by Tom Fowler
“Risky to call the old man,” the other said.
“Risky and stupid.” At the moment, Jake agreed.
“Hey, wasn’t he wearing a hat?” They moved farther down, confirmed Jake had in fact been wearing a cap, and came to the logical conclusion. They walked along. Jake stayed low and padded to the side street. He dashed across, moved through someone else’s yard, crossed Oregon Avenue, and kept going. He could find another bus or get a taxi from Route One. Right now, putting distance between himself and his pursuers was the first priority.
18
“You’re grumpy, Dad. Even for you.”
Tyler looked up from the dinner he’d picked at. Lexi stared at him, concern pulling her brows into a frown. “What are you talking about?”
“You’ve never been chatty, but you’ve barely grunted at me since we sat down to eat. At least you normally tell me I did a good job in the kitchen.”
“Of course you did.” Lexi insisted on cooking a few nights a week. When she set some unrecognizable meal in front of Tyler a few weeks ago, he asked her what it was. The answer didn’t clarify the contents of the plate. Instagram and Youtube inspired her, she claimed, and she wanted to replicate what she saw there. Tonight’s attempt was chicken marsala with homemade sauce, spinach, and a pile of mushrooms. “I can even tell what this one is.”
“Mmm,” Lexi said, still regarding Tyler with a skeptical look. “What’s going on?”
“I’m fine, Lexi.”
“Bullshit. You’re in extra surly mode tonight, and I want to know why?” She waited for Tyler to say something, and he filled the gap with silence. The tactic saw diminishing returns as Lexi grew older and more headstrong—a trait she inherited from both her parents. “Does it have something to do with Braxton?”
Tyler nodded. “I did a little digging earlier . . . found a couple of companies and their domain records. Once I heard Braxton was out, I figured he’d be involved in something shady. Seeing it on the screen really drove it home, I guess.”
“I want the whole story.”
“What do you mean?” Tyler said.
Lexi set her fork down hard enough to make it rattle against her plate. “The truth about Braxton. What happened? You’ve never told me.” She held up her hand when Tyler’s mouth opened. “Don’t give me some line about wanting to protect me. I’m eighteen, and I’m as good a shot as you are. I’ll decide what I need protection from.”
Tyler looked across the kitchen table at his daughter. The fire blazing in her eyes came from her mother. Her take-no-prisoners attitude was a gift from her father, though. Tyler felt proud his daughter grew into a strong and confident young woman, even if he currently sat on the wrong end of one of her tirades. He wished he’d been more present along the way, but nothing could change the past. All he could do was be here for her now. “Fine.”
“That’s it? ‘Fine?’”
“I’ll tell you the story after we eat,” Tyler said. “I’ll need a beer . . . maybe two. You might want one, too.”
Lexi picked up her fork again. She’d eaten much more of the meal than Tyler. “You’re going to let me drink a beer?”
“Would you listen to me if I said you couldn’t?”
“No,” she said.
Tyler spread his hands. “I know when things are pointless.”
Once they’d finished eating and cleared the table, Tyler adjourned to the living room. He sat in his favorite recliner which occupied a prominent place in his living room for a decade. It looked a little old and rough around the edges. Kind of like me, Tyler thought. Lexi carried two longnecks in from the kitchen. She set a bottle of lager before Tyler and plopped onto the couch, curling her legs up beneath her. “Ready when you are.”
Tyler took a long pull of the brew. “Never doubt the power of liquid courage,” he said as he set the bottle down. Lexi remained silent. Tyler turned the story over in his head. She deserved to hear all of it, no matter what she thought of him for the telling. “It was my fourth deployment. My last one as it turned out.”
“Braxton was your commander?” Lexi asked.
“Yeah. He was in charge of the unit. He’d been doing it for a while, and he delivered the kinds of results the brass liked. The military talked a good game about winning hearts and minds in the Middle East, but it’s tough to quantify. You can count dead terrorists.” Lexi grimaced, but Tyler continued. “A bunch of us had been in Afghanistan before. We knew the terrain, some of the locals. I guess you could think of it as an all-star crew.
“About seven months in, Braxton’s behavior got a little erratic. He’d be gone more than usual. At random times, too. He was the commander, so we couldn’t really grill him about it. If someone brought it up, he’d say he was checking out something nearby.” Tyler shook his head. “Colonels don’t go and check things out. They ask the grunts to do it.”
“No one questioned it?” Lexi asked.
Tyler shook his head. “It’s easy to say we should’ve in hindsight, but we were a well-oiled machine. If we raided a compound, we took people out and didn’t sustain a casualty. We always got good intel, and we drew up solid plans.”
“So what happened?”
After another long draught of the amber liquid, Tyler continued. “Braxton handed me orders one afternoon. Told me they were eyes only, and it would be a one-man job. A local family was making IEDs. They’d been linked to five deaths and three times as many injuries. The father was the actual bomb maker, but his wife and kids helped and supported him. Because they were direct enablers of terrorism, we could take them out.”
Now, Lexi drank some beer, draining about a third of the bottle. “I’m guessing you did,” she said as she set it back down on the coaster.
“I’ll get to it.” Tyler paused. He let the unpleasant memories come. “I waited until dusk. It was a little cooler by then, and twilight always helped. Most people didn’t turn on the lights in their houses until it got darker . . . if their electricity even worked. I scoped out the house and property, went in through the front door, and took out all four of them.”
“The kids, too?” Tyler offered a slight bob of his head. “How old were they?”
“The daughter was sixteen, and the son was fourteen.”
“Jesus, Dad.” Lexi turned away and ran a hand through her long hair. “When do we get to the part of the story where Braxton is the asshole?” Tyler winced. Lexi’s expression softened right away. “Sorry. I didn’t mean—”
Tyler held up a hand. “It’s fine. It’s a fair question . . . and one I’ve asked myself plenty of times over the years.”
Lexi blew out a breath and shifted on the sofa, tucking her knees under her chin. “What happened next?”
“I wanted to gather some proof,” Tyler said. “It’s one thing to say you killed a bomb maker, but then some prick in Congress gets a bug up his ass and hauls you in to testify. They’re not inclined to take anyone’s word for anything. I’m the guy kicking the door in, so I’m probably not going to be the one staring down the committee . . . but still.” He paused for a beat. “Anyway, I wanted evidence. IEDs, the ingredients to make them . . . something. I didn’t find anything.”
“They weren’t making bombs?”
Tyler shook his head. “I went over the whole place. Every room of their house. The hut behind it. I looked everywhere for a hidden door or panel. Nothing. The father was about as old as I am now. He looked healthy. No scars, no burns, no signs of injury. Pretty unusual for someone who’s supposed to be a notorious bomb maker.”
“What did you do?” Lexi asked.
“I went back to base. Braxton asked me how it went, and I told him fine. It was the end of it as far as he was concerned. The whole thing didn’t sit right with me. After Braxton turned in, I went to the XO, a major. I told him what happened, what I didn’t find, and how I thought the whole thing stunk. He was a good officer and not a Braxton crony. We went back. He searched the place and agreed with me. Something was amiss. We sent
for a medic. One of the first things she did was tell us the girl was pregnant.”
Lexi recoiled on the couch. “Wasn’t she sixteen?”
“Yeah.” Tyler drained the last of his beer while Lexi shook her head. “Remember when I said Braxton had been randomly disappearing for a couple months?”
She grimaced. “He didn’t.”
“He did. We put it all together in the house and on the way back. I showed the major the orders Braxton gave me. He radioed someone in the J6 . . . intelligence. They confirmed they’d never issued the report.”
“Let me make sure I have this straight.” Lexi rubbed her forehead. “Braxton knocked up a teenaged girl in Afghanistan. I’m going to guess it wasn’t consensual. To cover it up, he faked an intelligence report and sent you there to take out the family under the guise of eliminating terrorist enablers.”
“You have it right,” Tyler said.
“Oh, my god.” Lexi stared at Tyler. Her expression was unreadable. Too many emotions played out on her face. “What did you do once you knew?”
“I went with the XO and a few other soldiers to confront Braxton. As soon as I walked into his tent, I punched him in the face. It took three men to pull me off him. I wish they hadn’t. I would’ve beaten him to death then and there, and the world would be a better place.” Tyler sighed. “Braxton shouted I was done, but then we told him what we knew. He clammed up pretty quick. A couple MPs the major called kept everyone in line. A CID unit turned up to get to the bottom of the whole mess.” Tyler paused. “Criminal Investigation Division.”
“Figured it was something like that,” Lexi said.
“They found it all. Braxton was defiant at first, but once they built a case, he knew the jig was up. I put in to leave the unit. Within a few days, I was on a plane to Germany, and then I was back stateside. Braxton kept command a while. He knew how to stall, and he had friends in high places. At some point, it stopped mattering, and his command crumbled. Once I got home, I was down under a year in my tour, so I filed the paperwork to leave. A few months later, I went on terminal leave. I think Braxton got bounced around the same time.”
“You couldn’t stand to be in the army anymore?”
“No,” Tyler said. “It was a strange feeling after twenty-four years, but I knew it was right. They did a good job investigating Braxton and court-martialing him, but it never should’ve happened in the first place. Men like him stayed in positions of power too often.”
“They’re probably better about it now,” Lexi said.
Tyler shrugged. “They couldn’t be much worse.” He frowned at his empty lager bottle. “There you have it . . . the Leo Braxton story. He blames me for the end to his career because I’m the one who fetched the major.”
“I’m sorry you had to go through all that.” Lexi wiped at her eyes. “I can’t even imagine.”
“I shot a lot a people over there,” Tyler said. “Those four civilians are the only ones I regret, and I think about them every day.”
Lexi stood. “Get up.”
“What?”
“Get up, Dad.”
Tyler stood, and his daughter wrapped him in a tight hug. He put his arms around her and held on tight. He’d told the story before but never to Lexi, and it felt like a weight came off his shoulders. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“Me, too,” Tyler said. They maintained their embrace. At this moment, it was the only bright spot in the world.
19
Tyler watched the ten-o’clock local news. Lexi went upstairs shortly after their conversation. She looked drained, and Tyler felt it. He worked on his third lager of the evening when his phone rang. He didn’t recognize the number, so he ignored it. It showed up again a moment later. He muted the TV and answered. “Mister Tyler?”
He was surprised to hear a woman’s voice. It took a second or two to place it as belonging to Sara Morrison. “I figured you’d be some goon calling to issue a threat.”
“I thought I might be warning you of one, though it sounds like you might’ve put the Braxton and Hexagon connection together on your own.”
“They didn’t hide it well from anyone in the know,” Tyler said. “Maxwell and White inevitably lead to Braxton. He would’ve still been in Leavenworth when the company started, though. I guess they’ve been planning this for a while.”
“Probably. My deputy and I are going to investigate the company as discreetly as we can. I was wondering if you knew what they might be doing.”
“I haven’t talked to anyone from the unit since I left. By design.”
“I believe you,” Sara said. “In your place, I’d probably do the same.”
“They have at least one contract with the Pentagon, right?” Tyler asked.
“Yes.”
He swirled his beer around in the bottle, watching the amber crawl back down the interior of the glass. “Then, you should already know what they’re doing. You hired them for it.”
“They’re doing the work in the contract. Hell, we even get reports when we’re supposed to. Braxton’s a red flag, though, and it makes me question whether the company is referring to things which could be considered . . . off the books.”
“In a Braxton company,” Tyler said, “there’s probably a lot of it going on. What work are they supposed to be doing?”
“You know I can’t tell you that,” Sara said. “If you’d like to come to the Pentagon and go into a SCIF, we can talk all about it.”
Tyler turned the TV off. With the conversation focused on Braxton, he didn’t feel like watching the news anymore. Like his former commander, it only served to remind him of everything going wrong in the world. “My days of visiting there are over.” He paused, wondering the best way to approach the topic. Sara was right not to discuss classified details over the phone, of course. Tyler needed to find what she could discuss. “Maybe you could tell me where they are.”
Sara blew a deep breath into the phone. “They’re near Bagram Air Base.” She paused. “I can tell you a few generalities.”
“I’m listening,” Tyler said.
“You know our government’s official position on the Taliban has evolved over time. Even as we try to negotiate some things with them, we still recognize they’re a cabal of assholes. So we’re trying to do a few covert things to hit them in the wallet. Stuff they wouldn’t be able to attribute to us directly.”
Hence the use of a company like Hexagon. Even with American operatives, they weren’t the government. Calling the operation covert probably meant the CIA had a piece of whatever went on. The Hexagon team could have cover identities painting them as being from somewhere else. Plausible deniability. Tyler pondered what could be of interest outside the gates of Bagram. The incident he detailed to Lexi took place in the town of Torkman about a mile and a half north of the air base. Tyler heard persistent fighting over the years ruined many of the buildings. Old landmarks were no more. He couldn’t think of anything Braxton would want from there, anyway. “Braxton and I did a few tours together. We were never really tight, though. If he had something going back then, I didn’t know about it.”
“Something going?” Sara said.
“Money. A pile of heroin. Whatever. The army hauled him out of there, and I never heard about them finding a secret stash. If Hexagon is over there looking for something, I’m afraid I can’t be much help.”
“All right. Be careful, Mister Tyler.”
“You, too,” Tyler said. “If you keep poking around, you’re going to land on Hexagon’s radar, too.”
“I already have,” Sara said.
Tyler polished off the remainder of his beer. “Then, it sounds like we both need to be careful.”
“Mister Shah,” Braxton said, easing into his leather executive chair. He sat behind a large desk. A single chair awaited someone on the other side. He always set his offices up this way as a colonel. Make sure people sitting before you know their place and try to put them on edge. If more than one person waited, st
anding would make the others nervous. It was a great arrangement. Lawrence Shah fidgeted in the task chair, and Braxton never knew him as a man given to fidgeting.
Shah was in his mid-thirties, putting him about twenty years Braxton’s junior. He’d been a good solider and unafraid to get his hands dirty even if Army regulations advised doing the opposite. Braxton valued flexibility highly; he found regulations and treaties too rigid. A bunch of guys sat around a table and came up with the supposed rules for combat. It was war. Imposing outside restrictions had no place. Men like Braxton and Shah understood this, even if they paid a price for it.
“Sir,” Shah said after a moment, “I’m sorry.”
“Tell me what happened.”
“I followed the guy. Picked him up along Belair Road coming from the old man’s shop. I didn’t think he made me.”
“Of course he made you,” Braxton said.
“I’m good,” Shah protested.
“Not good enough. Not this time.” Before Shah could say anything else, Braxton raised his hand. “You were up against an experienced professional. Maybe I should’ve made the details clearer. Anyway, proceed.”
“Yes, sir. I tailed him down the road, hanging two or three cars back, sometimes in a different lane. He must’ve seen me because he made a sudden left just ahead of oncoming cars. I couldn’t turn for a good twenty seconds. When I did, it took me some time to reacquire the car.”
“And he saw you.” It wasn’t a question.
Shah nodded. “He’d parked his vehicle and hidden behind a pole. When I drove up, he leaned out. I turned to look, and he snapped my picture.”
“So you left.”
“Yes, sir. I followed him, but he got the better of me. I figured it was best to abort.”
“I think it was, Mister Shah.” Braxton leaned back in the chair and kicked his feet up onto the desk. Another show of power. Shah noticed. “Did you ever serve with Mister Tyler?”