With a Vengeance

by Marcus Wynne

  “Yes,” she said. “But shit rolls down hill. And we get to push it back up. Congressman Sam Waters has been appointed head of a special investigation committee. He wants to hear what’s going on from the people who are doing the work.”

  “I don’t suppose anybody thought to explain to him that we’re too busy doing the work to take time out?” Hunter said.

  “Yes,” she said. “I did explain exactly that. Above our pay grades, Agent James.”

  Hunter sighed. “DC?”

  “No,” she said. “He’s flying out here with some aides. We can brief him right at O’Hare, and he’ll turn around and get on the plane. He doesn’t need to see anything except our faces, he says. Wants to look us in the eyes, or so he tells my bosses.”

  “Right in the white of our eyes, huh?” Hunter said. “Where do these guys get off?”

  Basalisa allowed herself a small smile. “Right in the white of our eyes. In front of the cameras. Make sure and bring your Visine.”

  Hunter allowed himself a small smile right back. “Roger that, boss. Roger that.”

  2

  The computer operator allowed himself a self-congratulatory slap on the table. He reached for his third can of Red Bull and took a long swallow, then forwarded an instant message to the computer terminal of Ahmed Samir Said.

  “Congressman Waters will be flying into O’Hare for a briefing with the investigators.”

  At his desk, alone, as all of his minions knew he preferred, the man called Ahmed Samir Said turned a knife over and over in his hand, with the sure steady hand of the well practiced. He paused, the knife still, then set it down gently on the table, and tapped out a reply.

  “Find out where the plane will be parked and the location of the briefing. Estimated Time of Arrival and Departure. Monitor the security and police arrangements.”

  He went that message, then typed out another: “Status.”

  Inside of an aging barn on a sprawling farm outside of Decatur, Illinois, 2 ½ hours south of Chicago, an expensive new Treo pinged in its sheath on the belt of a weary looking man with snow white hair. He fumbled at the sheath with the thick and calloused fingers of a long time farmer, which he was, and then tapped at the tiny keyboard till he read the message. Slowly, with many errors, he tapped out a reply: “On schedule.”

  The old farmer, easily in his sixties, shifted his feed cap back, then hitched his belted Dickies up beneath the swell of his belly. He counted the 55 gallon drums of diesel fuel stacked neatly against one wall, on the other side of the rented Ryder panel truck; he nodded to himself at the trailer with a tank of anhydrous ammonia parked against the back doors. It had been a long time since he’d worked with explosives and improvised devices, but he hadn’t forgotten how. Some things a man never forgot.

  Some things a man could never forgive.

  He walked outside and looked up at the sky, glanced at his watch. He couldn’t see the satellites, but he knew they were up there. But they couldn’t see what they couldn’t see.

  And they would never be able to look into a man’s heart.

  Chapter Six

  In a motel room, an Asian man registered under the name David Morrell stood in front of a mirror and studied himself. He bladed his body slightly, then flicked out his left hand in a blur of motion…and then his right hand came up with a Spyderco version of the Fred Perrin Street Bowie, five and a half inches of blackened razor sharp steel. The man held the knife pikal fashion, the grip clenched in his fist, the blade down and the edge turned inward. It made for a lightning fast draw from the kydex sheath inside his belt that kept the knife invisible to the casual eye, even under a very light t-shirt. The reverse grip facilitated the straight jab, backhand, unbelievably fast in the hands of an experienced practitioner, and this young Filipino was extremely experienced.

  And not just at jabbing in the air.

  He repeated his draw and thrust several times, then, satisfied, drew and thrust and moved fluidly through a series of follow up cuts. He resheathed the knife, then bladed his body to the opposite side, and began again, this time drawing with his left hand from the other knife concealed on his left hip. Satisfied with his cuts, he resheathed the knife. On the left side, his knife was just forward of the on the belt magazine carriers that held two spare magazines for the Sig Sauer P-228 9mm holstered on his right side. The Street Bowie rode just forward of the pistol. The pistol and magazines bulked out his T-shirt, but that didn’t really matter to the man.

  As a professional, he was quite competent and proficient with the handgun.

  As an artist, he thought the handgun crude, a coward’s weapon. The knife was an instrument of artistry; it required the artist to close with and deal with his opponent face to face, close enough to smell the insides of the men he’d opened up, close enough to be splashed with the blood he’d spilled. The knife was an intimate weapon, a weapon of penetration almost sexual in the intensity of its use, and that was one of the reasons the artist loved his knife. He had a collection of beautiful hand crafted ones, including some originals by Fred Perrin, who had designed the production knives he wore on both hips. But for a job in the real world it made no sense to use one of his beautiful customs; no, a workmanlike production blade that wouldn’t be missed, a blade like thousands of others, a blade he could leave stuck in his target and walk away from and never miss.

  He’d left a knife his grandfather had made for him in an opponent once, when he couldn’t get it out of the sternum he’d driven it through in full amok fury -- and he still missed that blade, hammered out of a truck spring by his grandfather, who’d taught him the way of the knife from the day he was big enough and old enough to hold one. He’d only been three, but his life was formed then. Grandfather had let him kill his first living thing with that knife, a boar pig they’d run down with dogs. The man never forgot the feeling of the tough boar hide resisting, then opening, beneath the point of his big knife.

  And he’d found that feeling again and again, on targets much tougher than any boar.

  He stopped, still, stared at himself in the mirror, the fine sheen of perspiration a glow on his tan skin. He pulled on a blue wind breaker; the yellow letters FBI were on his left breast, and then again in large letters across his back. The badge flip case on the dresser had an FBI ID with his picture on it and the name Tatsu Nakamura. He smiled at that; most Americans couldn’t tell the difference between a Japanese and a Filipino; most couldn’t tell the difference between some Asians and Hispanics.

  The last item on the dresser was an 8 ½ by 11 piece of glossy photo paper. Morrell/Nakamura picked it up, studied the face in the photo, then folded it up and tucked it into his pants pocket. He wouldn’t need it, but it might be amusing to leave it at the crime scene.

  A little deception went a long way.

  1

  The response to Hunter James’s tersely worded warning about stepped up surveillance on aviation security facilities in the upper Midwest brought a reaction as vigorous as stirring a wasp’s nest with a stick. First came the standard and to be expected questioning of his conclusions; bureaucratic default called for the execution of the messenger, never mind the message. Hunter was used to that, and had prepared accordingly. Even in the current climate, the machine’s response was that everything was fine, everything was okay, it just needed a little tweaking.

  Just like they had said on September 10th, 2001.

  Then of course came the objections about costs, and the pointed observations that everything was already at the top level of aviation security alerts, and that they couldn’t very well go higher. The airlines balked at even greater cuts in their passenger loads due to fear and anger; fear of flying, and anger at the increasingly intrusive methods of screening to supposedly circumvent the fear. Declining revenues led to ticket increases which led to even more cuts on the passenger load, and panicked airline executives leaned on lobbyists and called in favors to every politico they had a piece of. And then those politicos picked up their
phones and started calling Sam Waters, or Natalie Sonnen, or even a few, the highest of the high on the porkfat ladder, called the President.

  As Basalisa Coronas had observed, shit rolls downhill, so even in the face of an imminent and immediate danger to the traveling public, word trickled down to soften things, to take a second look to make sure it was actually as bad as it seemed…

  “These stupid motherfuckers,” Hunter said, without heat or passion in his voice. “If it were their families at risk, or their own skins, they’d be bleating the loudest of all about not doing something. But they’ll stay at home, take the trains, or put their families on private charters. And it’s Joe and Suzy Public and their 2.3 kids that get to go in harm’s way.”

  “Would you like the opportunity to tell Congressman Waters that directly?” Basalisa Coronas said.

  “Yes.”

  “Good. I’d like to tell him as well.”

  “Not very career conscious, are you, Agent Coronas?”

  She gave him the basilisk stare. “I’m career conscious, James. I don’t confuse career concerns with the concerns of my work. I’ll tell it like it is.”

  “Might be wiser to let me tell it like it is,” Hunter said mildly. “You can stand to lose me. The investigation can’t lose you.”

  There was an interesting play of micro-expressions across her face; Hunter had studied the work of Paul Ekman for a long time, and had added Ekman’s directory of facial cues to his own research in neural-linguistics to refine his own observation ability. There was anger and some disdain -- the knee jerk response of someone who felt she was being patronized or condescended to; then assessment and reappraisal, when she saw that he was honest in his statement and genuine in his concern; then a sudden flash of warmth and vulnerability, quickly concealed.

  Sometimes being a trained observer could be awkward.

  Hunter looked away and spoke to the wall. “Respectfully.”

  “Yes,” she said. Her voice gave nothing away. “We’ll share the hot seat, how does that sound?”

  “That’s fine, Agent Coronas,” Hunter said. “I’ll be in good company.”

  He looked at her and was treated to a fleeting glimpse of a small smile.

  “Make sure and have your coffee,” she said. “He’ll be here first thing in the morning.”

  2

  Sam Waters looked out the cabin window of his Department of Homeland Security Gulfstream at the flat expanse of the Midwest rolling beneath him. In the distance the towers of the Chicago skyline rose like an image from the Wizard of Oz, a shining crystal city rising on the edge of blue water and surrounded by a green expanse.

  This was the way to travel; Sam loved private jets. Though not as palatial as some of his cronies’ Gulfstreams and Lears, the DHS corporate jet was still just plain fine.

  He turned his attention back to his laptop and the PowerPoint presentation Jeannie May had put together for him on the two investigators honchoing the Ahmed Samir Said project. Both of them were very interesting people, and Sam, apart from the canny political operator who collected influence and influential people the way some obsessives collected knick knacks and gee gaws, he enjoyed being around interesting people. He liked a good story and enjoyed people who he felt he could relax around, which weren’t many, but surely found more often in people who weren’t Washington DC or political people than otherwise.

  Basalisa Coronas was a good looking woman, that’s for sure, if your taste ran to Asian. And a shit hot field agent according all accounts, and a man-killer in the true sense of the word. Exceptional.

  But Hunter James…he was a piece of work, this guy. A real piece of work.

  Sam scrolled through Hunter’s records, lingered on the classified extracts provided by the Central Intelligence Agency. This guy had done it all. Soldier, not just a soldier but a paratrooper in the 82d Airborne; old school Federal Air Marshal and top instructor; a good enough guy in the wilds of the black ops world that the CIA had borrowed him for some projects that were so classified that even Sam couldn’t get the details, just some of the locations: Europe, Iraq…

  And of course, there was Flight 923.

  That left Sam, and most of the free world, in awe of Hunter James. Of course, Sam knew that Hunter hadn’t killed all the terrorists by himself; the other Marshals had fought and fought well, but to be the last man standing, that was something. And then to come back and deal with that incident in the airport.

  Impressive.

  But if you looked in the dictionary under Bad Luck, you’d probably find Hunter James’s picture. Failed marriage, no real life outside his job, seriously injured and his ability to father children taken away (Sam shifted uncomfortably in his seat and tugged at the crotch of his pants), and then caught up in the trauma of not one but two of the most deadly terrorist incidents on US soil since 9/11. Sam lingered on the photo embedded in the file, a close up of Hunter James’s face, right after the O’Hare incident. There were lines of stress there, and pain etched in the planes of his face.

  He looked like a man without friends, or many of them any way, and that was how it was for some men, who were good at what they did, but what they did took them so far outside the mainstream that they stood alone, out there in the dark, and watched the peaceful but ignorant masses they protected pass by, happy and content and completely unaware of what the hard men out in the shadows did and gave up on their behalf.

  Men like that craved friends, real friends.

  And Sam knew how to be a friend.

  Or at least a reasonable facsimile of such.

  Sam decided then and there that he needed to become Hunter James’s new best friend.

  3

  Basalisa Coronas stood at the head of the conference table in the briefing room borrowed from the O’Hare Federal Security Director. Hunter James stood to her right, and a handful of selected members from her CIRG team stood by with laptops and flipcharts hastily prepared over night. The local SAC had the job of meeting and greeting Congressman Waters and his entourage at the corporate air terminal and seeing them here to the main terminal for the briefing. Basalisa had begged off from the tarmac welcome to prepare her brief. She didn’t know Waters, other than what she saw on television and had read about him, but she’d delivered hundreds of briefings in her time, and this would just be one more in a long line stretching forward and back.

  She tilted her head slightly so she could watch Hunter James in her peripheral vision. You had to have a trained eye to notice the lingering effects of his injuries. He had a slight hunch, as though he were drawing in his groin and abdomen. Part of that was scarring, part of it residual body memory from pain…but the real signs were in his face. He lived with pain, she could see that. And not just the physical kind, though it was apparent when he moved gingerly, especially when bending or flexing, that he was in physical pain. There was a weariness beyond normal weariness in his face, carefully concealed (or so he thought), a sadness to his eyes and, on occasion, when she caught him, a look that seemed to be far off in the distance, watching something precious slip away, or die.

  She was a killer, too, and knew what it was like to take the shadow of a life-taker onto one’s self. But she also knew the secret that all righteous killers know: there is a dark joy in the act, when it’s justified, when it’s right, that the uninitiated will never know. To those who’ve prepared for it mentally as well as physically, while the act of taking a life changes them, it doesn’t necessarily scar them.

  Necessarily.

  But it wasn’t the killing that weighed on Hunter James.

  She noticed how his eyes lingered on children when he saw them, and she remembered in the detailed debrief of the Flight 923 hijacking the Bureau had put together for Supervisory Agents the act of the last hijacker, the team leader, who had killed a child hostage in front of Hunter James when he was near death from his wounds.

  That was a nightmare to any shooter who went in harm’s way to protect the innocent; to watch an inno
cent life snuffed out in front of you, and be unable to do a thing about it.

  Basalisa wondered how he lived with it. There was no judgment in her wonder; she was a member of the club, and an intense curiosity about how the other members fared in their aftermath was at the root of it.

  He was strong. No doubt about that.

  She was glad he was here today. Though she projected her usual air of cool confidence, she was worried about a non-investigator would say about the thin results they had thus far. Another investigator would look at the leads they’ve unraveled, and the directions the investigation was going in; a politician would ask the obvious questions: When will you have these guys in custody? And why aren’t we there now?

  And she’d be tempted to give the real answers: We don’t know; and, because we’re here talking to you instead of chasing leads.

  She heard the entourage coming down the hall through the open conference room door, and took a breath, shifted her weight forward on the balls of her feet, and raised a small, neutral smile on her face. To her right, Hunter James did the exact same thing.

  The SAC of the Chicago Field Office was a short, tubby, officious man named Romeo McLaughlin, which got him laughed at openly by those of his pay grade and behind his back by everyone else. SAC McLaughlin got around it by using only his first initial and to all the unknowing world was R. McLaughlin, which suited his officious manner.

  “And here we are, Congressman!” R. McLaughlin said in the too hearty tone of the official ass kisser. “Right this way.”

  Basalisa suppressed the smile welling up in her and glanced over at Hunter. He dropped a slow wink at her and then turned to watch the Congressman’s entrance.

  It was obvious to any skilled observer that Sam Waters knew how to make an entrance. He came in and swept the room, immediately assessing everyone’s position in the pecking order, and then took his time, moving up the table from the lowliest grunt agent there to fetch coffee and copies, stopping long enough to make meaningful eye contact, a firm handshake, a low word meant only for the person caught in the head lights of his intent look, and then on to the next.