The Essential Sam Jameson / Peter Kittredge Box Set: SEVEN bestsellers from international sensation Lars Emmerich

by Lars Emmerich

  The phone rang. NSA Deputy Director Clark Barter answered, grunted a few times, hung up, and left the command center without a word.

  “Looks like you’re in charge now,” a technician watching a bevy of video screens told Swaringen with a sideways tilt of the head.

  “How do you figure?” Swaringen asked.

  “You’re the boss’s right-hand man,” the tech said. “You get to make all the calls in his absence.”

  Swaringen was taken aback. Barter had mentioned something along those lines during his brief indoctrination, but Swaringen had dismissed it as a comment relating to a distant, far-off future, as something to view with hopeful aspiration, and not relating to anything either proximate or pressing.

  He smiled and nodded, hoping the unease and sudden spike in his heart rate hadn’t flushed his cheeks. He felt slightly panicked. Not uncommon for someone assuming a responsible role while still oblivious of the exact nature of his responsibilities. He pondered the precise scope of his position, and how it might relate to the “small war” Clark Barter and his gang were conducting from the DC-area office building.

  Half an hour passed. Barter didn’t return. Swaringen asked the nearby tech about the old man’s absence. “This happens a lot,” the clerk said. “He gets called away by high rollers. Congressmen, the White House, people in the administration, all sorts of interesting people.”

  “That so?”

  “That’s the rumor, anyway. He doesn’t say much about it, which is rare. Most people brag about stuff like that, but Barter is pretty tight-lipped.”

  Swaringen nodded thoughtfully.

  “Anyway,” the clerk went on, evidently grateful for a diversion from the rack of intelligence feeds in front of him, “I’d say it was his wife calling to dictate the grocery list to him, but she’s not in the picture anymore.”

  “That’s too bad,” Swaringen said. “She passed?”

  The clerk laughed. “In a manner of speaking. She got fed up and left.”

  Swaringen nodded. It was probably a tough life for a wife. Barter practically lived at the NSA facility. Swaringen couldn’t imagine there was much room for anything else in the old man’s life. He knew with clarity that he wanted something different for his own life.

  A yell broke the silence. “Situation!”

  Swaringen snapped his head forward to the video monitoring station in the corner of the room.

  “Subject vehicle is heading westbound toward a major population center.”

  A dozen pair of eyes turned to Swaringen. Evidently the video monitor technician’s summary was also a request for direction.

  Swaringen’s heart rate soared. Were they serious? Did they seriously think he was remotely qualified or inclined to be the decision authority?

  “Subject vehicle is speeding up,” the tech said. “ETA to the city, three minutes. This is our window, sir.”

  Swaringen felt his face flush. What word had Barter used in this kind of situation earlier?

  It came to him. “Investigate,” he said, doing his best to sound confident and authoritative. He wasn’t sure that it worked, but the technicians turned back around and got busy at their consoles.

  “Sir, there is an airborne unit in the vicinity.”

  Airborne, as in the infantry unit? Or airborne, as in currently in flight? Swaringen wasn’t quite sure what he was supposed to make of the information. “What kind of unit?”

  “Two assault choppers on the outskirts of town. Maybe five miles away, sir.”

  “Are they otherwise tasked?”

  “Negative, sir,” the tech said.

  “Use them,” Swaringen said.

  He looked back at the video screens. The picture was from directly above the scene, maybe offset slightly south, judging by the shadows.

  A question formed in his mind, one that had gnawed at him earlier and had never been asked or answered. If the nearest helicopters were five miles away, where was the video feed coming from? From space? If so, the resolution was fantastic. And there were hundreds of individual views available. How many billion-dollar satellites would that have taken? An impractical number, even for a nation overly fond of printing money.

  Which left drones. He surveyed the video screens again, with fresh eyes. A hundred monitors, maybe more, each one cycling through three to five separate views on a timer. Which meant there had to have been five hundred drones airborne at any one time. Which meant there had to be at least that many more on the ground. How many diplomatic agreements would that have required? Or, if Uncle Sam had blown off miles of red tape in dozens of foreign bureaucracies, how many countries’ sovereignty was Swaringen flagrantly disregarding at the moment?

  He took a breath. He felt perched on a precipice. People were looking to him for leadership, to direct force and firepower, and he didn’t even know where the hell the video feeds were coming from.

  Barter was still gone. Swaringen looked at his watch. He felt grossly unqualified to even participate in a scenario like the one he was in, much less be in charge of it. “Does Barter have a pager number?”

  “No,” a tech said. “Nobody uses those anymore. I’ll try his cell.”

  “Ask him to please hurry,” Swaringen said.

  A brief eternity passed, during which nothing happened. Swaringen felt the weight of expectation upon him but he didn’t know what he should be doing. The helicopters were on the way to the suspect’s car, which the overhead footage showed to be speeding toward the edge of the nameless city on the western edge of the video view. Swaringen felt pressure to do something before the driver reached the populated area.

  “The team is on-station,” the tech said. “Awaiting orders.”

  “Investigate.”

  The tech looked quizzically at Swaringen. “Sir, don’t you want to hear the ID confirmation?”

  Swaringen’s face turned red. “Yes, please,” he said, trying hard not to look sheepish.

  The technician recited a litany of confidence factors leading to a single conclusion: “positive non-friendly ID. What should I tell the on-scene team to do?”

  Swaringen breathed deeply. His heart rate accelerated. He felt very warm. “Investigate,” he said.

  “In these situations, sir, it has been our procedure to prosecute.”

  Swaringen nodded, sweat breaking out on his forehead. He looked at the car speeding westbound on the video monitor. Inside the car was at least one human. That human’s life was in his hands. And there might be more.

  “Sir? We need to make a move, or call it off. We’re running out of time.”

  Swaringen took a deep breath. “Prosecute,” he said, his voice quiet and tense.

  The tech relayed the command to the on-scene team. A flurry of activity erupted. Like before, radio chatter was broadcast over the room’s PA system. Swaringen was better able to follow the action with a little experience under his belt, but there was much he still didn’t understand.

  The choppers bracketed the car. Armed men hung in the choppers’ open side doors. The helicopters descended until the skids were eye-level with the car’s driver.

  The car stopped in the middle of the narrow two-lane road.

  One suspect emerged from the passenger’s seat. Swaringen saw his arms waving surrender on the video monitor.

  The driver didn’t surrender.

  The driver ran.

  “Permission to engage! Request permission to engage!” Swaringen knew the shouted request had come from the helicopter pilot. He could tell by the way the man’s voice vibrated in time with the rotor blades.

  Swaringen was silent, indecisive. The technician’s laundry list of ID criteria seemed convincing, seemed genuine. But something held him back.

  “Sir?” The technician asked. “The suspect is fleeing on foot near a population center. The pilot has requested permission to engage.”

  All eyes were on Swaringen. Sweat beaded on his brow. His knees felt weak. He felt slightly woozy. This was not at all what he had
signed up for.

  “Sir!”

  Swaringen wavered. On one side of the internal battle was the weight and momentum of business as usual in Command Center Bravo, a proclivity toward active engagement and lethal force.

  On the other side was his conscience. What if the intelligence was wrong? What if they weren’t “non-friendlies,” and were just two people in a car driving to town? Could he live with taking innocent lives?

  But what if the intelligence was correct? What if these were bad people, on their way to do bad things?

  Swaringen needed to make a decision. Time was running out, and he was starting to look like a fool.

  Too late.

  A voice boomed from the back of the room. “Engage!”

  Swaringen turned. Clark Barter’s imposing form darkened the doorway. The boss had returned, and the boss had spoken.

  It was over in an instant. The machine gun cut down the fleeing driver with a single long burst. Then the command center busied itself with its list of post-engagement duties.

  Barter glared at Swaringen. “I didn’t hire you to play patty-cake with those bastards,” he said. “We’re here to do a job.”

  He opened the door to the hallway and looked again at Swaringen. “Follow me,” he barked.

  Barter was a big man, not fit by any stretch, but he moved quickly. Swaringen had to hustle to keep up.

  Barter led him to the elevator, mashed the button for the top floor, and said nothing while the car moved them up from the bowels of the NSA building to the rarified air of the executive offices. Swaringen felt like a kid on his way to the school principal’s office.

  The elevator doors opened, and Barter charged out into the hallway. Swaringen stayed a respectful half-pace behind his boss.

  The old man stopped at a door midway down the executive wing, swiped his badge, typed his PIN, and waited for the latch to unlock. He threw the door open and made straightaway for the wet bar.

  Swaringen hadn’t ever seen Barter’s office. The job interviews had taken place in an executive conference room. Swaringen had stayed put while a parade of new faces asked him awkward questions. It had been just a few weeks ago. But it seemed like ages, like more than just time had passed. Like maybe innocence had passed as well.

  “How do you take yours?” Barter asked.

  It was a question totally devoid of context in Swaringen’s mind. “Take my what?” he asked.

  “Whisky. An Islay. Eighteen years old. Just like the best hookers.”

  Swaringen’s eyebrows arched.

  Barter chuckled. “Relax, David. I’m only kidding. About the hookers, that is. Not the scotch. I’m deadly serious about that, and I don’t give a damn what time it is.”

  Swaringen smiled, his unease dissipating a bit. “Neat, please.”

  “Good man,” Barter said. He handed Swaringen a glass and motioned toward a plush leather couch, arranged with a view out floor-to-ceiling windows into the lush Maryland forest below.

  Swaringen swirled, sniffed. He loved the smell of the earth in a good scotch. It felt honest, good, and maybe even true. He took a sip and enjoyed the burn, relished the instant mini-buzz.

  He had no idea what he was going to say. But he felt like he had to say something. He had struggled to stomach the events of the past few days, especially without a great deal of background information on why they were doing the things they were doing. And he didn’t like the non-answers to what he considered to be legitimate questions. Sure, security was important, and all that. But it felt like something was wrong. Something was going on behind the veil of secrecy.

  And he felt embarrassed by his indecision, emasculated by Barter having to take the reins in the critical moment on the ops center floor.

  He opened his mouth to begin, but Barter beat him to the punch. “Let me tell you a story,” the old man said, sitting down in a leather armchair adjacent to the couch.

  Barter looked out the window. His eyes took on a weariness that Swaringen hadn’t seen before. “It’s about my son,” Barter said. “Brad.”

  There was a knock at the door.

  “Go away!” Barter barked.

  The door opened anyway. A tall, lanky, bald man walked in. He wore thick glasses. He had on a short-sleeved button-down shirt, with a pocket full of pens. He looked like he had been plucked from IBM in the 1950s.

  “Ahh, James,” Barter said. “I nearly forgot.” He rose, walked to a large metal security safe on the floor, and worked his combination into the dial, talking as he did so. “David Swaringen, meet James Alcorn.”

  “Pleasure,” Swaringen said, extending his hand.

  James Alcorn shook weakly. Like a dead fish. “New here?” he asked. His voice was gruff, nasal. Not terribly friendly.

  “Started last week,” Swaringen said.

  Alcorn grunted.

  Barter pulled open the safe drawer, grabbed something from within, sealed it in a bright red envelope with the words TOP SECRET written across the top, and handed it to Alcorn.

  Alcorn left without another word. Swaringen wanted to ask what that was all about, but he knew better.

  Barter sat in the leather armchair again. He motioned for Swaringen to take his place on the couch. “Where were we?” Barter asked.

  “You were going to tell me a story about your son,” Swaringen said.

  Barter’s face darkened. He took a drink. “Right,” he said. He took a breath, looked out the window, and started talking.

  Bradley Barter was a sophomore at William and Mary, kicking ass on a football scholarship. Then 9/11 happened. Spending his time playing a boy’s game and getting a business degree seemed like the height of narcissism in the aftermath, and Brad enlisted in the Navy a week later.

  He was a strong, smart kid, and he did well in boot camp and in his first assignment. He applied to BUDS, the basic underwater demolition school, which was the gateway to becoming a SEAL. He was accepted, and was one of the rare recruits who made it through on the first try.

  Swaringen could tell Barter was proud of his son’s accomplishment. And who wouldn’t be proud to have a SEAL as a son?

  “He did two tours in Afghanistan, and then one in Iraq,” Barter said. Swaringen noticed the old man’s hands were trembling slightly.

  Barter inhaled deeply. He didn’t look at Swaringen as he talked. His eyes looked out the window, but Swaringen got the sense they saw things years in the past and thousands of miles away.

  “He went missing,” Barter said. Swaringen wasn’t certain, but he thought Barter’s eyes had misted a bit, and that the old man’s voice had constricted. Swaringen looked away out of respect.

  “Halfway through his tour in Iraq,” Barter continued. “We got a call from his SEAL Team commander. My wife took the call. I was away on business.”

  Barter pulled a pack of cigarettes out of his shirt pocket and offered one. Swaringen demurred. “Not supposed to smoke in here, but who the hell’s going to turn me in?” Barter struck a match and inhaled deeply. “This is some of the shit that’s killing me, by the way. Can’t live with it, but I can’t seem to kick it.”

  Swaringen nodded.

  Barter picked up the story. “Anyway, we got that call from Brad’s commander, and you can imagine it was the usual sob story, only it was happening to us. Nobody had any idea where he was. His team was ambushed on a convoy. He was escorting a truck full of gasoline, so the army could run a generator to air-condition a thousand canvas tents in the middle of the goddamned desert.

  “The lead truck ran over a land mine. Blew the driver away instantly. I mean, blood and guts splattered everywhere. With my security clearance, I saw the pictures. Grisly.” Barter shook his head, pulled a long drag from his cigarette, and polished off his scotch.

  “A firefight followed, and it dragged on into the night. Crazy firefight, with hajjis running back and forth between positions, lobbing grenades and Molotov cocktails at friendlies.”

  His eyes grew distant again. “When the dust
settled, nobody could find Brad.”

  A long silence.

  “They sent another team back into the same spot, looking for him. Those guys got shot all to hell, just like Brad’s team.

  “We waited for an eternity to hear something. With my clearance, I was privy to a lot of the details. They pulled out all the stops. Even had helicopters overhead around the clock for a few days. They really worked their asses off to find him.”

  Another long pull on his cigarette.

  “But they never did.”

  Swaringen regarded Barter as the old man stared out the window. His huge frame seemed to have shrunk. The energy and bravado that propelled his persona were gone. He looked deflated, worn through.

  “We tried to get back to our lives, but it never really worked. I mean, how the hell do you do that, anyway? There was no news, no closure. He was missing in action. That was it.”

  Swaringen felt pain and sorrow. He had kids of his own, and Barter’s experience seemed utterly unimaginable. “I’m terribly sorry,” he said.

  Barter looked at him and nodded. “We slogged through our lives like zombies for a while,” he said. “Like I said, the usual sob story. A million people experience this all over the world, so why are we special, right? But it’s no picnic. Like you’re in this state of suspended animation.”

  Swaringen nodded.

  Barter lit another cigarette. “And then, the other shoe dropped.”

  He got up, grabbed the bottle of scotch, and poured another round. Swaringen nodded his thanks.

  “I was walking in this park near our house,” Barter continued. “Maybe fifteen minutes from here. By myself, just clearing my head. Trying to gather my thoughts, get my mind around the fact that Brad’s gone and probably not coming home. What are you going to do, right? I mean, we could curl up and die, I suppose, or get back to living. Neither one sounded terribly appealing.”

  Swaringen watched while Barter took another drink.

  “Anyway,” Barter went on, “I was walking on the path around this pond, lost in my thoughts, when this guy came up to me. Black guy. Thin, thirty-something, scholarly glasses on his face, like the kind Malcolm X used to wear.