by Jordan Cole
“What broke it open?”
“Saccarelli,” Fletcher said. “He was relentless. I guess I gave him just enough to keep going. One day he was running pictures by me. He would say, ‘hey, recognize this guy? What about this guy?’ And every time I shook my head. Until one time I didn’t. It was a picture of an older man, serious looking. Apparently, he was real high up. Out of the service for a few years at this point. Collecting his pension. Pete asked me did you see this guy, and I knew I had. For about ten seconds, when he was getting out of a car with tinted windows near one of the barracks. They hustled him inside quickly, and he seemed pissed, like he wasn’t even supposed to be there, but I got a glimpse. It was the same guy. I was sure of it. Leslie Frazier. A one-star brigadier general.”
Riley whistled.
“You’ve heard of him?” Agatha asked.
“Not as such,” Riley said. “But a one star is almost as high up as it gets. Enough so that there had to be something really wrong with the guy to get mustered out at that level. It also means these weren’t just any old guys who thought they could get an easy paycheck. They had their own command structure and their own kind of OPSEC. Assuming Frazier was running the show. If anyone higher than a one-star was in on this, I don’t even want to think about it.”
“How’d Pete get Frazier’s name?”
“He did his homework,” Fletcher said. “Went to the bars near Fort Bragg, near Camp Mackall, talked to guys there. Rumors were going around about Frazier’s early retirement. Allegations of gambling with taxpayer money. Embezzlement. Nothing proven, obviously. Nothing anyone would say on the record. But a lot of people didn’t like the guy. And he was just one in a long list of suspects Saccarelli was checking out. He just happened to be the highest-ranking guy. And the right one.”
“Frazier would have been around the block,” Riley said. “He’d know who could be bent. Know who would be loyal to him. If his gambling was an open secret, then maybe someone got wind of his financial issues. Or maybe he contacted them. Hatched a plan for a crack terrorist training house for Western fighters in exchange for some of that sweet plunder. Someone on the inside the terrorists must trust. For whatever reason.”
“Pete was really excited,” Fletcher said. He was wringing his hands, like the memory was stressing him out. “He was convinced he had the story of the century. I told him to slow down. That these people were dangerous, that we had to be careful. Back then, I didn’t even know how bad they were.”
“Then what happened?”
Fletcher shrugged.
“Saccarelli got creative. Frazier was our only connection to the training camp, but we couldn’t crack him. He was old school. Did everything in person. It was clear he wasn’t going to slip up. So Saccarelli found the weak link. The guy with the guns.”
“The weapons,” Riley said, mulling it over in his head. “You guys had to train with something. Frazier definitely could have found a crooked quartermaster to order surplus guns without a problem.”
“Not just that,” said Fletcher. “But the guy in question used to sell his wares to a wacko militia out in the boonies. Guns, body armor, the whole nine yards. The Feds eventually moved in and kicked the militia out. This was a few years ago. They were supposed to requisition the land. There was a whole little community, way out in the wilderness. Mess halls, cabins, whatever. But I guess the Feds forgot about it. Or it was of no use to them. Either way, it was deserted. But the gun runner didn’t forget about it. He knew it could be easily converted into a training camp. When the militia left, Frazier and his boys moved in.”
Murmurs and conversation around them. A disturbance in the air, like the consumption of alcohol and drugs had been halted temporarily by some sort of outside distraction. Riley saw the tent city denizens in the distance shifting and moving, as if some force from far away was drawing nearer.
“Let’s speed this up,” he said. “Saccarelli was able to find the militia grounds. Which was really the training camp.”
“He thought he had pinpointed the general location. He wanted me to come back to the states. Try and locate the training grounds with him. But it didn’t work out that way.”
“Why not?” Riley asked.
“Because he got arrested,” Agatha said. “Right? That’s what it said was in Metzer’s file.”
“Who’s Metzer?” Fletcher asked.
“FBI. That’s who nabbed you, isn’t it?”
A few hundred yards out, Riley could see more bodies start to rise, shuffling aimlessly to and fro. There wasn’t much that could make these people start to get up and walk around. But strange visitors tramping through their homestead might do it. Or law enforcement.
“We’ve got to go,” Riley said. “Like, soon. Someone’s coming.”
“Wait,” Agatha said. Turning to Fletcher. “The FBI arrested you, right? So what happened to Saccarelli?”
“I decided to come back to the states. Try and give helping Peter a shot. I was sleeping in the streets in London, stealing food. They were getting suspicious of me as well. I would probably have been deported if I hadn’t decided to leave. Had my parents wire me money for a plane ticket. The FBI arrested me as soon as I landed.”
Fletcher also seemed aware of the changing atmosphere in the tent city, squirming on the milk crate. “I guess they were afraid I was planning some kind of terrorist action. They knew about my posts on the message boards and that I converted to Islam. But they didn’t know about Abu Hasan or Frazier. I was charged with a whole bunch of stuff under the Patriot act. But it was dropped.”
A series of shrill, high pitched whistles rang out through the tent compound. Like the mating calls of birds--sharp, dissonant two note bursts echoing off the trees and across the rocks. But human sounds, the product of lips pressed against one another and fingers against front teeth. A warning. Repeated over and over by different people, as they shuffled and turned and hid their contraband and made themselves scarce.
“Cops are here,” Riley said, certain of it now. “Or someone worse.” He could see the furtive movements of people funneling toward them, like ripples in a pond. A pair of detectives, or dark-suited government agents, or even a SWAT team decked out in tactical gear, working methodically through the tents and trailers, upturning the homeless and disrupting the strange Arcadia they’d built out here in the Tennessee wilderness.
“It’s us they’re after,” Agatha said, rising unconscious from the crate, moistening her lips with her tongue. “They must have found the car.”
“You guys brought the cops?” Fletcher said, grimacing helplessly, palms open as if to say You’re really letting this happen after all I’ve spilled to you?
“We need to get out of here,” Riley said. “They nab all of us together, it’s bad. Is there a back way? Something through the trees?”
“I can get you down to the river,” Fletcher said. “If I can find it in the dark. From there you can loop back east toward the city. Or head the other direction.”
More people parting ahead of them. Riley caught flashes of brown reflected in the moonlight, the tops of broad-brimmed hats glinting for a split second. State troopers, maybe, working a methodical canvass of the area. The Oldsmobile probably already being worked over with a fine-toothed comb.
“Let’s go,” Riley said. They all three slipped quietly into the tree line, at a pace slightly slower than a jog, a casual but determined stride, purposefully trying not to draw the eye with unnecessary motion. Fletcher patted his tangled hair and tried to discern the way despite the faint visibility. The scene behind them grew more heated, with cops shouting orders and the tent citizens complaining and cursing and questions being asked and tensions mounting. Fletcher led them in a general southwestern direction, at least by Riley’s dead reckoning, and soon they moved into a run, acorns and twigs and virgin forest soil crushing underfoot as they went. Flashlights pricked the darkness, bobbing and weaving like drunken pixies. The sounds of pursuers diminished, and soon there was
nothing aside from their heavy breathing and cicadas chirring. No footfalls following behind them. But no space to relax. The troopers would be out with searchlights and possibly dogs, soon enough. They had to put as much space between themselves and the tent city as possible.
Fletcher stopped. Arcing his head around the darkness, searching for a point of reference. A week or so in the homeless camp was not enough time to know the terrain properly, Riley knew, not in the dark. Fletcher started branching down a path then stopped, changing his mind.
“You sure you know where you’re going?” Agatha asked.
“I just…” Fletcher stopped. “Yeah. There.”
He jogged forward, and they followed. Riley’s boot sank into something soft and viscous. He had a sense of the Earth, swallowing him whole. Water seeping up his pant leg. They had stumbled into a swamp, probably near the shore of the Tennessee river. An overwhelming smell of moisture and dirt filled Riley’s nostrils. Fletcher waded through the knee-high water and they went after him. Riley slapped mosquitoes away from his face, the algae-tinged water breaking around him in shimmering eddies.
“If we get through here, the banks of the river should be up ahead,” said Fletcher. “As long as we don’t kick a crocodile in the face.”
But none of them was in any mood for humor. They plodded through the stagnant murk, out onto a solid marshy area of reeds and long grass. Up ahead Riley could see the sparkling Tennessee river, points of light dotting the shore. Trudging up to its banks, they spied an old pier, a small strip of sturdy oaken planks lashed together, a few dinghies bobbing parallel to one another. A line of buildings against the dock, all of them closed for the night. No tourists to spot them stumbling out of the swamp. Riley waved an arm at Agatha and started toward the city lights. She followed; Fletcher didn’t. He hung back, silhouetted against the dark of the swamp, indecision on his face.
“Come on,” Riley said. “We don’t have a lot of time.”
“I’m turning around,” Fletcher said. “Going back to the camp.”
“It’s swarming with cops by now.”
“Right. Cops who are looking for you. As far as they’re concerned, I’m just another bum, stumbling around. Safer for me there. I can blend in with the others.”
“We need you,” Agatha said. “You’re the only proof we have of what happened to Pete Saccarelli. What Frazier and the others were up to.”
Fletcher shook his head.
“Like I said, my word isn’t worth shit. No one will believe me. But if Frazier finds me, he’ll kill me anyway. Better if I stick around for a few more days, then move on someplace else. I can’t go with you.”
“You said you knew,” Riley started. “Why they need Agatha alive. What she has that they’re after.”
“I said I might. Pete and I met only once after I got out of prison. At the Lincoln memorial. He told me he was about to blow it wide open. That he had proof. He had tracked down the compound. Found a safe spot and camped there for days. They were in the middle of training a new batch of recruits. He had taped conversations between Frazier and his men. Hell, he had video of what was going on. And he was making backups of the evidence, in case something happened to him. He wanted me to stick around, to testify if need be. But I was scared. I skipped town, the next day. And I guess they got to him. I was right to run.”
Riley turned to Agatha.
“Did Saccarelli ever mention any of this to you?”
She shook her head.
“All he said was he had something big he wanted to tell me. That was the last time I heard from him. That’s when this whole thing started.” She turned back to Fletcher, who was currently staring down at his feet.
“Look at me,” she said, and Fletcher raised his head, reluctantly. “Andrew, what are you saying? Are you telling me I was one of these backups? Like a failsafe?”
Fletcher shrugged.
“He had backups. That’s all I can say.”
Riley touched Agatha’s arm.
“We’ve got to go,” he said.
“Not yet,” she said. Pushing Riley away. “I need to know why all of this is happening to me.”
But Fletcher was already gone, retreated into the swamp. Agatha’s mouth gaped open then clamped shut, her eyebrows narrowed. Her pants covered in muck and dirt. Exhaustion and dismay radiating outward through her every fiber.
“Forget it. Let’s get out of the boondocks here. We need to get back to the city proper. Find a place to hole up for the night.”
They moved side-by-side down the shores of the river, Riley on a constant swivel for searchlights and pursuers. Travelling as inconspicuously as they could manage. Past the docks and the closed shops and toward the glittering residential lights in the near distance, the Tudor houses and colonial farmsteads and arterial roads that would loop them back toward Knoxville’s downtown. In the distance Riley thought he could make out the faint outline of the Sunsphere, a bulbous shadow against the darkness. They would have to steal a car. Or find a midnight bus heading out of town. Either one would present problems.
“You believe him?” Agatha asked, her face dimmed and heavy in the low light. “Fletcher?”
They had about two hundred dollars cash left, along with the Smith and Wesson and one case of bullets and the K-bar knife and two burner cell phones that hopefully weren’t soaked through and useless after the trudge through the swamp. Not exactly a bustling inventory. Not with law enforcement and Frazier’s men hunting them. They needed bodies on their side, and they needed them fast.
“A guy like that has a limited imagination,” Riley said. “He knew details that would be otherwise difficult to come by. Like the Hotel Istanbul in Kilis. His story is out there, but it hangs together. It’s consistent with what we know, especially about Saccarelli.”
“No way Saccarelli would pass on a story like this,” Agatha said. “He’d do literally anything to get the bottom of it, if he believed Fletcher.”
“Right. He’d be in it from the get-go. And according to Fletcher’s timeline, he was training before ISIS blew up in the news. Before they started beheading US citizens. Before anyone had heard of them, basically.”
Riley sighed. “Hard for me to see them working with Americans,” he continued. “But maybe they had history with one of them. Trusted him enough to go through with it. Not inconceivable a bent ex-general could get 10 or 15 guys together looking for an easy couple million to split between them. No combat required. They get the guys, train them, ship them out. Instead of first wave meat shields, the bad guys get special forces training. Abbreviated training, but training nonetheless. Guys who know how to coordinate raids, who are trained with night vision, who can make and defuse bombs. I could see them going for it, on an experimental basis. The kind of money they’re pulling in, maybe they figured, why the hell not?”
“But then it got too heavy.”
“Right. American heads come off. The President orders airstrikes. They’ve got more important things to worry about now. Then Fletcher gets arrested on US soil, and Frazier panics. Decides to abandon ship. Starts scorching the Earth. They’re afraid Fletcher will talk to the Feds, maybe make a deal, so they get him sprung somehow. They find out he’s working with Saccarelli, and they track him down. Fletcher slips away, but he’s not their first priority. He’s a radical Muslim with zero credibility. They’ll get him when he turns up. Which just leaves you.”
Agatha sagged, like the weight of the past few weeks was a physical presence upon her. For a tense moment Riley thought she would swoon, or fall over, but she merely stumbled, regaining her footing almost immediately. Riley put a hand against her shoulder. He could feel her heart, beating furiously.
“He never told me anything,” Agatha said. “Peter. If only he had talked to me about all this. It had been a while since we’d dated, but he still could have talked to me.”
“Maybe he was going to,” Riley said. “Maybe he was killed before he could give you the details.”
; “You really think I’m the backup?”
“I don’t know. What matters is, Frazier and the others think you are. Partly good, because they assume they need to keep you alive. Partly bad, because, well. You know.”
Ahead were streetlights, the residential Tudors. The occasional pedestrian, as the grassy expanse turned into road and sidewalk. People walking dogs, college kids out for a run. Riley and Agatha had wet, muddy pants, and looked exactly like what they were--two fugitives who had stumbled out of a swamp. But they had no choice. They couldn’t go backward. Riley reached into his pocket and came out with the cell phone. He opened it, examining the screen. Still glowing with its low LED backlight. No sign of water damage.
“I need to make a phone call,” Riley said. “Keep a lookout, while I’m preoccupied.”
Agatha nodded. Didn’t ask how or why or who. Just sharpened immediately and darted her eyes like she was a born recon, no hesitation. Her momentary stumble forgotten, like it had happened a year ago. She’d learned quickly, on the run. Riley had lucked out. He’d served with worse. There was absolutely no question about that.
He dialed the number. Put the phone to his ear. It helped them, in a small way. A man and a woman just shuffling along, dirty and unkempt, they could be up to anything. A man on the phone, talking confidently while a woman strolled beside him, he belonged there. Business, maybe. Or dinner plans. Wouldn’t draw any undue attention. Or so he hoped.
The electronic ringer sounded a few times. They were walking through a residential neighborhood, tall houses of brick and stucco blocking the view from all sides. A patrol car coming down this road would have them dead to rights, but barring that they were hidden. Riley’s call went through and a voice answered on the other end.
“Dallas,” he said. “It’s Riley. I need your help.”
He had called Dallas’s personal cell. Henderson Security was no doubt closed for the night, and Riley needed to make Dallas picked up.