Rules of War

by Matthew Betley

  Baker didn’t respond but only looked at the dark ground, leaning on Thomas as the two men stepped in synchronicity back toward the plateau.

  “Sounds like you’re in some serious trouble, my friend. Definitely wouldn’t want to be you,” Thomas said.

  “Neither would I, especially at the moment,” Baker replied.

  Cole turned and marched up the hill, disgusted with the vile piece of human trash he’d just saved and worried over the fate of his friends. The only reassuring thought was that John Quick—wounded or not—and Amira Cerone were a lethal combination. If anyone had a fighting chance, it was the two of them. But then he realized that whatever was to be had already happened. It was just for Cole and Logan to find out. What’s done can’t be undone, not now, he thought, concern becoming the primary emotion. Please, God. Let them be okay.

  PART V

  A FATHER’S LOVE

  CHAPTER 35

  Rolling Knolls Subdivision

  Prince Frederick, Calvert County, MD

  Twenty Minutes Earlier

  Thirty miles southeast of Washington DC, Calvert County in southern Maryland occupied the entire Calvert Peninsula. Bounded on the east by the Chesapeake Bay and on the west by the Patuxent River, it was a historically rural enclave with large farms and winding hilly roads with towns interspersed along the peninsula that ran from north to south, where the bay and river joined.

  The main town, Prince Frederick, was the county seat of power, where the sheriff’s office and county hospital were located. While the county itself was not well known outside Maryland, its most famous resident was a deceased, iconic international thriller author whose estate still stood on the cliffs on the bay.

  Over the past few decades, though, the county and Prince Frederick had become known as an exurban area of DC, a prosperous area for those who worked in DC but chose to escape every day and on the weekend to a much more peaceful, rural-suburban setting. As a result, businesses, franchise grocery stores, and new neighborhoods were being built or planned throughout the county. Crime was negligible, with most incidents and continuing problems revolving around drugs, the one scourge that seemed to plague every part of the United States, no matter how remote or insulated.

  The most attractive element of Calvert County was the cost of real estate. Four- and five-thousand-square-foot homes that went for upper six figures into the low seven figures just north in Anne Arundel County could be acquired for three and four hundred thousand, depending on the specific development. It was why Nicolo Cerone, retired Washington DC Homicide Branch detective, had fled the district to Calvert County after his wife of thirty-five years had passed away after a short battle with stomach cancer.

  Bad Luck Nick—or just Nick to his friends—had started his career as a young patrol officer in the DC police department in the hard-nosed, crime-infested Sixth District on the wrong side of the Anacostia River. The nickname had been earned after a string of suspects had either fled or fought Officer Cerone, with each one suffering multiple broken bones, but nothing critical. His peers and desk sergeant had joked, “They have really bad luck,” and the name had stuck and served him well later in the Homicide Branch. If Bad Luck Nick caught the case, the chances of it getting solved exponentially increased. In fact, it was the name that had drawn the attention of Amara.

  Nick had met Amara Dinsamo in an upscale Ethiopian restaurant near Union Station. Unbeknownst to her at the time, the luncheon Officer Cerone had been invited to was actually an interview to be an investigator in the Sixth District’s plainclothes vice unit. The sergeant in charge at the time, Frank Torres, had noticed arrest after arrest in the district’s “drug book,” the term affectionately given to the records log of arrests and confiscated material. Frank had researched the young officer, interviewed his superiors and peers, and requested the meeting outside the Sixth District. During that fateful interview that personally and professionally changed the course of Nick Cerone’s life, Frank had asked him about the nickname, and Amara had overheard it.

  She’d been so struck by his young, Italian, strong good looks and bright blue eyes—a rarity she recognized—that she hadn’t been able to help herself and had interrupted their conversation, blurting out, “Why would they call you ‘Bad Luck’?” She’d immediately apologized profusely, but the older officer had been amused, and Nick had shown no offense at all. In fact, he’d responded quite charmingly, “It’s not for me. It’s for the perpetrators that I come across.”

  “Why? Do you hurt them?” she’d asked, suddenly serious.

  And Nick had laughed, not maliciously but sincerely. “Not intentionally, but when you run from or fight the police, it usually doesn’t go so well, and bad things happen.” His tanned features had hardened momentarily, and he’d added, “There are bad people in the world, and when they do bad things, sometimes karma comes back to them. They bring it on themselves.”

  And with that, he’d struck a chord deep inside her. She’d seen not just bad, but horrible, evil things in Africa, which was why her parents had fled after a particularly brutal battle between the Eritreans and Ethiopians that had destroyed her village. He spoke the truth, but more importantly, she recognized a man who believed it was his job—his duty—to protect others who could not do it for themselves. And if the bad guys got hurt? So be it.

  She’d nodded and left them to their conversation, which had turned into an offer Nick had accepted. But one week later, when she’d thought about him often but hadn’t expected to see him, he’d shown up at the restaurant and asked her out. There’d been no hesitation on her part. Every instinct in her being had reacted to his presence, and she’d answered immediately the moment he’d finished asking, joining their two lives onto one path that they shared until the day she died.

  But when the lifetime together in DC had ended, Nick had needed someplace new, someplace fresh, to rebuild his life, which was how he’d found Calvert County and built the modern colonial home on two acres in a new subdivision surrounded by woods and undeveloped land. The Rolling Knolls subdivision had only twenty-five homes, but each one had anywhere from two to four acres, depending on the lot size and shape. Its residents were a mixture of DC elite, successful local business owners, and a few retirees, like himself. The pace was the extreme opposite of the violence and chaos that had consumed parts of DC in the nineties, and he’d been grateful for the sense of peace he’d found within himself.

  But unfortunately, his daughter had followed in his footsteps, albeit in her own way. He knew it wasn’t her choice, that she’d been called to the life inside the CIA, but no father wants his daughter to live a life of violence, even if it is for the greater good. While he didn’t know the details, he knew she was lethal, and he knew she had killed. He couldn’t explain how he knew, and they hadn’t talked about it, but as her father, he knew. He’d seen something similar in the officers he’d known who had taken lives—as had he—on the job. They weren’t guilt-stricken by it: every officer understood it could happen on any day at any moment, but good men and women did not want to kill others. Still, they had to be prepared psychologically and emotionally to do it, especially if they wanted to go home to their families at the end of their shift. It was the job.

  He was proud of her, and he’d accepted her profession, but he took every moment he had with her to emphasize what was important in life—time spent with loved ones and friends. He’d had plenty of both, and he wanted to make sure Amira didn’t get consumed with work the way young people tended to.

  It was also why he scrutinized every man she’d been involved with, including the one that now sat across from him in his kitchen—John Quick.

  The former Marine had been a constant presence in his daughter’s life for nearly the past seven months. Older than Amira by several years, he was ruggedly handsome with short brown hair and brown eyes, fit, well spoken, and ruthlessly sarcastic, a trait that Nick as a former cop admired. He had a disarming, self-deprecating charm to him, and Nick underst
ood why his daughter had fallen for him: John was as grounded as any man he’d met. But Nick also saw the trained killer, the professional Marine in him, and it gave him pause, although not much. Amira was strong-willed, and if she’d chosen John to be her partner, there was nothing he could do to stop it. Her happiness was paramount, and if the Marine made her happy in the life she’d chosen, then he supported their relationship, pure and simple. There was no denying how they felt about each other: it was tangible to anyone who spent more than a minute around them.

  For the first six months after his daughter had returned from Sudan, John and Amira, as well as Logan West, whom he’d also met, had been intentionally vague about their experiences, mainly to protect him. He knew they were spies of some kind, although that didn’t seem like an appropriate label for them, given their obvious physicality and capacity for action. But several weeks ago after the vice president had disappeared and multiple gun battles had erupted across DC and northern Virginia, they’d disclosed to him, without having to bluntly state it, that they were part of a task force and worked for the highest levels of the government. It’d been apparent whom they’d meant—the current occupant of the White House. With the knowledge came the realization that whatever Amira was involved in—which had nearly caused John to bleed out from his gunshot wound—was extremely dangerous, which only added to Nick’s level of concern for her welfare.

  The three of them sat around the ornate, heavy oak kitchen table in the sunroom that extended off the back of the kitchen. The sun had disappeared behind the dense wood line at the back of his property, and shadows fell across the flat backyard, even though there was an hour and a half before sunset.

  As Nick Cerone looked at his daughter, Amira, a flood of memories washed over him, each and every time, bittersweet and nostalgic, full of love that he felt for his daughter and had felt for his wife. His daughter would always be his princess. It was why they’d chosen her name.

  He looked back at John, and said, “How’s it healing?”

  “In all seriousness, way better than I thought,” John said. “The doctor told me that I’m making a ‘remarkable recovery for someone your age,’ at which point I reminded him about the men I’d killed and the fact that age discrimination was still a crime.”

  Amira rolled her eyes, but Nick asked, “And how’d that go?”

  “Fine, until they escorted me from the hospital and told me not to come back for another two weeks,” John joked one last time, before mercifully losing the sarcasm. “Bottom line—I can start working out next week. The hole has closed, and both the stitches and pain are gone. Honestly, it almost feels like I wasn’t shot at all.”

  Amira placed her hand on his. “You’re lucky, and you know it. No heroics anytime soon for you.”

  “Yeah, well, we’re not the ones in the field right now. So you’re right. No heroics. Scout’s honor,” John said.

  “But you weren’t a scout,” Amira objected.

  “Does it matter?” John replied, and winked at her. He looked back at Nick and said, “She takes me so literally.”

  Nick only shook his head and replied, “You better be careful, lest you upset her.”

  “Tell me about it,” John said. “I’ve seen what happens to people who do that.”

  I’ll bet you have, Nick thought, not really wanting to know the violent acts his daughter had committed.

  “Changing the subject, any news on the hunt?” Nick asked. The news continued to speculate as to the whereabouts of the vice president, but he knew that his daughter and John were two of the very few people in the country who might have an actual idea as to where the vice president had run. After the battle across DC while John was in the hospital, Amira had told her father what had happened, at least about Vice President Baker’s real role as a traitor. She’d cleared it with Logan and John, who’d talked to Jake Benson about bringing her father into the fold, especially since families had been fair game in the past.

  “Not yet, but I think they’re getting close,” John said. “We should know more within the next twenty-four hours.” John suddenly smiled. “But enough about work. Here’s the real question, the one that really matters.” He knew one of them would bite.

  Nick opened his mouth to reply, but Amira interrupted. “You know you’re only encouraging him, right, Dad?”

  Nick smiled. “There are worse things in the world. And we men have to stick together sometimes, especially if we have to combat whatever those millennial people think.”

  “It’s ‘millennials,’ not ‘millennial people,’ ” Amira replied.

  “Who cares?” Nick said. “From what I hear on the news, sounds like they better stop complaining about how hard life is and start working. But what do I know? I’m only a retired cop.”

  “I’ll drink to that,” John said, and raised his Corona to clink bottles with Nick, who did the same.

  “You two are insufferable,” Amira said in mock disgust, although internally, she felt a deep sense of contentment at the way the two most important men in her life had connected.

  Nick ignored her and asked, “What’s the question?”

  “Ah, yes. Almost forgot. The question is this—what’s for dinner? I’m starving. Getting shot has a tendency to increase one’s appetite. I think I read that somewhere,” John declared.

  “Unlikely,” Amira replied. “That would mean you know how to read.”

  Nick laughed and pushed his chair away from the table. “Come on. I’ve got the grill going on the deck. I’ve been marinating fillets all day. They’re in the fridge and ready to go.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” John said, and stood up from the table. He looked back down at Amira and asked, “What about you?”

  “You two boys have fun talking about how I’m emasculating you both. I’m going to go check the news in the family room,” Amira said, referring to the two-story main room adjacent to the kitchen.

  “Okay. But if you hear something explode, come check on us,” John said, leaned over, and kissed her quickly on the cheek, sending a shiver along her spine.

  “Wouldn’t be the first time you caused a propane tank to explode,” Amira said, the kiss still fresh on her skin.

  “Hey, that’s not fair! Logan is the one who shot it,” John replied defensively.

  “But you were the one who bought it, if I recall correctly. Proximate cause, babe. Proximate cause,” Amira said, and smiled wryly at him, pale-blue gunslinger eyes sparkling.

  “I had no idea you were so smart,” John said.

  “Shut up and go help my father,” Amira said. “See you in a bit.”

  CHAPTER 36

  Sixteen-year-old Anthony Buchman stared at the iPhone 8 display attached to the DJI Mavic Pro 2 drone controller. The latest generation of the Mavic drone was stunning in its responsiveness, 4K HDR video capability, and the fact that it could fly up to 44 mph. A quadcopter with four collapsible arms, the drone was so advanced it could automatically detect and avoid obstacles, track and follow high-speed objects, and automatically shadow its operator. The Mavic Pro 2 was a whirring blur of computing and audiovisual technology in the air.

  An ambitious, lanky teenager with brown hair and blue eyes, Anthony had spent the entire summer mowing lawns with a John Deere tractor that his father had purchased for him but for which he was paying his dad back on a weekly basis out of his earnings. The rest of his money had gone toward the drone. It was more than a hobby: it was his passion. At the age of thirteen, he’d become obsessed with all kinds of drones—miniatures, quadcopters, fixed wing, single rotor, large, small, he didn’t care—and his interest hadn’t diminished with time. Instead, it had strengthened, and he intended to follow his dream with only one objective—the Air Force Academy and then an officer career as a remotely piloted aircraft pilot. His father had thought drones were a passing fancy, but then he’d realized his son was committed, and he’d encouraged him.

  Anthony’s current mission—this was how he already thought of
everything in relation to the drone, in military terms—was to scout out the woods that ran all the way to the Patuxent River a few miles to the west of the subdivision. There was a random scattering of homes along the way, but it was mostly interconnected roadways and farmland. He also wanted to see what the sunset would look like in 4K HDR, taking advantage of the Hasselblad camera’s processing power.

  The drone rose into the air off his front lawn, and he watched on the screen as the ground in front of him grew smaller. He reached seventy-five feet in altitude, pressed the left joystick forward, and the drone shot out of his yard. Anthony looked up, a quick surge of adrenaline coursing through him as the small drone accelerated away and down the street. It never gets old, no matter what.

  The sun was low on the horizon, and he didn’t want the camera looking directly into it, even though he knew it wouldn’t damage the lens. He was just overcautious, as he’d only had the drone less than a week. He kept the camera angled toward the ground, and the drone flew over the home at the end of the street. Anthony saw a second vehicle, a new dark-blue pickup truck—he couldn’t tell the make and model—in the driveway, and the drone passed over it above the house.

  A moment later, he spotted the large deck, a grill, and the big backyard that he’d mown several dozen times over the past two summers. Seconds later, the drone streaked over the woods, and bare spots between the trees provided glimpses of the ground below.

  Movement flashed across the retina display. What was that? He pulled back on the left joystick, and the drone stopped its race across the treetops. He rotated the drone and lowered it, angling the camera to get a better view under the trees. Might as well give it a try. It has obstacle-avoiding technology. Let’s see how it works. He navigated the drone through a large opening between two old trees, muttering, “Please don’t crash.”