Hard Target (A Jon Reznick Thriller)

by J. B. Turner

  Seven

  It was late in the afternoon, thirty miles north of DC, as Reznick turned off the freeway and drove to the outskirts of a nondescript small town.

  “Where are we going?” Trevelle said.

  Reznick drove on. “Just a little stop. But not for long.”

  “Why?”

  “Relax, kid.”

  “I don’t want to relax. I’m scared. Two of my goddamn friends are dead.”

  “You wanna try and keep it together?”

  Trevelle got quiet for a few moments.

  Reznick saw a food truck at a roadside stop.

  “Are you hungry?” Reznick asked.

  “Hungry? I feel sick. Are you serious?”

  “Well, I’m hungry. I need to eat.”

  Trevelle shrugged. “Then I guess you’ve got to eat, man.”

  Reznick pulled up beside an eighteen-wheeler with Arkansas plates and got out, stretching his legs. He walked around to the other side of the SUV and opened Trevelle’s door. “Everyone needs to eat.”

  “I said I’m not hungry.”

  Reznick cocked his head. “We all need to eat.”

  Trevelle sighed as he climbed out of the vehicle. “Sure, whatever. Fries.”

  Reznick walked over to the food truck. He bought a burger and Coke for himself, fries and two cans of Red Bull for the kid. They leaned against the SUV. Trevelle downed most of the first Red Bull, then said, “I don’t feel too good.”

  Reznick stared at the fries. “They look good.”

  Trevelle began to eat listlessly, chewing slowly.

  “Feeling better?”

  “Not really.”

  “It’ll pass.”

  “I don’t think it will. I don’t think I’ll ever get over this.”

  “You need to try and compartmentalize your feelings more,” Reznick said.

  “Compartmentalize my feelings? What the hell does that mean?”

  “You need to leave the bad memories and push them aside. If you let them take over your head, you will drown in self-pity. Shit happens all the time. I know it’s not easy. But you need to just, you know, not let it throw you so badly.”

  “I’m pathetic, I know.”

  “You’re not pathetic. You’re in shock. Was it your mother who died? Father? Sister?”

  “No.”

  “These were friends. Close friends. But that’s all they were.”

  Trevelle munched on the fries for a minute before he spoke. “My parents don’t talk to me.”

  “Why not?”

  “My dad was in the army.”

  “Was he?”

  “Yeah, I was born in Germany. Army brat. He always thought I was soft. I preferred geeking out on my computers to playing sports. He hated that.”

  Reznick wondered if the kid’s father was a hardline disciplinarian and had driven Trevelle to retreat into himself. He thought back to when he was growing up. His dad, a no-nonsense Vietnam vet, had been tough on him. He had learned to deal with it. The powder-keg atmosphere. The aggression. The verbal abuse. Even as a child, he could see his father was suffering his own personal hell. Just another simmering, frustrated, borderline-alcoholic veteran with undiagnosed post-traumatic stress disorder. But he knew other kids, maybe more sensitive ones like Trevelle, wouldn’t be able to live with such malevolence in the home. “Hey, for what it’s worth, I’d be proud if you were my son.”

  Trevelle blinked away tears. “Christ, one minute you’re telling me I need to compartmentalize my feelings, the next you’re saying nice things about me. You’re giving me whiplash, man. Makes me anxious.”

  Reznick smiled. “Don’t be. I don’t bite. Well, not much.”

  Trevelle wiped away his tears with the back of his sleeve.

  “Feeling better?” Reznick said.

  “A little, thanks.”

  They threw out their trash. Reznick turned and looked at the passing vehicles on the nearby highway. “Less than an hour till DC.”

  Trevelle gulped down some more Red Bull. “OK.”

  “We need to decide what the plan is when we get there.”

  “It would be a mistake to call Rosalind Dyer, or even text her. I’m talking about from a technical point of view. Cell phone security, I mean.”

  Reznick nodded.

  “I think we’ve got to assume her cell phone has been compromised. I’m assuming it’s a government-issue encrypted cell phone. If the guys after her are halfway competent, they’ll be listening in. If we call her, it might even put her at greater risk.”

  “I think we’re all at risk from now on.”

  “Man, you really know how to scare me. What is it with you?”

  Reznick clasped the kid’s shoulder. “I’m trying to help you stay alive.”

  “Point taken. Sorry, my nerves are shredded.”

  Reznick glanced behind them, toward the heavyset truckers drinking coffee and talking, shooting the breeze near the food truck. He was starting to formulate a plan to get them into DC without being traced. Despite Trevelle’s confidence in his signal jammer and the newer encryption he’d installed on their phones, Reznick didn’t want to take any chances. “Wait here.”

  “Why?”

  “Just stand there. Don’t move.”

  Reznick walked over to the truckers and approached the biggest guy in the middle. The guy wore an oil-stained plaid shirt and a faded Cardinals ball cap. “Any of you guys headed into DC?”

  The big guy pushed up the rim of his cap with his thumb. “Yeah, I’m dropping off my load at a hospital. You want a ride?”

  “If you don’t mind.”

  “That your Beamer?”

  “Rental. Guy’s picking it up in an hour. But I was hoping to catch a lift into town. I’m starting a new job first thing.”

  The guy finished the rest of his coffee. “You got it.”

  “Appreciate that, thanks. I’ll tell my friend.”

  Reznick walked over to Trevelle. He kept his voice low. “Come on, we’ve got a ride.”

  “What? What’s wrong with the car?”

  “I used my credit card to rent it. If these guys are able to connect you to me, they might already be looking for us. License plate readers fitted to cop cars, road signs, and bridges mean citizens can be tracked and identified. We need to stay off the radar as long as we can.”

  An hour later, the trucker pulled up at a motel just a block from a downtown hospital in Washington, DC.

  Reznick said, “Appreciate this, buddy.”

  “It’s still America,” the guy said. “We got to look out for each other.”

  Reznick smiled. “Damn straight.”

  Trevelle got out first.

  Then Reznick jumped down from the cab and slammed the door shut. He slung his backpack over his shoulder. They picked up keys from the motel reception desk, Trevelle having already checked in online and paid using Dash cryptocurrency. He and the kid were shown to a dingy double room. Damp stains on the wall. The smell of nicotine hung heavy. Cigarette burns on the beige carpet.

  Reznick tipped the guy ten bucks but was careful to lock the door behind them. He looked around. “This is interesting.”

  “What a dump.”

  “It’s out of sight. Quit whining.”

  Trevelle looked around, his face screwed up as if he was revolted by the place.

  “It’s not the Plaza, I’ll give you that,” Reznick said.

  “The Plaza? Gimme a break. This place gives me the creeps.”

  “It’s just temporary.”

  Trevelle shook his head. He hung his backpack over a chair and began to pace the room.

  “Chill out, son.”

  “How can I chill out? This is batshit crazy, what’s happening.”

  “Don’t flip out on me, not now.”

  Trevelle kept pacing. “Flip out on you? I’m seriously out of my comfort zone right now.”

  Reznick let the kid get it off his chest. He could see there was no point trying to reason with
him. He needed to vent.

  “I feel like I’m in the middle of a nightmare. Except I’m not waking up. I feel sick. I want my life to go back to the way it was.”

  Reznick said nothing.

  “Do you understand me?”

  “I understand what you’re saying.”

  “I’m fucking scared.”

  “And that’s why you need to focus.”

  “Focus?” Trevelle rubbed his hands over his face, as if trying to wake up from a bad dream. He sat down on the edge of the bed. “Maybe it’s not worth it, trying to warn this woman. What do I care if she gets killed?”

  “Let me make the call to the FBI.”

  “And they’ll squirrel me away to some fucking secure unit. Claim I’ve been spying for Russia or some bullshit.”

  “But you’re not.”

  “I know that. You know that. But the Feds will only see me as a national security risk.”

  “Well, you are, aren’t you?”

  Trevelle closed his eyes tight. “That’s not really helping.”

  “Martha Meyerstein is smart. She’ll figure something out.”

  “What are you going to say to her?”

  “I’ll tell it to her straight. She’ll want to know what we know. Show me the memo again. The one you showed me on the High Line.”

  Trevelle took out his laptop and tapped some keys, then turned the screen toward Reznick.

  Reznick nodded as he scanned the document again. “It’s written in the language of compartmentalized, highly classified intelligence. The use of the phrase VRK. Very restricted knowledge. It is above top-secret intelligence. It means these contractors working for Geostrategy Solutions probably have a military or intelligence background, perhaps at a senior level.”

  “David told me the company has links to the Pentagon and the CIA.”

  It made sense. “The FBI can pull some strings, find out which government agency hired them. Get them to realize you’re no threat to their operation and back off.”

  “But what about this poor woman? Rosalind Dyer. I’m assuming she doesn’t know she’s at risk. Aren’t we going to warn her?”

  “Why do you care so much about a woman you’ve never met that you’re willing to put your life on the line? Why don’t you just walk away? Disappear until this is all resolved?”

  Trevelle looked thoughtful for a few moments. “I was a nervous kid. Never liked confrontation—because of my father.” Reznick nodded. “But other kids could tell I was weak, so I was bullied at most of the schools I attended. And I was always too scared to stand up for myself. Or for anyone else. If I saw someone getting beaten up, I usually just walked away.”

  “Being scared is nothing to be ashamed of. Happens to us all, trust me.”

  “I guess what I’m trying to say is that sometimes there comes a point when you need to face your fears, come what may. Does that make sense?”

  Reznick leaned over and patted Trevelle on the back. “You’re alright, kid. I was just playing devil’s advocate.”

  “Thanks. But, so, Rosalind Dyer, what’re we gonna do?”

  “You’re damn right we’re going to warn her. Whoever contracted Geostrategy Solutions is unlikely to back off from the decision to neutralize her now. Why she’s such a threat to them, though, we don’t know.” Reznick began to consider the options. It wasn’t just Rosalind Dyer he was thinking about. He had to think about how the Feds were going to read his actions. He didn’t want to hand over the kid, even if it was for Trevelle’s own safekeeping and well-being. He understood the kid’s deep-rooted concerns. But would Meyerstein be able to get past how the kid had gotten the information about a government-sponsored operation to kill an American citizen? Would she be willing to focus on establishing if Rosalind Dyer was at genuine risk, and if so, from whom? Or would that be secondary to throwing the book at Trevelle?

  By agreeing to help Trevelle, he’d made an implicit promise to protect him till the end of this. But his number one concern was to find Rosalind Dyer and warn her of the imminent risk she faced. Perhaps get her to a place of safety.

  Reznick scanned the memo one more time. The document referred to foreign associates who were going to carry out the threat. The language was hardly subtle. But because the memo had been encrypted, whoever had written it must have assumed that they could use such language. It was careless in the extreme. Arrogant, even.

  “Help me out here,” he said to Trevelle. “I’m assuming the European hackers uncovered this memo after targeting Geostrategy Solutions, knowing they had links to the Pentagon and the CIA, right?”

  “No question about it. Leftist and libertarian and free speech activist hackers—whichever way the Euro group leans—are ideologically opposed to what they see as deep-state actors. This file would have been like hitting the jackpot for them. They probably sent it to David expecting that if it were anything juicy, he’d share it with WikiLeaks. That would embarrass and humiliate the deep staters and globalists, call them what you will.”

  “So why not just release the files now?”

  “It’s possible. But in the circumstances, the people behind this might just get desperate.”

  “You mean make her disappear, that kind of thing?”

  “Exactly. It might make them panic. The best way is for us to use our heads. So caution is key.”

  The more Reznick thought about it, the more he feared he and the kid were about to get dragged deeper into a giant mess. A random European hacker group claiming they had this information wouldn’t carry a lot of credibility. But WikiLeaks would. Hanging Trevelle’s friend David was a convenient way to eliminate that threat and send a message to anyone else who might contemplate releasing the file.

  Reznick realized he needed to get the kid working. Keep him busy. For both their sakes. He handed the laptop back to Trevelle. “I’d like to know where Rosalind Dyer is. Location. At this moment. Can you do that?”

  Trevelle shrugged. “Might take a while.”

  Reznick stared long and hard at him. “You want to warn her, right?”

  Trevelle nodded.

  “Then here’s the deal: if you manage to locate Rosalind Dyer, and if we manage to speak to her, and if we somehow convince her that what we know is correct and she is fully aware of the impending threat, then you speak with the Feds? That’s the deal.”

  Trevelle hesitated for a moment, then nodded. “Deal.”

  Eight

  Thirty miles west of Washington, DC, in the affluent town of Fairfax, Virginia, Rosalind Dyer was kneeling at a gravesite. She felt the late-afternoon sun warm her skin as it bathed the granite and alabaster headstones all around her in a golden glow. She carefully arranged the bunch of white lilies she had brought in the brass vase. Then she touched the name newly carved into the grave marker and bowed her head.

  She said a silent prayer for a man she had never met. A man who’d died three weeks earlier. His name was Andrew Boyd. He was an accountant. And the latest in a string of strange, seemingly accidental deaths. They were part of what she’d become increasingly certain was a cover-up on a grand scale. And she was the only one who’d made the connection: these were murders made to look like accidents. Andrew Boyd had been the seventh person to die under suspicious circumstances.

  The more she thought about it, the more she believed it was inevitable that she would be next. It wasn’t a matter of if, but when. She had only confided in her husband how she felt. She warned him of the consequences of her actions. He reassured her to put her trust in God and the laws of the land. But she knew they would come for her. They would get to her.

  Rosalind’s mind flashed back to the day of Andrew Boyd’s funeral. She had watched from the back of the crowd of mourners as the rain poured down incessantly. Like the heavens had opened up and were spilling their tears for all to see. The man’s eldest son had stood sobbing as he held one of the cords, lowering his father’s coffin in the newly dug grave.

  Andrew’s widow, Catherine, had no
t cried. She had just stood and stared, holding her other children’s hands, as if in mortal shock. It was a crushing blow for Catherine. But she had stood, head held high, as the red soil became sodden beneath her feet.

  Rosalind closed her eyes now, one hand on the headstone in front of her. She wondered how Catherine Boyd was going to cope with bringing up their four children alone. Her husband and the family’s main breadwinner snatched from them. Rosalind knew they lived in a comfortable old Colonial less than a mile from the cemetery. Andrew had almost certainly provided for them after his death. But Rosalind couldn’t help thinking of the void that would be left in their lives without him. The sports practices he would miss; the homework he wouldn’t be there to help with; the hikes, like those they’d taken on the numerous beautiful trails in rural Virginia—the ones he’d had pictures of hanging in his office—that would never happen again.

  Rosalind had read every newspaper report of the drowning accident. They said he had died of a heart attack in the water. But no one could understand it. Andrew had aced all his physicals. Perfect health. He ran. He went to the gym. Everyone was shocked. Everyone, that is, apart from Rosalind.

  Andrew Boyd knew too much. As did the other six who were now dead.

  Rosalind wondered how she would die. She prayed it wouldn’t be painful. She wanted it to be quick.

  Lost in her thoughts, she had the sudden sensation that she wasn’t alone. She turned around, looking out over the vast cemetery. But there was no one there.

  Rosalind drove back to DC, her thoughts scrambled after the visit to Andrew’s grave. She headed to her favorite coffee shop and got a latte and a granola bar. She let herself relax and enjoy the sustenance and the familiar suburban chatter. She noticed most of the other patrons were women with their kids. She looked like them in many ways. She was forty-eight years old and happily married to a lovely man, Travis. She attended church and once a year met up with other women who had served in the Army Reserve twenty years earlier. She had fallen in love with Travis when he transferred to her high school. He hadn’t shown off, like a lot of the boys in her class. He was steady, dependable. And she liked that about him. Her gaze wandered around to the other women in the coffee shop. How she envied them. Their humdrum existence was something she craved. But she knew that was no longer an option.