by David Perry
Broadhurst slumped in his wheelchair. Giles Doyle noticed this. “Thank you, Agent Broadhurst. You have worked tirelessly for two years. Your work here is essential to the current operation. Everyone can read the report. If there are questions, I will answer them later.” Doyle addressed his colleagues sitting around the conference room: “Clay is still recovering. He needs a break. We will adjourn for thirty minutes. When we return, he will explain that Hussein is most likely going to attempt another strike on the United States and why this is so.”
The password, Vngnce, a Twitterized version of Vengeance, unlocked the message on the cell phone Hutton had given to Jason. The message, short and to the point, sent a torrent of fear and panic through him.
I have Michael and Christine … Unless you do exactly as instructed they will die … First, find a second cell phone at these coordinates and follow the instructions … Do not go to the authorities.
Jason rubbed his forehead. His hand shook as it stroked the skin.
“Are you shitting me?” he whispered. “Hutton was right! They’re back!”
“We don’t know that, Jason. This could be from anyone.”
“In short,” Broadhurst explained to the reassembled group in the SIOC conference room, “Delilah Hussein has all the classic symptoms of a megalomaniac with a streak of narcissism. This diagnosis was determined using the limited information gathered from sources in Iraq during Saddam Hussein’s rule and witnesses to his affair with Delilah Hussein.
“The FBI and CIA profilers have concluded that the megalomaniacal and narcissistic tendencies are derived from a traumatic event that took place in Delilah’s childhood.”
“How did you come by this information about her childhood,” asked the director of Homeland Security.
The CIA man Beck fielded the question. “We had operatives in place in Iraq who were able to piece together some data from eyewitnesses, bodyguards, and servants who had witnessed Delilah spending time with Saddam over the years. They overheard her telling the dictator her woeful story. Sorry, Clay, please continue.”
“Thank you, sir. When Delilah Hussein was ten years old, she lived with her parents, Henri and Imane, near Babil. They were murdered. Delilah found them upon her return from school. Evidently, she fled the house, thinking she would be next.
“She ended up as a servant and concubine for another family. The parents treated her cruelly. The husband beat and raped her sometimes for hours on end. This treatment lasted for at least a year. She managed to escape by killing the mother and father.
“Delilah wandered the desert for hours and was found by a cleric, a man named Ahmed, who took her in, clothed her, and treated her kindly. Ahmed was a confidant of Saddam Hussein. Eventually, Delilah was introduced to Saddam. And he took her as a concubine, siring two children through her. Sharif al-Faisal, aka Sam Fairing, and Jazan Hussein, aka Jasmine Kader.
“The kindness of the cleric apparently did not rub off on Delilah Hussein. Instead, her megalomania and narcissism had inculcated her as a result of the rapes and beatings, along with witnessing the excesses and brutality of Saddam. She freed herself from the brutal conditions, but they had instilled in her a sense of omnipotence, fearlessness, and grandiosity. Seeing Saddam’s grip on his nation and the riches he’d acquired imprinted the narcissistic tendencies on her psyche. She developed a sense of invincibility. The narcissism drives her need for revenge. When Saddam was toppled and executed, Delilah used her influence and resources to form a secret group called The Simoon.
“Evidently, she has had an ultra-secret plan to take down America since Saddam was toppled and has been plotting to attack America with the same intensity and vengeance seen with bin Laden.
“There has been chatter in electronic transmissions from our sources in the Middle East hinting at another attack, Syria to be exact. But we have not been able to pin down the target of the attack or her location since finding out she is still alive.”
“And you think she will not stop until she gets her revenge?” the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency asked.
“That’s correct, sir. In fact, we are now watching the pharmacist, as we feel that her need to avenge herself and her family for the pharmacist’s heroic actions will also be a key to this operation.”
“Do you recognize it?” Peter inquired.
“Absolutely. This is where it all started for me almost three years ago. Come on.”
The afternoon sun had dipped behind a large bank of dark clouds, dropping the temperature. The wind kicked up and buffeted the Hummer. They exited the vehicle and both men walked up the slope toward the gravesite. Jason knew exactly where he was going, leading the way to a terraced garden of grave sites at Peninsula Memorial Park
When Jason stopped short, Peter glanced down at the marker. “Is this her father?”
Jason nodded, silently reading the inscription on the ornate headstone:
Thomas Pettigrew
Loving Father and Husband
The date of death read September 14, almost three years ago.
Jason found himself being pulled into the past, recalling the large contingent of graveside mourners on the Tuesday following Pettigrew’s death, and laying eyes on Chrissie for the first time in more than a decade. His heart had raced in his chest then and was doing so now … but for very different reasons.
Peter broke through Jason’s trance. “If this is her doing, that bitch has a flair for the dramatic.”
“I don’t see any cell phone anywhere. Check the flowers, will you?”
Peter knelt by the headstone and pawed around the pot of fresh flowers. Jason couldn’t shake the feeling that he was being watched. He glanced around the grounds. To the north, situated among a copse of trees, was a fifteen foot white marble statue of Jesus kneeling and praying with arms raised and outstretched. The quiet scene and the sunlight-and-shadow dappled sculpture felt too calm, too serene. To his right lay rolling acres of cemetery dotted with granite and marble memorials. Despite the placid surroundings, Jason could feel a torrent of evil simmering like the calm before a storm. A green canopy had been erected over an open grave 150 yards to the south, surrounded by mourners seated and standing. A preacher, Bible splayed and dripping over his hands, read passages.
Jason studied the scene and shuddered. Being here once again sent tremors of malevolent sensations through him.
Chapter 23
“I’ve found something,” Jason declared. He dropped to his knees and probed with his fingers.
The brothers had circled Thomas Pettigrew’s grave and headstone for several minutes, scanning the ground. Jason had noticed a disturbed, rectangular patch of green grass adjacent to the headstone.
He lifted the perfectly cut rectangle of grass, reaching into the six-inch-deep hole, he removed an odd-shaped box.
“What the hell?” Peter declared.
Jason’s stomach flipped. He cradled it in both hands, as if it might explode. The pain in his bandaged arm flared. A strong, steady pulse erupted in the wounds on his arm and scalp.
The box, constructed of fresh-cut pine, was about the size and weight of two novels stacked together. A menthol pinewood scent penetrated Jason’s nostrils. Moreover, the shape caught the brother’s attention instantly. Jason shuddered.
Shaped like a miniature toe-pincher coffin—like those seen in old Westerns—wide at the torso and narrowing as it tapered toward the feet. Two words, two names, had been burned into the lid. A first name and a surname: Christine Pettigrew
“Jesus H. Christ,” Peter whispered.
Placing it on the soft, grass, Jason pried open the lid with a fingernail and peered into the morbid container. Something had been wrapped in thick, sealed plastic. Praying it was not a body part, he peeled away the waterproof tape and pulled apart the packaging.
Relieved, he let out a sigh, removed another sleek, black smartphone, and held it up. The numeral two was scribbled in white paint on its back
“Another message?�
� Peter asked.
“Let’s find out.”
The Watcher blended into the small crowd to the northeast of Thomas Pettigrew’s grave. The dearly departed’s graveside service provided a view of the Rodgers brothers scouring the earth around Thomas Pettigrew’s plot.
His black Cadillac’s dark paint job blended into the line of cars parked along the curving roadways meandering through the vast cemetery. As the preacher droned on, The Watcher paid little attention to the ceremonial words. He’d had an unobstructed view of Peter Rodgers’s Hummer as it pulled to a stop three hundred yards away. The timing and placement of the graveside service had been fortuitous.
The Watcher had returned from Williamsburg and driven straight to the cemetery. Two hours earlier, he had completed his search of Clyde Hutton’s mobile home, looking for anything tying him, Hussein, or The Simoon to the deceased man.
While there, he’d kept one eye on his phone, monitoring Jason Rodgers’s whereabouts. Using the classified tracking software installed on his phone and accurate to within three feet anywhere on the planet, the program allowed him to monitor a subject’s whereabouts using only a cell phone number.
The brothers spent several hours at the ex-marine’s house, then returned to Newport News as The Watcher drove south from Williamsburg. They returned to Christine Pettigrew’s home as The Watcher reached Newport News. From a hundred yards away, he’d observed the brothers driving through the arched wrought iron of the memorial park. He had taken an alternate route through the burial acreage, arriving graveside two minutes before the Hummer pulled up. The Watcher knew they had found and deciphered the microprinting on the business card and would go to the cemetery.
Things were ramping up!
He had placed two items. The first had been deposited twelve hours ago. Rodgers was digging it up now. The second item was waiting for them in York County. The Watcher had no idea why Hussein needed or wanted to manipulate Jason Rodgers’s movements. Despite being in the dark about her motives, or because of that fact, the hairs on the back of The Watcher’s neck stood erect.
Symbolism! Delilah Hussein loved it!
The Watcher smirked. He knew the pharmacist’s history … and some of his future. As it had two years earlier, Jason Rodgers’s current journey would alter his life forever.
One hundred and twenty miles west in southwestern Virginia, an off-duty corrections officer named Dalton Griffin dressed in pressed navy jeans, brown leather work boots, and a checkered flannel shirt followed the short woman in a black corrections uniform down the ascetic hallway. In his right hand, the man carried a thin manila folder, and in the left a leather carry-on bag.
“You Baker’s replacement?” the woman asked.
A step behind her, the man studied her. Nice ass, he thought, smiling.
Her hair, pulled back into a tight ponytail, stretched the skin of her face, which was covered with only a hint of foundation. Not bad! The athletic mien and well-proportioned figure could not be hidden by the arsenal of gear strapped to her body. The derrière was the tell. Off duty, this CO was a one hundred percent, estrogen-filled, high-heeled clacking woman.
The shirt of her uniform covered a flak jacket, suppressing a pair of ample breasts. Pinned to her shoulder, near the collar, a radio microphone rested above a name badge that he had yet to read. A large utility belt dripped with the necessities of the job: a holstered pistol, ammunition, pepper spray, handcuffs, and a baton, and wrapped a slim, toned waist. As she strode with the confidence of a prize fighter, the gear clicked, rattled, and rubbed, echoing off the painted concrete walls.
Having a corrections officer would be a first. He’d banged women from all walks of life. Flight attendants, nurses, grocery clerks, and loan officers.
“That would be me.” Griffin replied. “Drove down as soon as I got the word.”
“Where was your last tour?”
“Wallens Ridge. Four rookies just took the oath and came on board. So that freed me up to come here.”
“I’m taking you to the deputy warden’s office.”
“What’s your name?” he asked.
The woman shot him a look over her shoulder.
“My name is Don’t Get Any Ideas. So you can take your eyes off my backside.”
“I wasn’t …”
“Bullshit. Besides it’s not my best feature. And I’m too much woman for you to handle, Mac!”
The new CO smiled. “I don’t think so!”
They walked in silence along the gray metal and concrete corridors. In the distance, the metallic boom of a door closing reverberated throughout the prison.
“Why am I here?” he asked, deflecting the sexual tension.
“They didn’t tell you?”
“Nope,” he lied. “Just following orders.”
“Josh was a great guy, family man, and one hell of a CO. I still can’t believe he’s gone.”
“What happened?”
“Apparently, he killed his wife and two small children with bullets to the head. Then he ate the barrel and splattered his brains all over the wall.”
The woman pointed to the office door. “This is it here.” The stenciled letters on the glass of the door read: Deputy Warden Jeremiah Travis
She knocked twice, opened the door, and stuck her head in. “Josh’s replacement is here, sir.”
A gruff, mumbled response rumbled from within. She held the door open for him. The woman whispered something as he edged past:
“You have some big shoes to fill.”
The door snapped shut. Griffin looked down on a burly, barrel-chested man in a uniform identical to the woman’s. This one, however, was decorated with a higher rank.
A pair of dainty Ben Franklin spectacles rested on a red, bulbous nose as the man read from a report. Griffin stood awkwardly for ten seconds before the deputy warden looked up.
“You Griffin?”
“Yes sir, Dalton Griffin, reporting for duty.”
“This ain’t the army, son. I’m Deputy Warden Travis. That’s ‘Deputy Warden’ to you.” He pointed to an uncomfortable looking metal chair that did not invite loitering. “Sit.”
He motioned for Griffin to hand him the paperwork. Travis read through the chronology of Griffin’s career.
“Been a CO in three maximum security prisons, six years’ experience.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I’ll be straight with you, son. You were not my first choice for this assignment. In fact, you weren’t even on my radar. I’m looking at your history. We don’t let anyone on that unit unless they have at least ten years at a super max facility. You’ve only been at Wallens Ridge for four.
“Some muckety-muck up the chain pulled some strings and said we were to place you, right away. They said you were the best. You’ve got some friends in high places. You better live up to it. Come with me. I’ll take you to the unit.”
The chief led Griffin farther along the same drab corridor.
“Not sure I wanted this assignment either, Chief. And I like to think I am the best,” Griffin explained.
“Cocky son of a bitch, ain’t you? You’re gonna need every ounce of it. We’re assigning you to a special unit. We call it the Underground. Earned the nickname recently. It was Unit D. It houses five of the most dangerous men in the state of Virginia … if not the country.”
“The Underground?”
“One of the inmates came up with it. Yeah, he was Baker’s charge before he offed his family and then himself. Now he’s yours. He lost an eye in a fight before he got here. Don’t know the particulars. He’s been reading about the mythical Greek one-eyed monsters. They lived in a place called the Underground. So he’s been calling this place by the same name. It’s fitting and it stuck. It houses only five men, all of them vicious and lethal. One guard for each inmate.
“You’ll be replacing Josh Baker and taking over his duties and his prisoner.”
“His prisoner?” Griffin feigned surprise.
“Baker w
as responsible for one man. Assignments are switched out every four weeks … so no one gets too familiar.”
They passed through three heavily guarded checkpoints and multiple sliding iron gates.
“What’s his name?”
They were buzzed through a fourth gate into a circular unit with a hexagonal station centered among six cells. Each cell was numbered one through six.
“We don’t use names here, son. Only numbers. His is number three. That’s his cell, right there. But he likes to call himself Cyclops.”
Deputy Warden Travis introduced Griffin to the four COs sitting behind computer terminals displaying closed-circuit screens of each cell. Griffin focused on screen number three and the dark-skinned, skinny inmate resting on his cot, reading some kind of book. Griffin could make out the word mythology across the faded cover.
“He don’t look like much,” Griffin said out loud.
“That kind of thinking will get you killed.” The four men eyed Baker suspiciously. Travis heaved a plump forefinger at one of the men.
“Max, here, will give you the lowdown on procedures. You’ll report for duty tomorrow at 6 a.m., sharp. Welcome to the Red Onion, son.”
“Bonjour, mon ami,” the voice of Delilah Hussein chirped. Her words were laced with a vicious, self-satisfied smugness. “I know what you’re thinking. I’m supposed to be dead. I can assure you I am very much alive. I can’t wait to see your face, Jason. We have unfinished business.”
Jason and Peter sat in Peter’s Hummer on the paved roadway cut into the Peninsula Memorial Park’s grounds. Jason held the phone between the two of them as they listened to the gruff, accented voice coming through the speaker. Weakness and fear fueled a slow, tremble that overtook his body.
“By now, you know that your son, Michael, and Christine have been taken. I am confirming what you must already suspect. I have them both in my possession. Do not bother looking for them … they are no longer on American soil. Open the text-message function on the phone and you can look at them.”