The Treadstone Resurrection

by Joshua Hood

  He knew that he had to have the gunshot wound looked at, but before venturing out into public he had to do something about the way he looked.

  Hayes went to the safe and spun his combination into the dial and opened the door. The interior was neatly divided and contained everything Hayes needed to slip back into his old life. The left side was sectioned off for rifles and pistols, the shelves filled with ammo, suppressors, and extra magazines.

  Hayes ignored the weapons and pulled a deck of passports from the shelf on the right. He chose a Canadian passport, took the corresponding driver’s license and credit card clipped to the cover, and flipped to the picture at the front of the passport.

  “Peter Kane,” he said, reading the name printed below the black-haired version of himself. Still holding the passport, Hayes bent to the bottom shelf and retrieved the Arc’teryx duffel and carried it to the worktable. The duffel was his “go bag,” and besides the papers, it contained everything Hayes needed to sustain him for seventy-two hours. He dressed quickly in fresh boxers, wool socks, jeans, and a pair of Asolo hiking boots. Instead of a shirt, Hayes grabbed the faded waxed canvas toiletry bag, undid the clasp, and laid the contents on the table.

  Changing your identity was one of the foundations of tradecraft, which was why Treadstone operatives received extensive training in special-effects makeup.

  In the field, you had to use what you had, and while the techniques weren’t particularly high-tech, the change was still effective. The first thing Hayes had to do was change his hair. He plugged in the electric hair clipper, chose a low guard, and bent his head over the contractor’s bag.

  The devil was in the details, and Hayes needed his hair short enough to match the passport photo, but not so short that it drew attention to his white scalp. He took his time, and when he was satisfied with the results, he shaved off his beard.

  Using concealer, Hayes masked the bruises that covered his face and then added a bronzer to darken his skin. Finally he pulled on a pair of latex gloves, opened a bottle of hair dye, and worked the product in with his fingers.

  According to the instructions on the box, he had to wait ten minutes for the dye to dry. Might as well get this over with, he thought, taking a laptop box from the safe.

  The computer was air-gapped, which meant that it had never been connected to the Internet and was therefore impossible to trace back to Hayes. He plugged it into the wall, and while it booted up, Hayes wondered what in the hell he was going to say to Annabelle.

  Pretty sure “I was doing fine until someone tried to kill me” ain’t going to work.

  When it was ready, he double-clicked the Internet Explorer icon and logged in to his Gmail account. He was still trying to think of the right words when he saw the bolded, unread message in his inbox.

  His first thought was that Annabelle had beaten him to the punch. I bet this is going to be a sweet little note, he thought, trying to laugh off the knot of dread cinching his stomach.

  But he forgot all about the nerves when he saw the sender of the email.

  Nick Ford?

  The name took him back to the shooter who’d attacked him at the Smith house. Just another pendejo, like Ford.

  When he looked at the subject line, his heart stopped.

  He opened the email, but there was just a hyperlink to an encrypted email server, and Hayes couldn’t see the message without the encryption key. In a normal situation, he and Ford would have shared a key with each other so they could send and receive encrypted emails, but Ford had clearly sent this out of desperation, or didn’t have time or a way to get Hayes the key. Staring at the hyperlink, Hayes felt like it was taunting him; he had to find a way to decrypt it, because he knew that what it contained was a life-or-death matter.

  Hayes took a deep breath; the subject line had regained his full attention.

  By the time you get this I’ll be dead

  15

  PUGET SOUND, WASHINGTON

  What do you mean, gone?” Black asked the tech seated in front of the Toughbook. “Half the fucking county is out there on the water,” he said, pointing to the bay, where a tugboat shepherded the wounded ferry back to the dock.

  “I’ve accessed every street camera, cellphone, and security feed from here to Seattle,” the tech said, pointing at the screen. “I don’t know what else you want me to do.”

  “I want you to find this asshole,” Black shouted, slamming his hand on the table.

  “Well, if that is the case, we need a better setup than this,” the tech replied.

  Black had to admit the converted fishing trawler they were using as a safe house was not ideal, but after what happened on the ferry, what was left of his team had to stay mobile.

  “Why don’t you call the boss—tell him what we need?”

  “You worry about finding Hayes, let me worry about the rest, got it?” Black said. “I’m going to get some air; you better have something when I come back.”

  He went out on the deck, his mood as dark as the thunderheads rolling in from the north. Black stared out to sea, his thoughts turning back to the gunfight on the ferry.

  His time on the SEAL teams had taught him the value of the after-action reviews, or AAR. The ability to build on what had worked and fix what had not was one of the main reasons Special Ops continued to have such a high rate of success in places like Iraq, Afghanistan, and the handful of other shitholes that CNN didn’t bother to cover.

  An AAR was the one place on a team where rank didn’t matter. It didn’t matter if it was a training event or the real world, if you fucked up, you were going to hear about it. Black ran it the same way he would if his team had been alive, not flinching from his share of the blame.

  Murph was keyed up when he got out. He jumped the gun, made contact with Hayes before the rest of the team had a chance to set up a base of fire . . .

  Black’s thoughts trailed off, turning to Hayes.

  He’d never seen a man react like that. Even if Murph hadn’t jumped the gun, it was like he knew we were there. How is that possible?

  Black had lost men before, and that wasn’t what was bothering him. It was the fact that without any intel on Hayes, he had no idea who he was up against. Black glanced down at the satphone, the screen alerting him to five missed calls.

  Can’t duck him forever, he thought, picking up the phone.

  “Black, where the fuck have you been?” Gray demanded.

  “I’m sure you’ve seen the news,” Black growled, making no effort to hide the annoyance in his voice.

  He’d worked for men like Gray before, men who didn’t know the first fucking thing about leading soldiers in combat. They were sycophants. Peacocks in starched cammies and polished boots, whose only job was to make life miserable for the real warriors.

  “Was I in any way unclear when I told you not to go after Hayes?”

  “Enough!” Black shouted, finally losing his temper. “Don’t talk to me like I’m one of your buddies at the Agency, Gray. Since this bullshit started in Venezuela, I’ve done your dirty work and never said a word, but I’m done with that shit. Now, do you want this guy or not?”

  There was silence, and when Gray finally spoke his voice was ice cold.

  “Yeah, Black, I want him. But the real question is, can you get him?”

  Black moved to the rail and gazed out over the sea. The endless white-tipped blue of the water quenched his anger, leaving him feeling tired and old. How the fuck did this happen?

  Black remembered the first time Gray had brought up the plan in the bar outside of Caracas.

  * * *

  —

  “What if I told you that in two years, I can make you rich?”

  At first, Black thought it was the booze talking; he glanced at the empty bottles that lined the table.

  “Rich, huh?” Black said, rolling his eyes.
r />   “I’m serious.” Gray leaned in.

  “Let me tell you something,” Black said, taking a pull from the bottle of La Polar and setting it on the table. “I’m on my tenth deployment, been all over the world. You know what they all have in common?”

  “You mean besides the bad food and killing scumbags?” Gray asked.

  “Yep.”

  “No idea.” Gray leaned back in his chair. “Why don’t you enlighten me.”

  “There is always one asshole with a get-rich scheme and it never works out.” Black shook his empty bottle at the waiter, who promptly ignored him.

  And these sons of bitches wonder why they are so damn poor.

  “Tell you what,” Gray said, pulling a rectangular bundle wrapped in a white cloth from his assault pack. “How about I go get us a couple more drinks, and while I’m gone, you take a look at this.” He got to his feet and placed the bundle in the center of the table.

  “It’s your nickel,” he said.

  If anyone else had made the proposition, Black would have left the bundle in the center of the table, taken the free drink, and gone about his day.

  But it wasn’t.

  Just like everyone else at the CIA, he was aware of Gray’s reputation and knew the man hadn’t shot through the ranks because he was full of shit. There was a reason nine years after leaving the Farm, Gray had his own special access program while his classmates were still zapping camel jockeys with Hellfires: the man got results.

  Which is why Black scooped the bundle from the table, placed it in his lap, and pulled back the cloth.

  “Holy shit!”

  “Still think I’m full of shit?” Gray asked, returning with the drinks.

  “Are you serious?” Black demanded.

  “As a fucking heart attack.” Gray’s expression was grim. “So yes or no, are you in?”

  * * *

  —

  “Black, are you there?” Gray demanded.

  “Yeah,” he said, feeling his anger ebb. “I’m here.”

  “Can you get him?”

  “If you get the intel I need,” Black replied, suddenly feeling exhausted.

  “What intel?” Gray demanded. “You have the same security clearance that I do, which means you have access to every database there is.”

  “How do you know that?” Black asked, not sure where the question came from, but feeling their worth the moment the words tumbled from his lips.

  “Here we go with this—”

  “No, hear me out,” Black said, trying to chase the idea to its logical conclusion. “When I first became a SEAL, we all had to get secret clearances just because of the encryption our radios had. It wasn’t until I went to Team 6 and got a top secret that I got my first peek behind the curtain.”

  “What’s your point?” Gray huffed.

  “My point is that I didn’t even know what the fuck a special access program was until after I left the Navy, and I was on the team that took down bin Laden.”

  “Well, that’s kinda the point of a ‘need-to-know basis,’ don’t you think?” Gray quipped.

  “Exactly, and right now, all we know is what your buddy Senator Mendez is telling us.”

  There was silence on the other end of the line, and Black knew he had him.

  “Forget everything you think that you know about Hayes for a second,” he said. “This guy has a skill set that I’ve never seen before, and I’ve been in this game a long time.”

  “He’s good, so what—” Gray interjected.

  “No, I’m good,” Black said, “Hayes . . . is . . .”

  “He’s what?”

  “Look, I don’t know what the hell he is, but I can promise you one thing, guys like that aren’t born, they’re made, which means he is in a database somewhere. A database we don’t have access to.”

  “So what do you want me to do about it?”

  “Well, that’s up to you, but if it were me, I’d walk into Mendez’s office, put a 9-millimeter to his head, and tell him to give me the access I needed, or I’d empty his brain on that five-thousand-dollar desk of his.”

  “You’ll have it by the end of the day,” Gray said before hanging up.

  16

  WHIDBEY ISLAND, WASHINGTON

  Hayes pulled a jacket on, shoved his papers into his back pocket and the “go bag” into the truck. He grabbed a Smith & Wesson .38 in an ankle holster from the safe and strapped it above the hiking boot. After making sure the retention band held the pistol tightly in place, he grabbed a Glock 19 from the shelf, racked a round into the chamber, and then threw the Conex doors wide.

  Five minutes later he exited the gravel service drive and turned onto State Highway 525. He drove north for an hour, turned east on Quarry Road, and followed the hardpan until he came to a gravel drive that wound through the pines. Hayes cut the engine and eased the door shut before making his way to a rusted fence with a FORGET DOG—BEWARE OF OWNER sign attached to the chain-link.

  Good ol’ Deano, he thought.

  This sign was a joke. A gag gift he’d given Deano after the five-thousand-dollar Doberman he’d bought to guard the house turned out to be scared of its own shadow.

  Hayes threw his leg over the top of the fence and dropped lightly into the yard. Once on the other side, he offered a light whistle and called to the timid guard dog.

  “Scout, come here, girl.”

  Nothing. Must be inside.

  He moved through the trees and into an open area where a wood-framed cabin sat behind a low stone wall. Hayes was five feet from the porch when he heard the light press of paws against the pine needles behind him.

  “There you are.”

  Hayes turned with a smile, but instead of the cowardly Doberman, he was greeted by the low growl of a Malinois.

  “You’re not Scout,” he said, taking a step back—wondering if he could make it to the porch. The Malinois flinched at the movement, and its growl deepened from ominous to downright threatening.

  According to the training manuals, the best way to thwart a dog attack was to make yourself look large and threatening. Hayes raised his arms over his head, stood up on his tiptoes, and let out a growl of his own.

  He saw laughter in the dog’s eyes followed by a flash of teeth and the quiver of muscles.

  Shoot the dog.

  “Deano!” he yelled over his shoulder. “Deano, come get your damn dog!”

  There was no response.

  Hayes had seen the Malinois in action in both Iraq and Afghanistan and knew he didn’t have a chance in hell of outrunning the dog. “Deano!” he yelled again, the plaintive tone in his voice echoing off the trees.

  He didn’t want to shoot the dog, but at the same time a trip to the ER for a dog bite wasn’t on his agenda, either, and Hayes eased his hand toward the pistol at his waist when he heard the squeak of hinges followed by the rack of a shotgun.

  “Mister, you picked the wrong house.”

  “Deano, thank God, now call off your dog.”

  “Hayes . . . is that you?”

  “Yeah, it’s me. But seriously, call off this fur missile before it rips out my throat.”

  “Ajax, plaats,” Deano ordered in Dutch.

  The Malinois gave Hayes a parting snarl before bounding past, and he gave it another second before turning to the porch.

  “What the hell happened to you?”

  “Someone tried to kill me.”

  Deano nodded like it was a perfectly acceptable answer and stepped closer. “Well, let’s get you patched up,” he said, opening the door. “Martha, get the gunshot kit.”

  A middle-aged woman with kind eyes and long gray hair appeared from the kitchen, wiping her hands on the front of her floral apron.

  “Adam, is there something wrong with our front door?” she asked.

 
; “No, ma’am,” he said, and grunted.

  “Well, c’mon in.” Martha waved.

  Hayes managed to make it over the threshold before reaching the end of his strength, forcing him to lean against Deano, who helped support him on the way to the bathroom.

  “Let’s get that shirt off and see what all this fuss is about,” Martha ordered, and poured alcohol over her hands before donning a pair of latex gloves.

  Hayes shrugged out of his jacket and pulled his shirt over his head as Deano edged toward the door.

  “Where are you going?” he asked.

  “Man, when she gets into nurse mode, it’s best if I—”

  “Well, if you’re going to go, then go,” Martha said.

  “On second thought, maybe this wound isn’t as bad as I thought,” Hayes said, trying to get to his feet.

  “Oh, no, you sit your butt down,” Martha replied, opening a bottle of pills.

  “What are those?”

  “Percocet, for the pain.”

  “No.”

  “Adam, honey, this is going to hurt . . . a lot.”

  “I don’t care. No drugs.”

  “Hardheaded ass,” she muttered. “Well, suit yourself. I’ve got a little lidocaine left over.”

  She took a syringe from the medical bag, cracked an ampule of lidocaine, drew up the dose, and pushed the plunger forward to eject the air bubbles.

  In the other room Hayes heard the sound of Deano roughhousing with Ajax.

  “That man,” she said. “How are Annabelle and little Jack?”

  “She left me,” Adam said, trying to hold her gaze and failing.

  “Girl had more sense than I gave her credit for,” she said, injecting the anesthetic into the skin around the wound.

  “Martha, leave it,” Deano said from the other room.

  “No, she’s right,” Hayes said, watching as Martha irrigated the wound with a saline-and-iodine solution.

  “Looks like the bullet went all the way through,” she said to herself.