A Viable Threat (A Martin Billings Story Book 4)

by Ed Teja

  The men who'd carried Brad away got in the car and drove off. The two men who had thrown me down now reached for me. They grabbed my arms and yanked me back to my feet. Before I'd regained my balance, they jerked me toward a second SUV, letting me know I was supposed to walk, I guess. I did my best, but with them holding my arms, I couldn't hang on to my blanket and it slid to the ground. No one picked it up.

  They shoved me into the back seat of the SUV and slammed the door. I noted there was no door handle on the insides of the backseat doors. The deafening roar of the plane's engines rushed through the car as the men got in the front seats. The driver pulled out as the plane taxied away. Moments later I saw the plane hurtle down the runaway, lift off, and disappear into the night sky. All very cinematic and dramatic. I actually felt a twinge of nostalgia.

  The operation, the way I worked it out, struck me as clever—exactly how I'd run it. You land at some black ops site, ditch the cargo, then have the plane immediately leave to land again, officially this time, at a public airport. The crew goes through customs and immigration and joke about another dull flight. There'd be no record of either Brad or me leaving Exuma and certainly none of either of us arriving in the US. Hell, no one wants a paper trail, so, from the point of view of the various governments, I was still back in The Bahamas on vacation, enjoying it the best I could after having my hotel blown up. If I disappeared, finding where I'd been over the last forty-eight hours would be a thankless task.

  At any rate, the idea that I was dealing with a well-oiled machine comforted me somewhat. I was glad the machinery was ours. I hoped it was ours. How would you know who really runs any of it?

  The SUV drove into a dark hanger. These people were not big on lights. The moment the car stopped, two waiting figures in fatigues pulled me from the car and marched me up a metal ramp. My feet noticed the cool diamond plating. At the top of the ramp, double doors opened into what looked like an office in one of those interchangeable government buildings.

  Every one I've been in, and I've been in a lot of government offices, manages to look and smell the same. They all have a few closed private offices and conference rooms clustered around the edges, but mostly they consist of what bureaucrats love to call “open plan,” which translates (from bullshit into English) as rabbit warrens of cubicles, separated by dividers that are always mind-numbing gray or a dull purple that never saw royalty and is easily confused with the mind-numbing gray. I suppose that simplifies office décor a lot. The result is that these buildings offer lots of work spaces and no privacy.

  Like some corporate headquarters, each cubicle had a computer terminal; unlike a private company, not one personal item was on display. No one had pictures of kids or notes to call Stephanie about the bridge game Monday night, or even the phone number of a restaurant they wanted to try.

  If my escorts hadn't been parading me naked through the maze without anyone paying any attention at all, it would have been easy to mistake this for an IRS office somewhere in the Midwest. But I wasn't here so they could check my tax returns.

  Nothing in the offices I saw gave anything away about what the building was. That pleased me. Whenever dealing with the government (any government) you are less likely to be considered a security risk if you don't know anything, and security risks often suffer worse fates than criminals. I didn't want to know any more than they wanted to tell me. Actually, I didn't even want to know that, but I had gotten fatalistic.

  My escorts walked us through double metal doors into a new area. Instead of the cubicles, this one sported a row of jail cells. They were all empty.

  Whirs and clicks signaled that unseen guards, or a computer somewhere, controlled electronic deadbolts that unlocked and relocked barred metal doors featuring charming heavy wire-mesh portals. Whatever controlled things in this labyrinth had sent us along a path that took us into the bowels of this place.

  Entering an open area with lockers on the walls, one of my escorts pointed to a doorway into a tiled room. “The showers are over there. Get cleaned up and I'll give you some clothes.” He pointed to a rack of towels.

  The water was hot, and the shower was fine, but lathering up made the blood that had dried on my hand and arm start to flow. The blood, Amy's blood, came from when I'd touched her to say the goodbye she'd told me to skip. The red evoked the image of her face, the look she gave me while she was dying.

  I shivered. I wanted to cry and don't know why I didn't.

  So much for the macho super SEAL.

  When I came out, drying myself off, the promised clothing turned out to be a polyester orange jump suit and some booties. If you are going to be a prisoner, it's probably best to be dressed like one. Bureaucrats can't stand confusion or vagueness.

  “Are you hungry?” the man asked, his tone flat, unexpressive.

  His question reminded me that I hadn't eaten since the day before. “Starved,” I said. “The real question will be if I can keep anything down.”

  He nodded and led me to a cafeteria. Everything smelled good, but then the good smells made me nauseous. The guard came close. “I suggest you eat something, even if it's just some fruit. You're in for a long spell with the boss. Hodges won't let you eat again until you make the appropriate pleasant noises she wants you to make.”

  So, I'd be talking to Hodges, or Hodges would interrogate me, which was just a one-sided version of a conversation. This was the person Amy said I could trust.

  “Thanks,” I told him. I wanted him to know I appreciated being treated like a person. I took his advice. I ate an apple and a roll and drank two bottles of water.

  “Good,” the guard said. He grabbed more bottles of water and then we were off again, meandering through a labyrinth of those ugly green passages that I'm certain they invented to ensure that prisoners and hospital patients suffer for their crimes. How anyone can be anything but disgusted by them escapes me.

  When we came to the interrogation room, it was classic. It had the obligatory one-way window/mirror, a rectangular table with uncomfortable chairs (deliberately so, I've been assured) on either side, and CCTV cameras in every corner. The ambiance was unpainted concrete block, which I found a marked improvement over the sick green walls outside.

  My guard sat me in a chair and handcuffed me to a stainless-steel rod embedded in the table. He put the other water bottles within my reach, then left, wordlessly. The ominous clang of the door locking behind was the only comment on the situation.

  I expected I'd sit there for a long time. Interrogators tend to love making you wait. They want to keep you unsure of when they will pop in, or if they are watching through the glass. It gives the interviewee time to stew, to wonder what their captors know.

  In this case, I knew a lot about what they knew, and I wanted them to know more. I wanted them to know everything. Amy wanted them to know everything.

  The door did its whirring, clicking routine, and a woman entered. She fixed a stern gaze on me, and I smiled and looked back. She was relatively tall and thin, and she wore a pinstriped business suit with a white blouse. It wasn't an expensive suit, but it was well tailored and emphasized a trim figure.

  “Sam the Tailor,” I said. “Hong Kong.”

  She nodded and winked. “Good eye. I get a new one made whenever I'm in the city. You can't beat the deal.”

  “I hope the PRC doesn't interfere with that,” I said. “They are screwing up a lot over there.”

  Giving me a knowing look, one of those 'I know you are trying to deflect' smiles, she dropped a manila file folder on the table and sat down opposite me. With a calming breath, she folded her hands on the table and gave me time to stare at the file folder the way I was supposed to. We all had roles to play, so why disappoint her? My file, if it was mine, was thick, probably padded out to imply that they had vast and detailed knowledge of all my manifest sins. Even without padding, a file of those would have been thick.

  The woman wet her lips with her tongue. “
We have a lot to talk about, you and I.”

  “I'm supposed to talk to Hodges,” I said.

  “Why Hodges?”

  “I'm supposed to tell everything to Hodges. No one else.”

  That surprised her. She took a moment and then passed me the badge with her picture and a QR code and who knew what all manner of biodata embedded in it. “Hodges, J,” it said below her picture.

  I held the badge for a moment, thinking that this damn thing probably her gave her access to any door on the planet, at least in the free world. The implications were curious, but I doubted I'd get out of the room alive if I tried to keep it.

  But I'd gotten her attention. “Who told you to talk to me? How the hell do you even know about me?”

  I looked at her for a moment, trying to get a deeper sense of her. A brunette, probably in her mid-thirties, attractive, if you like a serious-looking woman with a poker face that suggested she'd be equally at home discussing my loan application. I couldn't read her at all.

  “A mutual friend told me I could trust you, and only you.”

  That surprised her. “Really? Who is that?”

  “She was Amy Pfeifer.”

  The woman only blinked. “And why the hell would she tell you that?”

  “Because, besides asking me to drop Brad Vermeer on your doorstep, she wanted me to make certain, absolutely certain that you, personally, heard every lousy detail of the events of the last couple of days. And to make sure you got the thumb drives that were taken from me on the plane. Are they safe?”

  “My people have them.”

  “They are filled with stuff she yanked off his computers while we were visiting his house.”

  “Now you've done what she asked.”

  “I've just begun. She wants—she wanted you to know every goddamn thing I know, the details of everything I saw and heard. She said that was the only way we, you and I, could make her death mean something.” I gave her my best smile, but my heart wasn't in it. “We are supposed to be a team now.”

  She gave me a stony-faced look, trying not to react while she chewed that over. “She told you all that as she was dying?”

  “That's right. On the way to the airport, while I was driving, and she was dying a slow, painful death. I heard her and knew she was bleeding out from being gut shot,” I said. “The only thing she cared about was completing this mission. Apparently, between the data and whatever you get from Brad, she thinks you can do some good. Enough good that she made me fucking promise to do that instead of wasting time trying to save her life.”

  A look of surprise, or something like it, crossed Hodges' face. I stopped and collected myself. “It hasn't been a good day, or wasn't a good day, whatever. Anyway, here we are.”

  She cocked her head, taking her time, studying me. Like any competent agent, she'd take even the recommendation of a good agent, an agent like Amy, a dying woman, with a grain of salt. People in the field saw things one way, and not always clearly. If Hodges was half the agent Amy thought, she would make her own evaluation of me and my value to whatever goal she was after.

  “Why?” she asked.

  “I don't understand the question.”

  “Why are you doing this? You could have left at almost any time. You could have gone off with your partner when the boat dropped you off at Exuma.”

  I didn't like that she was dragging Bill into things, but that was another conversation. “I was helping Amy finish the job. We were a team.”

  “And now you want revenge?” she asked.

  “No.” I shook my head slowly. “Sure, I do. But not right now.”

  “Why not?”

  “The man who actually killed her is dead. The information I brought you should be more than enough to settle the other scores.”

  “And then?”

  “When we've done that—” I tapped the table with my index finger. “It depends.”

  “On what?”

  “On what happens. If I am disappointed, if you, or someone, doesn't take reasonable actions, if I'm not satisfied, if you try to bullshit me, then I'll plan my revenge.”

  “Revenge is a dish best eaten cold.”

  “So I'll eat his fucking liver raw,” I said.

  “Whose?”

  I laughed. “Admiral Hank Jeffries,” I said. “The man who had Amy killed.”

  Her pupils widened, but otherwise I didn't see a flicker of emotion. “That's a huge and dangerous thing to claim. A serious charge.”

  I managed a shrug. “The data alone will prove that Hank was involved in this up to his fat neck.”

  “Being involved doesn't mean he was responsible.”

  “I was there, Hodges. Unless your people or the cops moved it, the body of the man who shot her, Chief Larry Chandler, one of Hank's men, one of the crew that tried to kidnap me in St. Anne, is lying in the parking lot near the Georgetown docks decomposing.”

  “You killed him?”

  “I wish. No, I was lugging your prisoner when he ambushed us. Amy winged him to keep him from shooting the guy, then he shot her. But he fucked up, and she blew his fucking face off.”

  A flash of a smile crossed Hodges' face, but she immediately suppressed it and nodded. “We took possession of the body. We were running DNA tests and fingerprints.”

  “He and that clown Roberts, the other sailor working in Hank's Exuma office, were the main muscle in the attempt to kill us all. I think they lost Roberts and some others to the sharks, and I know Amy and I killed a few. You should find their boat on a reef near Adderley Cut.”

  Still nodding, she raised a hand, signaling someone. A moment later an older woman came in with a recorder and a steno pad. When she'd taken a seat, the woman looked at me. “Go ahead,” she said.

  “You aren't recording video?”

  “Of course,” Hodges said. “Call this an old school fail safe. I don't want to miss one iota of what you have to tell me.” I nodded. “Start from the beginning,” she said.

  “I'm not sure what you consider the beginning,” I told her.

  She gave me a schoolteacher look.

  “I'm not being difficult, but I know Amy came in right the muddy middle of things.”

  “Start with why you planned this mission. We had our reasons for wanting Vermeer, and I understand that Hank dragged you into this, but I have no clear idea of why you let him.”

  I laughed. “You missed an important step,” I said.

  “A step?”

  “The one where I was sitting in St. Anne, minding my own business when Hank Jeffries sent in an assault team to board my boat in St. Anne and kidnap me.”

  “He did what?”

  “Sounds crazy, right? I'm surprised Amy neglected to mention that.”

  Hodges smiled. “She should have. But of course she didn't.”

  “Why not?”

  “She wanted to nail him. If she reported that, the Navy would have recalled him and his men and started an investigation.”

  I sighed. “Sounds like the lady. Well, fair warning. That's the sanest part of this story.” I pointed to the woman's steno pad. “You are going to need more than one of those, I'm afraid. Better order ahead.”

  Hodges nodded toward the window and I got the impression someone had just been sent off to do exactly that.

  “Okay, start with the... assault,” he said.

  “I was enjoying myself on my boat in the harbor,” I said, getting into telling it. “It was a lovely evening. My lady friend, Gazele, was with me on the aft deck. We watched the stars spread out overhead, savored the taste of fine rum and each other, and then... the unwelcome visitors arrived.”

  32

  Time flows by differently when you are confined in a cell. There is a vagueness in the way minutes pass that probably has much to do with it being out of your control, the knowledge that someone else dictates your present and the arrival of your immediate future. Losing control can make you become dan
gerously indifferent to the moments silently slipping by.

  Another thing is the empty feeling that comes from sitting in, or pacing, a cell. It's a hollowness generated by the incredible uniformity, the sterility of those places combined with the absence of natural light—at least in the cells I've experienced. This certainly wasn't the worst I'd seen, but there aren't any good ones. I guess that somehow, someone, sometime decided that dangerous people are detained 'better' in an artificial void.

  That emptiness leaves you alone with your thoughts. I'd already spent plenty of time with thoughts, regrets, recriminations and all that crap on the long flight from Exuma to my place of incarceration, thank you. Now I wanted my thoughts to leave me alone. They wouldn't.

  A whir, footsteps, and a series of metallic clicks interrupted my pity party. Company was arriving. I raised my head and smiled at my new arrival.

  “Good morning Pedro,” I said cheerfully. “Assuming it is morning and that your name is Pedro.”

  The guard, the only person I'd seen since Hodges had finished my interrogation, shook his head. “Why Pedro? How would you come up with Pedro? Is it the mustache?”

  “Your smile,” I said. “I knew a pirate named Pedro once. Down in Venezuela. He had a smile just like yours.”

  “Thanks, I guess.”

  “He was a nice guy when he wasn't robbing boats. Fun to drink with. Loved Anís el Famenco.”

  “I remind you of him?”

  “The smile does. Since the teachers won't let you tell me your name, I'm giving you a name and it's Pedro.”

  “Where is Pedro now?” he asked.

  “I killed him and buried him under a tree on the northern coast near a fishing village. Why?”

  He shuddered and stepped to the door. He had a stack of clothes under his arm. “What's on the social calendar for the day?”

  “It's time for your shower,” Pedro said.

  “Wow, is it Saturday already?”

  He grinned. “Every day is a holiday here in our hostel.” Then he made a face and glanced around, checking his angle to the cameras. I figured he wasn't supposed to talk to me like a person because he put on his game face. “Stand up,” he said sternly.