“Can you read houses,” she asked, “or just people?”
Reeder said, “Good-size, two stories, two-car garage, no cars parked out front. Shades on all the windows, no people, no morning movement. Other houses, cars are backing out of garages, curtains being opened, people stirring. Either it’s vacant . . . or it’s exactly what Morris said it was: a safe house with a new tenant.”
One cul-de-sac later, she turned up Honey Tree Court. She pulled to the curb and parked. “What’s the play?”
“If it’s a safe house—there’s going to be a shift change in keepers, right?”
“Right.”
“That’s when we hit them.”
She blinked at him. “When there are twice as many bad guys on site?”
Reeder didn’t blink at all. “That’s a negative way to talk about employees of our federal government.”
“My bad.”
“Shift change, they’ll be least expecting trouble.”
“Trouble being the two of us. Just how the hell are we going to keep an eye on the house till the next shift? We’re just a little obvious, strangers sitting in a car.”
He pointed to the woods that separated the backs of houses on this street from those on Jennings Circle. “We go native and try to find an angle where we can see the front.”
“How many you figure, six? Maybe eight?”
“Not more than six. More than that in a suburban home, all adults, probably all or mostly male, would get the neighbors suspicious again.”
They got out of the car, walked up the block, making an odder couple than even she and Kevin did, Rogers in a business suit and Reeder in jeans and Nats windbreaker. Not an average-looking suburban couple out for their morning walk. Not hardly.
Three houses up, they cut between two and ducked into the woods. If some helpful neighbor spotted them and called 911, she and Reeder would have to flash their credentials and hope for the best. Unfortunately, the best was likely a SWAT team that might further endanger Nichols.
Or had Lawrence sent them chasing their tails to buy time? This might be a vacant house, as Reeder said. Worse, could Lawrence be leading them into an ambush? Through this strip of suburban woods, they moved like animals dodging civilization, trying to stay low, the sun glinting off leaves and dappling them with shadow and light. Finally they found a vantage point behind the house next door providing a partial view of the presumed safe house’s front yard.
Reeder said, “I’m going to the far side of the place, and see if I can get a look at the driveway.”
She nodded.
He said, “Keep your cell handy—text you when I see an opening. I’ll just type GO, okay?”
“By the way . . . have you given any thought to all the things that could go wrong with this?”
He shrugged. “Vacant house, ambush, maybe Lawrence is sending us next door, to alert those in the real place? Or this is the right house and, being slightly outnumbered, we get very dead? Those kind of things?”
“We have another option.”
“Which is?”
She held his eyes. “Call Fisk. Bring the Bureau in.”
“But Lawrence says the Alliance is everywhere, and that could include the Bureau, like you said. Not necessarily Fisk herself, but just a team member on the response unit, and we’re screwed. No, Patti, this is us. Strictly us.”
She let out air. “Sweet-talker.”
That got the world’s tiniest grin out of Reeder, before he crept away through the underbrush, skirting trees. There was something military about it, and Rogers suddenly flashed on the nature of their self-appointed mission.
If this was indeed the right house, the guards inside were not necessarily Alliance, but might simply be agents, like herself, like her team, agents who likely thought they were doing their job, nothing more, nothing less.
But her job right now was getting Nichols out of harm’s way.
She unholstered her pistol, checked it, re-holstered it, then settled in on her haunches to wait, staying alert. The sun kept climbing, and her legs were tight, near cramping, and all the ways that this could go south kept careening feverishly through her mind.
Occasionally, she duckwalked through brush and got behind a tree to rise and stretch, eyes never leaving the house. Then she would reposition herself and crouch again, careful not to attract attention. She checked the time now and again, and—endless minutes turning into mind-numbing hours—she wondered if they really were staking out a vacant house. She hadn’t seen so much as a hint of movement beyond a window and it was nearing noon.
She was about to text Reeder that maybe Morris had played them and they should abort when something moved past the half-open blinds on the second floor. She perked, her discomfort and boredom gone. Moments later, a hand separated blinds and a big slice of male face appeared, eyes slowly scanning the woods.
Then the blinds snapped shut.
Was that where Nichols was being held? An upstairs bedroom?
She texted Reeder: *2nd-floor window*
Reeder’s response was one letter : *K*
Texting shorthand learned from his daughter, Amy, no doubt. Rogers twitched a smile, then focused on the house so intently she might have been trying to hypnotize it.
Then the phone in her hand vibrated and when she looked at the screen, she saw:
*GO*
She rose like something that had grown very fast, the phone dropped in a pocket, her pistol coming out and up. Two houses down, Reeder came out of the woods just as she did. Simultaneously they crossed the joined backyards and took posts at opposite corners at the rear of the target house.
When Reeder disappeared up the far side of the house, she went up her side, stopping at the front corner, making sure she was low enough to keep well under the living room windows. She peeked around the corner—on the other side of the house . . .
. . . a nondescript tones-of-gray Ford, an obvious government car, was just pulling into the driveway. Reeder remained out of sight. That wouldn’t change until whoever was in the car parked it and got out.
Then she heard the garage door going up. Damn! She was at the wrong side of the house and if she couldn’t make it across the front yard, and time it right, the door would close and the new shift of captors was in.
Or worse—Reeder might wind up in that garage alone with however many armed agents were in the Ford.
As soon as the passenger side door passed her position—only two of them, driver, rider—Rogers took off quick and low, bisecting the front yard; as she passed the front door, it stayed shut. At the same time, Reeder came around the garage side of the house, low but not as fast. He didn’t have the nine mil in hand—instead, it was that extendable baton of his, looking like he was running a relay and about to pass it off. He pointed inside with the unextended weapon, hesitating as the Ford rolled inside.
The garage door motor indicated the vehicle and its inhabitants were about to be shut inside, and she hurtled under before the drawbridge came completely down. The front doors of the Ford opened, snick, snick, and an agent in a dark suit got out on either side.
Was the house soundproofed enough that those within wouldn’t be alerted to the arrival of their relief team?
“Turn around slow, gentlemen,” Reeder said, positioned behind the driver toward the left rear of the Ford. Rogers was behind the passenger, at the vehicle’s right rear, and both she and Reeder were training guns on the men, although Joe had his nine mil in his left hand and the baton in his right.
The two agents turned, nice and slow, hands shoulder high. No stupid moves. Not from this pair. Smart moves, though . . . ?
Her man, who she didn’t recognize, was maybe thirty, dark hair, wedge-faced, blank-eyed.
The driver was older, forty anyway, with graying dark hair, pockmarked with a reptilian smile.
“Peep,” the driver said to Reeder, pleasantly but a little too loud.
“I can hear you,” Reeder said. “Make sure no one in the
house can.”
“Kinda in over your head on this one, aren’t you, Peep?”
“Patti, this is Robert Clayton—Homeland.”
She nodded just a little. “Mr. Clayton.”
“You’re on the wrong side of this, Peep,” Clayton said. “But you can easily get on the right side. You could have Agents Nichols back, no problem, and we can negotiate our way out of this unfortunate situation that we find ourselves in.”
“Define ‘we.’”
His chin came up slightly. Pride? “You, and I, and some of the most patriotic Americans who’ve ever lived.”
“Well, some are going to die.” Slowly Reeder approached the man. “But you don’t have to be one of them, Bob, if you arrange to have Agent Nichols turned over to us without any further fuss.”
Clayton’s scowl was somehow reptilian as well. “Who do you think you’re talking to? You make a move on us, the two inside will execute the prisoner, and—”
Reeder hit Clayton with the baton, right along the side of his head. The Homeland agent chased himself to the cement, sprawled there out cold in a crisply pressed suit.
That’d got Rogers’ attention enough for her charge to risk a leap at her, right into a swing of the barrel of her pistol, which caught the agent much the way Reeder’s baton had his partner. He did a limp-puppet fall, clearly out before he landed.
Rogers said, “So, there’s two more inside.”
Reeder said softly, “Unless Clayton is cleverer than I give him credit for.” He nodded toward the nearest unconscious fed. “Use their own cuffs on ’em, bind their feet with their neckties, collect their pistols and cells.”
She nodded and did that while Reeder stood covering her by facing the door into the house, the nine mil in his right hand now, the baton tucked away.
Throughout, the only sounds were the rustle of clothing and light clink of the cuffs as she bound the unconscious men—nothing came from within the residence. Leaving the two men on the floor of the garage, one on either side of the Ford, they moved quietly inside—the connecting door unlocked—and found themselves in a mudroom, washer and dryer to their left, a bench and empty coat-hanger pegs to the right.
Gun in hand, Reeder walked them into a nice if characterless kitchen—stainless steel appliances, big island in the center, long counter—and she followed him. Dead soda cans were arranged on the counter like a little tin army—big-time agents tended to be tidy—and the smell of bacon lingered. No take-out bags visible in the wastebasket. Cooking for themselves.
A male voice echoed down a stairwell: “What’s with Clayton and Simpson? Should’ve been here ten minutes ago!”
From a nearby room, another male voice said, “Maybe he’s getting carryout for a change!”
“If so,” the stairwell voice said, “cheap-ass probably won’t bring us any!”
Downstairs said, “Why, you want to spend another half hour babysitting?”
“. . . Ten minutes, you call him.”
“Ten minutes, I call him.”
The kitchen took a left and emptied out into a dining area that opened onto a living room where a ginger-haired agent in his shirtsleeves lounged in a comfy chair with his feet on an ottoman. His back was mostly to them as he sat watching an old Bruce Willis movie on TCM, a can of Diet Coke on an end table between him and a couch.
Also on that table was a Glock.
Off to the left, just opposite the front door and entry area, an unenclosed stairway rose.
The openness of the room allowed Rogers to come around behind the agent and grab away the weapon before the guy knew up from down. He straightened, startled, looking toward where his gun had disappeared, and then on the other side of him another gun did appear, its snout touching his temple.
Reeder, whose weapon it was, whispered, “Clayton and Simpson are here. Tell him.”
The agent swallowed, nodded, and called, “Hey, they’re here!”
Which was true in a couple of ways.
“About damn time!” the stairwell voice said.
Rogers was already over at the bottom of the stairs, crouched down alongside where she couldn’t be seen. When the upstairs agent’s feet tromped down to meet the downstairs, she jack-in-the-boxed up and showed him the gun. Wearing a rumpled-looking, end-of-shift suit, he had a pale, doughy baby-face and tiny dark raisin eyes that opened comically wide. He had a gun, too, but Rogers yanked it from his waistband before his mind had started to work.
She used his cuffs to secure his hands behind him.
“Take a seat,” she said, and nodded toward the couch.
He went there and sat, his cuffed hands behind him clearly uncomfortable. On the TV, Bruce Willis was smirking.
Reeder was perched on the ottoman now with his nine mil trained on the ginger agent, who was sitting up, hands in the air.
Rogers came over and said to their hosts, “Just you two?”
Both captives nodded. Nothing forced about it. Still . . .
She found the upstairs empty until she got to the bedroom at the end of the hall, the door open.
In dark slacks and light blue blouse but no shoes, the tall, slender, model-lovely African American woman was on the bed, on top of the covers, pillows propped behind her. She had her hands cuffed in her lap and her ankles were bound with white cloth possibly torn from a sheet, which might have been the source for the white blindfold and gag, as well.
“Anne, Annie, it’s okay,” Rogers said, moving quickly across the room, holstering her weapon. “We’re here.”
Gently Rogers removed the blindfold, revealing a small gash in the center of a purplish lump near the woman’s left temple. This was the only overt sign of violence’s aftermath, and had probably occurred when Nichols was taken captive.
“You’re safe,” Rogers said, undoing the gag.
Her voice a hoarse whisper, Nichols said, “I screwed up, Patti. I really screwed up.”
“Course you didn’t. Let’s get you out of here.”
Rogers peeled off her suit jacket and snugged it around Nichols’ shoulders as the agent slipped off the bed and got unsteadily onto her feet.
Reeder appeared in the doorway.
“Our two friends are cuffed and quiet,” he said, jerking a thumb over his shoulder. “How is she?”
Rogers was drunk-walking Nichols across the room.
“Bad knock in the noggin. Annie, you need an ambulance?”
“No. No, no. Let’s just go.”
“Okay,” Reeder said. “I’ll check in with Miggie, though.”
He got Altuve right away and reported that they’d be back soon. “Tell Reggie to be ready with a first-aid kit. Have you heard from Ivanek?”
As he listened to Miggie’s response, Reeder looked up at Rogers and then shook his head.
No Ivanek yet.
Reeder asked the phone, “What about Bohannon?”
He listened and then his face went hard, then soft.
“Be back as soon as we can,” he said, then clicked off.
“What?” she asked, she and Nichols at the door now.
“Agent Jerry Bohannon,” Reeder said.
“What about him?”
“Dead.”
“The time is near at hand which must determine whether Americans are to be free men or slaves.”
George Washington, first President of the United States of America. Served 1789–1797. Commander in Chief of American Revolutionary forces.
FIFTEEN
Reeder said, “Bohannon was executed. No attempt to make it look like anything else this time.”
Her arm still around and supporting Anne Nichols, Rogers gaped at him, horrified. “What?”
“A mob-style double tap. Your people looking into any mob-related activity lately?”
“A few things, but . . .”
“So maybe I’m wrong, and this is somebody’s half-assed idea of covering up their latest kill.”
Rogers looked stricken. “Where was he . . . ?”
“Still sitting surveillance outside Ivanek’s place.”
Nichols was quietly crying now. Rogers was shaking her head, saying, “I thought Jerry was on his way back to the Hoover Building.”
“So did I. For now, we have to stick a pin it, and get the hell out of here. See if you can find what they did with Anne’s shoes and get her into them. I’ll tidy up downstairs.”
“You’re not going to kill anybody are you?”
“I’ll try to restrain myself.”
It went quickly. The IDs of the captured minders were all Homeland. From the two downstairs, their hands already cuffed behind them, Reeder collected cell phones, and escorted them to the front closet and shut them in. The pair was too professional to squawk.
Shortly in the garage, Reeder was surveying the still unconscious Clayton and Simpson when Rogers and Nichols joined him.
Rogers helped him haul and dump the two Homeland agents into the trunk of their Ford, then the two women waited while Reeder fetched the rental vehicle from one street over. When he’d pulled into the driveway, Rogers ushered Nichols out and helped her into the back, then shut the garage door with an electric-eye opener she’d liberated from the Ford.
Reeder held the driver’s side door open for Rogers, who paused and said, “Those four kidnapped Anne. We just leave them behind for their people to pick up?”
“When somebody notices they haven’t checked in, yes. With luck that may be next shift change, but it’s more likely they have periodic call-ins.”
Her face was as clenched as a fist. “Clayton mentioned the Alliance. Probable that all four of them are part of that. They need to be arrested, Joe.”
“Who by? Us? The people who assaulted four federal agents?”
She blanched.
He said, “Who do we trust enough with that call? I’ve now tangled with both Homeland and Secret Service, and we know somebody in the CIA betrayed five of their own. Only thing we can do is get out of here.”
They did.
Within an hour, they were back at DeMarcus’s crib. Reggie Wade handed off a first-aid kit to Rogers, and she and Nichols disappeared into the bedroom and shut the door. Morris, duct-taped to his chair and blindfolded, head slumped forward, was snoring gently.
Executive Order (Reeder and Rogers Thriller) Page 18