by Michael Todd
The man he didn’t recognize looked new and he had the ex-military look about him. He wasn’t young but was only recently out of the uniform. He still had the look of someone who waited for a superior officer to show up before he snapped a salute. That would fade, along with the crisp black and white lines on his new Tower uniform. He even wore the cap and a hint of brown hair, still not having outgrown the regulation cut, peeked out. At a cursory glance, he filled the uniform well but he still looked lean and not overly tall.
“How’s the shift going, Jordan?” Castle asked at the window while the new man came around the other side and slid into the shotgun seat. “Meet Elliot Hardison, new recruit.”
“No kidding.” Jordan chuckled, turned, and shook the man’s hand. He looked firmly into his timid green eyes. “Nice to meet you, Hardison. Jordan Fraser. Where did you come out of?”
The newcomer chuckled nervously. “That obvious, huh?”
“You look like you’re waiting for a superior officer to come along before snapping a salute, son.” Castle laughed. Jordan was about to scowl at having the joke stolen before he could voice it, but he remembered that the older man had cracked the same joke when he had trained him. He couldn’t blame the man when he’d been about to steal what was originally his line.
“Just out of the 75th Ranger Regiment. I did a couple of tours in the ʼstan,” Hardison said and looked a little more confident.
“Damn, you guys must have lowered the hiring standards in the office to allow dogfaces like this in,” Jordan chuckled, and the new man smirked. Military jokes were one of the ways to let the newbies feel welcome in their new place of business. “I spent some time in Afghanistan as well, so maybe you can keep up with a Marine after all.”
“We’ll see about that,” Hardison said readily but he still didn’t seem comfortable enough to joke around with people who had been there far longer than he had. They would get that out of him, Jordan thought. Eventually.
“Is there anything to report?” Castle asked as Jordan stepped out of the driver’s seat and his partner, Gordon, slid out from the back.
“We had word back on the suspicious vehicle called in yesterday,” Jordan replied. He stretched and groaned gently after having spent the last three hours in the seat. “It turns out it was only one of the realtors running an inspection on one of the empty lots down the street so nothing to worry about. Other than that, it was simply another slow day at the office.”
“Fantastic.” Castle chuckled, patted him on the back, and handed him the keys to the other vehicle. “Slow days are the best for training rookies. I’ll see you tomorrow, Jordan.”
“Have a good one, Castle,” he responded briskly and jogged to the car that Gordon had already boarded. He couldn’t help but smirk when the new kid jumped out of the van and set off toward the nearby supermarket. Castle had made him do the walk for coffee on their few times in the field together, and he wouldn’t even let the kid use the van. He might have some steel in him yet.
He pulled the car out of park and turned back to the Tower offices, where they would print out a report of nothing to report, punch out, and head home. Another good day, he decided, in which all was right with the world.
Sometimes, Jenkins absolutely hated the holidays.
He couldn’t complain about the time off from his day job that could be spent either with his family or getting ahead on his campaign dues, but the fact remained that it was a whole week of the year during which no one on Capitol Hill wanted to work. The inevitable result was that they needed to complete two weeks’ worth of work in one week.
There were people who took advantage of that, of course, and slipped subtle edits into bills that would reach the floor. One had to keep one’s eye on the other congressmen and women since none of them would think twice about using the increased workload to slide something past everyone’s notice. Not only did they have to work twice as much, but they had to be extra careful about what the people on the other side tried to pull out of their hats. All this while trying to pull a few tricks of their own, of course.
Unfortunately, he didn’t have time for tricks. Garcia was running him ragged in the reelection campaign, which meant he had his hands full trying to deal with his job and keep his job, all while needing to conduct favors for his new overlords. Banks had made it clear in no uncertain terms that, while they would help him keep his seat, they were still the ones in the driver’s seat of this relationship.
He’d told Carol he would be home later than usual. He’d left a voicemail and sent flowers to mollify her since they had planned a family dinner during which they would discuss their Thanksgiving plans. She hadn’t liked that. Usually, she responded to his voicemails in kind, but she’d answered with a text and simply said she would take Jason out to eat since he wouldn’t be there for it.
It had stung a little, but the thought of being able to have a brandy and a cigar in his office after a rushed meal of whatever they had in the freezer eased the instinctive resentment. He could afford to celebrate a little. Even with all the work and the stress from work, there was good news to come out of this. Thanks to all the work put into improving his image and the various celebrities who now endorsed his campaign, things looked better and better for him in the polls. The younger ages were the only demographics he’d had trouble with, and with the help of his new friends, they began to show support in the polls. He had even trended on Twitter.
Jenkins waited for the driver appointed to him by the Tower Security company—which also provided most of his other security—to open the door to his car to let him out. It had been a long time since he’d had a driver of his own. He definitely appreciated how convenient it was and he could afford it, but his campaign manager in Wisconsin had told him that to be seen with a driver would hurt his image.
That fear was gone now, thank God.
He glanced at the paneled van that had been parked outside his house for the past few days. It had the Tower logo on the side to indicate to all the assholes in the homeowner’s association that they could shove whatever stick they had up their collective asses deeper in. He had simply upgraded his security and they couldn’t fuss about that. There didn’t appear to be anyone in the van at present, but that probably meant they were securing the property and checking all the security systems to make sure nothing was tampered with.
The driver appeared to feel the same way, as the man didn’t look overly concerned. His training, of course, reminded him to keep his hand on the weapon tucked under his arm at all times, and his sunglasses-covered eyes scanned the windows while he stuck close to Jenkins.
“Do you mind if I do a quick sweep of the house, Congressman?” the man—whose name had escaped Jenkins already—asked as they stepped inside. The house was unlit. It was unusual, but Caroline had a habit of turning all the lights off when she left the house and was angry with him. She thought it would make him feel lonelier in an empty house and encourage him to apologize to her faster.
The woman had a degree in psychology and damned if she didn’t know her stuff. He would make sure to buy her something extra special for Thanksgiving.
“Can I at least go the kitchen for a beer?” he asked and heard the frustration in his tone. The man nodded and removed his sunglasses.
“I’ll mostly check the third and fourth floors,” he clarified and locked the door behind them before he started a quick sweep of the ground floor.
The congressman turned the light on in the kitchen. It could be a real pain, sometimes, to have this much security, but a shot in the back would hurt more. If it even hurt at all. It would all depend on precisely where that shot was delivered. Still, having to wait around in the kitchen while he sipped a beer and wondered what he would have for dinner was better than dealing with the medical bills that came with getting shot.
At least he assumed so. He’d never actually been shot before.
He retrieved one of the dark ales he’d picked up on his trip to Belgium and popped t
he cap. It wasn’t even a twist-off. They were so classy about beer there. He wondered if he could open a brewery once he was finished with politics. It couldn’t be long now anyway. He was owed a lot for the efforts he’d put into the different groups that had sponsored his various election campaigns, and he would collect once he was no longer a public servant. They would pay him through a handful of speeches held at corporate events, merely to keep things above board. Once he had the capital from that, he could look into what investments he could make that would keep them thriving through his retirement. Opening a Belgium-styled brewery seemed like one of the ways he could do that. Or maybe it would be better to invest in an existing brewery and have them produce the same brews.
Jenkins froze when he heard a thud from his den. He put the beer down, his fingers suddenly shaking, and he listened intently into the ominous silence.
The next noise wasn’t the same, but it did sound like a struggle was in progress. A soft, growled cry of pain. A clatter as a weapon was knocked out of someone’s hands. The distinct sound of a fist hitting flesh and a hard thud, followed by what sounded like a body crumpling.
“Shit,” he gasped. He had a gun. Any self-respecting elected official would have found some way to protect himself should the worst happen, but it was in his desk. In his den.
There was a gun in the car. He’d seen the man—what the fuck was his name again?—put a weapon in the glove compartment in case of emergency and pointedly let Jenkins see him do it. There was a phone there too. He could call the police and drive away.
Panic almost overwhelmed him as he scrambled toward the door. While he’d played lacrosse in college, those days were long behind him and too many dinners at Michelin-starred restaurants had put a little too much padding around his middle. He still had the muscle and muscle memory, but it took him a couple of steps to build up to his full speed.
A surging sensation of hope as he reached the entrance hallway and had the door in sight was snuffed out of existence when a hand grabbed him by the collar of his American-made suit and dragged him off his feet. He landed with enough of an impact that the breath was knocked out of him. Even in the dim light from the kitchen mingled with the fading light from the sun setting outside, he could see the elongated weapon in the shadowy figure’s hands as he aimed it at his head.
The congressman closed his eyes and raised his hands in front of his face in a futile attempt to keep the man from firing. He held his breath but the sound of a bullet sent to end his life didn’t come. It was replaced with the man’s boot pounding into his ribcage. The kick wasn’t hard enough to break anything but was more than enough to double him over. His attacker grasped him by the collar again and hauled him over the smooth oak surface Carol had allowed him to choose for the floors.
It wasn’t a long way to his den, and the man tossed him inside like he weighed less than a body pillow. A couple of lights were on and as he pulled himself up from a painful and ungainly sprawl, he caught sight of his driver, battered and bleeding and unmoving on the floor. He was clearly unconscious, perhaps dead. Jenkins hadn’t heard a gunshot, but there were other ways to kill a man.
Guns were a good choice, though, he was suddenly reminded when he felt the barrel of one press into the back of his neck.
“Take a seat, Congressman.”
Jenkins would have preferred some emotional inflection to the intruder’s voice. The almost inhuman calm considering what the man was doing there felt wrong. With little choice in the matter, he pushed himself slowly to his hands and knees and crawled to his comfortable chair beside the unlit fireplace. When he turned, he expected to see a masked man but instead, he was faced with features he was actually familiar with. Not that he’d ever met the man, of course, but he had spent the past few days worrying about a picture of him so it was all but imprinted on his brain. Now, the man in the image was there in the flesh in a Tower uniform and stared at him with implacable coldness.
He gulped as he settled into his seat and looked into the eyes of Jeremiah Savage—or Jeremiah Johnson, as had been revealed by the file he’d found on the man.
The weapon in his hand resembled something out a sci-fi novel, and the congressman was almost tempted to test the man based on the vague and extremely stupid notion that it simply couldn’t be real. The fact remained, however, from what he’d read in the file he’d found, that the intruder could probably simply beat him to death with his fists and not even break a sweat, so there was no point. The gun was most likely as deadly as the rest of him.
“We need to talk.” Savage dropped onto a nearby chair and straddled it so he had the back pressed up against his chest and used this to prop his gun hand up and aimed at his captive’s knee.
“Do you know who I am?” Jenkins blurted without thinking. “Do you really think you can get away with killing a sitting member of the United States’ House of Representatives?”
“You put my family in the crosshairs of barbarians who wouldn’t think twice about using them as leverage to get to me,” the man stated calmly, and not a single hint of emotion crossed his face. “You have a family, Congressman, one you appear to love a great deal. What exactly would you do to keep them safe?”
That was a good point, he thought and gulped again as he gripped the arms of his chair to stop his hands from shaking. His gaze flickered to his desk in the other corner of the room when he thought about the gun he had in the top drawer. He doubted he would be able to reach it without a little guile, but if he could convince Savage to let him go there…
His captor’s gaze drifted to the desk and he smiled when he divined what Jenkins thought about. He reached back and drew a pistol from where it had been tucked into his pants—a Smith and Wesson M&P45, American-made.
The congressman blinked and jerked his hand to push some of his thinning black hair out of his face as he looked down the barrel of his own gun.
“There has to be some kind of curse for a man to be shot by his own gun,” Savage said thoughtfully but with a mocking edge to his tone. “Maybe you’ll be shamed in the next life for it. I don’t know. Or maybe knowing that, if I can shoot you in the temple at precisely the right angle, I can simply put the gun in your hands and the cops will think that it was a suicide.”
A hint of a smile played on his lips and made a chill run down Jenkins’ spine.
“Then again, if I shoot you in the knees and gut a couple of times, I won’t be able to get that story past the cops, but it will be far more satisfying for me,” Savage continued and gestured with the weapon. “But this doesn’t need to happen to you, Jenkins. I can let you out of here scot-free. All you need to do is tell me who’s behind the leak of my file. Who wants to know about me?”
He was no hero and honestly wasn’t even marginally brave. He was smart, and he had the kind of face people liked to trust, but when a gun was aimed at him, every good intention went the way the wind blew. And right now, it blew Savage’s way.
“Banks,” he hissed through clenched teeth. “His name is Mason Banks. He’s a lawyer. When he first called me, he said he worked for Pegasus, but he lied about that. The messages I sent to him were addressed to a firm in New York called Statten-Whitney so I looked him up. He was recently made a partner in that firm. I got the feeling that he didn’t do this for them, though. There was a mention of a client, but I’m not sure if he meant a client of the firm or a private one. They had some information on me that…well, they made me an offer I couldn’t refuse.”
Savage scowled at him and his expression suggested he didn’t quite believe what he’d heard. He tilted his head as if listening.
“Control, can you confirm any of this?” he asked. Jenkins narrowed his eyes but quickly realized he was talking to someone who wasn’t in the room. They were probably in a van outside somewhere or over a comm link. “Yes, I’m talking to you. Can you confirm any of this?”
He glanced around and wondered if he was expected to do anything at this point. He hadn’t lied, and if the ma
n’s sources were anything resembling good, he would be able to confirm that.
And then what? The chilling question needed to be answered.
His captor turned his attention to the present and stood to fix him with a hard look. “Well, it appears you can tell the truth after all, at least about names. I’ll leave you intact for the moment. If I have to return for you—either if you’re lying, or if you tell anyone about this little conversation—the only clue you’ll have is your brains plastered on whatever you happen to be looking at in that moment. Look in my eyes and tell me that I’m lying.”
Jenkins did look into his eyes. There was absolutely no emotion in them. He didn’t doubt that the man could reach him again. He was unquestionably a professional and excelled at what he did. Besides, it wasn’t like Jenkins could invest in much more security before eyebrows were raised.
“Please,” he said and jerked up from his seat as Savage started to make his way to the door. “Leave my family out of this. Don’t hurt them…and they don’t have to know.”
Savage sneered in response. “Don’t make the mistake of thinking I’d hold a man’s mistakes against his family. I’m not like you and your ilk.”
And with that, he was gone and the front door opened and closed a few seconds later.
The congressman remained motionless for a few minutes until his knees were able to support his weight again.
“That motherfucker,” he said, annoyed that his hands were still shaking. “He took my fucking gun.”
Chapter Eleven
Savage stepped out of the house, closed the door carefully behind him, and jogged to the van. He’d drugged the coffee he’d bought for the man who’d come to train him on his first day. No doubt the people at Tower would figure out what happened eventually. Either Jenkins would fill them in on the details, or they would get the story from the trainer—Castle, that was his name—and they would know their system had been hacked and their clients compromised.