Bravo

by Greg Rucka

  He reaches for the phone.

  “Heath.”

  “Captain, Brock.”

  “Sir, what can I do for you?”

  “I’ve got a whisper that Heatdish was taken out of play during transport this morning out of Leesburg.”

  There’s just a fraction of a pause before Heath says, “Whisper?”

  “I’m not going to call up Colonel Ruiz and ask him, for obvious reasons. But I’ve got a bigger concern here.”

  “I think I’m on the same page.”

  “Do you know where she is?”

  “I can locate her.”

  “Maybe you want to bring her in and keep her close to you for the time being. Set up out at Belvoir, see if she can’t help you confirm this, confirm what happened. If Echo has this reach and she’s compromised, I do not want him looking to settle accounts with her, not after everything she’s done for us.”

  “Understood.”

  “Let me know what you find,” Brock says.

  He goes about his business then, because frankly, there’s a lot of business for him to attend to. A half dozen more meetings before two that afternoon, by which time he’s back in his office and Heath is waiting for him on the line. She’s confirmed the attack and is trying to get a positive identification on the body. By four, she’s able to do that, too, and declares that Tohir is dead.

  “Send me what you’ve got.”

  The files are on his computer within five minutes. He transfers them to a thumb drive, takes it with him when he leaves the Pentagon at half after six. He heads with the rush-hour traffic in the direction of home before pulling off in a supermarket parking lot and taking his burner phone from the glove compartment. His first call goes to voice mail.

  “Twenty-one hundred,” is all he says before he hangs up. He dials a second number.

  “This is Jordan.”

  “Make time for me tonight,” Brock says.

  “I have plans.”

  “I’ll be there at ten thirty.”

  Jordan laughs softly. “All right. Should I make you something? Will you have eaten?”

  Brock finds himself wondering if she did it, if she could’ve murdered Tohir. He dismisses that thought as absurd, as paranoid. She belongs to the Architect, yes, but she’s a different weapon entirely.

  “I’ll be there at ten thirty,” he repeats.

  “Very mysterious,” Jordan says. “I’ll be waiting. Will you be staying?”

  Brock hangs up, enters the supermarket. He drops the phone in the trash can beside the shopping carts, buys a gallon of milk, a box of cereal, some veggies, just to make everything look good, just in case he’s being watched. He gets back to his car and resumes the battle against the traffic, and when he gets home his wife isn’t there, and he’s relieved. He puts the groceries away, gets out of his uniform, and takes a shower. He shaves, even though he’d shaved that morning. He wonders if Jordan is going to shave, too, and when he thinks that, he has a moment of self-loathing unlike any he’s ever felt, so strong he swears aloud.

  “Fuck honor,” Brock says.

  He struggles. He calls himself a traitor and calls his own actions treasonous. He calls himself weak, and venal, and old because he cannot stop himself from wanting this woman as much as he does, knowing everything he knows. He calls himself stupid, and a coward.

  None of this keeps him from getting dressed again, this time in civvies, or from writing a note to his wife saying that he’ll be late, or from stopping to buy a new burner phone. He puts it in the glove compartment where the old one went. The thumb drive is in his pocket. He tells himself that life is about compromises, and that he is and always will be a patriot, that what he does he does for the safety and security of his country, a country that is naive and asleep and complacent.

  He tells himself that he is using Jordan just as much as she is using him, and that in the end he will come out ahead.

  Then he tells himself that Jordan probably thinks exactly the same thing.

  Larkin is seated at the bar when Brock arrives. “Bar” is probably a misnomer, although there is a long counter with a bartender behind it. Calling the place a private club gives it too much credit. Rather, it’s a place for people who can afford to meet discreetly and socially in the D.C. area to do just that; it’s the kind of place where the clientele is almost invariably white, and if you see a woman who isn’t serving drinks or isn’t keeping someone company, you mark it in your calendar as a day to remember. Larkin calls it the Four-Four-Two, because that’s the number on the brownstone, and Brock has never asked who owns the place or who runs the place or how many people know about the place. This is Larkin’s world, and Brock always feels like he’s invading whenever they meet here, and he resents it like hell. Brock is two years Larkin’s junior, but put them side by side and Larkin looks ten years younger, because Larkin comes from a class and a level of wealth that can afford doctors to defend against his particular means of self-abuse. Like the clientele, Larkin is white, and like the rest of his associates in this matter, with the notable exception of Brock himself, Larkin is very, very rich.

  “I bought you a drink,” Larkin says, waits for Brock to take it. He raises his glass, waits for Brock to do the same. “To Jamieson.”

  Brock refuses to echo the sentiment, but he drinks just the same.

  “Are we on again?” Larkin asks.

  Brock runs his eyes around the room. There’s piano music playing from somewhere invisible, and muted conversation, and nobody is giving them any attention. It doesn’t make Brock feel better. The problem with D.C. is that the town is lousy with people listening, people who know people, and you never know where or when you’ll be recognized, even in a place like this. They meet here because it limits exposure, but it doesn’t eliminate it entirely. So Brock takes an extra minute to be sure, and Larkin waits because he doesn’t want to draw attention.

  “I’ll know by this time tomorrow,” Brock says.

  “I’ll tell the others. They’ll be pleased,” Larkin says. At least he isn’t whispering. Brock had to explain to him that when people whisper in public, that’s what draws attention.

  “What changed?” Larkin asks.

  “The problem went away.”

  “Most do if handled properly.” Larkin finishes his drink. “Has he set a price?”

  “I’ll know that by this time tomorrow as well.”

  “It’s getting expensive. For all of us.”

  “We can call it off,” Brock says. “Just let things run their course.”

  Larkin shifts on the stool, looks at him, curious.

  “You’ve seen the news, you know the climate. We don’t need another one.”

  “You’re losing your nerve, Emmet?”

  Brock just stares at him, wondering what it must be like to never have doubts. He thinks that Larkin has never seen violent death outside of fiction. He thinks that Larkin and the rest of them must be very sure in their beliefs to raise the question of courage.

  Larkin shakes his head, reaches for his wallet, puts a hundred dollars down on the bar.

  “We want what we paid for,” Larkin says. “We don’t intend to pay again.”

  “We got what we paid for.”

  “Not the result. We’re halfway there. Halfway isn’t far enough.”

  Larkin gets up, motions to the bartender, points to Brock’s still half-filled glass. He puts a hand on Brock’s shoulder.

  “You don’t change the world by being timid, Emmet,” Larkin says, and leaves.

  Brock waits until she’s let him in, until she’s kissed him once, those lips smooth as satin. Then he takes hold of her by the shoulders and drives her into the wall.

  “Did you kill him?” he asks.

  She does what she always does when he puts hands on her. She yields. He can feel his fingers digging into her flesh. She looks up at him.

  “Tell me,” Brock says.

  “Who are we talking about?”

  “You know who.”<
br />
  “I may know who. I want to be sure.”

  “Where were you this morning?”

  “More specific, baby.”

  “Early this morning. Before dawn. Where were you?”

  “I was here.”

  “Prove it.”

  “And how do I prove it, Emmet? I was here alone. Do you want to ask the neighbors? I had thought our goal was discretion always.” She cants her head to one side, looking up at him. “Why are you angry at me, baby? Did I do something wrong?”

  “Tohir,” Brock says.

  “Tohir’s dead?”

  “Yes.”

  She relaxes further against the wall, smiles up at him. “Tell me everything.”

  Brock watches her copy the files from the thumb drive, go through them on her laptop.

  “The photographs aren’t pretty,” he warns her.

  “You’re sweet.”

  “There wasn’t much of him left. No dental, but we had prints.”

  “And the rest of these files, they’re what he asked for?”

  “They’re exactly what he asked for—information on all the shooters involved in the capture operation and in the operation in California.”

  “The same men in both cases?”

  “Mostly.”

  Jordan nods, shuts the laptop, returns the thumb drive.

  “I don’t need it anymore,” Brock says.

  “Then destroy it.”

  “Contact him.” He nods toward the closed computer. “That’s how you do it, isn’t it? Online somehow, a chat room or e-mail. Tell him we want what we paid for.”

  “I’ll tell him.”

  “Do it now.”

  “It doesn’t work like that.”

  “Then how does it work?”

  “Not like that, baby.” She gets up, steps to him, places her palms against his breast. “Are you staying?”

  “Are you asking me to?”

  “I’d like it if you stayed.”

  “Why do you do this?” Brock asks abruptly.

  She moves slightly, lets her hand roam. “This?”

  “That’s not what I mean.”

  “How about this?”

  “Stop it.” He takes hold of her wrist, moving her hand away. “You work for him, you’ve always worked for him.”

  “Perhaps.”

  “It’s true.”

  “Perhaps.”

  “So work for me.”

  Jordan’s hands climb his torso again, fingers drag slowly through his cropped hair.

  “Baby,” she says. “Are you in love with me?”

  “I can take care of you. If you’re afraid of him, I can protect you.”

  “I’m not afraid of him.”

  Brock stares at her, this woman he thinks is flawless and that he wants more than anything, anyone, and finally, he thinks he understands. She doesn’t love him, and she never will.

  He puts his hand between her legs, uses his other to gather her hair into a fist. He kisses her mouth, her throat, feels the pulse rise in him, anger and rejection and lust. She whimpers.

  “So,” she says. “This means you’ll stay, then.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  BELL RIDES WITH Steelriver and Cardboard in the back of the Humvee, all of them wearing cuffs, two MPs up in the front and the third with them. Nobody says a word. They pass through the checkpoint into Fort Detrick, come to a stop a few minutes later, are escorted from the vehicle into the building that houses the stockade, and no sooner are they behind closed doors than Ruiz is there.

  “Cut them loose,” Ruiz says.

  The MPs exchange brief looks, then proceed to remove the cuffs. They don’t need to be told a reason; it’s a full bird colonel giving them the order. Bell makes loose fists of his hands, rolls his wrists about, stretching the muscles in his forearms.

  “They weren’t here,” Ruiz tells the MPs.

  “We haven’t seen anything since we came on post, sir.”

  Ruiz turns, and Bell, Steelriver, and Cardboard fall in behind him. They head away from the door where they entered, make a left down a quiet corridor, then a right, then Ruiz pushes a door open and they’re back in the midmorning sun, where a Chevy van is waiting. Jorge—Bonebreaker—is behind the wheel. Ruiz waits until they’re loaded.

  “One hour,” he tells Bell, handing him a key card, an address.

  Bell tucks the card in a pocket, climbs into the vehicle, slams the door shut. They start moving almost immediately, and he has to put a hand out to steady himself. Steelriver and Cardboard have already rearmed with their recovered gear, and Board hands Bell his .45 in its holster, then his phone. Bell checks the weapon out of habit, settles it back into its holster, and settles the holster back on his hip. There are a couple of bottles of water, and Steelriver hands him one, and Bell takes it with him as he wedges himself up to the front and into the empty passenger seat beside Jorge. They’re already on the 550, heading south, light traffic, and it’s a beautiful drive on a beautiful day.

  “You thought I’d miss,” Jorge says.

  “Never crossed my mind.”

  “I thought you’d miss,” Steelriver says, behind them.

  “I’m just saying, broken ribs, three hundred meters, moving target,” Jorge says. “Eight shots, all in group. You thought I’d miss.”

  “I am grateful to the United States Army and the taxpayers who trained you that you did not,” Bell says.

  Jorge keeps his eyes on the road, but his grin is broad.

  “You’re welcome,” he says.

  The key card opens room 121 at the Best Western Westminster, and Bell steps inside to find Ruiz already there. The colonel has changed out of his uniform and into business casual, which goes with the venue. Outside, there’s the faint sound of a single-prop flying overhead; from its sound and its direction Bell figures it to be coming in for a landing at the Carroll County Regional Airport, less than a mile and a half away.

  “Clear?” Ruiz asks. He’s sitting at the round-top table, with its fake wood pattern, two paper cups of coffee in front of him. He pushes one of them in Bell’s direction.

  “If not, they’re better than me.”

  Ruiz nods, waits for Bell to take a seat and the coffee.

  “Status update,” Ruiz says. “Isaiah has Heatdish en route to Hailey, should be there within the next hour. Rest of your team is heading out to join him, including O’Day. You’ll need the extra manpower. You’ve got an objection.”

  “I’ve got an objection,” Bell says.

  “Speak it.”

  “You have cover on my family?”

  “Counterintelligence is handling that, has been keeping watch on Amy and Athena since you got back from Burlington.”

  “And?”

  “And nothing so far. They’re fine, Jad.”

  Bell nods, takes the top off his coffee, tastes it. It’s awful. He drinks some anyway.

  “So here’s where we are,” Ruiz says. “Right now, it looks like Heatdish died outside of Leesburg, and there’s not enough body left to disprove that quickly. Hopefully that’ll put Echo in something of a fit.”

  “Echo.”

  “It was good enough for the Chief, Blackfriars, it’s good enough for us. Tohir may be selling us bullshit at wholesale, but we know California was bought and paid for here, at home. There’s a legitimate conspiracy here, a treasonous conspiracy, but we don’t know who’s involved. All leads off of Jamieson dead-end with Heatdish. We’ve got a triangle, Echo on one point, Heatdish on another, and a big fucking unknown on the third. That third—that who—that’s who bought the California attack. Who that is, what they want, why they did it, those are all open questions.”

  Bell considers this, remembers the old man from Texas who bragged about what he’d done before he died. The attack at the theme park in California had led back to him, had been bought with his money, a hell of a lot of his money, at that. Jamieson had given up Tohir, and he’d additionally given up rhetoric of the kind that at the
best of times annoyed Bell and at the worst of times made him truly angry. It was the talk of a man who combined a perverted faith in God with an inflexibility in politics, spoken with the righteous arrogance and condescension of someone who believed he could have things his way because he was never wrong. To Bell, there was no difference between that brand of zealotry and the kind that brought young men into the arms of al-Qaeda and its subsidiary holdings around the world.

  “We know why,” Bell says. “They want a war. Jamieson said so.”

  “Whoever ‘they’ are.”

  “You should probably find that out.”

  “I probably should. Maybe you can help.” Ruiz tries his own coffee. “You’re clear to run, but the fact is that until we get a nibble on the decoy operation—if we get a nibble on the decoy operation—our options are limited. You need to talk to Heatdish again.”

  “Wallford hasn’t?”

  “Wallford is cognizant of the fact that we are compromised and fears his direct presence might reveal Heatdish’s location. He’s backed off of his own volition.”

  “That’s remarkably gracious of him.”

  “I was thinking the same thing.”

  “Who knows Heatdish is in Hailey?”

  “At this moment, we and your team. Wallford knows he’s still alive and was moved, but he doesn’t know where to.”

  “As far as we know.”

  “Correct.”

  “Anything on the name Tohir gave us? Zein?”

  “Added urgency. Jacob Zein arrived at JFK three weeks ago, traveling on a German passport, and dropped into the void promptly thereafter. He doesn’t exist before he gets on his Prague–Munich connection, and he ceases to exist upon exiting the international terminal at JFK.”

  “Oh, that’s lovely.”

  “We have differing standards of beauty.”

  “Where there’s one…”

  “…there’s certainly more. Getting number and purpose from Heatdish is a priority.”