Rules of Engagement

by Ken Fite

  I reached into my back pocket, grabbed my phone, and tried to call Morgan back. The line rang several times, then went to voicemail. I asked him to call me back, unsilenced it, and dropped it back in place.

  Chris followed me over to Charlie’s body. I still couldn’t believe what had happened. I stared at the bag over his face and narrowed my eyes when I saw what appeared to be movement. I took a step closer and saw it move again. He’s breathing, I thought. I knelt down next to Charlie. With two hands, I grabbed the hood and gently lifted it up over his face and stared at it. “Oh my God,” I whispered as I pulled it the whole way off and Chris drew his weapon. We were staring at the face of another man. It wasn’t Charlie.

  In that moment, I realized we had been played by Dimitri Ivanov.

  The terrorist stared blankly at the sky. Then he blinked and his eyes moved, confirming that he was alive. “Who are you?” I asked the man in a low voice as I reached for my weapon, but there was no response. The man turned his eyes back to the sky. “Please,” I said. “Tell me where Dimitri is and I’ll get you help.”

  Slowly, his eyes drifted to his left until they met with mine. He took a deep breath and opened his mouth. “Go to hell,” he whispered with a thick Russian accent. He coughed, and a moment later, there was a gurgling sound. I watched a mass of crimson blood pour from his mouth. It ran down the side of his face. He coughed again. The man was dying and I was running out of time to get information out of him.

  “This was Dimitri’s plan, wasn’t it?” I asked and paused a beat before I continued, trying to read the man. “And I bet you told him it was a bad idea. He’s young. Inexperienced. Doesn’t follow the normal rules of engagement. I bet you told him that even if I did have his father, even if I turned him over to you, there was no way I’d just let you walk away from all of this.” I leaned in closer. “You knew better, didn’t you?”

  I was using training I’d received years ago as a SEAL to read the guy. I could tell that I was getting to him. The man curled his lips in disgust, sucked in a deep breath, and coughed again. He breathed some more and said, “My allegiance isn’t to Dimitri. It’s to his father, Nikolai.” He paused and added, “And I would do anything to get him back.” He coughed again, and another gush of blood spewed from his mouth.

  “Nikolai Ivanov is dead,” I said and watched the man’s reaction to the news. “That’s why he’s not here.”

  His eyes darted over to Chris Reed, then flicked back to me. “You’re lying.”

  “He died a month ago in an underground prison. That’s why I don’t have him.” Chris stepped around the guy and kept his weapon trained on him as I tried to get the man to talk. “I’ll get you help. Just tell me—”

  Before I could finish asking my question, the man’s face went slack. I put two fingers against his neck. “Damn it,” I whispered as I came off my knees, sat on the ground, and stuffed my weapon in the small of my back. I grabbed the back of my head and slid my fingers down my neck as I stared out across the field, thought about everything that had just happened, and wondered how I was going to get to Dimitri Ivanov.

  I tried calling Jami as Reed started to pace, but she didn’t answer.

  “Where do we go from here?” he asked.

  I shook my head. “I don’t know.” I thought about it some more and stood. I stuffed my hand in my pocket, felt my fingers brush by the ring, and pulled out a small folded piece of paper and handed it to Chris.

  “What’s this?”

  “The address we got at Meg Taylor’s apartment.”

  Chris took it from me.

  “Can you go check on Jami?”

  Chris stared at me. “You shouldn’t have let her go off on her own,” he said. “She could be in trouble.”

  I saw an ambulance approach. Its siren was off and directly behind it were two Metro Police cruisers. I watched the three vehicles turn into the base. Over my shoulder, I saw a military police vehicle approach from the south. “I’m sure she’s fine,” I finally replied as I turned back to look at the ambulance. “I couldn’t have stopped her, anyway.” I nodded at the vehicles. “I’ll handle these guys. Call me when you get there.”

  Reed nodded. “I’ll check things out,” he said as I crouched down and checked the pockets of the two men on the ground while I still could, and I found a set of car keys on the guy who had shot Mark Reynolds.

  “What about Landry?” Chris asked. “Why would he lie about Ivanov? Why would he set you up like that?”

  I held up the car keys. “That’s what I’m going to have to find out,” I said and dropped them in my pocket.

  Chris stretched out his hand and we shook. He took a look at the address and cocked his head to one side. “Seems familiar,” he said and looked up at me. “Not too far from here,” he added and jogged to his SUV.

  I watched as he approached his vehicle and one of the police cars pulled up next to him. Chris walked around to the driver’s side window and spoke with the officer for several seconds before pointing to me. The cop nodded, pulled his vehicle forward, and parked as Chris climbed inside his SUV and left the base.

  The other patrol car parked behind the first cop, and I watched as the officers got out and headed in my direction while the military police vehicle jumped the curb and pulled onto the grass. He stopped ten yards from me, stepped out of his vehicle, and waved the ambulance in until they got close to the bodies. The officer motioned for them to stop, turned to look at the men on the ground, and headed right for me.

  “Bureau guy told me what we’re dealing with over here,” the military police officer said. “We got word that the FBI needed the use of our heliport and needed the main gate to be cleared, but we didn’t expect all this,” he said, looking at the lifeless bodies on the ground. “Afraid I’ll need to get a statement from you, Mr.…”

  “Jordan,” I said as I looked across the field. The sky was getting brighter as the sun started to break free from below the horizon. “Blake Jordan,” I added and reached for my credentials and showed them to him.

  The officer looked it over, nodded, and moved over to the bodies and started to examine them. I grabbed my wrists and looked down at them. I saw how raw and red they were from when the Russians had me tied to the ropes at the abandoned building. As I massaged them, I couldn’t stop thinking about that building. It gnawed at me and wouldn’t let me go. “I need to make a call,” I said, and the man nodded his approval.

  FORTY-SEVEN

  I WALKED THROUGH the field, headed toward the parked vehicle that the terrorists had driven. I reached for my cell phone and thought through the events of the past twenty-four hours, trying to put the pieces together and make sense of it all. I felt hungry and weak and realized that I hadn’t had anything to eat since yesterday’s breakfast meeting with the president. I thought briefly about the two dead men who had roughed up Sammy. Then my mind drifted back to the abandoned building near the Naval Observatory.

  That was where my mind stayed for several minutes as I remembered Jami saying that it looked like it had been abandoned for thirty years. I thought back to when the man driving the Town Car had brought me into the building. The lawn had been perfectly manicured. The outside looked immaculate. But inside, the home was stripped of everything. Jami’s words went off in my ear like a warning. Abandoned thirty years.

  Jami was right. There was something about that building that didn’t make any sense to me, and I had to figure out what it was. I dialed Morgan again and brought the phone to my ear as I turned back to see the other officers gathered by the bodies, and watched as a crime scene vehicle pulled in behind the other cars.

  “This is Lennox,” he answered.

  “Morgan, it’s Blake.”

  “I watched the whole thing, mate,” said Morgan as I looked up, remembering the drone overhead.

  “I need your help,” I said, lowering my gaze. “That building where I was being held—what was that?”

  “What do you mean?” he asked after a long
pause.

  I shook my head and looked down. “I don’t know. The lawn was taken care of, but on the inside—it was like the building hadn’t been used in decades.” I thought some more. “Something’s not right, Morgan. It’s a good neighborhood. It shouldn’t have been abandoned. It doesn’t make sense, and I need to know why.”

  “Okay. I’ll look into it, mate, and I’ll get back to you.”

  “No,” I said. “I need you to look into it right now for me.”

  Morgan sighed. “Blake, we have a bit of a situation over here that I’m dealing with, and I really need to bring you up to speed on it, actually. Lynne May has been gone for several hours, and I asked Simon to—”

  “Morgan, please,” I said, interrupting him. “This is important. I need to know more about that building.”

  He sighed again. “Hang on,” he said, and I heard the sound of the analyst typing on his keyboard as I turned back to the officers behind me and noticed that they were all looking in my direction, and one of them was pointing at me. “Okay,” Morgan finally said. “The building was at thirty-four ten Garfield Street.”

  The officer I had been speaking with lifted his hand and pulled four fingers toward him several times, letting me know that he needed me back to talk with him. I held a finger in the air. He shook his head and again motioned for me to return as Morgan continued.

  “Looks like the building’s owned by the Iranian government, Blake. It’s been unoccupied since—” I heard more typing “—nineteen seventy-nine.”

  “I don’t understand,” I said.

  There was more typing. “Looks like that’s right around when the United States severed ties with Iran.”

  “Okay,” I said. I thought some more about it and asked, “Morgan, are there any others like it nearby?”

  “Abandoned residences?”

  “Vacant buildings in Washington still owned by the Iranian government.”

  “Checking,” he said.

  I looked back and saw the officer that I had been speaking with leave the others and step through the grass, headed straight for me. “You almost done? Need you back,” the man yelled as he got close to me.

  “Almost,” I replied. “Gonna grab a bottle of water from my car and I’ll be right there. Want one?”

  The officer stared at me and shook his head. “No, but finish the call and let’s get this over with, okay?”

  I nodded. The cop turned, lowered his gaze, and shook his head as he walked back to join the others. “Come on, Morgan,” I said as I headed in the opposite direction, toward the Russian’s vehicle.

  “Got it,” said Lennox. “I see two more locations. The first is at twenty-nine fifty-four Upton Street.”

  “How big is it?”

  “Not very. Looks like it was the residence of the Iranian minister of cultural affairs back in the day.”

  “What was Garfield used for?” I asked.

  Morgan checked briefly. “Iranian military attaché.”

  I thought about it some more. “Okay, what’s the third address?”

  “It’s the former Iranian embassy, Blake. Close proximity to the other two locations I just mentioned.”

  I slowed my approach to the vehicle, feeling adrenaline surge through my body. “How big is it, Morgan?”

  “Pulling it up in Maps now,” he said with a brief pause. “It looks huge, Blake, an old two-story mansion.”

  “Where?”

  “Half a mile south of the Garfield address. Three thousand five Massachusetts Avenue.”

  “Move the drone and let me know if you see any activity outside. I’ll call you when I’m close, okay?”

  “Blake, wait. I need to tell you about Bill Landry.”

  I stopped when I got to the vehicle and listened as Morgan continued.

  “Simon let me know that Lynne May has been gone for a couple of hours now. Landry told him that she was resting in a privacy room, but when I asked Simon to go get her, she was gone. I was able to access the Hoover Building’s security cameras, but can’t find the archive. It may have been deleted. Simon alerted security, but they’re adamant that May hasn’t left the building. I don’t know what to do.”

  “Morgan, Bill Landry lied to me. He wanted this to go down the way it did here at Bolling. He wanted me dead,” I said. “Landry’s involved somehow. So forget the archive and go find Landry.” I climbed into the car, shoved the key into the ignition, and turned to see the officer across the field, still watching me. “I’ll call you back. Move that drone, Morgan,” I said as I turned the key, put it in drive, and stepped on the gas.

  FORTY-EIGHT

  JAMI BROUGHT HER hand down hard on the steering wheel, angry with herself for letting Bill Landry get away, as she slowly drove her SUV back to the address that she had found at Meg Taylor’s apartment. While on the road, she had wanted to call Morgan to help track his vehicle, but realized that her phone was missing and remembered that she had set it on the kitchen counter while she was talking with Taylor.

  She drove the SUV to the end of the street, turned around in the cul-de-sac, and parked the vehicle facing the exit to the neighborhood, just as she had done when she first arrived. Only this time, she pulled the SUV all the way to the front of Landry’s house so she could go inside, grab her phone, and get out quick.

  The street looked different now. The sky was brighter, the streetlights were off, and the eerie orange glow that it had cast on the house was now gone. Jami sat inside her vehicle, looking out the passenger window at the beautiful home. She grabbed her weapon, stepped out of the car, and approached the front door.

  Jami got to the front door, where she and Meg Taylor had had their conversation earlier. She grabbed the handle, depressed the lock with her thumb, and pushed the door open. She heard two beeps from the alarm system, indicating that an entry door had been opened. To her relief, the alarm did not sound.

  Closing the door behind her, Jami held her weapon out in front of her, aimed it toward the ground, and moved through the foyer, which was now brighter with light coming in through the glass door. She stepped closer to the kitchen and lowered her weapon when she saw her phone.

  Grabbing it, she saw that she had several missed calls. She shoved the phone into a pocket, put two hands back on the weapon, and looked for a light switch. She found it, flipped it on, and searched the kitchen.

  A roll of silver duct tape was on the kitchen counter close to the door that led to the garage. A nearby drawer was ajar, and Jami stepped closer to it, pulled it all the way open, and checked inside before pushing it shut. She glanced across a few scattered papers on the counter, knowing that she needed to get out of there, but looking for anything that might tell her where Landry might have taken Meg Taylor.

  When Jami heard a car engine rumble and felt the house vibrate as it had earlier, her blood ran cold.

  She moved to the opposite side of the kitchen, crouched, and aimed her weapon toward the door leading to the garage and waited. The engine was killed, and Jami realized that something was different. She had expected to hear the mechanical sound of the garage door opening. Her eyes grew wide as she realized that her vehicle was parked directly outside the home—not near the end of the cul-de-sac, like before.

  As Jami stood, she heard a knock at the door and spun around the kitchen, aiming her weapon toward the front door. She could see a figure on the other side of the glass. It was a man, and it looked like he had a weapon in his hand as well. Jami ducked behind a wall and watched as the door was slowly cracked open. Two beeps from the security system sounded somewhere close by. A toe pushed the door all the way open.

  “Drop it!” yelled Jami from behind the wall, aiming her weapon toward the figure in the doorway.

  “Jami, it’s me,” said Chris Reed.

  She lowered her weapon, stepped out from behind the wall, and stuffed the Glock into the small of her back. She met Chris in the foyer and pushed the door closed behind him. “What are you doing here?”

&nb
sp; “Blake sent me,” he replied, holding up the small yellow note with the address on it that she remembered taking from Meg Taylor’s apartment. Chris lowered his hand and took a look around. “I know this place.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “You do?”

  “Bureau Christmas party. Made an appearance and left.” He looked around. “It’s Bill Landry’s house.”

  Jami nodded. “He was here. I was with Meg Taylor, trying to get her to tell me who was feeding her information, and Landry showed up. She said I had to go, but it was too late, he was already stepping into the kitchen.” Jami paused. “I recognized his voice. I heard a struggle. He dragged her to the car and left.”

  “It’s all making sense now,” said Chris.

  Jami furrowed her brow, not understanding what he meant.

  “Bolling,” he explained. “We went out there and waited on the chopper that Landry said was coming.” Chris shook his head slowly. “It never came, Jami. Nikolai Ivanov is dead. Bill Landry set us up.”

  Reed shared the details of the exchange, what went down with the terrorist in the hood that they had made out to look like Charlie Redding, and that Mark Reynolds had been shot and was taken to the hospital.

  Jami gasped and cupped a hand over her mouth as she stared at Chris. “Is he okay?” she whispered.

  “Don’t know yet,” said Chris as he reached for his phone. “But I need to find out.” He noticed an incoming call and answered it. “Morgan?” he said, switching the call to speakerphone. “I have Jami here with me.”

  Morgan brought Jami and Chris up to speed with Lynne May’s disappearance and how he and Simon had been trying to locate her using the Hoover Building’s security footage. Jami told Morgan about what had happened at Bill Landry’s home. Morgan had more to share. “Guys, I think Blake may have found Ivanov.”

  Jami and Chris exchanged a look. “How?” asked Jami.

  Morgan explained the connection between the abandoned house on Garfield and the former embassy. He said that Blake had left Bolling and was headed to the embassy and would arrive there in a few seconds.