The Echo of the Whip

by Joseph Flynn

  Perhaps you’d like to remain where you are, señor?

  No, that was the last thing Brock wanted. He hurried out of the tiny cell. He was no sooner across the threshold than Gonzales grabbed him by the back of his neck. Now, Brock was scared. People who’d been bought off didn’t treat their benefactors that way.

  But Gonzales whispered to him, “We will be taking a short ride to my bank. It is closed for business, but a door will be left unlocked. You will contact your bank. You will be so happy to be free, your voice will all but sing.”

  Brock tried to assess what he’d been told. He wouldn’t have expected Gonzales to have the necessary contact at a bank to arrange the scenario. Or the sophistication to come up with such a plan in the first place. But what other choice did he have but to play along? Go back to his cell? No thanks. They stepped through the doorway out of the back of the lockup. A car with its motor running waited for them.

  The lure of freedom was too strong for Brock to resist.

  Even so, he asked, “What happens after you get the first half of your money?”

  Gonzales said, “A helicopter flying very low takes you to Argentina. Not Buenos Aires, but a small town near there. You will wait in a safe place a day or two and then you will get me the second half of my money. After that, you may come or go as you wish.”

  “I’ll need some documentation to travel,” Brock said.

  Gonzales opened a rear door of the car. He took a small dark blue object out of a pocket.

  “Your passport, señor.”

  A forged American passport in the name of Darren Anderson, but with a photo of Brock affixed to it.

  Brock snatched the passport from Gonzales’ hand. For the first time, he felt as if he might truly get away. He asked the jailer, “Aren’t you coming with me to Argentina?”

  Gonzales shook his head. “I am leaving you here. I can not say I trust you, but you would be a fool to betray me. Fate allows a man only so many misdeeds. Then it bites him right on la cula.” His ass.

  Brock thought, yeah right, you superstitious moron. But he kept a straight face. Nodded gravely. He got into the car, pulling the door shut before anyone could change his mind. The driver pulled away and the sense of relief Brock felt made him shiver.

  So close to disaster and now …

  He noticed that an interior light in the car was on. He saw two 8x10 glossy photographs on the seat next to him. Head shots. When it registered whose likenesses he was looking at his stomach knotted. The first picture was of Bahir Ben Kalil, his one-time friend and co-conspirator in planning the assassination of the president. Brock had killed him so there would be one fewer person to implicate him if things went wrong.

  The other photo was of Bahir’s twin sister, Hasna Kalil, a surgeon.

  Rumored to be a terrorist interrogator able to inflict unimaginable pain.

  Scrawled across her photo was an inscription: The doctor will see you soon.

  Brock screamed in terror. He would have jumped out of the moving car but both of the rear doors were locked. The privacy screen between him and the driver did not yield to repeated pummeling. Tears formed in Brock’s eyes as he realized Gonzales had been bargaining with someone besides him. No doubt someone who could pay cash in advance.

  The jailer’s story was meant only to pacify him, usher him eagerly into the death trap.

  Brock intended to start kicking at a door when he heard a soft hiss. A bittersweet aerosol began to fill the rear of the car. Brock began to feel heavy-headed. He realized to his horror that he was being sedated. He gave up fighting and gulped as much of the gas as he could, praying for an overdose.

  His only hope now was that he’d never wake up again.

  Great Falls, Virginia

  Special Agent Deke Ky of the Secret Service whispered to McGill, “The guy’s unarmed, but I still think this is a bad idea, you talking to him.”

  The two men stood just outside Thomas Winston Rangel’s office where Eugene Beck awaited his promised meeting with McGill. Elspeth Kendry was already in the room with her eyes and her Uzi on Beck. John Tall Wolf had told McGill and Deke he’d stunned Beck with a flash-bang grenade and had disarmed him.

  Tall Wolf said, “The man has no weapons on his person. I even took his shoes and belt off him. But he is whipcord lean and solid muscle. When he’s up and running at full speed, I expect he’s both strong and quick. He absorbed the effects of the stun grenade with as little damage as anyone I’ve ever seen.”

  “And you want to talk with this guy?” Deke asked.

  “He wants to talk to me,” McGill said.

  “He surrendered his weapon to me as promised and allowed me to search him, once he looked out the window and saw Mr. McGill step out of the car,” Tall Wolf said.

  “And he told you he just wants to talk, John?” McGill asked.

  Tall Wolf nodded.

  McGill told Deke, “He just wants to talk.”

  Without offering a word of rebuttal, Deke’s look said, “Yeah, bullshit.”

  McGill told him, “Let’s get into the room before Elspeth shoots him.”

  “If she doesn’t, I will, if anything goes wrong.”

  Allowing Deke and Tall Wolf to precede him, McGill entered the room where Beck was waiting. He had no trouble picking out the only dangerous character. Not the old guy. Not the guy with the shaved head who McGill realized was Edmond Whelan. No, the former Air Force near special ops man was a couple inches shorter than himself, about six feet tall. A sleek one-seventy-five, give or take five pounds. He had short sandy brown hair, symmetrical features. Probably had a nice smile when he cared to show it.

  Of course, the fact that Beck was the only one not wearing shoes or a belt and Elspeth had her Uzi pointed at him also made the identification process easier.

  “Mr. Beck, I’m Jim McGill. I was told you’d like to speak with me. I’ve also been told you planned to kill me, so you’ll have to understand if I don’t extend my hand to you.”

  Beck smiled, and it did make him look like someone you’d want for a neighbor.

  “That’s all right, sir, in your position, I’d be careful, too. But that’s one of the reasons I wanted to see you. So I could tell you I never had any intention of doing you any harm. It was that sonofabitch over there …” He pointed at Whelan. “He’s the one who tried to get me to do the job.”

  “Well, now,” McGill said, “that’s interesting.”

  He had no doubt Galia would be able to do something with that tidbit.

  Rangel watched the byplay like a crow waiting to consume roadkill.

  He was looking for angles to play, too.

  “Yeah,” Beck said, “I was planning to blow him off, but the prick put a billboard up in the town where I live, threatening to expose me if I didn’t play along.”

  “Play along with killing me, Mr. Beck? What would give him that idea?”

  The man sighed, “Well, the truth is, I have killed a few people. Eight to be exact. But I did all that working for a company with a contract from the Department of Defense. People in the know decided my targets were enemies of the United States. Folks who hailed from the Middle East and Southwest Asia. Jihadis, bomb-makers and such.”

  “Okay,” McGill said, “let’s take what you say at face value. How’d you go from that to stealing embryos from a fertility clinic?”

  “Well, sir, the truth is that job held an element of personal interest for me.”

  “What’s the element?”

  “I’ll get to that later, sir. Right now I just want to make sure you understand that even while I was being pressured I never made a move against you. I’m sure your Secret Service people can tell you I never appeared on their radar as anything but a name.”

  McGill looked at Elspeth.

  Feeling his gaze but never taking her eyes off Beck, she said, “We should talk about this later, privately, sir.”

  McGill said, “All right.”

  “There’s something else you should
know, Mr. McGill,” Beck said.

  “What’s that?”

  “If I had tried to kill you, and especially if I succeeded, I was going to be the next one to go. I’m sure there’s someone waiting out there to pop me.”

  Beck stared at Whelan. All eyes, save Elspeth’s, followed his lead. Whelan refused to look at anything but his feet.

  Beck continued, “The man who hired me to ace all those guys overseas, his name was Nicholas Wicklow. Poor fellow had himself a fatal traffic accident not too long ago. Without him to testify, my guess is there’s no way to prove I was working for my country while I was busy shedding other people’s blood. That’s another of the reasons I wanted to talk to you. You seem to be real good at getting to the bottom of things. My bet is Nick Wicklow had some help dying.”

  McGill arched his eyebrows and said, “You’re asking to become a client of mine?”

  Beck’s smile returned. “Only informally. Depending on how things turn out, I may not have much money to spend.”

  “Is that it, Mr. Beck? You have any other reason for wanting to see me?”

  Beck’s expression turned mischievous. “Well, I was wondering if you or anyone else noticed that one of those embryos I stole is missing.”

  “We did.”

  “And it gnaws a little bit, doesn’t it, not being able to wrap things up neat?”

  “It does.”

  “How about we make a bargain? You do something for me and I’ll tell you where that embryo is. Otherwise, it probably won’t ever be found. Well, not for a lot of years anyway.”

  McGill asked, “What do you want?”

  “Well, sir, I have to admit to doing some studying on you. Like I said, I never intended, nor did I make, any move against you. But I was curious. Intellectually, you know. What would it have been like if I went the other way? You are one impressive man, sir. Beat the hell out of U.S. senator on a basketball court and got away with it. Took down a big blowhard in front of his whole damn militia on the National Mall. Stood off half the LAPD right there on TV.”

  McGill had a feeling where Beck was going.

  So did Deke and Elspeth.

  “You want to see how you’d do against me. Is that it, Mr. Beck?”

  “It is, sir. Nothing serious. Just see which of us might knock the other on his ass first. I’m some years younger than you but, right now, after dealing with that stun grenade, my ears are still ringing and I’ve got spots of light dancing in my eyes. I’d say that’s a fair handicap. What do you think?”

  Deke and Elspeth answered as one, “No!”

  But McGill said, “Mr. Beck, I’ve been wanting to bust someone’s nose for a while now, and I think yours will do just fine.”

  “Here or outside, sir?”

  “Right here, right now.”

  Once again the Secret Service chorused, “No!”

  Deke added, “I’ll shoot him.”

  “We need Mr. Beck for his testimony against Edmond Whelan,” McGill said. “It’s all right if he knocks me down. Won’t be the first time.”

  “I bet it’ll be the first time in a long while, though,” Beck said merrily.

  McGill told Deke, “Okay, if he knocks me down and tries to keep going then you can shoot him.”

  Beck nodded. “That’s fair.”

  Elspeth gave a small shake of her head, possibly in disgust with McGill, but she told Beck, “Nobody’s joking here, asshole. You don’t stop when we say, you’re dead.”

  Deke added, “Both of you step back. Maybe you’re just standing in a zone of stupidity right now.”

  McGill grinned. So did Beck. But they both moved away from each other. Reaching a distance of fifteen feet, with a working margin of five feet on either side, they stopped and sized each other up. Measured the other man’s posture for balance, took notice of hand positioning. Tried to see which hand or foot might be more likely to be used for a first strike.

  Then Beck started to whistle. McGill didn’t recognize the melody but it sounded country to his ear and was in 4/4 time. In time with his tune, Beck shuffled forward. McGill stayed where he was, shifting his weight from right to left and back. As Beck cut the distance between them in half, he went up on the balls of his feet and his open hands, held palms forward, moved out in front of his chest, as if to gesture the sentiment, “Hey, wait a minute now.”

  Beck didn’t stop …

  Until McGill began to hum, just a bit louder than Beck’s whistle.

  His musical selection had a jazzy sound and was in the rare 5/4 time signature.

  It threw Beck off-beat, made him stutter step, try to find his rhythm again.

  Beck tried whistling louder, but McGill just upped his volume, too. The musical dissonance started to aggravate Beck. Started messing not only with his physical balance but his emotional harmony, too. McGill saw it and grinned at Beck, letting him know he’d messed with the wrong guy, and that was always a bad mistake.

  When McGill began bobbing his head back and forth to his music, Beck couldn’t restrain himself. He lunged forward, hoping to catch McGill smack on the mouth as his head came forward. Come it did, but McGill smoothly stepped off at a 45-degree angle to his right. He used his right hand to push Beck’s punch aside. Then he grabbed Beck’s wrist with his left hand and yanked him forward. Beck came to an abrupt stop when McGill’s right elbow, moving like a scythe, swung around and connected with Beck’s jaw. Cut him down like ripe wheat.

  Deke and Elspeth jumped in to cuff Beck. Fight over.

  Rangel and Whelan looked at McGill and then each other.

  They both silently wondered if the president’s henchman hadn’t just delivered a message to them almost as blunt as the one he’d given to Beck. You want to play rough, we’ll play rough.

  Elspeth said to McGill, “I thought you wanted to break his nose.”

  McGill said, “A bit of misdirection. Should I hit him again?”

  Deke spared a glance at Whelan and Rangel and said, “Probably wouldn’t be good for your public image.”

  Tall Wolf stepped over and said to McGill, “That was ‘Take Five’ you were humming, wasn’t it?”

  McGill smiled and nodded. “You know it?”

  “Blessing told me all about it,” Tall Wolf said.

  “Yeah, funny the things that can save your backside in a fight,” McGill said. “Thing is, though, you use whatever works.”

  Chapter 11

  Sunday, March 29, 2015, The White House — Washington, DC

  The day dawned bright but the temperature was right at the freezing mark. The First Couple chose to stay in bed and pick up where they’d left off the night before. It was time for brunch before they’d showered and dressed. At the dining table, McGill raised a glass of orange juice and offered a toast to Patti. “Here’s to us, kiddo.”

  “Come what may,” she added.

  They touched glasses and drank.

  “You want to start or should I?” Patti asked.

  McGill knew she meant recounting their respective adventures.

  They’d held off until now in the interests of marital bonding.

  “Ladies and presidents first,” McGill said.

  “I was going to keep this strictly to myself, but this morning I feel like sharing with you. Galia told me without directly saying so that she wasn’t the one who intimidated Joan Renshaw into recanting her accusation that I’d plotted to kill Erna Godfrey.”

  “Okay,” McGill said, “assuming Galia didn’t have her fingers crossed that must mean someone else did.”

  Patti nodded and the look in her eyes conveyed a silent plea.

  McGill told her, “Wouldn’t work, having me find out who really did it.”

  “I didn’t think you’d be obvious about it.”

  “Even if I was a phantom, people would want to know where the info came from. A crowd will be looking for the answer to start with, but if it takes a long time there’ll be one persistent guy or gal who will make it their life’s work. You reall
y want someone dogging us the rest of our lives?”

  “Well, if you put it that way.”

  “I do. There’s another investigation that I was recruited for but won’t do.”

  He told his wife Beck’s story of the death of Nicholas Wicklow. “That has to be a federal investigation, strictly by the book. If Edmond Whelan is involved in it, that’s a big deal. If Whelan set up Beck to die after he made a run at me, that’ll be headline news, too.”

  Patti shook her head. “My God, this job can be just awful. But there is the occasional ray of sunshine. I got a phone call while you were in the shower.”

  “Someone told you the cherry blossoms will bloom early this year?”

  “Even better. We’ve got Tyler Busby.”

  McGill smiled and offered a brief round of applause. “That’s wonderful. Where was he? Who nabbed him? Is he on his way back here wearing chains?”

  “Special Agent Abra Benjamin nabbed him by posing as a hooker he solicited.”

  McGill laughed. “Money can’t buy you love.”

  “Benjamin and a Uruguayan policewoman took Busby to our embassy in Montevideo. It was the local officer’s choice of where to dump Busby so we’re in no diplomatic difficulty there. We might have been, though, because the FBI had a kidnap team waiting in the wings for Busby. That would have caused a fuss.”

  “You think?” McGill asked.

  “I do, and there was also a bit of unfortunate news from Uruguay. They had Philip Brock under lock and key, too.”

  McGill seized on the operative verb. “Had?”

  “He was in a local police lockup awaiting a decision on a bail application, and then he just vanished. So did the fellow in charge of the place. He was an unhappy man who was facing a divorce proceeding that was going to cost him pretty much everything he had plus a big chunk of his pension.”

  “Please tell me Brock’s disappearance wasn’t the FBI at work,” McGill said.

  “No, it wasn’t.”

  “So maybe Brock is on the run again or it’s yet another mystery for someone else to solve.”