Friendly Fire

by John Gilstrap

  “We could do it tomorrow,” Drew said.

  Spike shook his head. “No, something’s not right here. If it’s not right today—”

  He stopped speaking as he saw the parade of three police cars approach them down the hill and then pull into the school driveway. No lights or sirens, but they weren’t moving slowly, either.

  “That doesn’t look good,” Drew said.

  The cars drove all the way up to the main entrance to the school, where they parked nose-to-tail at the curb. Each car carried a single officer, and the three of them converged on the sidewalk before climbing the concrete stairs in unison.

  “Like I said,” Spike grumbled, “something’s not right here. Time for us to go.”

  “Wait, wait,” Drew said, pointing back to the road in front of them. “There’s more.”

  This time, the single vehicle was unmarked, though it very clearly was a government sedan. They watched as that vehicle—Spike guessed it was a Ford—pulled in behind the last police cruiser in the line. The guy who climbed out of that one pulled a suit jacket out of the backseat before heading up the stairs. During the transition, Spike spotted the pistol on the man’s hip.

  “FBI?” Drew guessed.

  “Us being embarrassed again,” Spike said. This snatch had been a high priority for the sheik. So far, it had cost the life of one operator, along with the reputation of al-Amin in America. How could it be that he and his team could be no more capable than a bunch of local thugs in Woodbridge? “Just get us out of here,” he said. “This might not even be about our plan, but the smart money says it is.” He smacked the dashboard with his open palm. “Dammit!”

  * * *

  Gone were the days when Cletus Bangstrom would toil away past quitting time—on his own time—making sure that all of the equipment was secured and accounted for. Yes, he knew he was a broken record, but things were different now. People were different. And he was a dinosaur. Every single day was a new reminder of how it truly was his time to retire. If other people didn’t care about doing a good job, then why should he?

  Soon it would be just him and Abby growing old together.

  As he drove toward home, he again ruminated on his conversation with Chief Michaels, and on how much he admired the man.

  Going over the heads of two levels of supervision to speak directly to the chief of the department was so wildly out of line that Cletus imagined that if he wasn’t already on his way out, he’d have been fired. Chains of command existed for a reason, and to violate them was an unforgivable offense. He told Chief Michaels as much.

  “I know this is a huge violation of protocol,” Cletus had said.

  The chief looked a little surprised. He shot a look to Lieutenant Hackner, who gave an uncomfortable shrug in return.

  “Come on in, Cletus,” the chief said. (Cletus caught him glancing at his ID badge for the cue to his name, but he wasn’t offended. He thought that using his first name was a classy touch.) “A man who’s been working here as long as you gets an occasional bye on protocol.”

  The chief ushered him to the little conversation corner he’d just vacated when the previous guests were leaving.

  “Do you want me to stay?” Jed asked.

  The chief looked to Cletus, and then said, “No, I think just the two of us will be fine. I tell everybody that I have an open door policy, so I guess I have no business being surprised when someone takes advantage of it. Come on in, Cletus.”

  Cletus flushed with a feeling of warmth. It wasn’t every day that you were invited to a one-on-one with the chief of police.

  The meeting lasted a while—probably twenty minutes. Cletus shared everything with the chief. He told him of the missing uniforms and equipment, and of Sergeant Dale’s apparent disinterest in any of it.

  “Sergeant Dale seems to think it’s nothing,” Cletus said. “He writes it off to routine losses, but I don’t think that’s true, sir. Think of it. Eight uniforms have been lost in the past ten months. The service company swears they don’t have them, and I know for a fact that we don’t. I worry, sir.”

  Chief Michaels pursed his lips as he considered what he’d heard. “Tell me what you worry about.” he said.

  Wasn’t it obvious? “Chief, there’s only so many things you can do with a police uniform. Every Halloween we lose a few, but then they mostly come back. I get that. Somebody’s teenager wants to go to a party. I think it’s wrong, but I get it. But in all my years, we’ve never seen losses like this.”

  “You look like you have a theory,” Michaels said. “Share it with me.”

  “I’ll be honest with you, Chief, I don’t have a theory so much as I have fears. Terrorism fears. I mean, let’s be honest, there are a lot of people out there who want to do us harm. Dress a bunch of them up in police uniforms, and you never know what might happen.”

  “Wouldn’t it be just as easy to buy uniforms from a costume shop somewhere?” Chief Michaels asked.

  That was the question that made Cletus’s heart fall. The chief didn’t want to believe him, either. “Yes, sir, I suppose it is,” he said, and he started to stand.

  The chief reached out and put a hand on his arm. “Where are you going?”

  Again, wasn’t that obvious? “I assumed—”

  “Have a seat,” the chief said. “Seriously, sit back down.” It sounded more like an invitation than an order.

  Cletus sat.

  “You look like I offended you,” the chief said with a deep scowl. “I wasn’t doubting you. I was just test driving the idea. Why wouldn’t it be easier to just rent a costume? You know, from a company that does high quality stuff, the kinds of costumes a movie company might use?”

  “Because they won’t look like BCPD uniforms,” Cletus said. “Remember, the shirts they stole were the ones that have the badge embroidered on the breast. Anybody who puts one on is going to look official.”

  Chief Michaels raised a cautionary hand. “Again, not to argue that you’re wrong, but please don’t refer to them as the stolen shirts. Not yet, anyway.” His face wrinkled as he seemed to sink into deeper thought. When his eyes came back to Cletus, the chief smiled. Then he stood. “Thank you for bringing this to my attention, Cletus.”

  Cletus took the hint and stood with him. “If you don’t mind my asking, sir, what are you going to do with the information?”

  “Truthfully? At this moment? I have no idea. I need to talk it over with some of my staff.”

  “Are you going to mention it to Sergeant Dale?” Cletus asked.

  The chief didn’t seem to like the question. “Is there a reason I shouldn’t?”

  Should he answer or shouldn’t he? He decided, what the heck. “Well, sir, to be perfectly honest, he’s not going to be happy I came here. I’ve still got thirty-one days to go, and I don’t want them to be miserable, you know what I mean?”

  The chief grinned. “I know exactly what you mean,” he said. “If I speak with Sergeant Dale, I’ll make it clear that I appreciate your inquiry, and doubly clear that he should appreciate it, too.”

  “He’s likely to suggest to you that I took them,” Cletus said. There, it was out.

  “I think you and I both know that that’s absurd,” the chief said.

  That meeting had happened nearly twenty-four hours ago, and as far as he could tell, the world had not left its axis. He was almost certain that the chief had talked to Sergeant Dale, because shortly after their meeting ended, Cletus saw Lieutenant Hackner head toward Dale’s office, and then together they walked back toward the chief’s office. If there had in fact been a meeting, it didn’t last very long. Ten minutes later, the sergeant walked back toward where he’d come from. It might have been Cletus’s imagination—probably was—but it seemed that Dale was making a real effort to not look in his direction.

  He didn’t like these unsettling times. He didn’t like the feelings of paranoia. Cletus wanted to be happy again, to laugh again in the middle of the day. Honest to God, it used
to be that way. Maybe he should have mentioned that to the chief as well.

  As soon as that thought crossed the threshold of his mind, he dismissed it. They’d just think he was being sentimental, just being old. And he felt old. Maybe it wasn’t wrong that they thought of him that way.

  What it really came down to was showing some damned respect. He hadn’t been on the receiving end of that in a long, long time.

  And then it was all clear to him.

  The reason why Dale’s meeting with the chief had been so short was because they all dismissed Cletus’s concerns as crazy. Chief Michaels probably told Dale to keep an eye on Cletus. You know, to make sure he didn’t do something stupid. The reason why Dale didn’t look at him was because he couldn’t trust himself not to laugh.

  Good Lord, he hated himself sometimes. Hated the way he thought. Yeah, retirement couldn’t get here soon enough.

  As he pulled into his driveway, he laid out a plan for Abby and him tonight. He’d open a bottle of wine, cook up a couple of those steaks he’d had in the freezer out on the barbeque. And he’d grill those fresh ears of corn that Blake Thorpe, his next-door neighbor, had brought up from the farmer’s market they’d shopped coming back from their trip to Florida. Then, armed with about two thousand calories of good food apiece, they could settle down and blast through all the shows they’d recorded but hadn’t watched.

  He pulled his Camry as close to the garage door as he could without denting anything and shut off the engine. One day, he was going to get around to clearing out enough crap to actually get the car into the garage, but getting Abby to part with her various collections was like putting light back into the sun. A waste of time.

  A nice breeze greeted him as he walked to the front door, making him look even more forward to his time in the backyard with the grill. He had his key out, but saw that it wouldn’t be necessary. Abby had left the door open a couple of inches. Cletus was going to have to say something to her about that. There were security issues to think about. These days, things being as they were, you couldn’t be too—

  He froze on the tile floor of the foyer, one foot in and one foot still holding the storm door open. “Abby?” he said. She sat in a chair straight ahead of him, in front of and facing the stairs. It was a dining room chair, one of the end chairs where you could rest your arms while eating. “Abby, what are you doing?”

  She didn’t answer.

  “Hey, babe, are you all right?” He hurried forward to help her. “Do I need to call—”

  Three strides into the house, he sensed a shadow. Before he could react, he felt an arm cross his face from behind, and then white and red lights erupted inside his head.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Jonathan sat in the darkest back corner of the Maple Inn in Vienna, Virginia, his back to the wall, watching across the bar for the arrival of his dining companion. Located on Maple Avenue, just six miles south of CIA headquarters, the Maple Inn had long been a spooky place, a kind of gastronomic Switzerland, where intelligence assets from all sides could meet in peace to take care of the kind of business that seemed beyond the abilities of politicians and their appointees. More than a few world crises had been defused in this dank little place and others like it, dotted throughout the Washington Metropolitan Area.

  The place was packed as it always was. Literally, always. Home of the best chili cheese dogs on the planet, as well as damn good breakfast selections, it was a favorite of the locals. Jonathan couldn’t imagine how much money this place generated per unit of time, but it had to be spectacular.

  He arrived early to claim his booth of choice, and his waitress, Brittany, was more than happy to move the nearest table a few feet away in order to provide him with more privacy. One quirk of the Maple Inn was the placement of the television, elevated on a 1980s-vintage metal platform immediately over Jonathan’s head. If you kept your voice low, nothing you said could be audible past more than a few feet.

  Irene Rivers’s bodyguards entered the place first. Thankfully, they’d changed into polo shirts and khaki pants, but the rod-straight posture and razor-sharp creases announced their true identities to anyone who knew what to look for. They flanked the door while their boss entered, and then took seats at the bar, where they would have the best view of the room.

  Irene smiled as she approached. She, too, wore casual clothes—a plain white blouse tucked into off-the-shelf blue jeans.

  Jonathan stood as she approached the table. She proffered no handshake, so neither did he. She looked pissed. In fact, Dom had told him she sounded pissed when she’d called him to arrange the meeting. The fact that she demanded it to be held right by God now sort of confirmed the supposition. She’d suggested Saint Matthew’s again as the meeting spot, but Jonathan pushed back and told Dom to relay that he would meet her in the middle here in Vienna. Jonathan liked Irene, and he had undying respect for her, but it was important for her to know that he harbored no fear of her. They’d collaborated on far too many clandestine projects. Each had been for the right reasons, but in Washington, rationality was almost always trumped by transient political priorities. Hey, somebody had to keep politicians from destroying the world. Ask anyone who’d occupied this back booth over the years.

  “Nice outfit,” Jonathan said, taking a pull from his beer mug. “You going on vacation?”

  “When in Rome,” she said. She leaned in close, her forearms crossed on the table. “What were you thinking?”

  Jonathan ignored the bait. “Right now, I’m thinking about how good the chili cheese dogs are, and wondering if I have chili tracks on my cheek.” He flashed his smile, but she clearly wasn’t in the mood.

  “I’m talking about your antics involving Our Lady of Sorrows,” she said.

  “Oh, that,” Jonathan said. He knew damn well that’s what she meant, but why give her the satisfaction? “How did that go?”

  “Don’t be an ass,” Irene seethed. “You had no authority to go to Senator Baker’s house. You terrified her staff, who in turn terrified everyone in the school.”

  “Are the daughters safe?” Jonathan asked. He took another bite out of his chilidog.

  “That’s not the point.”

  “It’s kind of important though, isn’t it?” Jonathan asked around his mouthful.

  Irene glared. There were times when she enjoyed the banter. This clearly was not one of them.

  “Oh, give me a break, Wolfie,” he said after the swallow. “Those kids are on a target list, and Big Guy and I saved their asses. We saved Senator Mom’s ass, too, along with some guy named Prince. Honest to God, who would name a kid that?”

  “Focus, Dig.”

  Jonathan put the chili dog down and planted both hands on the table, as if to demonstrate that he was unarmed. “Tell you what,” he said. “Why don’t you have yourself a good rant? I’ll listen politely and then tell you the scary shit that’s happening.” He sold it with a smile that was not intended to be all that friendly.

  “You misrepresented yourself as an FBI agent. You stirred a hornet’s nest. Senator Baker wants to know the names of the two agents responsible for this. What am I supposed to tell her?”

  “Tell her to blow it out her ass,” Jonathan said. He felt heat rising in his ears, and it was a struggle to keep his voice in check. “Then tell her to give those little girls a hug for her Uncle Dig who saved them from being shipped off to their deaths.”

  Irene’s features blanked for a few seconds, and then morphed to a look of concern. He had her attention.

  “And, if I might remind you, the badges we used were given to us by you.”

  “For very specific purposes,” Irene said.

  “And I would number saving lives among those purposes.” Jonathan told her about the dead drop. “The address led us to a house belonging to a Mr. Appleton,” he explained. “We went there because Appleton was a nobody as far as we were concerned, so we wondered why would the address be part of a dead drop.”

  “So, you didn
’t know that it was the senator’s house?”

  “Not a clue,” Jonathan said. “I know I’m an insensitive pain in the ass, but if I’d known that, I believe that even I would have given you a heads-up.”

  Irene took a moment to process it all. As she was thinking, Brittany approached, but then retreated from the subtle shake of Jonathan’s head. This was not the time.

  “Your suspicions were correct, Irene,” Jonathan said. He’d wrested control of his tone again, and hoped that he sounded as earnest as he felt. “Al-Amin is targeting the families of congressmen and senators. How else to explain the Johnson girl and then the Baker girls? I don’t know if they’re focusing specifically on girls, but this is a big deal. I also don’t know what their end game is. I don’t know what they plan to do with those they kidnap, but we both know it’s nothing good. In the best case, it’s a ransom demand. In the worst case, it’s a video record of them being decapitated, drowned, or burned alive.”

  “Jesus.”

  “I’m confident that of all the prophets who have a vote in this madness, Jesus is not among them,” Jonathan said. “Let me tell you about the guy who inadvertently led me to the dead drop. Okay, we’d actually sort of figured it out on our own, but the guy who tried to kill me to keep me from getting the address—”

  “Someone tried to kill you?”

  Jonathan waved off her concern. “He wasn’t nearly as good at it as he thought he was. But I’m willing to bet the dog that he’s a former operative of ours.”

  Irene recoiled from the thought. “Oh, come on—”

  “He had the look,” Jonathan said. “Desert kit, battle beard, Oakleys. The whole nine yards.”

  “You just described ninety percent of the people who attend gun shows,” Irene said with a dismissive wave.

  “He also had the neck and the shoulders,” Jonathan said. “And the knife skills.” He grinned. “Sometimes, though, really good is just not good enough.” He turned serious. “Trust me when I tell you that he was the real deal. And I’ll tell you something else. This guy was born in Ohio as a Presbyterian. Or in Kansas as Methodist. There’s not a drop of Islamic blood in this guy’s veins.”