by Mason Cross
“No fucking way,” I said. “Forget it.”
Ortega stood up, looked at me, then over at Dixon, who was sitting back against the wall, the hint of a smile on his lips. Whether it was in contemplation of the oncoming mayhem he was about to create, or the confrontation he had sparked, I didn’t know. Perhaps it was both. “Dixon is right. We go in at night, take out any guards, then rig the whole thing to blow up in the Big Bad Wolf’s face. It’s clean.”
I couldn’t help myself. “Clean? You think blowing up a bunch of families is clean? You think you can get away with that?”
Collins was listening to us both, his expression unreadable. “Technically, there’ll be nothing to get away with. Ajmal al Wazir has to be a deniable assassination. You’ve been here long enough to know the score.”
Ortega was warming to the fight now. “It’s better. We do it this way, no one even knows Wazir was clipped. It looks like an accident. Bomb maker’s working someplace he shouldn’t be, there’s an accident, and he takes out himself and a few of the locals—boo-hoo. Maybe they’ll be more careful who they let set up shop in the neighborhood after this. It sends a message.”
Martinez was shaking his head. “I don’t know, man. We can do this another way. Clean.”
“Damn right we can do it another way,” I said. “Ortega— you know there’s a term for people who deliberately kill civilians to send a message, right?”
Ortega’s scarred face went through a few contortions of disbelief while he came up with a response to that. “Fuck you,” was his considered rebuttal. “Collins, you didn’t tell me we had fuckin’ Yoko Ono on the team.”
I ignored him and addressed Collins. “We stake the place out, let him get inside, and then take out the guards and the Wolf. We don’t even need to decommission the car bombs. Kandahar’s finest may not be a shining international example of law enforcement, but they’re going to notice a firefight first thing in the morning.”
“More risk this way,” Collins said, his eyes pointedly sweeping around the room to take in the five of us. “You know that.”
“More certainty this way,” I countered. “What if it isn’t the Wolf who shows up? We’ll never get another shot at him if we don’t make sure.”
Collins thought about it. He looked at Ortega, who was rolling his eyes at my suggestion. Then he looked over at Dixon. Dixon was watching us all with amusement. I think it was his grin that made Collins’s mind up.
“Okay. No pyro this time.”
Ortega walked away from the screens in disgust. Martinez and I shared a relieved glance. Murphy nodded, as though either plan sounded okay to him. Dixon shrugged and took his knife out again, keeping the amused look on his face.
“We’ll do it your way,” Collins said. “Don’t make me regret it.”
34
NORTH DAKOTA
Bryant was tired and he was scared. After a day and a half in this cramped box, rolling east at a leisurely pace, he was also frustrated. It felt like being confined to a mobile death row cell. He thought about Jasmine and Alyssa again. If only he had dismissed the stupid idea of stealing MeTime, he wouldn’t be here, wondering if he was ever going to see, or even speak to them again. But the more he thought about it, he knew that was only the last straw. There were many if-onlys in the chain before he had made that final disastrous decision.
And now Carter Blake was about to tell Bryant why they were being hunted. He doubted the explanation would do much to lift his spirits.
He watched as Blake considered what he was going to say next. He didn’t speak for a long minute, just looked down at his hands, deep in thought. Bryant began to wonder if he’d changed his mind. But then he lifted his head and spoke.
“It’s called Winterlong.”
“Excuse me?”
“The organization that’s taken an interest in me. The one I used to work for. Actually, that’s not quite accurate. Winterlong was a short-life code name that stuck. They prefer not to call themselves anything.”
“I knew it,” Bryant said. “CIA, huh?” He had guessed as much, both from the skills Blake seemed to possess and the fact that their pursuers seemed to believe they could operate with absolute impunity.
Blake shook his head, as though correcting a slow student. “No. It was ... is, actually, a small, entirely self-contained operation. Absolutely classified. We specialized in the jobs nobody else could do. Either because they required our unique approach, or because they were too politically sensitive.”
“Which means the dirty jobs.”
“Sometimes,” Blake agreed. “We were separate from everything else, but we could call on ... mediated support when necessary. As in some CIA operative would get a phone call telling them to cooperate, or an air base in Kabul would be told to get ready for an unscheduled takeoff, no questions asked. No questions asked was basically the mantra.”
“So you were like ... a secret SEAL team?”
“No. It was the whole package—signals, asset-handling, all the stuff the CIA usually does combined with strike capability. They dropped us into a hot zone with instructions of what they wanted done, and then they let us get on with it. We got established wherever it was, set up our own infrastructure. We had signals guys, human intelligence guys, shooters. For those types of jobs, that’s all you need. From the moment we touched down, we went dark. We completed the mission, and we did it our way.”
“And what was your involvement?”
“I did pretty much what I do now. I was a tracker. I found hard-to-find targets. I located new assets. I found out how to get close to people with nineteen layers of personal security.”
“And then you did what with them?”
“It depended on who it was and what the mission was.”
Bryant smiled sarcastically. “Sure it did. You were a hit squad. You kill any world leaders I might have heard of?”
“It wasn’t that glamorous, Bryant. Like I said, we weren’t there for the noticeable stuff. We were there for the behind-the-scenes work that keeps everything on the level.”
“You sound like you’re okay with this stuff.”
Blake seemed to stop and consider for a second. Like he had fallen into an old trap of justifying the actions of these people, even though it was likely they were about to end his life. After a minute he shrugged. “Do you like sausages?”
“I know, I know,” Bryant said. “Don’t go see them being made.”
In his time with Blake, he had gone through a whole range of reactions to the man: first fear, then resentment, then a grudging respect. Eventually, he had begun to realize that he liked the guy a little, despite himself. But right now all of those emotions were sidelined. Right now all he felt was anger. The man in front of him was no different from the men who had shot at them at the airport, who had killed that driver. Just like them, Blake had taken the money and he hadn’t asked questions. Or not the right ones, at any rate.
Bryant’s voice took on a harder edge, and to his surprise, he found himself not caring about the potential repercussions. “That doesn’t answer my question.”
Blake looked taken aback for a second, and then his gaze hardened.
“Do you know what kind of people I had to find? Bomb makers. Drug kingpins. Al Qaeda cells. People the world was absolutely better off without. Maybe you don’t have to think about all of that nasty stuff in your cozy little Silicon Valley womb, but somebody has to deal with it.”
Bryant was undeterred. “You’re telling me you never had to do anything you weren’t okay with? Who are you trying to convince, man? Me or you?”
That seemed to bring Blake up short, because he stopped what he was about to say and looked down at his hands again. Then he sighed and continued speaking, without looking up.
“Toward the end of my tenure I started to get uncomfortable with some aspects of our work. That’s why I left, and that’s why I work for myself now.”
“So what made you leave?”
Blake gave a lit
tle smirk, as though that was a long story, and stood up, stretching his arms to kill a cramp. He put a hand on the edge of the upper berth and leaned against it as he looked out of the window of the train.
“A lot of little reasons. And one pretty big one.”
“What happened? The good little soldier started thinking for himself?”
If he noticed the barb, he gave no indication. “The opposite, actually. I didn’t change—their opinion of me did.”
“How so?”
“They brought me in because I filled a skills gap, but perhaps I wasn’t ever a perfect fit. I think every member of the team went through a kind of unofficial probation. I lasted as long as I did because I got results, but I always felt like I was being kept out of the inner circle. Turns out I was right. Because it wasn’t just about the skills. It was about being willing to do what it took, no matter what.”
“And you weren’t willing?”
“Sure, within my own limits. Turned out my limits were incompatible with the team. I was approached by someone powerful. Someone who made me believe I could help to make things right. But he was wrong, and it cost him his life.”
He sat back down opposite Bryant. Neither of them spoke for a while. Bryant watched the other man, absorbing what he’d said, while Blake stared out of the window. There was nothing to see out there in the night, but Bryant had a feeling the other man wasn’t thinking about here, or now.
Finally, Bryant prompted him to continue. “What did you do?”
“I acquired some information that they were eager to avoid falling into the public domain.”
“Evidence?”
He nodded, and then a smile suddenly appeared on his lips, like he had thought of an amusing joke. He reached into his pocket and removed the flash drive he’d taken from Bryant earlier, the one that held the MeTime software. He examined it in the palm of his hand and looked up at Bryant. “Incredible, isn’t it? What you can find on one of these.”
Bryant said nothing, waiting for him to continue.
“Every operational commander received a full mission spec and orders on one of these. Couldn’t be done any other way, since we couldn’t guarantee secure Internet access. It was called the Black Book. It was the bible—everything we did, who did what to whom, when, where, and on whose orders. It was updated during the mission with the raw notes for after-action reports. Operational commanders had orders to destroy the book if necessary. It had a fail-safe: built-in software that wiped the data clean if you tried to access it more than a predetermined number of times.”
Bryant nodded, realizing that finally, here was something that fell within his own area of expertise. “A sunset script,” he said. “Smart. But not impossible to get around.”
“I never thought I would have to,” Blake said. “I just needed the threat. I used it to keep them off my back. And it worked, for a while.”
“Until now?”
“Until now.”
“So what changed?”
“The guy I made the deal with is gone. I think there were people who never wanted me running around. They wanted to finish the job. Only I did a good job of hiding from them for years. Right up until last year. A case I was working brought me into contact with them, and I guess somebody decided it was time to tie up this loose end.”
“What about the flash drive—the Black Book? Do you still have it?”
“Of course I still have it. I keep it someplace safe.”
Bryant indicated the dark landscape passing by them out of the window. “Someplace east of here, I take it. And you need to get to the drive before they get to you.”
Again, Blake didn’t respond right away. He looked like he was thinking something through. Making a calculation.
“Listen,” he said after a minute. “There’s a good chance I may not be able to get there before they catch up with me. If you make it out, you might need to know this. I have a place in Upstate New York. It’s an old farmhouse, miles away from anywhere.”
Bryant was confused. If one of them was going to make it out of this, his money was firmly on Blake.
He continued. “There’s a concealed vault in the basement: That’s where I keep everything important. It’s a bookcase. The vault opens when you pull two particular books in sequence: The Great Gatsby and then All the President’s Men.”
“Why are you telling me this? Don’t you—”
“I’m not telling you everything, not yet. But when we get to Chicago, I’ll give my friend the name of the place. Between the two of you, you’ll be able to find it.”
There was a hollow look in Blake’s eyes that Bryant knew was more than just fatigue. From the experience of the last day and a half, he understood two things: Blake knew how to handle himself, and he was pretty adept at evaluating any given situation. If Blake was this worried that he wouldn’t make it out of this alive, it did not bode well.
Bryant said. “Why didn’t you make a backup? Give it to somebody you trusted?”
“It was copy restricted. I’m sure you can get around that, too, but the data would have wiped on another view. And there was another guy.”
Bryant took a moment to understand the significance of the word was. “Oh. What happened to him?”
“He was found executed in Russia four weeks ago. They sent me a picture. Partly to threaten me, partly as a means of finding me.”
In the pit of his stomach, Bryant felt a growing nausea that had nothing to do with the motion of the train. He reached up and massaged his forehead with the fingers of both hands.
“Fuck. We’re dead, aren’t we?”
“We’re still breathing right now,” Blake said.
“But for how long? You just told me these people specialize in hunting down fugitives and al Qaeda and whatever—you think I’m going to be a problem?”
“We have an advantage—I know what we’re up against. I was one of them.”
“Can you get me out of this?”
“I think so. My friend in Chicago will keep you out of harm’s way while this goes down.”
“What makes you think he’ll be able to hide me from them?”
Blake smiled. “Two reasons. One: She’s good. Two: I’m going to try to give them enough to worry about that they forget all about you.”
35
“Your turn,” I said.
Bryant shrugged. “You already know everything about me.”
“Not true. I dug up enough to track you down. I don’t know anything else about you. I almost got you killed. Least I can do is take an interest in how you got yourself in the position for that to happen.”
He shrugged. “Not much to tell. I live alone. Worked for Moonola for a year and a half. I was bored. I saw an opportunity and I took it.”
“Bet you regret it now.”
“You can say that again.”
“Why did you do it?”
“I already told you: the money.”
I shook my head. “Nobody does anything for the money.”
“What the hell are you talking about, Blake? Do you work for free?”
“On this job? Starting to look that way.” I had barely given Stafford a second thought since Seattle. Idly, I wondered how many increasingly pissed-off messages had built up on my voice mail.
“I’m serious. Everybody wants to get paid. Me, you, everybody.”
“Money’s just a means to an end,” I said. “What did you really want?”
He sat back and looked out the window again. It was snowing again. The landscape around us was an ocean of white in the dark. “I wanted my life back,” he said quietly.
He let that sit for a while, and I thought it over.
“A lot of people would say what you did guaranteed the opposite. You’d have been on the run. You would have had no choice but to start fresh. A new place, a new you.”
“That doesn’t sound so bad.”
“You might be disappointed. Take it from me.”
He kept talking, still looking
out of the window, as if talking to himself, rather than me. “I had a wife—you know that? What am I saying, of course you know that. Jasmine. We met at college. Got married in Hawaii. Little girl, too.”
“Alyssa.”
He turned his head to look at me, surprised. “You met them?”
I nodded. “Cute kid.”
He turned to look back out at the passing landscape again. “The cutest. Two months since I saw her.”
He didn’t say anything else for two full minutes, so I prompted him. “What happened?”
“You want the short version? Roulette, Texas Hold’em, blackjack. I always liked gambling. Ever since I was a kid. It was never a problem. Card game here. Weekend in Vegas there. Fifty bucks on the horses once a week. You’re expecting me to tell you about some big blowout, right? One night where I lost everything. But it wasn’t like that. It was gradual, so you wouldn’t notice. I didn’t notice. One day I came home and I thought the house was empty. Then I heard Jasmine upstairs, crying. She was sitting on the bed, holding a letter. She’d been laid off at work, came home to tell me, and then she saw a letter from the credit card company. She opened it and found out we were two hundred grand in debt and rising at seventeen percent. I know. I’m an idiot, right?”
I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t talk. I’d been in denial myself for the past few years. A problem of my own I had ignored, tried to forget about: Winterlong.
Bryant shook his head again. “I knew it was mounting up, of course. I just ...”
“You thought you could handle it. You thought you could wait it out.”
“Exactly. You said I’d have to leave everything, that I couldn’t be me anymore. Blake, that’s exactly what I wanted.”
“What were you going to do?”
“I hadn’t worked out the details yet. I was going to go somewhere nobody would think to look for me. Somewhere far from the coasts, a hundred miles from anywhere with a population above four figures. Some little town in Iowa or North Dakota or Kansas. I was going to rent a little apartment, get a job fixing computers or painting houses or whatever. Two million buys some time to think, you know? Once I got established, I’d come back for Jasmine and Alyssa. I’d be able to give them everything back.”