by Scott Blade
She hangs up.
He tries to return to sleep. But it doesn’t take him long to realize that he recognized some of the words. She had said the word “Target”.
Why did she say that?
Jack Widow is staying in a room down the hall from a man with a serious security detail. Widow knows all the signs.
Widow’s cop brain won’t let it go. He goes to the room number and knocks on the door. The door isn’t locked. It opens with little effort.
Jack Widow comes face to face with four dead bodies and one assassinated diplomat.
In a hunt for a Russian spy, Widow spirals down the rabbit hole of a intergovernmental cover-up.
What are they hiding?
CHAPTER 1
JOSEPH MCCONNELL, “Jo Jo” to his friends, left the meeting thinking that the right thing to do was to go to the FBI. But they weren’t his first choice. His first choice would have been to go to the NCIS. But how could he do that?
He did not know who to trust. The NCIS were risky. Homeland Security would be monitored. And the FBI?
He just did not know. He needed time to think.
McConnell was a retired military officer himself. He had not retired with the highest rank for a man his age, but high enough. He was satisfied. Having low ambitions helped.
Never had he been anyone important. Nor had he ever aspired to be. He was happy in his former position. He had been satisfied with his accomplishments in the shadow of greater men.
There was nothing to be ashamed of. In the same breath, he also had nothing to be proud of either. Not really. He lived a mediocre life because he was a mediocre man.
At best, he deserved honorable mentions only for participation, not anything more.
Today, he lived a nice little life in the suburbs outside of Norfolk, Virginia, a good established neighborhood called Brampton Heights, with sprawling sections of trees, surrounding a mid-level golf course. It was quite the place to retire. Mostly, he had been able to retire there not because of his accomplishments in the Navy, but rather for his silence. He knew things, dark things. And he had been rewarded for keeping his mouth shut.
The thing he knew now, that he had learned today, was too much, even for him. It was a secret that he couldn’t keep.
This neighborhood was far above his pay grade. Above his class. Most of his neighbors were well-to-do CEOs, retired congressmen, law partners in international firms, or members of the military who outranked him. Six four-star generals lived there. Soon to be five, because one was on his deathbed, although he had been for six months. Cancer.
More importantly to McConnell, there were two retired admirals. He actually knew them. Personally. He was proud to have a relationship with each man. They were friendly with him, not in the “come over for cigars and a glass of bourbon every week” kind of way, but casual enough to where he had gotten invites to their homes for big neighborhood parties.
If either admiral had been interrogated, he would have acknowledged that he knew McConnell. And neither would have an opinion of him, one way or the other. He knew that. He had no illusions about that. He was forgettable.
McConnell knew many Navy personnel. That had been his branch of the military.
Not in twenty years of service did he ever stray. Never had he ever betrayed his commander’s trust. Even though McConnell’s rank wasn’t as high as he would have liked, it was still high enough for him to know things. Classified things. Bad things. Sometimes illegal things.
Under normal circumstances, some of the things he knew would have made the most loyal dog bark. Whenever there had been a delicate mission in the past, he had been the guy to count on to oversee it, or at least to be a part of it.
Good Ole Jo Jo can keep a secret, they would say or they would think. They must have, because they trusted him with secrets—dirty, dirty secrets.
McConnell stepped out of his town car and shut the door. He left it parked in the driveway because he used the garage to house the ten-foot-by-ten-foot model of the maritime battle of Midway, which he had spent the last six months constructing and piecing together, painstakingly. Many of the pieces had to be specially crafted from a hobby and craft shop on the edge of town. And others had to be ordered off the internet.
Before the meeting that he’d just left, he had gone to the shop and picked up a final piece. It was a model depiction of two fighter planes going up against a Japanese plane.
The piece was still in the box, sealed with plastic wrap. He was eager to pull it out and rig it up to complete the model set.
McConnell did not know what to do about the subject of his meeting, but he did know that once he took out the set of planes and placed them in just the right place on his model set, he would be in a state of bliss. He could forget for a moment. He could ignore the danger that was coming.
McConnell closed the door to his town car and walked up the driveway. He left the vehicle doors unlocked. He hardly ever locked them because the car was controlled by one of those electric key locks, which he did not like to use. He preferred regular keys because he considered himself to be old school. He liked pressing the lock down, but he couldn’t on this car because it just popped back up.
At his front door, McConnell paused and switched the brown paper bag containing the airplane models from his right hand to his left. He used his right hand to unlock the front door and push it open. He entered the house.
The outside light switched on automatically at about the same moment.
The house was completely dark except for a lamp that his wife had turned on before she left.
She was out with her friends, probably playing bridge, or mahjong, or some other game where she could lose his money. At least that was the common excuse that she gave him. Like he cared. He really did not. He always pretended to care about where she was and what she was doing as to feign interest. Usually in front of the grandchildren. Truth was he couldn’t care less. She could leave and never return and he would find a way to live with himself. Of that he was sure.
Luckily, he did not have to pretend too often since their two kids were adults, who had children of their own and lived in faraway states.
Suddenly, he wondered if that’s why they had called him to the meeting. More than his reputation for being trustworthy, and the fact that they needed him to set up contact with the Russian captain in the first place, the other thing was that he had no family here to worry about.
He did not have to worry about what they were planning. He did not have to worry about his family members being in danger. In fact, when the time came and the event that they were planning occurred, he could fly out to Colorado and see his son. He could be far away from the radius of damage that was on its way.
McConnell was all for returning to a better time. That’s ultimately what the men in his meeting wanted. They were patriots and they wanted to return to when the military meant something. When honor was still alive and well. When they had a clear-cut enemy. Unlike now, where the enemy was not a state with a flag.
In the meeting, the Listener had explained to him their plans. The Listener explained everything. And as with his wife, McConnell feigned that he was calm and collected, that he could be trusted, but on the inside he was terrified about what the Listener proposed. Terrified.
But he listened and nodded and went along with it all. He acted like he understood, which he did. He was ashamed of the state of today’s military.
Today’s Navy had invisible enemies, unlike thirty years ago, when times had more honor. Back then they had Russia. They had the Cold War. They knew who their enemy was.
Politicians today used the Navy for spying and intel gathering, like it was a spy satellite. And those pinheads at the NSA did not respect what the Navy was for. They did not respect the firepower that the Navy had.
What was the Navy doing with all their firepower now? Training exercises. Today’s sailors and marines and SEALs hardly got much action. All they ever did was pretend.
It was all hogw
ash to McConnell and the Listener and the other. A disgrace.
To McConnell and the men in his meeting, the Navy wasn’t a library or a tool for spying. It was a broadsword. It wasn’t the transportation system that it had become for other branches to sail across seas. The Navy had the nukes. The Navy was the US military’s atomic weapon. The Navy was the game-changer.
And now it was all being squandered.
Even though McConnell could agree with the sentiments of the small group of men that he had been speaking with, he wasn’t sure about their plan.
He tossed his keys on the bar top in his kitchen and set down the bag with the models inside, carefully. He shivered a bit because the house was colder than usually.
Probably that time of year, he thought.
He opened the fridge and looked in. He cursed under his breath because his wife had thrown out the leftovers and had cooked nothing for him. Sure, there was food, but it was her duty to cook it, not his. That was how he was raised.
That was another reason why he was glad she was out of the house all the time. She had abandoned tradition long ago, the moment the youngest kid was gone.
Basically, they were living separate lives. They were roommates more than anything else. She had her room upstairs and he had his downstairs. Which suited him just fine.
It had all started with different drawers in a dresser and then separate closets and then different bathrooms. Before too long she had taken over the entire second floor of the house and he was evicted from it.
McConnell closed the refrigerator, went over to a cabinet on the opposite side of the kitchen and took out a rocks glass. He wanted a snifter, but the only two he had were dirty, still in the sink. Another wifely duty being ignored, in his opinion.
He settled for a clean rocks glass and opened another cabinet above the bar and stovetop. It held a host of different liquor bottles. All dark. All whiskey or bourbon or a blend of the two or cognac. Which was his favorite. He only took out the whiskey for special occasions when he wanted to get completely hammered.
He poured the cognac and swished it around in the glass. A strong scent floated out and caressed his sense of smell. He smiled, set the open bottle down on the bar top, and took a sip. Not bad.
He walked to a side door that led to the garage, scooped up the bag with the model planes, and took it with him on his way through the door.
The garage was dark and colder than the inside of the house, but only by a degree or two.
He walked in, leaving the side door open so that a pool of light crept in, enough to illuminate his path.
He set the bag down near the table with the model battle scene and turned to switch on the light. He flipped it and the overhead light flicked on. The light was a single fixture with two bright bulbs. It didn’t matter to him that the light wasn’t enough to light up every nook and cranny of the garage. It worked perfectly as a spotlight on the table. Plus, he liked the atmosphere that the lower lighting created. It made the whole room feel like one of those cigar smoking rooms you see in old movies.
The model table, itself, was lit perfectly. Shadows crept out and away from the pieces in just the right way.
On the edge of the model table was a glass ashtray, which McConnell was proud of because he had stolen it from the USS Missouri, which he had been stationed on during Desert Storm. Famously, it was the first battleship to launch Tomahawks into Iraqi-held enemy territory. He was always proud of that fact, even though he had had absolutely nothing to do with it.
There was a half-smoked cigar resting on the ashtray, next to a gold-plated lighter. It was his cigar. He had put it out the night before and saved it.
McConnell stood over the model table and smiled. He was about to complete another masterpiece.
Most of his fellow retired sailors could look back on their careers with great pride. McConnell was only content with his. But creating these models was something he was proud of. It was sad to think that this was more of his life’s work than his military record.
Still, there was one final piece to the puzzle.
He turned, still swallowing cognac, and returned to pick up the model pieces. That’s when he came face to face with the man in black and the business end of a silenced SIG Sauer.
The man in black had a name, but McConnell did not know it. He only knew who he was by reputation. The first time that he’d ever met the guy was over an hour ago at the meeting.
Even then, the man in black was silent.
Now he spoke. His voice was subtle and eerily normal, which was almost more frightening than the gun, strangely. Maybe it was the calmness in it. Or maybe it was the lack of humanity in it.
The man in black asked, “Where’s your wife?”
McConnell did not put his hands up to show surrender. He did not drop his glass of cognac. He just stayed there, still, and said, “She’s out.”
“When is she coming back?”
McConnell shrugged.
“Where are your children?”
Without hesitation, he said, “They moved out years ago.”
The man in black nodded. He believed him.
Just then he asked a question that sent fear straight to McConnell’s bones. It was the fear you feel the moment you know that you’re going to die.
The man in black asked, “She know about what we’re doing?”
CHAPTER 2
MCCONNELL’S WIFE DROVE UP and parked on the curb because her husband had not pulled in close enough to their garage, again. She had nagged him about that before, many times before. So, she knew he did it on purpose.
He did it so that she would have to park her convertible Mazda on the curb. She hated that because it was all white and the neighborhood kids always stood out near it, every morning, waiting for the school bus. They spit on it and threw rocks at it. She knew it. Even though she couldn’t prove it, she knew it in her gut.
And then there was the school bus. Every time that school bus passed, it kicked up dirt or mud or water from rain puddles up onto her car. She hated it.
This time she was going to make Jo Jo come back out and move his damn car. She did not care if he was tired or drunk. She did not care about his models. She was tired of doing it herself. And she was tired of reminding him about it. She was tired of him in general.
She should have left him years earlier. She’d had her chance. Hell, she still could. But at this point in her life, why should she? What would she do?
Her husband was a bastard, but his retirement paid the bills, gave her a roof to sleep under, gave her the car she loved. Where would she go now, at this age?
She could get a job, but that thought made her chuckle.
She had quit her last job decades ago, after her first kid was born. She had done the loyal wife and loving mother thing for years.
No one would hire her. Not now. And even if some company did, what would they pay her?
She could take half of her husband’s money, she supposed. But that was not much. She knew that. She knew what he took home as retirement income. Although they had a nice house, there wasn’t enough money coming in for her to make a separate life.
If she left now, she would be lucky to end up in a one-bedroom apartment. She would have to give up her car.
Martha McConnell shut the door to the car, gently, not slamming it, which was what her instincts wanted to do, but she did not. She was mad at her husband, not her car. Next, she clicked the button on her key to lock the car doors.
Unlike her husband, she locked her car every time she got out, even if she was only going a few feet away. Like at the grocery store whenever she had emptied her shopping cart and had to put it away. She locked the car doors first and then she pushed the cart to the nearest bin.
The alarm beeped once and the lights flashed and shut off.
She stomped up the drive in her cheap Friday night pumps that she’d worn to her friend’s house. She stopped at her husband’s town car and waited for a low burp that passed th
rough her throat and out into the air. She had a slight taste of chardonnay in her mouth.
She continued to the front door and opened it. It was unlocked, as usually. McConnell never seemed to care if their house was ever locked. Which was another point that she constantly nagged him about.
Martha stopped in the doorway with the door wide open and reached in to switch the light on. She found the switch and flipped it. Nothing happened. She repeated the process. Still nothing.
The lamp that she had left on was off as well. She suspected that her husband had turned it off. He hated to leave lights on when no one was home. But why was the foyer light not working? she wondered.
She tried it again. Nothing. She flipped it a fourth time. Same results. Nothing.
The power was not out. She knew that because the light from the kitchen was on and working fine. The light was enough for her to see the silhouettes of her living room furniture and the dining room table and chairs beyond.
She cursed under her breath and stepped into the darkness. She closed the front door behind her. Her shoes echoed in the stillness on the tile floor in the foyer.
She dropped her purse on an end table near the door and stopped and took off her coat. She hung it on a hook and brushed their umbrella stand with her knee as she turned around.
Her footsteps were soon soundless as she stepped on the rug just after the foyer at the beginning of the living room.
The house was colder than she expected.
She said, “Jo Jo? Why is the AC running so low?”
No answer.
“Jo Jo, what’s wrong with the lights?”
No answer. She walked into the living room.
“Jo? Where the hell are you?”
He must’ve been in the garage, clowning around with his precious models that she couldn’t care less about.
“Jo?” she called out again. She called it out loud enough for him to hear her from the garage.
But there was no answer.
She set her purse on an end table near the door and stopped and took off her coat. She picked up her purse and turned around.
She dug around in her purse to find her cell phone. She swiped up on the screen and turned on the phone’s flashlight feature so she could see.