Rules of Engagement

by Ken Fite

  “Why?” she asked. We sat in silence for several seconds. “Why’d you walk away? I just need to know.”

  I looked out the driver’s side window, took in a deep breath, and let it out slowly. “It’s complicated.”

  “Try me.”

  I thought about how much I should share with her. She was a smart girl. That was what I loved about her. Jami deserved to know why I left, and I knew that she wouldn’t let it go until I told her the truth—all of it. I looked away, thinking. “Dimitri has the same connections as his father. He knows everything about me—who I am, what I do for the president.” I looked at Jami. “And he knows that you meant something to me.”

  “Meant?” she whispered and looked away. “I’m a big girl, Blake. I can take care of myself.”

  “I know that.”

  “Really?” She paused before continuing. “Mark told me what Nikolai Ivanov said that night after you left. That his people would keep coming after you. I didn’t care. Being with you was my choice, Blake.”

  I looked down and nodded to myself. “Jami, this is all my fault. I should have made sure that Nikolai Ivanov was dead, but I didn’t.” I paused and added, “I’m going to get Dimitri’s father released, and then I’m going to take them both out. That’s the only way I can fix this. I have no other choice.”

  “You’re wrong. We always have a choice. Six months ago, you walked away from me. That was a choice.”

  “Jami, I had to walk away from you. The last thing Nikolai Ivanov said to me was that it wouldn’t stop with him. That he had already told his affiliates about me. He said they’d never stop coming after me.” Pausing again as Jami turned back to me, I added, “That meant I had to leave if I wanted to protect you.”

  “And how’s that working out for you, Blake?” she asked sharply. “Were you trying to keep Charlie safe, too? Did you really think you could keep me safe by walking away? Because in case you haven’t noticed—”

  “Jami—”

  “No, let me finish,” she said as she started to breathe hard, and I felt my heart start to race. “You never gave me a chance that night, Blake. You just walked away. Like I didn’t matter. Like we didn’t matter.”

  I started to speak, but Jami held up a hand for me to stop. I stared into her eyes, seeing for the first time what the decision I had made that night had done to her. A decision I had questioned for the last six months.

  “I really thought we had something,” she said softly. A car passed us slowly from the opposite direction. I watched it pass by, and when I turned back to Jami, she was looking out the window, blinking, trying to keep the tears away. “But I guess I was wrong about what I thought we had, the life we had together.”

  “That’s not true,” I said.

  “Well, that’s what it felt like.”

  “Jami, you just don’t understand. Maybe if you did—”

  “Why don’t you explain it to me, then? I’ve waited six months for an explanation.”

  My heart was beating harder. I didn’t think I could say anything to fix this. So I just spoke what I was feeling. “I’ve lost everyone I ever cared about, Jami. My wife was murdered. My father died because of me. All because of what I do and who I am. Try living with that,” I said and turned back to her. “Try living with that kind of burden, knowing you’ve done the right thing for your country, but you lost what mattered most to you. Try sleeping at night knowing you’d never have another chance to tell someone you loved her. How much they mattered to you. Maybe then you’d understand why I walked away from you.”

  “Why didn’t you just tell me that?”

  “It’s complicated.”

  “That’s something people say when they don’t want to tell the truth.”

  “Because I love you,” I said before correcting myself. “Loved you. I didn’t want anything to happen to you. I thought if I could walk away and keep you out of my life, any fallout from what happened with Nikolai Ivanov would just be on me. When I found out that those guys came looking for me, I knew that my past had finally caught up to me, Jami. And I was okay with that because I thought they had left you out of it.”

  We were both silent for several seconds before Jami finally spoke. “I’m sure they knew,” she whispered. “Your wife. Your father. They knew you loved them.” She was silent again before adding, “One night, I arrived at the hospital before you. Ben told me how proud he was of you.” She looked down for a moment. “That was the one and only time we were alone together. We could have talked about anything. But he talked about you.” She paused and looked at me. “Life is all about living with the decisions that we make.”

  I let the words sink in and nodded vaguely. “I just want you to understand—”

  “I do understand now,” she said and nodded reassuringly. “I do. But you need to understand that you’re not in control. You never could have stopped what happened to your wife or Ben. And the way you saved Keller—that’s something to be proud of, Blake. Your father died knowing that you saved his best friend.”

  She looked past me and watched Chris slow down, cross the intersection, and park across the street. Turning back to Jami one last time, I looked into her eyes. “I’m sorry,” I said, keeping my eyes on her for a few seconds before reaching for the door handle. As I opened the door, Jami grabbed my arm again.

  “You only live once,” she said. Her words sent a chill down my spine as I realized that they echoed what the president had said almost twenty-four hours ago. “Don’t push the people that you care about away.”

  I paused and said, “We have to go.” I pulled on the door handle and stepped out to meet Chris and Mark.

  THIRTY-NINE

  THE FOUR OF us huddled behind Jami’s vehicle as I brought the Bureau guys up to speed on Keller, Nikolai Ivanov, and the threat from his son, Dimitri. I explained that he now had Charlie Redding and what would happen if I didn’t deliver Dimitri’s father to him by daybreak. Jami glanced at me. She knew the rest of it, the part I wasn’t sharing with Chris and Mark—that Dimitri would be coming after her, too.

  “How’d he know about Redding?” asked Mark Reynolds.

  I shook my head. “I don’t know. Jami had my phone.” I paused and thought about it some more. “Maybe he was tracking me and went to find out why my phone was in Rosslyn when he had me back at the abandoned building. Maybe they got inside Charlie’s house and figured out that he was a friend of mine.”

  “Maybe they found the image of the two Russian men on his screen and decided to take him,” added Jami.

  Mark took a step closer. “You need to lose the phone, brother,” he said and nodded to a nearby trash can.

  Before I could explain why I had to keep it, my cell started to ring. I reached into my back pocket, grabbed it, and answered the call. “This is Jordan,” I said as I stepped to the sidewalk. “This is Jordan,” I repeated.

  “Jordan, this is Bill Landry,” the Bureau’s deputy director said, his voice firm and sharp.

  I turned back to Chris and Mark. “What do you have, Bill?” I said so that the guys would know that I had their boss on the line with me. “Did the president get in touch with you about Nikolai Ivanov?”

  “Keller called Mulvaney. He pulled me into his office a short while ago,” replied Landry. “He explained the situation, and I took point on making contact with the officials over at Mount Weather. What’s your location?”

  “Wisconsin and Q.”

  “Good. That’ll work.” Landry paused before adding, “They’re putting Ivanov on a chopper as we speak.”

  I lifted my wrist so I could check the time. “Where are they taking him, Bill?”

  “Bolling Air Force Base. There’s a small heliport just past the guardhouse right off the main road.”

  “When?”

  “We’re sending a Bureau chopper to get him. Could be an hour to pick him up and get over to Bolling.”

  I shook my head as I stared at my watch. “Bill, that puts us past six o’clock. T
hat’s not gonna work.”

  “Well, it’ll have to. Can’t get him there any sooner,” barked Landry, growing impatient. “This is a terrorist that’s not even supposed to be alive, Jordan. It’s a damn miracle I was able to even pull this off.” Landry paused again. “I’ve already called ahead; they’re expecting you at Bolling. I’m going to have my men stage the area now and set up a perimeter so that once they’re inside, we can pick up both of the Ivanov men.”

  “Damn it, Bill. You know how this works. His son isn’t going to be at the exchange. He’ll send someone in his place. I have to hand over his father and follow him back to Dimitri if I want to get to both of them.”

  “Jordan, you listen to me,” said Landry. “There’s no way in hell I’m letting this guy loose in Washington.”

  “I have Reed and Reynolds with me,” I said and stepped back to the team. “So you’ll have Bureau men on the ground. And I have Davis and Morgan Lennox helping me. I’ll make a call and get a drone in the area.” I rubbed the back of my head, trying to stay calm. “Bill, we won’t lose him. Just don’t send anyone else in.”

  Landry didn’t respond for several moments. “Fine,” he replied. “You screw this up, you lose this guy—”

  “I won’t,” I said, interrupting the man. “I give you my word, I won’t let Nikolai Ivanov out of my sight.”

  “You call me with an update as soon as he touches down and the exchange takes place. Understand me?”

  “Fine. We need to move out,” I said as I disconnected the line and turned to Chris, Mark, and Jami.

  “What happened?” asked Jami.

  I dropped my phone into my back pocket and crossed my arms as the four of us stood in a small circle. “Landry contacted Mount Weather. They’re getting a chopper ready so they can bring us Nikolai Ivanov.”

  “Where are they dropping him?” asked Chris.

  “Small heliport over at Bolling.”

  Mark thought about it. “That’s about twenty minutes south of us,” he said, and I nodded.

  “We need to figure out how we’re going to play this,” I said. “I told Landry I’d work with Morgan to get a drone. They’ll bring Redding to the exchange. Once they hand him over, we’ll need to follow them back.”

  Mark Reynolds laughed. “Good luck with that, brother. They’re gonna take you out on the spot, man.”

  I put my hands on the back of my head and slid them down my neck as I tried to think of another way.

  Jami took a step back, turned, and opened the hatch of her SUV. She pulled out one of the large drawers in the back and rummaged around inside it. She finally pulled out a Kevlar vest and handed it to me. “Here,” she said. “Take this.”

  I shook my head. “No, you’ll need it.”

  “I have another one,” she said and pushed the vest against my chest. “Besides, I’m not going with you.”

  “Why not?” I asked as she put on a thin jacket because the temperature was dropping.

  Jami shrugged. “I’ll go to the address we got at Taylor’s apartment. See if I can find her and try to figure out how she knows so much.” She kept her eyes on me. “Besides, you don’t need my help. Do you, Blake?”

  I thought back to the conversation we’d had inside her SUV a few minutes earlier before the guys showed up. I didn’t want her anywhere near Dimitri Ivanov or his people. And Meg Taylor was a loose end we needed to tie up. I shook my head and reached down into my pocket. I felt the ring I still carried with me, but grabbed the note with the address and pulled it out. I tried to hand it over, but Jami shook her head.

  “Still in the GPS,” she said as she reached for my messenger bag and handed it to me. “I’ll call you later.”

  “Put on the other vest, Jami,” I yelled as I walked across the street. Chris stepped into his SUV, and I got in next to him as Mark climbed into the backseat. I handed the vest to Mark and watched Jami drive away.

  FORTY

  TWENTY MINUTES AFTER leaving, Jami arrived at the Forest Hills neighborhood in northwest DC. The street was lined with old, majestic-looking trees that stretched across like a canopy, shielding it from the moonlight. Jami turned off her headlights and lowered her window. She slowed the vehicle as she approached the address programmed into her GPS and took in the large expensive homes as she drove.

  She saw the house. It was large and set back far from the street. Jami passed slowly as she checked it out.

  Then she faced forward, raised the window, and continued to drive until she reached the end of the street. She turned around at the cul-de-sac, parked the vehicle two houses from the end, and turned off the ignition. Jami looked out the back and side windows. The few streetlights that lined the road cast an orange glow against the perfectly manicured lawns. Jami shuddered as she reached for her phone and placed a call.

  It rang several times until she was finally sent to voicemail. She tried again and heard, “Morgan Lennox.”

  “It’s me,” said Jami.

  “Sorry, love. I’m trying to reposition a drone over Bolling, and I don’t have much time to get it over there.”

  Jami nodded to herself. “Morgan, I have an address I’m checking out. We found it at Meg Taylor’s apartment. I was hoping you might be able to look it up for me. Maybe tell me who I’m dealing with.”

  Morgan sighed, didn’t speak for several seconds, then finally asked, “Okay, Jami. What’s the address?”

  She glanced down to the GPS system and stared at the screen. “Twenty-eight forty-five Allendale Place,” she said and waited. She heard Morgan type the address into one of the DDC systems and then sigh again.

  “That’s strange. Nothing’s coming up,” he said. “I’ll have to try getting to it another way. Hang on a sec.”

  “Don’t worry about it, Morgan,” she said and unbuckled her seatbelt. “Just focus on moving that drone.”

  “Are you sure?”

  Jami said that she was and admitted that getting the drone over to the meeting place was more important. She disconnected the call, silenced her phone, slid it into a pocket, and reached for her Glock 17. She climbed out and stepped to the back of the vehicle, opened the hatch, pulled out a drawer, and inserted a fresh magazine. She chambered a round and grabbed one more item that she had brought from the White House. Stepping onto the sidewalk, Jami tucked the weapon into the small of her back and walked quickly.

  When she got to the house, she turned up the pathway that led to the front door and slowed her approach.

  The front of the home had two large doors, each made from textured glass to allow light to come in from the outside. Getting closer, Jami cupped two hands against the glass and tried to look inside the house, but couldn’t see anything. It was dark, but Jami thought she could see flickering light from a TV on inside.

  She turned around to look back at the street. Still quiet. No movement on the sleepy, oak-lined cul-de-sac.

  Turning back to the front door, Jami knocked three times. Moving her right hand behind her back and gripping the butt of her Glock, she cupped her left hand on the glass to shield the orange light reflecting from the street behind her. She looked for any signs of movement as she waited, but nobody came to the door.

  Jami knocked again, louder this time. The flickering light inside turned off and everything went dark. She was just about to ring the doorbell when she saw movement. She took a step back, kept her right hand on her weapon, and gripped it tight as a dark, shadowy figure approached the other side of the glass.

  “Who is it?” a woman asked.

  “My name is Agent Davis with the Department of Domestic Counterterrorism,” replied Jami.

  There was no response for several seconds. Then the woman said, “What do you want?”

  Jami thought about it and replied, “I’m looking for someone.”

  “Well, he’s not home right now,” replied the woman. “Come back later, okay? He should be back by—”

  “I’m looking for Meg Taylor with the Times.”

&nbs
p; The woman was silent.

  “Please open the door, Ms. Taylor.”

  Several more seconds passed before the woman on the other side of the door spoke again. “Your badge,” she finally said and, with a fingernail, tapped twice on the glass in the middle of the door. “Let me see it.”

  Jami reached inside a pocket, retrieved her DDC credentials, and flipped it open. She pressed the badge against the glass and held it there for a beat. The woman stepped to the side and a light came on overhead. Jami heard the deadbolt turn until it clicked, and the door cracked open as Jami put her badge away.

  “How did you find me here?” a blonde woman asked softly as she looked Jami over. The question caught Jami off guard. She maintained her gaze on the woman and studied her. She was fully dressed and looked like she might have been wearing the same clothes from the day before. The blonde cocked her head to one side and raised her eyebrows. “I want to know how you found me here,” she repeated.

  “Doesn’t matter,” replied Jami.

  Looking her over, the woman finally asked, “What do you want?”

  “I need to ask you some questions, Ms. Taylor.”

  “At five thirty in the morning?”

  Jami looked past the woman, saw the dark foyer behind her, and gestured toward it. “Can we talk inside?”

  “No,” she replied sharply. “I told you, it’s not my house. Whatever you need to ask, you can ask out here.”

  “It’s concerning your story about the president’s black ops team that’s hitting newsstands this morning.”

  “What are you talking about?” the woman asked, sounding genuinely confused by what Jami had said.

  Jami tilted her head, let go of her weapon, and grabbed the folded newspaper that she had tucked under her arm. She handed it to the woman. They exchanged a look as she accepted the paper and held it to the light. Jami watched her look it over in shock, then looked up to the top to see the date and the byline. Seeing her own name listed as the writer, she looked up at Jami, confused, and shook her head slowly.

  “I’ll let you in,” she said softly. “But you leave your weapon out here.” She held her gaze until Jami nodded, reached for her Glock, and set it inside one of the two large flowerpots that lined the entrance. She followed the blonde inside, and she locked the door again. “Follow me,” she said and went to the kitchen.