The Secret Corps

by Peter Telep

“Roger. Still can’t see his face yet. He’s looking down.”

  Josh snorted. “Probably playing on his phone.”

  Johnny squinted toward the Buick. He imagined a man getting out and hurrying toward the front doors. That man was Daniel, impossibly alive and here for some clandestine meeting with Shammas. Johnny burst from the SUV, sprinted across the lot, and seized his brother by the arm. “What’re you doing?”

  “You can’t stop me.”

  “How could you do this?”

  “It’s not your fault, Johnny. It’s the old man’s. He made me hate everything he stood for. Love, art, beauty? They meant nothing to him. It was all about power and selling your soul to get it. You know who taught me how to be a real man? Not Dad. Allah. Only he can save us now.”

  Johnny closed his eyes. “You’re wrong.”

  “What?” Josh asked. “Hey, you falling asleep?”

  “No, no,” Johnny said, reaching for his cup of coffee. “Just... my brother had nothing to do with any of this. Nothing at all.”

  Josh gave him an odd look. “Then why are we here?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Look, I get it. You want to know why Dan was killed—but you don’t want to know.”

  “Exactly.”

  “I’ve been going over it myself. Maybe he was spying. Maybe they forced him to work with them. Maybe he joined them, then changed his mind. Maybe they just double-crossed him. Maybe they planned to kill him for some other reason.”

  Johnny nodded and sipped his coffee. “I know what I want to believe.”

  “Me, too.”

  “I had another dream last night.”

  “Fallujah?”

  “No. I saw everyone at my brother’s funeral, and they were lined up like they were waiting to get on a roller coaster. But they were waiting for me. They wanted to know why my brother was a jihadi. They wanted to know how I could let that happen. They asked what I thought about my brother’s face being on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine, just like that other fool from the Boston bombing. They wanted me to talk about how much I hated him and how embarrassed I was. They said I should apologize to our country, the Corps, and the recon community. They said I should’ve killed Daniel myself.”

  “Whoa. You need to get that out of your head.”

  “I just can’t.”

  Johnny closed his eyes and saw Daniel raise his hands to ears. “Allahu Akbar.” Next he placed his left hand over his navel, his right hand on top, and began to recite the opening prayer, the Isteftah Dua.

  * * *

  Forty-five minutes later, Shammas and Easy Money passed through the front doors, exchanged a few words, shook hands, then walked toward the parking lot. Easy Money shuffled off to the south side with a noticeable bounce in his step. Johnny ordered Willie and Corey to stay with him.

  Before Shammas could reach his parked car, the driver of the silver Buick hopped out—

  And Johnny raised his voice, “Hey, hey, hey, look here.”

  The driver confronted Shammas, speaking rapidly and gesturing back toward his car.

  “I’ll get some video,” said Josh, lifting his smartphone and zooming in on the scene.

  The driver was much younger than Shammas, barely thirty, and tall, over six feet. He was nondescript for a Muslim male, with dark hair parted to the side, a coffee-and-cream colored face, and a wiry beard with the hint of a moustache. His jeans and dark green jacket did little more to distinguish him.

  However, something about his bearing struck Johnny as strangely familiar.

  As Shammas continued the conversation, his frown deepened. At first he seemed confused, unable to comprehend whatever he was hearing, but then his lip curled in annoyance. He stroked his beard as he listened further, and then, appearing resigned, even flustered, he shook his head and stormed back to his car, where he retrieved a rolling luggage bag from his trunk. He followed the driver to the Buick and shoved his bag into the back seat. Before climbing into the car, he lifted his hands and barked something else, but the driver simply ignored him, got in, slipped on a pair of sunglasses, and the Buick rumbled off toward the exit.

  “Now what’s this?” Josh asked. “A pickup?”

  “Hell, yeah, it is,” Johnny answered. “You see the look on Shammas’s face? Dude, he was not happy. So he grabs his bag. And why leave the car? Unless he was caught off guard and knows he’s going away for a while.”

  “I agree. And that kid, the driver? He’s working for the boss, whoever that is. He got orders to pick up Shammas, maybe take him back for a meeting or some place safe for a while. Either way, this could be big.”

  Johnny fired up the engine. “We’re on them.” As they left the parking lot, his phone rang. “What’s up, Willie?”

  “Hey, our new friend is getting on the 276 toll road, heading east into New Jersey. And by the way, some of the tags we’ve researched come from rental car agencies. No surprise there. We’re working on Easy Money’s now.”

  “Roger that. Don’t lose him.”

  “No chance. We have a full tank of gas. We’ll track him into Canada if we have to.”

  “Thanks, Willie. Keep me updated.”

  “Will do. You guys rolling yet?”

  “Yeah, heading south.”

  “Roger. Talk to you soon.”

  Johnny glanced sidelong at Josh, whose face had drained of color and whose gaze seemed opaque. “What’s wrong?”

  “I was just thinking, the last time I was following someone was down in Florida. We did a good job. She never spotted us.”

  Johnny knew the story of Josh’s exploits as a would-be assassin, and he knew how it pained his friend. “Hey, I’m glad you’re riding shotgun.”

  “I’m on it like a fat kid on a cupcake.” Josh winked then pointed ahead. “He’s turning. Don’t get too close.”

  * * *

  Although Willie and Corey had taken shifts while conducting their overnight reconnaissance, Willie had barely slept during his down time; consequently, he began to drift out of his lane as they sped north up I-95, passing through New York. He caught himself, blinked, then glanced at Corey, who resembled a pistol-whipped guard from an old WWII movie. A tiny river of drool had escaped from the corner of the younger man’s mouth and puddled on his shoulder.

  “Are you kidding me? We can’t fall asleep,” Willie warned him.

  Corey jerked awake and looked disoriented, as though he had never been in a car before. “Aw, dude, we’ve been driving forever. My butt’s numb. How far is this fool going?”

  Willie shrugged and cursed.

  Easy Money had squeezed his gargantuan frame into a blue Chevy Spark, a car barely larger than some of the go-karts Willie had constructed as a kid. He had led them north for over 100 miles, but now he changed lanes, ready to get off at exit 83 toward New London.

  “We’re in Connecticut?” Corey asked.

  Willie glared. “Been here for a while now.”

  They followed Easy Money off the exit and south, through the perimeter arteries of historical New London, once the world’s third-busiest whaling port. They eventually wound up on Montauk Ave, then turned left onto Thames Street, which terminated at Pequot Ave and the New London Harbor, whose silty waters were as greenish-brown as a ripening avocado. They passed homes with sprawling lawns and broad porches affording magnificent views. Willie found his mouth falling open, and Corey could only gape and mutter curses in disbelief. Damned Yankees knew how to live.

  Near the corner of Glenwood and Pequot rose a colonial-style house with steeply pitched roof and dormers gleaming in the afternoon sun. The pale-white home had become the Pequot Inn and Marina, with its dock and facilities located across the street. Easy Money turned up the gravel drive and into the adjacent covered parking lot, choosing a space designated number six by a small, hand-painted sign shaped like a whale.

  Meanwhile, Willie turned sharply into the marina’s parking lot, exploiting another SUV for cover. They hopped out and double timed t
oward the marina’s entrance so they could watch the big man strut across the brick path, mount the porch, and vanish into the house.

  Shielding his eyes from the sun, Willie faced north, where dozens of anchored sailboats dotted the waves like gulls resting between airborne assaults. That tang in the wind reminded him of being deployed aboard ship or “on float” with his fellow Marines. From walking like drunks down the p-ways during heavy seas to the head overflowing with raw sewage, you could not beat those five star accommodations. He smiled inwardly and gazed farther out to where the Gold Star Memorial Bridge spanned the Thames River. If he squinted hard enough, he could see the traffic flowing over the bridge and the handful of fishing boats lying below like minions paying homage to a god of concrete and iron.

  Corey was already on the phone, updating Johnny. When he finished, he looked at Willie and said, “We’re not following this guy anymore.”

  “Why not?”

  “I mean we are, but let’s slow him down. You notice one of his tires going flat?”

  Willie shook his head.

  “You will in a second. Get me up there.”

  “Whoa, let’s hold off. Let our boy get settled in. I like the plan, just not the timing. Where’s Johnny at?’

  “They’re still on the road. South on eighty-one, past D.C. already.”

  “Damn. Where’s Shammas taking them?”

  Corey shrugged, and they headed back to the SUV. Willie pulled out and drove to the next corner. “That fence next door is good cover,” he said. “Not sure where to park. I bet the marina’s lot empties out overnight.”

  “Look down there,” Corey said, pointing toward the riprap along the shoreline. A backhoe and two dump trucks sent powerful reverberations through the ground as they cleared and hauled away sand. “Let’s see where they go. Could use them for cover. We might have a good view of the lot and the house.”

  “Worth a shot.”

  “So what’s this guy doing here?” Corey asked.

  Willie remembered being on float and bumping into a lance corporal from Connecticut who told him that the Navy had some serious operations in and around New London. “Hey, Corey, why don’t you check the map?”

  Corey’s thumb worked overtime on his smartphone’s screen. Meanwhile, Willie made a U-turn and steered back toward the marina, searching for a discreet place to leave the SUV.

  “Damn, bro. Listen to this.” Corey ticked off a list of facilities.

  “Submarine squadron, school, shipbuilding,” Willie repeated. “I thought so.”

  “Yeah. And did you know there are only two places in the U.S. where they build nuclear subs? Newport News in Virginia, and right here...”

  “So what do you think?”

  “I think everything’s on the table. If these guys are jihadis, which we believe they are, then they don’t just happen to be here.”

  “All right, so we’ll go there,” Willie began. “We’ll assume they’re all targets. But do you think these guys could pull it off? With all the security in place? It would have to be a massive inside job, something they’ve been planning for years. It just seems impossible.”

  Corey snickered. “You mean like hijacking four planes—all on the same day?”

  “Look, this ain’t that big. We’re just getting paranoid. It’s just drug smugglers and maybe some small explosive stuff for lone wolf bombers.”

  “Okay, Willie. Whatever makes you feel better.”

  “Think big or go home, huh?”

  * * *

  The bayonets piercing Johnny’s back were imaginary, but the pain was not. He had trouble focusing on anything else, his thoughts cooling and congealing, then liquefying to evaporate again. There was the ache, along with an eternity of yellow lines tattooed across the whites of his mind’s eye. Seven hours of driving with only one pit stop to get gas and use the head had taken its toll. The sun had set more than an hour ago, and they were cruising on a narrow road through the back woods of Raleigh County, West Virginia. According to Josh’s map, they were just north of the Blue Ridge Mountains. The striking reds and yellows of the fall foliage season were long gone, with the headlights paring away the darkness to reveal only drab shades of brown, the portents of more winter death to come. Thankfully, there were several cars between them and the Buick, but Johnny feared that if the roads grew any more rural, they might lose that cover and have to run with lights out. They had packed a pair of night vision binoculars they used while hunting, but Johnny found them cumbersome to hold while driving. An old pair of NODs would have been perfect.

  In the meantime, Josh was already two steps ahead of him. One of Warrick Marine’s clients, Datron World Communications, was a supplier of military and public safety radio equipment to over eighty countries. The company’s CEO wanted to put one of the drones they distributed, the Aeryon Skyranger UAV, into the hands of Riverine Patrol Boat crews all over the world. Josh was helping the company connect with potential clients and was in possession of several of the quad-rotors, two of which he had gathered from the office, one of which he was unfolding now, with the drone’s tablet computer balanced on his lap.

  The SkyRanger resembled a miniature lunar module with curving legs and four short arms that folded up and locked into place. At the end of each arm was a rotor, and the combination reminded Josh of the pinwheels he had played with as a kid. Beneath the pentagon-shaped main housing hung a globe containing a dual electro-optical (EO) and infra-red (IR) payload. The drone could relay live HD video and still images from up to five kilometers away while flying to an altitude of up to 1,500 meters. The system’s encrypted, low latency, and all digital network allowed real time video streaming to multiple devices.

  “Will they hear it?” Johnny asked.

  “They have the windows up, the heat on. And this bird is small and virtually silent. Anyone behind us? No? Good. Slow down for a minute.” Josh opened his own window, then touched his stylus on the computer’s screen. He held the drone out the window, waiting as the rotors buzzed and pulsed. A breath later, he touched another part of the screen, tossed the drone, then shut the window.

  “Got the altitude set. Live video feed’s looking good.” Josh consulted his screen once more, then glanced up. “All right, you can really back off now. I have the Buick in sight. The IR on this thing is great. I can see the hot engine and the outline of the car.”

  Johnny nodded. “I feel like we’re in the game now.”

  “Hey, whoa, slow down.”

  “What?”

  “Hit the brakes!”

  “What?”

  “They’re off the road, on the shoulder. The other cars are passing. Shit, let me see if I can land.” Josh worked the stylus over the screen.

  “They stop to take a leak?”

  “Don’t know yet. Hang on. All right, I got the bird on the ground, and we still have the feed. Rotors switching off.”

  Johnny leaned toward the computer screen. The Buick’s rear bumper was printed negative by the drone’s infrared. Trees stood like a bulwark constructed from dinosaur bones. The passenger’s side door opened, and Shammas stepped out, just a pale orange figure who slammed the door after himself and ventured off into the woods.

  “No drama. Just a piss break,” Johnny groaned.

  But then the driver’s side door opened, and out stepped the younger man. He crossed to the trunk, opened it, then fumbled through a bag or suit case. When he turned to face the drone’s camera, he was clutching a pistol with a long suppressor screwed onto the barrel. Leaving the trunk open, the man jogged off, disappearing into the woods.

  “What’s going on?” Josh asked.

  Johnny threw the truck in gear. “We’re heading over there.”

  “No, Johnny, don’t!”

  With his boot hovering over the accelerator pedal, Johnny glared at Josh. “We can’t lose Shammas.”

  “You saw how that guy surprised him back at Blue Door. Maybe he faked taking a leak and just ran off. That’s why the driver’s
chasing him now. We need to let this play out. If we don’t, we blow our cover.”

  Johnny clutched the wheel as though he were bracing for impact with a tractor trailer, his ribs feeling as though they might crack any second. He fought for breath, the adrenaline surging. “All right. We still got the drone out there.” He swore and put the SUV in park.

  From the tablet computer’s speaker came a faint crack, perhaps static in the transmission. Perhaps a suppressed gunshot.

  * * *

  The hissing of snakes—a sound not unlike air escaping from a car tire—always gave Corey the chills, and for good reason. During a hunting trip at the age of fourteen, he had come face to face with a Timber rattlesnake. Only his father’s quick thinking and reflexive trigger response had saved Corey from a vicious bite. The shotgun blast had torn the snake to ribbons, and Corey had kept the rattle as a souvenir.

  He finished with Easy Money’s tire, and then he stole his way across the lawn and hopped the picket fence. Willie was there with a pair of Steiners, panning across the house and zooming in the side windows.

  “We’re good to go,” Corey reported. “Let’s hope he goes out to dinner.

  “Roger. So what happened to the good old days, when people left their blinds or their curtains open, and women used to strip down to their bras right near the windows?”

  “Are you kidding?”

  “No. I just need something to keep warm.”

  Corey widened his gaze. “Well, don’t look at me.”

  They returned their attention to the inn and the covered parking lot, waiting another fifteen minutes in silence while the cold settled in and the stench of low tide, a gag-inducing smell akin to rotting seafood, wafted over from across the street.

  Corey chanced a quick look at Willie, and then it struck him again, as it had when they had been reconnoitering Blue Door. This time, however, the sensation was far greater, as though he were jerry-rigged to a runaway reactor producing adrenaline.

  “Drifter, thirty seconds to mark. Standby.”

  He was back in Iraq, and they were downrange. Close to the water. To the boats. To his life.

  “Hell, yeah! If it ain’t wet, it ain’t worth it!”