A creeping understanding presented itself to Ray Tilley, and it left him cold.
“I sense you are now beginning to understand, Mr. Tilley.”
Tilley rested his head against the palm of his right hand as he took a slow, measured breath.
“I do.”
“Very well, Mr. Tilley, feel free to call me anytime. I will be curious to hear of the outcome on this.”
Ray Tilley cleared his throat, feeling the stress of the realization begin to build within him.
“Thank you, general, I’ll do that. Please take care, sir.”
General Vannatter’s tone changed slightly as he responded, clearly indicating to Tilley he was now swimming in some very deep, dark, and dangerous waters.
“You be very careful, Mr. Tilley. Very-very careful.”
Tilley put his cell phone down on his desk, feeling his shoulders slump forward and the unmistakable pulsing of a headache soon to arrive. The general was likely right – as he almost always was. A serious moral conflict was about to present itself.
Mac Walker and his men were not sent to Benghazi on a simple surveillance assignment. Mac Walker was sent there to kill Americans.
XIII.
Mac looked down at the table where four identical AS-50 sniper rifles were neatly lined up with corresponding and quite deadly fifty caliber armor piercing incendiary explosive rounds of ammunition. There was enough boxed ammo on the table to engage in a firefight for several hours.
Benny picked up one of the rifles and looked it over carefully.
“These are the real things Mac. Beautiful! Makes me feel a whole lot safer knowing we are working with this kind of firepower. From close range I could blow a hole in a damn tank with one of these. Each one has a night vision scope too. This is some serious business, man.”
Jack was looking at Mac as the both of them realized what these particular weapons meant regarding the kind of assignment they were really engaged in.
“Mac, we aren’t here for surveillance, are we?”
Mac picked up one of the sniper rifles, raised it to his face, and looked through the Yukon scope. Mac didn’t recognize the model, which meant it was very new, and likely very good.
“No Jack, looks like we might be doing a lot more than just keeping an eye on the neighbors.”
Jack’s agitation returned, stronger than ever.
“For God’s sake, Mac those are Americans driving into that compound over there! What the hell…they want us to kill off some of our own? We don’t do that Mac – we’re the good guys!”
Mac offered a thin smile, though the effort almost hurt his face to do it.
“Are we the good guys, Jack? It’s getting harder to tell these days. Look, no sense thinking something that hasn’t been confirmed yet. I just spoke with Tilley and all he said was to keep an eye on the activity across the road and report back to him. That’s it. Maybe these guns are just…precautionary measures.”
Jack stepped toward Mac, his eyes flaring open as he pointed back down to the table of weapons.
“C’mon, Mac, don’t bullshit me! Those sniper rifles mean one thing-we are supposed to take someone down, and so far, the only place we have access to, is that diplomatic compound, or whatever the hell it is, a few hundred yards from our location. We don’t have transportation, Mac! They stuck us here with no way out just waiting for them to green light the termination order. You know it, I know it, anyone with half a damn mind knows it! And then what? Let’s say we kill who they want us to kill. How the hell do we get out of here, hitchhike? What the hell is going on? This is all too sloppy, which means it’s too dangerous. You need to shut this thing down Mac, like right now.”
Mac could feel his own anger rising up in him as he stared back at Jack while Benny’s smiling presence attempted to step between the two men.
“Don’t take that tone with me, Jack. You know better. Don’t piss me off.”
Jack attempted to take another step toward Mac, but Benny placed both of his hands against the larger man’s chest and gently pushed him back.
“No-no-no, we don’t go chewing our own legs off boys. Now everyone needs to calm down, ok?”
Jack’s right hand moved downward with enough force to push Benny’s own hands away from him.
“Get the hell out of my way, Benny.”
Benny’s smile remained, though his eyes indicated otherwise.
“Or what, Jack, you want to try me? Really?”
Benny Williamson, though a chronically cheerful man in even the most stressful of circumstances, was no-one to push into a physical confrontation. Jack knew that, and respected it. He had seen the results of those who didn’t respect it – and it was never pretty. That said, Jack remained furious at how Mac had given them an assignment without a clear purpose.
“You got to be just as worried as I am, Benny. This ain’t your first rodeo. You know this thing is going down all wrong, starting with us doing work for the United Nations.”
Benny’s reply was slow and relaxed, his tone working to calm Jack’s nerves, though his words were also intended to let Mac know he agreed with much of what Jack was worried about.
“I hear you, Jack, and I get what you’re saying, man. At this point though, our options are pretty limited, and we ain’t been told to kill nobody just yet. So for now, everyone needs to keep their shit together, and work together, am I right?”
Jack’s eyes stared back at Mac before settling on Benny’s still smiling face.
“Yeah, you’re right.”
Benny stepped back from Jack and then turned to face Mac.
“So what’s the call? You really just gonna have us sitting around here spying on that house? Is that really all Tilley wants us to do?”
Mac shrugged.
“Yeah, for now. I asked him for more information, but he said that we were on a need to know status.”
The smile left Benny’s face.
“Need to know? Since when does Tilley say something like that to us?”
Jack spoke from behind Benny.
“Since never. I’ll say it again, it all points to this whole thing not feeling right.”
Benny shook a finger at Mac, the smile returning.
“What it means is our own Ray Tilley is almost as much in the dark about this assignment as we are. He’s still trying to do right by us Mac, I don’t doubt that.”
Mac said nothing in response, knowing he didn’t feel the same, his trust of Tilley already greatly diminished. As much as Jack was pissed at him, Mac was feeling nearly as upset over this assignment as the big guy from Alabama was.
Shit wasn’t right.
XIV.
Ray Tilley navigated his silver BMW 750iL in and around the typically congested D.C. traffic on his way to Mardian’s office at 19th and G. If Mardian refused to reply to his phone calls, then Tilley had no choice but to take his questions to him in person.
It was nearly the noon hour by the time Tilley pulled his car alongside one of the parking spaces in front of Mardian’s three story red bricked building. Two men and a woman were walking out the front door. Mardian’s personal office was the entire top floor of the building. Tilley had only been up there a handful of times over the years.
Walking into the reception area, Tilley smiled casually at the attractive, dark haired woman who sat behind the large, cherry wood reception desk. She smiled back, asking if he had an appointment.
“I’m here to see Mr. Mardian upstairs. I know the way.”
The woman’s smile disappeared, and when the two armed men emerged from somewhere behind him, Tilley guessed the receptionist had activated a silent alarm.
The shorter of the two security personnel asked Tilley if he had an appointment to with Mr. Mardian.
“Don’t need one, Mardian knows who I am.”
Tilley peered up toward the ceiling, scanning for where the security cameras were located. He spotted one in a far corner adjacent to the elevator entrance.
“Mard
ian, I’m not leaving until I see you. I’m coming up.”
As Tilley moved toward the elevator, the taller of Mardian’s two man security team grabbed the back of his arm and pulled him back.
“That isn’t allowed, sir. Please take a seat over here.”
Tilley shook his arm from the man’s grip and stepped toward the ten foot long dark leather couch that ran the length of the reception room wall opposite the reception desk.
“You tell Mardian we need to talk - now.”
Mardian’s receptionist was on the phone, likely already speaking with him. Her eyes glanced at Tilley several times as she whispered into the receiver, her head nodding.
“Mr. Tilley, Mr. Mardian says you are welcome to join him in his office upstairs.”
Tilley swept past the two security personnel before pausing as he sensed both of them intended to follow him into the elevator.
“I know the way. You two can stay down here.”
One of the men put his hand up to his ear, listening as Mardian instructed him to allow Tilley to come up alone. Both of Mardian’s security detail stood motionless, staring at Tilley as he turned back around and entered the elevator, his hand slamming the third floor button.
The elevator opened up to a small six by six room with a single, steel framed door opposite the elevator. A red button was housed to the left of the door which Tilley quickly pushed. There was a faint buzzing followed by the door’s interior mechanism unlocking as the door opened a few inches inward. Tilley pushed it further open and stepped into the office of Stephen Mardian.
“Not one word, Tilley. Sit your ass down and shut up.”
Tilley looked across the large room where Mardian sat behind a huge, black metallic framed desk. Two matching chairs sat just in front of the desk, one of which Mardian demanded Tilley now sit down in.
“Why didn’t you answer my calls, Mardian? Why didn’t you call me back?”
Mardian stood up, his expensive, custom tailored dark grey suit not enough to mask his short and rounded body.
“I told you not a damn word until you sit down. So SIT DOWN.”
Stephen Mardian was well known for his abrasive personality, the kind of abrasiveness that was the result of being born into old D.C. money and power without having to earn it. Politically, he was, and had been for some time, a very formidable figure. His balding head and fleshy face that always appeared on the verge of breaking out into a substantial sweat, lent the D.C. power broker a somewhat comical appearance, which likely caused further frustration-induced abrasiveness. Mardian demanded people respect him.
Sitting down across from him, Tilley noted Mardian was on edge. Something was troubling him, something significant.
“I didn’t call you back for a couple reasons, Tilley. One, I don’t have the answers. Two, I don’t know if I can trust you. This Moretti thing, I don’t know what went down with that. Why he turned on your team. You took precautions though, right? With the safe house, like you normally do?”
Tilley nodded.
“Yeah, the assignment is still operational.”
Mardian ran his short fingered hands across his brow and then down the front of his face.
“Good. Until I know more, we just keep this thing going as instructed. So tell me Tilley, how’d you get the team to the safe house? Who took care of that for you?”
Tilley looked coolly back at Mardian, hoping his face betrayed no information.
“Had a contact there and called in a favor.”
Mardian leaned forward, his elbows sitting atop his desk.
“Who was it? I need to know who you involved in this.”
Tilley took a deep breath as he rolled his head from side to side trying to work a stress kink from his neck.
“How about you tell me where you’re getting your instructions from. Is it the woman from the United Nations? Dasha? Is she the one who’s got you so rattled, Mardian?”
Mardian’s eyes flashed anger, feeling Tilley was disrespecting him.
“I’m not rattled and I don’t need to tell you who I’m answering to on this one, but you do need to answer to me, Tilley, don’t forget that.”
Tilley folded his arms across his chest, again sensing how nervous Mardian actually was.
“Right now I’m most concerned with keeping my team safe. They want answers, and so do I. If you can’t give them to me, then I’m gonna pull the plug. Terminate the assignment and bring them home.”
Mardian’s forehead was now covered in a thin layer of sweat despite the building’s air conditioning keeping the interior temperature well below seventy degrees.
“No you won’t. That’s not an option. You try and do that and it’ll be a death warrant for that team, every one of them. They’ll never make it back.”
Tilley felt his rage welling up inside of him. Was Mardian actually threatening Mac and his men?
“You threatening my team?”
Stephen Mardian’s eyes looked down as he slowly shook his head.
“No…the threat isn’t from me. It is real though. If your team doesn’t take care of business over there, they won’t be allowed to come back. We’re dealing with some very powerful people on this one.”
Tilley’s mind swirled with questions. He had always considered Mardian a very powerful person. Who or what could have him so spooked?
“What is that compound you have my team watching? Is it some kind of diplomatic site, a location just outside the city to allow off the record meetings between U.S. officials and local tribal groups?”
Mardian’s eyes remained lowered, sweat now beginning to pool just above his brows.
“Something like that. As far as I know, but also what you’ve already been told. There’s an allegation of some gunrunning going on, you know, people trying to make a quick buck. That’s how it was presented to me at first. Keep an eye on them, try to confirm weapons transfers, no big deal really.”
Tilley shook his head.
“Bullshit, Mardian. C’mon, you don’t send someone like Mac Walker and his team to look through a pair of binoculars. And what about the sniper rifles we left them? Those just for surveillance too? Hell no. This thing reeks of a kill order. The question is, who are we supposed to kill, and why?”
Mardian raised his eyes to look back at Tilley.
“I don’t have those answers.”
Tilley’s voice rose in anger.
“Stop lying to me! That’s what’s got you so scared right now. You know who the kill order is for, don’t you? You just found out. They sent us over there without that information, so that my team would have no choice but to carry out the assignment, or they don’t get back home. That means it’s a big deal. Whoever we are supposed to take out, it’s not some Muslim radical. It’s not some corrupt Libyan official. This person is one of ours. They’re American, and they must be connected. So you tell me who it is, and why.”
The corner of Mardian’s mouth was trembling slightly as a droplet of sweat fell from his brow and onto his desk.
“I don’t know. It’s not confirmed. And there is no kill order, Tilley. Not yet. Your team is doing surveillance – that’s it.”
“Why Mac Walker? Why his team? Can you at least tell me that?”
Stephen Mardian wiped his brow with his right hand as he sat up in his chair.
“Because they’re good, that’s it. No big mystery. They take an assignment and they go out and do it. No questions.”
Mardian’s description of why Mac was chosen for the assignment was the same description given to him by the general, because Mac and his team handled things efficiently and without question, without concern over moral conflicts. That meant such a conflict, as Tilley had already suspected, was most certainly on its way.
“So that’s it, you’re not going to tell me more?”
Mardian shook his head, his usual contempt for anyone who questioned him returning.
“I’ll let you know what you need to know, no more. That’s how it’s alwa
ys worked. As soon as I have something I need to tell you, I will. In the meantime, don’t call me, and sure as hell don’t show up here. Got it?”
Tilley stood up and began walking out of Mardian’s office. He gave his answer without looking back.
“Go to hell.”
During the drive back home Tilley’s phone rang. It was the general.
Military Fiction: THE MAC WALKER COLLECTION: A special ops military fiction collection... Page 35