No Man's Land

by David Baldacci

  He asked for IDs. The first two were obviously doctored so badly that Rogers didn’t even bother keeping them. He just tossed them back. When they tried to pass by him, he put out an arm.

  “Just to be clear, that was a rejection, guys. Try somewhere else, maybe where the bouncer is blind.”

  A black guy, the biggest of them, said, “Come on, man, we won’t drink. We just want to dance and score quality time with some fine ladies.”

  “Sorry, no exceptions.”

  Another of the group, a slightly smaller white guy, stepped up.

  “I tell you what, Grandpa. You let us in and you get to keep your teeth.”

  Rogers smelled the kid’s breath. “You look like you been six-packing already. You might want to head back to the dorm and keep your scholarship.”

  “You must not have heard me, old man.”

  He took a swing, but Rogers had already moved and the fist caught nothing but air.

  “Stop running, Gramps, it’ll only hurt for a second,” said the man.

  Rogers turned to the other men. “I’m telling you guys to take your buddy out of here before something unfortunate happens.”

  The men all laughed. “You sound like a lawyer, dude,” said the black guy.

  “I’m nothing like a lawyer.”

  “How ’bout a doctor, then?” said the man who’d taken the swing.

  Rogers turned to him. “I’m not following.”

  “Then you can heal yourself, asshole!”

  He swung again, only this time Rogers didn’t move. He stood his ground and, as he had done with Karl, clenched the man’s fist. But he didn’t just grip, he twisted and then jerked downward.

  The man screamed and dropped to the pavement clutching his injured arm.

  “You broke my fuckin’ wrist,” he wailed.

  Rogers raised a fist to deliver a blow to the head that would have almost certainly killed the man. The spot on his head was burning like somebody had set it on fire with an acetylene torch.

  No. Don’t do it. Don’t do it!

  “Hey, man, come on, back off!”

  Rogers stared up at the black guy.

  “You proved your point, dude, okay?”

  Rogers let go of the wrist and took a step back.

  Instantly, on a sign from the black guy, two of the other men stepped up to take their shot.

  Rogers didn’t wait for either of them to take a swing. He grabbed the shirt of the bigger one, lifted him off his feet, and threw him against the wall. The man hit the brick hard and slumped down. When the other launched himself low at Rogers’s belly, he brought a knee up and caught him right on the chin. The man fell to the pavement screaming with a mouthful of broken teeth.

  Rogers stepped back and adjusted his hat.

  “Come back when you’re old enough,” he said to the men who were still standing.

  The other guys helped their injured friends up.

  The black guy said, “Oh, we’ll be back all right. Count on it, you son of a bitch!”

  The group stalked off, with several of them supporting their injured buddies. The man with the broken wrist looked back at Rogers and screamed obscenities.

  The other people in line looked stunned by what they had just witnessed. Even the ones who were obviously in the military. Some left. Most stayed.

  Within fifteen minutes Rogers had passed all those twenty-one and older into the bar. All the rest were sent on their way. After seeing what Rogers could do, no one else gave him any trouble.

  “Dude’s a damn freak,” one man muttered to his friend as they were turned away.

  A minute later a stretch limo drove up and the driver got out, came around, and opened the door. Ten people got out. They were all in their twenties and thirties, split equally between men and women, dressed in casual clothes that would break the bank of most people.

  One of the men from the group came up to Rogers. He was tall, good-looking, with thick, curly brown hair, and he wore a carefree, arrogant expression.

  “Name’s Josh Quentin. My party’s on the VIP list.”

  Rogers looked down at his list and said, “I’ll need to see ID from everyone.”

  “You’re new.”

  “First night.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Paul.”

  “Okay, Paul, fair enough. But from now on, remember us. We’re regulars. And I don’t like to wait.”

  He slipped a hundred-dollar bill into Rogers’s hand.

  They all showed ID and Rogers checked the names off on the screen on his phone.

  “Have a good time, Mr. Quentin.”

  Quentin turned to look at him and smiled. “I always do.” He grabbed the gorgeous woman next to him, who returned the grope with a smile and a flirty hip bump.

  Some guys seem to have the Midas touch, thought Rogers. And I wouldn’t mind bashing in the brains of every single one of the pricks.

  He poked his head inside the door in time to see the group head up the stairs and into a room.

  Rogers had not gone up there when he was inside the bar. It had been roped off. He did note that there was a security man posted at the bottom of the stairs who had let Quentin and his group pass.

  Rogers wondered why people would come to a bar and then not go to the bar. Maybe they had their own personal one up there. Maybe they had something more than the peons below got.

  As he was about to close the door he saw Helen Myers pass by the security man and head up the stairs. She went into the same room.

  Rogers closed the door.

  Four times that night he was called into the bar to handle a disturbance.

  Four times he vise-gripped the arm of the offender just enough to get his drunken attention and led the person quietly out the door.

  Twice he saw Myers watching him from the upper hallway. She seemed pleased with how he was handling things.

  The place was packed until one a.m. with hundreds of drinkers, dancers, bad karaoke, and men grabbing ass and women sometimes letting them. Then people began leaving. At two he and another security man eased out the last few stragglers. Then the cleanup crew came in and started stacking chairs and mopping slickened floors. The bleach would probably come out in the morning, Rogers figured.

  He didn’t know how many drinks had been poured over the course of six hours, but he felt the Grunt had just made a ton of money.

  He was sitting at the bar drinking a glass of water when Myers came over and sat next to him. She pulled out an e-cigarette and put the end between her lips.

  “How was your first night?”

  “Pretty much what I expected,” he replied.

  “I heard there was an altercation in line. With some big guys.”

  “They didn’t understand the rules. So I gave a lesson. But I did it as nicely as I could. Like you said.”

  “I saw you do a couple of ejections from in here. They were well done.”

  “Thanks.” Rogers took a drink of water and set his glass down. “Josh Quentin?”

  Myers pulled out the e-cig from her mouth. “What about him?”

  “What does he do to qualify as a VIP?”

  “He owns his own company. Super smart. He’s not a billionaire yet, but he will be. And he’s barely thirty. A real mover and shaker.”

  “Good for him. Nice group of friends with him.”

  “He has lots of friends.”

  “Yeah, I saw him playing grab-ass with one of them. But she didn’t seem to mind.”

  She shrugged. “He gets what he pays for.”

  “Almost a billionaire, huh? Then you’d think they’d be going to some fancy-ass club for high rollers.”

  She frowned at this comment. “This isn’t Vegas. And we’re not just a bar, Paul. We cater to lots of different interests and tastes. Some fancier than others. Good night.” She rose to leave.

  “What about my money?”

  She turned back to him. “Payday is every Friday.”

  “The thi
ng is I need some cash now.”

  She eyed him closely. Then she walked around the bar, opened the cash register, counted out two fifties, ten twenties, ten tens, and the rest fives and ones. She wrapped a rubber band around the cash and tossed it to him.

  He slipped it inside his pocket. “Thanks.”

  “You’re welcome. But that’s a one-off. From now on payday is Friday.”

  “Understood.”

  “And even though you’re not officially on the payroll, we’ll be taking out something for FICA and income taxes. I’m not getting screwed by the IRS.”

  “What does that leave me, then?”

  “Enough. Unless you want to fill out the paperwork? Full name, Social Security number, all that.”

  “No, I don’t want to do that.”

  “Fine. Just so you know, I’ve never paid an employee under the table. I’m not a fan.”

  “So why me?”

  She leaned against the bar. “You looked like somebody who needed a break.”

  “I appreciate that. So how’s Karl?”

  “I’m sure he’ll be fine. And remember, he’s your boss.”

  “Never forgot it. See you tomorrow. Boss.”

  Rogers rose and left.

  It was nearly three in the morning.

  It was time for him to go to work.

  Chapter

  22

  ROGERS PARKED THE van well off the grounds of Fort Monroe and finished the trek on foot. This early in the morning, he was the only one out and about.

  The salt air hit him from the channel, and far out in the water he could see the white lights of a passing ship. It was cool, quiet, and peaceful.

  Depending on how things went, that could all change very quickly.

  He knew exactly where he was going and wanted to get there quickly and unobtrusively. There were few who could move with more stealth than Rogers. That had been beaten into him for so long he could think of no other way.

  The building was just up ahead.

  He had passed it earlier.

  Building Q.

  He did nothing but watch for an hour.

  It was now five minutes past four.

  The private security did a sweep on the half hour, he noted. One went left, the other went right, and they crossed in the rear. A third guard remained at the front gate.

  Standard protocols all the way around.

  Predictable.

  Which was what was wrong with the standard protocols all the way around.

  As soon as all three guards were clustered once more at the front, Rogers moved. It took him ten seconds to scale the rear fence. He did so barely making any noise. He dropped within the grounds and looked around, keeping low.

  He scuttled over to a set of rear entrance doors. They were metal below and chicken-wired glass above. He peered inside and saw the alarm system.

  It glowed red. It was active.

  You didn’t waste guards and a security system on a building that housed nothing important.

  The building was eight stories high, perhaps the tallest here other than the Chamberlin building. Back when the fort was being constructed, land was plentiful and elevators nonexistent. Thus the Army had opted for low-rise construction.

  He took off his shoes and socks, tied the laces together, and swung them over his neck, each shoe dangling on either side of his head.

  He found a handhold in the brick veneer of the building and gripped the masonry with a strength that would be unimaginable for even the best rock climbers in the world. His fingers and toes were actually digging into the hard surfaces. The skin there had been replaced with a synthetic tissue. That was the reason the police couldn’t take prints from him. The synthetic looked and felt like the real thing, but it was far tougher than human skin, which would be bleeding from the friction with the stone.

  He began to climb.

  This was not the first time he had scaled this building, although not as part of his official training. He had simply done it on a bet.

  He had won the bet. Ten bucks.

  He reached the top ledge and vaulted over the edge and onto the flat, pebbled roof. The heavy HVAC systems that climate-controlled the building were housed up here. And there was, of course, an access door.

  He hoped that his memory held up, for this was the critical point.

  He reached the door. It was padlocked.

  One pull and the clasp anchoring the lock tore free from the door.

  He gripped the knob and turned it.

  He took a breath and held it.

  He was not experiencing fear. He could no longer feel that.

  He was thinking about his exit strategy if an alarm went off.

  Guards in front. Roof alarm. They’ll secure the perimeter. How long will that take? I’ll go over the rear side, down to the third floor, let go, and free fall to the ground. Over the fence and out. Twenty seconds. It will have to be enough. If I run into a guard, well, he’ll be dead and I won’t.

  He opened the door.

  He waited. No alarm sounded.

  His memory had been good. They hadn’t alarmed this door back then either. They imagined that no one could scale a sheer brick wall without the aid of a ladder. They were off by one on that assumption.

  He shut the door behind him and moved down the stairs. The interior of the space outlined in his head from thirty-year-old memories, he made his way to the second floor and then out into the main corridor. He looked in the ceiling crevices for motion sensors but saw none. He looked for surveillance cameras but saw none of those either.

  They had put all their marbles on the exterior security.

  But that wasn’t all. No cameras inside meant that whoever operated this place wanted no record of what was going on in here.

  It had been the same when Rogers had been here. Because the