “Nice shot.”
“Thanks.” Agent Smirnoff gestured at Travers. “Don’t listen to that kid, Agent Walker. He doesn’t get it. You’re a good man.”
“I’m not worried about him.”
Agent Smirnoff’s real name was Harry Boyd. Travers and Boyd had known each other for nine years, but they never called each other by their real names when an interrogation subject was in the area—only as “Agent” followed by the agreed-upon liquor brand code of the day. It was all for the benefit of the kid in the next room. Travers just hoped that kid hadn’t heard Kohler call him “Major Trav.” Even that partial mistake could turn out to be deadly with these people.
“Welcome to my chain of command, Agent Beam,” Travers muttered as he leaned down and removed a small, clear plastic bag from Kohler’s shirt pocket while the kid continued to twitch and spasm. “You’ll be okay in an hour.” He glanced at the turquoise-hued powder inside the bag, then rose back up and tossed it to Boyd. Inside Red Cell Seven the newly developed powder was known as TQ Haze. “Take care of that delivery, will you, Agent Smirnoff?” He gestured at the floor as Boyd caught the bag. “Take care of our dribbler, too.” Travers’s cop friends had nicknamed what Kohler was doing “dribbling” because Taser victims resembled basketballs bouncing up and down on the hardwood. “Don’t let him swallow his tongue.”
“Like I said, Agent Walker, you’re a good man. If it was me, I’d hope he did choke to death.”
Travers patted Boyd on the shoulder as he passed. “We’re all in this together. And there’s good and bad everywhere.”
“Bad everywhere I’ll give you,” Boyd replied stoically. “I don’t know about good.”
Travers grabbed a plain black ski mask off a hook on the wall, slipped it over his head, and pushed open the door. Kohler was right, he thought as he entered the interrogation room. He was worried about not getting his okay from COC. But he was more worried about his country.
The subject stood on his toes in the middle of the dimly lit room, struggling to ease his nagging physical discomfort as best he could by constantly changing positions and shifting his weight. His frail wrists were lashed together above his head and secured to a large silvery hook that hung from the ceiling by a shiny chain. He was skinny with a dark complexion, and he had a shock of thick black hair. It was cold here in the basement—on purpose—and he was naked from the waist up—on purpose—so he shivered as he twisted beneath the hook. Other than a plain wooden chair, a chest of drawers, and a bucket, which were all stationed in one corner of the room, there was nothing else within the four stone walls except Travers and the subject, whose driver’s license claimed he was from Philadelphia—and more important, that he was seventeen.
“Hello, Kaashif.”
“Hello, sir,” the young man answered politely but miserably through his chattering teeth, watching Travers’s every move as he held his head back to ease the intensifying ache in both shoulders.
“So, you are the discoverer.”
“The what?”
“That’s what your name means, right? The discoverer.”
“I am not sure.”
“You’re not fooling me, you little son of a bitch.”
“I am not trying to fool you, sir.”
Travers moved across the room until he was standing directly in front of Kaashif. The young man was five-six, so at six-three Travers towered over him. “I’m going to ask you some very important questions this afternoon. I expect you to—”
“Why am I here?” Kaashif blurted out. “What have I done?”
“Easy.”
“I am so thirsty,” he gasped. “So thirsty. Please, may I have something to drink?”
They hadn’t given Kaashif anything since yesterday afternoon, so it had been almost twenty-four hours. He had to be pretty well dehydrated at this point. “Agent Smirnoff,” Travers called over his shoulder. “Can I have that glass of water for our guest?”
“Absolutely.”
Nathan Kohler’s ongoing agony from the Taser attack was still audible—which Travers liked. It made this situation even more frightening. He could tell by Kaashif’s expression that he was hearing those sounds of suffering coming from the other side of the open door. He had no idea who was in pain or why—only that someone was.
“How old are you, Kaashif?”
“Seventeen,” he muttered as he strained against the rope binding his wrists.
“That’s what your driver’s license says, but I don’t believe it. I say you’re at least twenty-four.”
“I don’t know why you are so hating me. It must be because I am a Mus—”
“Here you go.” Boyd tapped Travers on the shoulder. He’d also donned a ski mask before entering the interrogation room. They always wanted to leave open the possibility of letting the subject go. That couldn’t happen if the sub saw their faces. Then they’d have to kill him.
“We good?” Travers wanted to know.
“Oh, yeah.” Boyd handed over the glass and then headed back out. “Very good.”
Travers held the glass up to Kaashif’s lips and tilted. He nodded approvingly as the young man drank every drop. When the water was gone, Travers turned and hurled the glass against the wall, shattering it into hundreds of pieces. Then he picked up the bucket in the corner—it was filled with ice water—and doused Kaashif.
He waited for the frigid liquid to have its effect. When Kaashif was shivering and sobbing uncontrollably, Travers grabbed the young man’s chin and shook it hard. “What exactly do those transmissions mean?”
“I do not know what transmissions you are talking of. Please let me go home. I want to see my mother and father.” Kaashif’s sobs grew even louder. His trembling lips were turning dark blue.
“Why was your name mentioned in them?”
“It must have been someone else they were talking about. I am just a high school student.”
“High school’s your cover. You and I both know that.”
“No, that is wrong.”
“You started this year at this school, but there’s no record of where you were before that.”
“My parents moved down to Philadelphia from Toronto last summer. You can check it out.”
“You’re lying, you little bastard.” Travers shook Kaashif’s chin hard again. “When will the attack come?”
“What attack?”
“Where will it happen?”
“I do not know, I swear.” Tears began to roll down Kaashif’s face in fast-running torrents. “I told you, I am just a high school senior. How could I know anything?”
Travers grabbed a rope from one of the chest drawers and then moved back to where Kaashif was hanging. He tied the ends of the rope together so it formed a closed loop ten feet long, slipped one end of the loop over Kaashif’s head so it rested on the young man’s neck and shoulders, and then stepped back several paces. The rope sagged in the middle until Travers took a short piece of pipe he’d also snagged from the drawer, put the pipe into his end of the loop, and began to turn. The sag in the rope decreased as the head of the twist slowly approached Kaashif’s vulnerable throat.
“Tell me about the attack,” Travers demanded as the twist advanced. “That’s the only way you live.”
Kaashif turned his head slightly to the side as his upper lip curled, and he swallowed hard. “I do not know anything.”
“Save yourself, son. Why die? What’s the point?”
“I cannot save myself. I have no information
. I should be taking a calculus test today. Please let me go.”
“I don’t have time for this. Tell me.”
“I do not know anything,” Kaashif repeated. His voice was shaking wildly.
“Tell me!” Travers roared. “Or so help me God I’ll kill you!”
As the rope closed in on Kaashif’s soft throat, he began to scream. Even through the screams, Travers could hear Boyd chuckling in the doorway.
Travers liked Harry Boyd. The man’s honor, bravery, and commitment to country could never be questioned. He was a hero, a true patriot, though few people knew how many times he’d risked his life to keep America safe—how many times they both had. And they’d become fast friends along the way.
Travers grimaced as Kaashif continued to scream and Boyd continued to laugh. Harry Boyd was a good man, all right. But there was nothing funny about this.
CHAPTER 3
“IT’S THE best cell phone ever,” the young salesman said confidently, smiling widely from behind the glass counter as he handed the young woman the device. “Fits perfectly in your palm, right? Screen’s way cool. And what it can do is epic.”
Jennie nodded. It did fit perfectly in her hand, and it was very cool looking.
“You’re just lucky we’ve still got a few left over from the national rollout last week.” His smile grew even wider. “You must be a naturally lucky woman. Pretty, too,” he murmured after a few moments. “Very.”
“Thank you,” she answered self-consciously at his forward compliment.
She had long jet-black hair, green eyes, light brown skin, and full lips that framed a high-cheekbone smile. Today she was wearing a low-cut blouse, snug jeans, and heels—edgy but not over the top. She’d caught the looks on her way through the mall to this store.
“Is this a last-minute Christmas gift for your boyfriend?”
Jennie recognized the intent behind the question—and the smile. She’d seen that smile many times from white boys. He was fantasizing about being with a Latina, but that was okay. She didn’t mind. He wasn’t being obnoxious about it, and guys were guys no matter the color of their skin. That was just the way of the world. She was only twenty-six, but she’d come to that conclusion long ago.
