“And what way would that be,” Jack asked.
“Legally,” Evelyn replied. “Get him to resign before he’s even sworn into the office.” Her eyes stayed focused on the window. “Just get it done, boys.”
Marcus’ gaze wondered to Jack who was busy assessing the situation, his face not revealing anything in the way of what to do with Evelyn. Marcus was once a leader of men, but now he was letting Jack make all the decisions in this situation.
“And you are certain that you have the pull to push out Jim Morris,” Jack asked.
“What,” Chang said. “You are not serious.” He was visibly upset.
“Evelyn,” Jack called. “Can you do it or not?”
She looked back at him. “If you provide me with the information, then, yes, absolutely. That bastard will fall.”
After a brief hesitation, Jack stepped to the side and waved Evelyn ahead. “Go, leave.”
Evelyn was surprised.
“Go, now! Before I change my mind,” he said.
Evelyn fought her surprise and got up from the chair, her step uncertain. As she passed by Jack, he grabbed her arm. “You still owe us Didier.”
Chang was watching in amazement, reluctant to accept the facts. Evelyn nodded to Jack and walked outside.
“What are we doing,” Chang asked. “You let her go,” he said.
“We have no alternative,” Jack replied without even looking at Chang. He hated himself for what he had done, but he knew full-well that there truly was no other way. Marcus knew the same. “Killing a president is not the way to go, even if we were able to make it happen. It was a stupid, spur-of-the-moment idea that was the result of our collective desperation. This is the way to go. There is nothing else.”
All three men stood in the room in silence, before they each took a seat. Their lighters clicked and their cigarettes fired, all lost in thought. Then the phone vibrated again. Marcus scattered and followed the sound, annoyed by it for reasons he could not explain. He went through a drawer and picked up the burner.
“Hello,” he briskly answered. On the other line was Arthur. As he spoke, Marcus felt the pressure in his head subside. He felt positive emotions overcoming him.
“What,” Jack asked after he hung up.
“That was Arthur,” Marcus said. “Evelyn wasn’t lying.”
TWELVE
I s he sure,” Jack said when Marcus relayed the information Arthur had given him. “For Patrick Don to be doing shady dealings is not surprising, but for him to allow some reporter to spot him in public for a document handover is over-the-top, Markie. I don’t buy it.”
Marcus understood where Jack’s suspicions were coming from. “What if his thinking was that the handover was so overt that no one would ever believe it, making it the perfect covert move?”
Jack was upset. “I don’t know,” he said.
“None of us know anything anymore, J.J.,” Marcus retorted. “Everything with these people is possible and impossible at the same time. The more you think about it, the more you get lost. Maybe they did it because they knew they were being watched. Maybe they just don’t care. Maybe they couldn’t do it in public where they would usually meet because their cronies would see them together and suspect a side deal or something. It can be anything. But we have to pursue it.”
Jack huffed. He leapt from the chair and paced around the room. “Man, these people,” he said. “What the hell have we gotten ourselves into, Markie? You know, I keep thinking—wondering, really—at which point did my life go so far off track that I ended up in this situation. And I can’t find an answer. I am smart, man, really smart and capable, and yet I became a spy. I worked for the most dishonest and awful beings on the planet. Was there once a thought-process that made this move logical? I don’t know. I just don’t know.”
Marcus felt the same. His entire life had been a series of hit-and-runs, starting as early as his childhood. He was a hoodie in his later years, only to join the army, then become spy, abandon everything he thought was right. He was a young man, and yet he felt old. He did not feel wise because wise people know themselves and they have a deep understanding of their surroundings; Marcus, on the other hand, felt like he was waking up from a deep slumber. “If we go down that road, brother, we will need a barrel of whisky and years of our lives to find an answer,” Marcus said. “Wisdom, apparently, comes with age, yet the older I get, the more I realize that things never change. It’s as if you’re constantly in puberty, lost and confused, trying to make sense of it all. And we can’t let that stand in our way, man. We can’t. Being an adult means accepting facts, as hard as that may be. It means doing what is necessary for the sake of others regardless of what we feel and what we want from the world. Which means stopping the Company, brother.”
“I know, Markie, I know.”
“We have to disregard all of that and get down to business. We have lived dangerous, selfish, and chaotic lives, you and I, and it’s time to make up for that. We owe a debt. I have told you that before. If nothing else, then we have to pay that debt off. How many lives have you and I collectively destroyed? How many people have we directly or indirectly killed?”
Jack rubbed his temples. “I know,” he said. It seemed like those were the only words in his vocabulary. Marcus couldn’t blame him.
“We have to make up for it. We know who the people behind all the evils in the world today are. And, man, they are within our reach. And as much as I hate to admit it, Evelyn is right. We cannot only try because if we die, the faith of the world will be at the mercy of empty suits, of Daniel and Patrick and Jonathan and the rest of the one-percent. So we have to be smart. We have to be strong.” Marcus walked over to Jack and placed his hand on his friend’s shoulder. “We are in this together. We have a way, and now we need a plan.”
Jack nodded.
“I get it, brother. You know I do. You know that I will always know.” Marcus gently shook Jack, who let loose and gave his best friend a hug. It was a short, manly—no, brotherly—hug, a physical testament to the bond of the two men who were once again brothers, but now closer than ever before, wrapped in a cloak-and-dagger conspiracy.
“So, this driver,” Jack said.
“Yeah, him,” Marcus replied, taking a piece of paper from the table. “He is a Venezuelan-born. Emigrated to the US when Hugo Chavez was at the height of his power. I guess he figured it was best to run. He worked as a bartender before taking up a job as a limo driver. I guess Patrick took a shine to him and hired him as his personal driver.”
“And you really think that this guy can give us Patrick Don?”
Marcus huffed. “I hope so.”
“I don’t think we can trust her,” Jack said. “I think she will betray us again likes she has before, Markie. We can’t trust her.”
“I know we can’t.” Before his eyes, images of his love for Evelyn and the pain of her betrayal came to his mind’s eye, making him relive the entire experience of Joe’s torture chamber. “I hate her,” he said. “I hate her with all my heart. She played my feelings for her, turned me into a naive pubescent boy who was running after her skirt just to...” He couldn’t say it. He took a moments pause to collect himself. “Do you buy that about her German heritage,” he continued. “I mean, Rohwedder was something else, man, and we know that the bigger the lie is, people believe it more easily.”
“I wanted to shoot her on the spot,” Jack coldly said. “I should’ve. With or without her, we would’ve gotten to the driver. With or without her, Patrick would’ve become our target. I should’ve pulled that trigger.”
Marcus didn’t disagree. “It doesn’t matter now,” he said just to say something. “We couldn’t have known about Arthur and his discovery in the moment, so let it be what it is.”
“I should’ve pulled that trigger,” Jack said again, his eyes lost in the image his mind was projecting, the fantasy in his mind much larger and stronger than the real world, and the words Marcus was uttering nothing more than
white noise.
Marcus snapped his fingers in front of Jack’s face. “We might actually need her for what is to come. Now focus. Jose Andres. The driver.”
Jack stared at Marcus for a few moments. It was hard to tell if he desired to kill Evelyn, Marcus, or himself. Then he calmed down, resetting, finding his orientation again. “The driver, yes.”
* * *
Marcus and Jack were sitting in the car, hidden in the shadows of the park garage, waiting for the Mercedes Patrick Don favored to appear. With the profile on Jose Andres, Evelyn had also given them Patrick’s schedule and all the information she had on the man. It wasn’t long before Marcus and Jack set out to get their target bagged and their mission completed. In the spy game, it is all about information, all about doing the necessary reconnaissance before leaping into a mission; that is why spies are always imagined as the boogeyman, a ghost that comes in the night to steal you away. They observe, plan, and execute in seconds. With the inauguration approaching, however, there was no time to waste on planning.
“So, what exactly is our plan,” Jack asked.
“We’ll figure that out once we bag the driver,” Marcus replied. His hands were squeezing the steering wheel as if he was driving a Formula One car.
“I don’t like this idea,” Jack protested. “We don’t know enough about any of them. Not nearly enough.”
“Do you know how the Mafia players started falling in the 80s?”
“The RICO act?”
“They started falling because soldiers, the wiseguys, talked too much on the wire. Through the soldiers, the FBI was able to get to the capos. Their wires picked up so much information that they could then get to the high-level players. Now, we know already that Patrick Don is a capo of Daniel’s organization, even though we have no idea how exactly he impacts the whole game.
“Unlike the FBI, we don’t have to know. We don’t care. He will not go to trial. What we need is evidence against Daniel and Jim Morris. Once the public love for him disappears, we will be able to go after him. Arthur will work on slamming him publicly, and we will crush him physically.”
“And before that happens,” Jack interjected, “we have to take out his capos.”
“Exactly,” Marcus said.
“So we take down Mr. Don first,” Jack said.
“At the very least remove one important piece from Daniel’s side.”
Marcus felt the change in attitude Jack went through. A part of Marcus had been growing visibly annoyed with constant deference and complaints, as if he wasn’t aware how flimsy and risky their whole plan was; it felt good to see Jack come back to his senses.
“You’re right,” Jack said. “This is the only play we have that makes any sense. And you were right before—we have to be smart and we have to stay focused because trying doesn’t count.”
“Trying never counts,” Marcus confirmed. The time on his clock was ten minutes to eight o’clock, which meant that Jose should arrive at any moment.
“Look, man,” Jack said. “We never talked about it. But I wanted to say sorry for coming after you. I was blinded by that corporate mentality and patriotism to think about our friendship. In my mind, I had a job to do... What I mean is sorry for coming after you.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Marcus said.
“No, Markie, I am not saying it just to say it. I am saying it because it has to be said. I am not excusing myself with my job. I am actually saying that I am sorry for the way I have treated you.”
Marcus realized in that moment that he was upset about the whole affair; it was hidden under a layer of other thoughts, but it was always there. Jack did his life—twice. Jack nurtured him back to health. Jack gave him a reason to live. He couldn’t be angry at him.
“Yeah, that was a bit unfriendly,” he said al the same.
“I know, man, I’m sorry.”
“No,” Marcus said sincerely, “it wasn’t your fault. You thought that I had killed Joseph. You felt betrayed and left behind, so I get it. In your position, I would’ve done exactly the same to you. But we’re cool, brother. We’re cool.”
The two men sat in an easy silence and isolation of the parking garage, for a moment even forgetting that they were on a mission. Suddenly they heard the tires screech and lights wash the ceiling of the second level. When the car came to a straight ground, Jack opened the door slightly.
Marcus turned the keys and changed the gear into Drive, his hands firmly on the steering wheel.
“Get ready,” Jack said.
Marcus was ready.
When Jose stepped out of the car, Chang ran from the shadows on the far end and crouched toward the car like a cat in the night. Jose grabbed his dry-cleaned clothes from the car and closed the door. Marcus let go of the break pedal too suddenly to make sure to create a lot of noise and draw Jose’s attention, creating space and time for Chang to sneak up on Jose and taser him. Before the car came to a full stop, Jack was already outside, helping Chang to tie up Jose and put him in the trunk.
“Go, go, go,” Jack yelled when he and Chang sat back into the car. Marcus was off before they even closed the doors.
Marcus parked the car in the woods, cloaking it with the trees and the darkness of the night. He grabbed Jose by his ankles and helped Jack cary him to the house. Chang stayed behind to take off the license plates and to cover the car with leaves and branches.
They dropped unconscious Jose on the floor of the room that was once Marcus’ recovery room. The chair in the middle was bolted into the floor and the walls were covered with plastic to mask the house and the outside world. They stripped Jose completely and tied him to the chair. Marcus then plugged the reflector into the wall, aimed straight at Jose.
Then he slowly started waking up.
The light put Jose on the spotlight, and he couldn’t even open his eyes. His arm instinctively went to cover his eyes, but it was stuck. Then he realized that he was tied and panic overwhelmed him. He jerked his arms in a futile attempt to break loose from his binds. Strange moans and groans escaped his lips as he moved around and mumbled in Spanish, asking for God and his help. Soon he must’ve realize that he was naked, tied up, and hidden in a damp and dark hole somewhere.
“Pueden oyer me,” he said. “Oye! Respondeme!” His rambling went on, his panic and fear growing ever stronger. “Que es esto? Donde estoy? Por Dios!” Marcus and Jack kept quiet for a while, waiting for the fear to really set in.
“Jose,” Jack said in a deepened voice. “Do you her my voice, Jose?”
“Que? What? Who is there?”
“Jose,” Marcus said. “Do you hear my voice, Jose?”
Jose calmed down to a still, his heavy breathing the only sound in his room, his eyes jumping back and forth from one side of the reflector to the other. He was not looking at anything or searching for something to look at; he was scared and trying to understand.
“Let me out of here, por favor,” he said. “Whatever I have done, forgive me.”
“And what did you do, Jose?”
“No hago nada! Nothing. I’m inocente.”
“We want to forgive you, Jose. We want to pardon you, to let you go back into the world. But we can’t do that, can we?”
“Dios mio, ayudeme. Ayudeme! Madre mia que me pareci, perdoname.”
“Focus, Jose,” Jack said, snapping his fingers. In the empty and isolated room, his voice was given another dimension of depth and command.
“What did you do, Jose,” Marcus added.
Jose went into a meltdown, crying and begging in two languages. “I didn’t do anything. I swear. I swear.”
“We know what you did,” Marcus said.
“Just admit it,” Jack added.
Jose kept trying to break loose from his bonds, he moaned and spat and threw a fit, ultimately resolving to tears. Marcus and Jack kept alternating with their questions in their deep and distant voices, stressing the man’s name in every sentence. They didn’t threaten him, they didn’t lay the
ir hands on him; they waited on Jose to break.
It was a strategy the Company had trained them to undertake in interrogation. Most intelligence agencies employ violence and intimidation as a means to get answers from their subjects. The problem with torture is that it gives only an answer, almost never the answer you are looking for. Psychological domination and perhaps destruction was always the way to go. Sometimes it would take months, sometimes days, but with Jose, it took only thirty minutes; in the man’s defense, he was not a trained agent.
“Vale, vale, les lo digo,” he said. “I will do anything you need me to do for you. I swear.”
“Tell us about your employer.”
“What do you want to know?”
“Everything,” Jack said.
“He is a powerful man. Often, in the car, he has his meetings with powerful people. I see him meeting people from the news, the people who—como se dice... command?—the country.”
“Go on,” Marcus said.
“Some days ago, I heard him talking to a man about the pandemic, how it was all going according to plan. He said that in the beginning of it all, they didn’t know how it was all going to go. They said that—Ay, como se llama?—some man, I do not know his name, was strong and that he can control the situation as it develops. They talked about China and Estados Unidos and some war being inevitable. Please, let me go, please.”
“Continue, Jose,” Marcus said.
“I am scared. Please,” he pleaded.
“If you tell us, we will not hurt you.”
“Okay, okay,” Jose took a deep breath. “I kept driving him and seeing the people he was meeting. I watched carefully. I wrote times and dates, his meetings, when they took place and all. Mr. Don is strong and smart. I knew he would find out. I knew he would. Por favor, no me mate! Please, don’t hurt me.”
All the Company Men: Marcus Grimshaw #2 (The Secret State) Page 11
