Nichols exhaled strongly, laid her hands flat on the table, and slowly nodded. “Yeah, I get it. You’re right.”
“What do I tell you?” Key grinned, pleased she had taken responsibility, but he had to make sure she wasn’t just doing it as way to forget about it. “What do I always tell you?”
“You want to know how smart I am, not how tough I am,” she said in a mild singsong, but with an honest, comprehending smile.
“It’s not about how bad-ass you are,” Daniels chimed in like a five-year-old reciting his alphabet. “It’s about how effective you are.”
“It’s also not about proving how bad-ass you are,” Key stressed. “To anyone, especially yourself!”
The door finally banged open, as Key figured it would. It was the main reason they had started the lesson in the first place. Key knew it would drive Logan crazy.
Sure enough, in walked Patrick Logan—wearing, as was his custom, a full uniform, and carrying, as was also his custom, a thick file. He seemed to always want to have it at hand in case he needed something to hide behind.
Daniels looked behind him in anticipation, but to his obvious disappointment, there was no beautiful blond Second Lieutenant Barbara Strenkofski, who had been Logan’s aide when last they met. He had wanted to at least attempt a reconciliation after Daniels had left her “Mickey-Finned” in an Omani medical college break-room bunk bed—where she had successfully attempted to “romantically conquest” him.
Instead, there was a statuesque, violet-eyed brunette in a tailored uniform, sporting first lieutenant insignia. Logan looked pointedly from her to Daniels as she sat down, her notepad at the ready.
“Ah,” Logan snapped as he slapped the file onto the table and settled in. “The men from Cerebral.”
Key didn’t take the bait. Nor did Nichols, but she did check his chest and crotch in pointed silence. Key was certain Logan had purposely used the misogynist greeting, and fairly certain he had purposely mispronounced the organization’s name, but you never know. Somebody like Logan might actually think that was the name, but it made little difference to Key. He had heard every variation, from Cerebrum to Short Bus, in such a short time that he went back to simply saying he was from the CID—which actually wasn’t a lie. Logan had originally made both he and Daniels CID agents back in the day, and the question whether they were still CID, or even Marines, would probably have to be unraveled by the NCIS.
Instead, Key looked placidly at the florid, ambitious officer and said, as way of greeting, “Captain.”
Because they all knew Logan was far more thin-skinned than Key, they all expected the result. Logan stiffened, then sharply pointed at his uniform’s insignia. “Colonel,” he stiffly corrected.
“Oh, we got you a promotion, did we?” Key said like a cat toying with a mouse who was already dead. Cerberus had allowed Logan to take the credit for destroying the Idmonarchne Brasieri, and everyone in this room, except for maybe the buxom brunette, knew it. Getting a certain one of them to admit it, however, was a different matter.
“I got me the pro—!” Logan started before he realized he was acting the way he had wanted Key to act. “Never mind, Corporal Key. Maybe you could utilize your time to better advantage by telling me why I shouldn’t let the local Punjabi authorities do to you what they are threatening to do to you.”
If he was expecting Key to react in agitation, he really should have known better. It wasn’t like they hadn’t faced each other across much the same table in much the same room before. Key didn’t even respond to the “corporal” crack since, although he had since been promoted to major, once he threw in with Cerberus he decided to leave rank behind.
“Because they know as well as you that we all have a problem that won’t be solved with a hammer,” Key replied calmly, then continued by giving credit where credit was due. “No matter how strong and effective that hammer may be.”
Logan leaned back as if he had sprung his own mousetrap. “What we have, Corporal, is a terrorist problem, and I think that hammer you so accurately referred to will do just fine.”
Key exhaled through his nostrils and couldn’t help shaking his head in a “t’was ever thus” manner. He also leaned back and spread his hands to encompass the file on the table between them.
“So that’s the theory you’re going with?” he sighed sadly. “Terrorists who use a child as a bomb to damage property. Terrorists who can get from the base to the top of a mountain in minutes. Terrorists who survive an explosion that kills two park rangers who were farther away from the detonation than they were. Terrorists who can disappear from a lockdown even a TSA agent couldn’t avoid. You really want to walk into the teeth of this that way?”
Both Daniels and Nichols wondered whether Key had used the word “teeth” knowingly. They immediately decided he had.
Logan looked as if Key had repeatedly slapped him in the face with a fish, but he also looked as if he thought of himself as a prize fish fighter. “What I want,” he said tightly, “is for you and your Cerberus bozos to be as far away from this as possible, and if that means I have to lock the door of a Punjabi jail cell myself, I will.”
Key stared at him until Logan was impelled to continue, through gritted teeth. “The bomb,” he said, “was in the juice container.”
Key couldn’t keep his brows from raising a bit. Logan could guess all he wanted about what happened at Mount Rushmore, but he already knew that people exploded. They both had been on that beachfront in Yemen. They had seen it with their own eyes. He continued to just stare, waiting to see if Logan’s denial was so big it might swallow him.
The newly minted colonel took the moment to look to his new aide, who handed him a sheet of paper from the file. “Would it surprise you to know that Aarif Zaman has taken responsibility for the attack?” he asked, his eyes on the paper.
Key had to think about that bombshell, but didn’t need to think about it long. “Yes,” he said, “and no.”
That comment returned the favor to Logan’s eyebrows, which also raised. “Why yes,” he started to ask, “and why—”
He got no further because retired General Charles Lancaster strode in.
“What took you?” Daniels blurted.
“Making sure the colonel didn’t bogart our evidence,” Lancaster answered without hesitation.
“Bogart?” Logan blustered. “Your evidence?”
“Yes, our evidence,” Lancaster almost spat, swinging a piece of paper at Logan’s face as if it were a scythe. “Officially signed and authorized. When will you get it through your thick skull that we’re on the same fucking team?”
Logan grabbed the paper and read it so intently Nichols thought it might burst into flame. “When you bozos stop getting in my way,” he growled.
“We will when you stop making us,” Lancaster immediately retorted. “I don’t have to tell you that your interference resulted in the suspect getting away, but I want you to know that makes us all wonder if you wanted it that way.”
“What?” Logan exploded, vaulting to his feet. “What the— How dare— I don’t have to sit here and take that!”
The colonel’s tantrum didn’t faze Lancaster in the least. “There’s the door,” he said evenly, cocking his head toward the one exit. “Don’t let it hit you on the way out.”
After a chaotic moment when the colonel and his aide hastily gathered up their papers, Logan all but pushed the brunette into the hall, but stopped in the opening. He turned with his mouth open but froze when he saw everyone in the room patiently waiting and staring directly at him.
“I…I…” he stammered. “I am in charge of this operation, and I will tolerate no interference.”
Before anyone could reply, Logan slammed the door after himself.
Key sighed again and scratched his forehead. “Our evidence secure?”
Lancaster nodded. “And on it
s way to HQ.”
Nichols looked from them to Daniels. “What’s ‘bogart’?” she asked.
The retired general laughed. “A word to give away my age.”
When he said nothing further, Nichols shifted her quizzical gaze to Daniels.
“Don’t look at me,” the bruiser said. “I know as much as you.”
Key interrupted the direction the conversation was going. “Aarif Zaman?” he asked their leader.
Lancaster grew serious and nodded. “Yes. He took full responsibility, and, in not so many words, dared us to ‘catch me if you can.’” The retired general looked each of his operatives in the eye. “What do you think?”
“It’s a trap,” Daniels sniffed dismissively. “Zaman is one of the top a-holes in Afghanistan. By copping this sort of attitude, he’s mooning everybody from one of the shit-hole’s network of caves and basically saying ‘come kill yourself trying to kiss my ass.’”
Key nodded approvingly at his friend before returning his attention to Lancaster. “More specifically, it’s a challenge to a duel.”
Lancaster found this of interest. He put one hand on his chin and cupped his elbow with the other. “Elaborate.”
Key gave his superior a look that said “you know damn well,” but explained anyway. “Aarif, or whoever, could have easily set the explosive off in the middle of the biggest Mount Rushmore crowd they could find. Maybe even during the daily lighting ceremony where thousands are gathered in an amphitheater made specifically for the event. But if thousands, hundreds, or even dozens of innocent American tourists had been killed, it would have been an invitation for invasion. This was a slap in the face—just showing off—a come-on that states ‘look what we can do. What are you going to do about it?’”
Lancaster folded his arms and nodded. “Looks like we got ourselves a quorum,” he said.
“Yeah,” Key said glumly, “but the question remains, as Colonel Custer runs into an Afghan buzz-saw, what are we going to do about it?”
“Wait a minute, wait a minute,” Nichols finally exclaimed. “What is all this about? Our orders were approved. We made no secret of our assignment. Why did Colonel Logan even bring us in here?”
“Because,” Key answered her, “he wanted to know how much we knew.” He took a second to look directly into the one-way mirror. “And now he thinks he does.”
“Come on,” Lancaster commanded. “Time’s a-wasting. We got things to do.”
As the retired general led the way out of the interrogation room, Key told Nichols how the last name of legendary movie tough guy Humphrey Bogart came to be known as a term for holding on to something too long. Even afterward she still wasn’t sure, but Daniels promised to show her The Maltese Falcon before turning to Key with his own inquiry.
“Okay Joe, if you’re in a question-answering mood, finally, just tell me one thing. What does Cerberus mean anyway?”
Key laughed, truly enjoying the moment because he was certain it would be the last time he honestly laughed for quite a while. “I’ll tell you on the way back to HQ, Morty,” he promised.
Chapter 4
“Cerberus was, and I guess still is, the multi-headed dog who guards the gates of the underworld,” Key told Daniels as they stepped off just one of Lancaster’s private jets. In this case, a Gulfstream G650.
“To keep angels from invading?” Daniels asked with feigned innocence.
“No,” Key answered with feigned patience. “That’s Judeo-Christian beliefs. This was Greek mythology.”
“Oh. And this watchdog did what?”
“Kept the dead from getting out.”
“So it is hell,” Daniels stubbornly replied.
“Not really, but that’s all beside the point.”
“So, we’re in league with the devil?” Daniels continued, glancing back to see if Lancaster had left the cockpit yet.
Key was unfazed. “Remember what the devil does for a living, Morty.”
“Tempt humans to do evil?” Nichols chimed in, bringing up the rear.
Key looked back at her knowingly. “Yes, maybe, but then punishes them in hellfire forever.”
“Hey,” Nichols realized, “that’s right.”
The trio did not bother looking for a limo to take them to Cerberus HQ. They had landed on Cerberus’s private runway, with their headquarters being no farther than a regulation airport terminal.
It, and they, were in Tashkurgan, Kashgar, Xinjiang, China—on the borders of Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Pakistan. That was why Lancaster had chosen it. Long situated on a caravan route for the historical Silk Road, it was a market town for sheep, and therefore wool. And all went well until a disastrous decision by the founding fathers to construct one of China’s burgeoning “fake” cities—exacting replicas of romantic world capitals—as a tourist and real estate investor attraction.
But just like all the others dotted throughout China, the “copycat countries ”—which included “duplitecture” facades of Venice, Paris, London, and even Manhattan—served as neither, and remained eerily empty. Until, in this case, Charles Lancaster appeared and made the Tashkurgan town fathers an offer they didn’t refuse.
So Key led his hunters into a scaled-down replica of the Palace of Versailles, tucked between mountain ranges, sheepherders, and carpet weavers. They stepped into the famed Hall of Mirrors, which looked to have the same walls, floors, and design as the original, but without the statuary, furniture, chandeliers, and decorations. But it was far from empty. The tools of Cerberus’s trade were everywhere.
Daniels scowled, having still not gotten used to the incongruity of the new organization, or its new headquarters. “Nah,” he decided. “I think we’re the devil’s Whac-A-Mole. The monsters pop their heads up and we knock ’em down again. Right?”
Key smiled. “Okay, okay,” he surrendered. “But remember, we believe what Logan-types can’t or won’t.”
“Won’t?” Nichols echoed, coming up on Key’s other side.
He nodded to her, appreciating her technique of gleaning more information. “At least to anyone else,” he told her. “If he does, he might have to admit, at least to himself, that there’s more to life than just selfish little him and his power-money games—games which humans invented, by the way, to distract themselves.”
“Oh, I hate it when you get all hippy-dippy touchy-feely,” Daniels moaned.
Key immediately responded with a knowing grin. “Uh huh. But you love it when second louies do, don’t you?”
Daniels reacted to the Strenkofski reference as if Key had cut him to the quick. “Geez, Joe,” he whined, “you really know how to hurt a guy, don’t you?” He elbowed Nichols. “C’mon, Ter, I’ll show you my Maltese Falcon if you show me yours.”
Nichols shook her head like a confused puppy shaking off rainfall. “We’re seeing Star Wars?”
“Maltese Falcon, not Millennium Falcon!’ Daniels exclaimed. “Bogart, remember?”
Nichols sniffed. “I’d rather train.” She looked at Key. “Gotta learn how to fight smart, right?”
“And effective,” Daniels agreed. “Then come on, squirt, there’s room for both Falcons and fighting.” Especially when the gym and armory were set up in this mock Versailles’s version of the Galerie des Batailles.
“Have fun, kids,” Key said, heading west. But before they were completely out of earshot, Key remembered something. “Morty!” he called, waiting for the echo to reach Daniels’s ears. “You still in touch with Lailani?”
At the mention of the Filipino escort Daniels had taken advantage of in Oman, his eyes narrowed but widened again when he remembered she had repaid the favor by saving his life. “Yeah, maybe,” he admitted. “Why?”
“I want to talk to her about something.”
“Okay. Like what?”
Key was willing to say, but more pressing i
ssues prevented him from going into detail right then. “Let’s just say it’s about some hits and myths.”
“Okay,” Daniels huffed. “Be cryptic. I’ll set up a chat. Say when.”
“ASAP,” Kay replied. “Thanks.”
With that, Key trudged toward the Chateau Neuf section. On the way, he gave thanks that Tashkurgan hadn’t enough money to build the entire palace, or he’d be walking all day. Even so, it was a bit of a hike until he stepped into a cavernous warehouse of fake red brick and fake white stone, with a fake black tile roof. Originally the space was to house the king’s hunting lodge, but now it was home to “The Hispanic Mechanic’s Workshop”—wholly brought in from the Thumrait Air Force Base, only with even more improvements.
“Speedy,” Key called without affectation, using the nickname of Manuel Gonzales, the most remarkable engineer, inventor, and all around synthesizer of stuff he had ever met. Just as he had when first stepping into the original workshop, Key marveled at the constructions either in process or completed around him. The injection of Lancaster cash had done even more wonders to the man’s practical imagination. Key wouldn’t have been surprised to see both the Maltese and the Millennium Falcon come to life in there.
“Joe,” he heard, then spotted Gonzales coming around the tail end of the F. B. Law, a cutting-edge helicopter he had fashioned back in the Middle East. With him, as always, was his assistant, Faisal Safar—one of Cerberus’s first agents and a man who both recruited and saved their asses multiple times.
As the Hispanic-American and Arab-American approached, Key held his phone out to them. “The photo app has multiple pictures of both a wizened naked guy and the child corpse we collected. I’d like to know who they both are.”
Gonzales didn’t ask how soon. Unlike Daniels, he already knew everything was needed right now. Instead he took a quick look, and whistled.
“The nude gentleman does not look happy,” Safar commented. “And unfocused. I gather these were candids.”
“About as candid as it gets,” Key admitted. “The stuff I asked for ready?”
Blood Demons Page 4