by TJ O'Connor
Silence.
“Excellent. You should know Khalifah is indeed present.”
LaRue ended the call and tapped on the window. A moment later, Shepard slid behind the steering wheel and glanced into the rearview mirror.
LaRue found Shepard’s eyes in the mirror. “Have you brought my things, Shepard?”
Shepard’s taut, rippled muscles strained the fabric of his dark suitcoat when he hefted a duffel and lifted it over the seat to him. “Yes, sir. The rest is in the trunk.”
LaRue unzipped the bag and surveyed its contents. He opened a manila envelope and fanned out several thousand dollars in currency. Then he retrieved a small ballistic nylon handbag containing a Walther PPK .380 semiautomatic pistol, four magazines, and a silencer.
“Ah, very good.”
LaRue sat quietly for a moment and waited until they had passed the security checkpoint and started down the southern slope of Mount Weather. “Shepard, it seems I’ve begun a little holiday. Your services are no longer sanctioned. Should I arrange for someone else to assist me?”
“Holiday?” Shepard glanced into the rearview again. “Will we be getting dirty again, sir?”
“Filthy.”
“Anything I should know from your communication?”
“Our benefactors are worried about the uncertainties.”
“Uncertainties?”
“Imagine that. Yes. They do not like uncertainty. If there were not any uncertainties, I would be concerned.”
Shepard nodded.
LaRue briefed him on part of his conversation with the Director of Central Intelligence.
Shepard nodded several times and drove on.
LaRue finished his soliloquy with, “There are, once again, too many cooks in this kitchen. Don’t you think, Shepard?”
“I was thinking that very thing, sir. An odd mix of loyalties.”
LaRue smiled. “Ah, do not confuse loyalty with complicity. Sometimes, despite what the bureaucrats wish us all to believe, the enemy of our enemy is still our enemy.”
CHAPTER 7
Day 2: May 16, 1235 Hours, Daylight Saving Time
25783 Christian Run, Manassas, Virginia
A BLOCK FROM the run-down cement block rambler, I pulled to the curb and studied the neighborhood. There was no sign of the panel van. The bombers hadn’t returned. Traffic was nil, and the only movement on the street for two blocks was an old woman walking an old mutt. She passed me, crossed the street, and continued down Christian Run back toward the main boulevard.
I was in a precarious situation. Shocking, I know. I’d arrived in town less than forty-eight hours ago and had planned on staying anonymous and under everyone’s radar. Murder and terror changed the rules. My empty retirement account did, too. It was clear Oscar LaRue knew I was missing and had taken my money to ensure I popped up my head sooner rather than later. He was sending me a message. LaRue was a controlling SOB.
LaRue and I were pals. Really.
Before I rolled down the street to the rambler, I pulled out my cell phone. “Dammit, Kevin. Now we’re both in the shit.”
First, I turned the phone’s GPS back on—something I’d turned off soon before I’d left Doha. Next, I dialed a telephone number from memory and waited for it to connect to a mindless answering service buried somewhere in Langley, Virginia.
“This is Hunter from Doha.” I rattled off my contractor ID number and a code word that signaled I was not under duress. “Hiya, Oscar. Sorry for leaving without talking to you. I’ll explain later. For now, I’ll trade you $879,928.66 for Khalifah and Maya in Baltimore. Hugs and kisses.”
I tapped off the call and put the rental in drive.
Before my wheels rubbed up against the cement curb in front of 25783 Christian Run, my message was delivered. A computer encrypted my phone message, pinged a satellite overhead, confirmed my cell phone’s exact ground position, and transferred my message to a cell phone somewhere in the world. What transpired in the few moments thereafter was anyone’s guess. Mine was that I had less than sixty minutes to do what I needed here.
So I did.
I slipped out of the rental and looked around. From a haphazard gaggle of trash cans nearby, I pulled a pizza box off the pile and walked to the front door. I rang the doorbell and juggled the empty pizza box precariously atop my .45 semiautomatic.
No response.
I knocked.
Nothing.
After stolen glances around the neighborhood, I walked around the rambler’s corner and disappeared through some overgrown shrubs. Beyond the shrubs, I shouldered in a tall wooden fence gate, ditched the pizza box, and found a rear yard of dead grass and weeds surrounded by a six-foot-high privacy fence—a lawn long ago abandoned.
No one around.
At the rear door, I banged loudly. I checked the door. Locked. On my tiptoes, I peeked in the small, eight-inch-square door window but saw nothing but an empty mudroom.
Normally, in situations like this, I’d wait on a breaching team and drone surveillance. We’d sweep the area, make sure no hostiles were waiting in ambush, and crash through the door with fire superiority.
I had none of that.
What I did have was a heavy, folding survival knife that took only a few seconds to force the cheap rear door lock and pop the door open.
I followed my .45’s front sights through.
Two turns later, out of the mudroom, through the tiny, sparkling-clean kitchen, and into a scantily furnished living room. There, the reason no one had answered the doorbell was clear.
The residents were no longer home. Well, they were there, but they were no longer living.
An older couple was there. I always had a hard time with the ages of Arabs, especially those living in the small Middle Eastern villages. Life was too often hard, and the sun and weather aged them beyond their years before they were thirty.
This couple was no different.
They were most likely husband and wife, and from the few framed photographs on the table beside them, they were also Mom and Dad. Mom and Dad sat head to head in the center of a badly worn sofa against the far wall. Blood had emptied from them and pooled on their laps, chest, and sofa cushions. Their hands were bound in front of them and their throats had been cut. Death had taken no time at all.
Bloody footprints crossed the room and led into a dark, narrow hallway.
I took a breath, listened to silence, and followed the fading work boot tracks to the last door at the end of the hall.
Oh, hell no.
A young girl of maybe sixteen or seventeen lay facedown on a mattress near the window. The room held a frameless bed and a single dresser that was untouched and showed no signs of robbery. The blinds were drawn, and I had to strain to see the details I regretted seeing at all.
The girl had been raped. Brutalized. I wasn’t an expert, but her body was a road map to her end. What had been a modest, dark dress was torn and bloodied around her. Part of it had been used to bind her hands over her head. There was bruising and contusions from a beating she’d probably taken trying to stop the inevitable. Her ankles showed the bruises of handprints as though one had held her down while another savagely took her.
At the end, there was only the knife across her throat that ended her terror. Those last few seconds were perhaps solace from the savagery she’d endured.
Bile rose in my throat. I retreated to the hall, where I found a tidy bathroom and fought back the retch.
After searching the remainder of the small house, I found nothing but an old, crumbling home kept neat and clean by the family who lived within its walls. There were no hidden weapon stashes, explosives or their mechanics, or even a bomb-maker’s workbench. The refrigerator was nearly empty. The cupboards held the packages of a newly settled Middle Eastern family trying to assimilate to their new Western world—bagged rice and flour, a near-empty jar of peanut butter, fresh-baked flatbread, containers of dried beans, and fresh fruits. Nothing extravagant. Simple country foo
ds that were as close to those they’d had in their cupboards back home. Wherever home had been.
This was the family of the young man who’d bombed the mall. An old black-and-white photograph on an end table near Mom told me he was their son. There were no clues as to who the other men had been. Had the son gone voluntarily? It hadn’t seemed so when they walked him to the van earlier, but at the mall, he seemed calmer and in control. He’d walked inside without escort and had done the deed presumably unbridled by any captors.
Yet here, behind him, his family had been butchered.
If they were hostages used to force the son to commit the attack, they were executed as witnesses soon after. If they were not hostages, had the son fallen within the evil spell of the other men?
I’d seen this tactic before. I’d picked up these pieces before. I’d seen it from ISIS, the Taliban, and the Mujahideen before them. But they were in the age-defying villages of Afghanistan and Pakistan. Places where law was void and tribal power was often at the tip of a scimitar. Life was not supreme and radical Islam allowed no peace before death. Violence was a tool, death a means to an end, and terror a playbook.
But this was home. This was America.
Bile rose in my throat again as I holstered the .45 and looked at Mom and Dad on the couch. Dear God, why? The hate and violence was not “over there” any longer. It was here. Here and now. Right now.
A terrible feeling struck me. Those who did this. Those who brutalized this family. They were just getting the party started.
CHAPTER 8
Day 2: May 16, 1330 Hours, Daylight Saving Time
25783 Christian Run, Manassas, Virginia
AFTER SWITCHING MY cell phone GPS off again and backtracking out of the single-level rambler—there was no need for Oscar LaRue to catch up with me quite yet—I moved my rental car two blocks down Christian Run and waited for the cavalry.
I didn’t have to wait long.
First, a dirty, dented four-door work truck rounded the corner a block ahead and made a slow pass by the rambler. There were four men inside, and the back of the truck was laden with ladders and equipment of home tradesmen at a local job site. Then the truck returned and pulled into the rambler’s driveway. The four men climbed out, carrying tool kits. They immediately went around the house through the side shrubs where I’d entered earlier.
Minutes later, two white vans with door panels that read “American-Made Renovations” rounded the corner and pulled up to the rambler’s curb. Six men climbed out and retrieved tool kits from the rear of the van, then they moved to the front door. One of them tapped his ear, nodded, and the workmen pressed through the door and disappeared inside.
Anyone in the neighborhood who noticed the workmen descending on the house might have wondered how the new Arab family inside had the means for renovations. Of course, none would have noticed the earwig communication pieces or the unusually bulky work clothes the workmen wore—coveralls that hid Kevlar body armor and protective breaching gear. The tool bags did not hold tradesman’s hammers, screwdrivers, and power tools, but MP-5 silenced machine guns, tactical armaments, and other assault paraphernalia.
I strained to make out the men. Not among them was the short, scuffling man with Germanic features and ever-smudged eyeglasses. He was absent.
By the time any neighbor had given a second thought to the construction crew, the CIA tactical response team was already inside assessing the body count and meticulously scouring the home for intelligence. A few moments later, a tall, thin man wearing a white hard hat walked outside. He spoke into an encrypted cell phone and scanned the area in slow, careful movements. Twice he glanced skyward and once threw a thumbs-up.
I started my rental and slowly made the trip past the rambler. White hard hat and I made eye contact. I nodded and headed for the highway and the drive back to Winchester.
Officially, I was back on Oscar LaRue’s radar.
CHAPTER 9
Day 2: May 16, 1345 Hours, Daylight Saving Time
Old Town Winchester, Virginia
“SHOULD THEY TAKE Hunter into custody, sir?” Shepard asked LaRue across the coffee table. “They can recover him in twenty minutes.”
“No.” LaRue snapped his hand up. “I did not anticipate him moving so swiftly, but he’s on to something. Let him run awhile and see where he leads us. He knows he is no longer invisible. He called for assistance, after all.”
“Yes, sir. But …”
“No.” LaRue stood and walked across the hotel suite to gaze out the window into Old Town Winchester. “You have concerns, Shepard?”
“Hunter is acting reckless. I will forgive him for now. His brother’s death has dulled his common sense. Assuming he ever had any. But I worry he might start bouncing all over, considering the consequences.”
LaRue smiled a rueful smile and turned back around. “Yes, consequences.”
“He might also trip into things he shouldn’t. After all, he’s not supposed to be here at all.”
LaRue continued to smile.
“Is he, sir?”
LaRue removed his eyeglasses and began polishing them with a chamois from his shirt pocket. “I want Christian Run processed within an hour. Retrieve any links to our concerns and leave the rest a crime scene. It’ll take the Bureau that long to sort out the mess at Fair Oaks. One hour. No more. Monitor the authorities, Shepard. If there is any sign they have discovered Christian Run sooner than one hour, extract our team.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I’m going for a walk.” LaRue headed for the suite door. “One hour, Shepard. No more.”
“What about Caine? What if Hunter …”
“Ah, yes, Caine.” LaRue stopped and turned back to Shepard. The smile was gone and in its place was a solemn, dark frown. “We will act on Caine at the proper time. You are correct. Hunter will flail here and there. When the time is right, I’ll rein him in. Until then, let him flail. It might be to our advantage.”
“So, he’s bait.”
LaRue lifted a chin. “Bait is for the unknown, the unwilling, non-volunteers. Hunter stepped onto the field voluntarily. He is not bait. He is a decoy to flush the prey.”
“A pawn.” Shepard caught the old spymaster’s eyes.
“We are all pawns, Shepard. But, we can choose when to become knights.”
“Sure, sure.” Shepard forced a laugh. “Whenever you—the king—allow us to. The key is to stay alive long enough.”
“Precisely, Shepard. Precisely.”
CHAPTER 10
Day 2: May 16, 1400 Hours, Daylight Saving Time
Winchester, Virginia
The drive back to Winchester was painful. Inside, my guts churned and my aches and pains from having been blown twenty feet into a display case began to take their toll. Besides the pain, there was disappointment—in me. Kevin had tried to warn me, and I’d failed him. I’d given the information to the police, but they hadn’t acted. Hundreds were dead. I hadn’t acted either. I’d simply been an observer—again. If this had been Kabul or Baghdad, my senses would have been off the charts and I would have, perhaps, anticipated the pending violence. But no. This was Virginia—the States—suicide bombers didn’t live here. Right?
Wrong.
My senses were dulled by the earth beneath my feet—home turf. What if I’d tried to take the bomber? What if I’d called Bond or Bacarro and warned them what I was watching? What if I’d simply called 911 and reported the panel van and suspicious acts?
What if? What if? Damn.
Then, there had been 25783 Christian Run. The old couple. The young girl.
Damn. Damn. Damn.
I didn’t need more cops and Feds and interrogations, so I returned to my cheap hotel east of Winchester and dropped into bed. It was too late now, anyway. The tactical team would handle Christian Run the way Oscar LaRue deemed necessary. The FBI would be along soon enough. For now, I’d leave the bad guys to the good guys. Whether that was the right choice or the wrong choice, it
was my choice.
I had other things to do. I didn’t need the cops crawling all over me asking the million-dollar question—what were the odds I’d accidentally fallen into two bloody crime scenes in less than twenty-four hours? It was bad enough Oscar LaRue knew where I was. Him, I might be able to negotiate with. Handcuffs and a jail cell were not negotiable.
I was exhausted. Late-night gunfights and suicide bombers will do that to you. Yet, sleep evaded me again. First, there was tension and angst. Then silence. There were no indistinguishable voices. No running feet. No gunfire in the distance. Just silence. Strange, foreign, empty silence. It was deafening. Lying there, memories took me back to age seventeen and my battles with Kevin. We fought over everything. More like a father and son than brothers. He won like a father. I rebelled like a son. In the hotel air-conditioning, I lay in sweat and wished for that urgent call to arms that so frequented my past.
Crisis. Action. Reaction … incoming. Something to feel at home. Anything.
Relax, Hunter, you are home.
I gave up on sleep and took a long, cold shower. The two cups of bitter hotel-room coffee, a quick change of clothes from my duffel, and I felt almost human.
I checked my cell phone. No messages. Oscar LaRue was content to have me at arm’s length. That couldn’t be good.
No cops at my door meant my name wasn’t on a police BOLO or arrest order requiring some bureaucrat to bail me out. That has never happened to me, mind you. I’m just saying.
Consultants like me—those who operate under fuzzy government contracts—are a strange lot. Government agencies with nicknames like “the Outfit” and “the Company” contract with the likes of me to provide all manner of services, many of which they prefer to be handled by someone other than US government employees. They do that for lots of reasons. The biggest is the old cliché—plausible deniability. Simply translated, they want you to do certain things—things they don’t want spoken out loud or on the record. Things they don’t want their name on. But things they really, really want done. That way, if something bad happens, they can throw up their hands and shout, “It wasn’t us!”
