GodMode

by O. K. Mills

  “And what is that?”

  “One of the cops was killed by Silas’ guys, and the kid took his badge. We’re actually tracking that; and that is how we know where we’re going.”

  “And if she decides to put it down, or if she accidentally leaves it somewhere? What then?”

  “Well, if that happens, then we’re probably effed,” Pike said flatly, “but I’m sure you’ll tell us our next move since you’ve been so helpful with strategy so far,” he added caustically.

  Sharon folded her arms again and turned to look out of the passenger side window. Pike returned his attention to the GPS, and they rode in silence from that moment on.

  Bear put his phone on speaker as he remotely unlocked the doors to his Jeep. He mouthed the words “it’s open” to Spade, who then put Brynn in the back seat and sat shotgun. Heather stood within listening distance, and after what seemed an infinite number of rings, someone finally answered on the other end of the line.

  “Winter Harlin’s office, how can I assist you?” a male voice asked.

  “William Bowden calling for Mrs. Harlin,” Bear replied.

  “Please wait one moment, Mr. Bowden, while I check to see if she’s available.”

  Both Spade and Heather made faces that expressed how unaccustomed they were to hearing Bear referred to as anything other than ‘Bear.’ Focusing on the call, he ignored their puzzled looks. A few moments later, Winter answered.

  “When my assistant said it was ‘William’ Bowden I almost sent you to voicemail. No one calls you William,” she laughed, “How the heck are you? It has been entirely too long.”

  “I’m well, Mrs. Harlin, thank you for asking,” Bear answered.

  “Mrs. Harlin, eh? We’re being super formal today, is that it? You must have company. Tell your lady friend I said hello.”

  “I don’t have any lady friends with me, Mrs. Harlin,” Bear chuckled with an apologetic glance towards Heather, who rolled her eyes. “I’m calling because I need your help.”

  “Anything for you, my dear; how can I be of assistance?”

  “I can’t get into it over the phone, I’m afraid. I was hoping I might be able to stop by your office?”

  “Of course. I’ll give you back to my assistant and get you on my calendar for tomorrow.”

  “Actually, Mrs. Harlin I was hoping to see you today. It’s urgent. Do you have time?”

  “Well when you put it like that, I suppose I need to make time. You know I’m in Fairfax, right? Do you need the address?”

  “No, ma’am, I know where you’re located.”

  “Of course you do. Forgot whom I was talking to. How close are you? I need be home by 8 pm at the latest.”

  “I’m about 30 minutes west of your location, give or take.”

  “I’ll let security know that you’re coming.”

  “Very good, ma’am. By the way, I’ll have a package with me.”

  “A package, huh? Now you’ve got me really intrigued. I’ll see you when you get here.”

  With that, Bear ended his call and walked over to Heather.

  “We’re headed East on 66, exit 60, route 123 towards Fairfax. You’re going to hang a right onto 29 and look for a—”

  “I’m following you, genius. Unless you don’t know where you’re going I probably don’t need you to be a pre-trip GPS,” Heather interrupted.

  Bear let her rudeness wash over him like a waterfall. Poor manners were his number one pet peeve, and Heather could touch a nerve like nobody’s business.

  “You are like human sandpaper, do you know that?” said Bear.

  “Then it’s a good thing I’m attractive,” Heather retorted with a wink before heading to her vehicle.

  Fatigue was beginning to hit Brynn hard. The excitement of the day had finally caught up to her. She lay slumped to one side with her glasses barely hanging onto her face. Spade smiled upon seeing her sleep, gently removed her glasses, folded them and placed them on her lap. When he turned back, he noticed Bear grinning at him out of the corner of his eye.

  “She’s a sweetie, isn’t she?” said Bear.

  Spade just smiled.

  “I think you would be a good dad.”

  “Yeah? I don’t know, man. Today hasn’t been the most sterling example of my parenting skills.”

  “She’s breathing, isn’t she?”

  “She is.”

  “Then you’re doing your job.”

  “Let me get this straight. You think that Asha might be a mole?” stated Walker. Sweeney affirmed his position with a series of repeated head nods followed by a nervous glance to check if anyone was watching them.

  “So you go over to her, knock over all of her stuff, don’t even ask her out, and somehow during all of this, you stumble onto evidence that she might be feeding information about this case to an outside source. Do I have this right?”

  “Walker, how long have you known me?”

  “Boy, I raised you.”

  “Exactly. You’re always telling me to go the extra mile, not cut corners—to think like a detective, right?”

  Walker nodded.

  “So why don’t you believe me?”

  “Well for one, you don’t have any actual proof, son. I can’t just go over to Cole and tell him that one of his people is dirty.”

  “I’m telling you, Walker, I saw the text messages. She was telling someone that she had found a way to track that girl and that she would be in touch. Whoever it was on the other end of those messages wrote her back and said ‘Understood.’ Who would she need to text that to who wasn’t already standing next to her?”

  Walker admitted to himself that he hadn’t considered that.

  “And don’t you think it’s a little odd that she can pull video surveillance footage out of her butt like a magician, but it has taken her almost two hours to do this badge tracking program?”

  As if on cue, Asha announced to Cole that the code she had been working on was finally ready to go. She went on to say that the program would download to his phone automatically, and that once he’d entered the badge number into his GPS, they’d be able to track it and hopefully Brynn very easily.

  “We need to tell Cole, man,” Sweeney almost begged. Walker was not entirely convinced, but he was certainly more persuaded than he had been a few moments prior.

  “Let’s just keep an eye on her.”

  “Don’t patronize me, Walker,” Sweeney sighed.

  “I’m not patronizing you, but you can’t go off all half-cocked without any hard evidence,” Walker responded, his hands raised is surrender in hopes of calming Sweeney down.

  “You’re right,” Sweeney sighed.

  “Doesn’t mean you’re not right; you saw what you saw. Let’s watch her and strike at the right time, okay?”

  Before Sweeney could answer, Cole came up to the two of them brandishing his phone. He beamed like sunshine as he studied the open GPS application and the blinking crimson dot that indicated the location of Mike Spade’s badge.

  “Technology is amazing. Let’s roll, gentlemen.”

  Bear glanced up at his rearview mirror to make sure that Heather was keeping up. He could see her head furiously bopping up and down to whatever she was listening to.

  He smiled and shook his head.

  “What’s so funny?” Spade asked.

  “Heather is. She’s listening to something back there. It ain’t classical either,” Bear chuckled.

  Spade didn’t respond.

  “You two need to squash this nonsense, at least until we get Brynn somewhere safe. We don’t need old wounds opening up while her life hangs in the balance.”

  “How exactly am I supposed to do that, Bear? Go back in time and not leave the Marine Corps?”

  “Why exactly did you leave anyway? I’ve always wanted to know that. It obviously wasn’t the training or anything tactical. So what was it?”

  Spade didn’t respond.

  Bear sighed.

  “Fair enough. The ‘
whys’ don’t really matter anyway; regardless, this has to get squashed. You two need to have a formal truce or summit or maybe just hug it out.”

  “I don’t even know what she’s so upset about,” said Spade.

  “And that, my friend, is why you are single.”

  “This from the man who spends more time playing World of Warcraft with 12-year-olds than he does anything else. Hanging with me and Heather must be a whole new experience for you.”

  “Touché, jackass,” Bear chuckled, “but I’m still right.”

  “How do you figure?”

  “First of all, in an argument between a man and a woman, the man is always wrong, even when he’s right. If memory serves me correctly, there were two all-stars in our unit back in basic training: That’d be you and the lovely Heather Wolfe.

  She matched you stride for stride. You’d do 100 one-arm push-ups, and she would match you. You’d average sevens during the morning five-mile runs, and she’d have to get at least that too.”

  “They never measured us against the ladies, Bear. That’s not even how the Corp works. You sound like a civilian right now,” Spade said as he turned to give Bear his undivided attention.

  Bear ignored him.

  “Then there was the day that you got invited to BUD/S training. We all recognized that you had it in you. The Navy was just discovering what those of us in your Marine Corps unit already knew. Bro, that girl went on for days bragging on you. Did you know that?”

  Spade shook his head.

  “She did. Anybody within earshot of her heard your name and the phrase Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL for what felt like an eternity. When you quit…”

  Spade grimaced at the word quit.

  “When you decided to tactically retreat,” Bear self-corrected, “I think she took it personally.”

  “It had nothing to do with her,” Spade replied.

  “It had everything to do with her. She was your equal in nearly every skill qualifier we were tested on. The only thing that was never really settled was who could kick the others hind parts in a real fight. My money is on Heather, by the way,” Bear laughed.

  Spade grinned.

  “You’re saying that when I left BUD/S that in some vicarious way that she felt she did too?”

  “When you left, she left. And in her mind that is not something she would’ve have done. I think if you had gone on and finished it, then she would have felt like she had made it too. Then, of course you went to Africa without explaining yourself to her.”

  “I didn’t owe anybody an explanation, Bear. It was my life then, and it’s my life now. I live it as I see fit. Sheesh, it’s not like she and I were a couple. I didn’t even tell my brother until I was already in the Ivory Coast. What does any of that have to do with her?”

  “You’re absolutely right—logically speaking. But that’s not Mr. Spock driving that car behind us. That’s a strong independent woman who lives daily in a man’s world. She has to be logical in order to cope, so she suppresses her emotions under all of the logic she can muster. She projects harder than bricks, but she’s a softie on the inside.”

  “You could’ve fooled me.”

  “She cares, man. You have to approach Heather logically, but stay mindful that she’s emotional. And when a woman suppresses her emotions, they will eventually come vomiting out on your shoes when you least expect it.”

  “So I ask you again, Bear, how exactly am I supposed to squash this beef?”

  “You have to apologize to her for quitting BUD/S.”

  “Ain’t happening,” Spade said slightly angrier than he wanted to.

  “I’m not saying you have to mean it. I’m not even saying you have to give an unguarded apology. But you do have to tell that woman you are sorry,” Bear said.

  “What do you mean by unguarded apology?”

  “You know those apologies where people say stuff like ‘I’m sorry if I did or said anything that might have offended you.’”

  Spade nodded.

  “That’s a guarded apology. You know that the dude saying it is probably just sorry that he got caught. Unguarded is where you just tell her that you’re sorry, but you let the chips just fall. You don’t justify anything. You let her tee off on you and just lie there in the fetal position, taking it like a man.”

  “Why would I do that when I haven’t done anything wrong?” Spade asked.

  “Because sometimes you have to swallow someone else’s pride. Or didn’t they teach you that over in Africa?”

  As Spade gave those words of wisdom some additional thought, Bear pulled into a self-service car wash. Heather pulled in after in a space nearby. Brynn stirred in the backseat as Spade gave Bear a look.

  “This doesn’t look like a military facility to me, Bear.”

  “Kind of the point, don’t you think?” Bear smiled, “Oh ye of little faith.”

  They exited the Jeep and waited for Heather to finish listening to her song. Once she shrilled out her last poorly executed soprano note, the four of them entered the facility. Inside, an old African American gentleman was seated behind a counter next to an even older looking cash register.

  “Heather, do you have your ID?” Bear asked.

  She nodded and pulled out her CIA credentials. Bear did the same, showing his SOCOM badge to the attendant.

  “We’re here to see Mrs. Harlin,” Bear announced.

  The attendant said nothing in reply. Instead, he entered a lengthy code into the cash register, then swiped a security badge down its side, placing the badge in a shredder mere moments later. A sound reminiscent of a bolt unlocking resonated from behind them.

  The attendant gestured to a simple white wall.

  “Down the stairs to the elevator. Mrs. Harlin’s office is on floor B11. Once you exit, it’ll be in the corner next to the break room.”

  Bear slid open the false wall, and they headed down to the elevator. After pushing the call button, Bear tapped floor B11 as instructed. Upon exiting they walked past several offices occupied by civilians.

  “Security is a little lighter than I expected for a SOCOM facility,” Heather thought out loud.

  “This place technically doesn’t exist, remember? Having an arsenal outside is kinda counterintuitive,” Bear replied.

  “We’re inside, ‘Richard.’ Tell me your rabbi has at least one guy with a gun in here.”

  Bear rolled his eyes at the ‘rabbi’ comment as Heather continued.

  “Listen, I’m sure the ‘greybeard’ at the front desk is a nice enough guy, but I could probably kill him in my sleep. What’s to stop someone else from just waltzing in here?”

  Bear paused to address her concerns more directly.

  “Guys with guns generally make our more liberal civilians jumpy, and this facility has several liberal civilians. That said, what the building lacks in guns, it more than makes up for with some of the most advanced technological security measures in the known world.”

  The group continued walking until they made it to the nearest executive corner office, past the break room.

  Bear paused one more time to make a final point.

  “My rabbi,” Bear mocked, “also has her own detail of MPs on site.”

  “I’d probably kill them in my sleep too,” Heather responded.

  Ignoring her, Bear opened the office door, which revealed an attractive older woman with silver hair and a body fitter than typical of someone her age. Seated behind a large oak desk, she was finishing up a phone call and waved them in once she recognized Bear. A small army of college degrees, plaques and assorted awards surrounded her.

  Upon seeing Brynn, her eyes went wide.

  “Stephen, I have to go, my meeting just arrived. Yes, sweetie, I’ll be home by 8. Love you.”

  Winter placed her phone receiver back in its base and stared at Brynn. Her gaze went at Bear.

  “Now I know why you couldn’t get into this over the phone.”

  “You know who she is, then?” asked Bear
.

  “Anyone with cable TV knows who she is. The poor child’s face is all over the news. She was kidnapped by you apparently.” Winter laughed as she gestured for the four of them to sit.

  “We can explain everything, Mrs. Harlin. This is much deeper than what the local news is reporting,” said Bear.

  “It always is, my dear. I’m listening.”

  Marshall Pike pulled his white Porsche into the Ambassador Autowash in Fairfax, VA. Though the spaces were narrower than he liked, he found two spaces side-by-side and parked at an angle. After checking his GPS app one final time, he shut off the engine.

  Sharon pointed out the obvious.

  “This is a car wash, babe.”

  Pike looked at her, shook his head and then opened his door.

  “Stay in the car,” said Pike.

  “Well, it is!” Sharon semi-yelled as Pike shut the car door.

  He chirped it locked on his way to the facility. He entered to see an older African American man seated behind a cash register.

  “Where is she?” Pike asked.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about?” the older man asked.

  “Do you really think I’m here to get my car washed?”

  PAP PAP!

  Pike moved like a ninja, dropping the man with his silenced weapon. Almost immediately, however, he regretted it. There was no one else here, no visible surveillance cameras and nothing that betrayed the location of a hidden exit from this room. He went behind the counter, pushed the now dead attendant to the floor, and thoroughly scanned the cash register.

  He sighed. He had never encountered this level of tech before, and the one person he knew who had was lying dead at his feet with four bullets in his forehead. Pike searched for anything that might open a door—levers, switches, consoles, controls—anything. After several minutes he finally admitted that even Marshall Pike, apparently, could not just waltz into a secure military facility.

  He did have one advantage however. They didn’t know he was here. All he had to do was give them a reason to come out, and he would have his way in.