by Brad Taylor
Jesus. Never again. I’m never doing this again.
He darted across the space and opened the passenger door, taking a seat and pulling out the digital recorder he’d been given four hours before.
He said, “They came, and I managed to get their table, but they didn’t eat.”
“Did they talk at all?”
“Yes. I don’t know what about, but they did talk.”
“How long?”
“Maybe twenty minutes. The older guy seemed pissed. He left early.”
The man grunted and said, “Okay.” Nothing more.
The waiter screwed up his courage and said, “You’re still going to pay me, right? I mean, it’s not my fault they left. I took a huge risk.”
The man looked at him, and he felt the same fear he had when he’d agreed to this stupid idea. Like his bladder wanted to release right there in the car. He said, “Never mind. You keep the money. We’re even.”
The man tossed a bundle of bills in a rubber band into the waiter’s lap and said, “Go.”
When he was halfway out the door, wanting desperately to get back to the safety of his job, his new employer touched his arm. A light caress that brought him up short. The man said, “You understand what will happen if anyone hears about this, correct?”
He looked into the black eyes, devoid of any emotion, and understood the man never made a threat. Only a commitment. In abject fear, he felt his bowels want to release. He said, “Yes, yes. Of course. Believe me, I want nothing to do with this.”
The man nodded and he fled the parking garage before Black Eyes could change his mind. He emerged back onto G Street and felt more secure, the people swirling around him. He speed-walked back to Ebbitt Grill, questioning why he’d ever agreed to do the eavesdropping.
It was the damn accent. All jovial and safe.
He wondered what the entire affair had been about, but not enough to investigate. No way would he investigate. The waiter would work at Old Ebbitt Grill for another five years, never knowing his part in the greatest manhunt since Osama bin Laden. Every March 17, when the patrons wore green and the bar descended into chaos, he would be reminded of the man with black eyes.
And he would fear the man’s return.
30
Seamus McKee looked at the rotten wood doors covering the hole in the ground and felt a twinge of remorse. This place was decidedly less comfortable than the last, but there was nothing he could do about it. The connection made to his grandfather was too big to ignore, and he needed a clean break. Collecting favors from ancient men who still considered the fight a virtue, moving to the old country was the answer. Which meant a broken-down, abandoned farmhouse in the Irish countryside, complete with a root cellar.
A very nasty root cellar.
He leaned over and pulled up the door, a split-wood affair lying on the ground, vines creeping over to reclaim the land it housed. He splashed the light of a torch onto the stairwell leading down and heard a scraping. He walked halfway down and shone the torch into the cellar, the beam hitting the woman. She flinched from the blade of light, still groggy from the drugs used to get her here. There was a smear of crusted blood on the outside of the hood where he’d struck her, the rough cloth stuck to the skin. He watched to make sure the sack puffed out from breath. His eyes tracked to her partner, his hood also stained, but the spot much larger. He saw breathing, but it looked labored, which scared him. Nick was the prize. If he died, the whole enterprise might fall apart.
He went to the third captive, the only one not drugged or hooded, and was sickened at the cowardice. Like a roach looking for food, the man started crawling toward him, his bound legs and hands scraping the dirt. Reminding Seamus of the groveling men who’d sold out their progress in the peace talks. Reminding him of those he hated.
In a hoarse voice, the man said, “You promised me I’d get treated better. I told you what was planned, just like you asked. I’m trying to help this negotiation.”
Seamus said, “Have you checked on your mates yet? Made sure they’re okay?”
The man paused, clearly unsure how to respond. He said, “I thought I’d be punished for that.”
Seamus said, “You disgust me. Make no mistake, if either of them die, I will punish you.”
He tossed down four liter-size bottles of water and a satchel full of medical supplies. He said, “I come here again, they’d better look improved.”
He walked back up the stairs and returned the cellar to darkness. He closed his eyes, breathing the clean farm air, smelling the dew and hearing the birds chirp. Reminding him of what he was fighting for.
He heard a vehicle approach and looked past the farmhouse, across a field bounded by a large creek, seeing a lorry bouncing down the tiny lane a hundred meters away, the ribbon of asphalt paralleling the far side of the water.
The house was as dilapidated as the root cellar door, slowly falling into chaos as the forest began to reclaim what it had lost decades ago. It had no running water or electricity, but with a little help from a generator, it provided enough protection from the elements. More important, the farm was deep inside Ireland, just outside the small village of Macroom and thirty minutes away from Cork City. The nearest structure was an old water mill a half mile upstream, now defunct. With the creek at their back, and the only access a gravel road to their front two hundred meters away, across an open field, a vehicle couldn’t approach without early warning. The house was a clean break from anything his grandfather would know and the perfect place to run the endgame.
Nobody would find them here.
He pushed through the brush from the cellar to the side of the house, stamping down harder than necessary to break a path. Squeaking open the faded wood door, the hinges threatening to fail, he found Colin eating a microwave dinner on a dilapidated table. Next to him, using a desk made of scrounged lumber, Kevin worked to establish an Internet connection using an Inmarsat BGAN satellite system. Overhead, a single lightbulb dangled from an extension cord.
Speaking over the rumble of a generator in the next room, Seamus said, “How’re we looking?”
Colin said, “Got the space heaters hooked up. If you still want to run one to the cellar, we’ll need a longer extension cord.”
“I’ll get one. That place is frigid.”
“How long we going to stay here?”
“Till we’re done. This is it. Kevin, what’s up with the Internet? Are we going to need to go to Cork to do this?”
“No. I’m up. Just don’t have the bandwidth I want, but I will.”
Colin interrupted. “Hey, you sure this place is secure? I mean, you got it from the drug dealer.”
Annoyed, Seamus said, “The church owns the land. Not Clynne. And yeah, he deals drugs, but he’s with the cause. He doesn’t know why we want it and simply thinks we need a place to cool out for a while. That’s all. He won’t talk.”
“You got the knockout drugs from him, didn’t you?”
“So what?”
“So he’s not stupid. He doesn’t think you’re out here sedating cattle.”
Seamus started to retort, then reconsidered, thinking about the risk Clynne represented. He said, “Okay, Colin, I hear you. I still need to get the replacement drugs for the hand-off. I’ll have a word with him. Feel him out.”
He grabbed the keys for the Range Rover off a nail and said, “I’ll be back in an hour or so. I’ll buy an extension cord while I’m out. Check on the hostages in the meantime. Especially that coward—”
One of the four phones on the windowsill began vibrating, echoing against the concrete ledge. Seamus said, “Christ. What now?” He snatched it off the sill, looking at the number.
Kevin saw his expression and said, “Who is it?”
Seamus held up a finger, bringing the phone to his ear. “Aiden. How’s Washington treating you?”
“Better than that crap town of Fayetteville. At least until yesterday.”
“What’s up?”
“Your instinct was right. I’ve kept my ear to the ground like you asked, and found a bogger from The Washington Post that’s onto our game.”
Seamus listened as Aiden recounted what he knew, the implications growing worse with each passing sentence. When he was done, Seamus asked, “So he doesn’t have the full story?”
“No. But he’s going to get it. He’s checking everyone with any connection. Eventually, he’ll get to our five, and the story will break.”
Seamus began pacing.
Colin said, “What is it?”
Seamus ignored him, thinking. He heard Aiden say, “What do you want to do?”
“How much time do we have?”
“Not enough. Two days. Maybe less.”
“Shit. They’ll never pay if it breaks. It’ll put their backs against the wall.”
Colin stood up, and Seamus waved him back down. He took a deep breath and said, “Take him out.”
This time Aiden said nothing.
Seamus repeated, “Take him out, understand? Make it look like a robbery, car wreck, I don’t care, but cut him down.”
Aiden said, “You want me to kill an American reporter working for one of the premier newspapers in the United States?”
“Yes. Kill him. We’re too close.”
After a pause, Aiden said, “Okay. But you might be opening up a hornets’ nest.”
Seamus said, “We opened that up when you killed the man in Fayetteville.”
31
Colonel Kurt Hale ordered a straight black coffee and took a seat, ignoring the look of incredulity from the patrons in the line behind him, all amazed that he didn’t ask for a grande decaf mocha choco caffe latte.
He checked his watch and saw his sister was running late, as usual. Ordinarily, he would have been aggravated at the lack of courtesy, but given what they were going to discuss, he was glad for the reprieve. Kathy expected a miracle from him, and the update wasn’t going to satisfy her. Not that his last meeting with Alexander Palmer and the president had been any more enjoyable.
After Pike’s situation report, he’d had no choice but to let the National Command Authority know he was freelancing Taskforce assets because of a personal loss. Well, not officially freelancing, since by the Oversight Council’s own order, Pike was no longer a Taskforce asset, but because what he’d turned up crossed over into current operations, Kurt had known it wouldn’t be construed that way. And it wasn’t.
He’d provided a sanitized three-page update to Alexander Palmer at the latest update briefing, including the bare bones of the search for Kylie, and as expected, he’d been asked to kindly accompany the national security advisor to the Oval Office. Because the president would “like a word.”
This was after the update itself had turned into a feeding frenzy.
After each section and department completed the status of current activities, Gerald, the secretary of Homeland Security, had briefed that Grant Breedlove was on the trail like a bloodhound and getting close.
Hearing the news, the table of men had broken into a heated discussion, all centered on who the leaker could be. Gerald began to state his theory when President Warren stopped the verbal dance with a raised hand. He’d said, “Okay, we can discuss how he got the initial lead all day long, but the facts are what they are. The leaker is secondary. Breedlove going to press is a bigger threat than the hostage-takers right now. What do we do?”
Kerry, the D/CIA, had said, “Bring pressure to bear. Pull him in. One on one.”
Billings, the secretary of state, said, “That’ll only confirm he’s on the right trail. It won’t stop the story. We’ve seen what they do with this sort of thing. They play games of ‘wanting to get both sides,’ but only want the information.”
Kerry said, “He’s going to get the information. We can’t stop that. Unless you want to start faking email traffic.”
President Warren said, “What about that? Can we do it?”
Palmer said, “Sir, in short, yes we can. But that’s a slippery slope. We’re talking Nixon-type stuff here now. We’ll never be able to keep it contained. Sooner or later, someone is going to know.”
Warren said, “Honestly, if we get them home alive, I don’t really care.”
“Sir, I understand the sentiment, but if we do that, and word gets out, we’ll be asking for similar hostage events in the future. It’s the whole reason we have a ‘don’t negotiate with terrorists’ stance. You can’t say it and then be proved a hypocrite. You’ll be setting up future administrations for failure.”
President Warren slammed his fist into the table and said, “I don’t give a damn about what might occur in the future. I care about the here and now. And that damn reporter is going to severely restrict our ability to operate. Both on our side and on the terrorists’ side. Right now, they’re communicating directly with us. They’ve made no overt propaganda statements, which means they don’t want the publicity any more than we do.”
Nobody said a word, letting the president’s outburst settle. Kerry broke the silence, saying, “Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?”
His words hung in the room, some men looking confused but others understanding exactly what he meant.
Kurt leaned over to George Wolffe and whispered, “What the hell is he talking about?”
George said, “Don’t remember your high school world history? In the twelfth century, King Henry II’s authority was challenged by the priest Thomas Becket. Henry said those words, apparently just venting. The men present took it as a command and assassinated Becket.”
President Warren drew back and said, “Do not misconstrue my words. I am not giving orders.” He looked from man to man, making eye contact with each, then said, “Nobody is to interfere in anything that reporter does. Understand?”
He finished the table glare with his eyes on Kerry, the director of the CIA. Kerry simply nodded, and Kurt wondered how far out they had gone.
Billings said, “So what are we going to do?”
“Nothing. Let it ride. We continue with what we’re doing and pray to God we beat him. Period.”
The rest of the meeting was more mundane discussion, and after it broke up, Kurt had waited, knowing Palmer would read his report. He’d watched Palmer’s eyes squint, then glance his way. He’d seen him lean over to the president and whisper. Then waited for the inevitable.
The people had cleared the room, leaving only Palmer, George, and Kurt. Palmer had said, “Kurt, interesting report.”
“I thought it would get your attention.”
“The president would like a word.”
Kurt had followed Palmer the short distance to the Oval Office, continuing what would prove to be one of the most difficult days of his life.
He entered, seeing President Warren behind the Resolute desk in the Oval Office. Looking as if he had no patience for more bad news.
Palmer took a seat on the couch parallel to the desk, appearing weary and rubbing his eyes. Kurt remained standing.
President Warren said, “Well, are you going to explain yourself or wait for me to call the Justice Department to arrest your ass for breaking about a hundred laws and disobeying my orders?”
Kurt took a breath and said, “It’s exactly like I reported. My niece disappeared in England. Pike was cut free and couldn’t help with the current issue—a mistake, I might add. Anyway, I paid for his trip to England to find her. As it turns out, she was on a date with Nicholas Seacrest. The vice president’s son.”
“You expect me to believe that? Pike stumbled on Nick’s trail by following your niece?”
“Sir, I’m not sure what to believe. All I can tell you is where the trail is going. Pike isn’t making this up. Shi
t, I didn’t even read him onto the problem. He didn’t know where Nick worked or where he was taken. He figured all of that out on his own.”
President Warren threw the report on his desk and said, “Pike Logan. Bane of my existence. That man could find trouble in a Girl Scout cookie sale.”
Kurt said, “Well, this time he found the right trouble.”
Palmer said, “Why didn’t you report this earlier?”
“I had no reason to. It was all conjecture. My niece really is missing. Pike is really trying to find her. We still don’t have confirmation about the VP connection, but it was growing too hot to ignore. I felt it prudent to report.”
Warren said, “You mean because that lunatic killed two Serbian thugs? So you could give him sanction? Report it to me, and now he’s working for us? After we specifically cut him free?”
Kurt scowled. “Hell no. Not at all. Because I believe he’s onto something. Something real for the problem set here. If it was just Kylie, I’d let him continue on his own. But it’s not just Kylie. He’s onto the vice president’s son.”
Palmer said, “How do you know?”
Kurt let out a sigh and said, “I don’t. All I know is Pike Logan’s instinct. And that guy is never wrong.”
“So what do you want to do?”
“Redirect assets. Give him help. Get Knuckles’s team out of Morocco and into Ireland.”
“Ireland? Pike’s in London.”
“Uh . . . no, he’s not. We found a cell phone on the Serb. He was talking to a guy in Dublin. I geolocated the grid and Pike’s on his way to investigate. He has this crazy idea that an Irishman is behind this whole thing.”
32
Braden McKee stepped off the Métro at the Château Rouge stop, the people swirling around him all of African descent. He walked up the stairs toward rue Doudeauville and was swarmed by several young men surreptitiously flashing smartphones for sale from the palms of their hands. Samsung Galaxies, iPhones, HTC Droids, each man vied for his attention with a different flavor.
