Killing Time oj-1

by Cindy Gerard

  “We’ve got a connection at NSA. A friend picked up some cyber-chatter about a gun shipment out of Canada. On a hunch we relayed the info to border control, of which there are two in Idaho. Since Porthill carries the most passenger traffic and East-port carries the most trucks, it wasn’t difficult to pin down which route they were going to take.”

  A line formed between Eva’s brows. “You mean there were more trucks on the way?”

  Gabe nodded. “One truck, and the driver couldn’t talk fast enough—despite the fact that La Linea threatened to kill him. La Linea, guns, UWD? It only made sense there was a big deal going down, and that you were caught here in the middle of it.”

  “The guns were in a refrigerated meat trailer, weren’t they?” Cooper looked smug.

  Gabe regarded him with new interest. “And you know this how?”

  Taggart glanced at Mike, who nodded. “You might want to look about half a mile north of the shooting range. They hid them in an abandoned mine shaft. Well, it used to be a shaft. Good luck finding a piece of anything bigger than a cinder.”

  A slow smile built on Gabe’s face. “Nice work.”

  “It was,” Taggart agreed wholeheartedly. “It really, really was.”

  “So where’d you come up with the Black Hawks?” Mike asked. “There aren’t any military bases within five, six hundred miles of here.”

  Gabe said nothing.

  And just that quick, Mike knew.

  “Sonofabitch,” he said with a grin. “Uncle’s got a little top-secret Spec Ops training facility out here in the mountains, huh?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Gabe had his poker face on, a sure sign that Mike had hit the nail dead center. “I don’t mean to change the subject, but—”

  “The hell you don’t,” Mike said on a laugh.

  “But,” Gabe pressed on and shifted his attention to Eva, “I haven’t had a chance to tell you before now. We found your Deep Throat.”

  • • •

  The D.C. lunch crowd was long gone at two in the afternoon, when Eva and Mike stepped inside the little corner café. They’d returned from Idaho and what the press referred to as “the assault on Squaw Valley” two days ago. CNN had run an hour-long special on the operation last night, and the Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, the Defense Intelligence Agency, and the FBI had received all the credit for the takedown. That was fine with Eva. Let them rack up the win in their column. She wanted her name kept out of it—so did Mike, Taggart, and Cooper. The fact that Gabe had managed to make that happen and keep the Black Ops, Inc. team off the radar as well, told her just how covert he and his teammates ran.

  It was also Gabe who had set up the meeting with Deep Throat. She touched a hand to her hair, nervous, as she scanned the few occupied tables. A young couple, clearly in love and oblivious to anything but each other, laughed and made moon eyes over a shared chocolate sundae. A middle-aged man sat in a wheelchair sipping coffee as a younger woman with a kind face spoke softly to him. A pretty blond mommy fed her young son ice cream and laughed when he smeared it in his hair.

  All of them were oblivious to everyone around them and the drama that was about to unfold. Eva was hyperaware of the wild beat of her heart and peripherally aware of Gabe, who occupied the only other spot in the restaurant. He’d insisted on being here, just in case. He didn’t acknowledge them, just sat at the coffee bar, his back to the room, his focus alternating between a cup of black coffee and the wall mirror that gave him visual access to the dining area and everyone in it.

  An older gentleman with a round belly, wild bushy brows, and a twinkling smile approached them, menus in his hand. “Miss Salinas? Mr. Brown?”

  Eva nodded and gave him credit for not staring at Mike—beat up and bruised, his eye still swollen shut.

  “Your table is ready. Follow me, please.”

  Mike’s strong presence beside her was both unsettling and reassuring—as was his hand on the small of her back as they crossed the room and settled in at a secluded corner table.

  “We’ll just have coffee,” Mike said, and their host smiled amiably and left them alone.

  “You good with this?” he asked, scowling as only he could scowl when he was worried for her.

  “I’m fine. I’m eager to talk with him.”

  “I’d like to do more than talk to him,” Mike grumbled.

  He didn’t exactly feel gratitude toward the man they were about to meet. Mike considered him a coward who had placed her life in danger. Nothing settled the score in his book, not even her reminders that if not for the mystery man, Mike would still be estranged from Taggart and Cooper, and Lawson and Brewster would still be running their nasty business.

  “I wouldn’t be surprised if he didn’t show. That’s his MO, right? He’s a coward who hides in the background.”

  “I’m sure he had his reasons.”

  She’d been so intent on keeping Mike calm, she hadn’t realized the man in the wheelchair had rolled up to the table.

  When he stopped and met her eyes, she smiled automatically. He wasn’t as old as she’d thought he was. Instead, it was apparent that whatever accident or illness had put him in the chair had aged him. “Can I help you?”

  “You can if you’re Eva Salinas.”

  Eva glanced at Mike, then back to—“Who are you? How do you know my name?”

  “I’m Peter Davis.”

  She searched her memory banks. Nothing. Other than the wheelchair, there was little that was remarkable about him. His close-cropped hair was peppered with gray. His eyes were brown. Nothing about him was familiar.

  “You don’t know me,” Davis said, reading her thoughts. “But I know your father.”

  Her heart picked up several beats.

  And then she read something in his eyes. And she understood why he’d come to the table. “Oh, my God. It was you? You gave me the OSD file?”

  His expression was grim. “I did. And believe me, I had no idea that my actions would place you in so much jeopardy.”

  Too stunned to speak, she simply stared. Her brain clicked into stall mode as she attempted to process his words.

  “You sonofabitch.” Mike glared at him. “You almost got her killed.”

  Davis shifted his attention to Mike, repentant but not cowed. “I know. Mr. Jones told me everything.” He wiped a hand over his jaw. “I didn’t see that coming. Believe me. I’m sorry.”

  “What did you think was going to happen when you gave her that file? And why her?” Mike rushed on, not giving Davis a chance to respond. “Why not come to me or Taggart or Cooper?”

  “Mike.” Eva placed a hand on Mike’s arm to settle him. “Let him talk. He didn’t have to agree to meet with us.”

  “It’s all right. In his shoes, I’d be angry, too.” Davis faced Mike again, looked him in the eye. “If I could have found you, I might have contacted you. And what would you have done with the information?”

  For a long moment, the two men locked eyes. They both knew exactly what Mike would have done. Nothing.

  “How do you know my father?” Eva asked, effectively defusing the anger simmering between them. Davis gave Mike a final glare, then turned back to her. “I was active duty until five years ago. Several years before that, one of the enlisted men in my unit had need of a JAG attorney. Your father was assigned to his case. Since I was the aide to the base commander, much of the communication went through me. Your father and I became casual friends. He’s a good man.”

  He smiled tightly, then went on. “A little over a month ago, we had a chance encounter at the funeral of a mutual friend. We caught up. He told me about you. He was very proud that you became an attorney. And he told me you’d lost your husband eight years ago in Afghanistan.”

  Again he stopped, then drew a bracing breath. “I was in Afghanistan eight years ago. I was General Brewster’s aide.”

  Mike went stone-cold still beside her, then erupted with anger. “You knew? All these years, you knew he
sabotaged Operation Slam Dunk?”

  Davis squared his shoulders. “Not at first, no. But I suspected something was off. Again, I’m sorry.”

  “In the interest of time and my patience, leave out the ‘sorrys,’ okay? Just cut to the chase.”

  Davis cut Mike a hard look, then addressed Eva again. “Brewster ran a tight ship. He was making end rows against the resistance. The One-Eyed Jacks were kicking some serious Taliban ass. Then this guy started showing up.”

  “Lawson,” Mike speculated.

  Davis nodded. “Didn’t know who he was—not right away. I just knew there was something off about him.”

  “Other than the fact that he was an asshole?”

  A small smile lifted one corner of Davis’s mouth. “Yeah. Other than that. The day he showed up, Brewster started making decisions that didn’t make sense.”

  “What kind of decisions?” Eva wanted to know.

  “Deployment of resources, mission strategies, calls that undermined the progress his Spec Ops teams had made. Then Operation Slam Dunk went down.”

  He whipped a hand over his face again. “I knew some of those guys. They were straight shooters. Good men.”

  He paused again, then met Mike’s glare. “I was there the night Brewster made the call to stand down. I’ll never forget it. I’d heard your radio transmissions. I knew what was going down out there. And I didn’t understand Brewster’s orders until several days later, when he gave me a stack of files and told me to shred them immediately. Before I could get to it, we got hit by an artillery strike. I ducked and covered, and when the smoke cleared, the files were scattered all over the floor.”

  “Let me guess. One of those files was Brewster’s after-action report on OSD.” Mike leaned forward, elbows on the table, hands clasped together in front of him.

  “Yeah. He’d filed that report himself—hadn’t dictated it to me, so I didn’t know what was in it until I started reading. From the first word, I knew it was all bogus. I knew the op hadn’t gone down the way he’d recorded it.”

  “Back up,” Eva said. “Was it protocol to shred official reports?”

  “After they’d been transferred to electronic documents and encrypted, yes.”

  A waitress stopped by the table then with their coffee, and everyone stopped talking until she was out of earshot again.

  “And as his aide, you had access to the encrypted files,” Eva concluded.

  “Limited access. Brewster changed his access code weekly. As soon as I read the paper copy, I knew I was sitting on a potential land mine—so I accessed his computer files and copied the report onto a flash drive before he could change his code and lock me out.”

  “Why didn’t you do something with it?” Mike cut him no slack.

  “What could I do? I was an aide. Who was going to believe me over a two star? And I’d basically stolen the file. It scared the shit out of me. So I sat on it until I could figure out what to do. In the meantime, I filed the paperwork to get transferred out of Brewster’s unit.”

  He looked down at his legs, at the chair, breathed deep, and faced Eva again. “Soon after, I caught some action and ended up in this chair. And for too many years to count, I wallowed around in a big pile of self-pity.”

  For the first time, Eva saw a softening in Mike’s eyes. He couldn’t relate to Davis’s lie of omission, but he could relate to what the man had been through. He knew all about how easy it was to get caught in a self-destructive cycle. And about sacrificing for your country.

  “But I finally got myself together.” Davis glanced toward the table where the woman with the kind eyes waited. She smiled at him and he nodded, then turned back to Eva. “And I knew I had to bring this to someone’s attention. So I started researching Brewster. Did you know he was in the Office of the Under Secretary at DOD?”

  Mike swore.

  “And while I wasn’t sure where I was going with the file, I did some research on Lawson. I couldn’t get that guy out of my head, you know? Ran across a story about him and this extremist survivalist group, and a lightbulb went on. There was no question in my mind that Brewster and Lawson had been in some unholy alliance in Afghanistan. And no question that someone needed to find out what really happened that night.”

  “So you picked Eva.”

  “And I stand by my decision. She was the right choice. She had a vested interest. And a reputation for having a cool head. I knew that if she was anything like her father, she’d work through it the right way.”

  “So you gave it to her anonymously and your conscience was cleared. Nice, neat, and tidy for you. Deadly for her.”

  “Do you think I saw things coming down this way?”

  “I think you should have.”

  Davis nodded slowly. “Probably. Wasn’t the first mistake I’ve made. And next to sitting on the file for eight years, it’s the one I regret the most.”

  38

  “This is legit?” Mike frowned at Gabe, then darted a quick glance at Taggart and Cooper to check their reactions to the offer Gabe had just laid on the table.

  He saw surprise, followed by keen interest, followed by skepticism. The same things he felt.

  Gabe tipped up his beer, then, squinting against the charcoal smoke, went to work flipping the steaks. “It’s legit.” He glanced over his shoulder and chuckled at their slack-jawed expressions. “You guys need some privacy to talk it over?”

  “What I need is another beer.” Looking like he’d been hit with a stun gun, Taggart walked over to the cooler.

  “Based out of Langley?” Cooper considered Gabe through deeply veed brows.

  “Yup.”

  “Complete autonomy?” Mike wanted to make certain he’d heard him right.

  “Autonomy is a relative term,” Gabe said. “So, officially? No. Unofficially? Damn straight. Same ground rules as the BOIs play by. Which means you’ll call your own shots.”

  Mike looked at Taggart’s beer with envy. He missed the taste of it sometimes. Not as much as he missed the benefits of a clear head, though. He needed all of his brain cells functioning right now. One of the reasons why was inside the Joneses’ apartment with Gabe’s wife, Jenna, who’d returned from Florida yesterday.

  Eva had been too quiet since their meeting with Peter Davis yesterday afternoon. He didn’t know what was going on in her head. Didn’t know where they went from here. It was driving him a little crazy.

  Then there’d been the conference call from the Secretary of Defense himself in Gabe’s office yesterday afternoon. A formal apology to all three of them. Notification that the paperwork was already in the tube for revocation of their less than honorable discharges, and full reinstatement of their honorable service status. Recommendations for Purple Hearts and silver stars for gallantry in action.

  He was still processing his reaction to the accolades and the call. Still deciding if he was pissed or proud. If he felt redeemed or played. Eight years. A big chunk of his life, gone. It was also a long time to be angry. On that, all three agreed. Just as they agreed it would take more than a day to shed the resentment and get on with their lives.

  They’d talked way into the night, just he and Taggart and Cooper. Talked about the call. Talked about what they’d pulled off at Squaw Valley. Straight-up honest talk about time they’d lost. About the lives they’d been living. About the would have beens and should have beens, and finally about the futility of looking back.

  And now… this very now, Gabe was offering them a future.

  “Just for clarity, shoot it by me one more time,” Mike said. “I want to make certain I didn’t doze off there for a minute and dream half of what you said. And don’t burn that steak. That one’s mine.”

  “You let me worry about the meat. You just think about this. Short and sweet, DOD is looking to beef up their nontraditional covert-ops units. BOI was the first one brought on board. Sec Def likes our results. Now he wants the three of you to join the mix—a companion unit. Get away from me with that garlic
salt,” he warned when Cooper moved in with the shaker.

  “Bottom line,” Gabe continued, “you’d be signing on to fight the bad guys. Sanctioned by DOD, but you’ll run your ops on your terms. Not by committee.”

  Mike scratched his jaw. “All because we got screwed over eight years ago?”

  “No. Because of what the One-Eyed Jacks accomplished. Because you were damn good at what you did. Because you still are. And because we need more good men like you.”

  • • •

  “What do you think they’re talking about out there?” Jenna asked.

  Eva glanced at the woman she’d decided was not only the queen of the multitaskers, but someone she wanted to get to know better. Just back from West Palm Beach and wearing a body-hugging, neon pink tank top and black biker shorts, Jenna balanced little Ali on her hip and stirred a gorgonzola sauce that would garnish the steaks Gabe was grilling outside on the terrace. “Best guess? Boobs, beer, and bullshit.”

  Jenna laughed. “I can see why Gabe likes you.”

  “I like him, too,” Eva conceded. Gabe was one of the good ones.

  “How did the apartment hunting go today?”

  “Not great,” Eva admitted as she sliced Roma tomatoes and tossed them into a mixed-green salad. She’d loved her old apartment, but it would be weeks, possibly months before the fire damage would be repaired, and she didn’t think she wanted to return there anyway. She would think about Brewster every time she let herself inside. “But I’m sure I’ll find something.”

  Eva had liked Jenna the moment she’d met her yesterday, after the sit-down she and Mike had with Peter Davis. The pretty redhead was a straight shooter, warm and friendly, and held her own in the company of tough men who had a tendency to want to protect their women.

  “So—how big does this apartment need to be?”

  Eva glanced at Jenna sideways. Okay. Maybe she wasn’t such a straight shooter after all. “Did you mean to ask me if Mike’s moving in?”

  Jenna got a guilty look on her face. “Well, I was trying not to, but obviously I should stick to what I know since I bungled that big-time.”