by Eric Bernt
Enola nodded her understanding as they left, then turned back to Charlie. “Fuck them. Let’s go.”
Neither Greers nor Trotter spoke until they reached their office. Trotter’s face was full of admiration. “That was genius.”
“We all have our strengths,” Greers responded humbly.
Trotter paused. “You know we’re going to find them first, don’t you?”
“We’d better.” Greers eyeballed him for a moment, then they both went to work.
CHAPTER 50
SAFE HOUSE
GILBERTS CORNER, VIRGINIA
June 1, 11:35 p.m.
Caitlin answered the video call on the first ring. It was, of course, Peter. The interior of the truck he was driving was dark. His face was dimly lit, yet she couldn’t help but think how handsome he looked. “Where are you?” She knew, from tracking his progress via the GPS transmitter in his phone, but she didn’t want him to know that.
He held his finger up to his lips, motioning her to lower her voice, then panned his phone toward their sleeping children. Turning the phone back toward himself, he whispered, “So far, so good. We just pulled in to Harvey.”
She paused knowingly. “I should warn you, the house is modest.”
“If it’s not a Four Seasons, we’re coming home,” he answered sarcastically, and perhaps a little too loudly, because Marissa stirred.
“Is that Mom?” she asked in a sleepy voice.
“It is,” Peter said.
“Is she okay?”
“Why don’t you ask her yourself?” He handed her the phone as he checked the street number of the house he was looking for.
Marissa stared at her mother’s face on the phone. “Mom, are you okay?”
Caitlin’s eyes softened. “Of course I am.”
“Then why aren’t you here with us?”
“I’ve got a few things I need to take care of first.”
Her daughter shook her head. “I know when you’re lying, you know.”
“I’m not lying. That’s the truth.”
Marissa looked up from the phone as they pulled into the driveway of a home that was modest even by local standards. About the only kind thing that could be said about the place was that it wasn’t a double-wide.
“You have got to be kidding me.”
Peter shut off the engine and turned back to face her. “Kidding about what?”
She was staring out the window at their new house. “Tell me this is some kind of bad joke. We’re not honestly going to live here, are we?”
“Don’t worry, it’s only temporary,” Caitlin chimed in.
“What’s so wrong with it?” Peter asked from off-screen.
“For real? Where should I start?” Marissa didn’t realize how near to her face she was holding the camera. Caitlin watched her disdain in extreme close-up.
Peter reacted with as much sincere offense as he could muster. “Do you have any idea what kind of snob you sound like?”
“I don’t know, Dad, how many kinds are there?”
“That’s quite enough out of you, young lady. I strongly suggest you zip your mouth before I lose my temper.” Caitlin could hear him open the truck door. “Wake up your brother while I open up the house.” He slammed the door as he exited.
Marissa watched her father unlock the front door and enter the house, then quickly nudged her brother awake. “Hey, get up.”
Caitlin shook her head. “Is that really as nice as you can be?”
Marissa stared into the phone at her mother. “Under the circumstances, yes.”
Mikey struggled to get his bearings. “Where are we?”
“In hell.”
He then saw his mother on the phone. “Hey, is that Mom?”
Caitlin waved at him on-screen. “Hi, baby.”
Mikey grabbed the phone from his sister’s hand. “Where are you?”
“I’m at work,” she lied.
“Let’s go,” Marissa said impatiently, motioning toward the clapboard house. Mikey kept the call going as Marissa led her little brother out of the truck.
Inside the house, the kids couldn’t believe their eyes. The home was even more modest on the inside. The stove was an old electric. There was no dishwasher. The washer and dryer were in one of the bathrooms. There were cracks in the ceiling in almost every room. For his mother’s benefit, Mikey pointed the phone at the various highlights. “Mom, all I can tell you is you should be glad you’re not here.”
Marissa grabbed the phone and looked at her mother. “It stinks like those nasty porta-potties at my soccer tournaments.”
“I think something died in here,” Mikey added as he pointed to several stains in the living room carpet. “We flew halfway across the country in a private plane to live in this dump?”
“I cannot believe what little snobs you two are.” Peter threw up his hands. “When did you become like this?”
“Since the first day you sent us to private school.”
“Well, then this is long overdue. And you better get used to it, because this is where we live now.”
Marissa stared angrily into the phone. “Well, gee, Mom, thanks a lot for ruining my life!” She clicked “End” and the screen went black.
Across the street from the house in Harvey, the man sitting in the dark, watching them through binoculars, dialed his phone. His name was Coogan, and he had followed them from the Minot International Airport. “They’ve arrived.”
“Have they seen you?” asked Bob Stenson.
“Negative, sir. And they will not unless you want them to.”
“I do not want them to. Not yet. For now, just don’t let them out of your sight.”
“Copy that,” replied Coogan.
“Where are you, by the way?”
“A shithole town called Harvey. And they’re in the armpit of it.”
“In the armpit of Harvey,” Stenson said smugly. “It’s too bad, really. Her plan was a good one. She just shouldn’t have used the same airport I would have used in the same situation.”
CHAPTER 51
BOB STENSON’S HOME
FALLS CHURCH, VIRGINIA
June 1, 11:56 p.m.
Bob Stenson enjoyed his evening commutes home. It had been the same drive for nearly thirty years, because he hadn’t changed jobs or houses or wives during all that time—a trifecta few men these days could claim. The trip was exactly twenty-four minutes, door to door. He could practically navigate it blindfolded. The soundtrack was always the same: jazz. Sometimes it was vintage Miles Davis or John Coltrane; other times, it was one of the more current masters like John McLaughlin or Ahmad Jamal. But the music was always soothing, which helped Stenson unwind from whatever challenges he had faced that day.
What made today different was the phone call he had placed upon leaving the Kelman Nursing and Rehab Center. From the moment Lawrence Walters had uttered the words Alpha Reset Protocol, Bob knew he was facing a serious potential security threat, both at the office and at home. In all his years of directing operations at the foundation, he had never once felt the need to add additional security measures at either location. While he had initiated and orchestrated a great many efforts involving threats to the physical safety of others located elsewhere, they had never involved him directly.
This time was different.
Bob had reached out to an exclusive private security firm called Oak Ridge, whose staff were among the most well trained in the world. All had previously been part of an elite fighting force: either Special Forces, Delta Force, Navy SEALS, Green Berets, Night Stalkers, or Rangers. Soldiers retiring with such high levels of lethal expertise needed somewhere to put their skills to use in the civilian world, and Oak Ridge was one of their primary employers.
Bob felt safe knowing that, as of two thirty this afternoon, his home was being protected by a team of four of these men. He had done so much business with Oak Ridge for the last two decades that he knew he would be getting their best. Which was why he found wh
at happened that evening so surprising.
As the car pulled into the driveway, a shadow moved quickly toward it. A professional shadow with decades of experience.
He was large, at least six feet four inches tall and a good 240 pounds. He was clad in black from head to toe. Black boots. Black pants. Black jacket. Black balaclava tactical hood. It was Hogan. The only visible part of him was his eyes, which were cold-blooded, intense, and alert. A hunter’s eyes.
Outside the vehicle, the last glorious notes of Coltrane’s “Blue Train” could be heard before the engine was shut off. The driver stepped out and walked toward the kitchen door.
Hogan pointed a gun at the back of his head and clicked back the hammer. “Don’t move, Stenson.” His voice was emotionless and direct, like he’d done this a thousand times.
The driver turned around slowly. He was not Bob Stenson. He was an Oak Ridge employee who had the same basic features as the American Heritage Foundation director. A stunt double, if you will. “And who might you be?”
If Hogan was surprised, he didn’t show it. “I’m wondering the same thing about you.”
“I’m the last person you are ever going to see.” He stared defiantly in Hogan’s eyes, waiting expectantly.
Hogan stared back, continuing to point his suppressed Glock 17, the only handgun he ever carried. The weapon was named for the seventeen nine-millimeter bullets it carried, which made reloading a less frequent necessity. But what Hogan really liked about the weapon was its simplicity and reliability. To clean it, you only needed to press one button to remove the slide. Few other handguns could make that claim. “Tick. Tick. Tick.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” the Stenson look-alike asked.
“The men you’re waiting for, the ones who are supposed to take me out, have made other plans.” He motioned to the side of the driveway, where four bodies were lined up neatly in a row. Each one showed evidence of having been taken down with a double tap: one bullet to the forehead, one to center mass. The heart shot usually killed the target, but just in case, a second bullet was fired through the brain to confirm that all function had ceased. Hearts could be revived, but brains could not.
The bullets were usually fired in rapid succession; it was common practice among most of the world’s elite fighting forces in the world. “I highly doubt you will be the last person I ever see.”
The decoy couldn’t help but be impressed. “Were you SEAL, Green Beret, Delta Force, or what?”
“Something like that.” Hogan remained perfectly calm.
The stunt double took a moment to gather himself. “Get it over with.”
“You’re in no position to dictate anything.” The other man’s phone began to vibrate inside his pants pocket. Neither man moved. “Aren’t you going to answer that?”
CHAPTER 52
BACKYARD
BOB STENSON’S HOME
June 1, 11:59 p.m.
The man reached carefully inside his pocket and answered his buzzing phone. “Hello.”
“Now say goodbye.” Hogan fired two quick shots: one center mass, and one through his forehead. A double tap, just like the others. Stenson’s alternate went down like a dropped sack of potatoes. His phone fell next to him, which was what Hogan wanted. He didn’t want to have to reach inside another man’s pants pocket. He picked up the phone and put it to his ear. “Sorry about that. With whom am I speaking?”
“The man you came there to kill,” answered Stenson.
He was sitting at a modest table in the outdated kitchen of a house that was unremarkable except that it was located within the confines of Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling, fourteen miles away. It was one of several safe houses he had established over the years. Given that it was located on a military base, it was a very safe house.
Stenson’s wife, Millie, had arrived earlier that evening. After his regrettable meeting with Lawrence Walters, Stenson had called his wife and calmly asked her to pack their bags and meet him on the base. She had surprised him with her lack of concern or worry. It seemed to have been a call she had been expecting for a very long time, and therefore she knew exactly how to proceed. She had even stopped at a market along the way so she could have dinner waiting for him upon arrival.
Holding the phone to his ear, Stenson watched four different surveillance-camera views of his backyard that appeared on his laptop. The man there clearly knew where the cameras were located and stared directly into one. The balaclava tactical hood concealed his identity. “You were smart not to come here.”
“You’re not as clever as you think.”
The man paused briefly. “You and the wife like to travel?”
“No, not much.”
“That’s too bad.”
Stenson studied the man standing in his backyard next to five dead bodies. “Do we know each other?”
The assassin shook his head. “I don’t think so.”
“What’s your stake in this?”
“Keeping a promise to an old friend.”
“You know, Lawrence was my mentor.”
The man nodded. “He would be very disappointed. But not terribly surprised. He had planned for this a long time ago.”
The words hung there a moment. Stenson gritted his teeth, then glanced at the bodies lying on the ground by his opponent’s feet. He wasn’t looking forward to the conversation he would be having with their superior the following day. This kind of thing wasn’t supposed to occur on US soil. But then again, all kinds of things that normally didn’t occur were about to. “You know, those men had families.”
“They chose the wrong line of work.”
Stenson paused one final time. “I hope you have an army. Because I do.” And with that, he ended the call.
Hogan remained silent as he moved through the shadows away from the Stenson house. His footsteps barely made a sound. He wore a black backpack, which contained his Glock 17 along with several other weapons, a dozen extra magazines for each, several different sizes of blades, and two grenades for good measure. It was quite like Butler McHenry’s bad-day bag, only the extreme version.
Back in the day, Lawrence Walters would have told him to use nonlethal force on the boys sent to guard Stenson’s house. Or perhaps it was Hogan’s own sense of guilt. Either way, he could hear Lawrence’s voice inside his head as he continued walking, and he felt compelled to respond. I don’t tell you how to do your job; don’t tell me how to do mine.
It was not unlike how Hogan had spoken with Lawrence when he was still in charge of the American Heritage Foundation and they had disagreed on an operation. Hogan was the first independent contractor to ever speak to the legend this way. Rather than take offense, however, Lawrence seemed to appreciate the younger man’s candor. The two developed a genuine chemistry, what some today might refer to as a “bromance.”
They recognized something in each other. Hogan had a determination and ferocity beyond anything the older man had ever seen, except within himself. Hogan was a killer without peer. His physical skills and intelligence were unmatched. But even more than that, he was loyal. If Lawrence called, Hogan dropped everything. He would do anything in his power not to fail, and given the man’s abilities, that was saying quite a lot. He was the fiercest weapon any intelligence operative had ever had at his beck and call. And he worked for only one man.
That was, until Hogan’s young son developed acute lymphoblastic leukemia.
When the symptoms first appeared, they looked like nothing more than a common cold. A mild fever and chills, but nothing any parent would be overly concerned about. Then the boy started to lose weight. And developed persistent nosebleeds. He started bruising so easily that his nursery school teacher became concerned that he might be showing signs of abuse. They received the diagnosis shortly thereafter.
Hogan took a leave of absence to battle with his insurance carrier regarding treatment coverage. They were denying each procedure as experimental because it was new. The cost of care was well beyon
d anything he could afford. His only child was dying, and there was nothing he could do.
Hogan felt utterly impotent for the first time in his life.
Then, everything changed. Out of the blue, his insurer informed him that every requested procedure, experimental and otherwise, that had previously been denied would now be completely covered. When Hogan asked how this was possible, the company representative replied with a sentence that still rang in his ears: We should all have such a good friend. Five years later, his son was cancer-free and had remained so ever since.
Hogan had known right away that it was Lawrence. The two men never discussed the matter, not then or anytime since. They didn’t need to. But Hogan knew there would come a time when he would be asked to return the favor, and that time came right before Lawrence retired. That favor was to head up tactical operations if and when his daughter ever initiated an Alpha Reset Protocol. And until that time, he was to keep the safe site in a state of readiness.
Hogan would have said yes even if there was no compensation involved, but as it turned out, the old man had stashed enough foundation money aside to fund the facility in perpetuity, including reasonable compensation for Hogan’s time, which included excellent health benefits, of course. There was no way in hell he would fail the old man, even if Lawrence no longer had any idea who he was or what the Alpha Reset Protocol entailed.
Hogan had already demonstrated that he would kill for his benefactor. What only he knew was that he was also willing to die for him. And that made a dangerous man even more so.
CHAPTER 53
DAVID’S PLACE
WOODSDALE, MARYLAND
June 2, 5:22 a.m.
Butler had slept in his clothes, which was nothing new. In fact, he’d done it so often, both in the military and as a civilian, that he was well accustomed to it by now. All he needed was a place to rest his head, and he could pass right out. He could be sitting upright in a chair, semi-reclined in a car, or curled up on a hard linoleum floor—it really didn’t matter. And while it was nice to have a pillow or some other kind of cushion, it wasn’t necessary.
