Cold Harbor (The Gibson Vaughn Series Book 3)

by Matthew Fitzsimmons

  “That’s one way of putting it.”

  “Even though he is ashamed of me, there is nothing that I would not do for my son. We do not share a great deal, you and I, but I think in that we are much alike.”

  “Ellie’s not ashamed of me.”

  “No, she’s not old enough yet for that.”

  “Fuck you, lady,” Gibson spat.

  Color rose on Calista’s neck and cheeks, but she made no move to respond. She sipped her drink and composed herself.

  “My point, Mr. Vaughn, is that, hard as that is for me to admit or to accept, my son is correct to turn his back on me. And if he is to have an opportunity to make an authentic contribution to his country, then the miscalculations of my past must never become public knowledge.”

  “‘Miscalculations’? You should have been in advertising.”

  Calista pushed through Gibson’s interruption. “I will not permit my son to be tarred with my brush. As you have said, my word means nothing to you. I would not think as highly of you as I do if it did. You might be a vulgar, limited man, but you are a good one too. Far better than most recognize, and I know more than most what that has cost you. I tell you all this so you and I might understand each other. Once Mr. Eskridge has been neutralized, I intend to withdraw from public life. After this one last unprincipled action, I am through. I have no intention of moving against you, your family, or your friends. Not now, not ever. If for no other reason than it would place my son’s career in jeopardy after I moved heaven and earth to protect him. Have I, at long last, made myself clear?”

  “Yes.”

  “And do you believe me?”

  “No,” Gibson said. “Not now, not ever. But we can coexist. I am helping Jenn Charles and George Abe. Not you. As long as their interests continue to align with yours, then we have no problems. Anything happens to them, we will have a serious conversation. And like you said, you better than most know that I have a lot less to lose than you.”

  “Good,” Calista said. “I think we understand each other at last.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  The Reston house smelled cozy and homey when Gibson came in from the garage. He had only picked at his meal at the diner, and the aroma of garlic and olive oil kicked his appetite in the ribs. His ex-wife was a natural, intuitive chef, the catering business she’d started after the divorce a testament to her culinary talent. Dinnertime in the Vaughn household had always been an event.

  He slipped off his coat gingerly, wishing Nicole would appear around the corner in her socks and leggings to drag him into the kitchen and taste her work, indulging a tricky memory that he relived far too often. Like any drug, it brought a smaller and smaller high each time, chased by an emotional pit from which he had to climb. Made all the harder tonight, given what he’d put in the mail. It occurred to him that the fire had surely cost Nicole her business. She would have had to abandon it to take Ellie to safety. That killed him. She’d been so proud of what she’d built. One more thing that he’d taken away from her.

  “In here,” Jenn called.

  Gibson followed her voice back to the kitchen, wincing with each step. He didn’t think any ribs were broken, but Sidhu’s handiwork made breathing a chore. Jenn sat at the counter, typing on her laptop, exactly where he’d left her this morning. No indication that she’d moved, apart from the stack of dirty dishes and pans soaking in the sink. An empty bottle of wine sat beside an empty glass.

  “You cook?”

  “I’m an adult,” Jenn said. “Of course I cook.”

  “So what’s for dinner?”

  “Don’t know, what are you making? Besides, the way I heard it, you already ate dinner.”

  “You talked to Calista,” he said, using the refrigerator as an excuse not to make eye contact, but the anger in her voice was unmistakable. How much had Calista told Jenn about his day? He really didn’t want to get into it with her about Ogden. They carried on the conversation while he foraged for fixings to make a sandwich.

  “Of course I talked to her,” Jenn said without pausing from her typing. “We’re partners. That means we keep each other in the loop.”

  “You don’t actually think you can trust her?” Gibson said.

  “I don’t trust anyone.”

  “Then why—”

  “I trust motives,” Jenn said.

  He rolled his eyes. “Did she give you the same bullshit assurances she gave me? About going straight because of her congressman son? Saint Dauplaise?”

  “Her son is the real deal.”

  “Oh, come on. He’s a Dauplaise.”

  “You know what David Dauplaise has to gain by accepting her help? What he sacrificed by turning his back on her? She offered him the keys to the kingdom, and the only string attached was his mother. He still said no. Don’t know how he did it, but somehow he grew up without Calista beating the integrity out of him. And he represents everything that she’s fought for her entire life—he has the pedigree, the ambition, the talent, all wrapped up with a handsome chin dimple.”

  “Chin dimple?”

  “Like the Grand Canyon. He’s everything Calista thought she had in Benjamin Lombard, only he’s a Dauplaise. So, yeah, I do believe her when she says she needs to tidy up her act and that Eskridge is the end of the line for her.”

  “Okay. I just want to be sure you didn’t have a blind spot for her. She may have played straight with you so far, but this is the endgame. Keep in mind how that went for us the last time. Let’s not make the same mistake that George did.”

  “Is this going to be a repeat of Pennsylvania?” She meant the operation to find Suzanne Lombard’s kidnapper. At a key moment, Gibson had disobeyed Jenn’s instructions to return to Washington and had gone rogue. It had been a bone of contention between them at the time, and he didn’t like her throwing it in his face after so long.

  “And how did that work out, Jenn? Which of us found him first?”

  Her typing ceased with a satisfying, staccato clack. Gibson knew better than to push that particular button, but he’d already had his daily lecture from Calista. Instead of apologizing, he finished making his sandwich and cracked open a beer. Jenn held out her hand and snapped her fingers. He passed her the beer and opened another.

  “No,” he said, breaking the silence. “It’s nothing like Pennsylvania. I just had to tie up a few things before we step off.”

  “‘Step off’?” Jenn rolled her eyes. “Today was your audition. Remember? And you put everything in jeopardy with that stunt tonight. How close did the detective come to seeing you? In what universe but yours would this qualify as a passing grade?”

  “The one where I hacked an airport for you. How about that one, huh?”

  “It worked?” Jenn asked, somewhat appeased.

  “Well, I won’t know for sure until I don’t get arrested tomorrow. But, yeah, it worked.” He gave her the highlights of his incursion while he ate. “Tomorrow I drive out to Dulles and report that I lost my credentials. I’ll have to fill out a lost-pass form, but that’s a formality. Fifty bucks and my winning personality, and we’re in business. So what do you say you put the pin back in the grenade?”

  Jenn stared at him long enough that he began to brace himself for a fight. Finally, she took a long sip of her beer, shut her laptop, and stood up.

  “Know how to play cribbage?”

  Not what he’d expected. “Do I know what, now?”

  “I’ll be in the living room after you do the dishes.”

  “What?” he asked, although he knew the answer. “All of them?”

  “How do you know how to play cribbage?” Gibson asked when Jenn had finished showing him how pegging worked. It seemed like a game from another kind of lifetime.

  “My grandmother played every card game ever invented.”

  Jenn’s father had died in the Marine-barracks bombing in Beirut in 1983. She’d been two. His death had unraveled Beth Charles, who had deliberately and conscientiously taken refuge in a bottl
e of vodka before wrapping her pickup around a tree. Jenn’s grandmother had taken her in, put a roof over her head.

  “That sounds kind of nice,” Gibson said.

  Jenn nodded. “She wouldn’t have a television in the house, but she’d gin rummy you to death if you let her.”

  Gibson had never gotten the sense that Jenn had been close to her grandmother, so marathon card games surprised him. Jenn read his mind.

  “Cards was the only time she took a break from criticizing. And not always then.”

  They played a couple of practice hands until Gibson got the hang of the game. Jenn shuffled the deck and dealt for real.

  “Did you like her?”

  “She taught me to shoot,” Jenn replied.

  Gibson waited, but that was all the answer Jenn seemed inclined to give. “So I’m in trouble here is what you’re saying?”

  “Aren’t you always?” she asked, turning over the four of spades from the deck. He played a six, and she laid the five of hearts. “Fifteen for two.” She moved her peg two places forward on the board.

  “It’s part of my charm,” Gibson said with a wry smile and played the eight of diamonds. “Twenty-three. So are you going to tell me your plan? I’m still hazy on why you didn’t have me create credentials for both of us. Why just me? It doesn’t make sense.”

  “Thirty-one for two,” she announced triumphantly as she played an eight. Gibson stared forlornly at the board while Jenn used his remaining cards to score even more points.

  He was in trouble here.

  “Do you know what Category X means?” Jenn asked, shuffling and dealing the cards.

  Gibson did. Cat X was the Homeland Security designation for US airports deemed high-value terrorist targets due to the volume of commercial passengers. Billions of dollars had been spent hardening Cat X facilities post 9/11, and only twenty-five airports had such a rating: Logan, O’Hare, JFK, LAX, SeaTac . . . Dulles.

  “Actually, it works in our favor,” Jenn said as she arranged her new hand. She picked two of her cards and put them in the crib. Gibson added two of his own. The game continued.

  “How do you figure?”

  Jenn paused and ran her tongue over her teeth the way she did when she was thinking.

  “Cold Harbor operates a C-130 out of Dulles,” Jenn said. “It resupplies Cold Harbor’s base of operations in North Africa and supports its contracts there and in the Middle East. Cold Harbor is dirty as hell, but they keep a low profile at Dulles—everything by the book. My guess is that’s why Eskridge is using it to fly George out of the country. In five years, they’ve never once been cited for a violation by customs inspectors, and no one will be looking at them too closely. Plus, Eskridge thinks that flying out of Dulles offers him a measure of protection. Who would be stupid enough to take down one of his shipments at a Cat X?”

  “But we are? That stupid?”

  Jenn ignored him. “Cold Harbor flights are guarded only by a skeleton detail plus flight crew plus whatever personnel are being transported to Africa. And because it’s Category X, their materiel has to be sealed in shipping containers. They won’t be armed.”

  “Yeah, but neither will we,” Gibson reminded her. “Armed or not, how are we supposed to take George off a plane guarded by Cold Harbor mercs? Rock-paper-scissors them for him?”

  “Who said we’d be unarmed?” Jenn said with a crafty smile.

  “Jenn. I’ll have a green badge, and that will give me the run of the airport, but I’ll still have to pass through security to get on premises. There’s no way I’m getting guns through. So unless you’ve been tunneling under security at night . . .”

  “Are you familiar with the term ‘security theater’?”

  Gibson nodded. It was the criticism that the billions of dollars spent since 9/11 to upgrade security at American airports had had little impact on overall security. That all that the pantomime at TSA checkpoints accomplished was to create the illusion of increased safety.

  Gibson said, “Doesn’t mean they won’t catch me carrying a gun into the terminals.”

  “That would be true if we were infiltrating that Dulles International Airport.”

  “There’s another Dulles I haven’t heard about?”

  Jenn nodded and explained that there were, for all intents and purposes, two Dulles International Airports: commercial and general aviation, each one operating on two entirely different sets of security principles. “Cat X really only refers to the commercial side of the airport. The airline terminals. Where TSA puts the general public through their little shoeless, beltless parade—metal detectors, pat downs, all of that. Then there’s GA—general aviation. That’s the side of the airport that accommodates private aircraft—anything from a one-seat prop to Gulfstream jets. And private cargo planes for businesses like FedEx and UPS.”

  “And Cold Harbor.”

  “And Cold Harbor,” she confirmed. “That’s why you now work for Tyner Aviation. It’s one of the FBOs—fixed-base operators—that provide services, such as fuel and maintenance, to private aircraft at Dulles.”

  “So no security theater in general aviation?”

  “Why bother?” Jenn asked. “There’s no one there to see it. I mean, they still have employees pass through security checks, but it’s pretty nominal compared to the commercial terminals.”

  “Metal detectors?”

  “Yes,” Jenn said.

  “So how do we get weapons in?”

  “Simple. Fly them in.”

  That seemed like an even worse idea to Gibson. “Oh, come on. They don’t search aircraft?”

  “Not domestic. Have you ever been searched after landing?” Jenn asked. “For reasons known only to the FAA, inbound domestic aircraft to Cat X airports are trusted entities. And so are the pilots. Even if their point of origin is some Podunk airstrip with no security whatsoever.”

  Even to Gibson, who was accustomed to the vagaries of security, that sounded insane. She had to be overlooking something. “Are there at least separate runways? Fences?”

  “Nope. There are only four runways at Dulles, and commercial and general aviation share them. General aviation flights simply taxi to separate hangars after landing.”

  “You’re telling me that terrorists could land a plane, taxi to the commercial terminals, and launch an attack from the Jetway. And no one would know until bullets started flying?”

  “As long as an aircraft has a legitimate tail number, it’s free to land at any airport in the United States. Cat X included.”

  “That can’t possibly be a thing,” he said without much conviction.

  “Afraid so. Good for us, though, huh?”

  “So who’s the pilot?”

  “You’re looking at her.”

  “You’re a pilot?”

  Jenn nodded. “Fixed wing and rotary. Just like my mom was.”

  “Man, you think you know a person.”

  “But that doesn’t mean they let pilots wander around the tarmac. I’ll need an escort once I exit the aircraft.”

  Suddenly his newly acquired credentials made sense. Jenn would fly weapons in, and Gibson’s green badge would enable him to chaperone her anywhere she wanted to go. It shifted the terms of the engagement ever so slightly in their favor. Enough that, for the first time, Gibson could see how, if everything broke their way, they might just pull this off. A thought occurred to him.

  “But, how do we—” Gibson began.

  “Gibson,” she interrupted. “There are about a millions buts, and I want to cover every damn one of them. But can we get into it tomorrow when you get back from Dulles? It’s been a long day, and I just want to play cards.”

  “So does that mean I passed the audition?”

  “Only if we’re grading on a massive curve.”

  She went to the refrigerator for two more beers to sweeten the deal. Gibson chuckled and leaned back in his chair and put his hands over his head in a big stretch. The only thing Jenn Charles loved more than a tightly
run operation was planning a tightly run operation. Instead, she was plying him with beer to entice him to shut up and play cards. A more religious man might interpret this as a sign of the impending apocalypse. But a wise man took his beer, shut up, and shuffled.

  They played until almost two in the morning. He lost far more than he won, but that made no difference to him. Kicking his butt seemed to unwind Jenn, and as she relaxed, she began talking. They both enjoyed the comforting camaraderie that comes of not having to pretend not to be broken. The high-tension wires that hummed constantly through his head these days subsided, and Gibson put everything else aside and focused on the simple task of making his friend smile. They swapped stories—Dan Hendricks a recurring theme—and Jenn even laughed a couple of times. She had a good laugh, and hearing it felt special, like catching a glimpse of a desert flower that bloomed only under extraordinary conditions.

  Gibson’s curiosity got the better of him, so he asked how Jenn had come to work for George. He regretted it immediately as the sparkle went out of Jenn’s eyes, and she turned serious.

  “You want to know why I’m doing this?”

  “Something like that,” Gibson admitted.

  “George saved my life. More or less.”

  Gibson definitely hadn’t heard this story and waited for her to go on. She ran her tongue across her teeth.

  “My last assignment with the Agency, I was attached to Camp Chapman,” she said. “Forward operating base in Afghanistan. Not far from the Pakistani border. I’d been on some remote bases before, but you needed a damn chopper just to get back to remote. You ever see Apocalypse Now? The scene where the Playboy Bunnies do a USO show and the troops literally riot at the sight of women? That’s what it was like. Every day.”

  “I don’t like where this is going.”

  Jenn smiled and tapped her front teeth. “These look pretty real, don’t you think? The doctors in Germany . . .” She trailed off. “After I left the CIA, I was in not good shape. Let’s leave it at that. Physically or spiritually. I wanted to press charges. The Agency made it clear they wouldn’t back me up. Advised me to drop it. The assault and attempted rape of CIA personnel on an Army base by two sergeants was bad for business. A severe hindrance to CIA operations in the region was how it was put to me. Plus the Army threatened to charge me over the death of the other sergeant.”