The Devil's Anvil

by Matt Hilton

  ‘Think about how it feels from my end.’

  ‘Yeah, I can see why you’d be pissed. But Hunter, you have to trust me. It wasn’t me, man. I probably owe you my life. Without you my head would’ve been bashed in and I’m not the type to treat that debt lightly.’ He left that thought hanging.

  I stood looking out across the lake. The water was stippled by the breeze, and reflected the evening sky, though the first stars were disguised by highlights on the gentle waves. Beyond the lake the hills were a ridge of shadows, but still recognisable as those in the painting I’d recently viewed in Billie’s room. Momentarily I found myself looking for the flash of a red coat, listening for the disconsolate moan of a lost girl as she pointed knowingly at something mysterious and intangible. I shook off a cold shiver that ran its finger up my spine. I could do nothing for the girl, and should concentrate on her lost mother.

  ‘OK,’ I said. ‘So we’re still friends. But do we stay that way?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I’m going after Billie, but I need your help.’

  ‘If she’s been abducted we need to inform the FBI. It’s in their jurisdiction now.’

  ‘Not yet,’ I said. ‘This is on me. And it’s on you, even if you aren’t the one responsible for setting us up.’

  ‘I can’t do it, Hunter. I must follow official procedure—’

  ‘Bringing me in wasn’t procedure. Let’s not change things now.’

  ‘No way, I’m—’

  ‘Going to listen to me,’ I finished for him. ‘Here’s the thing, Cooper: those guys think I’m dead. They think I’m a rotting corpse out in the woods. They don’t know I’m coming after them. Without your help I wouldn’t know where to start looking, but the thing that led them to Billie can also lead us to her. Understand?’

  ‘You want the codes for tracking her vest?’

  ‘Think you can do that?’

  ‘Easily enough. But what then? I can’t sanction a private rescue mission, Hunter.’

  ‘I’m not asking for permission.’ I allowed that announcement to sink in. ‘All I’m asking is that you keep the good guys out of the way, until I give you the green light.’

  ‘What about the mission to find Richard Womack?’

  ‘If Richard’s still AWOL then it won’t make a difference either way, but those guys didn’t take Billie for nothing. I think they know more about his whereabouts than anyone. Maybe they already have him. We won’t know until I take a look. If things work out then I get Billie, you get her husband and all that lovely cash you’re so concerned about. You can’t lose, Cooper. Even if the money has gone up in smoke, and Richard is a corpse, you will have Procrylon by the short and curlies when you show they were responsible for kidnapping Billie Womack. But to do that we need her back alive if she’s going to bear witness in court. Let me get her out, my way, without having my hands tied by rules and regulations.’

  ‘You said you weren’t seeking my permission.’

  ‘I’m not. I’m going with or without your help. It’s just that you can speed the process along.’

  I waited. Cooper could easily have told me to kiss his ass, and made an immediate call to the FBI. In fact he could have set the entire law enforcement world in my way if he wished. If he had there would have been nothing I could have done about it, but I knew that he was thinking more about a successful end to his mission than mine. I could hear him breathing, muttering an occasional curse, as he pretended to consider my proposed course of action, but finally he came back on. He told me an email address and log on details. ‘That’s a blind account. Log on via a proxy server. I’ll leave a draft email for you with the details you need. Once you’re done, delete the email, do not reply to it.’

  ‘I know the process, don’t worry.’

  ‘I can’t have this coming back on me.’

  ‘It won’t.’ I hung up, and immediately thought about calling back. I needed weaponry. My gun had been taken along with everything else. Rink had flown in, and although he’d brought a knife buried in his checked luggage, he hadn’t brought a firearm. I should also have asked Cooper about the Jaeger brothers. It paid to know my enemies, but I wasn’t at a total loss. I already knew they were dangerous adversaries. And anything that Agent Cooper could say about them, my friend Harvey Lucas could tell me more. I trusted Harvey would also be able to source us the guns we’d need.

  I headed inside to muster the gang.

  25

  The signal beacon from Billie’s antiballistic vest emanated from a location very close to Joint Base Lewis-McChord, to the south of Tacoma, Washington. The JBLM was an amalgamated military installation comprising both US Army and Air Force garrisons, the primary training and mobilisation centre west of the Rocky Mountains, and during their time with the Rangers both Rink and Harvey Lucas had been deployed through the army base on a number of occasions, back when it was still called Fort Lewis, and transported out via the 62nd Airlift Wing stationed at McChord Air Force Base. The joint facility was huge, and took up most of the wedge of land formed by a rugged triangle bordered by the I-5, and Routes 510 and 507. As well as military personnel it also accommodated their families, support staff and medical and leisure facilities. Dozens if not hundreds of active and retired military men and women lived in the ’burbs surrounding JBLM, and in nearby Tacoma and Olympia. If we couldn’t scratch up a couple of guns from all of those possible sources then we didn’t deserve to be in the game. Rink and Noah Kirk were on such a mission, scaring up a few old contacts of Harvey.

  I waited in a soulless room in a chain motel off Route 507, making a plan of action with Adam Sanderson. By then we were on full name terms. It made sense when we had become allies to know just who we were trusting our arses with, and that truth went both ways. Adam – for all he sounded as if he was an awed youth eager to hear war stories from a veteran – was more astute than I’d previously given him credit for. His naïve style of questioning got answers that direct demands would not have. I was warming to the young man and thought that after this we might stay friends. Only time would tell.

  In the meantime it paid to have a younger guy on hand. Although Harvey had come through for us on tracing the signal from Billie’s vest, he was half a continent away in Arkansas and there was only so much he could impart during a conference call when it came to handling the technology at our end. Adam had grown up in the new digital age, unlike this old analog dinosaur, and could achieve with a few deft taps and swipes of his hand what I’d take ages to figure out on an iPad. Piggybacking the motel’s Wi-Fi service he’d logged on to a site on which a cursor currently blinked at the centre of a detailed satellite image of the nearby streets. Considering Procrylon’s ties to the weapons development industry it made perfect sense that they would have holdings adjacent to the largest military base in the north-west corner of the country, but not so much that they’d take an abducted woman there. Then again, a quick check of the location’s address had thrown up no direct ties to Procrylon, so I took it that ownership was probably registered under one of those shell companies that Agent Cooper mentioned they were fond of.

  ‘It’s a warehouse and distribution hub, logistics, that kind of thing. They have a fleet of trucks and also have a secondary property at the rail hub here.’ Adam tapped the screen of his iPad and the satellite image zoomed in. He nipped and twisted, so that the picture displayed imagery at street level. I saw freight trains and engines lined up on tracks.

  ‘Go back to the original location,’ I urged him and Adam did his stuff. ‘Zoom in again, like you just did.’

  ‘There you go,’ said Adam. The imagery was at street level again but now showed a large industrial complex consisting of at least a dozen red-brick buildings and steel sheet sheds, some interconnected by corridors and skywalks. As Adam manipulated the picture I saw rows of trucks lined up on a wide lot. They were bottle-green in colour.

  ‘Can you get any closer?’

  ‘Only so far. These pictures we
re recorded from the roads at the perimeter of the site, not actually from within the compound’s fences. Because of its nature the site has privacy restrictions. It’s not Area 51, so the satellite imagery hasn’t been censored, but at street level this is as good as it gets.’

  ‘Can you get another angle on it?’

  ‘Yeah. Not a problem. What are you interested in?’

  I pointed out a distant blur on the current view. Adam manipulated the map and brought up a scene from the opposite side of the complex. The object I’d originally noticed was now seen from a different angle and from a tad closer. ‘Zoom in as best you can.’

  ‘It’s a helicopter,’ Adam announced.

  That’s exactly what I’d thought. I couldn’t swear on it, because I’d been unable to study the aircraft buzzing us overhead, but I was certain it was the same chopper conducting the sweep for Billie last night. Adam also knew there’d been a helicopter involved in the hunt. But he held up a cautionary finger. ‘This stuff isn’t real-time footage,’ he explained. ‘Could even be a few years old. The satellite imagery is contemporaneous, but not the street view.’ As if to enforce his point, he came out of the close-up view and returned to the overhead mapping facility. He zoomed in, matching up from memory where he thought the helicopter had been parked. There was no chopper in evidence now, but there were the landing markings of a helipad. Good enough for me.

  ‘Zoom out again,’ I prompted. ‘There’s something I noticed inside the fence there.’

  CCTV cameras were mounted on poles at regular intervals all around the site. Common practice, I supposed, but I made myself a silent bet that there were also other security measures in place. It was as Adam noted concerning the delicate nature of some of Procrylon’s products; guarding them would require secretiveness but also a high level of security. ‘Can you check out the company and find out who’s supplying their security personnel?’

  While he worked his wizardry, I sat on the edge of the bed. I’d slept, eaten and slaked my raging thirst, but still felt weak and a little shaky. The scalp wound wasn’t giving me much trouble, more of an itch now than pain, the graze on my shoulder barely noticeable. My abdomen ached as if I’d done a thousand crunches, bearable discomfort, but the bullet wound to my upper chest still throbbed like a stubborn bastard despite the liberal amount of painkillers I’d downed. I breathed in and out slowly, settling myself and banishing the pain to a far corner of my mind. There would be time for the pain after I got Billie back. If I failed to do so, then it wouldn’t matter, because I’d probably be beyond the pain’s reach.

  ‘PMCs.’

  Adam’s announcement caught me off guard, and I snapped open my eyes. I think I might have slept a few seconds. I blinked for clarity. My face felt rubbery and about twice its normal size.

  ‘PMCs,’ Adam repeated. ‘Private military contractors.’

  I knew what PMCs were, and wasn’t at all surprised to learn that the Jaegers were ex-military men, now employed in the private security industry. These days there were more PMCs on the ground in many of the world’s war zones than there were regular soldiers. Since it was forbidden by the United Nations Mercenary Convention to employ ‘mercenaries’, the industry had gone through a radical change in image, but in my mind a new name designation didn’t make a jot of difference. Call them PMCs or security contractors, they were still mercs to me. Most private military companies were reputable, and offered training, services and expertise in support of official armed forces. They were regularly assigned the task of protecting key personnel and premises, most often in hot zones. Those well-known private military companies – like Blackwater, or Xe Services or Academi as it had subsequently been rebranded – had to be above reproach, and the US Military Commissions Act forbade them to employ offensive force, though that wasn’t always the case. In my opinion the decree was simply a piece of paper, waved in the air by the US military brass when they needed to sever any responsibility between them and the acts of deniable ‘unlawful combatants’. I guessed that the company behind the Jaegers was flagrant in flouting governmental rules, the way in which they dealt with their customers.

  Adam chuckled to himself, then grinned at me over his iPad.

  ‘What’s up?’

  ‘I just realised something,’ he said. ‘Do you know what “jaeger” translates as?’

  ‘Yeah.’ It translated from German as ‘hunter’, and the irony wasn’t lost on me.

  ‘So do you think these Jaeger brothers are your Euro-trash cousins, or what?’

  ‘I don’t think they’re even European. From their accents they’re American, East Coast by the sound of things.’

  ‘Kissing cousins at best,’ Adam went on. He laughed again, then frowned as he tapped away at his tablet. ‘Look here.’

  I stood and joined him so that he could angle the iPad to enable me to see what was on the screen. He’d brought up an employee manifest of the private military company working on Procrylon’s behalf. He opened separate windows so that Erick and Daniel Jaeger stood shoulder to shoulder. The CVs below their photographs were basic, stating age, vital statistics and relative military experience. They’d both served in the US Marine Corps, the elder brother Erick attaining the rank of captain, while his kid brother only ascended to first sergeant. Daniel’s deference to Erick wasn’t simply down to sibling dynamics, but also to past military service. Both men had served tours in Iraq, but had decamped to the PMC after the military operation began scaling down in 2011. Both men, it seemed, were still up for a fight. One thing I knew about marines was that they were tough bastards, and wily opponents, and I should be wary of them. But more than that I looked forward to meeting them again. Even through the fog of delirium I could picture that gun coming down on my head, and beyond it was the gloating face of Daniel Jaeger after his big brother gave the order to bash my brains out. Made me wonder what such heartless men were capable of when dealing with a woman.

  ‘How is it you didn’t get into the PMC business?’ Adam wondered. ‘With your military background I’d’ve thought it would be the obvious step.’

  ‘I was tempted. But the truth is I don’t often see eye to eye with some of the people who end up on The Circuit.’

  I didn’t expound. I was with a counter-terrorism unit codenamed Arrowsake for fourteen years, and some of those now involved with the PMC circuit were the kind of people I once fought against. Due to the changing political environment, my unit had been disbanded, and part of me had welcomed it. My relationship with Diane was in free fall, and I thought that continuing with my soldiering career would be the death of our marriage. Giving up my career hadn’t saved it, and we’d divorced not long after I’d returned to Civvy Street. Some might argue that in the intervening years I was still a soldier, just not in an official capacity, and was selling out my services any different than any other mercenary selling theirs? Despite the things I’d done, many of them violent, I’d always thought of myself as one of the good guys. There were moral standards I adhered to when taking on and accepting a job. Unlike the Jaegers I wouldn’t be involved in the abduction of an innocent woman, no matter what the reward.

  Soldiering should be an honourable pursuit, but there was a truth about why people became soldiers that wasn’t always apparent. Basically there are few reasons why people enlist. Ambition motivates some, duty and family history others, some enlist because they’ve nowhere else to go and then there’s the final group. They become soldiers because they have a need to kill, and if they can make a wage from doing what they enjoy then even better. Sometimes the reasons for enlisting overlapped, and sometimes they changed over time. I was of the group who had nowhere else to go, but I became a killer, though I never enjoyed it.

  I wondered what path the Jaegers had followed. I guessed they came from a family with a military history, and brother followed brother into the services, as had their father and grandfather before them. Had they become soldiers through duty and family honour, before their sensibilities had
been beaten and warped on the devil’s anvil of war to a point where they had lost their original focus?

  Whatever. Psychoanalysing wouldn’t help. The Jaegers were scum now, and my enemies.

  26

  It was a different room, a different chair, but Billie’s situation hadn’t changed much in the last few hours. She was still a prisoner, in an abandoned office that doubled as a cell. While she’d been escorted from one holding room to the other she’d been allowed to visit the bathroom, but it had been difficult relieving herself while observed by stern-faced men who wouldn’t allow her the privacy of closing the door behind her. They’d stood, barely making the effort to avert their gazes as she’d squatted over the bowl. What did they expect her to do, make an impromptu weapon out of balled toilet tissue? She assumed that their reticence to allow her out of their sight was because of the small window high up in the back wall of the cubicle. Maybe they expected her to try to make a break for it, but one brief glance had been enough to tell her it’d be a smaller woman who fit through that neat space. Hell, the last time she could have squeezed through that window was when she was a slip of a child Nicola’s age. Bringing her daughter to mind had an instant effect on her, but not in an expected way. There was no melancholy or longing for her dead child, but anger. How dare these men treat a grieving mother this way? She’d given her guards a piece of her mind, vociferously shamed them into momentarily looking away while she struggled to get her pants around her knees and squat down.

  After that they’d marched her in silence to the second room, where she was handed over to other men who’d strapped her down in a chair, again ensuring she had limited movement by way of zip-ties and Velcro straps. They left the room but stationed themselves outside. Billie could make out their shadows through the opaque ribbed glass in the door. A young, athletic-looking woman in a green uniform with the decal tags removed had come in, carrying a tray. She wasn’t delivering Billie’s supper. On the metal tray was a plastic bottle with a drinking straw, but there was no food. A nylon pouch took up the other side of the tray. The woman placed the tray on the floor, well out of range of Billie’s feet, and picked up the bottle. She came forward, and without a word pressed the drinking straw to Billie’s lips. Billie was tempted to spit the straw out in defiance, but she was as thirsty as hell. She sucked hungrily on tepid water that tasted like the warm plastic container it came in. Before she was finished the woman pulled the straw away. Billie was left feeling thirstier than ever. But she wasn’t going to beg for more. ‘You stinking bitch,’ she said. ‘Keep the water, you’ll need it for next time you remember to douche.’