Dead Man Switch

by Matthew Quirk

  He tried to sit up, but he was strapped down. The skin of his hands and his toes and his face felt like it was on fire. He was in a hospital room. He looked to his left and saw two lines running out from the veins in his arm.

  “Take it easy,” a voice said, and Hayes turned his head to the right. A man in a wrinkled navy suit sat in a chair under the window. It was Samuel Cox.

  “How are you feeling?” he asked.

  “It’s so hot. Is that the frostbite?”

  “Probably. But it’s also just hot. We’re on Masirah.”

  Masirah was an island off the coast of Oman in the Arabian Sea that classified units often staged out of. It had been the base from which they’d launched the doomed Iranian hostage-rescue mission in 1980. That disaster ultimately led to the creation of the Joint Special Operations Command—a secretive headquarters known as JSOC (pronounced “jay-sock”) that controlled Team Six, Delta, and a host of other black units. It had been Hayes’s employer for more than a decade.

  “How are the other guys?”

  “Sanders just came out of surgery. He and Burke are both stable. They told me about what you did to get them out of there, the shots you took on that tail rotor. I guess you’re the right guy to bring a helicopter down.”

  Hayes was notorious for having crashed in every type of helicopter used by special operations. He thought that meant he was lucky, since he’d survived. But those who knew about it usually took the opposite view and a seat on a different helo than Hayes if they could.

  “What the hell were you doing in Pakistan?” Cox went on. “You were just supposed to be gathering intelligence.”

  Years before, Hayes had been falsely accused of turning against his own soldiers while running a special operations team. He went into self-imposed exile overseas. He had survived two years on the run as an enemy of the United States and ultimately stopped the men who had framed him from launching an attack on Washington, DC.

  After Hayes had cleared his name, the command didn’t publicize his innocence or his return to special operations. That allowed him to go undercover using his old contacts from his time on the run, shielded by people’s belief that he was still being hunted by the United States. He had started the operation that led to Kashani strictly to find out more information on the people who had sponsored the DC attack.

  “That’s all I had planned. But people were asking me questions. They wanted information on our spec ops teams, and not just the usual intelligence about where they were deployed and what informants they were using. The enemy was gathering names and photos. It sounded like they were putting together a kill list. I had to see who was behind it, so I dangled the information and set up a meeting.”

  “You didn’t think to tell us?”

  “The surveillance was too thick. There was no way without breaking cover. They’re trying to find out about everyone who’s in Cold Harvest. Not just where they are working overseas. Where they live in the United States. Their homes.”

  Cox shut his eyes for a moment. It was everyone’s worst fear.

  “Kashani?”

  “I had to kill him before we could find anything else out, but he wasn’t the main guy. You know he’s only interested in his own region. He was a cutout. There’s someone above him. They’re using our tricks against us, profiling the special operations community the way we would an enemy terror network.” Hayes swallowed, his mouth suddenly dry as paper. Cox handed him the plastic tumbler of water and he drank.

  “We have to get ahead of them,” Hayes said. “They’re after Cold Harvest. Double-down on the security of every name; protect our people. The covers. They can’t find them.”

  “I’m on it. You need to rest.”

  Cox’s eyes went to a machine beside his bed; it was the size of a hotel luggage cart and had multiple monitors above a collection of tubes and transparent pumps.

  “What is that?” Hayes asked.

  “It warmed up your blood.”

  He looked at his bandaged hands. “Did I lose any fingers?”

  “They think you can keep them all. You’re lucky you froze.”

  Hayes touched his nose and winced. “This is lucky?”

  “You can last a while longer when your core temp goes down. The docs say you’re not officially dead until you’re warm and dead.”

  “Does Lauren know I’m okay?”

  “Yeah. You’ll be back home in three days.”

  “Thanks, Cox. They want the names.” Just a few minutes of talking had left Hayes exhausted. His eyes closed, and he leaned his head back. “Look out for our people.”

  “I will. You rest. I’m going to check on the others.”

  Cox walked down the hallway and looked in on another room. Burke lay in bed, his head and eyes covered in bandages. The head trauma had damaged the optic nerve.

  He moved with a start.

  “Who’s there?”

  “Samuel Cox. I’m from the Office of the Secretary of Defense.”

  “Oh, Jesus. Look, I didn’t know that he was undercover. I didn’t mean to crash his op.”

  “That’s our fault. You’re not in trouble. Do you know the man who saved you?”

  “John Hayes. He was attached to our team at First Fallujah.”

  “I need you to forget it. You never saw him. You’re going to take the credit for this, for rescuing Sanders.”

  “No way. It was Hayes.”

  “Hayes was never there.”

  “Is it true? Was Hayes undercover? Did he stop the DC attack?”

  Cox knew the rumors that circulated about Hayes. The noncommissioned officers’ networks spread information faster than CNN. Some people even believed he had been responsible for the attack in Washington, DC, the one that he had, in fact, stopped. The darker legends about Hayes contributed to his strength, his ability to slip in and move among the enemy.

  “What I’m telling you, you can’t tell anyone. Understood?”

  “Understood.”

  “It’s true.”

  “Then let the poor bastard go. Why don’t you tell everyone the truth and clear his name?”

  “It’s more valuable dirty.”

  “The guy’s a hero. He’s done his time.”

  “I agree,” Cox said as his phone buzzed in his pocket. “But it’s more complicated than that.”

  Chapter 6

  San Diego, Two Months Later

  BURKE FELL ONTO his back on the bed, his eyes open wide, and took a long breath. He reached to the side and pulled Tara close. He had been home for five weeks and loved nothing more than being in this bungalow in Ocean Beach listening to the waves crash against the bluffs.

  Her cheek rested against his.

  “Hon, are you crying?”

  “Yes.” She laughed. “But it’s good.” She put her hand on his chest and looked into his eyes. “I didn’t think you were going to make it home.”

  The sheets were in a tangled pile near their feet. Burke listened to the baby monitor—silence.

  “God bless that kid.” Their daughter was a sound sleeper, and their twin boys were staying over at a friend’s house.

  Tara sat up and gathered the sheets around her. Burke stood and started to walk across the hardwood floor.

  “Look out for my shoes,” Tara said. But he had already stepped over them.

  “You always leave them there.” He headed toward the door, hand in front of him, moving quickly, confidently in the dark. The house was familiar, and for years he had fought in the night, so for him, not being able to see wasn’t as odd as it might have been for someone else.

  The baby’s cry came from the monitor.

  “I’ll take care of her,” Tara said.

  “After that let’s watch a movie.”

  “But—”

  “Stay up with me. I’ll go to the Redbox and get us something.”

  “You?”

  “Yeah, me. Take care of June, and I’ll be right back.” His fingers glided over the wall, found the co
rner. He reached down and picked up the hiking stick he used instead of a white cane. The last thing he wanted was to look like a goddamn blind guy.

  “You’ll be careful.”

  “Always. For six years, I was doing things in the dark that were much sketchier than going to get a movie. Don’t worry.”

  She said nothing.

  “You can’t hold my hand forever. Come on. I’ll get you a Kit Kat too.”

  “For a Kit Kat,” she said, “sure.” She was trying to make light of it, but he could hear the strain in her voice as she let him go.

  The wood grain of the door passed under his fingertips. He found the knob, turned it, and felt the tip of his stick tapping on the concrete, then the open air. He stepped down, followed the front path to the sidewalk, and started toward the little downtown. Cars rushed by on Sunset Cliffs Boulevard ahead of him.

  There was a man above Kashani, a man acquiring the identities of everyone in Cold Harvest. His name was Niko Hynd. He stood in the dark on the side of the road opposite Burke’s house.

  He was invisible on this quiet American street. Inside, the televisions threw dancing colors on the walls, and he watched people in their homes like they were animals in exhibits: daughters changing clothes, old men sleeping in their recliners, a young couple making love—Burke and his wife—only glimpsed in the cracks beside the blinds as she buried her face in his neck, trying to keep from waking the baby.

  This didn’t seem like a country at war, its soldiers on the other side of the world kicking down doors and tearing men and women from their families, raining death from above and killing in the dark.

  No. What these people saw were American flags in car commercials. They were fat and happy. And why wouldn’t they be? They didn’t know the pain of wars unfolding in places they couldn’t find on a map. It would never stop. They didn’t see it. Didn’t feel it. But that was about to change. It was only fair.

  Hynd had lost a trusted associate when they’d killed Kashani. He and Kashani were both freelancers, small businessmen in the world of conflict. Hynd worked for hire and specialized in a particular kind of lethal operation: finding and finishing those whom no one else could locate. Kashani had been trying to acquire the names of Cold Harvest members on Hynd’s behalf—for a price, of course—but he hadn’t been careful enough.

  Hynd had used the Pakistani as a middleman because he fit the Americans’ narrow perception of a bad guy and would draw suspicion away from himself. They always feared the usual suspects and rarely considered the unexpected. That gave Hynd avenues to penetrate their defenses.

  He couldn’t afford any more mistakes, and that’s why he was here to do the work himself. He had enough names to keep going, and each death would yield more targets. Kashani’s men had kept a photo of Burke, and Hynd had used publicly available online-image-matching software—the same technology that tagged faces in family photos posted on the web—to find an older photo of him, from before he went to the classified units, and then to trace him here.

  The front door opened. A man emerged, feeling his way along with a stick. It was Burke. He had survived but lost his sight.

  The wife and child were alone. Hynd checked the brass in the suppressed .22-caliber handgun and put it in the holster tight against his hip, then stepped out of the car and began tailing the man as he made his unsteady way down the street.

  Burke stopped at the corner. Sounds had never seemed so clear. The cars’ engines, as loud as the grind of Chinook helicopter blades, cut in and out as they passed, reflecting off the parked vehicles. He could hear the waves crashing in the distance.

  He used to take a daily run here. He and Tara had walked along the old route a few times since he’d returned home, Tara burying her fingers in his forearm with fear every time he came near the edge of the cliffs. He took a deep breath, tasted the salt in the air.

  A transformer buzzed to his right.

  He listened, then took a step off the curb. The stick tapped along the ground. He tensed, anticipating hitting the opposite curb or a parked car’s tire, but nothing came.

  Did he have the angle wrong? He moved faster. Maybe he was in the middle of the intersection or had started up a cross street. He stopped and listened, lost.

  A V-8 growled, throttle open, and grew louder. The sounds bounced off the buildings. Burke moved quickly to his left while the horn blared.

  A rush of wind. The truck’s engine note dropped in tone as it flew by.

  Burke stumbled. The curb. Thank God. He had made it across the busiest road. He stepped up, felt the soft grass under his feet, and cursed.

  It was only six blocks. “I just want to get a fucking movie for my wife,” he said out loud. He put both hands on top of the stick and brought his head down for a moment, then straightened up. He listened for the ocean, oriented himself.

  To hell with it. He’d figure it out. He started off again, closer to the water now. Del Mar Avenue, heading toward Coronado. He had this. It was a straight shot down Bacon Street to the Redbox. He laughed about what a small thing it was, and how big, to be able to bring a movie back home.

  A whimpering noise came from his left. He stopped. A man moaned, said something pleading, but Burke couldn’t understand the words.

  “Hello?”

  “Help. Please!”

  He walked toward the voice. “Are you okay?”

  “No. I fell. Help!”

  Hynd was crying for help. He watched as Burke moved quickly toward the railing beside the cliffs with more confidence than he’d had before. He must have forgotten to be afraid. These Americans believed in heroes and happy endings. That’s what made them so easy to kill.

  Hynd circled around quietly, the crash of waves covering his footsteps on the soft grass until he was behind Burke. The blind man placed his hand on the metal rail. Hynd stepped closer.

  The handrail under Burke’s palm was cold and wet. The ground shook as the waves crashed below. “Hello?” Burke said. “Are you okay?”

  The pleading voice was gone. Burke reached into his pocket for his cell phone, a simple model with physical keys, not a touchscreen, that he could operate by feel. He ran his thumb over the plastic buttons, but then the phone jumped from his hand.

  He reached for it, felt the railing press against his hip, and heard the plastic crack against the stone, farther and farther away, falling on the boulders at the base of the cliffs.

  He heard footsteps behind him, pivoted, and swung his hand through the air. He was still fast. Whoever it was was on his other side now. He lunged in that direction but touched nothing, and as he came to the end of the blow, with all his weight on his forward foot, he felt the arms come in around his thighs. A quick wrestler’s takedown from behind raised him in the air. He threw his elbow back, felt it crack against bone and heard the cry of pain, but by then it was too late. The railing hit his shins. His stomach went light, and the fall seemed so slow, so long.

  Hynd walked down the worn concrete steps to the small boulder-strewn beach below the cliffs. Burke dragged himself along the sand, groaning in pain. His phone was only a foot away, but he was moving in the wrong direction. His legs were useless. Perhaps Burke had injured his spine near the waist in the fall. His arm was clearly broken.

  “Who’s there?” Burke growled.

  “What does that matter now?”

  “What do you want?”

  “The names of two men in Cold Harvest. For that I’ll let you live.”

  Hynd loved these moments. People spent their whole lives trusting in myths, abstractions like honor and sacrifice that the powerful feed to the weak-minded to control them.

  Only when faced with death were they able to see what they really believed in, to cut through all the bullshit.

  “What?”

  “Two names. Give me men without families. You deserve to live, surely, after everything they took from you.”

  Hynd considered himself a student of human nature. It was his greatest weapon. If he cou
ld dissect his opponents’ beliefs, their most deeply held fears, then he could predict their behavior, and if he could predict that, he could control them and kill them. This moment before death was his laboratory.

  Honor or your life. That was the choice. It was a fate worse than death for many of the victims, to abandon their values and realize in the end that they were hypocrites.

  Hynd watched Burke as he dragged himself closer.

  “I’m going to kill you,” Burke said.

  Bluster. Typical. Hynd grabbed the man’s collar and the sleeve of his good arm and pulled him along the sand. Even injured as he was, Burke fought back with the broken limb, and Hynd heard it grind. He hauled him into the shallow surf. It surged past them with each breaking wave. The moon was full, and the tide would rise six feet by morning.

  Hynd leaned over and held him under the cool water while he struggled, fighting until the end.

  It took four minutes.

  Hynd climbed the stairs and returned to his car. His legs were still cold and damp with salt water. He drove off, and a moment later, he saw a flashlight bobbing four blocks from where Burke had fallen. It was the man’s young wife with her baby cradled to her chest in a sling. Hynd doubted she would find the body before the sea claimed it.

  A symphony played on the radio. He turned the volume up as the woodwinds picked up the melody from the strings. He pressed down on the gas and took a curving road over the hills of the peninsula toward the freeway.

  He had the list of targets memorized, and in his mind he scratched out one name.

  Chapter 7

  THE CLASSIFIED PHONE rang, a distinctive warble. Hayes put down his coping saw and trotted across the upstairs hall to his office. The pain radiated out from his knee, a manageable but insistent sting. He’d torn his medial collateral ligament. It hurt ten times more than tearing the ACL but it was a quicker rehab. He spent two hours a day on the exercises and was well ahead of the protocols.