by James Hunt
Lane didn’t argue, and Grant scoured the map, keeping an eye on the bird following the Chrysler. He whispered to himself, “Where are you going?” He zoomed in, expanding the limited back roads, and found a dirt path that turned north from where they got off the highway that happened to intersect at the next exit.
Satellite imagery showed that nothing but trees and a few farms were sprinkled on the road. It was the perfect place to ditch and try to hide. “Turn up here!”
Again, Lane did as he was told, and Grant felt the tug from the seat belt as they careened onto the curving off ramp. He watched the helicopter above, waiting for it to turn, to head up toward them. “C’mon. Turn. Turn. Turn.”
Finally, the chopper veered, and Grant slapped the dash in triumph. “Yes!” He thrust his hand forward, pointing up ahead. “Take a right on Maywell Road. We’re going to run right into this guy.”
Maywell Road came quickly, and Lane turned sharply, tossing the pair of them back and forth inside the cabin, the ride immediately bumpier on the gravel road.
“There he is.” Grant spotted the Chrysler kicking up enough dust to cloud the caravan of cruisers behind him. “Stop here. Block the road.”
They skidded forward when Lane slammed on his brakes, and then he positioned the cruiser perpendicular to the road. Lane started to get out of the car, but Grant stopped him. “I need a gun.”
Lane tilted his head to the side. “I don’t think—”
“Is the shotgun in the trunk?”
Lane hesitated for only a second, then he nodded.
“Open it.” Grant got out of the car, the dust cloud heading toward them growing larger and closer. The trunk popped, and Grant reached for the bag and ran the zipper down quickly, snatching up the twelve-gauge. He checked the chamber and found it loaded then joined Lane by the hood, where they positioned themselves behind the car for cover.
“What happens if he doesn’t stop?” Lane asked.
Grant adjusted his aim, bringing the front windshield of the Chrysler into view. “He won’t risk injuring the girl. She’s too valuable.” The engine roared, and the din of sirens echoed through the woods. The car was one hundred yards away, then eighty, then sixty.
“He’s not slowing down,” Lane said, slowly scooting backward.
“He will.” Grant remained steady as a rock as he was able to make out the details of the grill from forty yards away, then twenty, the groan of the engine still at its peak.
“Jesus Christ!” Lane screamed, but he stayed at his post on the hood of the cruiser.
And just when Grant was about to doubt himself and rush both himself and the boy off to the side, the Chrysler’s engine died, and the driver slammed on the brakes, attempting to careen around the trunk of the cruiser.
It almost made it, but the loose gravel and soil on the sides of the road were too thick, and the shrubs and trees were too clustered to allow anything larger than a dirt bike to pass. But the momentum of the car pushed it a dozen yards into the forest before it stopped.
Grant approached first, the stock of the shotgun pressed firmly against his squared shoulders. He only made it three steps before the driver’s-side door opened and the mercenary brandished a pistol, firing randomly and sending Grant and Lane back behind the squad car for cover.
Lane kept his eyes closed, his face drenched in sweat as they sat on the road. He was hyperventilating.
“You all right?” Grant asked.
Lane nodded, and Grant peeked over the hood toward the Chrysler. A figure, carrying something over his shoulder, sprinted into the woods.
“C’mon!” Grant slapped Lane on the shoulder, and the pair were already in pursuit by the time the next squad car stopped in the road.
Rocky terrain and ankle-high brush made the tracking slow, but Grant maintained line of sight. The mercenary turned, firing and forcing both Grant and Lane behind the cover of trees, but neither returned fire. They couldn’t risk hitting Anna.
Chopper blades whirled overhead, the air support blocked by the thick canopy of trees. The shouts and grunts of the officers joining the chase grew closer, but the only thing that Grant focused on was the sound of his own breathing, the twelve-gauge in his hands, and the man carrying Anna Copella deeper into the woods.
A cramp bit at the left side of Grant’s ribs, but he pushed through it, and he hastened his pace. The back of the suspect’s head grew closer and closer and closer until suddenly Grant’s view was blocked by a cluster of trees.
Grant’s heart skipped a beat, but when he cleared the blockade of the trees and saw what was behind it, his heart stopped cold altogether, and it wasn’t anything but the years of repetition coming back to him that raised the shotgun and kept his aim steady. “Let her go!”
The mercenary had Anna on the ground, where she lay unconscious with a gun to her head. The mercenary wore no mask. His face was scarred from years of a life that had known nothing but violence. His eyes were dark, and his face wide and flat. Since it was a man, Grant assumed it was Danny Mullens.
He didn’t smile. He didn’t move. He just sat there with the gun to Anna’s head.
“I was told that you wouldn’t be here,” Mullens said. “I was told I had a clear route.”
Grant frowned, approaching slowly, gun still aimed. “Who told you?”
The mercenary smiled. “The girl will die before you can pull the trigger.”
“I’ve played this game before,” Grant said.
The mercenary shook his head. “You’ve never played this game.” He kept his eyes locked on Grant. “If you know who I am, then you know who hired me. He doesn’t accept failure.”
“Whatever they paid you, whatever they told you, it doesn’t have to stay that way,” Grant said, struggling to keep his voice calm and the shotgun steady. “Just put the gun down, and step toward me.”
Silence lingered, and then the mercenary looked past Grant toward the approaching officers. He looked up at the sky at the sound of the chopper. When he lowered his face, he nodded. “All right, then.” He took the pistol off of Anna’s head, and just when Grant was about to exhale in relief, he placed the barrel of the gun against his own head and squeezed the trigger.
6
FBI Director Nathan Links sat slouched in his chair, fingers interlaced and both hands resting on top of his stomach. He lolled his head lazily to the left and checked the time. The conference call had been rambling on for the past twenty minutes, which was nineteen minutes longer than it needed to be.
These discussions were always a formality, a faux “sharing” of information that was nothing more than a circle jerk. He raised his hand, working his mouth and hand at the same time as though he had a puppet, as the CIA director discussed some jihadist stuck in a hole five thousand miles away.
“Nathan,” the Homeland director said, “do you have any updates?”
“Not yet,” Links answered. “Still waiting to hear back on the situation with the girl in the Joza case.” He picked at his index fingernail, trying to flick out a lone piece of dirt wedged inside. “Should have an update on that soon.”
“All right, I don’t have anything else. Jim?”
“Good here,” the CIA director replied.
“All right, till next week, gentlemen.”
The call ended, and Links raised his middle finger to hit the end call button on his phone. He leaned back in his seat. He’d been in this position for two years. And he finally had something big ready. Something that would secure his position for the rest of his life.
A cell phone on the desk buzzed, the name “Hickem” illuminated on the screen. Links reached for it quickly. “What is it?”
“We’ve got her, sir,” Hickem said. “The Copella girl. We’re taking her to a secure facility now.”
“Good.” The word came out practiced but devoid of any excitement. Color had drained from his cheeks, and his lip curled in a snarl. “What about the mercenary?”
“Shot himself,” Hickem answe
red. “But we still have Gusto Debrov in custody at the US Marshal building. Though he hasn’t given us much to go on save for what we already know. But, um, sir, there is something else.”
“What?” Links didn’t try to hide his displeasure with that. He didn’t need any more surprises.
“The kidnapper was heading east,” Hickem said, his tone confused. “It doesn’t match the intelligence we were given that the mercenaries and Joza were trying to smuggle the Copellas out of the country.”
“No,” Links answered. “It doesn’t.”
“Sir, I was wondering if I could come to DC,” Hickem said. “I’d like the opportunity to speak to Agent Kover myself, see what caused him to—”
“The mole that was inside your unit is no longer your concern,” Links said. “I’ll be handling the interrogation process personally. I think you’ve done enough in that regard, don’t you?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Let me know as soon as the Copella girl is in a secure location, and let’s try and keep the media coverage to a minimum. The less we have to deal with battling that front, the quicker we can get this resolved.” Links hung up and then tossed the phone on the desk. He leaned back in his chair, a quiet rage growing inside of him, fanned by his quickened breath.
He shot up and out of his chair and paced the room, doing his best to quell the scream that was building up inside of him, begging to be let out. He raked his fingers through his hair and caught the shimmer of the gold nameplate on his desk.
The phone buzzed again, the number blocked this time. “What?” His tone was short, and he was breathless.
“Asset is secure. Location alpha two.”
The call ended, and Links closed his eyes, trying to get control of his breathing, and then pocketed the phone. Once his heart rate slowed and he fixed his hair in the mirror, he donned his jacket and then stepped out of the office, only one thing on his mind as he walked through the halls of the J. Edgar Hoover building, where he had spent most of his adult career.
It was a call he’d been expecting since Hickem informed him of the mole. And it was a conversation that he had replayed over and over in his head, traveling down different paths and toying with a variety of outcomes. It was a game that he liked to play to keep himself from growing bored. It was also the main reason he joined the FBI and had been promoted to his current rank. He was good at asset management and risk diversion.
Every possible outcome, every possible path, the obstacles and roadblocks, the resources needed, the probability of success or failure, it was nothing more than a numbers game for him, and Links always made sure that the odds were in his favor. But he could do so much more. He could elevate himself, the FBI, the whole goddamn country if people would just let him do his job.
Nearsightedness was the Achilles’ heel of an intelligence agency’s growth. But Links knew better. He saw beyond the corner, and beyond the turn after that, and all the way down to the end of his life and the rest of the world’s. He could make everything better. If only the dumb fucks that surrounded him would listen.
A few friendly smiles and waves greeted Links on his exit, but even he had to swipe his security badge at the checkpoint before he left. People kissed his ass because he was in a position of power. And in return he fed them the lies that every other sociopath and narcissist in Washington fed them: a promise of transparency and integrity.
But everyone had a tell, a weak point, dirty laundry, or a skeleton in the closet that they didn’t want known. Exploitation and blackmail were the name of the game. But Links had gone to a considerable amount of effort to avoid such tactics. The more entangled he became, the harder it was to move around. And he wanted to stay mobile.
When he stepped outside, the security valet offered to grab his car, but Links waved him away. “Think I’ll walk to lunch, Bill.”
“All right, Director Links, no problem. Hey, you watch the Nationals last night?”
“Strasburg pitched a gem.” Links forced a smile as he turned around. “Too bad he couldn’t have been healthy all four years we’ve had him.”
“We’re making up for lost time!” Bill hollered, the statement followed with a gut-bursting laugh.
Links turned around, continuing his walk toward the black site, and trying to rid himself of that wretched taste of effort on his tongue. In truth, he wasn’t much better than the politicians that plagued the city like rats, but at the very least, his own aspirations were in line with the betterment of the country and, in turn, its people.
But the slack-jawed masses and vacant-eyed expressions of the common folk that Links passed on the street weren’t the bedrock of his true motivations. He only wanted power. But to want power in a democracy was to be branded a demagogue. And it was hard for a demagogue to get anything done in this town. You had to practice the smile, the wave, the handshake with those idiots charged with the power of the vote. And for the past fifteen years with the FBI, he had played that part with the people around him. But it was close to being finished now. So fucking close.
Links kept to a serpentine path on his way to the black site, the walk sporadic but cunningly efficient. The Capitol was infested with cameras that the intelligence community monitored like hawks. Every day, everywhere, people were photographed and recorded. But there were certain paths that operatives could walk throughout the city that would shield them from cameras.
Most of the walkways were from the FBI building to the handful of black sites that were still operational but off the books.
It was all part of a game played in the shadows, and if you didn’t learn how to feel your way through the dark, then you wouldn’t last long.
Links turned the last corner of the route, which led him down a narrow one-way street north of the city and just past DC’s downtown. It was on a hill, and when he looked south, he had a good view of the National Mall.
The Washington Monument stuck out as it protruded triumphantly toward the sky. To the east and west were the Lincoln Memorial and the Capitol building. There were tens of thousands of tourists down there, gazing at the Romanesque structures that had been erected as a testament to the country’s strength and honor.
Links had visited them only once since he moved to DC when he first started with the bureau. He stood beneath the shadows of all that history, and only one thought entered his mind: I wonder where they’ll build mine?
Links removed his security badge as he walked up the steps of a two-story building wedged between an out-of-business convenience store and an office building for lease. Of course neither building on either side was ever under any private control. The FBI owned all three and just made sure to rotate what was happening with them every few months. It was a charade that had worked effectively for the past four years, ever since black sites in the capitol were “barred” from existence. But that was the point of a black site, wasn’t it? To be invisible?
The door opened, and a security guard sitting behind a desk nodded as Links passed through the foyer and into the next room, which had three doors. Links reached for the door on the left and pressed his thumb against the brass knob. His print was scanned, and once cleared, he was granted entry to the staircase that led him to the cells underground.
The halogen lights that flickered beneath the earth always provided an eerie glow that he enjoyed, though he was probably alone in that enjoyment. The white light illuminated the path down the bland concrete hall, which contained no cameras, no recording equipment of any kind. Not even Links was dumb enough to try to bring something down here. It left the site devoid of its purpose. They could do things here that they couldn’t do in the outside world.
Here, secrets could be told, truths could be twisted, and lies were broken by whatever means necessary, which Links enjoyed even more than the lights.
A door was sealed halfway down the hall, and Links knocked once. The heavy crank of a lock disengaging echoed through the thick steel, and the door opened. The man inside sported a beard covered in s
weat, disheveled hair, and an M-16 strapped over his left shoulder. Two other men stood in the room, dressed in similar fashion, each of them armed.
The cell had only one light, which was fixed in the center of the ceiling, and beneath it, tied to a chair with his hands behind his back and his head slumped forward with his chin on his chest, was the mole in Hickem’s unit: Matt Kover.
The interrogator who opened the door returned with a second chair and set it down in front of Matt. Links, keeping his eyes locked on Kover, said only one word: “Leave.”
The three men immediately filed out of the cell then shut and locked the steel-plated door behind them. Links remained quiet, waiting to see if Kover would stir, but the moment never came.
Links dusted off the seat before he sat and then crossed his left leg over his right and folded his hands neatly in his lap. “Hello, Matthew.”
Kover stirred, his shoulders twitching wildly, flinging his head back and forth like a pendulum. The halogens exposed the welts and bruises from his altercation with the man he was supposed to kill. His left eye had swollen shut, and the blood that lined his face in crimson patches was still wet from the sweat pouring off of him in buckets. The dark patches beneath his eyes looked like bruises, but Links knew better. The man hadn’t slept since he was brought here. It was all part of the process of breaking them down. It was the truth they sought down here, and if they couldn’t get that, then a confession was just as good.
Kover stared at Links, his one good eye blinking a few times before realization of who sat across from him finally sank in. He looked around, making sure they were alone, and then he leaned forward. “You have to get me out!”
Links grimaced. “You fucked up, Matt. You royally fucked up.”
“I did exactly as you told me to do!” His voice was a harsh whisper, despite the fact that there wasn’t anyone around. “I held up my end of the bargain.”
Links rubbed the fingers of his left hand against his thumb. The heat of the city in the summer was unbearable even below ground. The sweat made the grime on his skin roll into tiny balls at his fingertips. “You were supposed to make sure the family was taken. The entire family. Not just the father, or the mother, or the daughter—all three of them.” He flicked off the pieces of dirt and then wiped the remains along his pants leg, making a mental note to shower when he was done here. “We only have the parents. And we still only have the parents.”