by R J Johnson
“I know why…” she said sad. “You let them kill you off because you needed an excuse to stop feeling sorry for yourself.”
Alex started to defend himself when she shook her head. “I don’t blame you, really. It wasn’t as if I was all that great of a girlfriend to you either. I know we loved each other. I know I did. That sort of thing is self-evident.”
Alex swallowed and then finally asked the question he’d always wanted… No, that wasn’t right. It was the question he always needed an answer to.
“Then why didn’t you want to marry me?”
Her shoulders slumped and she shook her head.
“It wasn’t ever about you, Alex. It was nothing to do with you.”
“Then why?” Alex asked, his voice cracking. “I would’ve been fine with a long engagement. Hell, all I wanted was some way, some possible way to show you that I loved you and that your new job wouldn’t split us up. You were…are the only person in the world I ever wanted to be with. All I wanted was the whole world to know that too.”
“You knew…”
“I knew…” Alex confessed. “I knew you said you didn’t want to get married, but I thought…” he recognized the old argument starting and decided to stop before it began. “Ahh, hell, I know what I thought, and I know I was wrong. It took me a long time and nearly dying to figure that out.”
Emily smiled at him. “It’s not the worst thing in the world to not want to get married.”
“Especially to me,” he said, attempting a joke. She smiled and laughed along with him.
It was the sweetest thing he’d heard in nearly six years.
Her face fell, and she looked at him seriously, “There’s something you should know…”
A beep informed them that someone had used his keycard to unlock the door. Scott barged in with Christina hot on his heels.
“Look who I found down in the gift shop,” Scott said.
Christina followed Scott into the room with a handful of snacks, water and various flavors of soda. She handed a Diet Pepsi to Emily, and Alex took a water from her.
They sat down on the bed and stared expectantly at Alex.
“Oh?” Alex asked, surprised. “Am I still telling the story?”
“I’m too wired to sleep,” Emily announced. Christina nodded along with her.
“I took one of those energy shots, so I’m good for another few hours,” Scott added.
Alex looked around at the room and sighed. This was the most complicated part of the story, and he wasn’t looking forward to telling it.
But they deserved the truth.
He began to tell his friends how he died.
Chapter Eighteen
Alex approached the closed door of the secured facility and paused, looking around him. He took out the piece of paper from his pocket and rechecked his watch. He was in the right place at the right time. Ash was supposed to meet him here, but he was nowhere to be seen.
This part of the base was creepy, Alex decided. Not for the first time on his walk over to meet with Ash, he debated going back home and watching a show on his laptop instead of waiting for Ash to show up. He’d already been on shift for eighteen hours, and if he wanted any rack time, he ought to get back now.
The door to the secure vault opened suddenly, startling him. Colonel Ash walked out of the door and looked at him, a broad smile breaking out across his face.
“Alex, good to see you.”
“Ash, I got the second season of 24 waiting for me back at my bunk, so whatever you’ve got in mind, can we hurry it along?” Alex asked.
Ash looked at Alex seriously and closed the door behind him.
“You can still walk away, Private,” Ash said sternly.
“Private?” he tried to joke. “Wow, I thought we weren’t ever supposed to stand on ceremony.”
“This is serious, Alex,” Ash said. “You’re in or you’re out, right here, right now. If you’re not interested, no worries; we never speak of this again. But…” He let the implication of missing out on the mission hang there in the air.
“Look, whatever you got going on in there, I’m sure I’d be great at it,” Alex said firmly. He started to turn around and walk back towards his rack. “But only you can know whether or not you trust me. You wanna bring me in on some secret mission, awesome. I’ve always wanted to James Bond my way through my Army contract. But I’m not about to be treated like some errand boy. You know more than anyone that I’ve earned more respect than that.”
Ash appraised him for a moment, turned and keyed in his entry code. He opened the door to the secure vault and stepped inside. “Are you coming?”
Alex looked back at the open door to the hallway and the midnight heat of the desert outside. He decided to trust his friend a little longer.
He followed Ash into the secure vault and discovered ten other men already sitting inside around a large conference table. Each of the men were built like tanks, looking like they lifted tree trunks for a quick workout, and Alex (who wasn’t exactly out of shape) felt self-conscious around them. They all hailed from different branches of the Special Forces. Alex counted at least two SEALs, a few Army Rangers and some other patches he didn’t recognize. Whoever these men were, they were the best of the best of the best.
“Howdy, gents,” Alex said off-handedly. “Nice night for a secret mission.”
“Who the hell is this POG?” That came from a large man with a thick goatee that ran down the length of his chin and to his shirt. His shiny bald head reflected the cheap fluorescent lighting that illuminated the conference room table.
Alex winced. He knew he didn’t have much time in the Red Zone, so he wasn’t exactly renowned among those who had been deep in the shit. POGs were generally known as poor excuses for soldiers, he knew, and he decided to let the insult roll off his back.
“This, my friends,” Ash began, his voice booming inside the secured room, “is the answer to our prayers.”
Alex heard the Special Forces men around him begin to murmur. Whatever he was here for, they already knew.
He just hoped it wasn’t as cannon fodder.
“This is Jason McCray…” Ash began. Alex shot him a look, but Ash ignored him. He decided to see where his friend was going with this.
“And as of 22:30 tonight, he’s a dead man.”
Alex’s jaw dropped to the floor as he looked at his friend, incredulous. What the fuck was he talking about?
The Ranger who spoke up earlier looked Alex up and down suspiciously. “Can we trust him?”
“I trust him,” Ash said, as if that settled the issue.
The Ranger gave Alex another appraisal and nodded, apparently satisfied.
“The operation begins in forty-two hours, gents,” Ash said. “You know your roles, and you all have the necessary equipment. This meeting is only for you to ask any final questions about the maneuvers and insertion techniques. We have one shot at this. This is your chance.”
There was nothing but silence around the room. Alex swallowed. Whatever was in store for him, they knew a hell of a lot more about it than he did.
Ash looked around with a short nod.
“Good,” he said. “Once you leave this room, we are radio silent until Operation Con Air begins.”
The sound of a dozen chairs scraping the cheap cement floor echoed through the vault.
Alex sat in his chair as the ten strangers filed out of the room.
Once he and Ash were alone, Alex looked up at his friend. “Operation Con Air?”
Ash chuckled and then pulled a seat out directly across from Alex.
“I’m surprised that’s your first question, and not about why you’re dying…” he checked his watch, “in less than fifteen minutes.”
“That part did pique my interest,” Alex admitted. “Why are you going to kill me, Ash?”
Ash shook his head and put his forearms on the table, looking Alex directly in the eyes.
“Relax, I’m not actually goin
g to kill you. This is your chance…” Ash began, then stopped and shook his head. “No, that’s not right. This is our chance to bloody every asshole’s nose for getting us into a stupid-ass war without thinking what it might do to the people who are actually doing the fighting.”
“What the fuck, Ash?” Alex finally exploded, slamming his fists down on the table. “What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about you helping me steal six billion dollars from the US Government.”
Alex’s eyes went wide. For a moment he didn’t know what to say. Then he started laughing.
“I’m serious, Alex,” Ash said. “In their infinite wisdom, the US Government decided that the only way to get people on our side is to pay them not to shoot at us. They’re literally shipping over billions of dollars in cash on pallets.”
Alex shook his head, wiping a tear away from his eye. “That can’t be. I’m the quartermaster. I’d have known about a high-priority transit item like that.”
“That’s part of the problem,” Ash said with a scowl. “Goddamn assholes are looking to steal it.”
“Who is?” Alex demanded.
“Contractors, warlords in Iraq, everyone and anyone who thinks they can get a piece, they will try. And none of that money will actually do anything to keep us safe,” Ash said, waving dismissively. He leaned forward.
“Besides, my friend, you’re asking the wrong questions. The ‘who’ is irrelevant. What matters is what will happen to that money if we let those corrupt assholes get ahold of it. You think that money will go to the people? Hell, no! It’ll line whatever pockets of whoever we decided is an ally this week. Then it’ll go into weapons that the Muj’s will use against us. It’ll be one big-ass six-billion injection into the enemy’s will to fight, and honestly, I’m afraid that’s the whole point.”
“That’s not possible,” Alex protested. “They’ve got to have some sort of qualification program in place for people to get the money. Have you ever tried to apply for financial aid, for Christ’s sake? It’s brutal.”
“These are not students looking to get a Liberal Arts degree,” Ash said, more softly now. “These people will do everything they can to harm people like you, me and all those other fine folk we had in here.”
“We have rules!” Alex protested. “There’s no way…”
“It’s already happening,” Ash said, his voice just above a whisper. “You wanna know why you, the quartermaster, don’t know about a huge shipment of cash coming on base?”
Alex was at a loss. He didn’t want to know, and Ash knew that.
“It’s because they think they can control everything Alex, including you,” Ash said, his voice gathering steam again. “They think that they can control the money, the warlords who get it, what they do with it and who will take the blame when it goes missing.”
Alex looked up at Ash in surprise, his eyes narrowing. “What do you mean?”
Ash took out a file and passed it over to Alex. “I’m sorry. They made their choice ahead of time. It’s why I had to get you out.”
Alex took the file that Ash handed him, but didn’t open it. He only stared at his friend.
“They were going to frame you, kid,” Ash said softly. “One of the CIA guys in charge of this op was going to skim some money off the top and blame you. He knew you were the only one with access.”
“And you discovered his plans…?” Alex asked, confused.
“A few hundred thousand is one thing,” Ash said calmly, “but he’s got his sights set on at least a hundred million. That kind of money goes missing in a shipment like this, it’s gonna get noticed. He had paperwork saying you authorized the transfer.”
Ash nodded to the file he was holding. “Go ahead and look. It’s got your signature and requests a pallet from the inbound flight to be transferred to a holding facility.”
Alex opened the folder opposite him and saw a series of request forms he’d never seen before. They were all post-dated for next week, and his signature stood out on the bottom of the form. His eyes went wide as he took a close look. They’d captured his handwriting perfectly.
“They were setting you up. I found out before they could spring their trap. So I decided the better idea was beat them to the punch.”
Alex looked back up at Ash, his jaw set in determination. He was a pawn. Nothing more. He was targeted because he did his job well and others recognized his efficiency. And now they were using that efficiency against him.
“And for this, you’re going to kill me?” Alex asked.
Ash chuckled, “If you have a problem with that…”
“I do like breathing,” Alex said without a trace of humor.
“Your death kills two birds with one stone,” Ash said. “Not only are you cleared from being a suspect in the theft of six billion dollars, you’re also free.”
“Free?” he questioned, looking up at his mentor.
“Free from this.” Ash waved his hand around the hot room. “Free from ever worrying about money again.” He leaned forward, squinting at Alex. “Free from your government’s plots and bullshit.”
He picked up the sheet and went on staring at the transfer request. He’d been betrayed before, mostly by now-ex-girlfriends (not Emily), but to know that his country – something that he swore an oath to defend and die for – was setting him up to die in Gitmo, that was too much to bear.
“And my death somehow helps you steal the money, I’m guessing,” Alex said finally.
“See, that’s why I knew you were the perfect guy to bring in, you’re worth all ten guys I’ve already brought in on this.”
“Flattery gets you nowhere, Ash,” Alex said firmly. “What are you going to do with the money?”
Ash blinked. He hadn’t expected this question.
“I assumed it was clear that we would split the proceeds twelve ways once the heat died down.”
Alex did the quick math in his head. Six billion dollars split twelve ways was $500,000,000 apiece. That, more than anything else, made his next decision a lot easier than it should have been.
“Tell me about my part of the plan,” Alex said, slowly putting the transfer orders down.
Ash grinned.
Alex looked up at his friends, who still looked interested in his story, but by the constant yawning and the look of their heavy eyes, he knew it was time to take a break. It was only 1:30 in the afternoon, but the long night, good food and safe environment were making it hard for them to stay up any longer. The adrenaline of their adventures from the night before had long since faded away.
“We need sleep,” Alex said. The rest of them began to protest, but Alex held fast.
“You guys won’t be any help to me if you’re falling asleep when I need you the most,” Alex said. “Get some rest. I’ll finish the story at dinner.”
Christina and Emily stood and made their way to the door, Alex grabbed Emily’s hand before she left, and she looked at his hand and back up into his eyes.
“It’s a bit…soon,” Emily said softly. He nodded. She was right. What the hell was he thinking?
“Later,” Alex promised, and he released her hand. She let it drop, then lingered for a moment as if she wanted to say something, but decided better of it.
Alex shut the door behind him and looked to the comfortable beds, trying to think of the last time he’d slept in one this nice.
He took the sheets off the bed and tried to ignore Scott’s snoring. His friend had fallen asleep the second his head hit the pillow. He laid the sheets down on the hard carpet, then dropped down on the mattress, staring at the ceiling and wondered what his friends might think of him once they knew the whole story.
Chapter Nineteen
The plane hurtled through the air above the Pacific Ocean at five hundred knots. After nearly being thrown out of an aircraft, Tate shouldn’t have been able to eat. However, he decided to attack his food (prepared by the gourmet chef in the galley below) with gusto, since he figured he may as w
ell enjoy the perks while they lasted.
He speared a thick cut of steak and ate it, satisfaction spreading across his face. The perfectly steamed vegetables sat untouched on his plate.
Javier watched him eat, looking sicker every second Tate was still alive. Tate looked at his number two and smiled.
“Do you ever watch Shark Week, Javier?” Tate asked the man.
Javier looked at him suspiciously and shook his head no.
“It’s fascinating, really. They set aside an entire week for special programming on Discovery to teach everyone all about the wonderful world of sharks. Lovely creatures, sharks. Do you know anything about them?”
“Just what I learned from Jaws,” Javier said, shifting his weight in the leather seat.
Tate chuckled, “I suppose that’s partly why people like Shark Week so much; they like the idea of being terrified when they go to the beach, I suppose.”
He took a healthy drink of the wine set out next to him, swallowed and then continued.
“The last thing sharks like is competition in their waters. Did you know that?” Tate asked.
“No,” Javier replied, trying to sound bored.
“In fact, did you know that sharks’ greatest competition are dolphins?”
Javier ignored him and looked out the window towards the bright blue of the Pacific Ocean.
“It’s true,” Tate said with a nod. “Surprisingly, those playful little bastards are extraordinarily lethal towards even the fiercest of sharks. They chase off other potential predators who might dare step into their territory by repeatedly slamming their nose into the shark’s soft underbelly.”
“Thanks, professor…” Javier said.
“You don’t understand, do you?” Tate asked, spearing another cut of meat from his plate. “Just because something appears friendly one moment, doesn’t mean it won’t slice your throat the very second he thinks you’re competition…”
Javier’s rolled his eyes and looked up to see Tate lunging towards him, the steak knife in his hand. Quickly he sliced through the younger man’s throat. Javier was stared in shock as his hand flew to the gash, hoping to stem the blood flooding out of his carotid artery.
