The Wild One

by Nick Petrie

  “Oh, já,” Holm said. “David Staple never went to trial, of course. Lawyers never go to jail. But I wanted to learn about his early career. Do you know who Staple worked with at the White House? Someone whose career turned out very differently?”

  Suddenly it fell into place.

  Peter thought about the boy, reciting pi to four thousand places. What other things did he carry in his head?

  On the steep and slippery slope, the wind rose cold from the north. The sleet turned into snow.

  42

  TWELVE MONTHS EARLIER

  Monday traffic is worse than usual. Erik gets Óskar to school on time but is stuck on the Beltway, still miles from his office outside of Rockville. When Sarah calls, it’s automatically sent to the car’s speakers.

  “My key card didn’t work,” she says. “Tom Wetzel was there but he wouldn’t let me in.”

  “Did he give you a reason?”

  “He said they’re releasing me from my contract. They found a new cyber provider. A better fit, he said.” Her voice is hollow over the sound system.

  “Did Jerry say anything yesterday?”

  “Yeah,” she says. “He thanked me for coming in on a Sunday.”

  The only thing that changed overnight was the fact that Sarah copied Brunelli’s secret hard drive to a server in Iceland. Erik understands immediately. Somehow, they learned what she’d done.

  Erik can’t get those videos out of his head.

  He is less than a mile from the Rockledge exit, where he can get off the Beltway and reverse course, but in this traffic, it might take him ten minutes to reach the ramp. Erik, ever the prudent driver, is stuck in the middle lane. He puts on his turn signal to get over, but the neighboring car won’t let him in.

  He says, “Where are you now?”

  “In the car. On my way home.”

  “I have an idea. Let’s go somewhere for a few days. Just drive south.”

  “You know, I had the same thought. I already picked up Óskar at school. I’m going to grab a few things from the house.”

  “Let me do that. You keep driving. I’ll meet you at that pancake house in Virginia Beach.”

  “I just pulled up. It’ll take five minutes.”

  “Please.” Erik is trying very hard to pretend not to be scared to death. “Let me. You keep going.” He can’t stop thinking about the man in the skull mask, pulling on his leather gloves.

  “Erik, I’ve got this.” He hears the slam of a car door, then another. “Óskar honey, we’re going on a little trip. Mommy’s going to pack a quick bag. Should we take your Lego guys?”

  Signal on, Erik looks over his shoulder again, but the guy in the next lane won’t let him in. Erik turns the wheel anyway. He hears a horn, but he doesn’t stop, just cuts through to the breakdown lane, where he accelerates toward the exit. “Sarah, don’t hang up. Keep me on the phone, okay?”

  She gives a short laugh, the one that tells Erik she’s nervous. “I love it when you’re a worrywart.”

  Erik hears her keys jangle as she unlocks the house. The slap of the storm door behind her. Their son quietly reciting his numbers.

  He makes it across the overpass and back to the Beltway, weaving through traffic like those aggressive drivers he has always hated. He’s almost to Connecticut Avenue when he hears Sarah’s footsteps going up the squeaky old stairs. She says, “Óskar, I need you to pay attention, okay? Put your Lego guys and your book in your backpack, please.”

  “Mama, can I bring Bear-Bear?”

  “Great idea, honey.” Óskar’s feet thump away. “Now, where did I put my swimsuit?”

  Erik doesn’t want to distract her, but there’s more than one reason he wanted to go to the house himself. “Sarah, you know my fire safe in the closet?”

  “Yes.” Her voice is muffled. She’s put the phone down. He hears the clatter of hangers.

  “I need you to get something out of it.”

  “I’ve already got the emergency cash and our passports from the drawer.” She’s annoyed. She thinks he’s mansplaining their escape.

  “Open the safe.” Erik tells her the combination. “Look under the insurance folder. There’s a gun.”

  “What?” Sarah doesn’t like guns.

  When Erik first moved to the district, one of his new coworkers told him how easy it was to buy a firearm in Delaware. He bought the revolver years ago, but somehow never found the right time to tell Sarah. His work group goes to the range at lunch, once a month. Erik’s become a pretty good shot.

  “I’ll explain later. Just take it.”

  “I am not comfortable—”

  Behind his eyes, Erik sees the man with the skull mask. “Take the damn gun, Sarah.”

  “Jesus Christ,” she mutters. “Okay. Fine. Is this thing loaded?”

  “Yes.” He knows he shouldn’t, but it makes him feel better anyway. He keeps the gun locked away, after all.

  “Erik.” She is pissed. “Is it safe?”

  “Yes. You have to cock the hammer before you can shoot. That’s really hard to do by accident.”

  “We are not finished with this topic.” She sighs. “Is there anything else you want me to pack?”

  “Just go.” He is trying not to shout.

  “Okay, okay.” She calls, “Óskar, come on. Time for our adventure.” Erik hears their feet hurry down the squeaky stairs. “I don’t want to stay in Virginia Beach, though. How about—”

  A loud triple rap interrupts her. A knock at the front door.

  Erik’s heart stops in his chest.

  She says, “Erik, is that you?” Her voice sounds like it’s right in his ear.

  “No, I’m still in Chevy Chase. Don’t go to the door. Go out the back. I’ll pick you up at the Philz on Adams Mill.”

  “Shit. There’s a man in the backyard. How the hell did he get in the backyard?” She’s breathing a little hard now, moving fast.

  The triple rap at the door again, louder.

  “Óskar, buddy, get behind the couch.” Her voice is low and steady. “Now. Like you’re hiding in your fort, okay? Good boy. Don’t say a word. You stay there and stay quiet until I tell you it’s okay. Here, take this. Daddy’s on the phone but you can’t talk to him.”

  “Mama?”

  Another triple rap, this time even harder.

  Sarah’s voice drops again. “This is stranger danger, honey.” Stranger danger is what Óskar’s school calls their active shooter drill. “You stay down and stay quiet. You are hiding from everyone, got it? Say, ‘Yes, ma’am,’ and then be very, very quiet.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Óskar’s voice is a whisper, but Erik can hear him clearly now because the phone is in Óskar’s hand.

  The front door slams open. Sarah gives an involuntary yip.

  Erik swerves into traffic at the Western Avenue traffic circle, cutting off a line of cars. Everybody honks and Erik jumps in his seat, realizing the sound will be heard from the phone in Óskar’s hand. He hits Mute on the dashboard and flies past Military Road toward Nebraska, where he runs a red light.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Sarah is armored in outrage. “Get out of my house, all of you.”

  “Oh, Sarah.” Jerry Brunelli’s smooth baritone. Unworried, unhurried. “Silly, stupid Sarah. You stuck your fingers into things that are not your business. And after all I’ve done for you, too.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Jerry. I’m glad you fired me, though. Because I don’t want to work for a piece of shit like you, anyway.”

  “Now, now, let’s not say things we might regret.” Erik can hear the smile in Brunelli’s velvet voice. The Prince of Darkness. “Fitz, take her bag.”

  “You can’t—” Erik hears a rustle, then a muffled slap. “Give me that back.”

  “The thing
is, Sarah, you’re not my only cybersecurity contractor. We have a keylogger on the system. We have a record of every keystroke. We know where you’ve been. What I don’t know is what you’ve done with my files.” A rustling sound as Brunelli fishes through her bag. “Laptop password, please.”

  “Go to hell.”

  “Fitz.”

  Another slap, this time a sharp crack. Erik thinks of the man in the skull mask, the precision of his blows, and knows why he seemed familiar. It’s Fitzsimmons, Brunelli’s silent bodyguard.

  Erik needs to go faster. He swerves into oncoming traffic and brushes against a pickup truck, clips off his side mirror. He squeezes the wheel too tightly. His hands are screaming.

  “There’s no coming back from this, Jerry. That’s assault.”

  “Oh, Sarah.” Brunelli chuckles, deep and rich, and lets it build into a laugh. Then his voice turns cold. “Where’s young Óskar?”

  “Don’t you touch him, you disgusting—”

  Another slap.

  “Maybe I’ll pick up Óskar from school, bring him home early. I know the headmaster. I’m on their board of directors. Can’t you see that I do what I want, Sarah? Exactly what I want. I always have, and I always will.”

  The rustle of clothing, a grunt, a squeak. Sarah fighting to get free. Erik stays in the oncoming lane, weaving through traffic, but he’s too slow. There are too many cars.

  “I know you made copies of my files. But I don’t know where they are. Tell me now and we’re done. You and your son walk away.” Brunelli’s voice hardens into a hammer. “Now, Sarah.”

  Erik can practically see her face. Flushed red, furious, her hair flying free. Dear God, he loves her, he will do anything for her and Óskar both, he will give anything. He swerves around a city bus, narrowly misses a beer truck, the squeal of his tires gone silent as his ears strain to hear everything coming through the speaker. Please, Óskar, don’t say anything. Don’t do anything. Just hide behind the couch and breathe. Keep breathing.

  “All right,” she says. “Let go of me. Let go, you prick. I made a copy in the cloud. I’ll show you.”

  Erik imagines Fitzsimmons releasing her. Sarah straightening her jacket, pushing her hair out of her face.

  More footsteps. “I better do it.” A third voice. Tom Wetzel, Brunelli’s deputy. “You never know what she might do with a few keystrokes on that laptop. What’s your password, Sarah?”

  “Give me my bag,” she says. “There’s a flash drive in the bottom. You need that software to navigate to the server.”

  “No,” Erik says, loud inside his car. “No, Sarah, no.” He rides the horn and runs the light at Tilden.

  Her bag is always a mess. Nobody can find anything in there, nobody but Sarah. And Erik knows there is no flash drive. Sarah didn’t trust them. They’re not secure.

  “Give her the bag,” Brunelli says.

  Erik can see her taking the strap and reaching inside. He won’t get there in time. He hears a familiar snick as she pulls the hammer back. Sarah always did have strong hands.

  Everyone talks at once.

  “Gun.” Fitzsimmons.

  “Don’t—shit—” Wetzel.

  “Stop.” Brunelli.

  BANG.

  For a moment, silence.

  Then Brunelli’s voice, cold as ice. “Goddamn it, what a mess. You idiots. Tom, how hard can it be to take a gun away from a girl?”

  Wetzel’s baritone is quiet. “She was stronger than she looked.”

  “Maybe you’re just a pussy,” Brunelli says. “Now we’ll never find our files.” He exhales loudly, recalculating. “Okay. Tom, finish it. Make it look good. Fitz, you call our friend with Metro, let him know what’s coming. Maybe he can be in the neighborhood.”

  Softly over the speaker, Erik hears a faint keening sound.

  Óskar, still hiding with the phone behind the couch. Trying not to cry.

  Erik careens forward, desperate, out of his mind, too fast, too far away.

  “Two more in the face,” Fitzsimmons says. “Makes it personal.”

  Wetzel clears his throat. “In the face?”

  “Do it or I’ll do you.” Fitzsimmons’s voice is hard.

  BANG. BANG.

  The padded thump of the gun hitting the carpet.

  Brunelli sighs. “You really fucked this up, Tom. Better get started on fixing it.”

  “What about the gun?”

  “You’re wearing gloves, Tom. Leave it. But take the laptop.”

  Fitzsimmons says, “Hello, Phil? There’s been an incident. Time to earn your retirement supplement. No, no siren. You were driving by and heard shots. The front door was standing open. You think the husband did it. Here’s the address.”

  The voices fade.

  Oh, Sarah.

  Erik passes the National Zoo. He is eight blocks away, now seven, now six.

  Óskar’s keening gets louder and louder, until it blocks out every other sound.

  * * *

  —

  At the curb, Erik abandons the car and sprints up the front steps.

  “Óskar?” He runs through the front door, his voice rising. “I’m here, Óskar, I’m here.”

  He stops short in the living room. Sarah lies across the couch. Her face is gone. Blood everywhere. His head spins.

  He clutches his skull with both hands as if he could crush it. He wants to go to her. He wants to kiss her, but there is nothing left to kiss. He wants to fall to his knees. He wants to die himself, but he can’t. For the boy’s sake, he must live.

  “Óskar? Óskar, where are you?” The boy has gone silent. Erik bends at the side table and sees his son’s small huddled form behind the couch. “Come out, Ós. I’ve got you. Come out.”

  The boy crawls toward him. His face is pale and still. There are no tears, not yet.

  “Don’t look, Ós. Close your eyes.” He lifts Óskar into his arms, presses the boy’s face into his shoulder. “Keep them closed. I’ve got you. Hold me tight.”

  Óskar clings with arms and legs. Erik scoops up Sarah’s two bags and Óskar’s backpack and hauls them out the door. Carrying everything. Even when he throws the bags in the car, he knows he will carry it all until the end of his days.

  “Okay, buddy. Into your booster seat.” But Óskar won’t let go. Erik has no time, he has to get out of there before Brunelli’s policeman comes. He climbs into the driver’s seat with Óskar’s arms still locked around his neck. He puts the car in gear. “Time to go on an adventure. Time to be real Vikings. Ready?”

  Óskar keens softly. Erik holds him tight. Everything he loves is broken beyond repair.

  He can only think of Iceland, the last place he has left. It might still be a home for Óskar.

  In Iceland, he will know what to do.

  43

  PRESENT DAY

  Lying hidden on the cold, snowy hillside above the hotel, watching Ohio State and Spatula Woman through the binoculars, Peter asked the Norwegian, “How did you dig up info on Brunelli? I thought he kept a low profile.”

  “His online presence is minimal now, but the deep web has many hidden artifacts, if you know how to look. I found the ghost site for his first company. The biographical information there was enough to get me started.”

  “And?”

  “Do you know the Defense Intelligence Agency?”

  “Yes.” The DIA was the Defense Department’s intelligence arm.

  “Brunelli was a civilian employee there, one of Donald Rumsfeld’s deputies in charge of planning and analysis. He was on a White House task force after 9/11. I found David Staple on that same task force.”

  “I’m curious, what was the focus of Brunelli and Staple’s working group?”

  “The search for Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction.”

  WMDs w
ere the main justification for the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The invasion that took funding and troops away from Afghanistan. The invasion that destabilized Iraq and led to its civil war and the violent end to countless lives, some of whom were Peter’s friends.

  Not to mention the wreckage of a blue Toyota with broken brakes on a dusty street in Baghdad. The death of a family of four. For no reason at all.

  Weapons of mass destruction that were never, in fact, found.

  “So Brunelli’s a real fucking prince,” Peter said. “But he’s Catherine’s husband. Why would he want to keep me from looking for Erik and Óskar?”

  “You will have to ask him,” said Holm.

  “Oh, I fucking will,” Peter said. “When did Brunelli leave the DIA?”

  “In 2005, he started a lobbying operation with Catherine Price’s husband Ken, who was at the CIA at the time.”

  “Cashing in their chips while we were still winning the war,” Peter said. “But that’s not what he’s doing now, right?”

  “It’s difficult to know what he’s doing now, exactly,” Holm said. “In the past, he was registered both as an agent of foreign governments and as a lobbyist, as your law requires. His clients included African dictators who later received an American arms package, and corporations hoping to evade prosecution for bad behavior. He even represented Sinn Féin, the political arm of the IRA. Today, however, his name is no longer listed on those registries. He appears to act purely as a consultant.”

  “Why would he do that?”

  “All his work is now secret. He can do anything he wishes without government oversight.”

  * * *

  —

  After Peter got off the phone, he climbed the hill to the church parking lot, then retraced his steps along the winding upper streets and down the steep pedestrian path to the main shopping street, where he walked toward the Kea Hotel. As he passed Ohio State and Spatula Woman, they detached from their stations to drift along in his wake. They definitely weren’t grad students. If he wasn’t actively looking for them, he’d never have known they were on his trail.

  Whatever they were, they gave Peter plenty of room, enough for the lurker in the watch cap and gray utility jacket to slip into the gap. Peter figured him for the primary assaulter. As he walked into the hotel, the static crackled like a power surge.