State of Honour

by Gary Haynes

  “Home run, I’d say. So what do you know?”

  “About what?” Tom murmured.

  “Okay. Now let’s see what gives first, your shin or the wood. My money’s on your shin.”

  Tom felt his ankles being gripped, then his shoulders. If Hawks shattered his leg, he would be out of action for weeks. As he was about to yield the door to the warehouse swung open. Tom half squinted. A man who looked like the photo that Karen had showed him on her laptop of Peter Swiss walked through, flanked by what he took for bodyguards rather than accountants. A tall, dark-haired, Slavic-featured woman wearing a charcoal pantsuit, and a guy with a big head, his stocky frame wrapped in a short woollen overcoat.

  Swiss walked over. Stopping a few metres from Tom, he took out a packet of cigarettes and lit one with a gold lighter. After inhaling, he pursed his lips and blew out a cloud of smoke.

  “This is messy. I don’t like messy, Mr Dupree. Names of those you’re working with. Everything you’ve found out. Then it’ll end. I promise you it’ll be clean.”

  Tom had detected only a hint of a French accent. “And if I don’t?”

  “Think of the worst thing possible. Then double it.”

  “You–”

  “You what? I would have mentioned that your parents would have gotten a visit from Mr Hawks here, too. But your mother’s dead and your father, well, he could be anybody, couldn’t he? Did she like to screw around with the trailer trash, Mr Dupree? Father unknown. That’s a hell of a thing to have on your birth certificate.”

  Tom resisted the urge to shout back a string of obscenities. Instead, he watched Swiss twiddle a heavy signet ring on his middle finger. He caught a flash of the red-and-green enamel, together with the exploding-grenade emblem. French Foreign Legion. 2nd Rep.

  “I was given Hawks’s name,” Tom said.

  He glanced at Hawks. The man was looking nervous.

  “Who by?” Swiss asked.

  “Brigadier Hasni gave him up as easy as a junkie who needed to score.”

  Tom watched Swiss’s left eye twitch. He was barely able to contain a mixture of anger and disbelief.

  “He’s a fucking lying–”

  Swiss cut off Hawks in mid-flow with a raised hand. “What else did he say?”

  “That’s it. Just Hawks.”

  “Are you sure?” Swiss asked.

  “Do you think I’d be sitting here if he had?” Tom said.

  “Not a good answer. Carry on, Mr Hawks.”

  As Hawks raised the hardwood and walked forward Tom watched Swiss put his right hand inside his suit jacket and take out a Manurhin MR 73 revolver. As he cocked the gun’s hammer Hawks’s eyes closed briefly in recognition of the sound. He mouthed one word: shit.

  Coolly, Swiss shot Hawks in the back of the head with the heavy .357 Magnum round the French handgun was chambered to use.

  67.

  Hawks collapsed limply to the ground, as if his muscles had disintegrated. A pool of black-red blood formed around his lifeless face, flowing steadily from the nickel-sized hole in his cranium. Tom clenched his aching jaw, trying his best to remain calm. The bodyguards looked twitchy, their open hands hanging loose at their sides. Tom breathed shallow breaths through his swelling mouth. Things weren’t going well. He decided to improvise and offer Swiss a deal of sorts; one that didn’t depend on him trusting the Frenchman.

  “I wanna speak to the secretary,” he said.

  “Why would you want to do that?” Swiss asked, holstering his revolver.

  “To know she’s safe, for now at least. To say I’m sorry. I never did get to tell her that. I’m sentimental that way. Then I’ll tell you all I know,” he said.

  “Everything, Mr Dupree.”

  Tom nodded.

  Swiss took out a cellphone, and walked over to a corner of the warehouse out of earshot. The bodyguards looked nervously about. It was an isolated spot, but Swiss’s revolver wasn’t suppressed, and there was no way that they could’ve foreseen what had just happened.

  A minute later, Swiss came back and put the cell to Tom’s ear.

  “Ma’am.”

  “Tom. Is … is that you?”

  Her voice was frail, but controlled.

  “I’ll keep my promise. I swear it.”

  Swiss jerked the phone away, disconnecting the call. “It’s not nice to give people false hope, Mr Dupree. Now tell me.”

  Tom stayed silent.

  Swiss’s face didn’t react this time. He just put his cell in his breast pocket. “Call me if he decides to speak,” he said, addressing the two men who were still standing either side of Tom.

  “And if he don’t?” the one to Tom’s left said.

  “The fuck you think Mr Swiss is paying you for?” the heavyset bodyguard said.

  Swiss began to walk away, but stopped and turned around halfway to the door. “Your friend, Steve Coombs,” he said, tapping his pocket. “He was right here. Took his blood money with a filthy grin on his face.”

  Money, Tom thought. The guy had sold out for money.

  Swiss left with his two bodyguards, the door banging shut behind them.

  After a few seconds, one of the men moved around in front of Tom and took out a chisel with a narrow blade, filed to a point at the end. As the sound of Swiss’s car could be heard driving away he grinned.

  “We get paid by the hour,” the man said. “So me and my buddy here figure we’ll make it last till morning.”

  Just then, Lester appeared on the mezzanine floor above, levelling his suppressed SIG.

  “Make like starfish,” he said as he began to descend the metal staircase.

  They hesitated. Tom figured after the beating he’d received they’d better do as they were told quickly. Lester had a look on his face, one that he’d seen a couple of times before. He was mightily aggrieved. If they weren’t compliant soon, he’d cap them, probably feign a less-than-lethal shot to start off with before killing them outright. Lucky for them, they assumed the position without a scene.

  Lester walked over to Tom, bent over him and cut his hands free with a Stanley knife. Tom rubbed his wrists and stood up.

  “Thanks, man,” he said.

  “No problem. That hurt?” Lester said, staring at Tom’s bloody nose.

  “Not any more.”

  Lester grinned, handed Tom a SIG and walked over to the two men on the ground. He knelt down and began putting flex-cuffs on them. Harshly.

  Tom looked up to the mezzanine floor. Karen was standing there. “Did you get everything?”

  “Oh, yes,” she said, nodding.

  Tom had banked on being taken to the warehouse. Hawks would be cautious. Apart from being involved in something that could get him a life sentence in solitary, he was ex-CIA. He wouldn’t take a man anywhere to beat on him. He would have to be sure that he was in a controlled environment where there’d be no nasty surprises, like hidden CCTV cameras, a nosy cop or a vigilant security guard. The warehouse was the only building owned by ADC in the vicinity.

  Tom had resolved to make his part in it as convincing as possible, and, since they would have been expecting to tackle a DS special agent, that meant he’d had to make it difficult to take him. But the road trap had been a genuine surprise.

  When he’d gotten to the warehouse, he’d known he’d have to take a beating. If he’d cracked too early on, Hawks would’ve suspected something. The plan was going well for a while. Hawks had admitted his involvement. But the arrival of Swiss and two handy-looking bodyguards hadn’t figured in Tom’s plan, either. And now Hawks was dead and Swiss was gone. But at least he knew that Swiss was in on it up to his immaculate blond hair.

  Karen, who had walked down from the first floor, carrying a canvas bag, strolled over to him. “Let me,” she said. She touched Tom’s nose gently with her thumb and forefinger. “You want me to fix it?”

  “Sure.”

  “It’ll hurt more than when he broke it.”

  “Go a–”

  She tw
isted it hard. There was a sharp crack.

  “Jesus,” he said, tears forming in his eyes.

  “There, there,” she said. “It looks fine.”

  Lester walked over to them. “You think I shoulda tried to tackle Swiss and his bodyguards?”

  “No. Too risky,” Tom said.

  “That’s good, cuz Karen here had an idea,” he replied.

  “You did?” Tom asked.

  Karen walked over to the two bound men, crouched down beside them. As she took a couple of glass phials from the bag, she turned and smiled. She said she’d fill him in on the way out to the VW. Then she drugged them. By the time they woke up, the secretary’s fate would have been decided.

  It had already been agreed that Karen would set up surveillance video cameras as evidence. When Swiss had arrived unexpectedly, she had decided to act.

  Swiss’s dull-gold Range Rover had been parked beside the other car in the lot. She’d opened the chained fire door that led to the fire escape with Lester’s boltcutters, ducking down as she’d checked that nobody was standing guard. After descending the metal steps, she’d jogged over to the Range Rover. She’d taken out a couple of magnetized objects each the size of a matchbox, and placed them onto the car’s chassis: a listening bug and a location transmitter. Any onboard detection system would be rendered inert by the third object, an anti-alarm tremor field that repelled the signature probes, which she’d placed under the front, driver-side wheel arch, tilted to an angle to avoid all but the most diligent sweep by a mirror. That done, she’d run back to the fire escape and let herself in. By the time she’d settled down beside Lester behind a stack of cardboard boxes on the mezzanine floor, Swiss had been on his way out.

  68.

  Karen knelt in the back of the van, her hands twiddling plastic dials on a black-box receiver, her ears covered by padded headphones. There were two large plastic suitcases, too, containing, Lester said, “kickass equipment”. He was driving back towards the Potomac, with Tom sitting beside him.

  “Those bugs gonna work, Karen?” Tom asked, turning around.

  “I’m on it,” she said.

  “Why don’t we just get the feds to lift him? We got the evidence,” Lester said.

  “We do that, the secretary could be dead in an hour. We know Swiss is in direct contact with her kidnappers. They might think he’ll cut a deal. I can’t risk that. And, more importantly, we don’t know where she is. Swiss is the only man who can lead us to her. Thanks to Karen.”

  He had an idea now, too.

  They stopped at a gas station to fill up. There was a convenience store to the right. The sun was still out, the highway on either side slithering into the distance like glistening eels. Karen said she fancied a candy bar. Tom put on shades, got out first and walked over to a payphone, leaving Lester to pump the gas. He didn’t want the man he was about to ring to have the number of his disposable cell. As he reached the payphone he was feeling a little apprehensive. He was about to ring his father.

  They hadn’t spoken in a while and even when they had it’d tended to be a short conversation, almost businesslike. After Tom turned eighteen, his father paid for his college education and seemed genuinely pleased that he was going to be studying French literature at Florida State University. But he didn’t attend Tom’s graduation and disappeared for weeks at a time. When he tried to find out where, he always drew a blank. Even his phone number had been unobtainable.

  Tom punched in the number of his father’s office at the Pentagon, which was less than a twenty-minute drive away in Arlington County. The Pentagon housed the rapidly growing Defense Intelligence Agency, the military’s primary intel-gathering and special-missions organization, which worked in tandem with the CIA. Its core collectors, or frontline operatives, were drawn from both the military and civilians. Tom had a feeling his father was something to do with the DIA, or at least was affiliated to it.

  “Major General Dupont’s office,” a woman’s voice said.

  “I’d like to speak with the general, please.”

  “He’s in a meeting. Whom may I say called?”

  “Tom Dupree. It’s a private matter.”

  “He’s due out in forty minutes.”

  “He’ll take my call. Please tell him it’s urgent.”

  Tom watched Lester at the pump. His friend smiled and waved. Tom forced himself to wave back. Karen had ambled into the store. He could see her through the windows, scanning the shelves. Ten seconds later, he heard his father’s voice.

  “My God, Tom, where are you?”

  “Here in Virginia.”

  “Are you okay? I’ve been trying to contact you. Nobody knew where you were.”

  “I’m fine,” Tom said.

  “I was worried after I saw what happened over there.”

  “Can I ask you something?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Do you know a guy called Peter Swiss, the CEO of ADC?” Tom asked.

  “I’ve heard of him, but we’ve never met. Why?”

  Tom thought that was a little strange, his father being a big shot at the Pentagon. But he left it. “Can I see you?”

  “I guess. I’ll be free around six.”

  “I need to see you now.”

  After a long pause, his father said, “All right, Tom. I’ll organize a pass.”

  “Not at the Building,” Tom said, the name its occupants used for the Pentagon.

  69.

  Pentagon City was in the south-east urban district of Arlington County, near the National Cemetery. The bar they’d agreed to meet at was just off the Fashion Centre Mall complex, twenty metres up from a large apartment building called The Metropolitan at Park Row. Tom kept on his shades as he walked in. An old edition of Friends was on the flat-screen TV above the optics. He sat at a small, round table in the corner of the bar with a view of the door and the sidewalk. He hadn’t seen his father in two years, and guessed another two years would’ve passed by if he hadn’t called him.

  A minute or two later, he saw him get out of a black limo, dressed in civilian clothes: a sharp black suit, red tie, and white shirt. He looked fit and healthy, his smooth skin belying his sixty-four years. As he pushed open the glass door Tom stood up, gave a half-hearted wave across the room. The place had emptied of the business and political types he guessed used it to power-lunch and it was too early for dinner.

  His father’s handshake was firm, the eyes dark and sparkling.

  “You look thin, Tom,” he said, sitting down.

  Removing his shades, Tom saw the shocked look on his father’s face. Although Karen had fixed the shape of his nose, the impact of the wood had caused his eyes to swell and darken, and the outline of a bruise had already formed.

  “It looked real rough over there.”

  “It was,” Tom said, nodding.

  “Is that where … that happened?” he asked, using two fingers to flick between his own eyes.

  “Not exactly.”

  The general called a waitress over and ordered a couple of black coffees without asking Tom if he wanted one.

  “What can I do?”

  Tom took out his cellphone and pressed the video-camera button, pushing it over to his father’s side of the table. His father watched silently, his forehead creasing in a frown. Karen had downloaded the video taken at the warehouse onto Tom’s cell. It showed just about everything that had happened, although Tom leaned over and stopped it before Swiss shot Hawks and had deleted the sound already.

  “That was taken in a warehouse near Arlington County about a half-hour ago.”

  “Jesus, Tom. From what I heard about Swiss, he didn’t seem the type.”

  “But you’ve never met him,” Tom said.

  “As I said, no.”

  The waitress came over, a skinny thing with her hair in a ponytail. She placed the cups and saucers down, together with the check. “Enjoy,” she said.

  “What’s this all about, Tom?” his father asked.

  “The
secretary.”

  His father sighed before standing up. “I’m taking this to the FBI,” he said, snatching up the cellphone.

  70.

  Sandri Khan had contacted his CIA handler on a couple of occasions since he’d done his little recon of Brigadier Hasni’s house with the American called Tom Dupree, and had left him to his own devices in the Blue Area of Islamabad. He’d reported that things had gone sour but that he’d escaped unscathed, utilizing flash grenades, which were designed to disorientate and disable temporarily, rather than maim or kill. Still, he’d said he had to cap two ISI men just the same. They were chasing after the American. If he hadn’t, the man would’ve been dropped by a fence. That hadn’t happened and he’d seen him scamper off to what he’d considered to be safety.

  After that, Khan had made his way to one of the many safe houses that the Agency provided for its Pakistani assets and sources in Islamabad, and which were used in rotation. If any were raided by the ISI, or officers from the Intelligence Bureau or Military Intelligence, the whole set-up was changed. It had been quite a successful arrangement up until a year or so ago. But many had been arrested in the interim, most of whom were never seen again.

  He sat in front of a flat-screen, checking on his emails. His Glock 17-9mm was on the table within a hand’s reach. It had three independent safeties, which made it the safest handgun in the world. The frame was made from a synthetic stronger than steel, but it was eighty-six per cent lighter. It was virtually indestructible. It was also the most accurate handgun in the world. The deadliest. He liked his Glock. He never went anywhere without it, although he was always accompanied by his three bodyguards. Their wages were paid from the significant sums that were transferred into a bank account on a regular basis by the CIA via a front IT business registered in Germany. His cover was that he worked freelance for the business, one of many outsourced services from the West. He was essentially a bridge agent, acting as a courier and a go-between. Apart from the money he kept for himself, he used the remainder to obtain intel, which he then passed on for a profit. It was a lucrative business. But he preferred to appear poor. Besides, due to the run-down locations the safe houses were situated in, it also meant that he didn’t draw any attention to himself.