by James Phelan
Walker could imagine her holding out.
Then he saw it. Dylan. What had become of her. And he wondered how she could have held out. There was no easy way. He fought the compulsion to find a blanket and cover her. He wanted whatever forensic evidence there was to be preserved so that if that fifth guy, Menzil, was apprehended, he’d get the electric chair for his involvement in this. Did they have the chair in Missouri? Or an injection? Either way it was a safety net—in case Walker failed to find the guy first, at least there was a chance he’d be killed by the state. But Walker hoped otherwise. Either in the course of the day, or another day after, he hoped that he would be the one to catch that killer and exact justice.
He heard a vehicle approaching. Headlights beamed into the front windows and a dark sedan pulled up next to the police cruiser.
•
McCorkell received a call from Somerville, and then he rang Assistant Director Grant.
“You’ve got nerve,” Grant said.
“Excuse me?” McCorkell replied.
“Your guy Walker has been causing hell across two states,” Grant said. “I had a specialist team headed to the Murphys—he’s compromised that.”
“The Murphy family are fine.”
Grant paused, catching up to what that meant: Walker got the Murphys out.
“You sure about that?”
“They were too late,” McCorkell said. “Don’t worry about the Murphys, they’re safe.”
Grant said, “Where are they?”
“With my people.”
“Where?”
“Headed to New Orleans,” McCorkell said, selling the lie to see where it led.
“New Orleans?”
“They’re safe.”
“I need the address,” Grant said. “I’ll take them from there, put them into protection with the others.”
“I need something first.”
“Excuse me?”
“A list.”
“Maybe you don’t understand what’s happening here,” Grant said. “The Navy’s finest are being hunted down. I’m tasked with their protection.”
“Right, well, with due respect, the Murphy family would have been no more if it wasn’t for my guy there.”
“Walker.”
“That’s right.”
“He’s with the Murphy family?”
“They’re safe.”
“Safe?”
“Two things,” McCorkell said. “We have an open investigation. We’re trying to prevent a major terrorist attack. And you’re looking in the wrong—”
“Terrorist attack?” Grant said, urgency in his voice. “What are you talking about?”
“This is about Team Six, but it has nothing to do with killing them just for participating in Abbottabad,” McCorkell said. “It’s about what’s happening next.”
Grant was silent, then he said, “What’s happening next?”
“We’re hoping Murphy will know.”
“Where’s Murphy?” Grant said. “More to the point, where’s what is left of my team? How did Walker beat them to Murphy?”
“Secure.”
“Headed to New Orleans?”
“That’s right.”
“Bullshit,” Grant said. “Why would anyone take a family there for protection, from where they were? It’s a zoo. Either you’re lying, or you and your staff are complete idiots.”
Grant hung up. He had a battle on his hands and his involvement was about to get a lot more hands-on.
74
Walker opened the front door and stood on the porch.
Three figures looked up at him: a man and a woman from the car that had just arrived, and the state trooper.
“Hands!” the state trooper shouted. By the silhouette of the headlights Walker could make out the officer’s side-arm, aimed directly at him.
“On the ground, now!” the state trooper shouted.
Walker stood still. The other two figures, each wearing a dark suit, also had pistols drawn and pointed at Walker.
“On the ground!” the state trooper yelled. “On your knees! Now!”
For a moment the thought ran through Walker’s mind that maybe this wasn’t a state trooper here to protect a crime scene but another one of the deputies from Mountain View, here to exact some kind of revenge or silence Walker. Maybe he was here to clean up, to shoot him dead. Or maybe arrest him for murdering those back at the Sheriff’s house.
Walker took two paces closer, slowly raising his hands as he moved. He squinted against the headlights and then made out the uniform of a state trooper; it was unfamiliar, definitely. The two in suits may have been plain-clothes homicide cops, but they seemed dressed too sharply and built too lean. Some kind of Feds, then, but it was hard to properly make them out with the bright headlights behind them.
“Last chance!” the state trooper yelled, taking a step toward Walker, his service pistol pointed in a double-handed grip. “On the ground!”
Then Walker smiled. The state trooper had frozen, and by the illumination of the headlights and the breaking dawn, Walker could see that his eyes had gone wide, and that the front of his tan trousers had spread with a dark smudge of wetness.
The barrel of a submachine gun to the back of the head will do that to a man.
“Firearms on the hood of the Taurus,” Murphy said.
The two suited figures looked across to Murphy, cutting a mean look in his military garb and face-paint and weaponry. For a brief moment it was like they had entered his world, and they understood that he was in total command of it.
Walker made his way down the steps. They were definitely Feds, he surmised as he closed the distance. The woman was around forty and looked like she’d been in the game awhile. Tall, long-limbed, the kind of handsome facial features that said she probably looked more like her father than her mother. The guy was an average white male in most ways, and his hair was grown over his collar at the back.
The state trooper slowly put his pistol on the hood. He looked like he was going to be sick or pass out, or both. He was young. He’d probably seen a couple of car wrecks in his time, some domestic violence, some trespassing and theft, and plenty of traffic violations—but it seems he had never been held at gunpoint at a murder scene.
“Chief Petty Officer Charles Murphy,” the woman said, her voice calm and relaxed, putting her Sig on the hood of her car and motioning for her partner to follow suit; he did so, reluctantly. “I’m Special Agent Levine of NCIS. Sailor, we’re here to protect you and your family.”
•
Bill McCorkell pulled through the security gate of Marine Corps Base Quantico. The population on any given day was around 20,000, on federal land covering over 55,000 acres of Virginia, the Potomac slicing through it. Sprawling parade grounds. All the amenities of a mid-sized city. They drove past a Marine Corps Memorial, a replica of the statue of the second flag-raising on Iwo Jima.
“Feels like coming home,” Hutchinson said.
“When were you at the Academy?” McCorkell asked.
“A lifetime ago,” Hutchinson said, looking in the direction of the adjoining FBI Academy. “Have you met this Director before?”
“No,” McCorkell said, taking a ramp for the visitors’ car park near the Russell Knox administration building and pulling into the first spot he saw. “Career administrator, brought over a couple of years back from the Secret Service.”
“Sounds all right,” Hutchinson said, getting out the car awkwardly, reaching across his body to pull the handle with his free left hand.
“He’s from financial crimes,” McCorkell said. “A bean-counter from way back.”
“Sounds like a fun guy,” Hutchinson said. He took a pen from his breast pocket and itched inside his arm cast as they walked.
“Bet you can’t wait to get that off.”
“I’m just looking forward to being able to jerk off properly again,” Hutchinson said, deadpan. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m not holding back. But the le
ft just ain’t the same—it’s like a stranger’s going at it.”
“Seriously,” McCorkell said, chuckling and holding his chest as they entered the lobby and walked to the security desk. “I’m too old for jokes like that. You’ll give me a heart attack.”
Hutchinson showed his FBI credentials and they asked for NCIS Director Bruce Trotter. They were ushered through and escorted to an elevator.
Hutchinson said to McCorkell out the corner of his mouth, “I tell you about the one where this guy is driving his car in the desert? He notices this guy jumping along the road. The guy’s buck naked and his hands and feet are tied with rope . . .”
75
The stand-off lasted for ten seconds, as Murphy looked from Levine to Walker, then back to the NCIS duo, then he lowered his HK submachine gun from the state trooper’s head.
“No hard feelings,” Murphy said to the guy. He passed the officer his police-issue Glock pistol. “You go around back, to the hay shed; you’ll see my family. You stand guard over them, now. If you see so much as a squirrel coming near them, you take its head off, do you hear? Can I count on you to do that until you’re, well . . .” Murphy looked down at the trooper’s pants, “until you’re properly relieved?”
The state trooper swallowed hard and looked from the face-painted killing machine in front of him to the two NCIS agents, and Levine nodded to him.
“Got that, yes, sir,” the state trooper said to Murphy and moved off at a jog around the house.
“You’re Jed Walker,” Levine said, turning to him.
Walker remained silent. He nodded. Had they heard of him through Somerville and the others? Whatever. He saw these two as a roadblock—they’d want to take Murphy in, hide him away someplace where he couldn’t communicate with the outside world, and Walker couldn’t let that happen.
“We need to talk,” she said.
“No, we don’t,” Walker said. “Murphy and his family need to be protected. That’s first.”
“That’s why we’re here,” Woods said. “Why are you here? To do—to do that?” He motioned toward the house.
Walker knew that these guys had either seen or heard about what was inside. Seen, he decided, reading their looks. A sight like that didn’t leave you in a hurry. It took plenty of nightmares and drinks—or therapy—to be rid of it, if it ever truly left.
“What happened?” Murphy said.
“What do you think?” Walker said to Woods evenly. “You think I could do that?”
“Walker?” Woods said. “Dylan—she’s—did those guys . . .”
Walker looked to him and gave the slightest confirmation, then he looked to Levine.
Levine stared him right in the eye as she answered. “Walker, I think that you did that in there.”
“The men who did that are dead,” Murphy said simply. The SEAL stood in close to the two NCIS agents. His HK was on a strap over his shoulder and held across his chest, pointed at the ground, his gloved hands resting on the stock. “We got them. They were after me and my family.”
“Dead?” Levine said. “The whole team?”
“Dead. They were ex-US Army,” Murphy said.
“They gloated to me about the killing,” Walker said. “And I just saw it, for myself.” He turned to Murphy. “Don’t go in there. Remember her how she was.”
Murphy nodded.
“How did you . . .” Woods said, “get them?”
“How do you think?” Murphy said. “And if it hadn’t been for Walker, it might have gone bad—really bad—the other way.”
The two agents were silent for a beat.
“There’s one out there still,” Walker said to the agents. “The leader. Non-Army, at least not pointy end, ex-Army like the other four. He looked like an ex-cop. They called him Menzil. Five-ten, one-seventy, tanned skin, dark hair, about forty-five. He’ll be headed for St. Louis.”
Neither agent spoke. Levine’s eyes darted from Walker to Murphy and back again. Woods glanced around in the early morning light, as though he might spot Menzil in the shadows.
“You got that?” Walker said to them. He took a step closer into the group. He towered over all of them, none over five-eleven. “What are you two going to do about it?”
“We’ll inform the local PD and the staties, search the forest and close the roads,” Woods said, looking to his senior agent. “And tell them to bring K9 units.”
Levine remained silent.
Woods walked away, took out his phone and started dialing.
Levine, getting back on task, said, “We’re taking the Murphys to a secure site.”
“How can you protect Murphy’s family?” Walker asked.
Levine said, “We’ve got a lot of resources on this—”
“Clearly,” Murphy said. There was anger in him now, as though he was putting the deaths of Dylan and his teammates at the agent’s feet. “Shit—you and the Navy couldn’t find me when this one guy and my little cousin and then a bunch of ex-Army could. That doesn’t instill much confidence.”
“You’ll all be safe,” Levine said. “We’ve got the rest of the team in safe houses out west, guarded round the clock. The threat is against all your old team.”
“I know, Walker briefed me,” Murphy said.
Levine looked to Walker.
“They don’t have to go with you,” Walker said to her. “This is just a courtesy, from Uncle Sam, and a late one at that, right?”
“Late?” Levine said. She took a step closer and crossed her arms.
“Eight dead and then you act?” Murphy challenged.
“I agree on that,” Levine said. “But this isn’t my case.”
“You’re just following orders?” Murphy said.
“Yes,” Levine replied. “To find you and your family, get you to safety.”
“Where’s safety?” Walker asked.
“Via St. Louis,” Levine said. “Then we fly. West. California. We drop you at San Diego. That’s all I know—you’ll then be handed over to another team of agents and taken to a site. You’ll be moved again, maybe two or three times, each occasion by a different crew, until you’re at the off-base site with the rest of the DEVGRU operators and their families.”
“They’re all together?” Murphy said.
Levine nodded. “All those who were on the bin Laden hit are there.”
“That’s a big target,” Murphy said. “Putting them all together like that.”
“Safety in numbers,” Levine said.
“Let’s do it,” Walker said.
Levine seemed a little taken aback.
“Really?” Murphy replied. He looked to Walker, surprised.
“I’m not finished,” Walker said. “We go to St. Louis, sure. Then we meet up with my guys from the UN. Then we talk some more.”
“Talk?” Levine said. “The UN? You’re joking, right?”
“Agent Levine, you’ve got this whole thing ass-end backward, or, at least, you don’t know the half of it,” Walker said. “Because this isn’t about retribution for the bin Laden hit. It’s about something that the team has seen. And it’s about a terrorist attack that will happen this afternoon, in St. Louis, at 5:30.”
76
NCIS Director Trotter was a large man. McCorkell was like a mini-me version of the guy, a good foot and a half shorter and near-on half his weight. Hutchinson was somewhere in the middle. After introductions the three men sat in Trotter’s office. It was on the third floor and looked out at the line of flags and parade ground.
“That happened in New York?” Trotter said, motioning to Hutchinson’s arm.
“It was part of that, yeah,” Hutchinson said, giving McCorkell a brief sideways look that said this guy had checked up on them before the meeting.
“Director Trotter,” McCorkell said, “we’re not going to beat around the bush.”
“A man with your background, I’d expect not,” Trotter said. “What can I do for you?”
“It’s about the SEAL protection operati
on that is occurring right now,” McCorkell said.
“That’s being handled out of San Diego,” Trotter replied. “Assistant Director Grant of Special Investigations is leading it. Would you like his details?”
“We have them,” McCorkell said. “And we spoke to him and got nowhere, so we thought we’d check in with you.”
“Right,” Trotter said. He leaned back and his plush leather executive chair creaked under his shifting mass. “Well, it’s his op, and I trust him implicitly to run a tight ship, so what he says goes.”
McCorkell nodded, then looked to Hutchinson.
Hutchinson asked Trotter, “Can we meet with the SEALs?”
“Did you ask Grant?”
“Yes.”
“What’d he say?”
“No.”
“Well, there’s your answer, I’m afraid.”
Hutchinson fell silent.
“This is a sensitive operation,” Trotter said. “I’m sure you both appreciate that.”
“Can we talk to them remotely?” McCorkell said. “On a video call, from here?”
“Not if Grant said no. There are people out there who want those boys in the ground. That’s our priority—protecting them. They’re owed that and then some, agreed?”
“They knew what they signed up for,” McCorkell said. “And they signed up to protect their country, and they need to do that, right now.”
Trotter said, “How do you figure that?”