Day of Reckoning (Shadow Warriors)

by Stephen England

  The blood drained from Haskel’s face as he grasped the import of the question. Of what had preceded it.

  His gaze flickered down to the tumbler in his hand, the small pool of amber liquid still remaining in the bottom. There was fear in his eyes, the shadow of an unspeakable question.

  Kranemeyer nodded.

  “What are you going to do if I call the police?” Haskel demanded. It was a hollow attempt at bravado.

  “You would never make it to the door,” the DCS replied calmly, allowing his trench coat to fall open, revealing the holstered H&K.

  “You wouldn’t dare.” The FBI director’s words came out in a hoarse rasp.

  Kranemeyer inclined his head to one side, regarding his counterpart with a look of contempt. “Shapiro is dead, Eric—took a header off the Key Bridge less than an hour ago. But he gave you up.”

  He went on without pausing, his voice level, remorseless. “As the poison works its way into your bloodstream, your muscles will weaken until you can’t even hold yourself upright in your chair. Within two hours, you’ll be dead.”

  Reaching into a pocket of his trench coat, Kranemeyer extracted a small, clear vial, placing it beside his tumbler of whisky. “The antidote. Once administered, you should make a full recovery within twenty-four hours. And it’s yours if you’ll give me the information I need. I want to know who you’ve been working with…who ordered the murder of David Lay. All of it.”

  Create a world of despair, then become the subject’s beacon of hope. It was Interrogation 101.

  “C’mon, Barney,” Haskel retorted, his voice trembling. “The DCIA makes a lot of enemies. We both know that.”

  “And I know that you’re involved.” A pause. “One other thing…if the antidote is going to be effective, I have to give it to you within the next forty-five minutes. Beyond that…”

  Silence.

  6:11 P.M. Pacific Time

  Tehachapi, California

  Two miles out. Thomas reached down into the messenger bag at his feet for probably the tenth time in the last fifteen minutes, checking for his Beretta. It was loaded, just as it had been when he’d last checked.

  The drive up from LAX had taken longer than normal, working their way around the police roadblocks set up in the wake of the previous night’s murders. Every last weapon in the trunk of their rental sedan was illegal in California, and they couldn’t afford being stopped.

  “What do you think?” he asked, breaking the silence for the first time in miles.

  The Texan never took his eyes off the road. “Of what?”

  Thomas digested the question for a long moment, choosing his words carefully. “Of Harry. Do you think he killed that boy?”

  “I don’t think at all,” came the stolid reply. “My orders were clear—bring him in. Nothing was said about being his judge.”

  “But don’t you—”

  “No,” Tex cut him off. “We secure him, we secure Carol. Kranemeyer will get everything else sorted.”

  Nothing is personal, Thomas thought, the unspoken subtext within the big man’s words.

  After all the years. It was surreal.

  The car crested the rise and they could see what remained of the perimeter fence below them in the pale beams of the sedan’s headlights.

  “Get ready.”

  Thomas nodded reluctantly, reaching into his bag to retrieve his pistol, the rasping sound of metal on metal as he pulled back the slide.

  “Ready.”

  Only the good die young. Perhaps that was true, Harry thought, running his hand over the boy’s bearded face, up to where the open eyes stared hauntingly up into the night sky. Impossible to say—he had seen it in the boy’s eyes in those final moments before he pulled the trigger. The wild look of someone whose mind had broken long before their body.

  His fingers reached up, gently closing the eyelids, a final service for the dead. Last rites.

  There was a small USB drive in his jeans, and Harry tucked it into his shirt pocket—perhaps it would reveal something. There was nothing else, no wallet, no identification. Just a nameless kid, dead and gone.

  Harry grasped the boy’s shoulder, wincing with the effort as he rolled him over onto his stomach, his cheek pressed against the cold black tarpaulin. “Ready?” he asked, looking up into the SEAL’s eyes.

  It was the last body, yet he could sense the reluctance in Han’s body language. Always the ones you couldn’t save.

  He heard the engine of an approaching car at that moment, his hand slipping underneath his jacket to close around the butt of the Colt.

  “Follow me.”

  The car’s lights were off by the time they approached it, a man emerging from the driver’s side door and another man already standing in front of the car.

  His gun was up, the Colt’s hammer back, a round in the chamber. An easy shot. Yet there was something familiar in the profile of the target, in his movements as he closed the car door.

  Something he had seen a hundred times before.

  “Tex!” he called out, recognizing the form of Thomas near the front of the car as the men turned toward him. A tired smile broke across his face. The cavalry had arrived.

  “Harry,” the Texan replied simply, extending his hand. The bonds forged in battle.

  Harry reached out to clasp it, drawing the big man into an embrace. “Glad you could make it to the dance, my friend,” he whispered, making a feeble attempt at humor. “I’m afraid we had to start without—”

  And there was a gun barrel pressed against his stomach, a Glock in the Texan’s hand.

  He recoiled, searching out his friend’s eyes, but there was nothing to be found there—just black, expressionless pools against the crushing darkness of the night. It was like looking into the face of a stranger.

  “I’m sorry, Harry,” the stranger’s lips moved, forming words without emotion. “I need you to cuff yourself.”

  9:15 P.M. Eastern Time

  Georgetown, Washington, D.C.

  Somewhere in the big house, a clock struck the quarter hour, its tones resounding through the silence.

  Kranemeyer took a sip of his whisky, watching as drool escaped from Haskel’s mouth, trailing down the side of his face.

  The FBI director was slumped to one side in his chair, slowly losing control over his body. It was a pathetic sight, but Kranemeyer could find in himself no pity. Only a growing sense of impatience.

  “Do you hear that, Eric? That’s your life…slowly ticking away. What little you have left. Who is running your op?”

  A desperate anger showed in Haskel’s face, struggling to speak, his lips forming an obscenity. “…yourself.”

  “Impossible, Eric. I lack the flexibility of a politician.” He drained the tumbler of whisky and set it back on the endtable. “Tick-tock.”

  The phone in his breast pocket buzzed and Kranemeyer glanced at it, the message plain on the screen. The package is secure.

  Simple words, belying tragedy. They had found Nichols. He didn’t realize till that moment how much he had hoped they would not.

  “Why…you doing this?” Haskel gasped. “What is it to you?”

  The anger boiled over. “You politicians don’t believe in loyalty to anything, do you?” Kranemeyer spat, rising from his chair. “Nothing higher than your own ambition?”

  He paused, tasting the bile on his tongue. “I have no faith. I believe in nothing save the men I lead into battle. Men who deserve better leaders. These days? They deserve a better country. And I would rather die than fail them.”

  A faint laugh escaped Haskel’s lips. “Men like…men like Hamid Zakiri?”

  Fury. He turned without warning, backhanding Haskel across the face with a gloved hand. The FBI director fell to the floor, his hands unable to support his weight, his cheek pressed against the Persian carpet.

  “Within twenty minutes, this whole room will stink of your own excrement, Eric,” Kranemeyer hissed, falling to one knee beside the body. “You’
ll lose all control of your bowels. And then the pain begins. Oh, yes…did I fail to mention the pain? You’ll want to scream, but you won’t be able to. You’ll want to tell me everything you know, but you won’t be able to do that either.”

  Haskel’s eyes went wide, struggling to focus—white with terror. “You’ll die in agony…and the autopsy will reveal a massive stroke. Our people are so very good at what they do. But you’ll know that all first-hand. Soon enough.”

  “No,” came the desperate whisper, the man’s fingers clawing at the carpet. “God, no.”

  “I don’t think God is listening to you, Eric. But I am…if you have anything worth hearing.”

  “The…computer.”

  6:21 P.M. Pacific Time

  Las Vegas, Nevada

  “Take this in.” The voice intruded upon his thoughts and Nasir looked up as Omar pressed eighty dollars into his palm. He looked up at the lights of the Arco gas station and nodded.

  As the day drew near, they were operating on cash only now. Untraceable.

  With a brief glance into the backseat at his brother, Nasir pushed open the door of the van, walking hurriedly across the crowded plaza to the convenience store.

  Alone. He was alone.

  His legs felt as if they were made of rubber, threatening to give way from under him as he pulled open the door, moving toward the attendant by the register.

  “Eighty on pump six,” he announced, shoving the wad of bills across the counter. He looked across at the dark-skinned attendant. Indian? Or Pakistani?

  He couldn’t tell, and the moments were ticking away. He licked his dry lips, unable to hide his nervousness. “Can I use your restroom?”

  The young man hesitated before shrugging. “It’s not supposed to be public, but you look like you’ve had a rough night already, man. Right back through there.”

  “Thanks.” His heart pounding, Nasir made his way back along the shelves until he reached the small room, digging the phone out of the pocket of his jeans and reassembling it. The number…what was it again? A wave of panic nearly washed over him, his fingers fumbling with the lock on the flimsy door. He couldn’t have forgotten…

  He leaned back against the sink trying to remember. There. He closed his eyes, the phone trembling as he pressed each button hesitantly.

  And then it was ringing. Once. Twice. “Ya Allah,” he breathed.

  Three rings. Just pick up.

  7:23 P.M. Mountain Time

  FBI Regional Field Office

  Denver, Colorado

  Meetings. It was what the Bureau did best, Marika thought.

  “This isn’t going to take long,” Greg Buhler announced from the head of the room. The S-A-C of FBI Denver, he couldn’t have been older than thirty-five. He smiled. “For the tech-obsessed among us, you’ll be reunited with your phones in under ten minutes. But we need to keep security on this one airtight. Understood?”

  There wasn’t much to understand—their phones were under lock and key in a cabinet outside the soundproofed conference room.

  “We’ve had several developments, most recently an hour ago—when we got a hit on the photo of Abu Kareem that we’ve been passing around. One of our field agents talked with the manager of a Mickey D’s in Grand Junction and he placed Kareem in his restaurant on the 19th. Remembered him because of his inquiry about a kosher meal. Now, this is dated, but we believe…”

  Locked away outside, Marika’s cellphone began to pulsate. One, twice, three times. A fourth “ring” and it went to voicemail.

  The gas station

  Las Vegas, Nevada

  No. Nasir listened numbly as the voicemail rolled, a woman’s voice announcing his own fate. The realization sank in. She wasn’t picking up.

  Despair closed over him like a wave, a drowning swimmer going under for the last time.

  Panic. How long had he been in the restroom? It couldn’t have been more than a couple minutes, but it seemed like an hour. Omar was going to be asking questions. Questions he couldn’t answer.

  He took the phone apart with sweat-slick fingers, cramming it back in his pocket as he tried to calm his heart rate.

  His feet carried him out of the convenience store and into the Vegas night. Omar was already back in the van, the hose replaced in its holder.

  “Where were you?” the negro asked, glancing at him as he climbed back up in the van.

  “Had to take a leak.” The words came out of Nasir’s mouth almost unbidden, leaving him trembling, afraid to even look at the black man’s face.

  But the answer seemed to be satisfactory—the next moment the van shifted into gear, rolling forward. Toward the end of his life…

  9:26 P.M. Eastern Time

  Georgetown, Washington, D.C.

  He knew what he was looking at. It was leverage…against the most powerful man in the world. The FBI director had been nothing if not cautious.

  Outside the study, sleet tapped against the window. The finger of an insistent Death.

  “Dear God, Eric,” Kranemeyer breathed, scrolling down the laptop’s screen as he waited for the files to copy onto a portable USB drive. “What have you done?”

  He had seen treachery in his day—thought he had gazed into its foulest depth when Zakiri betrayed his comrades. He hadn’t begun to suspect that it was only the beginning, that it could have reached this far.

  The President.

  “Why?” he asked himself, only realizing after the words were out of his mouth that he had spoken aloud.

  A moan seemed to come in response and Kranemeyer looked over to the chair where he had propped the weakened, dying director.

  “You…don’t understand,” Haskel gasped, struggling even to take a breath. “We were on the brink…of a new or-der in the Middle East. An end to all—of it. All the violence.”

  Even as he slumped there in the chair, Kranemeyer could see the light in his eyes. The excitement. The lust.

  “Peace in our lifetimes. A permanent end to…the energy crisis for America. It was going to be real—all we had to do was stand back.”

  “And watch people die.”

  Haskel coughed, spittle flecking his shirt. “Morality is a limiting thing.”

  There were no words. A loud beep alerted Kranemeyer that the file transfer had been completed, and he removed the thumb drive from the machine, closing the lid of the laptop with a gloved hand. He tucked it within the pocket of his overcoat, picking up both tumblers and the bottle of whisky.

  “I believe my work here is done,” he announced, glancing at the clock. Half-past nine.

  Fear showed suddenly in Haskel’s eyes, a panicked desperation. “The…antidote, Barney. I—gave you what you wanted. All of it. I did.”

  Kranemeyer paused, his hand on the door of the study. “Antidote, Eric? I’m afraid there is no antidote for that poison. Not yet, anyway, although I’m sure the boys in S&T are working on one.”

  Disbelief.

  “But—you promised. You said there was one. And…I gave you everything, I swear it.” He reached out in despair, suddenly overbalanced. The DCS watched in silence as Haskel toppled forward, landing on his side on the rug.

  His eyes stared wildly up, eyes wet with tears. Pleading for hope. For life.

  “I lied,” Kranemeyer replied, cold indifference in his voice. “Morality, Eric…is a limiting thing.”

  And he was gone.

  7:34 P.M. Mountain Time

  FBI Denver

  Denver, Colorado

  “Here you go.” Marika took her cell from the secretary, shaking her head.

  Meetings. It had been a waste of time, she thought, flipping open her phone to check for messages. The Bureau’s most recent intel was forty-eight hours cold. Anything but operational.

  There was a missed call, a strange number onscreen. She moved down the hallway toward the temporary office she had been assigned, pressing redial as she did so.

  Nothing. It didn’t even ring. Just a mechanical recording announcing
that voicemail was not available.

  It might have been a telemarketer. Might have been a wrong number. Marika swore under her breath, cursing Buhler and his meetings. It might have been her CI.

  She moved back into the rabbit warren of cubicles, rapping loudly on the partition separating her from the nearest Bureau tech. “I need everything you can get me on this number,” she ordered, shoving the phone toward him. “I need to know if it’s a cell. I need location history. Everything.”

  “How soon do you need it?” the young man asked, taking a glance at the screen of his own phone.

  “Yesterday,” came the acid reply.

  7:04 P.M. Pacific Time

  The oilfield

  Tehachapi, California

  A warm breeze drifting across the terrace. The shadow of a man falling across her table. A man old before his time, worn by the decades. Made old by sorrow.

  An awkward half-smile. “It’s been so many years.”

  Carol closed her eyes, remembering that first time—the first meal she had shared with her father after her arrival at Langley. Lunch there at the Ardeo in Cleveland Park.

  That smile.

  Alive. It was impossible, as impossible as his death had been a few short days earlier. She seemed to move as in a dream, afraid of waking. Afraid that, even yet, his tenuous hold on life might be broken.

  “I need to go to him,” she whispered, more to herself than anyone else in the room.

  Richards shook his head, glancing over at Thomas Parker. “I can’t do that. Sorry.”

  Thomas cleared his throat. “The director needs to remain in complete isolation until either his…injuries have healed to the point where we can move him without risk, or the threat against him has been eliminated.”

  “My orders,” Tex said, walking over to where Harry sat, “are to get you back to Camp Peary. No idea how to do that with the hornets’ nest you’ve stirred up. The roads to LAX are a nightmare.”

  Harry glanced down at his cuffed hands, the zip ties cutting into the flesh of his wrists.

  He had escaped from them before, it wasn’t hard. But this wasn’t something he could fight his way out of. Not without dropping the hammer on men that had followed him into hell.

  Prioritize. “That’s the least of your worries,” he announced, looking up into his friend’s eyes.