by Erik Carter
“Trent Steeger?”
“Yes. The notorious ecoterrorist, the man running the CLEAN Conference. The Guide. We’ve been thinking about it all wrong. The Guide and The Prophet aren’t just friendly. They’re a two-man team. But why would a former State Department diplomat under indictment for embezzlement work with an ecoterrorist?” Dale said, inviting Becker to continue his train of thought.
Becker shook his head. “I have no clue.”
“Because this has nothing to do with the environment. For the last year Steeger has been running the CLEAN Conference in Knoxville, and his partner Hendrix is gathering more forces for whatever they have planned for tonight. The CLEAN Conference and Hendrix’s prophecies are a big front, a one-two punch.”
Becker shook his head again, confused. “If Steeger and Hendrix aren’t ecoterrorists, then what are they?”
“They’re Russian operatives,” Dale said, looking Becker straight in the eye. “Think about it. Maddox and the CIA had been trailing Steeger, watching him as he held meetings with a Russian nuclear specialist, a man who’s going to arrive here later today. Before that, Hendrix embezzled funds while working in Copenhagen. Picture the map—Denmark’s only a hop, skip, and a jump from the Iron Curtain. He could have been embezzling those funds for the Soviets. Tonight, Hendrix has something big planned, and it just happens to be the same night Ulan Lebedev is arriving in town. You heard Hendrix. It sounded like he was rallying the troops at the meeting last night. I know for a fact now that he’s militant. I have the bloodstained clothes to prove it. Steeger and Hendrix are organizing their forces at tonight’s meeting. And then they’ll strike. We need to prepare for a full-on attack of Y-12.”
Becker took a long breath and ran his hand through his hair. His face lost some of its color. He looked back at the facility behind them—all the traffic, all the people coming and going. He looked bewildered, like the weight of his responsibility had suddenly begun crushing him.
“Here’s my thought,” Dale said.
Becker just nodded. He stared at the ground, his mind clearly processing a thousand scenarios at once.
“I’ll go back to the cabin,” Dale continued. “Now that I’m a part of Hendrix’s inner circle, I’ll gather all the intel I can until tonight’s meeting. You referred to your forces here at Y-12 as a ‘small army.’ It’s time to mobilize that army. Form a team, move them through the woods to the cabin, well before the meeting starts. Once Hendrix’s followers have all assembled, raid the place. Bring them in. Every last soul.”
Becker breathed in. Sighed. Finally looked at Dale.
“Not a bad plan, Conley. You’d do well here at Y-12.”
Becker had that look on his face again. That strange searching, assessing look.
And Dale was going to figure out what it meant.
“Listen,” Dale said. “What’s with that look you’re always giving me? Have I offended you somehow? Was it when I told you I like to slap my boss’s fat belly?”
Becker started to say something, paused, and then continued anyway. It was as though he’d considered dodging the question and then thought better of it.
“I had a son your age. And, uh … He passed away. You look like him. And I don’t mean a vague resemblance. You look exactly like him.”
Dale wasn’t sure how to respond. So he didn’t.
Becker smiled, painfully. “Colbert was his name. Bert. He was a quirky guy, just like you. I’m much more strait-laced than either one of you. He … He always thought I was embarrassed of him. He joined the Army, thinking that would impress me. Didn’t make it through basic. He became more reserved when he got back home. And then one day, a couple years ago, a drunk driver put his pickup through the side of Bert’s car.”
He stopped then.
Dale stayed quiet.
“Joan, my wife, has never been the same. It devastated us both, but she can hardly function.”
Becker looked away. His eyes glistened.
Dale found that one of the hardest things to do in life was watch a strong man cry. So much was made of stoicism in masculinity, and old salts like Becker took that promise of manly reservedness very seriously, hardly letting a single emotion escape their rock-hard façades. To get a man like that to cry took a powerful hurt. Very powerful.
“She doesn’t leave the house. Hardly moves,” Becker continued. “She gets by on numbing comforts. Booze and pills. Movies. TV. And, yes, Vols football.”
Becker was making a clear reference to Dale’s slightly disparaging remarks the previous night about football fanaticism. Dale felt like a proper ass.
“So if I’ve seemed a bit frazzled since you met me, Conley, that’s why,” he said. “You remind me of my failure. I let Bert down. I’ve tried for two years to get Joan to smile again and failed there as well. Until lately I could at least count on myself to excel here, at work. But now that’s slipping out of my grasp too.”
Becker had finished. He stared vacantly over Dale’s shoulder, through Y-12’s fence.
Dale could say something reassuring, but it would be pointless. A simple platitude. And with a stoic guy like Becker, it wouldn’t be welcome. He didn’t want Dale’s sympathy. So Dale just changed the subject.
He spoke quietly. “I should go. They’re expecting me back at the cabin. And I have to pick up sandwiches. Don’t ask.”
He leaned to the side, broke through Becker’s blank stare, got his attention.
“It’s going to be dangerous later. Why don’t you go home for an hour or so?” Dale said. “And see your wife.”
Chapter Thirty-Seven
A few hours later. Dale was in a full-size van that smelled a bit like motor oil, a bit like cat urine. The floors were rubber-coated and simultaneously sticky and gritty. Dale had a strong impulse to take a scrub brush to the whole thing. Or douse it in kerosene and light a match.
He was in the bench seat behind the two front seats. Beside him was Cody. Hendrix was driving. Riding shotgun, directly in front of Dale, was Trent Steeger. His ponytail swung with the movements of the van. He hadn’t spoken. Dale still had yet to hear the man say a word.
Sonya was in the first bench seat behind Dale with the other female member of Asa’s inner circle. At the bench seat in the back were the three remaining men.
Hendrix had assembled his inner circle shortly after Dale returned to the cabin. He gave them a long, passionate, yet completely lacking in details speech about the dangers that awaited them that evening. Dale heard plenty about the importance of perseverance and integrity but nothing about what they’d actually be doing, how they’d be attacking the ORR. The rest of the inner circle had watched Hendrix intently. Sonya had been particularly transfixed, eyes wide, mouth partly open, a dreamy look on her face.
A late lunch/early dinner came next, the sandwiches Dale had retrieved. Dale was quite proud of them. He’d found a really great Philadelphia-style sub shop. Having been to Philly many times, he found them to be surprisingly authentic, right there in the middle of Appalachia. When the sandwiches were gone, Hendrix told them they were going to take a trip, giving them the promise of a huge surprise, something fitting of the important day they were embarking upon.
Through the van’s windows, Dale saw that the sky was beginning to turn a bit pink. The sun would soon be saying its goodbye for the day. Several minutes into the trip, Dale realized they were heading out of Oak Ridge and toward Knoxville. But when they reached I-40, they didn’t merge onto that highway but instead continued south onto I-140. They weren’t heading to the city proper. This confused Dale but only momentarily because he remembered being in this part of town before, when he’d first arrived in the city. And then he saw a road sign that confirmed it.
McGhee Tyson Airport.
He knew of only one reason they’d be going to the airport.
They were going to pick up the Russian.
The group of them, all nine people, marched through the main concourse toward arrivals. The sunset’s colors—p
inks and oranges and blood red—were as bright as they were vivid, much like the fall foliage, and the warm light flooded into the airport through the large banks of floor-to-ceiling windows.
Hendrix had explained to the group that he wanted to give Mr. Ulan Lebedev a proper greeting. He’d described the man as a fringe Soviet nuclear specialist as concerned about environmental destruction as they were.
Yeah. Right.
The airport was full of the typical travel hustle-and-bustle. It was rather small, clean and well-kept with regional decorative touches. Sculptures of black bears. Wooden rocking chairs, similar to those back at the cabin, positioned by the windows, looking out onto the runways. Fountains with local flora—ferns and the like.
As he followed the group, Dale’s eyes glazed over as he tried to come up with a plan for his next move. He’d seen plenty of movies and read plenty of detective novels in which undercover cops got in too deep. And this was as deep undercover as Dale had been. He and his group were about to join forces with a Russian nuclear official.
Dale shouldn’t have gone back to the cabin. He should have stayed with Becker. He’d returned to Hendrix because he thought he could gather more intel, figure out what they were doing tonight. But Dale was going to be of no use to Becker if Hendrix found him out, and if Dale made any sort of mistake while he was this far undercover then—
“Dale!”
He heard a woman’s voice calling his name in the distance.
She’d been calling someone else, of course. Some other Dale. Because right now he wasn’t Dale. He was Tommy Watson.
He returned to his thoughts.
With the Russian being involved, now things got a whole lot more convoluted for Dale. He considered how he might readjust his tactics when he returned to the cabin. If he were to—
“Dale!”
No mistaking it. Someone was calling him.
He turned to look.
All the others stopped walking and looked as well, all the members of Hendrix’s inner circle.
And Hendrix himself.
Everyone watched as a bubbly young woman in green scrubs bounded over, almost jogging in her excitement. A radiant beauty with an equally radiant, 100-watt smile. It was the woman with whom Dale had shared a date, the woman he’d literally dragged through the streets of Knoxville on his first night in Tennessee.
It was Penny Whitworth.
Dale was ashamed that he’d entirely forgotten her over the last two days. But after being chased repeatedly by the CIA, thrown from a moving vehicle into a tree, fighting with his hands tied together, hiding in a freezer, and having a man’s head explode all over his face, he’d forgive himself.
“Dale!” Penny said again as she came right up to him and threw her arms around him.
Dale hugged her back, feeling Hendrix’s eyes on the back of his head.
Three time she’d said his name. His real name.
Again with the three times.
She’d called him Dale.
And Hendrix had quite obviously heard her.
She leaned back from him, keeping her hands on his shoulders. Golden-pink sunset light gleamed off the supple shine of her dimpled cheeks.
Trying to stay as casual as possible—not wanting to make things any worse than they already were—Dale kept his hands on her hips and forced an awkward smile to his face.
“Why, hey there,” he said.
Finally, she took a step back and removed her hands.
“What are you doing here?” she said.
“We’re … we’re here to pick up a friend.”
Dale turned back to look at the others. They all wore confused expressions. All except Hendrix. He stared into Dale’s eyes with a dark, coy grin.
Dale turned back to Penny.
She took another step back and threw out her leg, made a big flourishing hand gesture toward her outfit. “Look! I’m wearing scrubs. Just like you like. I start my new job later tonight.”
She flicked a plastic name tag clipped to her top. It read:
Penny Whitworth, RN
Davidson Memorial Hospital
“Congratulations.”
“Thank you. I’m here to pick up my mom. She’s flying in from Jacksonville. We’re celebrating. Dinner tonight, shopping tomorrow. She’s gonna help me search for a place to live.”
Dale wanted this moment to end.
Go away, Penny. Please.
“Sounds like things are rolling for you,” Dale said, forcing more of the fake smile to his face.
Penny’s own, radiant smile dropped off her face. It was as though she had only then noticed the tension to which she’d been oblivious and suddenly remembered their talk about Dale’s “consulting” work, the conclusions she’d drawn about his being some sort of secretive federal worker.
Her eyes left Dale, scanned over the other people, then came back to him. She quickly gave him a grave, concerned look before putting on a fake smile of her own and saying, “Well, nice seeing you. I’d better get going. Call me.”
She grabbed his hand, squeezed it, gave him that concerned look again for half a moment, and left.
Dale faced the group.
Hendrix’s stare was waiting for him. And that dark smile. “Well, that was fun. Let’s move.”
The group started toward arrivals again.
As they walked away, Dale looked over his shoulder. Penny stood farther back, in the middle of the hallway, looking in his direction. She made eye contact with him, deep regret in her eyes.
I’m sorry, she mouthed.
Dale gave her a small nod and turned back around.
Hendrix moved in his direction, started walking right beside him, close enough that their shoulders brushed.
“Why was she calling you ‘Dale,’ Tommy?”
“Old nickname she had for me. Back in college.”
“I see. A nurse and a historian, meeting in college. She just moved into town, huh?”
“That’s right.”
“And it sounds like you two had a date. Don’t blame ya. Cute girl. What a coincidence you guys finding each other after all these years in Knoxville of all places.”
It was evident now. Hendrix no longer had an inkling.
Hendrix knew.
“Small world,” Dale said.
Hendrix chuckled, kept that dark grin on his face.
“Small world indeed.”
Dale could make a run for it. He could bolt right now. No one was armed. Everyone, including Dale, had left their guns back in the van.
But there were eight of them. And only one Dale.
Heavily outnumbered.
Dale was dug in deep.
Too damn deep.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Another jet flew overhead, and Sloane stuck a finger in his ear so he could hear the phone receiver he had pressed against the opposite ear.
He stood at a long line of payphones at the entrance of McGhee Tyson Airport. The light coming in through the glass front entrance was pink and very bright, even through his sunglasses, as the sun disappeared over the hills.
“Sir, I’m one hundred percent certain,” he told the director. “He got in the van with Hendrix and the gang back at the cabin, we trailed them, and they just left the Knoxville airport with Ulan Lebedev.”
“Lebedev … Jesus Christ,” the director said with a sigh. “And your men are following them?”
“Affirmative.”
“Dammit,” the director said. “Maddox was onto something. And he died for it. The poor bastard.”
“Sir, how should we proceed? Please advise.”
There was a moment as the director thought it over. Sloane could picture him doing his ear-scratching thing.
“Hendrix, Steeger, and Lebedev are in on something. We have to be very careful with Lebedev. Very careful indeed. Before we make any moves on him we need to see what Hendrix is doing. So we gotta extract someone. Someone from Hendrix’s team. And get some intel. The mystery man you’ve bee
n following, the man who kept chasing after Maddox—he’s the key. He’s gotta be. Stop following him. Bring his ass in.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And then get some answers out of him,” the director said and stopped for a moment. When he continued, his tone oozed with implications. “Using whatever techniques you see fit.”
Chapter Thirty-Nine
The group crunched through the deep gravel, marching toward the cabin: Dale, Hendrix, Steeger, the inner circle, and, now, Ulan Lebedev.
The Russian was a tall, older gent in his sixties or so. Largely-proportioned, more powerful than fat, though he did have a protruding stomach typical of a man his age. Dale pictured him wrestling bears in mounds of snow, shirtless, swigging from a big bottle of vodka between rounds. Dale had been bad about stereotyping during this assignment.
Lebedev’s hair was silver and parted, while his eyebrows and sideburns were both very dark, almost black. He wore a suit covered by a long overcoat, all modern in design yet somehow different enough to make it evident they were of non-Western origin. Commie clothes.
Lebedev and Hendrix had exchanged greetings, in Russian, at the airport. On the ride back to the cabin, Lebedev had replaced Steeger in the shotgun seat, and he and Hendrix had continued their Russian conversation.
Despite the fascinating, bizarre, and critical new direction in which his investigation had turned, at that moment Dale was more concerned about the immediate danger. Back at the airport, the encounter with Penny and the subsequent talk Dale had with Hendrix had erased all doubt that Hendrix knew Dale was a spy. And given how paranoid Hendrix had been with his spy-based suspicions of Maddox—ultimately blowing the man’s head in half—Dale knew he was in a very precarious situation.
Fortunately, Dale had his weapon. When they’d returned to the van in the airport parking lot and re-armed themselves, Dale pushed his way to the front of the group, making sure to reclaim his Model 36. Now he felt it against his back, stuffed safely in its holster, as they drew nearer to the cabin.