Recall

by David McCaleb

  She rolled her eyes. “Of course. I meant where’d you get it?”

  “Under the hedge out back.”

  She held a breath. “What type?”

  “Holly.”

  The tendons between her jaw and temple stretched tight. She was gorgeous when angry. “Not in the mood, dammit.”

  That was Lori’s warning to get serious, quit kidding, or otherwise straighten up. He whispered, “German, P-08 Luger Mauser, I think. Stamped 1941 on the barrel.”

  A clump of her blond bangs hung over an eye. The visible one was rimmed in red, dark flesh puffy beneath it.

  “Wasn’t trying to piss you off.”

  “Just comes naturally.” She leaned back but kept her voice low. “We’ll talk about it later. Not in front of the kids.”

  Jackson made boom-boom-boom gun noises behind them. Both flinched when he yelled, “Got ’em!” His gaze never left the gadget in his hands.

  Red inched closer to Lori. “It needs to get to your guys.”

  She frowned. “Then you should’ve left it under the hedge and called forensics.” She glanced up at the distracted driver.

  “Forensics missed it the first time. Haven’t turned up anything for three weeks. No one is getting it. The more time passes, the longer whoever took a shot at us the first time has for a second chance. I’m tired of waiting. We’ve got to get this to someone who knows what to do with it.”

  Her nostrils flared and she shoved a hand beneath the weapon. “See this scar?” She tapped an indentation at the bottom of the grip. “This was shot out of the guy’s hand. A round hit there.”

  “A guy. How do you know it was a man?”

  “Right-handed one, at that.”

  His forehead knitted. “Seriously, how you figure?”

  A glow of interest lit her eyes. “The slide is locked open. He emptied the entire clip. More concerned with quantity than quality.” An accusatory glance. “A guy thing, obviously.”

  “You’re straying from the subject.”

  Lori held the handle toward him, displaying a brown crust across the butt. “Also, it hit near the bottom, yet the round drew blood. It’s stained into the wood. So the shooter had a big hand. Again, probably male.”

  “But why right-handed?”

  “Look at the scar. The round hit and ricocheted that way. If he’d been left-handed, the projectile probably would’ve hit him square in the chest. Then you’d have found a body instead of just the gun.”

  Red squinted. “How do you know all this?”

  She glanced at the kids. “Not now, dear.”

  Married for ten years—or so he’d been told—he knew less about the woman sitting next to him today than on their honeymoon. He’d thought his life was relatively normal, till the kidnapping, then recall. The realization his past wasn’t . . . just wasn’t. Memory had been artificially suppressed. The doctors never gave a satisfactory answer as to method, and Red held doubts that even they understood, but they’d cleared him for duty. “You’ve got full recall,” Dr. Genova had said.

  Bullshit. What about the nagging feeling something important wasn’t back yet? Something else obscured by fog. A shadow still indecipherable. Maybe it was sitting next to him, palming a Luger, saying Not now, dear. Even so, the scent of Extatic drew his nose closer to her neck, and he left a kiss there.

  “I’ve gotta do something with it,” Red whispered. “Your folks are the cleanup crew. Get it to someone who will know what the hell it means. Your side deals with it.”

  She leaned close. “They won’t care. They’ve already closed the file, reassigned personnel. In their minds, taking us off the grid will fix all this. They’ll run forensics, then stick it in an evidence warehouse. The weapon won’t be traceable. They never are.”

  “Then what?”

  She looked him in the eye, as if resigned to discussing this now, after all. “You do it.”

  “The Det?”

  “You guys have access to the same intel, maybe even more.”

  “We’re operational. That’s part of the deal. Someone else figures out who owns the thing. We just, you know—kill ’em.”

  “Just?” she snorted. “What if he’s on our side?”

  “Above my pay grade, honey. We stick this Luger in his mouth and he talks. We’re the gorillas. Someone else plays detective. Give me an investigation and I’ll screw it up.”

  The Suburban slowed at a stoplight, pausing next to a green Honda Odyssey. Paint peeling on the hood. The wife yawning, husband’s cheek pushed against the passenger window, breath fogging it in rhythm, eyes closed. Two car seats with snoozing toddlers in back.

  “That’ll be us in another week,” she said. “No more escort. Be nice to get back to normal.”

  “Hmm,” he breathed. In whose world is this normal? Being an operative felt as natural as an alpha wolf leading a pack, marking territory, sniffing out rivals, hunting mule deer. But when the op’s over, you’re safe. Obscured by the Det, a fusion cell, a non-organization held together by a thousand handshake agreements. Now someone had cut through that nicely painted top-secret canvas, ripped it open to look behind. How much had they seen? This constant worry about who’s behind you, remembering faces, doubling back to take a pretend second look at a store window, trying to shake a tail while shopping with your kids for size-three sneakers—no. All this spook stuff was crap. “You think this guy is a danger to us? Or the kids?”

  Lori tucked the weapon into his jacket pocket and crossed her arms. “Don’t need that to know someone’s after at least one of us. Or who we work for. Reinserting us on the grid will only delay them discovering us again. Maybe not even much.”

  “So, I’d better figure it out.”

  She threw up her hands. “Red, it’s only one piece of a puzzle! One in a box on a shelf in a warehouse full of a million others. The only way it’ll get opened again is if something actionable comes up. That’s not gonna happen, not with the agency spread as thin as it is. This is our new reality, even in a new home. We’ve got to accept it.”

  “But if something actionable turned up?”

  “Then maybe the powers that be would let your gorillas out of the cage.” Her slender fingers brushed his cheek, pulling his face to her. “Honey, look. This may be something we just can’t fix. You’ve got to be okay with that. Once information is out, it’s like a virus. It spreads, fast. Secrecy is our only ally. We may even have to hop the grid again sometime.”

  Red pulled the jacket close to his belly and leaned in to her ear. “But intel is always stored. Maybe on a computer—or on paper. Or just in someone’s head. I have fixed all that stuff before. Sniff out the trail, back to the source, then kill the source.” He winked. “I’ll take it. Our kids may have a normal life yet.”

  She gaped. “What’re you saying?”

  “I’m going to bend the rules. I know a bloodhound.”

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  DAVID MCCALEB was raised on a farm on the Eastern Shore of Virginia. He attended Valley Forge Military College, graduated from the United States Air Force Academy, and served his country as a finance officer. He also founded a bullet-manufacturing operation, patented his own invention, and established several businesses. He returned to the Eastern Shore, where he currently resides with his wife and two children. Though he enjoys drawing, painting, and any project involving the work of hands, his chosen tool is the pen.

  Recall is the first novel in the Red Ops series. Many more are planned. Please visit David McCaleb on Facebook or at DavidMcCaleb.com.

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