by Barry Eisler
Horton and I climbed the ladder, again with Horton in the lead. Larison waited at the bottom to engage anyone who might find a way to follow us. The explosions had stopped, but this close to the surface I could hear the helicopter overhead again. “Wait,” Horton said. “It’s too close. Give it a moment—the pilot will circle to assess the damage and see if anyone comes out.” He unslung the Stinger, opened the sighting mechanism, and popped in the battery cooling unit.
“How did you . . .” I said, and trailed off.
He pulled two heavy bolts back from the underside of the trapdoor. “Build this?”
“Yeah.”
“I hired the same guy who advised the Sinaloa Cartel on the tunnel they built to bust El Chapo Guzmán out of a Mexican maximum-security prison. That one was a mile long. This was easy by comparison.”
“What about the hardware?”
Horton glanced at the Stinger and smiled like a parent proud of a newborn. “Oh, this? You might have heard of Operation MIAS—Missing in Action Stingers. The buyback program for missiles we gave the mujahideen fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan, and then lost track of. I was in charge of it.”
The sound of the helicopter grew distant—it was circling the house, as Horton had predicted. “Now,” Horton said. He pushed up the trapdoor and climbed through. I followed him. We were at the edge of the woods, about where I had thought. There was smoke everywhere, thick and acrid. I heard the roar of flames. I turned and saw Horton’s house. Half of it was gone, and the rest was on fire.
For a moment, Horton stood staring at the ruin. Then he placed the Stinger on his shoulder and opened the sighting mechanism. I stepped to the side to be sure I was well out of range of the backblast. The helicopter emerged from behind the smoke of the burning house, buzzing and dark green, looking like some weird half egg, half deadly insect.
Horton took aim and fired. The missile left the firing chamber with a pop like a gunshot and hung in the air for a moment. Then its internal fuel kicked in and it took off with a sound like a jet clearing a runway, accelerating ahead of a long trail of smoke directly toward the helicopter. The sight of the tail fire and smell of the smoke were surreal—dissolving decades of urban living, and making me feel I’d awakened in one of the combat zones of my past.
The helicopter banked hard, the space behind it suddenly occupied by a half dozen countermeasure flares. The missile locked onto one of them and exploded in a ball of fire. The helicopter spiraled madly, and I thought it was going down. But the pilot must have been good, because after a moment he stabilized and began circling back to our position. The chopper’s nose was down to increase its acceleration, but in a second its guns would come up, and rockets, too, if the pilot had any left after what he’d done to the house.
I brought up the Lynx and leaned in hard. A .50-cal fired from the shoulder is like getting kicked by a horse, and my now reengaged muscle memory had no confidence in whatever I’d read about specially designed recoil. I sighted through the scope, my heart hammering, let out a deep breath, and pulled the trigger.
There was a BOOM! as loud as an exploding mortar round. And as tightly as I was squeezing the pistol grip, the recoil was still harder than I was ready for. The first round went high. The helicopter slowed and began to straighten, its guns coming up. I fired again—BOOM-KICK!—but this time I’d overcompensated and the shot went low. The pilot, maybe spooked by the near-misses—or rather, near-hits—began to fire his guns even though his nose was still low, twin geysers of flame and smoke roaring out from alongside the craft’s belly. In my adrenalized slow-motion vision, I saw the earth ten yards in front of us begin to erupt as though bombs were going off in it, clods of dirt and grass and rock exploding in all directions, the shriek of thousands of rounds a minute invading my ears and my mind. I’d never expected to hear that sound again, and its sudden reemergence in the here and now was beyond terrifying—it was disorienting, leaving me in some kind of limbo between the man I thought I was and the soldier I’d thought was gone.
The nose kept coming up, the sound of the guns obliterating everything, the erupting earth coming closer, closer—
And then a weird calm possessed me—combat reflexes, ancient but not atrophied, kicking in. I sighted, breathed, and eased back the trigger—BOOM-KICK! And this time, the shot punched through the forward glass and there was an explosion of fire in the cockpit. The helicopter corkscrewed, and for an instant I could see the pilot, fighting to regain control. I fired twice more and missed both times. I thought he was done anyway, but once again he managed to stabilize, a giant metallic insect shuddering in the air with its side to me.
Fuck. The calm I’d felt a moment before was slipping. I dropped the magazine and slammed in the spare. I sighted on the fuel tank and eased back the trigger—BOOM-KICK! High again. I fired again—BOOM-KICK! Low.
“Take him the fuck out!” Horton yelled behind me.
“What do you think I’m trying to do?” I yelled back. I sighted again and squeezed off my last three rounds—BOOM-KICK! BOOM-KICK! BOOM-KICK!—
The helicopter erupted in a ball of flame. An instant later we were concussed by a giant KABAM! The helicopter, spinning and nearly invisible inside the fire, began to plummet, its rotors still turning incongruously, burning debris falling all around it.
“Daniel!” Horton shouted into the hole. “Get up here, we need to haul ass before that thing’s ordnance starts cooking off!” He clapped me on the shoulder. “Damn fine shooting with that beast of a rifle. Your sniper buddy would be proud.”
Larison practically levitated out of the tunnel. The second he was out, Horton threw the trapdoor closed. The edges were crenelated and covered with leaves, and the moment it was shut it was all but invisible.
I dropped the Lynx and we ran to the car. Larison glanced back at the burning house and said, “Got a feeling they’re going to miss you at the volunteer fire department today.”
I got in and fired up the engine. Larison, distrustful of Horton, ducked in back. With no time to argue, Horton accepted the fait accompli and jumped in the passenger seat. The instant he had the door closed I threw it in reverse and stomped the gas, pulling the parking brake two seconds later and cutting the wheel right. The car spun violently, the wheels spitting gravel, Horton and Larison grabbing on to what they could to avoid getting thrown against the doors. Just short of 180 I released the brake and punched it, catapulting the car toward the road, the two of them scanning as I drove, their guns at the ready.
“Go left,” Horton said as we hit the road. “Opposite direction of the police department and yes, the volunteer fire department, too.”
“Where are we heading?” I said.
“For now? Just away. These switchbacks will take us through the eastern part of the George Washington and Jefferson National Forests. Which, by the way, is likely where those wayward .50-cal rounds of yours made landfall, in case you were worrying. I’m glad it’s been raining.”
The truth was, in the terror of the moment I hadn’t even thought of it. But it was good to know the rounds had a national forest to land in. A .50-cal round can travel for miles and do tremendous damage. Particularly rounds like the ones I was firing—armor-piercing and incendiary.
I didn’t expect to see much traffic, but I didn’t want to take chances, either, so I slowed to a normal speed. “And then?”
“I have no idea. I just want to make sure we have time to talk. Back at the house, it’s going to be local police and fire department, and Feds shortly thereafter. At some point, I’m going to have some explaining to do. We need to figure out a way to keep you gentlemen out of it.”
“It was a nice place,” I said. “I’m sorry.”
“Forget it. It was my own damn fault, for not seeing it coming. Anyway, it’s just a house. The one good thing that came out of the late unpleasantness regarding my daughter is it reminded me of what matters and what doesn’t. And what matters right now is Oliver ‘O. G.’ Graham.”
Graham again—the guy I’d just seen on television, trying to get the public behind his notion of turning over all of America’s wars to Oliver Graham Enterprises.
If Graham was behind any of this, it wasn’t good news. A former Navy SEAL, and founder and CEO of OGE, he did billions in contract work for the Pentagon, the CIA—and, if the rumors were true, for the intelligence and security apparatus of plenty of other countries, as well. The joke among his detractors was that you couldn’t spell rogue without O-G-E. In and out of congressional hearings that seemed never to be able to pin him down, he was obviously protected from very high up. Which I supposed came with the territory, when you were the head of effectively the world’s biggest mercenary army, and willing to do things even the blackest of government black operators were hesitant to touch.
I glanced at him. “Graham is your contact?”
“My contact. And the man who just tried to punch all three of our tickets. And whose ticket we are now going to punch in return.”
PART 2
chapter
sixteen
DOX
Dox was kicking back in one of the teak lounge chairs on the second-floor deck of his villa in Ubud. It was one of his favorite times of day in Bali—the humid air was finally cooling, the indigo above him had deepened to black, and the moonless sky was studded with so many stars it was as though someone had tossed a bucket of powdered sugar across a vast, dark canvas. He could hear insects buzzing in the rice fields around him and in the trees beyond that, but the Cohiba he was smoking kept them at bay. He had to admit, Cubans had tasted a touch better when they were contraband in the States, but a fine cigar was still a fine cigar, no matter how much the politicians tried to make them their playthings.
He took a puff, held it in his mouth for a moment, then blew it skyward, watching in the glow from the living room behind him as the smoke wafted away. It was strange. It wasn’t so long ago that on nights like this he would have jumped on his Honda Rebel and ridden into town for a little fun. Maybe catch some blues at the Laughing Buddha, or play a few rounds of pool at the Melting Pot, or maybe No Más for a Bintang and a chat with Ria the bartender, who he always called Lovely Ria, riffing on the Beatles song, and whose bed he sometimes shared when it was a quiet night and she got off early.
But lately, he seemed to enjoy solitude more and more. He’d always been happy with his own company—he wouldn’t have made much of a sniper if he’d found solitary work objectionable—but it was also true that back in the Corps, when he wasn’t behind the scope he could be something of a party animal. It wasn’t that he wanted to be alone now, exactly. He just preferred it to what appeared to be the available options. He’d always imagined settling down at some point, finding the right woman and raising a couple of ankle biters, or maybe even a few, teaching them to fish and shoot and take care of themselves and, most of all, to follow their passions, wherever that might lead in this crazy ride of life. And he’d been tempted a few times, but something had always held him back.
On nights like this one, though, he often found himself thinking about Labee. More than he should have, he knew. Labee, who everyone else knew as Livia and who he’d met and then partnered with to deliver some righteous killing to that human trafficker Sorm in Thailand . . . well, he’d never known anyone like her, and he’d half fallen in love, he knew it—maybe a little more than half, if he was being honest with himself. And what had happened between them had been good, really good, albeit also a little outside his wheelhouse. He’d just felt such a bond with her. A respect and a fascination and a protectiveness. Not to mention the attraction itself. He hadn’t pushed or anything, maybe just a subtle hint or two as they said goodbye, but he could tell she knew he’d have been willing to give it a try. But she didn’t want to, he could tell that, too. She’d shared things with him he thought she might not have ever shared with anyone; the name she’d been given at birth was the least of it, though he did love the way it felt in his mouth when he said it. Labee. He hoped she enjoyed the feel of Carl as much, because he’d told her to call him that even though no one but his parents did. But as special as it was, as much as he felt that bond even now, and as wistful as he was getting ruminating about it, he had to accept it just wasn’t meant to be.
“Shit,” he said aloud. “Maybe you should go into town. Beats turning into some kind of solitary sad sack.”
He heard the phone ring in the living room behind him. Not the cellphone he used for local matters—the satellite phone, the number for which only a few people knew. Kanezaki, his contact at CIA. Larison, the damn angel of death himself. And John, of course. And John’s lady, Delilah. Or erstwhile lady, he supposed, which he personally found pointless and sad. He’d tried to get John to talk about it, but the man was hurting so much he just wouldn’t.
And Labee. But no, why would she be calling him now, after a whole year had gone by? Probably it was just old Kanezaki, who was always trying to get him mixed up in some kind of off-the-books skulduggery, and usually succeeding, too. Well, his timing wasn’t half-bad. Dox thought doing something operational right now might be just the thing to make him feel less morose. Though at some point, he’d have to consider treating the underlying elements of this midlife crisis or whatever it was that seemed to be ailing him, and not just the symptoms.
He set down the cigar in the ashtray, got up, and went through one of the sliding screen doors. He picked up the phone and didn’t recognize the number. Well, that was no surprise, the people he associated with tended not to use the same phone for very long. He pressed the answer key and held the phone to his ear. “Hello.”
“Carl?”
He felt a rush of joy so big it almost stunned him. But he was too glad to hear her voice to be embarrassed. “Labee? Is that really you?”
“Yes. How are you?”
“I’m fine, is everything all right?”
“I’m okay. But something weird happened, and . . . I don’t know who else to ask.”
He felt a flush of concern wash through him. She wasn’t the type to make a big deal out of nothing. The opposite, in fact.
“I’m glad you called,” he said. “Tell me what’s going on.”
Damn. What was going on was, two people had tried to kill her. In what, in his not-inexpert opinion, sounded like a reasonably competent operation—though given that the op had failed, maybe not quite the level of professionalism he and John were justifiably known for. He listened to her theories about why, of which there seemed to be two main ones: First, it was about her discovery of a possible child-pornography ring within the Secret Service. And second, that it might be related to what they’d done together in Thailand, and what she’d done there herself before that.
“Which makes me realize,” she said. “And I should have spotted it before. If this is about Thailand, they could be after you, too.”
“Don’t you worry about me. I’ve had people trying to kill me since I was a teenager, and no one’s managed it yet. Besides, with that plane going down with your hacker partner on it, I think your first theory is the more likely.”
“I agree.”
“Now, you need to take this seriously.”
“Why do you think I’m calling you?”
He smiled, loving the way she refused to ever take shit, and also gratified that she knew she could rely on him.
“Well,” he said, “I was initially hoping you just missed me, but okay, fair point. And at the risk of you getting irate because you think I’m talking down to you, I’m going to tell you now you need to change your habits for a while. Ditch your cellphone, or at least keep it powered off in a Faraday case except when you really need it—”
“My usual phone is already turned off. Anyway, how was I able to reach you just now?”
Her habit of counterpunching could be as exasperating as it was endearing. “This is an encrypted satellite phone. Unless someone’s flying an AWACS plane, the signal can’t be triangulated the way cellphones can. Plus, oh, it
occurs to me, I didn’t just have two people try to kill me, unlike someone else I could name.”
She laughed a little. Damn, he did like making her laugh. It was never easy and always felt like a tiny miracle.
“I see your point,” she said.
“And you have to watch yourself extra carefully at choke points. Places you’re known to frequent, like that dojo where you were teaching when this happened. Primarily we’re talking about work and home.”
“Well, I’m on administrative leave until this officer-involved investigation is completed, so work isn’t the problem it ordinarily would be. And my lieutenant is thinking the same way you are. She’s having me stay with her.”
“Well, that’s not bad, other than, one, she’s your lieutenant and people might figure it out, and two, you just said it to me over the phone.”
There was a pause. “Shit,” she said, for once lacking a stinging rhetorical comeback.
“I didn’t recognize the number, though. Burner?”
“Just a new phone.”
“Okay, good. But it wouldn’t hurt you to pick up a burner. Ideally, the way we did at the night market to make it really untraceable. That should hold us until we can get something more secure in place.”
At the night market in Bangkok, he had bought a couple of cellphones on the spot from some teenagers. No new purchases, no phones newly activated, nothing for the all-seeing national security state to glom on to.
“Are you going to tell me not to use credit cards, too?”
“Well, I was, because I’d rather have you irritated at me than leave something to chance. But I’m glad there’s no need.”
He thought he might have made her smile with that. That was good. But overall, he was worried. He’d seen her in action and he knew she was competent as hell. But still, if her theory was right, she was up against someone capable of dropping a fucking airplane without leaving fingerprints.