The Good Soldier

by L. T. Ryan

  I went back to row B, peeking around the corner to make sure no one was waiting by locker B915. Satisfied that the row was empty, I walked up to the locker. I stood there for a few minutes, key in hand, debating whether or not to open it. I couldn't shake the feeling that I was being set up. I didn't know Conners well enough to put double crossing me past him. Hell, it didn't even have to be him. It could be any number of people I'd apparently pissed off recently.

  I took a deep breath, exhaled and stuck the key in the locker. Turned it and opened the rectangular metal door. It squeaked against its hinges. Inside sat a black bag with a zipper on top and a mesh back. I grabbed the bag and turned away from the front of the bus station. I walked down the aisle until it opened up into an empty seating area.

  This time I sat in the first row of seats. I pulled my jacket open, clearing a path to my Beretta. My heart beat fast and my breath quickened. The training I had been put through taught me how to control panic. I followed the steps and relaxed myself to the point where I could focus.

  I unzipped the bag and looked up.

  Two men stood fifteen feet away from me. Two men, that upon second glance, I knew.

  "Jack Noble."

  I nodded while zipping the bag shut.

  "Gallo, Bealle."

  Gallo stepped forward. A towel hung over his hand, a weak attempt at hiding his weapon. He smiled when my gaze lifted from the gun to meet his eyes. "Let's go, Jack."

  * * *

  Bealle walked in front of me. Gallo behind, his gun pressed into my back. I held the bag tight to my chest. For some reason they didn't try to take it, at least not yet.

  We stepped through the front door and the wind hit like a wall of ice. The sweat on my forehead evaporated and gave me a slight chill.

  They led me down L Street to an empty parking lot. We moved to the middle of the dirt and gravel lot, stopping outside the range of the street lights.

  "We're not here to hurt you," Gallo said.

  "What's the gun for then?"

  "Our protection."

  I said nothing and kept the bag secure in my arms.

  "We aren't too keen on taking you on again, especially after what you've been through."

  "How'd you know I'd be here?"

  "We have sources," Bealle said.

  "Conners?"

  "No. I don't know any Conners."

  "Me either," Gallo said. "Let's go someplace we can sit down and talk."

  I wondered if that was for their protection as well.

  We walked through the streets of Washington, D.C. until we found a twenty-four hour diner. Gallo asked for the booth in the corner by the window. He sat against the wall. I sat with my back to the restaurant and Bealle squeezed in next to me. I placed the bag between my left leg and the window.

  A brown haired waitress came to our table. I ordered coffee. Gallo and Bealle ordered water.

  "What do you know, Jack?" Gallo asked.

  I shrugged. "Not much. I know that you guys framed me for the murder of that Iraqi family-"

  "That wasn't us, Jack." Gallo placed his elbows on the table. He leaned forward. "Martinez was pissed. He probably still is. You made him look bad and then kicked his ass. He's a hothead. But it's not like him to go back, murder a family and then frame you."

  "What were we doing there that night?" I asked. "Were we there to kill the man?"

  Gallo glanced at Bealle and nodded.

  "Yes," Bealle said. "If he didn't give up the information he was to be terminated."

  "What about the woman?"

  "No, that wasn't part of it."

  "Martinez took that too far," Gallo said. "That's something we agree on. But, you know, there are no rules, man. We're hunting out there and we need to get the information and neutralize the threat before it gets too far."

  "And that's where you screwed up, Jack," Bealle said. "Repeatedly you've gotten in our way. Not just us, but other teams."

  "It's because I can't work like that. I'm not some security detail. For eight years I've worked on these teams and always been involved. Now we go to Iraq after the attacks and I'm standing in doorways and providing the muscle. Hell with that."

  I leaned back in my seat and crossed my arms over my chest and looked out the window at drunken people pouring out of a bar. I checked my watch and saw that it was now two a.m.

  Gallo took a moment and responded. "It's not just you. Other teams in the co-op are having this issue as well."

  I hiked my shoulders and held out my hands in a 'who-cares?' gesture.

  "What else do you know?" Gallo asked.

  "I know that half the people who come in contact with me end up dead. Stick around and you might skew that ratio even further."

  Gallo smiled.

  "I know that somehow they tracked me. I figured they used the cell phone and got rid of it. Still, Abbot was killed." I locked eyes with Gallo. "They murdered him and left me alone. So tell me, what the hell is going on here?"

  Gallo took a drink of water and leaned back. "There were six teams. You know that, you were there with us. Six teams, a dozen Marines." He turned and looked at the window at the crowd of people passing by, laughing and talking with each other. "Four are dead, six are in prison on base and you and Logan are on the run."

  The gravity of the situation hit home. I opened my mouth to speak. Nothing came out.

  "You see where this is going?"

  "What are they in prison for?"

  "Returning to the scene of an interrogation and murdering any Iraqis there."

  I felt sick. "Why didn't-why didn't Abbot tell me this?" My mind raced as the world closed in. "He was about to. He had to make a call for my next contact, but he was going to tell me this before I left."

  Gallo shrugged and shook his head.

  "What did you tell them when they asked about the family?" I asked.

  "They never did," Bealle said. "At least, they never asked us. Who knows if they asked Martinez?"

  "Where is Martinez?"

  "We haven't seen him since that night. Word is he took leave and came back…"

  "Here," I said. "He's in D.C."

  Gallo nodded and continued. "We never filed a complaint, signed a statement, nothing against you or Logan. And the other teams we've spoken with said the same. But…"

  "But?" I hung on his words and watched as his face twisted in thought.

  "There was always a team that didn't have, uh, Marines attached. Six CIA agents, that's it. I don't mean us. Martinez and five agents."

  I knew where this was heading.

  "We never worked with Martinez until a few months ago."

  "When they reorganized the teams," I said.

  Gallo nodded and continued. "Well, can you guess who took over the other five teams?"

  "I'm guessing the other five men who worked on the CIA only team." I said.

  "Yup," Bealle said.

  I turned in the seat and leaned back against the glass so I could see both of them. I didn't care who was outside. If someone was going to take me out, let them do it.

  "Someone is trying to take apart the program then," I said.

  Both men nodded.

  "That's what we think," Gallo said.

  "Any ideas who?"

  "We've been trying to determine that. Doing our own investigation. We can't find anyone who knows. It's coming from high up, whether in our agency or outside of it, it's high up."

  I thought about it for a second before responding. "So why not just terminate the program? Send us back to the Marines to finish our careers behind a desk and merge your teams together. That would make more sense, right?"

  "Absolutely," Gallo said. "Why wouldn't they do that? That's what we can't figure out."

  "Because someone else high up is pushing to keep the program going."

  Gallo shrugged. "Makes sense."

  "Another question, then. So we're saying that someone wanted us out of the way. Any ideas why?"

  "So we can act however t
hey want us to. There were too many incidents like yours where a Marine got in the way."

  "You say that like we're some damn choir boys."

  Both men laughed.

  "It also makes me question what they were going to do once we were out of the way."

  Gallo nodded. "Yeah, I wonder too. I think I have an answer, but I don't want to believe it."

  I held out my hands. "Might as well."

  Gallo opened his mouth to speak, but didn't.

  Bealle said, "I think you know where he's going with that, Jack. Let's not go down that road. Right now we just want to put a stop to what's going on."

  "What do you care?"

  "We might not agree with the new direction. And if that's the case, we might be terminated also."

  We said nothing for five minutes. The three of us sat in silence. I went over the conversation, making an extra mental note of the most important parts. I hoped that whatever was in the folder in the black bag could shed some light on what they said.

  Gallo slid out of his seat and stood in front of the table. "Jack, we're going to leave you for now."

  Bealle placed a piece of paper in front of me. "Those are our numbers. Call in the morning and we'll meet up. Give you some time to absorb this. Think it over. Maybe something will click."

  With that, they left. I got up and switched seats so my back was against the wall, giving me a view of the diner. I watched Bealle and Gallo leave, keeping my eye on them until they turned out of sight. I had to shake my head as I looked around the diner. How had I missed so many people entering?

  When the waitress came by, I ordered another cup of coffee. A few minutes later she returned and set the coffee down in front of me. I declined when she asked if I needed anything else. I watched her walk back to the wait station, and then I pulled the black bag onto my lap and unzipped it. I slid the manila folder out of the bag and set it on the table. My thumb and forefinger wrapped around the outer corner of the folder. I took a deep breath and opened it.

  I didn't know exactly what to expect, but my initial reaction was disappointment. There were just a few papers inside and nothing else. I turned the papers over and read the first line.

  Then I read it again.

  "Holy shit," I said out loud, garnering more than a few looks from the resident bar-goers in my presence.

  There, on the first line of the first document was the name Robert Marlowe, Deputy Secretary of Defense, a man who had a vested interest in the situation in Iraq for sure.

  Chapter 17

  The list of names on the paper included several that I didn't know. Marlowe was the most damning. I recognized a few other politicians as well as some of the upper brass of the Armed Forces. The best plan of action was to confront Marlowe. And that's why I stood across the street from his house at four in the morning.

  Marlowe's house was an end unit on a block of row homes. The houses were recently built and designed to look two hundred years old.

  The quiet tree lined block offered enough cover for me to watch the house from the street. So I did. I leaned back against a tree and staked out his house for half an hour. I watched for movement. Saw none. I crossed the street, walked past his house and turned right on the cross street. This led me along the side of his house. I looked to the side. All three windows were black.

  An alley cut behind the row homes, separating their backyards from the homes on the next street. The alley was wide enough for a garbage truck to fit through plus a few feet on either side. Dotted along the alley were blue plastic trash bins, each pushed up against a continuous six foot wooden privacy fence.

  I pressed back against Marlowe's fence and waited five minutes. The stillness of the morning allowed me to hear anything that moved, which amounted to nothing more than a cat.

  I pulled myself up on the fence and threw my leg over. A breeze blew by, warmer and thicker with humidity than what I'd felt during the past day. I looked up at the sky. The moon hung high directly above. To the west a thick line of dark clouds approached. I couldn't help but think how convenient the trashcan and impending spring storm were. If I needed to dispose of a body, this would be the day.

  I crouched and moved to the back outer corner of the fence. Again, I watched the house for any signs of life inside. The windows promised darkness behind the brick and pale colored vinyl siding.

  I reached into my jacket pockets and pulled out the thin gloves I purchased on the walk over. I put the gloves on and cut across the yard, my back against the fence. I made my way to the house in the same manner, avoiding the area beyond the shadowy cover the fence provided. Before I made my way to the back door, I lightly tapped one of the windows. If Marlowe had a dog, that should be enough to rouse him.

  I waited, then tapped again and was met with silence.

  Four steps led up to the back door. I took them from the side. Kept my back pressed against the house. I cracked the glass storm door and grabbed the doorknob. It turned. I couldn't believe it, an unlocked door in the middle of D.C. Was Marlowe really that stupid? I decided not to debate Marlowe's intelligence and instead gently pushed the door and slipped through the opening. I held my breath while waiting for an alarm to go off. I had thought about cutting the phone wires while outside, but I figured if Marlowe had a security system installed, it would be independent of the phone system and would likely detect my attempt to foil it.

  The alarm didn't go off. At least not that I could tell. Maybe it was a silent alarm and was notifying the police at that very moment. Hell, maybe it was something the Department had installed, and they were en route. That actually made sense. If that were the case this would end badly. If I got caught here it would result in more than a simple breaking and entering. But had I really committed B&E? The damn door was unlocked. I planned to point that out to Marlowe.

  I shook my head to clear the thoughts and continued through the house. I stood just inside the back door in the great room. It was plainly decorated with two couches and a simple wooden table between them. Two stacks of books sat on the middle of the table. I didn't see a TV or stereo. I moved through the living area of the great room and past the dining room, which had a round glass table with four black chairs.

  I walked to the door located at the far end of the room. It had no handle. I pushed it. It swung open, revealing the kitchen. A light was on above the stove. It was dim, but provided enough illumination to see the room. I heard a click and my eyes moved to the source of the sound. A coffee pot had turned on. A moment later percolating sounds promising fresh coffee filled the kitchen.

  It wouldn't be long till Marlowe pushed through the kitchen door. I stood next to it, back against the wall. The open door would block his view of me, giving me the element of surprise.

  A few minutes later I heard the rush of water from above. Marlowe, or someone in the house, had started a shower. Ten minutes later the thumping of footsteps coming down the wooden stairs echoed through the house. I squeezed my gun and pressed even harder against the wall.

  The door pushed open with a knock, coming within inches of hitting me. It swung back shut and Marlowe, dressed in gray slacks and an untucked white t-shirt, shuffled toward the coffee maker. He opened a cabinet door and pulled down a blue or black mug with a golden seal of some sort on it.

  "Grab one for me, too."

  He froze for a moment. Set the mug down and grabbed another. He turned around and looked at me with a blank expression.

  "Noble," he said. "Jack Noble, right?"

  I nodded. Said nothing.

  "I thought I saw you a couple days ago down by the National Mall."

  I shrugged and decided not to respond. I wanted to see how far he would go on his own.

  He cleared his throat. "Mind if I fill these for us?" He turned without waiting for a response from me and filled the two mugs three quarters of the way full. He grabbed both by their handles and started toward me. "Why don't we sit, Jack?"

  I moved in front of the door and nodded to the
table in the back corner of the kitchen.

  He went to the table, set the coffee down and took a seat in the corner.

  I remained standing.

  "I know why you're here," he said. "Let me start by telling you that I-"

  "Shut up."

  He pursed his lips and sat back in his chair. Crossed one leg over the other and placed his hands flat on the table.

  "How do you know me?"

  "From the TV. You were on the news wanted in connection with that man, what's his name? Oh, yeah. Delaney."

  "Don't bullshit me, Marlowe." I pulled out a chair and sat across from him. I placed my hand on the table and kept the gun trained on him. "You said you recognized me in the city. I was eating lunch outside. You walked by with two other politicians and a couple of agents assigned to you. One of them eyed me as you all passed by."

  He shrugged. "Yeah, I saw you. Like I said I recog-"

  "That was before I had met with Delaney."

  He looked down at the table and shifted in his seat.

  "So you better cut the crap and answer my question."

  He lifted his mug to his lips and took a sip while reaching one hand under the table.

  I lifted the gun. "Stop right there."

  "I'm just getting a pack of cigarettes out," he said as he lifted his hand up, a cardboard box held between his thumb and forefinger. He offered me one and I declined, so he stuffed the pack back in his pocket.

  I settled back in my chair and watched as he looked between me and the ceiling.

  "Your name's Jack Noble. You're a Sergeant in the U.S. Marine Corps. But that doesn't matter. Your jacket says that you're a Sniper. But that doesn't matter, either. In fact, there might be one or two snipers who have never even heard of you and that's simply because of your boot camp legend." He stopped, tipped his head and stared me in the eye. "Eight weeks through recruit training you were optioned for a special joint program sponsored by the CIA in which you were essentially loaned out to become part of an Ops team. On the Marine side you had General Keller and Colonel Abbot running things. On the CIA side, well, that's classified. If you know the names then you do. If not, I'm not at liberty to say them."