by Jack Dayton
* * *
Avery came out of the Crossroads at 0645. Vance was waiting for her. Dr. Quinn coolly checked her watch. She had long since accustomed herself to Marine Corps time which usually translated to ten minutes before any scheduled event. The saying ran if you were on time, you were ten minutes late. It was understandable given the events of the night before. She guessed he had been up since zero 4, worked out and shoveled the walk at Jordan before he came over. Maybe he hadn’t slept at all.
“You sleep at all?” Avery slid into the seat, looking at Vance.
“Ma’am, you need to fasten your seat belt.”
Avery smirked. Okay. “What happened with your friend, Pike?” She asked as she buckled in.
“He and I had a couple beers at Sam’s and I told him the whole story.”
“What did he think?”
“He doesn’t know what to think but we did check out the back of the Academy and tried to find a trail from the gorge. The illumination from our mag lights weren’t much help. The tracks were getting buried quick in the snow. There were plenty enough tracks but it was hard to figure which were from the asshole who pushed Seelbach and the investigators who were trying to track him. Especially in the dark.”
“Who is Pike?” Dr. Quinn was still a Ph.D. who needed to have her questions answered.
“Pike and I go way back . . . all the way to Parris Island. Same platoon, 2nd Battalion. Were together on the first run up to Baghdad. That guy . . . he is a tough as they come. When we had to stop for the dust storms that were coming down from the north, he was the one who went out and made sure the Humvees were ready to move. We were all looking out into a void of sand and wind, convinced the Republican Guard was going to emerge like phantoms from the storm and cut all our throats. Or just dump a bunch of chemical weapons on us. Most just hunkered down. Not Pike. He gave me a look as he covered his face with a shemagh so he could go out and sure, I followed him. It wasn’t what everyone made it out to be though.”
“What do you mean?”
“We were sitting there waiting for the dust to quit blowing when this Army convoy came barreling out of the storm and raced by us. We all looked at each other. Who they hell are they? We’re the lead element?”
“Wait, don’t tell me that was when Private Jessica Lynch got captured?” Quinn was almost laughing now.
“Yeah. That was some Army supply train that was lost as fuck and just drove around us.” Vance was laughing now, too. “Talk about the fog and friction of war.”
Quinn smiled. She would never know what it was like to face the fire of war but she loved the Marines who carried that burden for the rest of us and would do anything to keep faith with them. Like Pike. There are people who inspire you to do things you might not if they didn’t invite you to get past your fears. Many of them just happened to be Marines.
Of course, it helps if you are born with the natural talents and abilities of a Cornelius Pike. At 6’ 5” and a chest like a base drum, Pike sure looked the part. “So, did he take off this morning?”
“Yeah, he was out at zero five. He is working at Cyber Command, monitoring chatter from Russia. But I know how to reach him. He showed up just when I needed him.”
When they reached the University, Vance parked in his assigned spot and turned off the ignition. He was composed, looking straight ahead. “Okay, I don’t know where this is going and I know that there are risks, but I’ll be damned if I walk away from this now.” He turned then, watching the reaction.
“I’m there, Gunny. I got your back. Let me help where I can, okay?”
“You are not coming with me to the District, clear?”
“Yes, I get it. I am talking about doing some research. There are a lot of answers that might be staring us right in the face. Let me do that.”
Vance was quiet for a moment. So much had happened in such a short span of time, he was achingly aware of the difference friendships had made in his life. “I don’t know how to say it. I’m just grateful, Doc.” He paused. “Yeah, whatever you can do, let’s go.”
They quickly found their way to Avery’s basement office and, after coffee, started to lay out what they needed to know. Where was Aksel last night? Was he really done with Kulyak and drugs? Did Kool have a hold on him for his past involvement that he could use to blackmail him and most sinister, where was Aksel when Guidry was being murdered on the hill behind Colonel Siggordson’s McLean mansion? They were working through the details when Vance’s Blackberry buzzed on the desk in front of him. He checked the display. “Blocked.” He showed it to Avery before answering.
“Vance.”
“Gunnery Sergeant?” A feminine lilt asked.
“Yes, this is Gunny Vance. Mrs. Siggordson?”
“Yes, Gunnery Sergeant, it’s Kiersten Siggordson.”
“Yes, Ma’am, how can I help you?”
“Gunnery Sergeant, I am calling to offer you my condolences,” she said, a catch in her voice.
Vance was stunned. How could she had known about Sergeant Seelbach?
“Ma’am, I appreciate your call. I know how busy you must be getting ready to return to Norway.”
“Yes, we are almost ready to return home.” Her voice wavered slightly.
“I have to ask though how did you learn about Sergeant Seelbach?
“Sergeant who?” Mrs. Siggordson puzzled response sent a cold chill up Vance’s spine.
“Sergeant Seelbach . . . one of the Marines here passed away last night.”
“Oh my. Oh my.” Her voice trailed off.
“Ma’am, what?”
“I truly am sorry, Gunnery Sergeant Vance. I had no idea. I am so very sorry.”
“Thank you, Ma’am.” Vance paused, his gut hollow anticipating her reason for calling. “But, Ma’am, why did you call?”
“I hardly know how to tell you this, Gunnery Sergeant. We are stricken here. I hate to be the one to break this news to you but Major Dahl died last night.”
“What?” Vance’s incredulous yelp tore Avery’s attention from her monitor.
“Yes, I know. It is terrible. I know how close you were to Major Dahl.”
“I . . . what happened? How did he die?”
Avery’s eyes widened.
“It is painful . . . He died of an overdose.”
“No, no, no, no, no . . . Not an overdose. Ma’am, no way. With all due respect, I know Aksel would not have done that. He was clean. He would not have taken anything.”
“I know this is hard to hear, Gunnery Sergeant, but he was found with the needle still in his arm.”
Later, Vance would have a hard time remembering what he said before he put his Blackberry down. All he knew was that another friend was gone and someone was going to answer for it.
Chapter 16
The bourbon swirled in the heavy bottomed crystal, gliding in a slow spin around the chilled rocks. He was fascinated by the light glissando of the clinking stones, the shimmer along the sides of the glass. He allowed himself another moment of distraction before easing back into his chair and examining the ceiling.
His phone buzzed like a fly laying on its back on his desk blotter. He didn’t need to look at the display to know who it was. Answering was pointless. He wasn’t angry anymore. Unraveling in the car earlier had exorcised most of the rage. Anger was a secondary emotion, he knew that. It was usually preceded by frustration or hurt. That was easy. The frustration was still there, twisting like a snake through water, sliding from his gut to his throbbing head.
How had things gotten so out of control, he wondered. There was a solution here and he would find it, even as the ticking of time in his head beat in an accelerating pizzicato. The final pieces were within their grasp. Events had taken on twists even he had not anticipated but it wouldn’t matter in the end. The key was keeping a safe distance for himself. That was the only way he could continue to be effective.
Isn’t that what he had learned from his childhood? He needed to be distanced from the c
haos. His talents, his special abilities were important, valuable. He needed to protect himself from the blowback. A shame that his best asset would probably go down. It wouldn’t be easy to replace him but he couldn’t afford to be tainted. He’d have to convince him to fall hard on his sword but that wasn’t impossible. If not, he had a final move he could use. He’d had to use it in the past and it had proven useful. He knew he couldn’t expect to rely on it forever. But he wouldn’t need it much longer. The organization was maturing and they soon wouldn’t need his contributions. He had a role to play in the struggle to keep their culture ascendant and he couldn’t flinch now.
He could do this . . . convince a believer to sacrifice himself. Their entire lives were dedicated to accomplishing their common goals. This would just be one more of goal. Besides, the clumsy misadventures of his young associate had brought it on himself. It just had to be framed the right way. A call to sacrifice with the implicit threat always looming. He could do this. He had to.
* * *
Vance shook his head. How many times would he be forced to make this trip up I-95? He turned the satellite radio down. He had to think. This would be a weird confrontation. He hadn’t seen Kulyak since Afghanistan and then at random for quick meetings and reviews. Would he recognize him? He wasn’t a man to be crossed, Vance knew that.
His history commanded respect from the Marines who had worked with him. He had emerged from the second siege at Grozny and found his way up into the hills to an insurgent group that managed to harass the Russians as they drove to quell the Chechens’ bold but tattered resistence. The leader, Hamzat Gelayev, the legendary Black Angel, was a cunning, crafty foe. If you believed the stories people told about his final moments, his death only heightened his status as a ruthless, fanatical hero.
No one really knew when Kool had decided he’d had enough but it was before the insanity of the Beslan school massacre. He learned a lot from living on nothing up in the hills above Grozny. Following the Black Angel taught him more than just eating insects to survive. The fight was brutal and it attracted the kind of intense jihadis the Marines had encountered in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, even Africa. It seemed all you had to do was throw up the flag and young men emerged to fight to the death. Some of them had come from Helmand to help the Chechen insurgency. Speaking their native tongue, Pashto, Kulyak picked up the language quickly. That proved to be an asset when he finally escaped the service of the Black Angel and somehow stumbled his way through the various fields of fire in the Middle East to Qatar. Got him a spot in the ever-expanding mission in Helmand province. Soon enough he was embedded in a village near the Marines, trying to get Afghan farmers to plant wheat instead of poppies. By the time Vance, Guidry and Dahl had arrived, his status among Marines was almost as legendary as his Black Angel mentor. His scarred face was still attractive in a roguish, chiseled way. The Marines came to admire his warfighting, particularly his knife skills.
Rolling up on him at his restaurant wasn’t the best plan but Vance had nothing else to go with. He had never been in a knife fight with a Chechen. It wasn’t on his bucket list either.
His mental model of what could happen when they met was interrupted by a Bluetooth call. It was Dr. Quinn. “Doc, what’s up?”
“Gunny, you need to know something before you go anywhere else.”
“What is it, Doc?”
“I’ve been going through all the bios I can get my hands on and one turned up a piece of information that might mean something. There’s another officer at the Embassy that went to Bridgeport. Maybe you know him . . . Nygaard, Major Rune Nygaard. Ring any bells?”
Vance paused . . . he was digesting what that might mean and realigning the scenarios he had thought were figured out.
“Holy shit, Doc.”
“I know . . . ”
“Don’t I feel like an asshole. Wondering if Aksel was involved in Seelbach’s murder. It would explain why Aksel died. He sure as hell didn’t take his own life. And there’s a fair chance we know who killed Seelbach now.”
“Aksel must have found out something that put him at risk. We still don’t know why the attache was a target, how they got to him, how the Chechens got involved. We need to let NCIS know, Gunny.”
“Yeah, but I’m going to DC.”
“Why? This is something we can follow. Why go to Kulyak now?”
“The only thing we know for sure is that a Chechen killed the attache and then he and Guidry were killed. The only Chechen I know is Kool. It’s that simple.”
“I’m not even going to try and talk you out of it. But if he is as desperate as it sounds he might be, you better be prepared.”
“Hey, the only other person in the Afghanistan with a bigger rep than him was me. He’s the one who needs to be prepared.”
* * *
2300. Dr. Quinn rubbed her eyes and gave her head a quick shake. “C’mon, Avery. When you were working on your dissertation, you still had three good hours to get something done by now.” She inhaled deeply and stretched her legs under the desk. She knew she wouldn’t be able to sleep anyway, not while Vance was out there.
Slowly, painstakingly, she had continued to dig through the data sites that she thought might be able to inform Vance’s ersatz investigation. She silently went through what they knew for sure about Kulyak. He was Chechen from Grozny, fought in the hills with the Black Angel, got out before Beslan School massacre, went to Qatar and hooked up with a contractor. Qatar . . .
Avery grabbed her phone and scanned her contacts. There it was. Hassan Faraj, former Qatari student at Command and Staff who owed her a favor.
It was 0600 in Doha. Hassan was getting a wake-up call.
* * *
The phone rang for what seemed like longer than it should have. That long beeeeep of overseas phones. She was thinking back to one of the last times she had spoken to Hassan Faraj. He had just emerged from the Student Performance Evaluation Board in which he had been asked to account for what his faculty advisor assumed to be plagiarism. She had been enlisted by the Deputy Director of Operations at Command and Staff, Mike Rossi, to assist Faraj with his defense for the non-attribution of a source on a Power Point presentation. While the strict definition of plagiarism was one explanation, the actual circumstances were related to a misreading of attribution requirements. She was convinced the lapse was a simple miscommunication and could be explained. She guided Hassan through the vagaries of the University policy and coached him on his defense. As much assistance as she was able to provide Faraj, he had to face the Board on his own. She waited outside the conference room like an anxious parent imagining the oral exam he was experiencing.
He emerged after the initial grilling, waiting as the panel deliberated his fate. She thought she heard voices raised just briefly. Sounded like the voice was Mike. She hoped he was arguing for understanding and leniency. The conference room door opened and Mike stood in the doorway. “Okay, Hassan. You can come back in now,” he said as he stepped back opening the door for the Major to return to his seat in front of the panel.
Major Faraj locked eyes with Avery and inhaled deeply before going in. Mike closed the door, giving her an eye roll as he turned back to the room.
When Faraj came out, he looked as though he had just run a marathon. His brow glistened with sheen and he was breathing deeply. She bent her head slightly to catch the expression on his bronze face. He looked up finally and gave a weak smile. “It is okay,” he said. “I am not dismissed.” He laughed then. She knew better than to whoop with joy but she broke a long-standing rule of her own to never touch a student and clapped him hard on the back.
“Sir, that is outstanding.” Even as he weathered this most humbling of situations, he was still a Major in the Qatari Air Force and deserved all the respect that his title implied. “What do they expect you to do?” She knew it wasn’t going to be simply swept under the rug. She just hoped it wouldn’t result in him being sanctioned by his military chain of command.
“They want me to redo the presentation and correct the error. I shall resubmit the work and it will be graded but there will be a penalty in grade.” He exhaled and nodded his head. “I am sorry this happened but I am very happy they will at least let me correct the problem. I just want to move on from this and do well.”
Avery remembered her sense of relief. She had seen far more severe measures taken, mostly appropriate but she knew that the loss of status that went with sanctions or even dismissal could be very difficult, even dangerous, when students returned home. It was a sweet moment for both of them and she knew Hassan had been grateful for her support.
She was just about to give up when the beeping stopped and a sound like cloth against the phone gave way to a brusque “hallo.”
“Is this Hassan Faraj?”
“Ah, . . . Yes, this is Faraj.”
“Major Faraj, this is Dr. Quinn at the University of the Marine Corps. Do you remember me?”
“Dr. Quinn, yes, of course, I remember you. How are you? I apologize for not being more courteous to you when I answered. It is early here.”
“Major, don’t worry about that. You were very polite. I very much apologize for the early call. Do you have a moment to talk now?”
“Yes, yes, I am happy to talk. How are you?”
“I am fine, Hassan, how are you?” She would have loved to plunge into why she was calling but knew that honoring the courtesies of her Qatari friend were a basic to any interaction.