by James Hunt
Perry turned onto the highway, where a line of tanks rolled down the opposite side of the road. “Of course. I’ll be sure to help you as much as I can, but if she goes too far, I’ll have no choice but to march it up my chain of command.”
“I understand. Thank you.”
The call ended, and Perry pressed the corner of his phone against his jaw. Whatever Cooper found wouldn’t be enough to cause any problems with his operations, but the fact that Moringer had called him directly was cause for concern. It wasn’t protocol, and it definitely didn’t fit Moringer’s profile. He was by the book, he was morally right, and the only thing that upends a morally righteous man is the idea that in his sacrifice, some evil will be vanquished. And Perry was betting that evil was him.
Chapter 6
The neighborhood wasn’t as bad as Cooper expected it to be, but then again her shock level had significantly decreased over the past week. She parked on the side of the road outside a rundown shack that looked like it was one notice away from being condemned. The yard was littered with trash, and the three-foot fence that circled it sagged and was broken in most sections, serving more as an eyesore than as an actual barrier to guard anything.
When Cooper pounded on the front door, flakes of paint fell off with each thud. A few more knocks later, and an older man, hunched over with no shirt on and bandages around his stomach, gripping the doorframe for support, finally answered.
“Yeah?”
“I’m looking for Dylan Turk,” Cooper answered. She scanned the inside and saw that it wasn’t in much better shape than the exterior of the house. “I was told this is where he was staying while the DEA and Homeland had his house under investigation.”
“And who are you?”
“Agent Cooper. Is Dylan here?”
The old man eyed her suspiciously. “You have identification?”
“Look, you can either let me in, or I can force my way in. The choice is yours, old man.” Cooper shifted her weight to her back leg, letting momentum build for her in case she needed to strike quickly. The one hand the old man kept behind the door was no doubt gripped around a rifle.
Finally, the old man showed his other hand empty and opened the door wide enough for her to pass through. “He’s in the shower. Should be out soon.”
“Thank you.” Cooper eyed the shotgun by the door on her way in and was thankful it hadn’t come to that. Shooting a man who’d already been shot wouldn’t look good, no matter how she tried to spin it to Moringer. The old man hobbled back to the couch and reclined gently, his face wincing as he lowered himself to the cushions. “You were Dylan’s first mate on the ship when he was boarded, right? How are you healing up?”
“About as good as the city is.” He flopped the last couple inches down onto the couch and sank into the cushions. “I hope you’re here to tell Dylan some good news.”
Cooper had her eye on the back room and made sure to listen for the shower running. The low, steady hum of flowing water was still running, so she had time to look around. “Good news is, we haven’t heard that his son is dead. So that’s something. Is there only one bathroom here?”
“No. Toilet’s down the hall to the right.” The old man reached for his radio and scanned the dial, a mix of scrambled music and news coming out of the speakers.
The wood floor creaked lightly as Cooper made her way past the bathroom where Dylan showered and past the toilet on the right. Her eyes were on the far back bedroom. She peeked inside the area and saw a pair of pants on the floor with shirt and shoes.
Cooper picked up the pants, pulling the pockets inside out for anything that she could use, anything that she could find, but all that came out was lint. She pulled open drawers, checked under the mattress, the closet, everywhere, but nothing. His phone. Where’s his phone?
Cooper checked down the hall again and saw that it was still clear, but the shower was no longer running. She dashed down to the toilet and ducked inside before Dylan stepped out. She locked the door and waited for him to walk down the hall. When she heard the bedroom door shut, she cracked hers open.
Wet footprints trailed their way to the bedroom, and Cooper stepped inside the shower, and that’s where she saw it, still teetering on the sink where Dylan had left it. She opened his phone, searching through pictures, calls, then finally texts. Dates, times, and locations, all from the same number, riddled his phone, and they all started the day of the first attacks.
Dylan turned the corner and stepped into the shower, looking to reach for his phone but finding Cooper instead. The two froze, Dylan with his hand stretched out and Cooper with the phone in her palm. Dylan immediately rushed back down the hallway, and Cooper pocketed the phone and reached for her gun, following the fast thump of feet. “Dylan, freeze!”
The old man in the living room was shouting, and when Cooper made it to the bedroom, Dylan already had a revolver out and had it aimed right at her. The two stood their ground, both with their finger on the trigger. “Don’t do this, Dylan. Whatever you’re involved with, I can help.”
Dylan pulled the hammer back on his pistol. “Give me the phone back, Agent Cooper, and forget about whatever you think you saw.” Water dripped from Dylan’s body, his hair still wet from the shower and his bangs plastered to his forehead.
Cooper took an aggressive step forward, driving Dylan backward. “If I have to put you down, Captain, I will. And then whatever you’ve been a part of will be on the six o’clock news for your family to see. I won’t be able to stop that, but if you work with me, I might be able to help you get out of whatever mess you’re in.” Thuds echoed down the hall, and in Cooper’s peripheral vision, she saw the old man hobble his way toward her. “Don’t move.”
The old man stopped, and Dylan shifted back and forth on his feet, looking at Cooper and the gun. His muscles tensed and flexed along his arm and shoulder as he gripped the pistol tightly. Cooper took another step forward. “Listen to me, Captain.” Her words were softer than before. “You need to drop the weapon and tell me what’s been on this phone. Tell me what you’ve been doing.” Another step closer, and Cooper lowered her weapon, an act of good faith that she hoped Dylan would reciprocate. “I can help you. I can help your family. I can help you get your son back.” Cooper could almost reach out and touch the barrel of the pistol, but Dylan kept it aimed at her.
Dylan’s body started to shake. “You don’t know them.” He shook his head, his face twisting in the downward curve of pain. “You have no idea what they’ll do.” A tear ran down Dylan’s left cheek, then one on his right, and continued until Cooper couldn’t tell the difference between the water and the tears rolling down his face.
Cooper slowly brought her hand up and gripped it around the barrel of the revolver then pulled it down. Dylan didn’t resist, and Cooper peeled it from his fingertips. Dylan collapsed to his knees, burying his face in his hands, sobbing. Cooper emptied the revolver of its bullets and pocketed both the ammo and the gun.
The old man had hobbled to the doorway when Cooper knelt down to help Dylan up and placed him on the bed. She looked to the old man, who stood there just gaping at Dylan. “Hey, think you could get some water?” The old man nodded and then shuffled back to the kitchen.
After another minute, Dylan regained his composure then shook his head, his cheeks red with embarrassment. “I’m sorry. I didn’t...” He wiped his nose then ran his fingers through his hair, brushing it back.
The captain looked more weathered than the last time Cooper had seen him. When she’d first met him, he’d had the sea and sun marked on his face, but he didn’t look tired, beaten, like he did now. “Those dates and times on your phone. Those are deliveries for the terrorists, aren’t they?”
Dylan nodded, and the old man entered with a glass of water. He took a sip and cleared his throat. “They’ve been having me smuggle down the eastern seaboard, mainly around Boston and Washington, but there was one trip last week where we went all the way down to Georgia.”
“No, he’s never at the deliveries, but the last one we did, the one at the river, something happened and we almost didn’t make it. They usually have a car waiting for me at the drop-off point, but we had to change our shoreline location, so they put a blindfold over me and dropped me off somewhere. It was a big building. Hot. Worn down, at least the room I was in was. But Perry was there. He—” Dylan shook his head and rubbed his face hard against the palms of his hands, almost growling in frustration and anger. “My son was there with him. They cut him. In front of me. Not enough to kill him, just to hurt him.”
“Dylan, listen to me. I’m working alone on this, but I have the support of my director. He knows that I think Perry’s involved, but we need hard evidence to bring him down. We need something more than just our word. We need to catch him in the act.” Cooper scooted next to him on the edge of the bed, leaning in close, forcing him to focus. “The materials they stole, the ones you just spoke about on the river, they were nuclear. It’s enough to make a bomb but no way to launch it, which is what the FBI and Homeland think will happen. I don’t know if that’s just Perry feeding them lies, but the fact remains that the terrorists still need something to detonate it with.”
Dylan sprang off the bed, almost catapulting himself into the wall. “And what about my son? Where does he play in all of this?”
“You’ll tell Perry that you’re working with me but as a double cross, to help pay back for what happened at the river, for what you saw, and you say you’re doing it for your son. You make him come with you as part of the deal. Even if Perry doesn’t believe you, he’ll still want to give it a shot. He wants the computer chips, and he’s arrogant enough to think that even if you are lying, he’ll still be able to get what he wants.”
Dylan paced around the bed, shaking his head, rubbing the creases on his forehead. “It’s too risky. There has to be another way. We can go to your boss, maybe—”
“I already did,” Cooper said. “This is the best chance we have, Dylan. And we need to capitalize on it quickly.”
***
Once Cooper had left, Dylan collapsed on the couch next to Mark, exhausted. The fatigue of the past week had left a twitch in his left pinky, along with the corner of his right eye, one that he couldn’t control no matter how many times he rubbed it.
Mark hadn’t said much. Dylan wasn’t sure if that was from shock or the meds he was on. Most of the time he’d just sat there, shaking his head and muttering curses under his breath. “It’s a shit storm any way you cut it, Captain.”
No matter what Dylan tried to do, any way he tried to look at it, the end of every road turned out bad for his family. If Cooper and the DEA couldn’t get his son out before Perry realized what happened, then he knew Sean was dead. If Dylan couldn’t get Perry to show up on location, then Dylan would be tried for treason. Cooper wasn’t coy about the stakes. If Perry couldn’t be pinned down, the government would need a face to place the blame on, someone for the public to point and scream at, and with Dylan so close to the action, there would be little doubt it would be both him and Cooper.
Three quick, successive knocks hit the front door, and both Dylan and Mark jumped. Dylan got up, grabbing the revolver from the coffee table, and checked the window. He let out a sigh and pocketed the gun before he opened the door. “Evelyn? What’s wrong? What are you doing here?”
Dylan’s ex-wife fiddled with her fingertips, her feet twisted awkwardly underneath her. “Hey, I was, um—” Her eyes only found Dylan’s once and then darted away, looking at the wall, the ground, the ceiling, anything but him. Her hair was pulled back, and her face was void of any makeup, and her expensive clothes had been exchanged for a T-shirt and jeans. She poked her head inside and saw Mark on the couch. “I asked the DEA where you’d been staying since, well, since all of this started.”
Dylan stepped out onto the porch with her and closed the door behind him. The sun was getting low, and he saw the new Mercedes her husband, Peter, had bought for her earlier in the year. “You shouldn’t be out this late. Curfew will be starting soon, and driving around in that thing isn’t exactly inconspicuous.”
Evelyn shook her head, her blond, curly hair flowing back and forth. “I know. It’s... I just needed to see you.” She grabbed him by the hand and pulled him over to the wooden bench Mark kept on the front porch, faded and worn from the sun. She kept his left hand clasped between both of hers. He had forgotten how soft her hands were against his calloused palms.
“When we divorced, I blamed you for a lot of things,” Evelyn said. “I know I didn’t help the situation with Zack—”
“Evelyn, you should go home.” Dylan didn’t need this, not now, not with everything that was happening and what was going to happen.
Evelyn shoved Dylan’s hand back and tossed her own in the air with exasperation. “See? This is what you always do. You shut off, go blank. This is what was so hard after Zack died, Dylan. You think you were the only one grieving? You think you were the only one going through something? Both of us lost a son, not just you!”
Tears streamed from Evelyn’s eyes, and he could see the pain and frustration etched across her face. The same lines he remembered from when he was stumbling home drunk, soaked to the bone in whiskey. Dylan shot up from the bench. “You don’t think I know that? You don’t think I thought about that every day in rehab, and every day since? But there was one thing you never did. You never forgave me. Even before I started drinking. You may not remember that, but I do. Disgust. That’s what was in your eyes every time you looked at me. I tried to save our boy!” Spit flew from Dylan’s mouth with each jut of his finger. Evelyn wasn’t far behind in thrusting her own accusations at him, and it didn’t take long for the calm talk to turn into one of their old screaming matches that echoed throughout the entire neighborhood.
“That’s bullshit, and you know it, Dylan! I never blamed you for Zack’s death. Never!” Evelyn’s body was curved over in anger as she moved underneath Dylan’s chin. “You put that burden on yourself. It was some self-righteous way for you to feel whole again. I tried to get you to go to counseling. I tried to talk to you. I tried everything, but you let yourself crumble. Don’t pin that on me.”
“And you fucking around? I suppose that’s my fault, too? The way you opened your legs up for anyone who walked by?”
Evelyn slapped Dylan across the face, then her hands clenched into fists, and her body shook. The trembling anger coursed through her veins, the type of anger that gave you strength yet weakened you at the same time. “I slept with him once, Dylan, and it was after a year of watching you slowly kill yourself. You know I took responsibility for that. You know how I felt after it happened. I tried fixing us, I really did. But you were drowning yourself, and the children who were still alive would have gone down with you.”
Dylan felt the sting in his bones at those words. Evelyn had always had a way of disarming him, cutting him where it hurt the most. If he was honest with himself, they’d always been like that to each other, learning the weaknesses so they could win the next argument. Zack’s death didn’t have anything to do with that. It had always been there. “Go home, Evelyn.” He turned his back to her, and when he had his hand on the doorknob, she shoved the knife even deeper into his back.
“You’re just going to waste away and let another son die.”
Words. They’re just words. They don’t define you. Only your actions do. Dylan stepped inside and then calmly shut the door behind him. The car door of the Mercedes slammed shut, and he listened to her drive off. Mark said nothing as Dylan made his way to the back of the house, despite hearing everything that was said through the thin walls. Dylan supposed there wasn’t much to be said after something like that. Words that i
nflict no wounds require no treatment.
Evelyn’s words were nothing more than a pick at an old scar that had long since healed. She was upset just as much as he was. While Dylan was tormented with the knowledge of what was happening to their son, she was tormented by the unknown, which Dylan knew to be truly worse.
Dylan stepped out the back door and into the small, dirt-ridden yard. He heard Mark finally calling for him, but he tuned him out. He just needed to be alone to hear his own thoughts. He closed his eyes, shielding himself from what little sunlight remained in the sky.
The fatigue Dylan wore slowly slipped from him. He breathed deep, slow, an energy returning to him that he hadn’t felt in a long time. There was still the need to have a drink of whisky, but his control took over and focused that desire on another goal, one that would get him his son back.
It was clear that both sides of the fence wanted something from him for their own gain. Perry wanted to complete his bomb, and the government wanted someone to take the fall. Neither had the same concern for his son that he did. If he wanted to get Sean back, then he couldn’t trust Perry, or Cooper, or whoever their superiors were. Dylan would have to do it himself, and he’d need to steal the leverage to make it happen.
Chapter 7
The homeless man Cooper picked up still smelled terrible despite the clothes and deodorant she’d brought with her. It was going to take more than a clean shirt and Right Guard to get rid of the smell that decades of living in the wilderness provided.
Moringer didn’t want Cooper to bring him in, but the fact that he was able to physically identify that Perry was the man he saw drop off the cash last week for the harbormaster to pick up made him one of the only physical pieces of evidence that could bring Perry down. While her boss was doubtful that a jury would be convinced that this man had the clarity of mind and reputation to actually be believable, Cooper felt like doing something was better than nothing.