Scott Roarke 03 - Executive Command

by Gary Grossman

  At 2350, just shy of midnight, Gomenko offered to pay the tab. He lost the argument after loud complaints from his companion.

  D’Angelo stayed for another twenty minutes, trying to make passes at the women down the bar. But it was just for show. Vinnie D’Angelo had been faithful to his wife throughout their fourteen years of marriage, even though she had no idea what he really did for a living.

  Nineteen

  The Blue Note Diner

  Mayville, North Dakota

  7 January

  “What’ll it be?”

  “What’s good?” Roarke asked.

  “Depends what you like,” the waitress answered.

  Roarke had planted himself at the counter. The food off the grill smelled good and he was hungry. He’d traveled all day from Washington. Reagan to Chicago, Chicago to Fargo. A thirty-minute drive from Fargo to the small town of Mayville. Hunger brought him to The Blue Note Diner, more famous for a juke box filled with songs containing the word blue than the food. Blue Moon, Memphis Blues, Blue Velvet, Blueberry Hill. Hence, the blue note. It was a 60s diner. Not because the owner was marketing nostalgia. He just hadn’t updated it from when he took it over from his father.

  “What’s the blue plate special?” The printed price on the menu was crossed out. It was now six dollars higher.

  “Turkey, peas, corn.”

  “Anything fresh?”

  The waitress laughed. “Freshly cooked.”

  She was thirty, thirty-five, maybe forty. She would look the same at forty-five, and she’d be doing the same job at fifty. She wore a wedding ring and she looked happy. A simple life, he thought. Uncomplicated. Safe. He reflected on his own life. High stakes. People in shadows. Enemies of the state. These were the things that were going through his mind since he met Katie. Maybe finding a place like The Blue Note to eat instead of The White House commissary. Putting his gun away. Having a job he could talk about with others.

  Scott Roarke wasn’t solely evaluating his life. He was considering their future. Because over the last year, it all changed. Everything. Katie completed him. Her softness compared to his toughness. Her smoothness to his edge. Katie’s sensuality to his masculinity. Her regard for the law to his lawlessness.

  For their relationship to grow, let alone survive, he truly contemplated leaving the service. He thought about finding that simple life. Then, like most times he went there, he snapped back.

  “Cup of coffee?”

  “I’m sorry?” he said.

  “Would you like a cup of coffee?”

  “Sure, black. And a glass of water.”

  “K. But I gotta charge you extra for both.”

  Extra? “Whatever.” Roarke leaned over and looked at the songs on the juke box. He loaded a dollar’s worth of quarters and started with Blue on Blue by Bobby Vinton. Dolly, the waitress, was back with his coffee and a bottle of water. It looked out of place in The Blue Note.

  Roarke removed a small notebook from his vest pocket, careful not to open the flap too far to reveal his Sig Sauer, 9mm pistol. He studied the notes he’d made before he left Washington. CPT Penny Walker’s findings. They told the story of an army officer who served in Iraq. His rank of lieutenant colonel put him in a chain of command; a now deadly chain of command. He heard that a young lieutenant in the field was complaining about taking his men into harm’s way. LTC Gene Wesley could have ordered the squad to stand down. He could have saved the lives of 1LT Richard Cooper’s squad. He ignored the request.

  Now, Wesley was dead, too. According to the report, he was a very successful rancher. His horse threw him. He cracked his head open on a rock. Plausible, considered Roarke. But much more likely, Wesley was murdered by the assassin he was tracking.

  Roarke hoped he would learn more tomorrow. It was too late tonight. Traveling ate up his whole day. Tomorrow, Wesley’s son promised to drive him out to where he found his father. He also said he’d show him some personal letters his father sent from his last year in service.

  The Secret Service agent also had an appointment with the coroner. His close friend at the FBI, Shannon Davis, gave him some very specific questions to ask.

  Hutchinson, Kansas

  The same time

  Dr. Sam Brown now had three unrelated patients suffering from the same symptoms. He didn’t know what he was looking at, much less, what he was looking for. Appendicitis? No. Flu? E.Coli? Unknown to him, he was going down the same checklists that Dr. Satori, Dr. Gluckman, and Dr. Adam tried at different hospitals in different cities. The same checklists that a dozen other small-town doctors were scratching their heads over in nine other communities, too. But Brown had unique experience that put him above the others. He had spent a year working in Atlanta at the CDC, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He still had friends there, and he thought a little advice couldn’t hurt. One of them was a doctor he studied under at Boston University Medical School.

  A Ranch outside Great Falls, Montana

  That night

  The target, like the others, had been selected by Haddad’s team of scientists based on accessibility, active and passive security, and impact on the community. Big or small, all were strategic. For the two colleagues who met on Interstate 15, one a geologist and the other a biologist, this was a small target. A single ranch well. They had four others of equal size tonight. An easy night. Each would take about forty-five minutes. Tomorrow they would hit the larger, conventional water treatment facility, which produced an average of 12,327,876 gallons of safe drinking water per day for some 58,000 people who lived in Great Falls.

  One of the foreigners, the biologist turned bioterrorist, considered it ironic that the city took its name from the series of five waterfalls. Water would create such havoc for its citizenry in the coming days, weeks, and, if all went well, months.

  But first things first—the well that provided water to the sixteen-thousand-acre Colin Baker ranch. It was the perfect size for what they had in mind. Direct distribution to an influential family whose death would be noticed.

  Haddad’s research was accurate. The site was vulnerable. The ranch was serviced by submerged pumps which collected water from underground aquifers. With a confined volume of raw water, the agent of choice was a biological toxin, costing less than $10,000 and requiring little more than a home brewing kit, protein cultures, and personal protection. Money was no object, training was simple. The only real risk they faced was stupidity in handling the trillions of bacteria. That was not going to happen.

  And so, they parked the Toyota they now drove midway down the road leading to the ranch. Google satellite photos showed them exactly where to go. The snowfall, which had begun two hours ago, would cover their tracks by morning. Though they were from warmer climates, Haddad had his men train in the Alps. They learned to drive in unfamiliar weather and work in freezing temperatures. Lights were out in the Baker house, and the property, which had never seen a robbery in thirty-five years of operation, had no active alarm. If all went according to plan, the seven members of the Baker family and the eleven employees who would be back by daybreak would not live long enough to regret the lack of security.

  Given lax infrastructure protection, most of the targets were virtually open for business.

  The terrorists, using new pseudonyms, found the well casing, and in minutes introduced Vibrio cholerae. It would hit the digestive track and lead to nasty watery diarrhea, rapid dehydration, a state of collapse. Maybe not death, but a good scare.

  This was a precision bioterrorism attack. North, south, east, west of Great Falls, Montana. The Baker Ranch on Millegan Road, a second spread off McIver, the third along Eden Road, the fourth adjacent to Bootlegger Trail. Then a satisfying prime rib dinner at Clark & Lewie’s, a play on the area’s founding history by Lewis and Clark. The next day they’d hit the city’s plant, right at the critical downstream point in the distribution system. All was ready, from fake IDs to the Turlaremia, which is stable in water and chlorine-resistant. Aft
er that, they were on to their next destination.

  As the two experts worked through the night, Haddad’s other teams were at their newest targets: Nashua, New Hampshire; Trenton, NJ; Lake Worth, Florida; Big Bear, California; Tucson, Arizona; and Verona, Wisconsin, also known as “Hometown USA.” They served Shigellosis, Anthrax, Botulinum, Cryptosporidium, Saxitoxin and other equally lethal cocktails, all shipped to staging points across the country by overnight delivery, long-haul truckers, and MS-13 couriers.

  Mayville, North Dakota

  Roarke was not one to ignore warnings. Even ones hastily written in soap on a motel bathroom mirror. “The water’s awful.” Okay, I won’t drink it, he said to himself. Roarke was happy he’d grabbed his unfinished bottled water from the restaurant across the street. The four ounces left would cover him for the rest of the night.

  After finishing in the bathroom, Roarke sat on the double bed in his spartan room. He spread out the contents of a folder and committed the next day’s schedule to memory.

  0800 Coroner

  0900 Chief of Police

  1030 Meet Family

  1230 Depart for airport

  1400 Flight

  Roarke checked his watch and did the quick math. Given the time difference, Katie was still at work; maybe for another two hours. The promised good night call would come later. Now his choices were exercise or rest. He opted for rest.

  The Secret Service agent stretched out and tried to get comfortable on the lumpy mattress. His head sank deep into an old feather pillow. Roarke stared straight up at the cottage cheese ceiling, which drastically needed a fresh paint job. The ridges in the speckles reminded him of flying high over the snowcapped Alps, only upside down. His eyes passed over Austria, Switzerland, and on to Northern Italy. He’d been there before, on government duty. Now he thought about vacationing there with Katie. Perhaps a honeymoon.

  He surprised himself. They hadn’t talked about marriage. She’d only recently moved to Washington. They weren’t even living together full time. Now he was thinking of a honeymoon. Where’d that come from? He knew fully well. He loved Katie. This was the one woman he would marry.

  Roarke smiled to himself as he continued to look at the ceiling. But suddenly the relief of the ridges formed an image in his mind. A familiar face emerged. A killer’s eyes bore down. He closed his eyes and willed the vision away. For a minute or so, there was only the sound of light traffic outside and he started drifting off to sleep. But then another notion came to mind. Cooper could have been right here. Staring at the same ceiling.

  On one hand his thinking was purely anxiety-driven. But increasingly, Scott Roarke felt that he and Cooper shared a great deal in common. Most of it revolved around death.

  Were you here? Roarke had a sinking feeling he had been. He decided to get up and find out.

  Lou Panini. The name was the giveaway. Everybody knew someone with a name that just fit their line of work: Harvey Strum, the guitar teacher. Dr. Eitches, the allergist. Well, according to the ledger, Lou Panini was an executive with Subway. The front desk clerk remembered him and explained to Roarke that he’d been in town to meet with people interested in opening a local franchise of the national sandwich company.

  Roarke thought that Cooper was either getting sloppy or he was having fun. Deadly fun. Panini. He had to laugh.

  The Secret Service agent was certain that a check with Subway would prove there was no Lou Panini on salary. A late call to the FBI set that in motion.

  According to the ledger, Panini stayed one night, paid with cash, and left his room spotless. In fact, the maid told the front desk she thought the bed was never undone. He apparently slept on the covers and didn’t use a towel. Definitely Cooper’s m-o. He didn’t want to leave DNA traces on the sheets or in the bathroom. Chances are he even wore a hairnet.

  “Can you describe him?”

  “Maybe.”

  “His height and weight?”

  The clerk looked at Roarke.

  “Kinda like you.”

  “Exactly like me?”

  “Nope.”

  “How was he different?”

  “Darker hair. A bit taller.”

  “That’s all?”

  “He limped.”

  “A lot?”

  “A little.”

  “Like a war injury?” A trick. A diversion of Cooper’s.

  “Maybe. Or sports. Now that I think about it, it wasn’t that bad.”

  “How’d he sound?”

  “Different.”

  This was painful. “How different?” Roarke asked, trying to remain polite.

  “Southern.”

  “Any recollections of what he said?” he asked the motel clerk, a young man who had obviously found his life’s work.

  “Nope,” he said through a pronounced Dakota accent. “But he was nice to everyone.”

  “Did you get any confirmation that the name and address he gave you were accurate?”

  “Nope.”

  “Did you see him when he checked out?”

  “Nope.”

  “Any chance you still have the bills he paid with?”

  “Nope.”

  Roarke wondered if this was the future of America? People who saw nothing, who questioned nothing, who grunted monosyllabic answers.

  “Is there anything else you remember about him?”

  “Nope.”

  Roarke bet his reputation that the six-foot-one black-haired salesman was Richard Cooper. Take away the fake Southern accent, a bogus limp, and a big salesman grin, and in Roarke’s mind, Cooper had come to Mayville and accomplished his personal mission.

  Of course, there wouldn’t be any evidence. Certainly nothing physical. There was only a coroner’s report which cited a fall from a horse and a massive concussion. Roarke was convinced that neither gravity nor poor horsemanship had anything to do with it.

  8 January

  “An autopsy?”

  “Afraid it’s too late,” the coroner explained the next morning. “Mr. Wesley was cremated.”

  “Cremated? He wasn’t going to be buried for another two days.”

  “You’re right about that, Mr. Roarke. Buried yes, in two days. But cremated first.”

  “Shit!” Roarke exclaimed. The bureau had fucked up. He had fucked up.

  The rest of Roarke’s questions didn’t matter. The same was true at his next meeting. The Mayville chief of police had nothing. Roarke hoped for more with the victim’s wife.

  “Any history of dizziness or heart problems, Mrs. Wesley?”

  “No, sir. My husband was in perfect health.”

  “And how was he on horseback?” A silly question.

  “He was the best rider in the county.”

  Roarke left the Wesley house and decided to reconstruct the rancher’s last day on Earth. Breakfast at The Blue Note. A haircut down the street at Ligerri’s. Then, Wesley went home and rode his horse into the hills. Between the haircut and going home somebody might have seen something. Roarke found more people to question in town.

  “Did anyone see a black-haired man with a limp?” he asked around town. “A stranger? Someone you haven’t seen since?”

  A realtor did. Panini asked him to show him an empty storefront down the street from the bank. But after a few minutes he said it didn’t meet company specs. “That was it. Ten minutes at the most.”

  Roarke worked that into a recreation of Cooper’s day. That was at 10 a.m. Ninety minutes before he killed Major Gene Wesley, U.S. Army retired.

  “And he had no interest in seeing any other property? That was it?”

  “Yes, that was it. He went to The Blue Note. Don’t know a thing after that.”

  Back at the diner, Roarke asked the inevitable follow-up. Dolly remembered Panini coming in. He trusted her memory. Not many out of towners stopped by. “Then the guy left. He got in his car and headed out of town.”

  Roarke opted for a cup of coffee before leaving. He was surprised it was twenty cents more t
oday than yesterday. He attributed it to the rising gas prices and the cost of doing business. He was wrong.

  Twenty

  Helena, Montana

  Ricardo Perez awoke after a nine-hour sleep. He showered for a full half hour and then looked outside his Motel 6 room. The city was blanketed with snow. A ten-inch snowfall had blanketed everything. He thanked God it hadn’t snowed a night earlier, otherwise he would not have survived the road to hell and back.

  The first thing he did was buy a pair of jeans, a shirt, and a heavy parka at a local Goodwill, one of the only stores open in the storm. Then he ran through his opciones again. There weren’t many.

  Going to the police was out of the question. They’d hold him. A report would lead to an investigation; an investigation to his arrest. No police.

  Home? He could hitch a ride or steal a car. But he was a dead man if he returned without a plan. The gang member trudged through the snow trying to think of something. He never felt so isolated; so confused; and so fucking cold.

  Revenge kept him alive the night in the mountains. But that wouldn’t save him in the short run. First he needed a plan.

  Perez continued his walk. Fortunately, it was quiet. He didn’t draw any attention. Still, he knew he needed to be more than an El Salvadorian gangster in the middle of Santa’s Village.

  He walked past a storefront on East Lyndale Avenue. A dramatic poster caught his eye. He never would have looked twice at it before. Now? It depicted a young man wearing the same kind of don’t fuck with me attitude that Perez lived by. They were about the same age. He, too, belonged to a large group, an extended hierarchical organization. Perez wondered how much they really had in common. Don’t fuck with me, was a good start.

  Perez looked beyond the poster. There was a light on inside and he could make out two men. The gangster hesitated. He was more nervous than he had been since that day he was on the way to his uncle’s for candy. That awful day.