by David DeLee
“Depends on what it’s about.”
“Chase Edwards.”
“I don’t know anyone by that name.” O’Shea started to close the door.
Kayla opened the storm door. “Sir, please. It’s a matter of national security.”
“Don’t care.” He continued to push the door closed.
Tara shouldered past Kayla and kicked the door in.
O’Shea stepped back, startled, but not to the point of disorientation Tara had hoped for.
He crouched and expertly drew a Colt .45 Desert Eagle he’d had concealed behind his right leg. He aimed it unwavering at Tara’s face.
In turn, she cleared leather and had her service Sig pointed at him in a two-handed grip.
“Who are you?” he demanded, staring down the .45’s sights.
“Coast Guard,” Tara said.
“Her maybe.” He indicated Kayla with a nod. “Not you. Not with a halide knife strapped to your hip, a dive knife in your boot, and if I’m not mistaken, that’s a urumi you’re using as a belt, isn’t it? No puddle pirate I ever met carried weaponry like that.”
The urumi was a sword made of a flexible, four-foot-long, steel blade. Tara did indeed use the ancient weapon as a belt. The hilt worn on her left hip.
“You know your bladed weapons,” Tara said, impressed.
“It’s how I’ve stayed alive all these years. Now, I won’t ask again. Who are you and what do you want?”
Kayla stepped into the foyer. “We’re here about the President’s capture this morning. You’re former CIA. I’m sure you’ll want to help.”
“Emphasis on former.” He eyed Kayla thoughtfully. Then with a twist of a smile, he lowered his gun. To Tara, he said, “You’re a hell of a fast draw.”
She returned her Sig to its holster. “You’re pretty spry yourself.”
“For an old guy.” He stepped back. “I don’t know what you think I can do for you, but I’ll give you five minutes.”
Tara and Kayla crossed into a small living room, tastefully decorated in stereotypical nautical themes; paintings of lighthouses and ships on stormy seas, a life-ring with brained rope hung on the wall, and a wooden statue of Old Salty, a carved sea captain smoking his black pipe and wearing his blue coat and white seafaring cap on the mantel under where a fire crackled in the fireplace, filling the room with a warm, woodsy scent.
As it always did, the common statuette reminded Tara of Captain Floyd.
“I just put on a pot of coffee if you’re interested.”
The thought of hot coffee sounded like heaven to Tara as she holstered her weapon and followed the man into the kitchen. O’Shea grabbed three cups from a cabinet and filled them with steaming rich coffee.
“How do you take it?”
“Black,” Tara and Kayla both responded.
He passed cups to them then filled his own with a large helping of cream and an unhealthy heaping of sugar. He went through a glass slider and stood at the rail of the back deck.
Tara and Kayla followed him outside.
He sipped his coffee and looked out over the channel that served as his backyard. “Nice boat,” he said, surveying the Sea Ray. “Yours?”
“A friend’s,” Kayla said.
“What’s a man thirty years dead got to do with the predicament the President’s gotten himself into?” O’Shea asked, dropping any pretense he didn’t know him.
“We have reason to believe Chace Edwards isn’t dead.”
“That would be news to me,” O’Shea said without turning.
Tara let Kayla do the questioning as she studied O’Shea’s mannerisms; body language, hesitations, verbal clues for signs of deception.
“Tell us about him,” Kayla said.
“Can’t.” He turned. “Not that I don’t want to. Can’t. As his CIA Case Officer, the information I have goes way beyond your clearance levels. I may be retired, but my oath remains intact. National security, blah, blah, blah.”
He waved his hand dismissively in the air.
“Beyond category two Yankee White clearance?” Kayla asked. “I don’t think so.”
Yankee White, the level of clearance given to personnel who work in direct support of the President and Vice-President in extremely sensitive positions. Clearances didn’t get much higher than that.
O’Shea turned. Tara watched O’Shea’s eyes in reaction to that. While his features remained stoic, he blinked in surprise. “Then I was right. You two ain’t no regular puddle pirates.”
“Chase Edwards,” Tara said. “Lives depend on it.”
“Sure. Don’t they always?” He glanced at the deck’s redwood flooring. Dark red and freshly treated. “Chase Edwards was a former Delta Forces operative recruited into the Agency’s Special Operations Group prior to the second Gulf War. He was part of the Special Activities Division, the combat version of the CIA. He was embedded with the first combat troops in country, at the very start of Iraqi Freedom. Forces that were instrumental in organizing the Kurdish military and U.S. led coalition forces in the fight against Saddam Hussein.”
“What happened to him?” Kayla asked.
“Killed in action. Operation: Lightning Strike. A classified op early in the war meant to root out al-Qaeda strongholds in the northern mountain regions. Their mountaintop positions were bombarded by airstrikes, sixty-four tomahawk cruise missiles softened up the targets for advancing ground troops. Led by Chase, Army mountain division Special Forces, and infantry regiments, along with airborne units parachuted into the area. They fought alongside Kurdish forces.
“The ground assault called for a six-prong advance. The attack from the south was met with heavy fire. The American forces were pinned down in a particularly nasty area where the deep valleys blocked radio signals and prevented them from calling in airstrikes. They persevered and fought on throughout the night. A combination of machine-gun fire, well placed, long-range sniper fire, and artillery provided by the Kurds finally dislodged the enemy combatants, forcing them to flee further into the mountains, toward the Iranian border.”
O’Shea finished his coffee and set the cup down on a nearby picnic table. As he told the story, Tara could almost hear the explosions, feel the ground tremor, smell the fear and determination of men at war. Sensations, and experiences, she was all too familiar with.
“The skirmish continued. The enemy tried to escape over the border into Iran. A number of them were sent back and ended up either captured or killed by the American-led forces. With al-Qaeda’s forces driven back, the operation was considered an unqualified success.” He sighed. “Except for a single black footnote.”
He fell silent. Tara prompted him, “Go on.”
“While the firefight at the border continued, extraction choppers were sent in to pull the Special Activities Division out and provide air cover for the Kurdish ground troops returning to camp. They were stopped from going in and completing their mission.”
“Why?” Kayla asked. “By whom?”
“Washington. The fighting was too close to the border. The U.S. couldn’t risk an incident with Iran at the time. Afraid of starting a second conflict. Against orders, they pulled out as many American soldiers as they could, but they didn’t get them all. Once the Iranians started shooting back, they had to pull out.”
“They left people behind?” Kayla asked.
“They had no choice,” O’Shea said. “Those left behind? As is the mandate of the Agency’s covert operations, they were disavowed. Publicly the U.S. denied any knowledge of their existence.”
“Chase Edwards was among those left behind?” Kayla asked.
“Yes.”
“There’s no proof he died there,” Tara challenged. “He could’ve been captured, held prisoner by al-Qaeda, the Iranians…”
“Bodies were turned over afterward. DNA confirmed Chase Edwards was among the dead. He’s got a damn star on the wall at CIA headquarters.”
“I don’t care if he’s got a star on the Hollywood Walk o
f Fame, the DNA’s wrong,” Tara said. “Reports can be faked. Analysis doctored. He was in New Hampshire yesterday. He did his best to try and kill two very important people to me.”
O’Shea frowned but didn’t say anything.
Kayla stared at him. “You’re not actually surprised, are you?”
He met her gaze, admitting, “I am, yes. But…there’d been rumors. Over the years. That some of them had survived. We did some checking, looked into it. Nothing ever came of it. I never put much stock into it.”
“Maybe you should have,” Kayla said.
“Maybe,” he conceded. “But we’ve been at war for damn near twenty years now. There’s a lot of missing soldiers. Rumors pop up about them still being alive, in hiding or changing sides, still fighting. Stories like that are as common as Elvis sightings and UFOs. I don’t put much stock into them either.”
“You’re going to tell us everything you know about Chase Edwards,” Tara said. “Every last damn thing.”
“Fine,” O’Shea said. “But what’s any of that got to do with the President and what’s happening at Tiamat Bluff?”
“We don’t know.” Kayla and Tara exchanged looks. “But maybe everything.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Her words still rang in Bannon’s ears. “I killed him.”
The man Elizabeth Grayson referred to had disappeared behind the bandshell. But his presence lingered. The color had drained from Grayson’s face. Her posture slumped.
President Kingsley clasped her hands, trying to comfort her.
Bannon twisted in his seat on the other side of her. “Tell us.”
She kept her voice low. “His name is Chase Edwards.”
Bannon watched as she wrestled with the questions in her head. Was it really the man she thought it was? How could he be alive? And the question he was sure they shared. What did this mysterious man have to do with the mess they were in now and why had he tried to attack McMurphy and himself at the race yesterday?
“Nearly twenty years ago, he’d been recruited into the CIA’s Special Activities Division, the Special Activities Center now.” She shifted in her seat. “Chase Edwards was one of the best operatives I’d ever seen, ever worked with.” She looked at Bannon and forced a smile. “Until you, of course.”
Bannon didn’t dwell on the compliment. “What happened?”
Grayson fell silent.
“Liz, please,” Bannon said. “It could be important.”
“There was an op, early in the second Iraqi war. They called it Operation: Lightning Strike. Chase and his team led a squad of Army Special Forces and other infantry troops tasked with taking out enemy forces entrenched in the mountain regions near the Iranian border. The fighting went well at first, and then it turned. Still, Chase and his people fought on, heroically pushing the retreating soldiers out of the mountains and toward the border. But there, the Iranians pushed back, refusing to allow our enemy combatants entry into their country—most of them anyway. It was a public display of their non-involvement policy at the time. The fighting was fierce. It was impossible to tell who was shooting at who. The Pentagon and the White House were nervous. A conflict with Iran at the time was the last thing they wanted. A Colonel at the time, I commanded an Airborne Brigade. I led the extraction effort to get them out. We brought two CH-53 Sea Stallion helicopters into the fight.”
She shook her head at the memory.
“A hell of a firefight, one of the worst in my career. And then, we were ordered back.”
“Before you could extract?” Bannon didn’t need to ask by whom. Bureaucrats; politicians with no military experience playing at war games from Washington.
Grayson didn’t need to confirm his suspicions. “So afraid we’d cause an international incident, their fear led to paralysis,” she said. “I ignored the orders for as long as I could. We managed to extract the bulk of the Special Forces folks, but the fighting got too fierce. The Iranians had had enough and began shooting at us. We couldn’t return fire. We couldn’t let ourselves shot down. I made the decision. I followed orders. And we left…I left good men behind to die.”
“You were following orders,” Bannon said.
“It couldn’t be helped,” Kingsley said.
“I’ve told myself that over the years. But the truth is, I could’ve found another way. Today, I would have. It is and remains the biggest mistake, the biggest regret of my military career.”
“If you’d stayed,” Kingsley said. “If you had accidentally shot and killed an Iranian soldier. If they’d succeeded in shooting you down, capturing you, it would’ve started a war. Another war.”
“It wasn’t the wrong call,” Bannon told her.
She had that million-mile stare people get. She wasn’t there with them. She was on the battlefield, reliving the incident. Second-guessing her every move.
He wondered if she’d even heard him when another voice said, “It’s been a long time, Colonel.”
She and Bannon looked up.
The man Grayson knew as Chase Edwards stood facing them. His arms crossed over his chest. His blue eyes bright with intensity. His baseball cap gone. The need for a disguise gone.
She came to her feet, her spine ramrod straight. “It’s Madam Secretary now, as you well know.”
He stroked his chin. A bemused smile on his lips. Day-old stubble covered his tan features. The man’s icy blue eyes were like glaciers and just as cold.
Bannon came to his feet. He got into the man’s face. The stranger had a lot to answer for.
Chase Edwards took his time looking him up and down. Evaluating what he saw. He smirked as if thinking; not much. “Commander Bannon. This is a private conversation between old friends.”
“That’s for the lady to decide,” Bannon said.
“Coming to her rescue? Ooh, chivalry.” The man’s mouth formed a reptilian grin. “I’m not impressed. How’s your friend, Mr. McMurphy? Tougher to kill than I’d have thought.”
Bannon fisted his hands. Grayson said, “No, Brice.”
Kingsley came to his feet, stepping forward even as he shook off Holloway’s attempt to pull him back. “Your former CIA, Edwards. Why would you throw in with…” he pointed at Sucre. “Terrorists like him?”
“Lang,” he said. “I go by Lang now. Chase Lang.” He shrugged. “At least that’s what I’m using this week. As for you, Mr. President. Sit down before I knock you down.”
Kingsley opened his mouth in shock.
Holloway tugged at his arm. “Mr. President, please.”
Grayson turned. “I can handle this, David. Thank you.” Reluctantly, Kingsley backed away then sat back down. She pulled Bannon back a step. “How are you here, Chase? After all these years?”
“You mean after you left me for dead?”
“I didn’t have a choice. If you were half the soldier I thought you were, you’d know that.”
“Is that what being a good soldier is? Accepting when your government, your leader, your… friend leave you behind like yesterday’s trash. Sacrifice you for nothing!”
“That’s not fair,” Grayson said.
“Isn’t it? Because to me,” Lang said. “That’s being a goddamn pawn. Not a soldier.”
“What’s your deal, Lang?” Bannon asked. “What kind of game are you playing at?”
“There is so much going on, you can’t even begin to comprehend it all, Commander.”
“Explain it to me,” Bannon said. “I’ll try and keep up.”
Lang barked a laugh. But he turned and looked at Sucre who’d remained passive on the stage, watching them. “General Sucre explained it all to you already.” He looked at Kingsley. “He gave your people our demands, Mr. President.”
“They’ll never comply,” Kingsley said. “I won’t allow them to.”
Chase shrugged as if he didn’t care one way or the other. “Then you’ll die down here. Along with everyone else.”
“So that’s it,” Grayson said. “You’ve become a me
rcenary. Sold out to the highest bidder? The man I knew would never…What happened to you?”
“You happened to me!” Lang surged forward. Bannon stepped between him and Grayson. He slammed his hand in Lang’s chest, arresting the man’s forward charge.
He locked his gaze on Lang’s blue eyes. Even though the man was in his early sixties, Bannon had no doubt he’d prove to be a dangerous adversary. He wore a tight black t-shirt under the Tiamat Bluff Polo shirt. Physically he matched Bannon’s six-foot frame. Obviously fit, the man remained trim. His arms were muscular and rock hard. Bannon guessed the result of regular, strenuous weight training. Probably a carryover from his years of service. His face craggy with lines and permanently tanned from years of exposure to the hot, burning Middle East desert sun.
Lang tilted his head, challenging him.
“You want to take a swing at me?” He held his hands out wide. An open invitation.
“The time will come. Count on it.”
Chase smiled. “I look forward to it.” Then channeled his focus on Grayson. “I spent ten years in an Iranian prison because of you, Colonel. Did you come looking for me? Did you ever try and rescue me?”
“Chase, we…I didn’t know.”
“Because you didn’t care!” he shouted. “You just forgot about me!”
Grayson shrunk back. Her voice, barely above a whisper. “No. I never forgot you. Not ever.”
“But you never did anything!” Lang pushed away from Bannon and stormed toward the stage, repeating, “You left us to rot and die.”
Bannon watched the man retreat to the stage. There he grabbed Sucre by the arm and pulled him toward the back of the stage where they again engaged in a low, heated argument.
Watching, Bannon realized this was about more than kidnapping a President. More than Sucre and his so-call struggle against an oppressive dictator back home.
Lang glared back at Grayson at one point in his conversation with Sucre. The expression on his face was pure, unadulterated hatred.
And for Bannon, things began to click. Not all of it, but some things were becoming clear. This, whatever this was, was about more than kidnapping a president and making ransom demands. At least for Lang. This was about revenge.
