“They were there just a minute ago,” she maintained, gripping Ric’s shoulders. “I swear.”
“What kind of research were you doing?” Jack asked Ric.
“The generals. We found a way into a computer. Got information about their private lives. Sammy said something about a function this afternoon.”
Jack looked from one face to the other, as each tried to figure out what had happened. Jack felt like his head might explode. “Ric, show me the computer they were working on. And I better find out he was looking to buy a clown nose with a gas filter built-in!”
23
Montgomery Morton slid his cell phone into his pocket as he got out of his car. Shoulders hunched, he continued across the lawn to his front door, moving as swiftly as he could without running. The sun was hurting his eyes, and he could taste metal in his mouth—sure signs of an impending migraine.
He had no time for that now. The general would accept no excuse for not accomplishing his orders. There’d be no relief afterward, either—Morton had a long daily list of things that needed to be done. The private contractor he was using in San Francisco to transport items had asked too many questions, for starters.
It all came back to the decision to relieve the general of his position three months earlier than originally scheduled. It had forced them all to scramble—a mad rush after years of methodical planning. And now he wants to go to Israel and Riyadh for the show? Why not just drive a tank personally into the Kaaba and be done with it?
Because Brooks has his own way of doing things, that’s why, he reminded himself.
Morton quickened his pace to the door. He had a new bottle of Sumatriptan inside. Relief. The outside door was locked. He pushed down on the latch, confused. Wasn’t Cynthia home? Damn. Morton fumbled in his pockets for his keys, but when he couldn’t grab them in a second, he suddenly started marching around the side of the house, the anger in his throat, and the pressure in his head, building with every step.
He was about to chew out the first person he came to, be it spouse or offspring, when he stepped around the corner into their well-manicured backyard. It was as if he had stepped into a circus. The music, which he had thought was just additional pounding in his head, leaped laughing into his ears, and the sight of streamers, balloons, and banners assailed his vision. Had it been a few years before, it might have even set off Afghan flashbacks. His son’s birthday party, of course! Hadn’t he been racing back to get to it in time? All his other responsibilities and worries had crowded that priority out, but now it all came back to him. Even through the pain, he felt his lips widening in a smile. Cynthia had really gone all out on the event. There was a bouncy castle, a Slip’N Slide, a big table of food, another for desserts, and another for presents. People in outfits depicting popular cartoon characters were walking around, and there were lines for places where kids could have their faces painted, caricatures of themselves drawn, and even a roving clown making balloon animals.
“Daddy, Daddy!” he heard from two different directions, and then his daughter, Brook, and the birthday boy himself, Thomas, were running at him, their arms wide. They embraced him at the same time, and Morton was nearly overwhelmed by the rush of pleasure he felt. This is what I’m doing it all for, he thought. So they’d be safe. So they’d have a future to build upon. It almost made him forget his headache. Almost.
“You made it!” Tommy, his son enthused.
“Mommy said you might not,” Brook pouted.
“Well, Mommy was wrong, wasn’t she?” Morton grinned, kneeling down to get on their level. “I’m here, and I’m staying here until it’s all over.”
His children laughed and clapped and cheered as Morton stood back up. “I’m just going into the house for one thing, and then I’ll come back out with a big surprise!”
“Oh, boy!” his son cried, hoping it was a big present.
“You just wait. I’ll be right back.” Morton kissed his daughter on the top of her head and patted his son on the shoulder, gently pushing him out of the way so he could go inside and get the medicine he needed.
He stepped into the kitchen, relief flooding through him as the noise and music and activity was quieted behind him. He then started a quick march to the master bedroom’s medicine cabinet. He just got to the living room when he nearly collided into another obstruction.
“Monty?” His wife Cynthia stood in the hall.
“Cyn!” he said, moving quickly past her. “Great party, great job, I just have to…”
She knew the routine. In the last year, his first stop, whenever he did make it home, was the medicine cabinet. She followed him to their bedroom. She could tell by his face and manner that this was a mean one. His pain had been growing exponentially.
“Bad?” she asked as he pulled out the container where he kept the pills.
Morton dumped four pills into his hand—twice his normal dosage, which itself was twice the prescription—and swallowed them dry. They tasted like aluminum crackers. Suppressing a gag reflex, he closed his eyes and lowered his head, praying the pills would work quickly.
Before the kids were born, his wife would have come over and rubbed his shoulders. It did nothing to relieve the pain, but it felt good nonetheless. Now she remained standing across in the doorway, just as she had for the past seven or eight months.
The pills would take a few minutes to work, but just swallowing them made Morton feel better; he knew the pressure wouldn’t get any worse. The lights would go away, and after a while he’d start to feel light-headed, and a drink of bourbon—absolutely forbidden by the doctor—would make him care a lot less about how much pressure he was under.
“You’re not going to lock yourself in your office, are you?” asked his wife.
“No, no,” he said. “Not yet.” Morton kept his head tilted toward the tub, trying to relax his muscles. What he needed was a good orgasm—after the bourbon. He doubted he’d get it with Cynthia. That, too, had declined over the year. “Just have to double-check a few things. But it can wait. I swear.”
“Why don’t you just tell the general you have a headache?” Cyn dared to suggest. The success of the party had emboldened her.
“Right,” Morton snorted. “To a man who gives them but doesn’t get them. He doesn’t even know I get migraines.”
“Or tell him it’s your son’s birthday.”
“He knows,” Morton sighed. “He’d just say that we’re insuring that he’ll have many more.”
“It’s not going to affect your career.”
Morton almost laughed. If only that were true. He raised his head and looked at his wife. High school sweetheart, mother of his children. He loved her more than he could even describe, yet he had been unfaithful to her. He was doing all this for her, and his children, and yet he couldn’t tell them what it was.
He watched as her face became concerned, and then even a little scared. “Oh, Monty, don’t look at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“You look so sad.” She came over and embraced him. “Like our sad clown.”
He felt her warmth and caring against him, and suddenly knew it was going to be all right. He was doing the right thing. Even his migraine was going away. “What sad clown?” he asked.
“You know, the sad clown and the happy clown. The happy clown does the magic tricks and the balloon animals. The sad clown gives all the kids red clown noses that honk. She honks their noses and they honk hers.”
“Hers?” he echoed.
Cynthia kept hugging him but leaned back to look up at his face. “His and her clowns. He does this thing with his ears and she does this thing with her eyes. I told them I’d give him a good review. I bet the DiCarlos would really love him for Tanya’s birthday. Where did you hire them?”
“Me?” he said, the migraine beginning to chime again. “I didn’t hire them. Didn’t you?”
Cynthia frowned, thinking. She had hired a lot of people in the past few months, but among the caterers
and the entertainers, she didn’t remember asking for any clowns.
“Maybe the agency sent them,” she started doubtfully.
“Where are they?” he suddenly snapped.
She was taken aback by his sudden change in tone. “I don’t know,” she said. “In the backyard with the children, I suppose.”
Morton raced back there, ignoring the way he had broken his wife’s embrace. When he slid open the kitchen door, the party noise and brightness and activity assailed him again, as did the migraine. He looked to where he remembered the clown doing balloon animals. He wasn’t there. He looked to the bouncy castle. Not there. He looked toward the food and presents table. Not there.…
“Daddy!” His son had come running back, jumping up and down in expectation.
“Yes, Tommy, yes,” he said, absently patting the boy’s head.
“Where’s my big surprise?”
“Oh, soon, Tommy, really soon. I, uh, worked it out with the clown. Have you seen the clown?”
“Oh,” Tommy responded, at first disappointed, but then getting even more excited. “The boy clown or the girl clown?”
“Either,” Morton said, peering everywhere he could for a glimpse at them.
“I don’t see the boy clown,” Tommy frowned, then brightened. “I saw the girl clown, though!”
“Where?” Morton looked quickly down at his son. “Where do you see her?”
Tommy pointed at the house. Morton’s gaze followed his arm. He was pointing at Monty’s office window.
“Be right back!” Morton said, then raced for the kitchen door.
“But we’re having cake soon!” he heard his son call after him.
He raced past his wife, who had to step quickly out of his way. “Monty?”
“You let them in the house?” he yelled back at her.
“What are you going on about? Just the bathroom,” she maintained. “They needed to freshen up their clown makeup and didn’t want the kids to see!”
But by then he was in his office. His desk was L-shaped, with a computer at the side. The phone charger and the back-up battery were on the left side of the computer, near the back-up hard drive and small stack of flashcards. Only one thing was wrong with the picture. The back-up drive and the flashcards were gone.
When Cynthia stepped into the office doorway, her husband was briskly rooting around in his top left drawer—the one he always kept locked … the one the rest of the family was forbidden to touch.
“Monty, I—”
“Cyn, find the clowns for me? Right now. They’re not in the backyard. You take the left side of the house, and I’ll take the right.”
“But—”
“It’s important, Cyn,” he said, walking up to her, his left arm stiff and slightly behind him. He gripped her right arm and kissed her on the forehead. “Right away, okay?”
“O-okay,” she stammered, but he had already quick-marched beyond her and was out the side door by the time she had turned.
Cynthia Morton blinked a few times. She drew in a big breath, and then let it out again. She started to think about how her husband had changed over the last few years—how he was becoming more distant and increasingly ill—but then supposed she had better do as he had asked.
But before she turned, she noticed the open top drawer. Inside was a burnished wooden box that was also open. In it were red-cloth-padded sections that were also now empty. One was in the shape of a small cylinder. And the other was in the shape of a pistol.
24
General Montgomery Morton spotted the pair of clowns from the front door of his suburban house. There were so many guests that the driveway had filled up quickly, forcing many motorists to park along the street. The man clown and the woman clown looked to be heading for a minivan wedged in among the many other vehicles.
“Monty…?” It was his wife, coming from around the side of the house.
“Go back to the party,” he instructed tersely. “No matter what happens, keep the kids there.”
“Monty?” she repeated hollowly.
But he was already running. “Do as I say!” was all he left her with.
The front lawn was large enough, the grass thick enough, and the clowns were so intent on reaching their vehicle that they didn’t hear or see Morton coming.
“Don’t move,” he said from behind them.
The man clown did as he was told, his shoulders stiffening. But the woman was obviously not used to being caught. She turned slowly in place, her eyes wide and fearfully defiant.
Her eyes.
Morton knew instantly who she was, and by extension, who the man clown must be as well. He fought the mix of guilt and rage that splashed inside him as he glared at them from inside his pounding head.
“I believe you have something that belongs to me,” Morton said, trying to keep his voice from succumbing to the rage he felt.
Finally the man turned to face him. The tag from the Fantasy Fetish Wardrobe store where they’d stopped en route was still hanging from his sleeve.
“We don’t know what you’re talking about,” the man clown said.
The man clown took a step toward him and Morton raised the suppressed Sig Sauer MK 25, keeping it close to his stomach and shifting his body so it would still stay out of sight of the house and any snoopy neighbors.
“Stay there,” Morton commanded. “And you know exactly what I’m talking about, dammit. Return it and you might still walk away.”
“You wouldn’t kill us here,” the man clown guessed, his lower jaw stiffening.
“Do as I said or you’ll be dead in a second. The police would find you on my property with my property,” Morton went on. “I wouldn’t even be arrested.”
Sammy and Ana both hesitated.
Morton held out his free hand. “Give me the drives.”
The woman clown took a step forward but her partner put his arm out to stop her.
“Not gonna happen,” Sammy said. “Your move. The cops might let you off but what about your boss or your partners.”
“Worse for me if I let you go,” Morton assured them. “Last chance.”
Ana clung to Sammy, her frizzy-wigged head bizarrely buried against his puffy, striped shoulder, as a silent Ford C-Max Hybrid came to a stop parallel to them.
“Or what?” came a voice from the passenger window of a dark, 190 horsepower sedan parked by the curb just yards away.
Morton immediately lowered his gun out of sight and stepped back, his eyes widening at the voice who had just interrupted. He couldn’t see the speaker through the open window. Then the man leaned out.
“You again!”
“Or what, General Morton?” Jack Hatfield repeated from the window, holding nothing more dangerous than a digicam. “Let the world know what you’re planning!”
How did he get here? Oh, course, he’s this clown’s half brother! Was it all a trap?
“These people are thieves,” Morton declared, as the driver’s side door opened and a stocky, yet aristocratic, man in a fine suit emerged.
“So call the cops,” the man suggested casually, as a taller, lankier, slimmer man emerged from the sedan’s rear seat and took the first man’s place behind the wheel. At just one quick glance, Morton thought the second man might’ve been Dirty Harry.
By then Jack Hatfield had also come out of the car and the two were approaching him slowly as he, most obviously, was not calling the cops.
“General Morton,” Jack said calmly. He motioned toward Ana. “You tried to have this woman killed after she overheard you planning ‘Firebird,’ didn’t you?”
Morton was shaken. But he was not so shaken as to utter anything even stupider than what he had already said.
So maybe Hatfield does know, he thought. But if he did, why weren’t the military police, the CIA, and secret service crawling all over him? It came to Morton in a flash, and not a flash drive, either. They have no proof. This is a fishing expedition.
“Turn off your camera,�
�� the general ordered. He waited. Jack didn’t even look at any of the others before he did what Morton asked. “You won’t find anything on what they stole,” the general insisted.
Sol Minsky and Hatfield shared a look. “Maybe we will, maybe we won’t,” the aristocratic man commented blithely. “But now, on the occasion of your son’s sixth birthday party, why don’t you grow up. Just come with us and confess to the proper authorities?”
“Aren’t you the ‘proper authorities’?” Morton said sarcastically, starting to feel out the upper ground.
“You knew we weren’t when we drove up without the cavalry,” Sol said drily. “We’re just a few sane people trying to prevent World War III. Why don’t you join us?”
Morton looked from one to the other of them. They all looked back at him with different degrees of imploring. But then he remembered everything that had been said and done by the conspirators during the last few years. He, too, then lowered his head.
“No,” said General Morton. “It must be done.” He looked up beseechingly at Jack. “You, of all people, know this must be done.”
“Not like this,” Jack responded. “Not with us taking first blood.”
“That’s not what you’ve said in the past!’ Morton accused him. “Why must thousands of us die first before we take action? Why can’t we take action—action that must be taken—after thousands of them die? Why is it always our blood?”
“Fitting you should use that word,” Jack said. “Blood. That’s where you’re hitting them, isn’t it?”
The other man was silent.
“What is it? Smallpox? Ebola? Anthrax?”
“Does it matter?” Morton replied. “All that matters is an end to the madness of jihad. You can’t disagree with that. You said so on television!”
“My question was about justice. It was about self-defense,” Jack defended himself. “It was about heroism.”
“And what is this?” the general asked.
“What you’re doing is what they would do, what those sick Jihadists belonging to ISIS want to do.”
“For the right reasons, though. That’s a big difference, wouldn’t you say?”
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