by TJ O'Connor
Rebellion helped me cope. At least, that’s what I told myself. But it also pulled me from home and carried me far from Kevin.
Now, it served me loneliness. The loneliness that came with being the last of my bloodline.
It had been nearly twenty-six years since I’d played rummy with Dad and more than twenty since I’d fished with Kevin. On our last trip, Kevin and I came for my summer break before I left for college. We’d fought terribly about school, and we both hoped the mountains would quell the anger. It hadn’t. A year later, I left school and enlisted in the Army.
I hadn’t been back since.
Now, those memories pained me like no combat wound ever had.
Deal with it, Hunter. Suck it up.
Rickety porch stairs groaned beneath me, and my breath caught with each one. I fished the key from the birdhouse that still hung from the porch roof, and unlocked the door. It took me a few minutes using my cell phone flashlight to find matches and light the candles on the fireplace mantel. A moment later, I found the kerosene lanterns and bathed the main cabin in flickering light. I succeeded in doing all of that without bruised shins or broken toes.
To think, Kevin said my CIA training was worthless in civilian life. Hah.
As soon as the second lantern lit, I wished the darkness would return.
“Why am I here?” Great question. But not as good as my next. “What am I supposed to find? Evidence? A secret videotape of Kevin’s murder?”
Bourbon.
It was where it always was. A half bottle of cheap Kentucky courage waited beside a full bottle of expensive Macallan Scotch—the-several-hundred-dollars-a-bottle expensive—in a cabinet above the sink. Now, when did Kevin develop such expensive tastes?
I grabbed the bourbon and a dusty coffee mug. A triple pour later and the bourbon seared my nerves all the way down.
At least some things were friendly.
The cabin was unchanged—rustic and homey—a memory as finite and pristine as the first time through the door. There was old pine-beam furniture with worn cushions, a couch, two straightbacked chairs in the center of the main room, and a rocker in the corner. A comfy, overstuffed leather chair still sat front and center, facing the fireplace. Its springs were so shot that its cushion rested nearly on the floor. Wood was stacked beside the fireplace on both sides. Dad had always insisted that at the end of each visit we left the cabin ready for us to return with readied candles, stacked firewood, and clean, covered beds. A few cheap outdoor mountain scene prints hung on the walls. An eighteen-point buck head oversaw the room from above the fireplace—Dad’s pride and joy. But he hadn’t bagged that prize after cold winter hours stalking it. He’d found it at a local yard sale down the mountain one spring weekend before his death. The sagging, dilapidated leather chair was part of that negotiation.
That was not, however, the story told to visiting friends.
“God, Kevin, how did this happen? Why aren’t we fishing and drinking right now?”
Kevin did not answer.
The rooms were simple, and I visited each, including the bathroom and two bedrooms. Both beds were made with old Army blankets and feather pillows covered by old bedsheets. It was impossible to tell when the last time anyone had laid their heads there. Each had its own small fireplace and was furnished with the basics—beds and antique pine dressers that smelled of mothballs, nightstands with wind-up alarm clocks, and candles stuck in old metal coffee cups strategically positioned around the room.
The small kitchenette in the rear of the cabin had a stove and refrigerator powered by a gas generator secured in the woodshed out back. The cupboards were bare but for the bourbon and scotch. As I surveyed my youth, my stomach churned and emotions gut-punched me like a boxer in the clutch. Faces and conversations careened throughout my thoughts. I fought back. I was a tough guy. A warrior of sorts, not unaccustomed to violence, killing, and the gloom they brought. That was war, and, well, it was the job. This … this battle of memories and remorse was different. This cabin had never seen tragedy. It was a warm retreat from it. A safe haven. Oh, it had known our parents’ death. But it hadn’t mourned them. Instead, its walls replaced their arms for our comfort.
This was different. This was cold, unnecessary violence, not a tragic accident. It was malice. Evil.
Did these walls feel as I?
I snatched my bourbon and escaped to the front porch. Only a finger remained by the time I closed the cabin door.
Grow up, Hunter. Shit happens. One, two … oh crap … ten.
The mountain night was alive with crickets and birds and Bigfoot. A breeze lapped the lake against the rocky bank and soothed the fringes of my angst. The bourbon did the rest. There was something about nighttime, even in Afghanistan and Syria, that I loved. Stillness. Solitude. Something. Maybe I was a vampire who thrived in the darkness. Maybe.
Then reality struck. Kevin was the last of us to stay here. Recently, too, from what Sam said. Kevin was the last of us, too. I wasn’t sure I counted anymore. I’d abandoned him. Abandoned our name. Hell, I abandoned me a long time ago.
Kevin was gone and his last words drifted into my thoughts—Khalifah. G. Not them. What did it all mean? I ran his whispers through my brain a hundred times and … wait … Hunter? Kevin had said “Hunter.” Kevin never called me Hunter. Never. In fact, he didn’t even know I used that name. To him I was simply Jon Mallory. He scoffed when I confessed my aliases, and that one was not among them.
“Only criminals and spies hide who they are,” he’d scoffed. “One is no better than the other.”
Yet, he had said, “Hunter.”
I pounded the remainder of the bourbon down and returned inside. My first act was another two fingers in my mug, and next, I went to find my old yellow Labrador Retriever.
Hunter had been Dad’s inseparable companion. Two years before Dad died, Hunter had succumbed to old age—he was fifteen—while warming himself on the hearth one cold November evening. He lived to swim in the lake and stalk deer and rabbits for dinner. He was no better a hunter than Dad. He was good for two things—eating and sleeping. In that order.
Outside in the rear yard beside the woodshed was a threefoot-high stone statue of a Labrador Retriever. It was the spitting image of good ole Hunter. Dad found it at a boutique pet store somewhere in Winchester and kept it on the fireplace hearth for years until Hunter died. The stonework became Hunter’s headstone. The grave was below, covered in a knee-high stack of firewood. Below ground was a large piece of slate that protected Hunter’s remains.
It took ten minutes and dozens of shovels full of wood chips and earth before I felt the slate slab beneath the toe of the shovel. With some effort and a little sweat, I lifted the slate clear and shined the lantern into the shallow cavity. There, wedged in the dirt, was a dirty rusted metal cashbox.
“Well, Hunter. You always were Dad’s favorite.”
I retrieved a heavy, ballistic-nylon duffel bag from the hole and brushed off the dirt and debris with my hand. The zipper was stuck from the dirt, but after a moment I convinced it to open. The lantern provided enough light to know I was totally and utterly confused.
Inside was a stash of money—at least ten thousand bucks—a set of unmarked car keys, a plastic freezer bag with something balled up inside, and a heavy bundle wrapped in a paper bag. Hefting the paper bundle, I knew what was inside, and I unfurled it.
A Bersa .380 semiautomatic pistol tumbled into my hand. The magazine was still inserted into the butt and, when I checked, I found three rounds left. Four missing. Most unnerving was that the end of the barrel had been modified with threads for a silencer.
But it was the plastic bag’s contents that sucked the wind out of me. There were three Canadian passports with the photographs of Kevin, Noor, and Sameh. Except those were not the names on the passports. They were aliases and the passports were high quality and pristine. I know these things—after all, I have several sets myself. Last, there was a computer USB thumb drive rol
led in a small manila envelope.
There were no notes. No explanations. No clue of what evil Kevin had secreted there. The scary things were there. Just not the “why.”
“Jesus, Kevin. Were you running away or is this a rainy-day kit?” I finished my last finger of bourbon and stared at my booty. No, this wasn’t a rainy-day kit. This was a smaller version of what I had back in my Leesburg storage unit. This was Kevin’s go-bag. For me, the go-bag was a quintessential item for emergencies. Havoc tended to follow me and, in my line of work, having a quick escape and the means to get the heck out of Dodge and take on a new identity was as important as my missing retirement account.
But why did Kevin need that? He was a cop, after all. What had he stumbled into that required a go-bag? Obviously, whatever it was got him killed. He waited too long to dig up this duffel and “go.”
My gut churned again. “Kev, what have you gotten us into?”
CHAPTER 23
Day 3: May 17, 0715 Hours, Daylight Saving Time
Leesburg, Virginia
KHALIFAH WAITED AN extra fifteen minutes at the little downtown café, sipping a double espresso and enjoying a chocolate croissant. He’d chosen a table in the corner near the large picture window that gave him the long view down King Street. On the next corner, easily within view, he could observe both entrances to the antique shop that specialized in local 1800s pieces.
Khalifah sipped his espresso, adjusted his taqiyah, and played his mas’baha—prayer beads. His attention was on the intersection a half a block away. Only the antique store’s side-street entrance gave access to the second-floor business office rented to a local attorney some months ago and only occasionally visited. Its double entrance, one into the antique shop and the other to the narrow stairwell leading to the office, shared a wide foyer with heavy oak-framed doors. Once inside the foyer, anyone outside had no view of who entered the shop and who ascended the stairs. Likewise, until a visitor entered the shop’s stained-glasswindowed door and jingled the overhead bell, no one inside the shop would observe visitors to the second-floor office.
It had been thirty minutes since the tall, wiry Iranian and his bulky companion—both dressed in Western business suits—had walked from Market Street up the block and made the turn into the side-street entrance. By the time the two men reached the second-floor offices, they were restless and edgy, pacing perhaps and chancing glances through the window blinds looking for his approach.
With a last glance at his watch and an extra two-dollar tip on his table, Khalifah casually strode from the café and walked the half a block. At the corner, he crossed the street and continued past the antique shop’s side-street entrance. As he strode, he cautiously observed the parked cars and other shop windows and eateries for any rogue surveillance his contacts failed to warn him of.
There was none.
Twice Khalifah crossed the street, double backed, and finally returned to the corner adjacent to the antique shop. There, he waited curbside as though contemplating which shop to visit. As he scanned the street, he saw a gray Dulles airport taxi idling half a block away. He made casual eye contact with the driver, a thin Arab man, before he slowly rubbed his eyes. A second later, the taxi pulled away from the curb and made the turn in front of Khalifah before heading west out of town.
Nothing unusual to see.
Ten minutes later, assured the two Iranians were as jittery as expectant fathers, he double backed, crisscrossed the street twice, and entered the antique shop through the main entrance. Five minutes later, after pondering shelves of old books, he exited into the foyer, and climbed the stairwell to the second-floor offices.
He didn’t knock. He just strode into the partially furnished phantom attorney’s office that bore no name on the front door.
“It is about time, Khalifah,” Saeed Mansouri growled, turning from his position near the front windows. “I do not like waiting. Not even on you.”
Khalifah closed the door behind him and moved to the center of the room between Saeed and his bodyguard. He considered the muscular Persian guard before turning back to Saeed.
Saeed Mansouri was a tall, thin man, even by Persian standards. His shoulders were wide and his arms sinewy and strong. His face was narrow and hard, and he wore a tight-cropped, neatly trimmed beard. His Persian olive skin showed the marks of youth marred by violence. Gnarled, reddish scars adorned his neck and arms and peeked from beneath his tieless dress shirt. The wounds, the remnants of weeks in captivity by a warlord on the wrong side of the Ayatollah. Had it not been for his special benefactors—the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps—his head would have rolled to the ground without mercy. When the IRGC Pāsdārān commandos, “guardian brothers,” rescued him just days before his execution, his first act after quenching his heaving thirst with water was to kill every man who had held him. None escaped him.
His bravery, tenacity, and, above all, brutality earned him his own command in this foreign incursion onto American soil. The dream of every IRGC Pāsdār.
“I care not what you like or dislike. You will wait as long as necessary for me to ensure our security.” He threw a thumb toward the bodyguard. “Is this him? Was he responsible for those at Christian Run?”
Saeed grinned and rolled his hand in the air like a sheik granting a favor. “Yes, this is—”
“Enough.” Khalifah snapped. Then he turned, took two long steps toward the bodyguard, drew a short, narrow stiletto from his pocket and thrust it deep into the man’s ribs just below the heart. His other hand snapped up and covered the Persian’s mouth before his cry erupted. He twisted his blade, first left, then right. With a grunt, he angled it upward into the man’s heart.
It was over in seconds.
“What is this?” Saeed blurted and reached beneath his jacket, but his hand stopped short of his weapon when Khalifah turned on him. He slowly lowered his hand—empty. “Explain this.”
Khalifah cleaned his blade on the bodyguard’s suitcoat before turning back to Saeed. “He was an animal. Killing the mother and father is one thing. We had no choice. But what he did to the little girl was wrong. He was an animal. I do not condone such defiling acts of barbarism.”
“You kill him for this? What difference did the bitch make?”
Khalifah raised his hand for silence. “All the difference. But that is not all, Saeed. He was followed to the mall. He was compromised. We were nearly compromised. Next time, I will come for you.”
Saeed’s face darkened and his eyes grew angry and hard. “Do not tell me how to command.”
“I’ll tell you everything I wish.” Khalifah moved close to him and held his blade level with the man’s chest exactly where he’d plunged it into the bodyguard. “You will listen, Saeed. You will act. You will do these things at my command.”
The air between them was ice.
Finally, after a long contest of wills and unflinching eyes, Saeed raised his chin. “What is it you wanted of me this day?”
“Ah, finally, an intelligent conversation.” Khalifah reached into his pocket and withdrew a USB flash drive. “Your new instructions. You must wait until after noon today before using the passcode, or the information will be destroyed. You may read it once. Then it will be bleached.”
Saeed took the computer drive. “I understand.”
“There are two more families. Two more new targets. You will take Sadik Samaan in Alexandria, first. The second will be a combined effort with our last attack. The instructions are all there on the computer stick.”
Saeed looked at the USB drive. “Baleh.”
“Now, Caine will be ready in three days. You must complete these tasks in that time.”
“Caine.” Saeed stepped back, spit on the hardwood between them, and threw a glance toward his dead bodyguard across the room. “I take my own men a thousand times over him. You put too much faith in that Westerner.”
Khalifah shook his head. “He’s not my man. He is the Foreigner’s choice. But we are in the West. Cai
ne has value.”
“Keep him away from me. If you do not, I may gut him like a pig.”
“No, you won’t.” Khalifah cast his eyes on the Persian. “Now, there is one more thing. Another cell.”
“Another cell? I do not understand. I was told—”
“Plans changed.” Khalifah explained the new mission and watched Saeed’s face contort with delight. “Do you understand?”
Saeed Mansouri couldn’t contain his pleasure. “My friend, yes. This is a brilliant stroke. Brilliant. A fifth attack. They will not see this coming.”
“You have three days. When the time is right, the third attack will begin, and I will facilitate it. Until then, it is yours to develop and ready for me.”
Khalifah turned and walked to the door. “Wait fifteen minutes to leave. I’ll have others come in later tonight and clean up.”
“Of course, Khalifah. As-salamu alaykum.”
“Wa alaykumu s-salām.”
* * *
Earlier, as Khalifah had walked circuitously from the corner café down the block and back to his meeting, he’d noticed the taxi’s departure coincide with his arrival at the antique shop. None of the shoppers and local shopkeepers took notice of anything unusual. Had they, some might have found it coincidental that the taxi’s left turn signal coincided with Khalifah’s itchy eyes. If anyone were curious and watched the taxi closely, they might have seen the thin Arab speaking to no one as he made the turn in front of Khalifah. They would not have seen the driver’s concealed hands-free microphone inside his shirt that was wired to a thin radio clipped on his belt just behind his holstered semiautomatic.