Collateral Damage

by P A Duncan

“No,” Terrell said, “don’t fucking thank me for this.”

  Her hand fell away, leaving his cheek cold.

  “It’s all right, Snake. If I can do this, it means is I didn’t miss-set the timer on the bomb in that Irish farmhouse. It was important to Alexei for that to be an accident, but I’ve always thought I knew what I was doing. Maybe I’ll be able to kill Fitzgerald when I couldn’t John Carroll because of that.”

  Terrell watched her drive away, but he sat alone for a long time, hearing the echo of two words she’d spoken.

  If. Maybe.

  60

  Judas

  Thornton Gap

  Shenandoah National Park

  In the parking lot Edwin Terrell, Jr. leaned against his car, smoking and ogling the college girls headed home after the end of term. The sunshine was warm, and they pranced about in various forms of undress. He knew he was far too old to appeal to them, but what a way to go off to his reward.

  Hollis Fitzgerald arrived right on time in a new, red BMW convertible. Fitzgerald slanted the car across two parking spaces. Terrell decided he and Fitzgerald were not equals, after all, at the government retirement trough. Terrell flicked his cigarette away and walked to the Beemer as a tanned Fitzgerald emerged. Terrell still worked out to keep his belly flat; Fitzgerald’s had begun to overwhelm his belt.

  “Nice wheels, Fitz,” Terrell said.

  Fitzgerald smiled, one hand caressing the curve of a fender. Did Mrs. Fitzgerald get touched so lovingly, Terrell wondered.

  “What can I say?” Fitzgerald replied. “Mid-life crisis.”

  “Has that written all over it. Retirement pay must be good.”

  “I’m working in the private sector now. Better pay. Security Solutions. Heard of them?”

  Mercenaries, Terrell thought. “Yeah.”

  “I’ll be moving up soon. Management.”

  Hate to disappoint you, Terrell thought.

  “So, you have some info for me.”

  “Too many tourists here,” Terrell said. “I rented a cabin at Big Meadows. We can talk freely there.”

  “Whatever you say. Get in.”

  Terrell settled in the tan leather seat, and Fitzgerald followed his directions to Big Meadows. The air whipped through Terrell’s close-cropped hair, and he liked the feel of the sun on his face.

  “This baby can move,” he shouted over the rush of air. “How about letting me drive?”

  Fitzgerald laughed as he down-shifted for a curve. “No offense, Eddie, but this baby needs two hands.”

  Terrell smiled. Fucking asshole, he thought.

  “Took you long enough to get me some stuff on the U.N. pukes,” Fitzgerald said.

  “You wanted something with staying power, right?”

  “Big enough for payback?”

  “Still holding a grudge, Fitz? Killeen was two years ago.”

  “They cut my career short,” Fitzgerald said.

  “Fitz, you were an FBI assistant director. You’d given Uncle Sam close to thirty years. A cherry job to retire from, not to mention setting you up for your new job.”

  Fitzgerald’s knuckles whitened on the steering wheel. “I was AD of shit. I’d go to meetings, and everybody’d shut up. No access to the director. Those two trumped up some story to force my retirement.”

  Terrell heard the lie. If Mai lost her nerve, he’d step in and give her a hand.

  “Were they in K.C.?” Fitzgerald asked.

  “So I hear.”

  “To stop the guy or help him?”

  “They almost stopped him.”

  “Only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades. That bitch is a nut-case, as in someone needs to put her down.”

  Wish I could see your face in a while, Terrell thought.

  Fitzgerald crept up the dirt road to the lone cabin clinging to the slope of a ridge. “Solitary,” Fitzgerald remarked.

  “I like to be careful.”

  “I hope you got a cold one or several inside.”

  Terrell grinned at him. Two Army buddies getting together to bullshit about the good old days of war.

  “Plenty for us both.”

  Everything about the forest was fresh: green leaves barely unfurled, tiny pine trees poking through the deadfall, blooming mountain laurel. Birds sang, and the sun, filtered through the deciduous overhang, lay a cloak of calm over everything. Absent the trappings of humanity, the quiet rang. The birds’ soft calls and the rustling of leaves in a light breeze took the edge off.

  Time stood still, with little to mark its passing, save the subtle shift of shadow as the sun moved. The only violence here was nature’s plan. Insects devoured by birds, birds snatched by raptors, small mammals taken by wildcats or bears. If this place had witnessed man’s conflicts, it was long ago. Perhaps a Civil War skirmish or a struggle between the indigenous people and European invaders. Any sign of either lay buried beneath decades of fallen leaves.

  The beauty and serenity, the latter rare for her, made Mai Fisher understand how insignificant she was. The cycles of nature were momentous and permanent; humans were merely polluters.

  She filed the images away to bring to mind later when she might need them. Now, she had to operate from her reptile brain, that remnant from when humanity’s progenitors crawled from the swamp or swung from trees. An instinctual brain, where reason wasn’t welcome.

  Terrell would be happy to know she had visualized this. Vague and ephemeral at first, it clarified with an acuity she hadn’t expected. She also didn’t anticipate how easy it would be.

  She visualized the half of a child she’d found at the Becker Building site, the pattern of baby ducks and chicks on the clothing. She envisioned the face of the man who put it there.

  Not John Carroll’s face.

  The dense forest concealed her as she watched the cabin. A few minutes earlier than Terrell had predicted, he and Hollis Fitzgerald arrived. Fitzgerald was thicker about the waist, his face fleshier than she remembered.

  As the two men strolled to the cabin’s door, the breeze brought her their voices. Terrell gave a brief glance in her direction, unlocked the door, and held it open for Fitzgerald to enter. Terrell’s eyes still in her direction, he followed Fitzgerald inside.

  If she walked away now, Terrell would figure it out. He and Fitzgerald would leave.

  Much as it had for John Carroll, time, place, and destiny had brought her here, resolved in every molecule of her body.

  Terrell walked into the cabin and tossed the key on a table. “Make yourself at home, Fitz. I’ll get us a brew.”

  Fitzgerald relaxed on the leather sofa before the cold fireplace, his feet up on the rustic coffee table. Terrell brought in two beers, they toasted, and each drained half the bottles’ contents. Terrell slouched in a plush chair, one leg over its arm.

  “Hey,” he said, “remember when they sent us to that network of tunnels on the Laotian border?”

  They launched into reminiscing about Vietnam.

  Forty-five minutes later, Fitzgerald drained the last of his third beer. “War stories are great, Eddie, but what do you have for me?”

  “Let me make room for more beer. Want another?”

  “Sure.”

  Terrell went to the cabin’s bathroom, waited for a while, and flushed the toilet so Fitzgerald would hear it. Without a sound, he went through the kitchen and out the back door. Mai was there, and he saw resolve. It both excited and repulsed him.

  “He brought his own piece,” Terrell murmured. “The cabin registration is in his name. I paid cash and wore my prosthesis, so the clerk saw a guy with two arms.” He needed to move on. If he stalled her any longer, Fitzgerald would come looking. “Are you sure about this?”

  “You asked that, and I answered.”

  He wanted to tell her again crossing this line meant no going back. No, she knew that. “I’ll take a walk and be back to sweep in a half-hour,” he said. “Be gone by then.”

  On impulse, he put his hand on the back of her neck
and drew her face to his. They kissed; it aroused him, but he sensed no passion from her.

  He released her, turned away, and left the cabin behind him.

  61

  Beyond Hurt

  Mai waited until she couldn’t hear Terrell’s footfalls and pulled on Nitrile gloves. She drew her Beretta and entered the cabin. She saw Fitzgerald’s head above the sofa back. An easy target, but that wasn’t what she’d visualized. In a combat crouch, she crept to the sofa until she was behind him. She placed the Beretta’s muzzle against the base of his skull.

  “Show me your hands. Slowly,” she said.

  “What the fuck is this?” Fitzgerald replied, but he raised his hands.

  “Shut up. Using your left thumb and forefinger only, remove your gun and hold it up.”

  He obeyed, and she took the sub-nosed, five-shot revolver from him and shoved it in her waistband.

  “Don’t move,” she said.

  Mai walked to the other side of the sofa to face him. She pushed the coffee table out of his reach and sat on it, watching him. “Hands palms down on the sofa, away from your sides,” she said.

  Again, he obeyed, but she caught the tensing of his muscles, the shift of his feet.

  “Alone again, at last,” she said.

  “Too soon for me.”

  “Burned any babies lately?”

  Fitzgerald taunted her with a smirk. “How many did you blow up in Missouri?”

  She brought the image of the dead baby to mind again. “I’m so far beyond hurt, that’s meaningless. Everyone blames a paranoid, ex-soldier for Kansas City, because it’s clean, easy. No one wants to look into this country’s dark corners for the real bogeyman.”

  “Looks cut and dried to me.”

  “Like Killeen, right?”

  “Justice works in remarkable and strange ways,” he said, smiling.

  “You and John Carroll have a warped notion of justice. I’m about to mete out some.”

  “You? On me?” He laughed and shook his head.

  Mai took a folded piece of paper from her pocket and handed it to him. He read it and showed her a glimmer of fear.

  “Yes,” she said, “that’s your suicide note.”

  “No one will believe this.”

  “Doesn’t matter. The authorities will find it here, with you. It matches your printer from home. Lovely place you have in Oakton. While you and your wife were splashing in the Miami surf last week, while your daughter was at school, I paid you a visit. I’d get a refund on that security system. Easiest one I’ve had to bypass in a while. However, no sign of forced entry and no fingerprints.” She waggled her Nitrile-encased fingers at him.

  He looked at the note. “What’s the list of names?”

  “The people you caused to die.”

  “Did you learn the names of the people you killed?”

  “Many of them, but this isn’t about me.”

  “I didn’t kill any of these people. Can you say the same?”

  “Enough blood for your hands and mine, Hollis.”

  “You and Bukharin threatened me.”

  “A while ago. People forget.”

  “The FBI will come straight to you.”

  “I have nothing to lose.”

  His muscles tensed again. He was preparing to jump her. This was the hard part, the proximity to your victim. Driving a bomb to a building with a facade of glass and concrete was easier.

  “I’m not here alone,” Fitzgerald said.

  “Terrell? Snake and I are the kind of friends who’ve fucked each other. He brought you here.”

  “Not possible.” He flipped the sheet of paper away.

  Mai rose and approached him, taking his gun from her waistband. She put the muzzle against his closed lips. “Open your mouth.”

  He pursed his lips tighter.

  “Open your mouth or I abandon pretense and make this last a long, long time.”

  Fitzgerald locked eyes with her. “You can’t do it,” he mumbled. “Bitch.”

  His lips parted enough for her to get the barrel inside his mouth. The noise of it rasping against his teeth was harsh. She angled the barrel up.

  She pulled the trigger.

  The hammer clicked on an empty chamber.

  A common safety procedure in a house with a child: leaving a chamber empty.

  Before he could react to her hesitation, she pulled the trigger again, the shot loud in the confined cabin.

  The thirty-eight caliber hollow-point’s shock wave plowed through Fitzgerald’s brain, liquefying it, and took out most of the back of his head. A spray of blood, bone, and brain matter fanned out, the blowback speckling her face. She never blinked.

  Her hand didn’t shake when she eased the barrel from his gaping mouth and put it in his hand. She straightened and left through the back door, avoiding the mess.

  Mai walked through the forest to her car.

  Kansas City, Missouri

  Authorities had cleared the Edward M. Becker Federal Building of human and inorganic debris. Files and records left intact went to the various federal agencies, who’d moved to other buildings in town within days. Veterans still needed their benefits, seniors still needed Social Security and Medicare, and prospective homeowners still needed loans. The ATF had open cases to work, the DEA had drug dealers to follow, and the Secret Service had counterfeiters to prosecute. The IRS had audits to complete.

  The building’s empty carcass was both a hazard and a painful reminder. To start the healing, the skyline had to be cleared. Implosion was the quickest method.

  The first delay came when Carroll’s lawyers wanted a search for exculpatory evidence. A judge granted a stay. After the defense experts’ fruitless search, the demolition company set the charges on a morning in May.

  Survivors and victims’ families wanted to observe, and a judge granted that, too. From a safe distance, strangers before the bombing bonded in a way John Carroll would understand from his days as a soldier. They’d come through a war together.

  When the countdown began, some looked away, unable to watch after all. Others stared at the ravaged building and waited.

  The demolition charges were a diminished echo of the earlier explosion. In a few seconds, something representing government in the heartland for almost twenty years came down with a rumble and boiling cloud of dust.

  Science had accomplished what John Carroll couldn’t.

  The rubble came to rest the same time, one thousand miles away, Hollis Fitzgerald’s brains exited his skull.

  Big Meadows

  Terrell didn’t smoke during his trek through the woods. Not good to leave cigarette butts with your DNA for FBI crime scene techs to find. The muffled shot reached him, his cue to head back. On the way, he worked a latex glove onto his hand and dug a chamois from his pocket.

  Terrell worked to set the scene for suicide, smudging his fingerprints on the refrigerator door so they’d be unmatchable. He staged the items related to the purchase of the beer, the cabin key, the gun, all after pressing Fitzgerald’s fingerprints on them. He stowed his beer empties in his pockets.

  He left the suicide note where it lay, spattered with blood. The gunshot residue on Fitzgerald’s hand was the tricky part, but Terrell had prearranged what he needed in the cabin. He’d done this several times, for people far more well-known than Fitz. Finished, he looked at Fitzgerald’s gaping mouth with a small trickle of blood on the chin, the staring eyes with a look of intense surprise in them.

  Fitzgerald had risked his life in Vietnam to carry Terrell to an evac helicopter after Charlie shot Terrell’s leg. “No one gets left behind,” Fitz had said.

  Well, Terrell thought, you shouldn’t have fucked with my girl.

  He double-checked his work before he left, taking a different path through the woods to the Big Meadows’ parking lot. From a pay phone, he called the ranger station near Luray.

  When someone answered, he said, “I was hiking and heard a shot in a cabin. Number seventeen
. Big Meadows. I looked inside, and, uh, I saw a dead guy.”

  Terrell hung up and managed to talk two women into giving him a ride back to his car.

  62

  Deceptive Appearance

  Bukharin-Fisher Residence

  Mount Vernon, Virginia

  After showering in a dingy motel she’d checked into earlier as a blond, Mai drove to a neighborhood in southeast Washington, D.C., and stripped the fake license plates from the Mercedes. She wiped the inside clean of her prints, left the keys in it, and walked away, carrying only the plastic bag with her soiled clothes. As far as any government entity knew, she’d sold that car years before. Her reasons for keeping it hadn’t been sentimental, nor had she had prescience she’d need it for this particular purpose. Merely, it was a spy’s practicality.

  An hour later, in the Suburban and at the driveway entrance, Mai took out her mobile and dialed Olga’s apartment.

  “Lubova.”

  “It’s Mai. Where’s Alexei?”

  “Asleep.”

  “I’m on my way up the drive. I need your assistance, as we discussed. Don’t wake Alexei.”

  Mai parked in her garage spot, where Olga waited. “How long before he wakes?” Mai asked.

  “The pain medication makes him sleep, but we should not dawdle. I will take care of this,” Olga said, taking the plastic bag. “I will return in a half-hour.” Olga went to her car and opened the trunk.

  Mai went to the kitchen to boil water for tea. Her mobile rang, and she saw a blocked number.

  “Fisher,” she answered.

  Terrell said, “Are you all right?”

  “Of course.”

  His breathing was regular, but she heard the telltale inhalation of cigarette smoke. “The bastard made himself out as the victim. This was more than righteous. If you need to talk…”