by Mel Odom
“Well, now,” her dad blustered, “ain’t that a fine how-do-you-do? Here I am, callin’ to apologize, and you up and blast me with something like that.” He snorted. “And I’m not drunk. I admit I’ve been drinkin’ some, but it’s Thursday night and they say the end of the world is right around the corner so I figure I’m entitled.”
Jenny walked through the kitchen and out onto the patio. She stood alone in the darkness, staring at the long rectangle of light that spilled out from the kitchen window.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m just tired.”
“What from?”
“I’m helping a friend.”
“Hope the pay is good,” Jackson McGrath said. “Them people at the Kettle O’ Fish called and said you ain’t got no job no more. Can’t believe you done let yourself go and get fired.”
“I didn’t get fired,” Jenny said, feeling the guilt at once. “The restaurant is closed for right now. Sounds like maybe they’re not going to reopen it.”
“And now whose fault is that?” McGrath belched in her ear.
“There are a lot of businesses that are closing down, Dad,” Jenny said. “Haven’t you been watching television?”
“Naw. Too depressin’. But I been out lookin’ for work.”
Jenny knew the statement was a lie from the tone in his voice. “Find anything?” she asked hopefully. If he found something to do that he enjoyed he usually stayed sober at least for a while.
“Naw. And I talked to the apartment managers, see if they was gonna work us some slack what with all this stuff goin’ on. They said they wasn’t. We’re already a week late on this month’s rent.”
“I paid this month’s rent,” Jenny said. “I saw the receipt.”
Her dad lit a cigarette at the other end of the phone connection. “Actually, girlie, you paid last month’s rent three weeks late.”
Jenny remembered the receipt then, remembered how February had been scratched out and March had been written in. Her dad had said they’d made a mistake on the receipt, written down the wrong month and hadn’t wanted to write a new receipt.
“You changed the month,” she said.
He paused. “Yeah. Yeah, I guess I did.”
“You were supposed to pay February’s rent.”
“Well, now, I would have. I surely would have. But I had that mechanic work done on the truck.”
Jenny fought back tears. “I saw the bill for the mechanic. It was less than half the cost of the rent.”
“I know, I know, girlie. But the problem was, I didn’t have all the rent money, now did I?”
“You spent it.”
“Yeah, yeah I did. An’ I gotta admit, it was gone before I knew it. I figured we’d just make it up next time. Me an’ you pay double rent. Only the apartment folks was pressurin’ me.”
“Why didn’t they call me?” They always had in the past.
“I told ‘em not to. I told ‘em it was mine to take care of ‘cause you were just a kid.”
And we haven’t lived in this place long enough for them to know you can’t be trusted.
“I tried to work a deal with the managers,” Jackson McGrath said. “I told ‘em the world might end tomorrow way it was goin’. Told ‘em would be better knowin’ they was gonna get their rent money a week late as to not get it at all. They said if we don’t pony it up by Monday next week, they’re gonna slap a lock on the door.”
We, Jenny thought and felt tears of helplessness fill her eyes. You don’t mean we, Dad. You mean me.
“Now,” McGrath said, “it won’t bother me none to live outta the truck again for a while, till things gets better, but I know how you hate it.”
“Dad,” Jenny said, fighting to stay calm, “I’ve got more than half the rent money put back. I didn’t tell you, but I’ve been keeping money—”
“No, you don’t,” her dad said in a softer voice. “Not anymore you don’t.”
He’d found her money. Jenny leaned back against the house and quaked from anger and frustration and pain. Hiding money in the McGrath household was a game, a brutal and vicious game. She couldn’t keep money in her purse because her dad went through her things. She couldn’t keep money in her room because she had to go to work and he stayed home. At different times, she’d hidden the money she’d been able to save in different places in whatever residence they’d been living in at the time.
“Gotta admit, though,” her dad said with a little pride in his voice, “hidin’ the money in the truck like you did was dang smart. I’da never looked there if the police officer hadn’t pulled me over and asked to see my insurance verification. Didn’t have no insurance, though, but I had to give him a show. While I was goin’ through the glove box, I found that money.”
“Dad—” Jenny sucked in her breath and struggled for control—“I work for tips.”
“Girlie, I know that.”
She made herself speak. “The check I get, if I even get it, is nothing. That won’t even begin to pay the rent.”
Jackson McGrath was silent for a time. “Well, now, I guess we’ll just have to do the best we can. That’s all anyone can expect.” He puffed on his cigarette. “Anyways, I was calling to let you know that we’ll probably be out on the street come Monday. And to apologize.”
“Apologize?” Jenny wiped tears from her eyes. “For taking the money I’d saved back?”
“Well, that, too. But I was talkin’ about not comin’ and gettin’ you yesterday mornin’ like I said I would. I just got caught up in a few things.”
Was dead drunk to the world, Jenny thought. She’d even forgotten that her father was supposed to come get her. Things at Camp Gander had been hectic as always.
“But I’m sorry about takin’ the money too,” McGrath said. “Sure didn’t mean to do that, girlie. But it was just settin’ there an’ I got to feelin’ sorry for myself after the police officer took my driver’s license an’ told me I was lucky he didn’t have time to impound my truck. Man had a real attitude on him, I’m tellin’ you.”
“How much trouble are you in?”
“Some. Got me drivin’ under a suspended license an’ a couple of back bench warrants. Told me if he had room for me in his jail, he’d probably have loaded me up under it. I’m gonna have to pay some heavy fines. Maybe even rack up some jail time, which I ain’t gonna do. Could be we’re gonna have to move out of Columbus for a while. But that’s okay. I never much liked this place anyway. Too big and noisy.”
Jenny’s stomach churned. Leaving Columbus meant leaving the opportunities the city offered. Her father would, as he had done so many times in the past, drag her into another small town in a rural area of the state and settle into whatever menial ranch labor or construction or concrete job he could find.
Jackson McGrath sighed again. “I tell you, girlie, I ain’t had nothin’ but bad luck in a month of Sundays. I know I told you before, an’ I’ll tell you again. You are the best thing that’s ever happened to this ol’ cowboy.”
A woman’s voice murmured in the background, but the words were too indistinct and slurred for Jenny to make them out.
“Look, I gotta go,” her dad said. “I’m over at a friend’s house an’ she’s gettin’ a mite irritated at me tyin’ up the phone.” He lowered his voice into a whisper. “An’ I think she’s kinda sweet on your ol’ man.”
So he’d gotten drunk and found someone to share it with, Jenny realized. He was also probably paying for the booze as long as that held out.
“I just wanted you to know that I’d be by in a couple days. I see they opened up the base there—”
“Post, Dad,” Jenny corrected automatically. “They call it a post.”
He laughed. “Well, listen to you. You gone all army on me now, girlie?”
Jenny refused to answer.
“Well, I just want you to know that I think that’s kind of cute.”
“Dad—”
The woman’s voice sounded in the background again, more
demanding now.
“Look, girlie, I really gotta go before she gets ticked. I just wanted you to know that I’d be by there in a day or two and we can figure out—”
“No,” Jenny said. Everything suddenly felt surreal, as if she were a step outside herself.
“What?” The black anger that sometimes filled Jackson McGrath sounded in his voice.
“I said no, Dad.” Jenny drew in a long breath. Help me, God. I’ve never stood up to him before, and I just can’t do this anymore. I don’t know what else You have planned for me, but this can’t be what You want for me.
“What you tellin’ me no about, girlie?” Some of the drunkenness disappeared from Jackson McGrath’s voice.
“No, I’m not going with you. I’ve been carrying you for years now. Taking care of you. Paying the bills. Listening to every excuse you ever shoved my way. Well, I’m done. This world has changed. I’ve changed. I probably changed before all of this happened, but I know I’ve changed now. I’m not going to do this anymore.”
“Now you look here, Miss Jenny Raye McGrath!”
“No. You do what you want to, Dad. Whatever you want to do. But you give me the same privilege.” Jenny broke the connection, afraid that if she gave him the chance to start speaking again she would weaken.
She checked the number in caller ID, saw that it was the one her dad had called from, then punched in call-blocker to block any further phone calls from that number. Then she stood quietly in the darkness, cried, and prayed to God that she had made the right decision.
United States 75th Army Rangers Temporary Post
Sanliurfa, Turkey
Local Time 0524 Hours
Still in motion, knowing from the conversation he’d heard earlier that there was at least one other CIA agent in the apartment, Goose hurried through the door. His injured knee quivered threateningly for just an instant but held up under him.
The other agent sat at the sophisticated array of computer hardware filling one wall of the living quarters. The computer screen showed a war game in progress, the view through a sniper scope sweeping over a jungle area as the agent moved the mouse.
“Hey, Craig,” the agent said. “You gotta see what Donovan is trying now. Guy thinks he can get me with that old bait-and-switch tactic by offering me one of his grunts to expose my sniper. Can you believe that?”
He leaned forward and typed an obscene message on the screen. Whoever was playing at the other end wrote back in kind immediately. The CIA agent laughed and reached for the package of peanut M&M’s by the keyboard.
Goose covered the distance across the hardwood floor in long strides, pushing the MP5 SD3 ahead of him. The suppressor at the end of the barrel made the weapon look like an artillery piece.
“Craig?” The agent looked up. His eyes went wide as he saw Goose closing on him.
Goose pointed the machine pistol at the center of the man’s chest. He didn’t speak. The message was clear enough.
Instead of being frightened, though, the man reached for the pistol snugged in a shoulder holster under his arm as he stood.
If the op had been a sweep-and-secure mission against a known hostile force, Goose would have shot the man, stepped over his body, and kept going. But fatalities were out of the question. The CIA agent was either too young or too stupid to give up, or he’d seen too many action films.
Without breaking stride, Goose closed and chopped the CIA agent’s wrist as he freed the pistol from the shoulder holster. The pistol fell to the floor at their feet with a thud. Goose was thankful it didn’t go off.
Sweeping the MP5 up, Goose drove the abbreviated buttstock into the agent’s forehead and popped his head back, hoping to disorient him. The agent reached forward blindly, opening his mouth to scream.
Goose resisted the immediate impulse to slam the machine pistol into the guy’s mouth and stop the scream. The man would have lost a lot of teeth that way. Instead, Goose reached forward with his left hand, chopped the edge of his hand along the CIA agent’s Adam’s apple hard enough to choke him down but not break the larynx, then grabbed his shirt collar and lifted his left foot into the man’s crotch.
All the fight left the man in a rush. He bent over, gagging and throwing up. Goose helped him on his way, putting a hand in the back of his head and shoving him facedown on the floor. He let the MP5 hang from the whip-it sling around his shoulder, put a foot in the agent’s back, and applied a sleeper hold that shut off blood flow from the carotid arteries in the neck.
After a handful of seconds, the CIA agent slumped.
Satisfied the man was out, Goose took up the machine pistol and quickly went through the three-room apartment. He already knew the general schematics from other apartments in the area: living room/kitchen, bedroom, bath were set up in a straight shot.
No one else was there.
He returned to the front door, intending to wave Danielle into the building. He almost ran into her as she ran up the steps to the secondfloor patio. The rain dogged her footsteps. She wore dark clothes and a black watch cap he’d found for her.
“You were supposed to stay put,” Goose growled.
“I got worried.”
“If I hadn’t secured the room, you might have got dead.” Goose bent down and grabbed the first man by the ankles.
“Did you kill him?” Danielle asked.
“No. I choked him down and knocked him out. I didn’t come here to kill anyone.” Goose dragged the man from the patio into the apartment and closed the door. He nodded toward the computer. “Go. We don’t have much time.”
Danielle hesitated, then seated herself in the chair at the computer. She looked at the screen. “What is this?”
“Computer game.”
“I see that, but these players are linked.”
“So?” Goose laid the first man by the second and dug a roll of ordnance tape from his chest pack.
“What if the guy on the other end can shut down this computer from where he is?”
Goose tore off a strip of tape and started binding the first man’s hands behind his back. “I don’t know.”
Danielle stared at the screen. “Whoever it is wants to know if I’m still here.”
Goose moved to the computer and looked at the screen, scanning the type at the bottom of the screen.
>YOU THERE?
>YOU THERE?
>HASKELL, YOU THERE?
Leaning forward, Goose typed:>BRB.
“Be Right Back?” Danielle asked.
“Gamespeak,” Goose said. “They use it on Net Chat too.”
“And you learned this how?” Danielle asked.
“Joey. My teenager. He games a lot. I’ve watched him play. Gamers get used to starting and stopping play. I’m hoping these guys aren’t any different.”
>OK. GOTTA TAKE CARE OF SOME STUFF AT THIS END FOR A MINUTE. LEMME KNOW WHEN YOU WANNA GET YOUR TAIL KICKED SOME MORE.
Goose nodded at the computer. “Okay, let’s get it done.”
Danielle opened the Internet window and started typing. With the satellite connection, the Internet stayed on.
Goose finished binding, blindfolding, and gagging the two CIA agents. Then he took the removable hard drive from his LCE and hooked it into the computer system. A pull-down menu floated to the top of the screen and revealed that the computer had found the new hardware.
“You have to love the new plug-and-play stuff,” Danielle said.
Goose didn’t say anything as he watched her work.
Muckraker:>R U THERE?
The reply came almost immediately.
Mystic:>HERE. I’D ALMOST GIVEN UP ON YOU. THOUGHT MAYBE THE GREMLINS GOT YOU.
Muckraker:>WORKING OUT OF THE GREMLINS’ DUNGEON, SO WE HAVE TO WORK FAST.
Mystic:>NO JOKE?
Muckraker:>SERIOUSLY. I’LL TELL YOU MORE LATER. IF I GET OUT OF HERE. I NEED THE FILE.
Mystic:>I’M GETTING A STRONG PING ON YOU. ONLY TAKE A FEW MINUTES. I’M SENDING.
Another pu
ll-down window appeared on the screen, asking where the file was to be delivered. Danielle pointed to the icon for the removable hard drive. Then a blue line popped up and showed the progress of the download.
Goose breathed shallowly, keeping the mind-numbing fear at the back of his skull. He was exposed and vulnerable, and he knew it. Even if he got Danielle and himself out of the CIA safe house alive, which he had every intention of doing, Remington would know he had been there and want to know why. Danielle could step away from those questions, but Goose couldn’t. And he wasn’t prepared to answer those questions yet.
The blue bar finally crept across the screen and read 100 percent.
Mystic:>YOU’RE DONE.
Muckraker:>THANKS.
Mystic:>IF YOU LIVE, LET ME KNOW HOW IT TURNS OUT. OR MAYBE I’LL READ ABOUT IT ON THE NET.
Goose let out a tense breath as he disconnected the portable hard drive and put it back in his LCE, making sure the protective foam was in place. He took Danielle’s elbow. “Let’s go.”
Danielle worked the trackball, opening file folders all across the screen. “Wait. Maybe Cody and his team have more information in here. It’ll only take a second—”
“We’re done,” Goose said. He released her elbow and picked up the computer tower. The screen went blank as the connections pulled free.
“Taking the computer?” Danielle asked.
“No.” Goose didn’t want any trace evidence left on the computer’s hard drive of who had been there and what they had done. He stepped out onto the patio, leaned over the side, and dropped the computer into the half-filled Dumpster below.
Hurrying down the steps, favoring his bad knee, Goose took an AN-M14 TH3 grenade from his LCE, pulled the ring, then popped the spoon. He tossed the grenade into the Dumpster, then turned, caught Danielle’s arm, and shoved her toward the other end of the alley.
“Run,” he growled.
“Was that a bomb?”
“Grenade,” Goose replied, and the liquid whoosh of the explosion filled the alley. A wave of heat washed over him and he ducked instinctively. When he glanced back, light belled out over the Dumpster and the metal sides were already turning to molten slag. There was no way anything of the computer would remain that could be used to find out what they had done.