Imminent Threat

by Jack Patterson

  “Agreed,” Thatcher said.

  As they were shutting off the living room lights, Flynn froze. “Did anyone else hear that?” he asked, drawing his gun.

  Banks and Thatcher both shook their heads.

  Flynn put his index finger to his mouth and moved stealthily toward the door. “Banks, take him to the back of the house. I’m going to check this out.”

  He stepped out onto the porch and crouched down, peering into the dense vegetation surrounding the house. Nothing.

  I could’ve sworn I heard something.

  Flynn waited a few more minutes before he crept back into the house and locked the deadbolt behind him.

  CHAPTER 32

  KRAMER PEERED THROUGH THE BUSHES at the small cabin tucked deep in the Virginia mountains. The FBI agent and her friend had given him more trouble than he cared for, dragging him across the country to this quaint spot.

  At least it will be over soon enough.

  He checked his watch. According to the information he’d received from his contact, this was the safe house his targets would be staying in.

  Much easier than trying to shoot them out of the water.

  He adjusted his night vision goggles and prepared to sneak into the house. He had plenty of advantages—knowledge, weapons, skill. Most of all, he had the element of surprise on his side. The term “safe house” gave people a false sense of security. This wasn’t the first one he’d breached and he doubted it’d be the last.

  He moved swiftly through the woods and reached one of the windows on the side of the house. With the help of a stump, he looked inside and noticed the room was empty and the door was shut.

  Perfect.

  He gave the window a little nudge and it didn’t move. He pushed again. It was locked.

  Perhaps I’ll take a more direct approach.

  The locked window presented Kramer with a problem in more ways than one. If he tried to jimmy the window open, he risked setting off the alarm and losing his surprise attack. If he went in through the front door, he’d likely be met by gunfire. Either way, his prospects at pulling off a successful mission dwindled.

  He slumped against the house and contemplated his next step. The direct approach was the best. After all, he was the best shot in his class at Quantico before he was directed toward other opportunities for service. And the body armor he wore beneath his shirt emboldened him for the final push he needed to charge into the house.

  He kicked the door down and rushed in, waiting for the lights to come on and people to scatter about.

  Nothing.

  What the—

  He crept through the house and didn’t see anyone. He barely saw three beds in the cabin, much less three people.

  How am I supposed to do my job with intel like this?

  He looked in every room in the house and there was no sign that anyone had even been there in days. Before calling his superior, he went outside and looked for a cellar—anywhere they could be hiding.

  Still nothing.

  He pulled out his phone and dialed his contact.

  “There’s no one here,” Kramer said.

  “No one?” the man asked, incredulous.

  “Are you deaf? I said NO ONE.”

  “Are you sure? That’s the safe house assigned to them.”

  “Maybe they thought better of it.”

  “Or maybe it’s a trap. Watch your back—and don’t let them catch you alive. I don’t want to have to explain this one.”

  Kramer kicked the chair in front of him, sending it sprawling across the kitchen. Based on the month and year of the magazine on the table and the level of dust he gathered with the swipe of his finger, he figured it’d been a while since anyone had even visited the house, much less spent a night in it.

  “How am I supposed to do my job?” he growled.

  “If you would’ve done your job right the first time, we wouldn’t be in this predicament,” the man hissed.

  Kramer hung up and shoved his phone into his pocket. He stormed out the front door and galloped down the steps. Without another thought, he screamed, his frustrated cry echoing through the woods.

  CHAPTER 33

  FLYNN DIDN’T NOTICE when Thatcher swiped his phone and took it to the bathroom as everyone was getting ready for bed. Banks volunteered to stay up for the first shift.

  Thatcher logged into his Facebook profile and looked up his former classmate, Dr. Melissa Watson.

  If anyone can help me, she can.

  He felt a twinge of guilt as he sent her a message. It’s not that Flynn and Banks seemed suspicious to him, it’s just that he’d already experienced firsthand what could happen when he blindly trusted someone. For all he knew, they might hack him to death in the middle of the night and steal the vial from him. And he wasn’t about to let that happen.

  He brushed his teeth and reviewed in his mind everything that had happened over the past twenty-four hours. The warm welcome in Germany. The near-death experience on the transport plane over the Atlantic multiple times. And the way he surprised the pilot and wrestled the gun out of his hand before leaping out of the back and into the Potomac.

  If only I had a cool car and a hot girl.

  The reality was he had neither, though he fancied Banks. He preferred blondes—and women who couldn’t go toe-to-toe with him in a fight. For the time being, he was glad to have her on his side. He didn’t know if she’d feel like protecting him once he stole her car.

  He finished brushing his teeth and saw a reply from Dr. Watson pop up on the screen.

  Let’s talk. I just watched the news and saw what happened. Are you OK?

  He hammered out a response.

  I’m fine. What’s your address? I need to see you.

  A few seconds later, she responded with her address. He committed it to memory and then deleted the message. He looked up her address and memorized directions before deleting it as well.

  Once he exited the bathroom, he slipped down the hall and put the phone back where he found it. As he closed his door, Thatcher heard Flynn talking to himself. “There you are. I thought I already looked there for you. I must be losing my mind.”

  Thatcher smiled to himself—and waited.

  After about an hour, he opened the door and slipped into the hallway. He glanced in the living room toward Banks, whose head bobbed every few seconds. As he kept an eye on her, he slid her keys off the table and crept toward the back door. She didn’t flinch as he opened the door and exited the safe house.

  He jumped off the porch and raced to the SUV. Before he started the vehicle, he checked everything around him, ensuring that he’d make a clean getaway. Nothing stood in his way. He put the SUV in neutral and pushed it down the driveway until it gained momentum and headed downhill. A few seconds later, he pumped the brakes to stop before entering the road and inserted the key.

  With the twist of his right wrist, the SUV purred. He eased onto the gas and crept down the driveway with the headlights off. He looked behind him.

  At least no one is streaking after me.

  He smiled as he wove around the two-lane road. In a matter of minutes, he was on the highway, cruising toward Watson’s condo.

  The fact that Watson wasn’t working for a non-profit shocked him. Her stance against big corporations made her a pariah in some circles. Her anti-war position riled many of his friends from military families who insisted that their sacrifices protected her rights. Yet here she was—working for The Goldstein Group, a big corporation that had military ties. However, her duplicity didn’t bother him. He’d already recognized that there were plenty of sides to every argument—and to try to sort them out would be a lifetime of wasted energy. All he wanted to do was serve his country, just like his father and grandfather before him. Yet now he was questioning everything, even what his country stood for.

  His mind whirred as he roared down the road, contemplating St. Thomas Aquinas’ Just War Theory and wondering if it applied to his country’s situation in
the Middle East. Thoughts pinged around in his mind until he finally resigned himself to the fact that it didn’t matter—safety and security mattered most, regardless of early Christian philosophies.

  He glanced at the vial on the passenger seat next to him. The Korean symbols served as a stark reminder that the global world he lived in wasn’t always black and white. It was complex, convoluted, and complicated.

  Thatcher hit the steering wheel with his fist. He preferred the simple life, the one where good and evil stood in opposition to one another and it was easy to tell who was on which side. But this was a far cry from it. Gray hovered over black and white—and it was impossible to distinguish the difference, depending on one’s perspective. This wasn’t a problem he was going to solve today or tomorrow or the next day—maybe ever. But with a little luck and some help from Dr. Watson, maybe he could figure out who was behind the biological attacks that ravaged a compound of Taliban fighters and ultimately cost his troops their lives.

  He turned on the radio and listened to an oldies station piping 80s songs over the airwaves. George Michael’s “Careless Whisper” filled Banks’ car and reminded him of one stark truth: The truth always comes out.

  How fitting.

  It was up to him to discover the truth—and make sure it came out.

  Thatcher turned off the interstate at the exit he’d memorized and drove for several minutes until he came to Watson’s condo. He pulled into a parking spot along the street and hustled toward her apartment, clutching the vial.

  Ahead of him by a few yards was another woman heading toward the same building. She entered in her code and the door buzzed open. Thatcher quickened his pace and caught the door in time.

  I’m sure she won’t mind if I knock instead.

  He slipped inside and headed for the apartment number she’d messaged him.

  Thatcher stepped into the elevator and waited as the mechanism hummed and started to hoist him upward toward her condo on the fifth floor. It wasn’t long before the elevator dinged and he exited and began an immediate search for her door number.

  First left and then right before he noticed the pattern on the wall. Number five hundred forty-two. It was to the left. He shot down the hall until he came upon her door, which was wide open.

  “Melissa!” he cried.

  He pushed the door open with his fingertips and entered. Sounds of struggling came from the kitchen.

  “Melissa!”

  He rushed toward the room and found a man wrestling her to the ground. She tried to call out, but he held his hand over her mouth. When the assailant caught sight of Thatcher, he froze. Clearly, Thatcher’s presence was unexpected.

  Watson slapped at him, trying to break free. But it was a useless attempt, one he quelled with one hand.

  Without wasting another second, Thatcher rushed the man. He jumped in the air and delivered a forearm shiver that connected with the man’s head. He fell backward, releasing Watson. She scrambled away, while Thatcher landed on top of the man and commenced to beat him. In a matter of seconds, the man was subdued. Thatcher then picked up the man’s body and shifted behind him. He grabbed the man’s neck and twisted.

  Snap!

  Thatcher looked up at Watson in time to see her flinch. The grimace on her face spoke volumes about what she thought of his action.

  “I had to,” he said with his head down. “It was the only way.”

  She nodded.

  “Help me,” he said. “We need to move his body.”

  They used the stairwell and navigated the man’s body toward a dumpster. A few minutes later, he was buried beneath a mountain of trash.

  “Do you think anyone saw us?” she asked.

  Thatcher shook his head. “This is not how I envisioned our reunion.”

  “And what exactly did you envision?”

  “Perhaps us clinking our glasses together, saying cheers, and glancing at our feet during a high school reunion.”

  The corners of her mouth curled upward. “That’s a far more boring story.”

  “Of course, this is one we can’t tell anyone about,” he said.

  “I know.”

  “Let’s go back inside. I need to show you something.”

  Thatcher followed Watson up the stairs. He had regular conversations with her in high school, but he never really noticed her. He couldn’t help but notice her now, as her shapely figure swayed in front of him up the steps.

  How did I miss her?

  At the moment, it didn’t matter. It was a nice bonus to the task at hand, which was solving who was behind the chemical attack in the Taliban compound.

  Once they reached her apartment, he checked every room, looking under all the beds and opening each closet.

  “Clear!” he said as he strode back toward the common area.

  “So, what is this vial you were telling me about?”

  “Wait a minute,” he said. “You were almost killed and you don’t want to talk about it.”

  She laughed and shook her head. “It wasn’t the first time today. Perhaps it won’t be the last. At the moment, I’m far more interested in why someone is trying to kill me. What has made me such a target?”

  He handed her the vial. “Well, here it is. Can you tell me what’s in it?”

  She didn’t open it, instead deciding to study it.

  “It’s not some historical artifact,” he said.

  She held up her index finger. “I know—but these markings are familiar.”

  He leaned toward her, excitedly. “You mean you’ve seen these before.”

  “I think so.” She looked closer at the vial and then nodded. “Yep, I recognize this.”

  “Well, then, what is it?”

  “I saw something just like this in our lab a few days ago. And if I remember correctly, these markings look just like the ones on the vials I recently investigated.”

  Thatcher’s eyes widened. “Really?”

  She nodded.

  “Well, what did the liquid in the vials do?”

  “They almost killed innocent people—including me.”

  CHAPTER 34

  SENATOR THOR SIPPED HIS COFFEE and drew in a deep breath as he stared out at the sprawling green space behind his house in the posh D.C. suburb of McLean, Virginia, on a crisp Wednesday morning. He could hear the echoes of giggles and laughter coming from somewhere else in the neighborhood. The sound made him smile then grimace in pain. Those playful noises should have been coming from his yard too. Instead, only his bubbling water fountain provided a calming yet mundane soundtrack.

  He glanced at the paper. The image of Staff Sgt. Thatcher in a parachute about to splash down into the Potomac River dominated the front page along with the headline: “Sordid Soldier or Frank Fighter?” The op-ed section contained a pair of columns with opposing views—one calling him a coward, the other anointing him a hero.

  Thor’s phone buzzed and he looked at the caller ID. It was Greg Holbrook, one of his friends from college who also happened to work in D.C. as a lobbyist for a prominent gun manufacturer.

  “Did you read this morning’s paper?” Holbrook said once Thor answered, dispensing with formalities.

  Thor sighed. “I’m looking at it right now. God, this is a nightmare!”

  “Perhaps for some people, but there’s something fishy going on—and you know it.”

  “The only thing fishy going on is you calling me this early at home to talk about work-related issues.”

  Holbrook chuckled. “What? I can’t just call up my good buddy, son of Odin, and find out how he’s doing?”

  “You know I don’t like to be called that.”

  Holbrook laughed again. “Exactly—that’s why I do it. It’s one of the many endearing things about my favorite senator, whom I’ve never voted for.”

  “And who’s your favorite senator that you have voted for?”

  Holbrook clucked his tongue. “You know I don’t vote and tell. Besides, I think it’d be easy to figure out w
ho my favorite senator is based on his voting record.”

  “What’d you really call about, Holbie Wan Kenobi?”

  “Really? You’re gonna go there? Of all the characters from Star Wars to be named after, you had to pick the old dude who gets sliced up by Darth Vader.”

  “Would a Chewbacca nickname derivative work better for you?”

  “I’m gonna growl like Chewbacca if you don’t stop.”

  “I’m gonna hang up if you don’t answer my question. I’ve got a busy day ahead.”

  “Okay, okay, fine. I was wondering if you could tell me what is going on with this Sergeant Thatcher guy—like, is what he’s saying true? Did the U.S. military try to have his entire squad killed to keep some secret?”

  Thor sighed and contemplated his answer. “You know I can’t really talk about that, right? Security clearance and all.”

  “I know, but I thought—”

  “You thought what? That since we’re old friends that I’d just tell you the truth about what’s going on?”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “Look, I’ll level with you. Nobody really knows what’s going on yet. And until we’re able to get him in front of a Senate committee and question him ourselves, we won’t know. All I know is that he was taken into custody yesterday by an FBI agent—basically everything that was in The Washington Post article this morning.”

  “That’s it?”

  “I don’t work for the CIA—and my security clearance only gets me information when I need to know it. Maybe I’ll know more today, but it won’t be anything I’ll be able to tell you.” He paused. “And why are you so interested in this guy anyway? This hasn’t got anything to do with guns.”

  “I might be a lobbyist, Senator, but I’m an American, too. And if something like this is going on in our own country, I want to know about it so I can help stop it from happening again.”

  “Politics are often complex and—”

  “Wait. Are you justifying the military’s action against his troops?”

  “Before you jump to any conclusions, we don’t even know what really happened yet. However, the short answer to your question is no. But the long answer is far more nuanced and complicated.”