Standing a lean and muscular six foot three, Hathaway excelled at hand-to-hand combat. He aced sniper training and made Navy SEAL. Arriving in Iraq a year before Fallujah, he was assigned to SEAL Team 9 under commander Chief Ezekiel Bohannon, a Team that included William Chan and a scrawny kid called Mathias, just Mathias.
Under order to retreat from Fallujah, Bohannon’s decision to take matters into his own hands seemed like a good idea. By then, Hathaway was impotent anyway, illicit drugs scarce, and access to prescription meds severely curtailed. In the late stages of drug withdrawal and despondence, Hathaway was losing his mind. If asked, he’d have agreed to join a mission to battle three-eyed green aliens on Mars.
Of the men in Team 9, only he and Jackie Chan agreed to follow Bohannon off the cliff. And Chan was bat-shit crazy.
In the months after, they put down nearly a thousand Saddam loyalists, many bona fide bad guys, some not. But who cared? Not the mostly Shiite Provisional government paying them the bounty. Not until an article appeared in The Washington Post hinting at the existence of a death squad of rogue American soldiers working in Iraq did the military act and try to bring the trio to heel.
But potting Iraqi shit-bags was one thing, deliberately battling friendly forces something else altogether. So, Hathaway bolted.
Using American dollars earned from potting Sunni insurgents, he bought his way out of the country, traveling north into Turkey via Kurdistan. Eventually, he made his way by cargo freighter to Italy. With over a half million American dollars stuffed in his gunnysack, Hathaway changed his name, obtained falsified documents and ID, and toured the country for two years on the cheap and down-low; the Sicilian countryside, the scenic coastline of Amalfi, the grand Cathedrals of the Tuscan hills, the canals of Venice.
But Hathaway became homesick. Returning to America in two thousand ten with his new identity, he used what remained of his booty to start a charter fishing business in the Florida Keys.
Life was good.
Then, in two thousand sixteen, he learned through an online war veteran’s support group of William Chan’s release after serving twelve years in a federal facility for desertion.
Stupidly, he reconnected.
Biggest mistake of his life.
Well, he decided now, not if you count his decision to follow Chief Ezekiel Bohannon into the darkest heart of Iraq, a country where too many good American brothers died for no good reason at all.
Now, heading north on I95 with the sun rising over the ocean off his right flank like a rocket-propelled grenade, Mad Max Hathaway worried what other crazy shit Bohannon would get him into.
EIGHTY
New York City, New York
“OPERATIONAL HAZARD, MATHIAS. No one could predict a scum-bag journalist would uncover Tara’s whereabouts.”
Standing with Berkshire and Mathias inside One Police Plaza, Gloria Resnick cringed. She suspected from the very start, Berkshire planned to “out” Tara McDonald.
Seeing through the lie himself, Mathias said, “If anything happens to Tara, Berk, I’ll hold you responsible. The Post cannot publish that article.”
“I don’t control the press, Mathias,” Berkshire said. “If it makes you feel better, I have men on the ground in Carmel and at the ranch. Our men. Not locals or FBI.”
CIA security was expertly trained, Mathias knew; highly efficient killing machines. But at personal protection, they sucked.
Pointing this out, Mathias said, “I’m on the first available flight out of New York.”
Watching the back-and-forth, Resnick said, “Why not bring McDonald in? Place her into protective custody until Bohannon is apprehended. Simple.”
Turning to stare, Berkshire said, “In our world, nothing is ever simple, Rez.”
“Mathias?” she said.
“Removing Tara from the board will cause Bohannon to go to ground, to wait. When she reappears, he’ll act. I can’t keep her safe indefinitely.”
“What do you propose?” Resnick said, addressing both men together.
Without hesitation, Berkshire said, “Let Tara draw Bohannon out.”
“Up the ante?” Resnick said, incredulous.
When neither man replied, she said, “And you’re okay with this, Mathias? Setting your girlfriend up as bait to a psychopathic killer? A professionally trained, psychopathic killer?”
Mathias didn’t respond. Resnick spat.
“You two are sick. I don’t know what world you inhabit, but it’s not one I care to live in. I won’t have you putting innocent civilian lives at risk to satisfy your grubby little endgame. It’s not how the FBI rolls. And may I remind you this is still a Bureau op.”
To Resnick, Berkshire said, “Didn’t I say it, Rez? Doubted from the start your resolve to do what’s needed to get the job done? If you don’t approve, step aside and let Mathias and me go to work.”
Attempting to reason, she said to Mathias, “Please, don’t let him do this. You’re better than this. You have to be.”
Reaching out, she grasped his forearm, taught and hard as a steel beam.
Mathias freed himself with a shiver.
“First,” Berkshire said, “we’ll get Tara out of California and back to Utah. The terrain out there is more like Afghanistan than Iraq. You, Mathias, know this country well. For you, it’ll be like going home.”
EIGHTY-ONE
New York City, New York
ACCUSTOMED TO THE AROMA of decayed flesh, human excrement, vomit, desperation, and fear mixed together all in one place, William Chan didn’t flinch at the smell.
Entering the alley, he spotted Bohannon squatted on his haunches twenty yards down the lane. Watchful, Chan approached cautiously. Chief was always steady as a laser-guided missile, but if six years in the military—one as an outlaw in Iraq—and twelve in a cell had taught Chan anything, it had taught him to expect the unexpected.
Ten feet away, he said in a hushed voice, “Chief.”
“Chan,” came the monosyllabic response.
“You recognize me.”
Bohannon grunted. “Never forget an outline.”
Kneeling to be close, Chan inspected the condition of his former Commanding Officer: skin gray and waxy, forehead beaded with a sheen of perspiration despite the chill night air; grimy, dirty, smelling of the alleyway and the outdoors. But those blue eyes: hard and bright as diamonds looking deadly as ever.
Chan grinned. “You haven’t changed a bit, Chief.”
Returning the grin, Bohannon said, “And look at you: ten thousand-dollar Armani suit, three-thousand-dollar Italian loafers. A real toff, Jackie. Or do you go by William now?”
“I prefer William, sir, if it’s all the same to you. That guy Jackie? He’s dead.”
Nearby, a derelict croaked: “Get a room, you two, why don't-cha.”
Despite his wound, Bohannon pushed effortlessly to his feet. “Let’s blow this pop-stand, William. We can catch each other up later.” Then, “I assume you have a vehicle?”
“Vehicle?” said Chan, surprised to be asked the question. “You should see my vehicle, Chief. We had Humvees like this in Iraq, wouldn’t be so many crips pushing wheelchairs up ramps here at home.”
EIGHTY-TWO
Carmel-by-the-Sea, California
“I’M SORRY, ALLIE, I won’t be kept prisoner.” Tara fastened the clasp on her final piece of luggage. “And I won’t put you and Trevor at risk, either. Mathias got me into this, he can get me out.”
“My point exactly. He got you into this.”
“It’s not as if I didn’t know what I was getting into myself when I signed on, is it?”
“Did you? A Frankenstein’s monster?” As if slapped by the words, Tara turned pale. Attempting to backtrack, Allison said, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it that way.”
Leaning in the doorway, Trevor stiffened. As a litigator, his wife had a way with words, sometimes nasty, often cruel. “Taxi’s waiting outside,” he said to Tara. “Let me give you a hand.”
“Where will you go?” Allie said, pleading. “You can’t go back home.”
“Can’t I?” Tara did plan to return home to Antimony. It was her last stand, her Alamo! Suddenly, she dropped her luggage to the floor. “Shit! I’ll send for my bags. I have a flight to catch.”
Turning to the door, she rushed past Trevor into the hallway, through the foyer, out the front door to her waiting cab.
Allie could see her angry, Allie could see her hurt, but she’d be damned if Allie would see her cry.
On the way to the airport, Tara bawled.
EIGHTY-THREE
Antimony, Utah
A RIDGE OF UNSEASONABLY cold mountain air had come to the valley. The ranch house was both chill and dark. Tara fired the hearth, turned on lights. More than needed. But tonight, Tara wanted the comfort of illumination.
Before leaving, she’d emptied the fridge. Most of the cupboards too. Rummaging, she discovered a tin of Stagg Homestyle chili buried deep in an overhead cabinet. Tara heated the chili in a pot on the stove all the while wondering what she was doing. Heating chili on the stove, of course, but also why had she returned here, to Antimony.
Tara ate her chili seated at the kitchen table. For seven years she’d struggled to make this place home. Finally, when she thought she’d succeeded, Mathias sent her world crashing down, blew-it-all-up in an instant. Perhaps Mathias was a lost cause—or a monster according to the gospel of Saint Allie. Maybe, as her sister insisted, it was time for Tara to cut her losses and run.
But how to cut losses with the only man you’ve ever loved? And was it? Love? Or simply Tara’s deluded version of love, a need to be needed.
Finishing her chili, Tara rinsed her bowl, leaving it in the kitchen sink to soak. She’d stripped the bed, didn’t bother to remake it. In the great room, the fire roared; light and warmth together. Tara fetched a woven, Native American blanket from the linen cupboard, wrapped it around herself, and settled in on the deep-cushioned sofa.
Like a shadow play, flames from the fire danced over the walls and on the ceiling. Stretching overhead like the timbers of an old ship, beams, joists, and door frames creaked and groaned. Outside, the frigid wind whistled down from the mountains over long grass, through gullies and gulches, and over a broad flat plain stretching to beyond where the eye could see.
Inside, Tara was warm. Tangled thoughts receded into sleep.
Plenty of time to worry about Tomorrow, tomorrow.
EIGHTY-FOUR
Antimony, Utah
THE MAN FROM LANGLEY had never served in a desert war let alone a landscape as inhospitable as this.
Shivering in his lightweight windcheater beneath a three-quarter moon, Utah sky glittering with stars bright as diamonds, he groaned. The rubber sole shoes he’d chosen for the mission offered sorry protection against a bedrock of hard stone forged by a million years of wind and erosion into jagged, hazardous outcroppings and unseen drop-offs and deadly declines. Wearing gloves with the fingers removed, he flexed his hands to restore circulation. Arriving in Antimony, the temperature had hovered in the mid-sixties under a high sun and a cloudless blue sky. By dusk, the thermometer had dipped thirty degrees.
Arriving from California on the tail of the woman, the three-man detail was told by their handler to stay out-of-sight but remain vigilant. Though the target might be a wounded single male acting alone, the man was a former Navy SEAL familiar working covert missions in hostile territory. In the Team’s favor, the target had undoubtedly lost a step to age.
Triangulating positions to watch the home from the north, south, and eastern flank simultaneously, the man kept his sight fixed on the long drive leading up to the ranch from a nearby county access road. According to the handler, the target was unlikely to appear for days, if at all, having to travel from New York City.
“But first, he needs to escape,” the handler had said.
With half the cops in the State gunning for him, the handler considered this unlikely.
Still, to the man, it didn’t pay to be complacent. Through his microphone, he said, “Alpha-one, check.” From his earpiece, he received: “Alpha-two, check.” A moment later: “Alpha-three, check.”
The man watched his warm breath mingle with the chilly night air making puffs of steam that rose and quickly dissipated in the rising breeze. Checking his luminescent watch dial, he clocked the time: one forty-three a.m., six hours to relief. At eight a.m., Team Alpha would be relieved by Team Bravo, the two teams working rotating twelve-hour shifts.
Settling-in, the man fought off cold and fatigue. Tomorrow, he told himself, he’d arrive better prepared against the cold and the hard ground. Possibly carry a thermos of strong coffee instead of Red Bull. Hot broth? Sure, why not? While I’m at it, wash down a couple of power bars with chicken noodle soup.
EIGHTY-FIVE
New York City, New York
DECLINING CHAN’S OFFER of silk sheets, an hour after extraction from the alley, Bohannon lay on a sofa in a small East Harlem walk-up apartment. Treating his wound was a physician on the payroll of Chan’s employer.
“He’s not an animal doctor,” Chan assured Bohannon. “He knows his way around a human body.”
Bohannon hoped so. Though the wound was deeper than mere flesh, it was not so severe as to need surgery or anesthesia. But with these things, the risk of infection was always a possibility.
On Bohannon’s command, Hathaway was on the road traveling non-stop from the Keys to join them. “Time to rest when you get here” Bohannon had told his former subordinate.
In the Times and the Post, Bohannon was front page news; articles describing the Central Park shootings, the subsequent manhunt, the killer’s escape, and the murder of the young patrol officer who died in the line of duty in a valiant effort to defend innocent lives.
Bohannon scoffed at the misrepresentation of facts.
Though FBI Director Padgett was recovering in hospital, unspecified complications had developed, Alexis Kim told his supporters.
In the Post, there was a follow-up article about Mathias’s woman-friend, Tara McDonald, by the reporter Brux. Bohannon turned to the page.
After reading the article, he set the paper aside. To Chan, he said, “How powerful are these people you work for, William?”
“Very,” Chan said, with a toothy grin.
“Wealthy?”
“Rich as Croesus.”
“Rich enough to equip and move a three-man unit east to west across the country in under twenty-four hours?”
Still grinning, Chan replied, “And back.”
“Able to drop a three-man team in-country under cover of dark?”
“Mum’s the word,” Chan said, raising an index finger to his lips.
“And return them safely to base?”
Chan issued Bohannon a crisp salute. “Roger that, sir!”
◊◊◊
Despite the obvious, it never ceased to amaze Bohannon the ability for people to underestimate him. First, the military in Iraq, now the NYPD, the FBI, the CIA.
Bohannon had no way to know if Tara McDonald and Mathias were an actual item and no way to find out. Clearly, the article and the follow-up piece in the Post were a deliberate attempt to draw-him-out. The McDonald woman could be a trained operative posing as Mathias’s lover. She could be a local cop.
Either way, it was now personal between Mathias and him. And the bastard who’d set him up.
EIGHTY-SIX
New York City, New York
“ISN’T THIS PREMATURE?” was how Gloria Resnick responded to Mathias sliding the FBI Special Agent ID to her across the table. “Bohannon hasn’t surfaced. To the best of our knowledge, hasn’t left the City. He’s injure
d and alone. Thanks to the Police Commissioner, the NSA has tracked his bank accounts and shut them down; a small community bank in Texas where he stashed the haul after he returned Stateside from Iraq. Totaling over a million dollars, I might add.”
When Mathias didn’t react, she continued.
“Bohannon is broke, Mathias. Without funding, he can’t rearm, he can’t travel, he can’t run. He’s wounded, he’s trapped. Best thing for you is to stay put, here, finish the job you started.”
Mathias smiled. “You forget, I’ve been fired. Director Padgett says, so. Can’t say I blame him after Atlanta; I’d fire me, too.”
“Forget Padgett. He’s lying in a hospital bed coughing up blood. I’m in charge now.”
“No, Gloria, I’m no longer needed here. You have an army chasing after Bohannon. And if you’re wrong, if somehow, he gets out of New York, I need to be with Tara. You being Wrong is a risk I’m not willing to take.”
Resnick sighed. “Your estimation of the man’s capabilities is simply too generous, Mathias. No way Bohannon gets out of New York, travels across the country, harms Ms. McDonald.”
“If you believe that, Gloria, you’re not the woman for the job.”
Taking a moment to decipher the emotion in Mathias’s fractured face, Resnick finally said, “Go, Mathias. Be with your girlfriend,” an uncharacteristic edge of resentment infecting her reply.
EIGHTY-SEVEN
Antimony, Utah
THE HOMESTEAD lay thirty miles northwest of Antimony, a stitch upon a scarred landscape.
Lifting-off thirty minutes earlier from a private compound outside Provo, the Bell 525 Relentless chopper deposited Bohannon and his team eight miles south of the ranch on the north-facing exposure of Table Mountain. Hovering above a deep chasm bordered on one side by rolling hills and on the other by a vicious outcrop of jagged stone rising fifteen hundred feet, Bohannon, Chan, and Hathaway rappelled down through the dark along one hundred feet of nylon line to a scrabble of hard earth near a place called Coates Hollow. Their equipment soon followed, after which the chopper peeled off to the north returning to the compound to await Bohannon’s call for extraction.
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