by Jack Carr
“Who is Humza Kamir?”
“Who?”
“Humza Kamir. The man you sent to kill me in Chinatown?”
“I didn’t even know his name until you just mentioned it. That’s the SECDEF’s asset. I have no idea. Somebody they radicalize online in case they need some dirty work done that can be attributed to Islam.”
Reece shook his head in disbelief. Could that possibly be true?
“Say that again? They do what?”
“They, they have this program where they radicalize at-risk individuals from target populations. They recruit them to what they think is a radical Islamic movement and then use them as expendable assets. I know it sounds crazy, but it’s true. I swear.”
Reece paused as the gravity of what Agnon had just told him sank in.
“Are you certain?” Reece asked, his voice icy and pointed.
“I couldn’t believe it, either, when I first found out about it. In fact, I’m not even supposed to know about it. I wish I didn’t. I think the Hartleys might have created it. I don’t know. I just know it exists.”
“Where do the Mexicans fit into all of this?”
“They were just contract labor. This isn’t the movies, where you hire a hit man to kill someone. We pay some of the cops to make the arrangements with gang types to do it. Mr. Reece, I’m—”
Reece cut him off. “Don’t fucking do it, don’t even sit there and apologize for having my pregnant wife and baby girl shot down in our home by some fucking drug cartel. Trust me when I tell you that you don’t want to do that.”
Agnon sat silently, staring at the floor in front of Reece.
“If this doesn’t work,” Reece asked, resuming his interrogation, “how are you planning to make money on it? You’ve got to be throwing some serious numbers at all these collaborators to get them to risk everything. How are they going to get paid if the drug is no good?”
“Well, now the drug works; there are no efficacy issues, at least not on the latest test rats in India. It’s proving to be over twenty percent more effective than placebo. As for the adverse events, the tumors, we are confident that we have addressed that in the latest version of the product. The most recent test population has shown no such signs.”
“You mean to tell me that you’ve tried this thing on another group of unwilling people? More SEALs?”
“Yes. Admiral Pilsner arranged for another group of candidates and they are doing just fine.”
“You bastards!” Reece shot back, his voice laced with venom. It took all his strength not to snatch the life from Horn’s underling then and there. Regaining his composure, he continued: “Okay, let’s keep going. You haven’t said much about your boss. Tell me more about Steve Horn.”
Agnon took a deep breath. “Mr. Horn is a genius. He sees potential in things that others don’t and he’s relentless when he wants something. When he hears that I’ve been murdered, he’s going to go into hiding and hire every security contractor on the planet to hunt you down. You’ll never get to him.”
“That’s where you’re wrong, Saul; I’m not going to murder you.”
The look on Saul’s face was a priceless mask of hope and shocked disbelief. Reece poured Saul another drink and grilled him for another hour about places, names, dates, everything he could think of that would be helpful in his quest. Saul’s speech increasingly slurred, and his eyes narrowed to small slits. Eventually his head pitched forward as he passed out in the chair from the exhaustive waterboarding and the subsequent alcohol consumption. Satisfied that he had what he needed, Reece decided it was time for Saul Agnon to leave this world.
Reece opened his nylon pack and began laying out the instruments that would bring about the untimely death of Mr. Horn’s compliant assistant. A lighter, a syringe, a metal spoon, a length of surgical tubing, and a small Ziploc bag containing powder. Reece wrapped the tubing around Agnon’s left upper arm and tied it off tightly. He took the spoon to the bathroom, where he filled it partially with water from the sink before emptying the contents of the Baggie into it, forming a paste. Holding the spoon above the lighter, Reece watched the water boil the powder into a thin liquid. He then dipped in the tip of the syringe and pulled back the plunger, drawing the mixture into the plastic cylinder. Reece had done enough first aid training to be able to find a vein, and he quickly stuck the needle into the most prominent blood vessel protruding from the crook of Saul’s arm. He pulled back on the plunger slightly and blood flowed into the syringe, spiraling through the liquid contents like the lava lamps Reece loved as a kid. He pushed down on the plunger, sending the liquid death into Agnon’s bloodstream.
As the methadone, alprazolam, and carisoprodol flowed into Agnon’s brain, they inhibited the respiratory response centers already hampered by his body’s metabolization of alcohol. The mixture of chemicals had a cumulative effect on the brain’s ability to measure carbon dioxide; Agnon’s brain no longer sent the signal to his lungs that he needed to exchange carbon dioxide for oxygen and his body quite literally forgot to breathe.
His death came quickly. Reece placed the needle as well as the rest of the drug paraphernalia on the small table, alongside the empty liquor bottles and the half-full glass of bourbon. He pulled a trash bag from his pack, collecting the padded restraints from Agnon’s hands and feet. In went the cloths that he’d used as a gag and blindfold and finally the length of plastic wrap that still hung around Agnon’s neck. He carried the bag around the entire room, looking for anything that needed to be disposed of in order to sterilize the scene. He took the wet towels from the edge of the floor and threw them haphazardly onto the urine-soaked tile floor. He tied the trash bag off and dropped it into his pack, while the tape recorder went into a small compartment on the outside. Reece did one final sweep of the room before checking Agnon’s nonexistent pulse and changing out of his lab clothes. Then, hanging the DO NOT DISTURB sign on the door, he exited into the early morning darkness.
• • •
Back at the condo, Reece sat at the kitchen table listening to the Saul Agnon interrogation tape. He made notes, stopping and rewinding the tape at more than one juncture to ensure that he had the details correct. If this was a lie, it was a well-crafted one. If it was the truth, it was mind-blowing. After reviewing his notes, Reece pulled a piece of paper from the bag in his pocket and removed the list. He unfolded it and looked at Lucy’s drawing before turning it over and smoothing it flat on the table. With the pencil he’d been carrying in the bag, he drew a line through Agnon’s name. He then added more names to the list based on his notes from his interrogation:
JOSH HOLDER
MARCUS BOYKIN
SAUL AGNON
STEVE HORN
CJNG, MEXICO
ADMIRAL GERALD PILSNER
MIKE TEDESCO
J. D. HARTLEY
LORRAINE HARTLEY
It was time to take Marco del Toro up on his generous offer.
CHAPTER 44
Palm Springs, California
THE HOUSEKEEPER HAD respected the DO NOT DISTURB sign on the door of Casita 134 the previous day, but it was now well after the guest’s appointed checkout time on Sunday and she had cleaned and restocked all the other rooms on her list. She tapped loudly on the door with her keycard.
“Housekeeping!”
But for the sound of classical music playing softly somewhere inside the room, silence.
“Housekeeping!”
Nothing.
“Housekeeping, I am coming inside!”
She inserted her master keycard into the slot and the lock clicked open. Reaching into the room and turning on the light as she swung the door open, her peripheral vision caught a human form slumped in a chair. She began to apologize for her intrusion until her eyes focused on the dead man, an odor the likes of which she had never experienced shocking her system.
“Dios Mio!”
She slammed the door shut and ran screaming for her supervisor.
• • •
When homicide detective Anthony Gutierrez arrived, the responding patrol officers had already cordoned off the scene. The officer outside the door nodded at the detective and motioned him inside the room where another officer was waiting. The smell of death hit Gutierrez’s nostrils as soon as he crossed through the doorway. A quick glance at the body established that calling EMS had been a waste of time and resources.
The departed was naked and his entire body was devoid of color, except for his lower legs, which looked to be filled with dark red wine. Gravity had caused the man’s blood, no longer under pressure from a beating heart, to pool in his legs. His eyes were closed and his mouth was open. But for the startling lack of color, the look on his face made him appear to be asleep.
The manner of his death was apparent from the array of drug paraphernalia on the table beside him: a syringe, a soot-colored metal spoon with the dried residue of what was likely either prescription drugs or heroin, a Bic lighter, a cocktail glass containing a small amount of brown liquid, and empty liquor bottles that appeared to be from the room’s minibar. Surgical tubing was wrapped tightly around the body’s left bicep and a puncture wound was evident on the forearm.
“Another overdose, Detective?” asked the patrol officer, almost rhetorically.
“Yeah, I’d say that’s pretty obvious. Anything else in the room?”
“Nothing out of the ordinary. There’s some puke on the floor over there, piss all over the bathroom. Looks like this guy was partying pretty hard.”
“Who is he?”
The officer glanced down at a pocket-size notebook. “His ID and the name badge from his conference say he’s Saul Agnon from L.A. The resort manager confirmed the room was booked in that name by a guy attending some lawyer conference.”
“When’s the last time anyone saw him alive?”
“All of the attendees have left the conference but, according to the maid, he had a do-not-disturb sign on his door all day yesterday. Maid came in at approximately two thirty-five this afternoon to clean the room and saw the body. She says she didn’t touch anything. My guess is he’s been dead since sometime Friday night.”
“I’d agree based on the body. I’ll call around to some of the folks at the conference and see if we can find out anything, but my guess is that this is a straight-up accidental overdose. Probably heroin or poly-substance. It’s nothing like Northern California, but we still get at least one of these a month. Thirty-something white guys are dropping like flies.”
“Can’t imagine injecting yourself with that shit. Makes my skin crawl.” The officer winced at the mere thought.
“Addiction is a powerful force. This guy’s a lawyer, probably makes more scratch than both of us put together, and he dies butt naked in a hotel room trying to get high.” Detective Gutierrez shook his head. “I’ll snap some pictures. Call the ME, and we’ll get him bagged up and out of here.”
CHAPTER 45
Point Loma, California
REECE SLOWED HIS LAND CRUISER and eased into a parking space off the main drag in Point Loma, just across the bay from Naval Air Station North Island, the Navy’s large real estate holding that occupied the majority of Coronado Island.
Reece had always liked Point Loma. There were some beautiful homes here, with great views of San Diego, its bay, Coronado, and the Pacific. He loved the smell of the ocean, and Point Loma was San Diego’s maritime metropolis. He drove by the front gate to the Marine Corps Recruiting Depot, one of two boot camps where young recruits began their journey into the Corps. Crossing streets with names like Nimitz, Farragut, and Roosevelt, he passed yacht builders, boat repair shops, the exclusive San Diego Yacht Club, and a host of fishermen preparing for yet another day at sea.
Traffic had been light this early on a weekday, but Reece knew that a certain local coffee shop would be open and ready for business. The coffee shop looked like a small Victorian house, which it had been at some point years ago. With two stories and a charming front deck it could easily have been mistaken for an historic home, rather than the small-batch roaster it was. The inside was as appealing as the outside, with large overstuffed chairs and couches arranged among antique coffee tables of just the appropriate size. The walls were adorned with an assortment of old books, which always made Reece feel comfortable and at home.
As early as it was, Reece was not the first customer of the day. A girl in her early twenties sat pecking away at her laptop, probably a student from Point Loma Nazarene University, just up and over the hill, while across the room sat a grizzled old fisherman deep in thought.
Reece ordered a large black coffee. Ordinarily he would have added something sweet, but today he ordered it the same way his friend who usually accompanied him to this particular coffee shop would do it. Reece smiled, recalling how his larger companion would always make some comment about guys who spruce up their coffee, as he shook his head watching Reece add honey or sugar with a dash of cream, or worse yet, adding nothing because he ordered a latte.
Today, that Teammate wasn’t there to give Reece a hard time about his coffee predilections. He was waiting for Reece farther up the road.
Reece fired up the Land Cruiser and headed up the hill, turning onto Cabrillo Memorial Drive. The higher Reece climbed, the more beautiful the view became, the homes and businesses retreating to give way to the natural beauty of the Pacific coastline.
Reece pulled into a small dirt lot facing east and took in the view. Naval Base Point Loma, home to San Diego’s submarine fleet, was just coming to life below him, while across the bay he had a commanding view of North Island, Coronado, downtown San Diego, Imperial Beach, and on into Mexico.
His coffee sufficiently cooled, Reece rested his arm on the open window and took a sip of the strong black liquid that he was sure once flowed through the veins of the friend he had come to see, based on the copious amounts Reece had observed him consume on a daily basis over the years. Watching a Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruiser pass through San Diego Bay into the open waters of the Pacific, Reece could not help but be impressed. That one ship contained more combat power than most small countries. Its imposing presence represented United States diplomacy abroad and traced its origins back to the Continental Navy during the Revolutionary War. To Reece, it looked like freedom.
Reece allowed another smile as he thought about how his friend would have been impressed that he knew the ship below was a Ticonderoga-class. Usually, when his friend would ask him to identify a certain ship in their wanderings, Reece would answer, “That’s a big gray one.” Reece’s professional life had been spent studying the unconventional side of warfare: insurgencies, guerrilla tactics, and terrorism. On those subjects he was more than well versed.
Coffee in hand, Reece exited the cruiser and began the walk to meet his friend. It had been too long. The intermittent muffled sound from the sub base below would occasionally break over the hill to interrupt a distant lawn mower and the cadence of sprinklers on a section of grass across the street. The peaceful chirping of birds in a light morning breeze was the perfect complement to the serenity of Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery.
Reece ascended the steps into a small white nondescript building and entered his friend’s name in the computer to locate his final resting place: section and gravesite number. He had made this trek with Senior Chief Martin Hackathorn on many an occasion, attending too many funerals together over the years. War does that. They always stopped at the small Victorian house coffee shop at the base of the hill before paying their respects to those taken too soon.
One becomes familiar with the layout of national cemeteries in times of war, and Reece was no different. He knew exactly where to go. It was a good spot.
Though he knew precisely where he was going, Reece took his time getting there. He was dressed respectfully in slacks, his customary Salomon shoes, and a tucked-in button-up shirt. Black wraparound Gatorz sunglasses shielded his eyes from the early morning glare. A light jacket hid the Glock 19 conceale
d in his waistband, which he was sure was a violation of policy or law, probably both, and possibly even etiquette, but Martin would not want Reece to visit his gravesite unarmed, of that Reece was certain.
White headstones stood out in sharp contrast with the green grass of the rolling hills. One thing the country did well was keep up national cemeteries. Reece passed row after row in solemn respect; lives ending in dates 1914, 1877, 1966, 1944, 1917, 1898, 2006, 1900, and 2016 had found peace here. Those dates corresponded with events in a country that had seen little rest from war: the Indian War Campaign, the Mexican Campaign, World War I, Vietnam, World War II, the Haitian Campaign, Korea, the Spanish-American War, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Every generation seemed to be represented, and every generation had answered the call. This generation was the repository of that accumulated knowledge of war. Reece did not intend to let it go to waste.
Reece wondered where he would go when it was his time. With what he was about to do, he wasn’t sure. He hoped they would honor the request in his will to be buried alongside Lauren and Lucy. He wanted to be next to them for eternity.
Reece didn’t realize he had stopped walking, nor did he remember how long he had been standing there, coffee still cooling in his hand, eyes welling up, looking at the grave of his friend, the big man with the beard whose head Reece had last held when it wasn’t even attached to his body.
Reece took a knee in front of the headstone, lowered his head, and didn’t speak. His thoughts were focused beyond the grave. Sorry, buddy, Reece thought. We never should have gone on that mission. I knew it and we went anyway. But, the truth of it is, we were set up before we even deployed. I’m the only one left. They took Lucy, Lauren, and our unborn son, and I don’t have long. The bastards that killed you, killed us all back in this country during our work-up. Don’t worry, though. I still have a bit more time. I know who they are now and I’m hunting them. They don’t know it yet, but they will soon. I’m coming for them and I’m going to put them all in the ground.