by Greg Rucka
“It’s not an idle threat.”
“Then you’re not thinking things through,” the Architect says. “Never mind my guilt—let’s talk about yours. You want to end me, you’re welcome to do it. You might succeed. But you and your partners will tumble down with me. And we’re not even talking about Jordan, what will happen to her.”
“You’re a piece of shit.”
“I’m not the one committing treason. Two calls at the most, General. Make them now.”
Brock’s hands come out of his pockets in fists. The Architect watches as he unrolls his fingers, stretches them to reveal empty palms, then reaches again into his jacket for his phone.
“And who am I calling?”
“Whoever you need to,” the Architect says. “Just confirm that Tom O’Day has killed Vosil Tohir.”
It takes Brock only one call.
“He’s dead,” Brock says. “They’re all dead.”
“You’re certain?”
“I’m as certain as I can be without drawing a line directly from him to me to you,” Brock says. “You realize what you’ve done?”
“Yes.”
Brock continues as if he hasn’t heard him. “You leaned on him. Leaned on his family. You used information I gave you.”
“Yes.”
The Architect watches as Brock makes his hands into fists again. They are big hands, and clearly strong, and what Brock wants to do with them now isn’t in doubt, but he keeps himself in check.
“They’re going to know,” Brock says. “There’s only so many places that information could’ve come from. You’ve driven them right to my doorstep. You’ve exposed all of us.”
“Including myself, yes.”
“The contingency—”
“Is secondary. Our survival is primary.”
“We agree on that.”
“Then you’ll also agree with this.” The Architect smiles. “It’s time you introduced me to your partners.”
Chapter Twenty-One
THE DEATH TOLL, Bell thinks, now stands at three, and he wonders if it’s about to climb higher.
He resets the pistol in his hands, resets his grip, thumbs lying together. He pushes thoughts about Tom O’Day and what’s being done with his body back in Hailey out of his mind, does the same with the memory of Tom O’Day’s family, imaginings of his wife and daughter, found dead in their home. Callie O’Day, who will not see thirteen years, who is not anything like Athena except that she’s another soldier’s daughter. Stephanie O’Day, who clearly went down fighting, and, yes, that is just like Amy.
The voice comes in his ear. “Stand by.”
He checks Nessuno, on the opposite side of the door, Provo, Utah, SWAT team surrounding them as they wait, poised to move, outside this second-floor walk-up, this apartment. She’s miked and harnessed just as he is, a pistol in her hands. He remembers what she said on the ride in, remembers another woman saying the same thing not so very long ago, the woman who saved his daughter’s life and lost hers in trade.
I’m not a shooter.
Nessuno moves her head, just enough to dip her chin. Nodding. Yes, I am ready.
There’s the creak and rattle of men wearing body armor and holding weapons, all of them waiting on the razor’s edge. The door man on the SWAT team shifts, brings the mallet up, ready to strike.
In Bell’s ear, “Go go go.”
The hammer falls.
He goes to work on Tom O’Day at once, trying to bring him back to life, but even as he starts he knows it’s futile, and even though she knows it, too, Nessuno tries to help. Then Freddie and Isaiah pour through the door, and Bell abandons the room and sprints the length of the tunnel to Jorge’s. Brickyard is already on the line, Jorge hurriedly uploading everything that has happened in the interview room. Bell takes the phone.
“Steelriver?” Ruiz asks.
“He’s gone. We need a response to his residence, now.”
“Already en route.”
“I want a response to mine, I want a status.”
“Danso reported on the hour, all clear.”
“Have him check again. Have him do it now.”
“We will call back,” Ruiz says.
Fourteen minutes later, Ruiz does, and that’s when Bell learns what has happened to Tom O’Day’s wife and daughter. That is when Bell learns that Callie and Stephanie O’Day have been murdered in a home that only a handful of people in the world knew truly belonged to Tom O’Day and his family. A home that even fewer than that number should ever have been able to identify as the residence of the Indigo Second Team lead.
“We’re backing up Danso and Harrington in Burlington,” Ruiz says. “I’m dispatching an additional CI unit to Hailey; they should be there in three hours.”
“Not fast enough,” Bell says. “Freddie’s got two kids. I want to move them. We’re bleeding here.”
“I am well aware.”
“Nobody should’ve been able to find him. Nobody should be able to find us, and right now they can.”
“Second Team is not First Team, it’s not your team. We’ve no reason to believe you’re compromised.”
“And no way to assure me we’re not. I am moving Freddie’s family, with or without your permission, I don’t care, sir.”
It’s remarkable insubordination for Bell, and he knows it, and at any other moment, any other place, he would care. Right now he doesn’t, and right now, it seems, neither does Ruiz.
“Jet should be wheels down for your team in twenty minutes,” Ruiz says. “Westminster. We have receipt of the interview, will run the names. I’ll have a team handle the scene there. You lock it down.”
“We’ve sealed the room,” Bell says. “I’m moving Freddie’s family.”
Ruiz pauses. “Negative. I want you and Blackfriars in Westminster, I want to circle this thing, and I don’t want all of you on the detail. Chaindragger, Bonebreaker, and Cardboard, but you and Blackfriars, you come in.”
Bell rubs a thumb against his temple, feels the adrenaline beginning to leave. “How the fuck did this happen?”
“You said it. We’re bleeding from inside.”
“My family,” Bell says. “They have to be safe.”
“They’re out of our orbit, they’re not in Hailey. That might make them the most secure of all of us for the moment.”
“‘Might’ isn’t enough.”
“Which I recognize, Master Sergeant. It will be handled. Take Blackfriars. Westminster.”
Bell kills the connection.
“What’s the word?” Jorge asks.
“Break it down, you’re rolling out with Chain, you’re going to make sure Board’s family stays safe.”
“It cuts that deep?”
“Someone reached out to Tom and threatened his family, Jorge,” Bell says. “They held his wife and his child, and instead of turning to the men who’ve had his back since day one, instead of turning to us and trusting us to do what we’ve trained every fucking day of our lives to do, Tom shot Tohir in the head and then ate his gun.”
“He should have told us. We could’ve gotten them back.”
“That’s what I’m saying. But he didn’t.”
“Why?”
“Because someone had to have talked. Because, despite everything, he didn’t trust us.”
Jorge is heading for the basement stairs. “We’re fucked.”
Bell says, “We’ve got an active cell planning an action for this weekend, maybe. Tom O’Day was compromised, his family has been murdered. Brickyard wants me and Blackfriars to come in for reasons I don’t begin to understand. We are thoroughly fucked, Jorge.”
“Tell Freddie I’ll meet him at his house.”
“Will do.”
Bell leaves the room, makes his way back down the tunnel, slower this time. Isaiah is standing post at the interrogation room door.
“Freddie?” Bell asks.
“He went home, and I don’t fucking blame him,” Isaiah says. “We were watc
hing on the monitors, we heard what Tom said.”
“Jorge’s packing up and heading there now. You’re going to join him, and then you’re taking Freddie’s family to ground until you hear otherwise.”
“Roger that.”
“Where’s the chief?”
“Getting cleaned up. You should, too.”
Bell looks down at himself, sees that he’s covered in Tom O’Day’s blood.
“Come with me,” Bell says.
They stop at the gear room before reaching Bell’s basement. Isaiah grabs three of the ready bags, Bell takes another two. Once in the house, Isaiah heads for the front door and out, and Bell finds Nessuno coming out of her bedroom. He pulls off his shirt without breaking stride, heads into the bathroom, and runs water, finds it already hot.
“We move in five,” he tells her.
“Tohir’s dead, I’m not going anywhere. I’m done.”
“You need to sit with the body?” He rounds, angry at everything, at Tom O’Day’s death, at the murder of O’Day’s wife and daughter, and—not in small measure—at this woman he cannot track, who keeps slipping between the lines and making him question what he feels. “You need to make your good-byes, is that it? You work it out yet?”
“I told you not to put me in that room, I told you—”
“Did you know?”
She stares at him, loses her color. “How can you fucking ask that?”
“Did you know?” He steps forward, and Nessuno’s arms snap up, ready defense.
“You touch me you’re striking an officer, Master Sergeant. How dare you fucking even ask me that question.”
“So you’re an officer now? Is that who you are? Were you an officer when I had to keep you from putting your fist into his wound?”
“He said he was going to kill me, he said it like I was on a fucking to-do list.” Her arms come down, but instead of keeping her distance she steps up, lifts her chin, close enough for him to feel her breath. He can see that amber in her eyes, and it seems to flare. “Ratfuck sitting in that room, shooters on all sides, he threatens me? Like I’m his fucking toy? Like I’m his motherfucking plaything?”
“I have to know who you are. Right now. I have to know if I can rely on you.”
“Who am I? Who do you want me to be? You want the woman you fucked in D.C., is that what you want? Or the broken goods who came to your bed last night? You want me to show you my moves? You’ve fucking seen them. You know who I am. I’m all of it, Jad. You don’t live a lie without some part of it becoming true. Who am I? I’m all of it.”
Bell doesn’t speak, turns back to the sink, the condensation rising to cloud the mirror. He can see her through its mist. He can see himself.
“Your friend is dead, I understand that,” Nessuno says. “The situation is what has changed, Jad, not me.”
“You’re supposed to transit with me. Brickyard’s order. Grab your bag.”
Bell scrubs at his hands, at scrapes and cuts that still haven’t fully healed. The bandage around his palm came off at a time he can’t even recall, and the sting of the healing wound is galvanizing. He splashes water on his face, uses the damp hand towel to dry off, and Nessuno sidesteps out of his way as he heads for his duffel at the foot of the bed to search for a clean shirt.
“I’ve got to reach out,” Nessuno says. “I’ve got to report to Heath.”
“I would not do that.”
“I look AWOL.”
“You’re covered.”
“You think she’s wrong?”
“The only people I trust right now are headed out of town.”
She goes to grab her duffel, returns in seconds as Bell is shouldering his. He tosses her a gear bag, leads the way out of the house, locks up quickly. They make the drive to the airport in eight minutes, find the Learjet waiting for them when they arrive.
They’re in combat climb before Nessuno speaks again.
“They had his family.”
“They’re dead,” Bell says.
She doesn’t say anything.
“Brickyard says there were signs of a struggle,” Bell adds.
“How old was his girl?”
“Twelve, I think. Maybe thirteen.”
“Maybe forensics will pull something.”
“Yeah, that’d be nice, wouldn’t it?”
“You’ve got to hope.”
“Oh, I hope,” Bell says, and once he starts speaking this time, he can’t stop himself. The anger that flared when talking to Ruiz, the fury he directed at her, it surges, rises like a boil, inflamed, infected, aching. “I hope a lot of things, Chief. I hope there are forensics, absolutely. I hope we get a lead. I hope that lead gives us a name and an address, and I hope that gives us a positive identification. I hope we undeniably identify the piece of shit who pulled the trigger on Stephanie and Callie and, yes, Tom. I hope we put the fucking gun in their hand at the exact moment, without any doubt. Because once we have that, I am going to kill that motherfucker.”
The plane banks sharply, abruptly.
“I am going to pay this one in full,” Bell says.
Nessuno nods once, then points past his shoulder, and Bell looks to see the call light blinking beside the headset mount. He pulls the phones over his ears, jabs the button.
“Warlock, we have Brickyard.”
“Go for Warlock.”
Ruiz’s voice. “Jackpot. Ledor, first name Michael. You are being diverted to Provo, Utah. Your mission is to capture this asset for interrogation, to capture this asset for interrogation. Stand by for briefing.”
Bell listens, confirms, and from the corner of his eye, he can see that Nessuno has shifted in her seat, pivoting to face him, leaning forward. She catches his eye, but Bell just shakes his head slightly.
“What’s the support?” Bell asks.
“Local only, SWAT,” Ruiz says.
“They know we’re coming.”
“They will be aware. I need answers, Master Sergeant. This man can give them. Bring him to me.”
Bell replaces the headset on its hook, reaches for one of the gear bags he pulled from the tunnel storage. He indicates the second one, the one Nessuno had brought aboard.
“They’ve located one of the names, Ledor. We’re going to bring him in,” Bell says.
“I’m not a shooter,” Nessuno says.
“Local will effect the breach. You’ll stay on me,” Bell says.
“You’ll trust me that far? Put a loaded gun in my hand at your back?”
“You want to go through first, be my guest.”
“We square?”
“For the moment. They’ll take the door, deliver the first bangers, we’ll buttonhook the entry. You know what I’m talking about?”
“I know what you’re talking about, but you’re not hearing me. I’m not a shooter. I can’t cover you right.”
“You hit what you aim at?”
“Most of the time, yeah. I’m out of practice. I’ll get us killed.” She pauses, shakes her head. “I’ll get us both killed.”
Bell has his bag open in front of him, looking at the equipment neatly strapped down and arrayed, the magazines and the extra rounds and the weapon, the grenades. All the tools, all of them treacherous if not granted respect, and even then all of them willing to betray their masters at the slightest hint of negligence. Doubt kills. Doubt in ability, doubt in your fellows. To do this, he has to believe in her absolutely. To do this, she must have the same belief in him.
He turns in his seat, reaches out, and takes her hands in his. The tiny medallion she wears has come free from where it was tucked inside her shirt, swaying gently on its chain.
“No, you won’t,” Bell says. “I’m going to walk you through this.”
“Jad.”
“It’s just playing another role, Chief.”
“No, it’s not.”
“Right now it is. You’re going to do this. Today you’re a shooter.”
She closes her eyes, exhales, opens them on the
inhale.
“Talk me through it,” she says.
The doctrine is simple. Speed, surprise, and violence of action.
Speed. Hit fast, as fast as possible, so fast there’s no time to think. Surprise. Don’t let them know you’re coming, don’t strike where expected, when expected. Violence of action. Hit hard, hit so fucking hard they can’t think even if they weren’t surprised, so hard that they can’t fight back even if they want to.
The mallet hits the door, and the door hits the floor. Bell turns his head as the banger sails past, hears its muted blast behind his ear protection, and the SWAT team is through the door in a fluid rush. Another banger detonates, then a third. He hears the first “Clear!” and goes into motion, enters fast and going right, gun high and ready, and Nessuno, bless her, is stacked tight behind, covering left.
The first room is a rectangle, and they’ve entered at one narrow end. Thin curls of smoke from the banger hang in the sunlight coming through the now-broken windows. Bell sees a couch, a low table, a television, screen also cracked. He sees newspapers and a box from Domino’s and a half-empty bottle of Sprite Zero. He does not see a man who might be named Michael Ledor.
There are three doors, two left, one right, and an open square of kitchen. SWAT has moved left to clear, Nessuno’s side, giving good cover, and they bust the near door open, give it a banger, and one pokes his muzzle in and there’s another “Clear!” It’s outside of Bell’s sector, his slice of the room, and he doesn’t dare look away to confirm what he’s heard. He hears another door burst, another bang, and “Clear!” and the team is sweeping into his field, and only then does he change his aim, and they take the door and he turns his head to dodge the blast of light, and, doing that, he sees the first door, left, hanging broken and open, sees it’s a bathroom.
Two things happen at once then.
Behind him, the door right, the door the team has cleared. An explosion from within, a scream that makes it through the protection at Bell’s ears. He knows it’s a grenade without thinking, knows the sound intuitively, knows it’s a booby trap, maybe a trip wire; knows at the same time that someone wasn’t discreet, that they never had surprise.
