by Leslie Jones
“Try.”
For the next few minutes, she rambled on, naming places she knew from photographs. Faneuil Hall, Boston Commons, the statue of Paul Revere. She stopped only when the interrogation room door opened and another man entered.
“You’re needed out front,” he said to Doug Huckabee, who hesitated, nodded, and rose, taking the brown folder with him.
“I’ll be right back, Fatianova. Can I bring you anything when I return?”
She shook her head, looking over the new arrival. In his sixties, he immediately reminded her of a weasel. Small and thin, with the kind of hipless body that caused his pants to hang loosely and his shirt to come untucked. His beard hid sunken cheeks, and his glasses rested on the top of his balding head.
“Ms. Uvarov,” he said in a croaky, smoke-roughened voice. “You’re an educated woman. You keep up on world politics, yes?”
The question threw her off guard. Where was this going? “Yes, as much as anyone else, I suppose.”
He pulled a pack of cigarettes from his breast pocket, looked at it, and dropped it onto the table with a sigh. “So tell me. How many detainees do you think the United States is holding on suspicion of terrorism right now?”
“I’m sure I have no idea.” The man made her nervous.
“Well, Guantanamo claims we have about fifty prisoners left there.” He peered at the pack of cigarettes as he twirled it around and around, then finally took one out and stuck it between his lips. “The number is closer to seven hundred and fifty. And while I can’t confirm the existence of cooperative agreements with nations whose human rights laws may be more, uh, lax than ours, there are rumors.”
“You can’t frighten me.”
“In fact,” he said, ignoring her, “rumor has it that some citizens from your own country, missing and presumed dead, are in fact very much alive. Wishing, maybe, that they were dead.”
He pulled out a cheap plastic lighter and lit the cigarette, taking a deep draw before blowing the smoke toward the ceiling.
“You can’t smoke in here.” She pointed to the sign on the door, not knowing what else to say.
“Ms. Uvarov, you’re responsible for bringing a Russian nuclear weapon onto US soil. Do you really think your government is going to care if you suddenly disappear off the face of the earth?”
“I’ve done no such thing. I’m completely innocent in this.”
“Is that your last word?”
“What does that mean?” She felt a chill snake down her spine. The man talked like a KGB agent.
“I think it’s time for you to disappear.” He got up and walked out, followed closely by Heather Langstrom-Reed.
For the next three hours, Fatianova in turns sweated and chilled. She sat, then paced, then sat again. Could the man really make her disappear? Did Americans do that sort of thing? Who watched from behind the two-way mirror?
By the time the door rattled and opened, Fatianova felt like screaming her rage and disappointment. Nothing about her scheme had worked as expected.
Doug Huckabee came back in, followed by the translator. They sat across from her as they had before. Neither looked friendly. Neither spoke for a long time.
“You have exactly one bargaining chip,” Huckabee said abruptly. “One. Are you listening, Fatianova?”
Swallowing convulsively, she whispered, “Yes.”
“Your value proposition to me, right now, is to truthfully answer the question that I’m going to ask you. The first time.”
She opened her mouth, but he held up an imperious hand, so she subsided.
“The next time you open your mouth, when I ask you this question, you can proclaim your bullshit innocence to me if you want. Which, incidentally, annoys me, because I’ve got a baby girl on the way, and you’re threatening her life as well. So this will be the first and last time I ask you this question. I get the truth and DHS goes away. Happy to put you in a federal penitentiary and lock you away until my daughter graduates college. You continue to proclaim your innocence, and we already know you’re not, then I turn you over to DHS, we continue the hunt without you, and you conveniently disappear. So. Should I ask you the question?”
She wrapped her arms around her middle, feeling cold. Maybe she could still salvage something from this debacle. “If I cooperate, will I get immunity?”
Doug Huckabee stared at her for so long she had to force herself not to squirm.
“I bet you fool people, don’t you?” he said finally. “I’ll bet people take one look at you, and see a beautiful, geeky scientist. And miss the ice that runs through your veins and the steel that runs through your spine. People look at me, they see a good ol’ boy.” He leaned in close. “Now look deeper. I fight for the American way of life. Do you really think I wouldn’t do anything—anything—to keep my countrymen safe from terrorists?”
She swallowed. No. No, she didn’t.
“Now. Do you really want to fuck with me?”
“Ask your question.”
Chapter 39
Wednesday, March 1. 6:30 a.m.
Otis Fitch’s Property. Ducard, Massachusetts.
The Delta Force operators jogged up the ten-mile dirt trail leading from the highway up to Otis Fitch’s property, home to Citizens for a Free America. Jace pushed the pace hard. Around them, the Berkshires rose majestically; the terrain was rocky, wooded, and rough going.
The entire team had resorted to hard physical training to combat the frustration of days of confabs between the bigwigs, jurisdictional pissing contests, equipment delays, and the current standoff with the white separatists. The longer this dragged on, the more time Otis Fitch and his cronies had to prepare for the inevitable assault on his compound.
Fitch’s acreage squatted fifteen miles northwest of the tiny hamlet of Ducard. Portions of the Hoosic River meandered through his land. Between the fresh water, ample hunting on his fifty acres, and their probable stockpile of weapons, they could withstand a long-term siege. Nobody wanted another Waco or Ruby Ridge, but leaving a nuclear bomb in the hands of a group on the terrorist watch list spelled an even greater disaster.
Fatianova Uvarov had laid out the entire fiasco, admitting to the theft of the Russian suitcase bomb, the pilot who delivered the package to Whitehorse, Canada, and the failure of a hired mercenary to smuggle it into Boston. Her reluctant partnership with the white supremacists. The botched deal with Citizens for a Free America. After her signed confession, she’d asked to be tried in the United States, rather than be deported back to Russia. The attorney general had been only too happy to oblige.
The team exited the tree line and hit the staging area, running past the two helicopters, the section of the clearing designated as the parking lot, and the rows of tents that had been erected to house the numerous agencies who wanted a piece of the action. Between local law enforcement, Department of Homeland Security, the ATF, and the FBI’s SWAT, the uniforms blurred together into one sea of green camouflage. The Massachusetts state governor had even activated one of the National Guard’s field artillery platoons, providing a 155 mm self-propelled Howitzer and the crew to operate it, and the deputy assistant secretary for the Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation had visited.
In a few hours, the news vans would drive up to the staging area, and bored newscasters would report that nothing had changed.
The team reached their own tent.
“All right, guys. Hit the showers,” Jace said. “Breakfast in twenty.”
The shower tent only accommodated four at a time, so the team rotated through the stalls to the sinks to shave. In less than twenty minutes, they were dressed and seated in the mess tent, where a local restaurant provided three squares a day and prepackaged sandwiches and snacks.
Mace wolfed down his eggs, fried potatoes, corn beef hash, bacon, sausage, and toast. They’d expended a lot of calories during their morning workout, so he and his teammates stuffed themselves. The food was certainly a step up from their usual field chow. Before the rest fin
ished, he grabbed a Styrofoam cup of coffee and headed away from the camp, where other groups started emerging from their tents, yawning and scratching. He dialed the phone as he walked.
“Center of the universe; God speaking.”
“Shouldn’t it be goddess?”
Lark chuckled. “You say that every time. Besides, we don’t want to confuse the natives on the extent of my powers.”
“True.” He pictured her at her desk, stirring the water in the fishbowl with the end of a pen while she squinted at her computer screen. “Are you still pink?”
“Nah. I figured you’d be getting blue balls out there, so I went blue in sympathy.”
“Ya got that right. Send me a pic.”
“Hang on.” She returned to the line at the same time that Mace’s phone beeped to let him know he had a new text message. He took the time to click on the photo she’d sent. Sure enough, her hair was now a lightish sky blue, streaked with darker peacock highlights. His dick approved, perking right up.
“It’s sexy as hell. All I can think about right now is that hair brushing against my—”
“Hey, now,” she interrupted. “I’m at work. Behave.”
He didn’t want to. He wanted to savor and share his fantasy with her. “Grr. In that case, how’s the weather?”
She laughed at his sour tone. “Been raining ever since you left. How’s your day going so far?”
“Two hours of PT and breakfast. Nothing’s changed up here.”
She gasped. “Two hours? Like, you exercised for two hours?”
He didn’t tell her the physical training hadn’t even been a full workout. They had yet to get weights up here. They made do, though, by benching logs felled to clear their perimeter.
“It’s not like we have anything else to do until diplomacy fails and we’re given the go-ahead.”
The line went quiet for a moment.
“You’re sure it will?” Lark asked. “Maybe you’re wrong.”
“Maybe. I hope so. Talk dirty to me.”
“Not when I can’t do anything about it,” she said. “Call me later tonight, and it’ll be a different story.”
He sighed heavily, his dick happy about their planned date, pressing against the buttons of his combat pants. Unlike the ATF and SWAT units, his team’s uniforms lacked name tags, branch insignia, or markings of any sort, in deference to the covert nature of their missions.
“Deal. So how are you saving the world today?”
She chuckled. “I should be asking you that, supersoldier. Although—”
“What?”
“Well . . . I found out more about the money theft. It bugged me I couldn’t track it further than the FBI bank account.”
“You figured out who?”
“The trail leads directly to my crapjacker peckerhead boss.”
“Melvin?” he asked. “Melvin Dewey? The big guy who cut you off in the briefing?”
“Yeah. Him.”
He heard the soft hesitation in her voice. “Why do you doubt what you found?”
“Well . . . here’s the thing. He’s a jerk. But . . . that doesn’t necessarily make him a traitor.”
Mace thought about it. “You think it was too easy? Finding the trail leading to him?”
“Yes. That’s it exactly.”
“So . . . you think the person who stole the mob’s money is also the one leaking classified information out of the SCIF?”
Lark huffed out a breath. “Yes.”
“I agree.”
“So here’s what I think. When Doug Huckabee assigned me to investigate the malware, whoever is responsible for it realized it was only a matter of time before I figured out what he’s been doing. So he—or she—framed me for stealing mob money.”
Mace swore to himself. Lark was still in danger, and he wasn’t there to protect her. “And the other threats? The video of your parents’ house?”
“A last-ditch warning. Joss and I started investigating Melvin. Now that we have the right data, everything points to him. But everything pointed to me, too.”
Mace’s phone chirped in his ear, letting him know he had a text message. He pulled the phone from his ear long enough to check it.
Command tent now.
“Shit. I gotta go. Something might be shaking loose finally.” He started jogging back toward camp. “Please be careful, Lark. Right now, Doug and I are the only people you know you can trust.”
“Be safe.” She sounded distressed. “Call me tonight?”
“Count on it. Love you.”
Dead silence.
Shit. Why had he said that? It’d just slipped out. Maybe if he just hung up? Nope, not his style.
“So how badly are you freaking out right now?”
She exhaled a breath; she’d probably been holding it. “Gotta go. People to do. Work to see.”
The line cut off. He cursed. Would she even answer his call tonight? Talking to her had become the highlight of his day these past two weeks. He would hate it if she bolted out of nervousness.
Alex and Gavin entered the huge central tent on his heels. Jace gestured for them to join him near the serviceable metal conference table in the center. A mess of satellite images, aerial photographs, and maps littered the tabletop. The local sheriff and the heads of the ATF, SWAT, and Homeland Security elements watched them approach. The National Guard’s field artillery platoon leader, a shiny new second lieutenant, narrowed his eyes. No doubt he’d been told they were some sort of shit-hot no-name unit and wanted to take their measure. Mace snorted to himself.
Javier Castellanos from the FBI’s Weapons of Mass Destruction Directorate sat at the head of the table. He raised his hands, and the tent immediately quieted.
“As you all know, we’ve been trying to find a diplomatic solution to this standoff. I failed. The FBI hostage negotiator failed. The governor failed. They’ve refused to release the nuke into our custody. They’ve refused to throw down their arms and surrender.”
One of the SWAT officers asked, “What about releasing the women and children from the compound?”
“Also a no, with a fuck-you tacked on for good measure,” Castellanos said in a resigned voice. “The president’s given the go-ahead for our joint task force to enact more aggressive action, since negotiations are clearly not producing any results.”
Finally! Mace felt the same surge of anticipation from his teammates, though none of them so much as twitched or changed expressions.
“I’ll retain operational command,” he continued, “but the on-the-ground tactical officer will be Clive Driscoll from SWAT. Also, the HMRU helicopter arrives back here today. For anyone not familiar,” he glanced at the field artillery lieutenant, a relatively new addition to their ever-growing assemblage, “the Hazardous Materials Response Unit will neutralize the bomb once we find it, and gather forensic evidence so we can prosecute these fuckers.” He looked over at the special operators. “They’ll be taking video, so anyone not wanting to have their picture taken should be aware.”
Jace nodded. Message received. Don’t be around when the HAZMAT team did its thing.
“How many of them will there be?” Clive Driscoll asked.
“Six,” Castellanos said. “Three FBI special agents, two forensic scientists, and someone who will know how to transport the damned thing out of here.”
Driscoll leaned across the table to pick up a photograph showing the property. Infrared thermal imaging lit up nineteen warm bodies in varying sizes, plus a number of smaller shapes. They knew from surveillance that the white supremacists allowed half a dozen dogs free run of the property, while caging the chickens and pigs. They even kept two goats.
“From visual observation, we think there are seven men, five women, and eight children, ranging in age from an infant up to three older teens.”
The local sheriff pushed another photo toward Jace with one fat finger. “I know these folks. A nasty bunch, women and kids included. Otis thinks he’s some sort of revolution
ary. We already know he has no intention of ending this peacefully.”
Driscoll shuffled a dozen photos and laid them out on the table in a spiral. “This is the latest from the helicopter flyover, taken earlier today. We need to know this area as well as they do. Find a discreet way in. Find and neutralize any booby traps. Even physically put eyes on the nuke, if possible.”
“Sir, I’d like to take my team out and do exactly that,” Jace said.
Castellanos nodded. “I’ll take you up on that.”
“I’ll coordinate for any resources you need,” Noah Jennings said. The Department of Homeland Security had assigned him as the federal security officer; his function was to coordinate communications between the agencies involved in recovering the suitcase bomb. “We got the tactical headsets I asked for. Everyone will be able to talk to everyone else when this goes down.”
Clive Driscoll nodded his thanks. “We’ll get you a list in a few hours. Jace, I’d like a couple of my men to go scouts-out with you. I have a former SEAL and an Army Ranger. Both can hang.”
Jace pursed his lips. “Give us first shot, Clive, okay? My team’s worked together for years. Once we get a feel for what’s out there, we’ll add whoever you want. Is that acceptable?”
“Yeah. That’s ’bout what I expected.” Driscoll looked neither surprised nor bothered by the answer. “When do you want to start?”
“Now. We’ll go tonight, too, but this way we won’t be surprised if they have thermal imaging capability.”
“Night vision goggles?” one of the SWAT team members asked. “You really think these dumb hicks have something like that?”
The sheriff raised both eyebrows. “These dumb hicks aren’t as dumb as you think they are. Don’t underestimate Otis Fitch. He’s a wily old bastard.”
Castellanos held up a hand. “Assume they have both thermal imaging cameras and NVGs. Any way to mask your body heat?”
“To some extent,” Jace said. “We wear a special synthetic fabric that diffuses our heat signatures during night ops. The technology’s not perfect, but it’s light years better than anything commercially available.”