by G. K. Parks
“Can you hear me now?” I asked through deep inhales.
“Where the hell are you?”
“Outside the cemetery. I’ll go around the side and edge over to the dead zone. Have you heard from Jablonsky or any of our unreported teams yet?”
“Jablonsky phoned. He’s made about half the rounds so far. Everything looks in order. You’ve been told to return immediately to the federal building.”
“Yeah, fine.” I continued walking the outer perimeter of the fence. Snipers were positioned inside the mausoleum and on the roofs of surrounding buildings. There was a good chance that a sight was focused on me at the moment, but I didn’t think I’d be confused with Jakov Horvat. “I just want to check one other thing, and then I’m gone.”
“Now, Parker.”
“Damn, your impression of Mark is really good. You should do that at the next office party. It’d be a hit.”
As soon as I found the side entrance that the groundskeepers used, I pushed the gate open and ducked inside. In front of me was a stretch of perfectly aligned headstones with some random trees and shrubbery dispersed throughout. A few paths and stone benches littered the otherwise green expanse. As if fear of my own mortality hadn’t been commanding enough attention lately, this otherwise serene scene threatened to wreck my already bruised psyche.
“Hey, Eddie,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper, “in the event something unforeseen happens, will you do me a favor and make sure someone tells Martin that I’m sorry we wasted so much time?”
“Parker, what’s wrong? What’s going on?” Lucca sounded overly concerned.
“Nothing.” I scanned the area again, seeing a cluster of ‘mourners’ in the distance. On both sides were a large scattering of undercover agents. “Everyone looks like they’re in place on the ground. No sign of the commissioner or the mayor yet, so I’m guessing that Jakov is waiting for them before he moves in.”
“From the Horvat file, I’m sure that R.J. Cook must be a named target, so Jakov won’t risk exposure until Cook’s on scene. The appearance of the commissioner’s car will probably signify the beginning of the assault.”
“Is Cook going to be here?”
“No, we found a decent body double. Mr. Cook is actually in protective custody until this is over,” Lucca said condescendingly. “Weren’t you listening during the briefing?”
“I must have missed that part.”
“Parker, stop stalling and get your ass back here.”
“Did we check the groundskeeper’s building?” I asked, suddenly spotting a tiny shed positioned off to the side, secluded from the rest of the cemetery by a few tall trees that blocked it from view of the gravesite.
“HRT did a brief sweep before our teams began arriving but found nothing. DHS scouted it prior to that and determined that it provided no vantage point and wasn’t in close enough proximity to be used for effective implementation of incendiary devices. Three-quarters of the building is made out of cinderblock. It was cheap construction with thick enough walls to insulate a blast from spreading.”
“But it would be a great place to hide a cell jammer. I’m gonna check it out.” I started moving toward the building, and a burst of static shot through my earpiece.
“Say again, Parker.” The message came over garbled, just barely decipherable.
“Shit, Lucca,” I moved quickly toward the door, “the procession just cleared the front gate. Do you copy?”
The call disconnected, but I didn’t have the time to backtrack and phone again. Stuffing the phone in my pocket, I hurried to the door, glancing skyward. The trees surrounding the side of the building kept it from our sniper’s view, and there were no buildings near this side of the cemetery that would provide perches for our sniper teams. This would be where I’d stage my attack if I were Jakov Horvat.
Tightening my grip on my gun, I reached out with my casted arm and pulled the door open. The place was little more than a storage shed with a few shovels, some flower holders, and random tools piled along the sides. The floor was made of dirt and covered in dead grass and leaves. Entering, I didn’t spot anyone inside, and there weren’t any visible places to hide. Perhaps I was paranoid.
Deciding that the room was clear, I tucked my gun into my holster and checked my phone. No signal. A large toolbox sat on a workbench along the back wall. It would be large enough to hold a cell jammer and could have been missed by our teams who were scanning for explosives and weapons. Opening the lid, I found the tiny electronic device hidden inside an old candy bar wrapper. How the hell did it get in here? Turning it off, I picked up my phone and dialed Jablonsky.
“Horvat’s already here,” I said. “I’m in the shed.” I fell silent, hearing a creak. Placing my phone on the table, I pulled my gun just in time to see the end of a machine gun poke out of the ground.
It looked like the earth had cracked, and it took a moment before I realized that a metal hatch was hidden beneath the dirt and dead foliage. Jakov Horvat didn’t fire. Frankly, I wasn’t positive why he didn’t until he cleared the small staircase from the underground storage unit. Strapped to his chest was a bomb vest. He had thought of everything. He knew we wouldn’t risk firing upon him for fear of detonating the C4. I didn’t see a trigger, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t there.
Aiming at his head, I wasn’t convinced that my left-handed shot was good enough to take him out with one bullet before he opened fire or detonated the bomb, so I held back. He eyed me, recognition dawning on his face.
“I know you,” he said. “You were inside Pepper with that cop and his snitch. I was supposed to shoot you, but you jumped out of a moving car.” He cocked his head sideways. “That should have killed you. Then the PMCs we hired should have killed you.”
“Why did you hire PMCs?” I asked, hoping to distract him. “I thought you and Niko hated the military for what happened to your family.”
“I hate your soldiers. The peacekeepers,” he sneered, “they destroyed.”
“What’s the difference?”
“Why do you care?” He narrowed his eyes, sensing this was a trap. “You won’t be around long enough to tell anyone anyway.”
“They were former Soviet soldiers. Just like that shitty weapon you’re holding. Are those C4 bricks also from the Cold War?”
“Shut your mouth.”
I knew the line on my phone was open; I just didn’t know if Mark could hear me. I had to say as much as I could. Don’t focus on the consequences, Parker. I let out a sigh.
“Well, that’s a relief. They probably won’t even explode. And that hunk of junk, it’s probably too rusted to fire.”
“Let’s find out,” Jakov said. His finger tensed over the trigger, and I centered my shot.
“You’ll be dead too, and what will that accomplish? Your brother, Niko, is in custody. Shade and the rest of your terrorist friends have been eliminated. What’s the point? No one’s left.”
“I’m setting things right.” He studied my posture and aim. “Now lower your weapon.”
“Why? You’re going to kill me. I thought I’d return the favor.”
“This vest will be triggered if my heart stops beating.” He held up his wrist which had a heart monitor and some wires attached to it. “There’s enough explosive to take out the entire funeral.”
“Isn’t that your plan with the big gun?”
“I want to destroy the police. The family is innocent. I’ll let them go. It’s up to the peacekeepers to allow them to flee. We shall see what they do.” His rationale was twisted. He’d take out as many as he could but assumed that the officers would kill him, thus killing everyone else. In his mind, the fatalities would be due to police action and not his fault. “The rest will suffer.” He stared at me. “You will suffer.”
“Funny, Niko told me the same thing. Your brother’s an asshole. I can see the family resemblance.”
“Silence.”
My words hit a nerve. He pulled the trigger but didn’t
expect the recoil from the automatic weapon. It fired wildly, hitting high, and spraying the entire back wall while I hit the floor. Suddenly, the door burst open.
“Don’t shoot,” I yelled over the gunfire. “He has a bomb. It’ll detonate if he dies. Clear the area.” The tactical unit and Jablonsky immediately pulled back, but their appearance didn’t go unnoticed.
The gunfire stopped, and Jakov smiled at the damage he’d done. He announced something in his native tongue, which I could only imagine must have meant something like “this will be fun” and turned toward the now closed door. He planned on using my team for his target practice.
“Yo, Fuckoff,” I growled, pulling myself off the ground, “don’t you want to stay and chat some more? Maybe you need to reload. You’re probably empty by now.” He didn’t even turn around, muttering that I had wasted enough of his time. “Come on, you said you wanted to make me suffer. So do it. Or aren’t you man enough? Your brother was too much of a chicken shit to murder a woman because he was too busy crying over your dead mother.”
“Do not speak of them,” he screamed, spinning around to face me. This time, I knew he wouldn’t miss.
“Fuck you.” Pulling the trigger, I hoped that enough of the area had been cleared. It’d only been a few seconds since I told the team to clear out, but Mark had been monitoring my call the entire time. With any luck, the loss of life would be at a minimum. Jakov fell to the ground, his gun firing a random, nonstop spray behind him as his muscles tensed and the last of his synapses fired.
This was it. I shut my eyes. Unlike my partner, I knew the explosion was coming. It wouldn’t be a surprise. My eyes filled with tears, and I thought about the night before with Martin. Our last night.
Forty
Mark was the first one through the door when the gunfire stopped. Two members of HRT and a bomb expert were at his heels. The PKM was taken from Jakov’s dead hands. The bomb expert was analyzing the vest, wondering why it hadn’t detonated yet. Jablonsky grabbed me in a bear hug and dragged me out of the shed and away from the crisis zone.
It took Mark nearly an hour to calm me down. The hysterical sobs were the least professional thing that I’d ever done, but I couldn’t stop. I wasn’t dead. The vest had been a ploy. The C4 had been bricks of clay, and the wires connected to the heart rate monitor were nothing but decoration. The PKM machine gun was real and so were the hundred rounds fired inside that shed. Surprisingly, none of them hit me, but three of the tactical team that had been outside preparing to breach had taken stray fire after I killed Jakov. None of the injuries were life-threatening, but from the way I acted, an onlooker might have thought everyone had been slaughtered.
Assistant Director Behr, dozens of Homeland Security agents, ATF agents, and every other federal law enforcement agency were on-site, scouring the cemetery for evidence, additional weapons, and anything that might be of use. The police department was present in full force, and Lt. Tinsley was coordinating a grid by grid search to make sure we didn’t miss anything.
Lucca arrived to escort me back to the office where I was debriefed by Director Kendall and left to write my after action report and incident report. It wasn’t pretty, particularly the obvious refusal to obey orders. But it was done, and the consequences be damned. I didn’t care what they were. I didn’t care if my presence at the cemetery was appropriate or warranted. I knew the shooting was justified. Given the intel I had at the time, I didn’t see any other choice, and I said as much to Kendall and in my reports.
“How are the three men from HRT that got hit?” I asked when Lucca reappeared at his desk a few hours later.
“They’ll live. Harmon’s gonna be on crutches for a while, but the other two should be back at work tomorrow.” He looked around the room. “You’re insane. You could have gotten yourself and everyone else killed. What the hell were you thinking?”
“That I didn’t want to die.”
“You have a funny way of showing it. Why did you open fire? You didn’t know the bomb was a decoy.”
I blinked hard, hoping to keep it together. “They didn’t deserve to die.” I swallowed. “The cops who volunteered to be machine gun fodder and our colleagues that had no choice but to try to stop this, none of them deserved to die.”
“God, you have the worst martyr complex I’ve ever seen.” Lucca shook his head. “No wonder you have that damn commendation on your record and they let you come back to work after all the shit you’ve done. It’s ridiculous. You have a problem.”
I nodded. “I can’t do this anymore, Eddie. I didn’t want to. I swore that I was done, but I got dragged back. And I’m not even sure how or why. It just happened.” A stray tear fell, and I wiped my cheek with the back of my hand and laughed. “I’m a fucking mess. Completely unstable. Write that in your report. Write all of this in your report. Put me out of my misery. Please, Lucca. You keep saying you don’t want to work with me. You don’t trust being in the field with me, so get rid of me. Help me get out of here.”
“Alex,” he looked around the bullpen, seeing far too many people standing by, “come on, you don’t mean that. I didn’t mean that. We need a minute in private.”
“Are you going to snuff me out?”
“Don’t tempt me.” He led me down the hall and into Jablonsky’s empty office. Mark had left the door unlocked, so Lucca ducked inside and closed the door behind me. “It’s time you know what’s really going on.” He cleared his throat. “What I’m about to say can’t leave this room. Only Director Kendall and SSA Jablonsky are aware of what’s been happening. It’s the reason we’re partnered together. You’ve never liked working with me. We’ve had our differences and spats, but I trust you. The reason I voiced concern to Jablonsky was more for your safety than mine.” Lucca licked his lips and looked around the office “Do you remember why you were reinstated?”
“Because there had been a data breach and undercover agents had been compromised.”
“The security breach goes beyond a computer hack. I was planted at the OIO to investigate the breach, and within my first two months of being here, it became apparent that there’s a mole. I don’t know who it is, but sensitive information has been going missing. Evidence has been compromised. A few cases have crumbled. Witnesses have disappeared. It’s bad. Frankly, you’re the only one here that I can trust.”
“What makes me so special?” I asked, wondering if this was some elaborate tale to jerk me out of my pleas for help escaping this job.
“You weren’t here when this occurred. You had retired or went on sabbatical or whatever the fuck it is you were doing for two years. Hell, none of this even happened until after your last consulting gig ended. You’re clean, and you have an airtight alibi.”
“Because I wasn’t here?”
“Pretty much.”
“So this has nothing to do with me. I shouldn’t be here. Everything about today made that abundantly obvious. You wanted to have me reprimanded, so do it. Don’t chicken out just because you think you need an ally in your mission to find a mole.”
“Parker, I think the leak is the reason the police transport you were on was attacked. Hell, at first, I thought it was the reason for Donaldson’s murder and your near miss, but you never filed a FD-209 to say you were meeting with an unofficial criminal informant.”
“That’s why you’ve been acting so strange this entire time?”
“I hoped that we’d flush him out, but it didn’t work.” Lucca sighed. “I never meant to give you the impression that I didn’t have your back or that I posed a danger to you.”
“Just a danger to my career.”
“You do that to yourself,” Lucca said. “You’re reckless, just like today. Why? What makes you think that you deserve to die?”
I didn’t say anything, but Lucca was determined to wait me out. Finally, the door opened, and Jablonsky stepped inside. He gave us both a look, asked if our reports were completed, and kicked Lucca out.
“Parker, are you out
of your fucking mind?” Jablonsky growled. “I just came from Kendall’s office. As of this moment, you are on medical leave. Following that, you’ll be suspended for two weeks, pending an internal review.”
“Why don’t you make it a month?” I retorted.
“If you mouth off again, I will.” He glared at me. “Zip it. It’s also been mentioned, that there will likely be an award for bravery added to your file for your actions today. Your asinine, suicidal, insubordinate actions.”
“Permission to speak freely?” I hated when Jablonsky turned into a hard ass.
“Denied.” He leaned back in his chair. “If I so much as catch a glimpse of you anywhere near this building, I will make your suspension a month. You’re going home and staying there. We have your reports. There’s nothing left to do. Homeland is cleaning up the mess. It’s another day.”
“Are we positive Shade’s completely dismantled?”
“Unofficially, yes. The official report is under consideration by the powers that be, but we’re confident it’s over.” He offered a tight smile. “You had a lot to do with it.” I opened my mouth to speak, but he held up a finger. “No, I don’t want to hear whatever lame thing you’re about to say.” He softened slightly. “You scared the shit out of me today, Alex. Don’t do that again.”
“I’ll try not to.” I gave him a grim smile. “I can’t help it if that’s how the pieces fall.”
* * *
After leaving the federal building, I waited impatiently at home for Martin. Then we made love for most of the night. It was early morning when I opened my eyes, looking around the bedroom. We were on the floor, propped up against the foot of the bed. I wriggled out of his grip, and he opened his eyes, wondering what was going on.
“My leg’s numb,” I said, shifting off my side to get the blood flowing again.
“I love you too,” he chuckled. “I take it from the way you pounced the second I came home, that you’re not feeling much better than you were last night.” He put his arm around me, pulling the tangle of sheet around us. “I shouldn’t have taken advantage like I did, so I’m taking the proposal off the table for now. I had no right to ask that when I knew you were emotionally compromised.”
