by Jim Heskett
The truck slammed into the side of the rental, sending it spinning. Garret’s grip broke free of the steering wheel, and he flew into the passenger seat. His head smacked on the passenger side seatbelt buckle. His eyes shut from the intensity, his head lolling around on his neck as the car spun.
Dazed, he tried to heave a breath. Eyes swimming as the car settled and became still. He was barely able to see the truck doors open, and the two men get out. Then, the woman with curly black hair.
Vixen.
41
Layne couldn’t believe his eyes. First, that Garret/Ronald would do something as brash as attempt to run them down with a rental sedan in an open field. Also, given the state of his two companions, Layne knew they couldn’t outrun him.
It did make a certain logical sense. Garret had worked so hard to hide his identity, he couldn’t let Harry escape to tell the tale.
Then, to be saved at the last moment by an oncoming truck smashing into Garret’s car. And not only that but also discovering the inhabitants of the truck. Two men Layne had never seen before, both of them in suits and ties, and, sandwiched between them, a ghost.
Vixen, a woman Layne had hunted eight years ago in a subterranean meth lab tunnel under a shack in rural Texas. A woman he’d been told hadn’t actually existed. A woman he’d pursued while his partner on the operation had been crushed under a mountain of dirt below the house.
He had never glimpsed her face in Texas, only from the back and side, but he had no doubts about the identity of the woman across the field from him. But, why she was here now made little sense. It had to have something to do with the NSA report, obviously. Had she and Garret teamed up, searching for it? Were they rivals? Too much didn’t add up.
The wreck of the truck and Garret’s car were both about fifty feet away. The two men leaped from the truck as the doors opened, and they raised UMP submachine guns. They peppered the rental car with bullets. Clearly, that car crash had been no accident.
Garret managed to get the passenger side door open. He stumbled out as the two men in suits tracked him with their weapons. Each took aim, prepared to cut him down.
And, even more surprising, Layne felt the pistol in his waistband slipping away. He turned to see Harry raising the gun, pointing it at Garret. A mix of terror and determination on his face. Harry closed one eye and lifted it parallel to his sightline. Layne couldn’t ever recall seeing Harry pull a trigger before. Maybe in training scenarios, but not in the field.
But, Harry didn’t have a chance to pull the trigger. The two men with Vixen filled Garret’s body with bullets. His arms flailed as his torso became riddled with holes, and after a few seconds, he collapsed. No chance he could have survived such an assault.
Next, the two men turned their weapons toward Layne, Harry, and Serena. Their ejected magazines fell to the dirt as they inserted new ones.
For a split second, Layne met Vixen’s eyes. She tossed a smirk at him.
“Hello, Layne Parrish. It’s nice to finally meet you. Do you know where my report is?”
He shook his head. “I’ll tell you the same thing I told him: it’s gone. They shredded it years ago.”
“Come on, Boy Scout. You know that’s a lie. Now tell me what I want to know. I’ve been trying to recover my property for years, and you’re all that stands in the way of me finally getting it back.”
“The report is not your property. It never was.”
She didn’t respond. Two or three full seconds passed, the six of them standing there, fifty feet apart. Close enough to shoot, but far enough to make it a challenge for everyone.
Layne surveyed the terrain. His three opponents had the smoking wreck to provide cover for them. Of course, a car wouldn’t always stop a bullet, but it was better than what he and Serena and Harry had. Nothing. A few shrubs, piles of dirt, and open space. Nothing tangible. Against submachine guns, their pistols and a shotgun would not do much.
“Why don’t you toss your weapons on the ground?” Vixen said. “Garret may have tried to mess this all up for me, but I think we can still salvage the situation. But we can’t do that if we all kill each other.”
“What do we do?” Serena asked, under her breath. “Run?”
Layne considered it. If they did, he figured he and Serena had a good shot at sprinting fast enough to evade the bullets, but Harry wouldn’t. Not in his current state with a low-functioning knee.
“How about it?” Vixen said.
“I don’t think so. You know the cops are coming. He blew up the damn house, so every person with a badge in a ten-mile radius is on their way here right now.”
“We’re going to talk this out first,” she said.
“You know this won’t end well for you. Your best bet is to turn around, leave, and climb back into whatever hole you’ve been in for the last eight years.”
She smiled. “We do have a time crunch. That’s why we need to get this done quickly. I hear you’re retired, but you’re still worth something. To them, at least.”
With that, she concluded her sales pitch, and only the sound of the breeze moving through the brush filled Layne’s ears. His heart thudded. An idea formed. They had one chance to get this right.
“When I give the signal,” Layne muttered to Serena, “drop.”
“Copy,” she whispered back.
“What?” Harry said. “What’s happening?”
Layne now did hear the faint warble of sirens in the distance, bouncing off the rocky hills. Vixen’s eyes flicked around, hunting for the source of the sound.
Layne put a hand on Harry’s back. Harry gulped.
“Now,” he said, and then he shoved Harry to the ground. All three of them went prone, and Layne snatched the pistol out of Harry’s hand. Serena raised hers as well. They aimed for the feet of the three people. It was a difficult prospect, trying to shoot at tiny targets fifty feet away, underneath a car.
But, it wouldn’t matter if they hit the feet or not. As soon as they started shooting, the two men reacted. They backed up, looking down, trying to protect their feet. On cue, Serena raised her gun and shot one of them in the thigh. His hands went slack, exposing his midsection. She shot him three more times in the chest.
Layne tagged the other. The first bullet hit the man in the neck, and he staggered back, knocking into Vixen. Layne shot at them both, but the man acted as an inadvertent human shield for her.
She pushed the dead guard away. Now, all alone, Vixen tried to scramble back into the truck. She jumped into the driver’s seat. The engine revved. But, the crash had joined the truck to the sedan. As the tires churned dirt in the field, Layne could see the grill of the truck had melded with the driver door of the rental car. She wasn’t going anywhere.
“Shoot the tires?” Serena asked.
“No need,” Layne said.
After another second Vixen seemed to realize this as well. She jumped out of the truck and turned west, toward the hill. Her feet pounded the earth, arms flailing as she ran.
“I got her,” Layne said as he jumped to his feet.
42
Layne and Serena and Harry sat in the briefing room, mostly staring at each other. Waiting for Daphne. The whir of the air conditioner and the relentless hum of the fluorescent lights provided the only noise.
The table in the room was square, taking up about eighty percent of the available space. At one end of the room stood a wooden podium. Behind that, a wall painted white for the projector.
Two days later, Harry’s bruises had improved, but not gone away. Serena’s right hand was wrapped, but she’d said the bullet wound would heal, and she would regain full use of her hand. Layne wore a bandage on his shoulder to cover the bullet that had grazed him. All things considered, they’d made it out okay.
“How is your knee?” Serena asked Harry.
Layne watched as Harry tilted his head back and forth. “A little better.” He raised a cane that had been sitting next to his chair. “Walking around with this do
es make me feel kinda like a Bond villain, so there’s that.”
Layne grinned. “I’ll bet your family is glad to have you back.”
“Yes,” Harry said, his face turning grim. “I haven’t told them the whole truth about what happened to me. They don’t know they were targeted.”
“That’s your decision.”
“I know,” he said, “but it still feels weird. I tell my wife everything.”
Layne opened his mouth to respond, but the door opened behind him. Daphne walked in, carrying a stack of papers. “So sorry to keep you waiting.” She walked right up to the podium and dropped the pages. A rough sigh escaped her lips. She looked haggard, wearing little or no makeup, bags underneath her eyes. “Okay, let’s have your questions.”
Layne cleared his throat. “Why didn’t we know anything about Vixen?”
“That’s a spiderweb. It all comes down to Juliana Dewalt. She intended to fake her death in Texas eight years ago. We’re still gathering intelligence, so we don’t have a full picture yet. But, as far as we know, the person known as Vixen was a colleague of Juliana’s. The plan was to sell the report to an interest in Russia. But, Jules had to fake her death to make it work.” Daphne leveled a finger at Layne. “You were supposed to die for real in that tunnel, but when they triggered their explosives, it didn’t go as planned. Our best line of logic is that Jules wasn’t in the right position, and she was crushed when the tunnel collapsed. The NSA didn’t reveal details about her betrayal until recently. This morning, actually.”
“Unbelievable,” Serena said, a sneer on her face. “Fucking NSA.”
Daphne nodded. “I know. But, this was eight years ago, and things have changed since then. It’s not like it used to be. In fact, they’ve been very helpful since we brought in the woman known as Vixen.”
“Why did Jules turn?” Layne asked.
“Juliana was going to be arrested. They were closing in.”
“What?” Layne said.
“Yes,” Daphne said. “She’d been giving intel to the Russians for years, apparently. This report was going to net her a hefty payday. But, like I said, we’re still putting all the pieces together. Vixen’s real name is Laura Reagan, and she went to college with Juliana. They were in drama club together.” Daphne collected a few pages on the podium. “What else?”
Harry cleared his throat. “Ronald Gaynor?”
“Garret Robinson. This is even murkier, but I think we have most of the intel to put it all together. He worked for Laura Reagan, with the goal of acquiring the NSA report. But, he intended to double-cross her and not sell it. At least, that’s our theory.”
“A few more questions,” Layne said. “First, is the report really shredded? There are no copies that exist anywhere?”
Daphne nodded. “DocuSeal A2 security paper is infallible. There couldn’t have ever been copies made. Laura and Garret didn’t want to believe it, but it’s the truth. That document is gone forever. Everything they did was pointless.”
“Why were they so sure we still had it?”
Daphne shrugged. “I don’t know the answer to that. If they were convinced we killed Avery, it’s not a leap to also think we were secretly holding the report somewhere in a vault underground, or something like that.”
“Last question: did Avery Weeks actually die in a car crash?”
“Yes.”
“And we had nothing to do with it?”
Daphne hesitated for a split second, but then, she nodded. "To the best of my knowledge, the US government had no part in his death.”
Layne stared at her as Daphne looked around the room, waiting for more questions.
A few minutes later, as everyone began to clear out of the briefing room, Harry held up a hand. “Layne, can you hang back for a minute?”
“Sure, man.”
Daphne eyed the two of them, but she said nothing. She collected her pages and gave Harry a squeeze on the shoulder. He nodded at her, and she offered a wan smile in return. A peculiar exchange, to be sure. She didn’t say anything to Layne or Serena as she backed out of the room and disappeared into a hall.
Serena stood and reached across the table to shake Layne’s hand. “I’ll see you around,” she said.
Layne shook, which was an awkward grip since she had to use her left hand. “I’m sure you will. And watch out for yourself. Whoever tried to kidnap you at the airport is still out there until we can bring in all of Garret and Laura’s people.”
“Don’t worry about me.”
“I’m not,” he said. “I know you can take care of yourself.”
Serena faced Harry. “Thanks again.”
“You’re welcome,” Harry said, giving her a half-hearted smile. When she left the room, Layne watched Harry while his eyes trailed the door as it closed. There was something on his mind, for sure.
With only Layne and Harry there, Harry set his briefcase and cane on the table. He sat back and rubbed his eyes, emitting a long sigh. The room’s air conditioner cut out, and the silence in the room resumed. Only the whistling of air in and out of Harry’s nose.
“Serena told me you shot someone a few seconds before I came down the stairs. She said you saved her life.”
Harry nodded, an oddly blank look in his eyes. “I did. But, it was like it wasn’t even me. It was like I was watching it on a screen. I can see myself looking down at my arm, holding the gun. Pulling the trigger. It still doesn’t feel real.”
“Yeah, it’s like that sometimes. But, you did the right thing. When you had to make a choice, you did it, without hesitation. That’s why you’re an excellent shadow, Harry. You stick up for your teammates, and you do the hard things, even when you don’t want to.”
“Thank you for saying that. But, it’s not what I wanted to talk to you about.”
Layne leaned forward, elbows on the table. “I assumed so. Tell me why we’re here.”
“Democracy isn’t like a ladder. It’s like a pile of Jenga blocks, ready to tumble.”
“Okay.”
Harry studied Layne’s arms, specifically looking at the opposing cherub tattoos on each forearm. “Do you regret any of that ink?”
Layne pushed up his sleeve, exposing the tattoo of the skull with the word ranger below it. “This one. I didn’t earn it, but I had to get it for an operation.”
“You served in other ways.”
Layne nodded. “I did. There were a lot of things I’ve done undercover I’ve regretted. I’ve hurt people. I’ve smoked crack and stuck needles in my arms. Once I had to slap a woman so hard it gave her a black eye. If I hadn’t done it, the people with me probably would have killed her. But yes, I regret that tattoo.” He leaned forward. “What is it you want to tell me, Harry?”
“Take a walk with me. There’s something I need to show you.”
INTERLUDE #10
Washington, D.C. | Eight years ago
After Daphne leaves, Harry listens to the front door of the building shut. He sits back, rubbing his eyes. Two hundred and fifty emails in his inbox. And that’s only the ones he’s already deemed important. There are hundreds more he’ll have to comb through when he has time. On the weekend, maybe? He and his wife are supposed to take their son to the indoor bouncy-castle place over by Van Dyck Park. After being gone all week, it won’t be an easy pill for his wife to swallow if he says he has to work over the weekend.
Coffee. Need more coffee. He pushes his rolling chair back and stands. The coffee in the break room in this building is terrible, but, since Avery has stepped out for a moment, he can’t leave. Even in their anonymous, nondescript, temporary covert operations headquarters, they have to maintain standards. No internal video or audio surveillance, of course. They talk about things here that can never have a permanent record anywhere.
With his World’s Best Dungeon Master coffee mug in hand, he strolls along the hallway. For some reason, he pauses outside Avery’s open office door. Harry has little contact with Avery, even though they’re in the s
ame building often. That’s by Daphne’s design. She wants total control over her direct reports, so Avery is removed from the day-to-day operations of the team.
Harry takes a step inside the room. One foot in, one foot still in the hallway. There, on the desk, is the binder full of pages. The pages describing a hypothetical plot to stage a coup in a South American country. Daphne dropped those off a few minutes ago before she had to leave for an errand.
Harry wants to see the NSA report. He knows he shouldn’t, but something in him tells him to read the pages. Soon, Avery will be back, and he’ll shred them, and then they’ll be gone forever.
Erased, with only a privileged few even knowing what they contained.
Harry peers back at the front door. No one near the building. His mouth dries up, and the coffee mug feels slick in his hand. He licks his lips a few times and feels his feet moving forward.
He crosses the room and opens the binder, and it’s all there. His eyes trail over the words. It’s hard to read because the DocuSeal A2 paper is covered in watermarks and written with faint gray ink on bluish paper. He has to squint.
But, when he can read the words, his jaw drops. He intended to skim but soon finds himself reading every page.
The plan is horrific. Thousands of civilian casualties expected. Years of chaos before a return to normalcy. And, even though it’s all hypothetical and not something the US has ever planned to put into definitive action, Harry can’t believe it. He understands now why they went to such great lengths to recover the pages after the theft. These documents make the government look bad. Very bad.
Harry steps back and stares at the binder. He feels as dirty as if he’s been crawling through muck for hours, in desperate need of a shower. And guilty, although he can’t say why. He didn’t have anything to do with this report. He didn’t dream it up, didn’t condone it, didn’t help keep it quiet.