“Mark,” a voice interrupted. “Mark!” Mark looked over Sarah’s shoulder to see Aaron, of all people, backing into a corner of the cell. Mark hadn’t even noticed him before, and now he couldn’t focus on anything but the terrified look on his bloodied face.
Sarah pulled away from Mark, abruptly. Fear and dread erased all the joyful relief that had occupied her face just a moment ago as she screamed: “Mark, move!”
Before Mark could react to the warning, he felt a fist drive into his back, bringing him to his knees. The punch was followed with a knee to his face, and before Mark had even realized what was happening, he was writhing in pain on the floor.
“Well, if this isn’t a surprise,” came a voice above him. “Mark Strain, American spy.”
He looked up to find a man—a muscular, seething man—standing over him.
“What, you don’t recognize me?” the man asked. “Let me jog your memory.”
Mark thought to reach for his gun, which he’d jammed into the back of his pants when he spotted Sarah. But the man was on top of him before he could move. He wrapped his hands around Mark’s throat and squeezed, hard, like he was trying to pop Mark’s head off his neck. Mark tried to gasp, but the best he could muster was a dry, painful heave. He was being killed—quickly, efficiently—and there wasn’t a thing he could do about it.
“I was doing this to you when we first met. Remember? Me strangling the life out of you before I was so rudely interrupted?”
Mark’s mind took him back to the morning of his abduction, when O’Neal and his team burst into his home. It came to him, almost like déjà vu. This man—Banks, Mark hazily recalled—with his hands squeezing Mark’s throat, just like he was doing right now.
“No interruptions this time,” Banks continued. “This time, you’re all mine.”
Darkness narrowed Mark’s vision into a tunnel. Sarah and Aaron screamed incoherently to Mark, their voices starting to fade. Mark tried to shove Banks off him, but he was too powerful.
But then Mark remembered his Taser. Just before his lights went out for good, Mark had a vision of it in his pocket.
Mark reached into his jacket. His hand felt numb, and he had trouble gripping the Taser. His fingers kept slipping off the handle, unable to grasp it. On the verge of collapse, on the verge of the end of everything, Mark finally secured a firm enough hold on the weapon. There was no time to take it from his pocket, no time to aim. All Mark could do was pull the trigger.
The voltage tore through Mark’s jacket and connected with Banks’s abdomen. The Taser’s jolt wasn’t enough to knock Banks out like it had Danny, but the jolt didn’t go unnoticed. Banks’s grip on Mark’s throat released, and after Mark inhaled three sharp, deep breaths, he pulled the top half of his body upright, meeting Banks face-to-face. His muscles still taut and uncontrollably shaking, Banks didn’t offer any resistance as Mark pushed him away. Banks rolled stiffly on his side, and Mark crawled away.
Banks was already nearly on his feet by the time Mark’s lungs recovered enough so he didn’t feel like he was still being suffocated.
“You can’t just die, can you?” Banks asked.
Mark knew he could never hope to hold his own in a fight against Banks. While he’d survived a lot to get to this point, Mark didn’t for a second downplay the luck and help that kept him alive and moving. But here and now, there was no help to be found, and he’d be a fool to rely on luck.
Which meant Mark couldn’t afford to mess around.
He jammed his hand into the back of his pants and came up with his gun. Banks froze in midstride, seeing the gun pointed at his chest. He smirked, even as Mark slammed back the hammer.
“And what do you think you’re going to do with that?” Banks asked smugly.
“What I’ve learned to do, thanks to you and your boss.”
In an instant, Banks’s arrogance drained from his face. He took a step toward Mark, about to charge at him, but it was too late. Mark pulled the trigger, and the force of the bullet reversed Banks’s momentum. Banks was still upright, so Mark fired two more shots. Both hit the mark, and Banks was instantly on the ground.
Mark stood, ignoring the throbbing pain in his throat, and stepped cautiously toward Banks. He kept his gun trained on the dirty FBI agent, watching him with an unblinking eye. If Banks so much as twitched, Mark wouldn’t hesitate to put another hole where one wasn’t supposed to be.
But Banks wasn’t doing anything other than writhing in pain. He had three bullets lodged in him, two in his thigh and one, as far as Mark could tell, in his kneecap.
“You’re lucky I have a feeling your testimony might be valuable,” Mark said. “Otherwise, I would have aimed higher.”
“Go to hell,” Banks spat.
“Where are the cell keys?” Mark asked, all business.
“I told you to go—” Banks began, but Mark had heard enough. He plunked his gun on Banks’s head, knocking him out cold. “Always the hard way with you a-holes.”
He searched Banks and found a pair of vintage keys in his pocket. He returned to the cell and opened the door, releasing Sarah and Aaron.
Sarah collapsed in Mark’s arms, and he could feel her sobbing into his shoulder. She was seldom one for tears, but as Mark squeezed her closer to his body—as if he needed to feel her, all of her, to know that this was real—he felt the distinct warmth of tears forming in his eyes as well. Tears of relief, joy, and comfort. Every second of every day, since the moment he’d been abducted, had been wrought with either fear, pain, or anger. Mark hadn’t had a moment of peace, and though he wasn’t out of the woods yet, holding Sarah in his arms brought him closer to feeling like his life could make sense again.
“I never thought—I never thought we’d—”
“No,” Sarah said, interrupting him. “I don’t want to think about it. I just want this—just this.”
Mark closed his eyes and sank into Sarah’s shoulder. This was all he wanted, too. It was all he needed.
“Hey, uh … guys?” Aaron said. “I don’t want to interrupt, but…”
Mark pulled away from Sarah and turned his attention to Aaron. He didn’t want to let go of Sarah, not ever again, but he knew his work wasn’t finished. Not yet.
“Dale,” Mark said, finishing Aaron’s thought.
Aaron nodded. “Yeah, he still has his finger on the button. So to speak. We have to do something about that.”
“Did you know?” Sarah asked. “About Dale—did you know?”
Mark sighed, trying to shake off his disbelief. Even now, he struggled to wrap his head around whatever it was that Dale was up to. He believed it—he’d witnessed Dale’s betrayal with his own two eyes—but the logic simply did not work. It betrayed everything he understood about how his world functioned.
“I knew he was the one who set me up,” Mark said. “Him and an old-school Russian spy named Gregori have been scheming for a long time, using the alias of a dead oligarch to make millions in American contracts.”
“Sergei Vishny?” Sarah questioned. “He’s dead?”
“You know Vishny?” Mark said, taken aback.
“Yes, I know Vishny,” Sarah huffed. “You think I’ve been sitting around while you’ve been gone?”
“No, not at all,” Mark said, smiling. “Hell, you probably know more about all this than I do. Like about the Verge software. What did you mean in your message when you said that it’s bad? What does it do?”
Sarah’s expression sank. She shook her head and turned to Aaron. “Aaron, you understand this better than I do.”
Aaron swallowed hard and explained. How the Verge software infiltrated the United States’ deepest, most sensitive defense secrets. How it stole that information and disseminated it. Exposed it.
And that was just the beginning.
Mark nodded. He had only one question: “Where’s Dale? You said he’s here, being honored by the DoD. Where?”
“Close, I can take you there,” Aaron replied. “The cere
mony should be happening right now, and it’s going to culminate with the launch of the Verge software.”
Mark’s mind was already piecing together a plan. “In that case, we’re going to have to have this little ceremony culminate in a totally different way.”
“That would be ideal,” Aaron said. “But, like … how?”
“Easy,” Mark said, “we just have to let everyone know that Dale’s a spy.”
Mark moved to lead them out of the basement, but Sarah stopped him. He could tell she was nervous; Mark, whose hands were steady as a rock, realized that he now took for granted how common this kind of high-stakes situation had become.
“Do you really think you can convince a room full of military and defense personnel of Dale’s guilt—as he’s being honored?” Sarah asked, trying to mask her doubt.
“I’m not going to convince anyone,” Mark said with a smile. “Dale is.”
29
The assembly hall was crowded with what looked like, from Mark’s perspective, a collection of floating heads. He’d slipped into the back of the dimly lit room just as a reel highlighting Dale’s career achievements began to roll. The attendees for Dale’s momentous send-off were seated in high-backed chairs positioned in neat little rows. Everyone’s attention was directed at a screen that hung just to the left of a stage that crowned the hall.
And seated on that stage was the guest of honor himself: Dale Schmidt. Mark spotted him watching the video with an expression of delighted satisfaction. It was an expression Mark couldn’t wait to wipe off his former mentor’s face.
Mark had to wait, though. He had a plan, and it was imperative he stick to it, regardless of how badly he wanted to rush the stage and deliver to Dale the ass-kicking he deserved. Mark fought back not only his impulse to attack the man who betrayed him but also the nausea the video elicited. To him, the footage felt more like propaganda and less a retrospective of a revered public servant. A clip of Dale being interviewed about the importance of supporting America’s armed forces played across the screen, followed by congressmen and military leaders offering their praise and admiration for Dale’s long-standing dedication and sacrifice. It made Mark’s stomach churn. Dale was to them what he’d once been to Mark: a defender of American values, a sensible advocate for the country’s military, and an ally to justice. But, more than that, Dale was his friend. Mark now knew it was all a lie. He had to bite down on his tongue and suppress the urge to act before it was time. He remained hidden in the back of the room while Dale—the man who’d laced a noose around Mark’s neck as he plotted to sabotage his own country—sat on the stage, a satisfied look on his face as he watched a history of his own deceit. Everyone in the room was watching, engrossed. It was all leading to the very specific end Dale had meticulously arranged and, as far as he knew, everything was going according to plan.
But then the screen began to flicker.
For a moment, the audience respectfully maintained their attentive focus, acting like nothing had happened. The sound began to crackle, and Dale’s trip down memory lane continued to break up until it cut out completely, leaving a white screen. Soft murmurs started to pass through the audience; Dale, on the stage, stood up and began to look around, searching for someone who could help.
Then, as abruptly as the footage stopped, it came back. Only it wasn’t the movie that’d been specifically made to celebrate Dale’s career before he rode off into the sunset.
Aaron was putting Gregori’s laptop to use.
The video was a little grainy blown up to such a degree, but not enough to obscure what was being shown. Gregori—an infamous character most people in the room were very familiar with—waiting, impatiently, for something to happen. The guests looked at each other, puzzled, unsure if this was part of the program or something completely different. Even Dale, who doubtless had no clue that this exchange he’d had with Gregori was recorded, gazed around with a confused look on his face.
That look, though, quickly slipped from off his face when he saw himself enter the footage. His face wasn’t visible yet, but Dale knew who he was looking at. Mark took immense satisfaction in watching Dale realize that he was on the cusp of being totally screwed.
The audience collectively gasped as Gregori and Dale detailed how framing Mark as a spy was going to make them rich. Mark could feel the unease build as the incriminating evidence continued to roll, and he knew it was only a matter of time before someone, in a room full of politicians and military leaders, acted. He just hoped they could wait until the big reveal. They had to, because the video wasn’t going to stop playing. In the A/V room that controlled the assembly hall’s projector, Sarah had Mark’s gun gripped in her hand, directing it at the three A/V techs who oversaw the footage.
Dale wasn’t about to idly wait for the spear that was racing toward him to bury its tip into his guts. Mark looked to the stage and saw Dale stand up from his seat, backing slowly away. His eyes shifted from the screen, where they’d been transfixed, to scan the crowd. Ensuring, Mark assumed, that no one was eyeing him as he made his getaway.
And that’s when Dale spotted him—and then he took off.
Mark bolted after him. He darted around the stage and shoved an exit door open with his shoulder, following Dale’s path. Behind him, Mark heard his favorite part of the video beginning to play, the part where Dale rationalizes his treason and reveals his face to the camera. And the entire audience. Mark wished he could be there to see all those jaws hit the floor, but he couldn’t let Dale escape. Who knew what kind of connections he had with the Russians; with their aid, he might be able to disappear into the wind, and Mark would sooner throw himself in a gulag than let Dale dodge the reckoning he deserved.
The exit led Mark into a narrow stairwell; he poked his head over the side of the railing and was greeted by bullets flying at his head. Mark fell back and tumbled down a flight of stairs. The bullets had missed him, and Mark was grateful not only to come away with his life, but also to gain important knowledge: Dale had a gun. That tidbit would certainly color his pursuit.
Mark trampled down the remaining stairs, hugging the wall and trying to narrow the gap between himself and Dale. Dale had a good lead on him, and the time Mark lost recovering from his tumble down the stairs only helped to widen the distance between them.
Mark found every door on the way down locked until he reached the first floor. He kicked open that door and slid out, concerned Dale would be waiting next to it, ready to put a bullet in Mark’s head.
When no shot was fired, Mark continued to race forward, though he didn’t see Dale anywhere. He burst through the glass front doors, and the brisk night air hit him like a slap to the face. He frantically scanned the area, but he couldn’t get his sights on Dale. He spun in circles, searching, gripped by the dread of what losing Dale would mean: Without him to face trial, or to at least deliver testimony, there was a chance Mark’s conviction—or whatever it was—could still stand. He could still be branded a spy. After all he’d been through, Mark could see, with very little strain on his imagination, people claiming that the video showing Dale’s guilt was inconclusive, or that it’d been doctored, or whatever. Dale, a U.S. senator, was a big fish; Mark was not. There’d be plenty of people invested in preserving the reputation of the entire government by denying the possibility that a member of Congress had turned coat. It would be a catastrophe, whereas keeping Mark on the hook, although possibly controversial, wouldn’t tarnish the nation’s soul.
As Mark tried to stop himself from fearing the worst, his attention was drawn ahead, to the sound of blaring car horns. He looked toward Washington Boulevard and couldn’t believe his eyes:
Dale was zigzagging across the expressway, heading straight for Arlington National Cemetery.
Mark sprinted toward the boulevard and, with very little caution, raced into traffic. He knew if Dale got into the cemetery without Mark at least knowing which direction he was heading, he’d be gone. The grounds were too vast, and ther
e were too many places to hide. Dale could lose Mark in an instant and be gone forever.
A horn blared and tires screeched as Mark made it across the first lane. Ahead of him, cars zoomed by, close enough for Mark to reach out and touch; he could feel their swift power as they passed, and it was terrifying. But Dale was already working his way through the opposite flow of traffic, so Mark didn’t have time to waste. He sucked in a deep breath and exhaled it as he took off.
A car swerved behind Mark as he darted across the middle lane, and he could swear he felt it graze the back of his pants. His momentum kept him going, but the third and final lane was too tight with traffic to cross. Mark turned right, running with the cars that shot past him in a blur of glowing red taillights. He could hear their velocity, a rolling thunder that roared again and again with each car. Finally, Mark caught a break in the stream and threw his body across the final lane. He reached the barrier dividing the two sides of the street and gripped onto it. He couldn’t believe there were still three more lanes to go.
Dale was just crossing the final lane of traffic, and that gave Mark little time to catch up. Which meant if he was reckless before, he’d have to be downright suicidal now.
Mark leapt over the barrier and hoped karma was on his side as he bolted into traffic. Just like before, but this time, there was no stopping.
He hurried across the first lane, ignoring an obnoxious horn blown in his direction, followed by a stream of obscenities. The second lane was clear, but barreling down the third lane was a semi-truck, and it was already howling at Mark. The horn sounded like a steamboat blaring in the dead of night, and Mark clearly understood its message: Don’t even try it, idiot.
The Throwaway Page 28
