by A. J Tata
“You will have to deal with me. And you saw what I do to people who betray their country.”
Locklear grabbed the piece of paper and picked up the pen. But she didn’t sign. She tilted her head toward Savage.
“If I’m signing, I need to know. Were they ‘righteous kills,’ to use a term I just heard?”
“As righteous as they come,” Savage said. “We’ve got e-mail and voice data showing a link between Bream and Nix. We had that a year ago, which is why I floated Jake’s name to Bream. To my surprise, Bream bit. He didn’t want Mahegan out there knowing about those MVX-90s.”
Locklear shook her head. “Man.”
Savage continued. “Paslowski and Wilkins, the blond-haired partner, did a spot check on Copperhead after Royes had called the Inspector General hotline. He reported waste, fraud, and abuse as well as something about gold. Bream sent his trusted agents down to Dare County Bombing Range when he heard the word ‘gold,’ and they blackmailed Nix. Cut the Inspector General in on the gold or they get revealed. Nix said he needed the Ocean Ranger to do it right. So Bream started working the contracting angle and got more money dumped into the operation. In all, Copperhead got a deep-sea fishing boat, the Ocean Ranger, a semi-submersible, the state-of-the-art tunnel system under Buffalo City, and all the money Bream funneled their way. Nix and Falco had thought of the reverse find on the gold, but it was Bream who funded the operation with government money. He may not have known it, but he was funding the transfer of MVX-90s and unexploded warheads to the enemy as Nix was working the trade with ghost prisoners. Those MVX-90s and bombs killed hundreds of American servicemen and women overseas and at home. Like I said, that kill was as righteous as they come.”
“Let me guess,” Mahegan said. “The first shipment happened about a year ago? It killed Colgate?”
“About fifteen months ago, it killed Colgate and a lot of other good men and women. That’s how we first got clued into Bream’s connection with Copperhead.”
Savage paused, then said, “And, Lindy, I’m sorry to report it, but Wilhoyt beheaded J.J. We found him.”
Locklear dropped her head, stifling a sob. Squaring her shoulders, she let the moment pass, steeled her nerves and said, “Righteous.”
She scrawled her signature across the nondisclosure statement.
“Again, I’m sorry about J.J.,” Savage said. “Now I need to talk with Mahegan alone.”
“Roger. I made a deal with the devil,” Mahegan said.
“And thanks to that deal, I have my own personal private military contractor working black ops on the home front. Lucky for you, the National Guard rounded up the ghost prisoners that you didn’t kill. They were huddled in the basement of the mock village on the bombing range.”
“Gotta be illegal,” Locklear said.
“Probably is,” Savage replied. “But necessary.”
“Then we better not say anything about it,” Locklear said.
“My kind of woman,” Savage said. Then to Mahegan, “Let’s go.”
Mahegan nodded at the cube Locklear was holding. “Start digging at that grid coordinate. I’d like to know what happened to the colonists.”
He left Locklear sitting in the gray metal chair and followed Savage into his office.
“I need you to spend some time in Raleigh,” said Savage. “Get there, get lost, and I’ll be in touch.”
“Roger. I’ve got some unfinished family business to take care of.”
“And, Jake, it is an honorable discharge.”
Mahegan thought of his weapon firing just hours before.
“Well, they were righteous kills.”
“No, I’m not talking about them. I’ve gotten your discharge changed.” Savage slipped him a piece of paper. It read “Honorable Discharge” and had his name on it. While he had known all along the character of his service, it was good, he guessed, to have bureaucratic confirmation. He thought of Colgate and all of his men. He had done this for them. And he would keep doing it.
Mahegan shook his boss’s hand. He stepped into the hallway and thought about Locklear. He nodded silently to her through the office window and walked out of the building, ready for what was next.
Epilogue
The following morning, Mahegan had one last mission to complete before heading to Raleigh. He returned his gear to Sheriff Johnson in Manteo, had a brief exchange of conversation, then drove across the Virginia Dare Bridge and parked his nondescript Army truck in a sand pullout on Dare County Mainland.
Removing his shirt, he entered Croatan Sound and swam parallel to the shore for about a mile, coming to the small beach where he expected to find them. Mahegan waded onto the shore in between two sand dunes. He sat and waited, looking east toward Roanoke Island and Kitty Hawk. The sky was slate, painted orange in areas where the rising sun seeped through the low clouds in the distance. He could smell the musty scent of fish going to bed in the brackish water.
His muscles that had been ripped by the shrapnel from Colgate’s vehicle twitched. Closing his eyes, he felt them moving, pulling through the pain. He visualized the red wolves behind him and to his flanks. With justice delivered to those that had killed Colgate, his attention momentarily slipped to his viper in the cage. He couldn’t keep the repressed memories of his mother’s brutal murder at bay much longer. This was a moment of peace, though, and as he remembered his father’s mantra, The Spirit lives, he opened his eyes to find himself surrounded by the predators. There were too many to count. There were mature males and females with pups nuzzling their fur. Dozens of watchful eyes locked onto him.
Mahegan met their steady gaze. They were close, within ten feet of him. He imagined they were congratulating him on a job well done, or comforting him for all he had lost: Colgate . . . and his mother. Like the wolves, he was backed into a corner, scratching to stay alive. Or perhaps they had felt the evil that had emanated from this place. He didn’t know.
What he did know was that he had somehow been called to this specific piece of land the way a sea turtle finds her nest after long migrations at sea.
In a world where a homemade bomb could kill his best friend despite all the technology known to man to prevent it; a world that could whittle these red wolves to near extinction, while his own species looked the other way; a world that so needed the hard-won wisdom of the Croatan Indian tribe, but chose to destroy it, it made sense to Mahegan that these wolves were his kin.
And it seemed right that those buried among the Moline crosses were his ancestors. And that perhaps he was indeed a Croatan.
The defender.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Many thanks to the incredible Scott Miller of Trident Media Group. Scott is the best agent an author could ask for: professional, patient, and determined. His steady guidance landed me in a wonderful place: Kensington Publishing. Thanks also to Gary Goldstein, my editor at Kensington, for his encouragement and insights. Both Scott and Gary go above and beyond the call of duty for their authors.
Kensington’s editing and marketing teams have been tremendously helpful. Thanks to Arthur Maisel, Karen Auerbach, Maggie Valeri, Vida Engstrand, Alexandra Nicolajsen, and Michelle Forde, who all helped make Foreign and Domestic possible. Thanks as well to the amazing Kaitlin Murphy, who continues to make me a better writer. Also, many thanks to Scott Manning and Associates, and their high-octane public-relations strategies. Thanks as well to Judy Peppler, who reads my work and gives me straightforward feedback.
Special thanks to my in-laws, Harry and Janet Washburn, who introduced me to one of the lead bomb-clearing contractors on Vieques Island, Puerto Rico. Over a beer at the bar of Tradewinds restaurant we discussed the time-consuming and dangerous process of clearing unexploded ordnance from a bombing range. Of course, Foreign and Domestic is a work of fiction and the contractors in my story are elements of my imagination. Thanks also go to my brother, Bob Tata, now managing partner of the Hunton and Williams lawfirm in Norfolk, Virginia. He was an associate working with the Colu
mbus-America Discovery Group twenty-five years ago, and our later conversations about the discovery of the SS Central America and its gold provided ample grist for the plot.
Most of all, many thanks go to my family, Jodi, Brooke, and Zach, for their support and love. Jodi is always the first reader and my most ardent supporter. Brooke and Zach, busy being college kids, still find time to cheer me on and provide fresh ideas.
Lastly, thanks to my parents, Bob and Jerri Tata, both lifelong educators, who taught me a love for reading and writing. They will forever be my mentors.