The Protectors

by Dowell, Trey

  “Fine. We’ll meet,” I said. An exhale of disgust emanated from the seat next to me. I paused, considering. “But we do it my way. Give me your direct cell number.” He did, and I dialed it into the burner phone. “I’ll call you back in a minute.” I heard the beginning of “Wait!” before I punched END. I admit it was pretty satisfying hanging up on him.

  One look at Lyla brought an end to my short-lived satisfaction. With arms now tightly folded across her chest, her pout qualified as DEFCON-1. “Really?” was all she said.

  “Trust me. The only way I’ll know for sure what their plans are is to be face-to-face. It’ll be okay, I’ll do it alone . . . no way am I putting you anywhere near Tucker.”

  “That does not make me feel any better.”

  “Don’t worry, tactical thinking is one of my strengths.” This resulted in another exhale steeped in disgust. “Hey, I’m not bragging. I’ve read my own file,” I protested, then turned again to the blurred scenery flashing by. Within five minutes, I knew exactly what we were going to do. Took another ten before the train approached the first stop outside Edinburgh, still a good three and a half hours from London. As we slowed, I punched in Tucker’s number and kept him on the line barely ten seconds.

  “Can you get access to a military helicopter? A Seahawk or something equivalent.”

  “Yes.”

  “Be ready tomorrow morning at nine a.m. And make sure the thing’s gassed up.”

  I hung up and transferred his cell number to one of the other burner phones and tucked the original in the seat pocket in front of me, making sure it was still powered on. A disgruntled Lyla and I got off at the stop, went across the tracks, and reboarded a northbound train. If any agency, CIA or MI5 alike, was in the process of tracking my phone, they were more than welcome to pick it up when it arrived at King’s Cross station in London.

  Me and Lyla? We were headed back to Edinburgh.

  CHAPTER 19

  Important lesson all men learn at one point in their lives: buying an expensive meal at a trendy restaurant carries absolutely zero guarantee of improving an angry woman’s mood. The beneficial corollary to the rule, however, is that such a meal rarely runs the risk of making things worse. That said, Lyla and I went to the trendiest, most expensive place I could find on short notice.

  The Ocean Mist—a hundred-foot, glossy white converted warship permanently docked as a floating restaurant along the waterfront in Leith—was the perfect selection. From the outside, she reminded me of a current-day Raquel Welch: older, yet still magnificent. She was built in World War I, a minesweeper whose hunting days ended almost ninety years ago. Not exactly the obvious choice for an elegant dining experience, but if I’ve learned anything from telepathy, outside appearances can be deceiving.

  Once below deck we were surrounded by opulence; booths covered in cream and brown leather, a floor of flawless polished wood, and cool blue lighting tracked all along the periphery of the room at the ceiling. The portholes were the only things reminding us we were actually on a boat. The Ocean Mist was obviously big on the tourism circuit: I heard four different languages spoken by diners as the maître d’ led us to a table, which suited my secondary mission objectives, too.

  As far as soothing a woman’s mood—and another corollary to my original rule—a really nice bottle of wine can’t hurt. After a glass of something French, pricey, and impossible for me to pronounce, Lyla unwound enough to have a normal conversation.

  “I assume you have a plan to avoid being assassinated by the CIA?”

  Okay, so maybe not exactly normal. A surge of panic hit as I judged the distance between us and the surrounding tables.

  “Let’s keep it down,” I said, lowering my voice to a whisper. “No, I don’t believe Tucker’s trying to draw me into a killing field. If I did, you really think I’d sit you on the sidelines? I’d want you there to watch my back.”

  “Why not let me come, then, if you’re not worried about being terminated.”

  “Oh, I’m worried—just not about me. I’ve been a loyal soldier in my cozy retirement cell for most of the last decade. I think Tucker still sees me as an asset. You, on the other hand . . .”

  “A rogue element and a liability,” Lyla announced. She wore the phrase like a badge of honor.

  “Yep. I know you’re fine now”—I swallowed back the vomit-surge of doubt—“but my guess is Tucker won’t take my word for it. Until the CIA knows for sure, best not to provide any trigger-pulling temptation.”

  “Agreed, says the woman in danger of being shot.” She poured her second glass of wine with a grin.

  “And remember, Tucker’s got an assignment in mind. Something to give us the opportunity to prove you’re not an unstable risk. Not that you’ll care, but he said you’d like it.”

  “Consider the source. I am not hopeful.” She swirled her wine under the lights, staring into the murky red.

  “Doesn’t matter. If we prove you’re not a liability, plus do the government a favor, we get to walk away. Hell, even if we pass on the job, he promised no pursuit.”

  She squinted in the low light. “Do you really believe that?”

  “Why wouldn’t I? That’s exactly what happened five years ago. They left me alone after I . . .” My voice lost momentum.

  She leaned back. Carsten’s shadow hung over the table for a solid ten-count. Lyla broke the silence with “Fair enough. What is your plan?”

  I perked up and leaned forward—couldn’t sit still if I tried when it comes to planning. I do love the tactical stuff.

  “Well, first of all, sit back and enjoy your dinner. Thanks to the Livingston Carmel, we can even splurge for dessert. Afterward, we’re going to work the tourists over there,” and I motioned to the crowd of terminally trying-too-hard European hipsters congregated around the black marble bar. “Mingle and find someone traveling tomorrow . . . make sure they have a cell phone.”

  “And?”

  “Aphrodite is going to give them an easy mission. Tell whomever you choose to stand by tomorrow morning and wait for our call. Give them Tucker’s number. When we call, they need to relay a text message to Tucker’s phone. That’s all. Then we rent a car and drive north to Inverness tonight.”

  Lyla crossed her arms and looked at me, one eyebrow lower than the other.

  “You’re not going to tell me the whole plan, are you?”

  I picked up the wine bottle and poured my own damn glass.

  “Where’s the fun in that?”

  —

  “You want me to do what?”

  Tucker’s voice had a beautiful combination of disbelief and frustration; he sounded like a teenager whose father tells him to mow the yard on a Friday night. Made my morning.

  “I want you to fly to the Inverness Golf Club in northern Scotland. Shouldn’t take you more than three hours by chopper. Less if you’ve got a fast one.”

  “I just got done flying two hours to Belfast in Northern Ireland because of the text message you sent me at nine o’clock! You’re not here?”

  “No, silly man. Tell your sniper teams and tactical guys to pack up their gear. Oh, and while you’re at it, call off whatever dogs you have tracking the phone of the sender. It was a nice woman from Belfast whom Lyla met last night at dinner.”

  I heard Tucker grumble “Inverness” to someone nearby, presumably his pilot. Voices were muffled, like Tucker put his hand over the phone, but I could still make out the response.

  It’s a hike, but we’ve got enough fuel.

  He uncovered the mouthpiece. “You understand I have a mission for you, correct? That we’re not interested in shooting anyone?”

  “Yeah, well, Lyla wasn’t a big believer in governmental goodwill before MI5 ambushed her. Do yourself a favor and roll with the punches. I’ll come out when I see you get off the helicopter.”

  “Why a gol
f course, of all places?” It was more whine than question.

  “Because it’s wide open, public, and of course my father’s favorite reason.”

  “Which is?”

  “Because I said so.”

  I punched END and gave my best smug expression to Lyla. She was pacing the boat dock next to me, jet-black hair swept up in a ponytail. It bounced against her white sweater with each step.

  “Happy with yourself ?” she asked, but the smile betrayed her. She wasn’t angry anymore—hell, she loved making the CIA jump through hoops even more than I did.

  “Like you need to ask. You hungry? Might as well get some lunch while we wait for him to get to Inverness.”

  “And I get to hear the rest of the plan?”

  “Maybe.”

  Her eyes flashed golden spirals for an instant. “Do you wish to introduce yourself as ‘I’m a pretty, pretty girl’ to every person you meet for the next year?”

  “You really don’t fight fair.” I turned and tromped down the wooden planks toward the parking lot. We crunched across fresh gravel to the rental car and I looked at her over the roof as we opened our doors. “You better be nice, or I won’t put you to sleep tonight,” I said.

  Lyla lost some of her enthusiasm for banter. “Scott, I hope we are still breathing by tonight. Sleep is the least of my concerns.”

  I looked at my watch. In less than two hours, I’d be face-to-face with a man who had no love for either of us, almost unlimited technological resources, and the financial backing of the most powerful government on earth. When he touched down, life was gonna get hectic in a hurry.

  Crazy thing was, I couldn’t wait. Yeah, my heart was pounding, my breathing was shallow, and I had a creepy dark tickle along my spine. But each breath invigorated rather than drained. The adrenaline buzz making my fingers shake wasn’t born only from fear—there was excitement, too. Movement, planning, action . . . being in the world instead of hiding from it.

  Retirement, isolation, boredom? Over.

  I was alive again.

  CHAPTER 20

  Lyla got the call when we’d returned to the boat dock after lunch. I was behind the car with the trunk open, making a hasty change into my Kevlar and duster combo without anyone seeing from the road.

  “Calvin?” I asked her.

  “Yes. He says the helicopter just landed. A man in a naval uniform is waiting near the eighteenth green.”

  “Nicely done, Calvin. See? Didn’t need your fancy mind control for that one. Slipping twenty bucks to a golf course employee works just as well. Time to go.”

  We walked the long dock that extended out over the dark waters of the lake. When I reached the speedboat and bent down to untie the bowline I noticed she wasn’t with me anymore. I turned back to find her a few paces behind, hands thrust into her jeans pockets, wearing a look of genuine concern.

  “Be careful, Scott. I know you think you’re clever, but this . . . all this,” and she motioned to the lake and beyond, “you think of it as a game. They do not.”

  I tossed the bowline up onto the boat and tried to remember how a confident expression should look. “Have a little faith, will ya? What could possibly go wrong?”

  She hugged herself and shivered. The breeze off the lake might have been bracing, but it wasn’t that cold. Joking her fears away was no longer an option. I split the distance between us, but couldn’t bring myself to go all the way in. Our friendship, relationship, battleship . . . whatever kind of “ship” label you wanted to apply . . . wasn’t there yet. Doubt and time have mass and they pile on like lead weights. Makes it tough to move even when you want to.

  “Don’t worry,” was all the reassurance I could come up with. “I’ll be back soon. Just be ready to drive like Danica Patrick if you see me coming back balls-to-the-wall.”

  I boarded the boat and punched the starter. While the motor gurgled to life I made the call. Tucker picked up on the first ring and he wasn’t happy.

  “Where are you?”

  “Just listen. No more games. I’m ten miles southwest of your position, waiting at Castle Urquhart. You have six minutes to get here. Any longer and I’m gone.”

  With no time to be angry, his voice settled for panicked. “Wait! I don’t know where that is . . . how will we . . .”

  “Fly southwest. It’ll be hard to miss the long narrow body of water . . . castle’s on the northern shore, halfway down the length of Loch Ness.” I checked my watch. “Five minutes, fifty seconds.” I ended the call and tossed the phone in the loch. If Tucker and I were going to talk again, it’d be face-to-face.

  I babied the motor and pulled away from the dock, looking across the mile of water separating me from the castle. I’d beat him there by at least three minutes. Once clear of the dock buoy, I opened the throttle and the engine roared. As I left the relative safety of the southern shore, I resisted the urge to look back at Lyla. Wouldn’t have done either of us any good.

  —

  Loch Ness is twenty-three miles long, but less than two miles wide—a deep sliver of a lake filled with peat-clouded water that looked black in the flat light of an overcast sky. Miles of forbidding, ancient trees rose up along its banks and only seemed to grow as I skimmed across the loch. Regardless of whether a prehistoric monster lurked in the deep beneath the boat, one thing was certain: Loch Ness was creepy as hell.

  Castle Urquhart only added to the impression. The people who built it couldn’t have picked a more central location to survey the loch if they’d had satellite imaging back in the 1200s. The castle’s rocky point jutted a hundred yards into the loch at almost its exact middle. Only one tower remained, and it looked like it had been on the receiving end of artillery fire—Urquhart was more ruin than castle at this point. The rest of the site was low rock walls laid out in a figure-eight formation, surrounded by lush green grass.

  I tied the boat off at the small dock adjoining the ruins and made my way up the stairs to the largest open area within the outer keep walls. The walls themselves were no more than crumbling collections of rocks with irregular openings spaced along the perimeter. Visitors and tourists milled about the different sections, taking in the panoramic views the castle offered of the loch.

  Urquhart was the perfect place to counter an ambush because of one excellent reason: Loch Ness’s unusual shape made it impossible to cover our position quickly. There was only one road bordering the loch on the northern side and it wasn’t exactly a superhighway. Even if Tucker got on the horn seconds after I hung up on him, no convoy or assault team would be able to make it from Inverness to the castle by land in less than a half hour, let alone the six minutes I’d granted. If they flew in an armed team on another helo, they’d be easy to spot—nowhere to hide in the wide-open valley—and I’d drop the pilot and send the whole chopper into the loch if it came down to that. Finally, once the meeting was over and I retreated across the narrow channel back to Lyla, any pursuer without a boat (and a waiting car on the other side) would have to drive all the way down around the loch’s southern edge. Good luck catching Lyla and me when we’ve got a twenty-five-mile head start.

  I checked my watch: two minutes to deadline. Within moments, I’d be able to hear the rotors and it would be game on. Unfortunately, two minutes is more than enough time for shit to go sideways.

  “Is that Knockout?”

  A tourist—an American, judging from his bright yellow shirt, New York Yankees cap, and bulging gut—pointed at me from an opening in the wall. Two women with him stared along the direction of his raised arm, and within moments three more groups from different areas of the ruins joined them.

  “Dammit,” I grumbled below my breath. It was my own fault for wearing the duster and not bothering to use a hat or sunglasses. I wanted my gear for the protection it provided, but now I realized it was a huge liability. Curious fans made it impossible to focus on my surro
undings, let alone have a discussion with a guy who probably wouldn’t mind firing a tranquilizer dart or 5.56 mm bullet in my neck given the opportunity. Obviously I’d given too much thought to the setup, and not enough to Murphy’s Law.

  I heard the rotors and twisted north to see Tucker coming in heavy. With less than sixty seconds to go, the big U.S. Navy chopper was plowing down the length of the loch, nose dipping within twenty feet of the black water. The wash from the rotor blades blew concentric circles into a large wake trailing behind the fast-moving helo. As if on cue, twenty tourists began the tentative movement that would eventually end with me being completely encircled. When the chopper reached the castle’s grounds and pulled up hard to set down for landing, I had few options left.

  No choice but to drop every tourist on the knoll.

  From the air, my section of Castle Urquhart must have looked like the Jonestown cult on first flyby. People of all shapes, sizes, and garish tourist outfits lay in heaps all around the knoll. Probably minimal injuries, although I couldn’t be certain; I hated taking the risk, but didn’t have time to dwell on it. I could already feel Tucker preparing a Kool-Aid joke at my expense.

  The helicopter set down just outside the keep wall but on slightly higher ground, so I could see the entire chopper above the makeshift rock barrier. The pilot killed the engine, which was a good sign; if Tucker was planning on things getting nasty, he’d want the helo spooled up on low power ready to lift off at a moment’s notice. The side door slid open and a familiar duo jumped out and walked down through a gap in the wall. Despite the high pressure and stakes, seeing Reyes in a gas mask was still enough to make me laugh out loud. Tucker wasn’t burdened by any anti-Knockout gear, but he was wearing his aviator glasses and a full dress-black navy uniform. The name on his chest tag read FORD. Ford/Tucker walked up the knoll to me while Reyes kept his distance.