If he would have come up with a “Rad,” then a puppet would have dropped out of the ceiling and presented today’s prize. Scott wasn’t so jealous of Axel anymore, and he let the haircut continue while he went into his mail. He was reading a comment on his article about that concept Sim Game out of Philly. The Blogger wrote, “Why don’t they just hire Ted Kaczynski to be in charge of shipping, too.”
Scott was annoyed. He knew this troll, some diehard Mariners fan whose screen name was Grif4ever24. He was sure the douche just spotted some simple error he’d made, and then made it out to be the biggest deal ever. In one rant, he called for Scott’s removal from the newspapers staff.
So he meticulously went over the article while Axel was shaving his neck and evening him out. The article was clean—and then he saw what this man was talking it about. It appeared that Tom was a near doppelganger for another famous man. Scott had attached file photos of Robert Leme and Tom Holsinger, the latter of which he took himself when he and his wife re-entered the country from Mexico.
The one real reporter-like contact he had was his Uncle Tim. Uncle Tim worked for the Department of Homeland Security’s TSA division. It started innocent enough. He tried to contact Holsinger, and his mom said he was out of the country indefinitely. He thought it odd because Leme assured him the guy would talk after he got him warmed up. Now he was out of the country indefinitely? At the time, it added enough intrigue to get him to call Uncle Tim.
Tim couldn’t find out anything about Tom himself, but his wife and kid were due to come back in three days on United Flight 1147 from Mexico.
Scott sat and waited for a good half an hour for the Hursts, who he had thought were the Holsingers. He had to buy a refundable ticket and check in before he could enter past the security area. While he hung around, he ate fish and chips and drank a pitcher of beer in the process. He allowed the beer while working because this wasn’t a high intrigue, life or death case, he just had a need to do better than anyone and the guy was right here in his back yard.
The plane disembarked and there he was with his wife, or she was a cheating whore, one of the two. He knew it was the Holsingers as he checked her seat location, and she would be the fifth person off the plane. After he took the picture, he had followed them back to an address on Lummi Island. Once he had the address, then the property records were easy enough to check, and the property had been sold to a Tom Holsinger. At the time, Scott figured the omission on the flight was a simple clerical, but now that he was looking again, he wondered if he should stop drinking while he worked, maybe he would have thought to make sure.
He paid for his haircut and headed to his car when the full weight of this revelation rung his bell.
She knew.
He had sent her all of his blogs and she read them, he knew that for sure. So she caught onto this, and instead of trusting him with the story of a lifetime, she lied to him and made it seem like a personal need. What a fucking bitch.
So she was really rushing here to get her scoop and leave him again, just like before. Not this time, he thought, this time would be different. He looked at his freshly shaved baby face in the car mirror and came up with an idea. He really had believed a few short minutes ago that the story and pictures of the ferry tragedy were going to be the highest rung he was ever going reach, but he was wrong. This was now his story, as long as he had the balls to stand up and take it.
Lauren was using him when she should have trusted him. He would have done anything for her, but he refused to be used like this by anyone. He was going to fight back. He dialed his editor and Tina answered on the second ring. He didn’t introduce himself, he just spoke, “Do you want to get nationally famous?”
4 – Hellfire
Kim’s cell phone vibrated right in the middle of her meeting; not her work phone, which was on the desk in front of her, but her private phone. Only a select few had the number and even a more select few would dare to call it mid-day. It was a text, not a call and it simply said, “lunch.” The sender was her husband, Ray, and the only other time she had seen him so curt was with someone else, never her.
The situation in Seattle was getting a lot of attention as they now knew it was an electronic device that felled the airliner. Lawrence was going to have to go on national television in a little while, and they needed a cohesive story to throw out there until someone could figure out what the hell was going on.
By the initial looks of it, Pablo Manuel was back. She looked at the phone again and grew more concerned, as Ray of all people knew this was not a take lunch kind of day. His office had to be busier than hers because the President was waiting—in other words, she expected a report very soon from the Foreign Threat Assessment Head.
She picked up her iPad next to her phone and sent her aide, Charlie Mayfield, a message to cover for her, as she had something urgent that she had to follow up on. He agreed without question because that was what he was paid to do. Kim then got up and exited without explanation.
They usually ate at a Greek Deli on 19th Street, so without actual lunch instructions, she drove the block while her detail waited outside. She walked in and was very surprised to see the look on her husband’s face. She sat down. It appeared that he had already ordered, although she doubted they would be doing much eating. Before he could get it out, she cut him off in a very hushed tone, “It wasn’t my call.”
Ray never took his eyes off her, as she him. The two of them in a stare-down situation like this was Ali versus Frasier, and seeing this was their first real fight, make that an Ali/Frasier one. “I knew you were going to say that, Kim, and my reply is, some boys back in Germany had a similar thought back in ’39.”
He super-lowered his tone and played off his body language. He quipped, “You know I consider Matt my family and I cannot believe you sanctioned this sacrificial lamb behavior. You should have told me, Kim. We’ve always respected each other’s jobs and have done a very honest job of keeping up moral obligations, but this was different and you know it!”
She knew he was right. She knew she should not have let them make Matt a decoy to draw Manuel out, but what could she do? President Caulfield assured her that precautions were being taken to ensure Matt would be okay. “Look, Hon, you know how things are. I was not at liberty to discuss it with you or anybody other than your boss and my boss. That was it. Now, the information I was given was that he was going to be just fine and he didn’t need your overseeing. Lawrence figured you had enough to worry about with your new job and all.”
Ray admonished, “If you’re trying to tell me that what’s going on right now isn’t wrapped around that decision, I’ll eat my hat.”
“You can’t know that for sure, Ray.”
Ray replied condescendingly, “Sure, Kim, I’m known for misreading situations, built my name on it.”
Kim tried to control her emotions. Ray was the only person who knew she had them. “You realize this is not the place to do this and we’ll both answer for it.”
“I don’t care, Kim, this is bigger than that. We have this life where we’re supposed to be married. But then you can carry such a devastating secret like it was no big deal? You and I know, as far as I’m concerned, our friend was more than a big deal to me. He was the most broken person I’ve ever met. The fact he was able to pick himself up after the trauma of that ordeal is a miracle, and he needed to be left alone. Not only did you guys not do that, but then you decided to use one of the greatest American heroes in all of our history.”
She looked at him with deep concern, “You think I’m capable of doing that? I did nothing. If anything happened like that, it came out of your neck of the woods, not mine. Maybe you should be having this conversation with Eric and not me.”
The food showed up and Jenny, the owner, asked, “What’s wrong?” They ate there every week and she had a private table set aside for when they came in. Kim was a good tipper and Jenny knew who they were.
Ray answered, “Nothing, just work.”
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She looked at him and said, “You of all people should know that you need to leave work behind when you leave the building.” Then she looked at Kim and said, “Both of you. If you’re going to make working together work, you have to have a set of rules,” affectionately looking at her husband and partner of thirty years, “even if you run a Greek Deli and not the Free World.”
Ray knew her story. She and her husband, Tom, immigrated here and worked hard doing many jobs and living sparsely to get enough money to open this place. They’d run it successfully for twenty-five years together, and Ray knew that she was right. Jenny had such pretty blue eyes and even though she was approaching sixty, she still looked great.
Jenny left them and Ray looked at his concerned wife, “I guess we knew this day would come; it had to happen when we had a conflict of interest. It’s why our bosses cringed at the notion of us together. That doesn’t mean I have to like it, though.”
She nodded her agreement and took a bite of her Gyro. After they ate in silence, only checking their phones, she said, “What are you going to do?”
As they rose, he pecked his wife on the lips and said, “I’m going to help him. I have that power now. Looks like you have to keep more than their secrets now.”
She gave him the look that she reserved for only one man other than her Father. He could be infuriating at times, but ethics were so important to Ray, and it always made her feel that if he used that much effort to stay honest and true in the world, then he would surely do it within their marriage.
“I can live with that. Be careful, we still have bills you know.”
They went their separate ways, but would soon see each other in a threat assessment meeting where only a few people knew what the real threat was. Ray was sure his wife was truthful, but this part of government was such a waste. All their resources should be focused on Matt, but a ghost is hard to explain. Ray got in his town-car and asked to head back to Langley. He had something he could put into play there, something he’d recently learned about and the timing and placement couldn’t be better.
Ray was walking back to his desk. He had one hour until his meeting at the White House, and his staff meeting was starting now. He told his assistant, Wanda, to start without him as he was running late. He knew his excursion would put an extra burden on both their days, but he had needed to hear it from his wife, that she was not duplicitous in setting Matt up like this.
He was hurrying down the hall when he almost trucked his boss over. Eric was carrying a coffee and deftly maneuvered his wrist to avoid spillage. Ray said, “Sorry, I’m late for my staff meeting. I take it you just came from the White House?”
Eric always had a hangdog face, but it hung a little lower right then. “Ray, we need to speak in your office. Susan Mason from the NSA is waiting for me in mine, and the minute I show up, there will be no peace as the list of things I have to accomplish today is a mile long.”
Ray agreed, and they headed back to his office. Once past his Secretary, Mitch, they settled in to talk. Ray’s office was littered with tidbits of the world’s greatest minds, including a framed doodle from Einstein of the equation PI that Ray treasured dearly. Eric avoided getting sucked into a conversation about some of Ray’s conversation pieces, as he needed this meeting to be succinct and get out of there quickly.
Eric looked at his Director, “Was it necessary to go and do that, Ray? Was it necessary to go and pull Kim out like that? You two are already walking a fine line, and even something this innocuous can have one of you sidelined. And I don’t need to tell you who it will be.”
Ray looked at Eric with that look that he was known for. Not snarky, but so assuredly right it was impossible to not look smug, “I’ve figured this all out, as you must have known I would. I'm just wondering what the plan is now?” Ray straightened his posture as he continued, “You guys underestimated who Pablo would go after. You thought he would have been happy just going after Matt, but now we know that Doug Sharp was the pilot of the Airliner. That pretty much seals it; he wants to destroy everyone Matt knows. You guys are in over your head. You have an inside secret that the threat assessment teams don’t know about and it will skew what they advise, wasting time and resources. Eric, if you don’t know it yet, now is the time to let me take over; it’s not too late.”
“Just what did your wife tell you, Ray?”
“She didn’t say anything, just like you, this is a listening conversation. I know what went on here and I’m telling you that it’s time to pull the plug on it and let’s bring him and Jan in right now. We know they’re not safe.”
Eric responded with passion, “Do you think I like this shit? Only a select few know just how powerful Manuel probably still is. One sniff of this and all those followers are going to start up again everywhere. This is bigger than you or me or your buddy, Hurst. No one wants to be the first guy on the suicide mission, but that doesn’t mean if you survive that it will be your one and only. Hurst was hidden well, it was happenstance that exposed him.”
“Well Eric, we see what Pablo really wants and we either literally dangle them out there or we pull them in. What’s it going to be? One other point I’d like to make. Those soldiers you speak of went knowingly on those suicide missions. They may have been drafted, but free will drove them up that hill, that and fighting for the man beside them. Not that Matt wouldn’t have volunteered, but you guys never even had the decency to ask him.”
“Your naiveté is surprising, Ray. I assumed you had this figured all along, what with that great analytical mind of yours. But I suppose you are right at this point, it probably would be prudent to bring him in.”
Relieved, Ray asked, “Do we know where he is?”
Eric pulled his phone out and requested someone’s presence. A few moments later, after getting sucked into a discussion about Ray’s autographed copy of Will: The Autobiography of G. Gordon Liddy, Jeff Walton came in carrying a laptop.
They set it up so they could all see the screen and it showed a GPS blip of Matt’s marker on a map grid. His dot was heading toward the Canadian border. Agent Walton commented that Matt went up that way all the time, and in fact he had been there this morning.
Ray asked, “How big is the team covering him?”
Eric answered in a less than steady voice, “We keep two Agents at the five mile marker.”
Ray looked at Eric and Jeff and asked, “How’s that coverage?”
Jeff answered, “Hurst goes up there all the time and as it’s sparsely populated, we have to lay back.”
Ray had that look again, “How often does he go into Canada?”
Jeff answered, “He doesn’t, why?”
“Because unless I’m mistaken, that dot just crossed the border.”
Agent Walton became very interested and picked up his phone. He instructed the five-mile team to make a visual. Being this close to the border, Walton’s team had passports, as he was no rookie. It was a tense thirty minutes that passed by them running their offices off their mobile devices. Finally his phone buzzed and he was patched into a live video feed of an old couple driving a large sedan. The beacon was right on, so Hurst or someone else switched his tracking device to another car.
The agents were being rerouted back to the U.S., but it would take longer to get back heading south.
Agent Walton turned to Ray and said, “This shouldn’t have happened, we’ve had this tail for months.”
Ray impatiently explained, “Exactly, Jeff, agents become complacent and they forget about the little things, and the next thing you know, the cat’s out of the bag, your cover is blown, and you’re chasing down old people in Canada.
“How one’s cover gets blown on such a loose cover job as this I have no idea, but it happened. Maybe there was shoddy placement of the tracking devices themselves. Either way Jeff, it’s done. Now please reroute the agents to the Hurst property ASAP. They are to retrieve the Hurst family on the highest alert level.”
Agent Walton looked
at Director Barnett who barked, “You heard, Ray, Jeff, get a move on and see who Seattle can spare, get a chopper up there for Christ’s sake.” Without hesitation, Agent Walton did just that. Eric looked at the smartest man he had ever personally known and said, “Think you can really get us out of this, Ray?”
Ray quipped, still slightly wounded, “I’m the best hope you’ve got. I also happen to have an ace in the hole.”
“Oh really, do tell. What is that?“
“Now, Eric, if I told you that, then I might as well let you know what your ‘tell’ is when you lie, and where’s the fun in that? Do I have control or not?”
“Yes you do, Ray, and if you succeed, the President will owe you once again.”
“I’m doing this for Matt Hurst, Eric, and the American public.”
They parted to head to their respective meetings, but Ray had ten minutes to make a call and he did just that. The call was to Frederick Tedesco, Matt’s current therapist and a specialist in Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. They had been friends for many years and Frederick worked with the Agency a lot.
They were more than contemporaries, they went to College together and Frederick had beaten Ray at everything since the first day. He was his literal nemesis at every competition. He was also very rich, as he chose a private practice and his fees were exorbitant. But as in the case with Hurst, he had to fly across the country to see him twice a month.
Because of their friendship, and the fact Matt was a transferred patient, they compared notes and future treatment schedules. They had built a working relationship and Ray often wondered where its boundaries lay. Well he was about to find out.
They had been talking last week and before they discussed Matt, Frederick had brought up Malcolm Ward, a patient who was done with acute care and was now being sent back to Seattle where he lived. He was assigned to Frederick and now he could see him in Seattle at the same time he visited Matt. Malcolm Ward was an Agency assassin who had just come back from Afghanistan and his legend was not a thing unknown to Ray. According to Frederick, he had no PTSD symptoms that were preventing him from a return to active duty.
Without Wrath (Harbinger of Change Book 3) Page 20
