by Carr, Jack
“Yeah, I’m worried it’s going to spread. The president has evoked executive powers put in place after September 11th and strengthened by each administration since, Republican and Democrat. His administration is keeping Congress and the American people in the dark. Who knows what this thing really is, though we might find out tomorrow. The president is going to address Congress in a closed-door session. It’s about time. The country is tearing itself apart and all he’s done is address the nation from the Oval Office, reassuring us that ‘the government’ is doing everything in its power to safeguard the American people. Meanwhile he’s got tanks and armored personnel carriers holding two entire cities hostage.”
“I’m not a constituent, Eddie, and didn’t you vote for the Patriot Act?”
“Fuck you, Sawyer. Those laws are in place to protect the American people.”
Sawyer signaled their waiter through the glass door that two more drinks were necessary.
“I also believe you reauthorized it twice.”
“Goddamnit, Erik. We are not here to talk about my voting record. I need to know what you have on James Reece and the president.”
The waiter entered with two additional drinks. Sawyer’s phone buzzed as his third glass of Louis XIII was placed before him.
“Would you like to know the specials?” the waiter asked.
Thwaite waved him off with a dismissive hand and he backed out of the room.
“Something more important to deal with?” Thwaite asked.
“Maybe,” Sawyer said, returning the text and placing the phone on the table next to him.
“That is the perfect segue. It’s time for you to pull your weight, Senator.”
“Excuse me?”
“You’ve been in Washington a long time. You are a swamp creature. You head the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. Your party controls the Senate.”
“What do you want, Sawyer?”
“We need a FISA warrant on James Reece’s secure phone.”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake. How do you know he even has one?”
“He’s not communicating with anyone at the CIA or in the executive branch with his iPhone. We know that. He’s got to be communicating somehow. He knows what we know about secure comms. The president uses a KryptAll. I’d be willing to bet my next government contract that Reece does, too.”
Thwaite took a slower sip of his martini.
“And, how do you suggest we justify it?”
“Bring in one of your stooges. I can find someone, believe me. I have plenty to work with as leverage. We gin up a suspected Russian intelligence threat. Reece did spend six months in Siberia after all, and somehow got back to the United States. Someone with ties to Russia in close contact with the president and CIA? Call it a counterintelligence operation or a national security investigation. You know all the correct buzzwords. Get me the contract to run it as an ‘independent’ investigation. You want the president and James Reece? This is how we do it.”
Sawyer’s phone buzzed again.
“Do you mind turning that thing off? I know it’s secure, but it still makes me nervous.”
Sawyer diverted his attention to the phone.
“Sawyer.”
“You are going to want to see this,” Sawyer said, pushing his phone across to the senator.
Thwaite removed his glasses from the inside pocket of his jacket and perched them on the end of his nose, blinking as he adjusted the angle of the screen to get a better view.
“What am I looking at?”
“Unless my operatives are mistaken, you are looking at James Reece committing murder.”
CHAPTER 41
Annapolis, Maryland
WITHIN AN HOUR OF their pulling into the CIA safe house on the banks of the Severn River in Annapolis, additional vehicles began to arrive. To the casual observer passing by, it would look like just a normal Friday night get-together. Had they looked closer, they would have noticed that all of the guests were male and that not one them seemed out of shape. As they parked and approached the entrance, a more studious observer would take note that none carried bottles of wine or plates of appetizers. They were not focused on the front door, nor did they joke or even talk as they approached the house. None of them looked directly at the home; instead their heads were on swivels. Closer inspection would indicate that the one on the right looked to the right, ahead, and behind while the one on the left looked to the left, ahead, and behind. They were dressed in earth-tone clothing and each carried a backpack. These were anything but ordinary men.
“Jesus, Reece. Where did you get your medical training?” Logan asked to lighten the mood.
Katie sat on the couch in the main room. A large kitchen was to their left and huge windows opened onto a deck that overlooked an immense grass lawn. Lit up by lights to discouraged intruders, the yard sloped gently down toward a dock with a sailboat secured next to a Boston Whaler.
As soon as they arrived an hour earlier, Reece had cleared the house and ensured all the doors and windows were locked and that there were no signs of forced or illicit entry before tending to Katie’s wounds and throwing on a T-shirt.
“He makes up for his lack of medical expertise with his bedside manner,” Katie joked.
Both men laughed, knowing that a sense of humor is a good sign when confronting the physical and emotional trauma of battle.
“Big hole, big patch. Small hole, small patch,” Reece teased back. “What else do you need to know?”
Logan rolled his eyes and smiled at Katie.
“Not sure how you put up with this guy,” Logan continued, as he inspected Katie’s head and leg. “You are going to need some stiches.”
Logan pointed a penlight into each of Katie’s eyes.
“I don’t think you have a concussion, which is a small miracle, but I’d still like you to refrain from having anything with caffeine and to stay away from alcohol until we are sure,” he said, looking at the glass of wine next to the journalist.
Katie frowned.
“And you, Reece, sit down and let me take a look.”
“I’m fine.”
“You are not fine until I say you are fine. Now sit down and let me do my job.”
Reece reluctantly sat and let the former Air Force PJ give him the once-over.
After clearing the house, Reece had used the landline to contact Vic at the CIA. Within twenty minutes the first car had arrived, a retired Ground Branch contractor living in Forest Meadows. Four more vehicles had pulled up over the next hour. Reece knew most of them, all former operators now working for the paramilitary side of U.S. intelligence. They now stood guard around the house, sentinels of the republic, allowing Logan to tend to Reece and Katie’s wounds.
While Logan examined the gash on Reece’s head, a GB contractor opened the door for Vic Rodriquez. Vic crossed through the foyer and extended his hand to Katie, the spymaster outwardly suppressing the shock of seeing Katie and Reece covered in dirt, sweat, and blood.
“Ms. Buranek, so good to see you again. I wish it were under better circumstances. How do you feel?”
Vic was addressing Katie but looked to Logan, who nodded reassuringly.
“I think I need more wine,” Katie replied.
Vic chuckled.
“How is he?” Vic asked Logan, knowing he would never get the truth out of the frogman.
“He’s going to need some stitches in his head, and he’s certainly got a concussion. Other than that, he just needs a shower, and possibly a shave and a haircut,” the Air Force medic jested.
“I’m fine, Vic.” Reece winced as Logan parted his hair, inspecting the cut matted with dried blood.
“You look great,” Vic deadpanned. “Let’s talk. Katie, will you excuse us?”
“Of course, I’m going to get cleaned up,” she said.
Ever the gentleman, Vic offered his hand and assisted the journalist to her feet.
Vic nodded to Logan and motioned for Reece to follow him to the ki
tchen.
“What the fuck is going on, Reece?”
Reece moved around the counter while Vic took a seat on a bar stool. He opened a drawer and removed a clean dish towel, which he ran under warm water before applying it to his face to remove some of the blood.
“Is this room wired?” Reece asked.
“It is, but it’s not recording.”
“You sure?”
“I’m sure.”
Reece ran the now-bloody towel under the water again, watching the rose-colored water disappear down the drain.
“You want a drink? After I read you in on this, you are going to need it.”
CHAPTER 42
WHEN REECE FINISHED, VIC closed his eyed and rubbed the bridge of his nose.
The president of the United States ordered assassinations on U.S. soil. Jesus Christ.
“And the two dead guys are still in the van?” Vic asked.
“They are. I went through their pockets. No wallets or cell phones, but it was just a cursory search on the side of the road. You might have better luck with a forensic team.”
“I’ll coordinate it.”
“And, if you don’t mind, I have an AR in a storage drawer in the back of my truck, and my secure phone is in my pack, which was in the backseat. There are a few other things in there I probably shouldn’t have had in D.C.”
Vic nodded. “I’ll take care of it.”
Reece paused.
“You’re wondering why I didn’t try to take one of those last two on the road alive, aren’t you?”
Vic studied his newest recruit.
“It sounds like you are wondering that yourself, Reece.”
Reece dropped the bloody towel in the sink.
“I saw the killers who took Lauren and Lucy from me in each of the men who came after us tonight. I couldn’t let that happen again, Vic. I’ve put Katie in danger too many times. She almost died out there. She killed a man. She’s acting tough, but as you know, the post-traumatic stress from events like tonight can manifest years afterward.”
Vic nodded knowingly.
“I should have taken one. I could have.”
“You don’t know that, Reece. You made a tactical battlefield decision to eliminate the threat. Simple as that.”
Both men knew it was not as simple as that.
“Regardless, it’s done,” Reece said. “No bringing them back. The question remains, who were they, who sent them, and why? I was worried about a faction of the Bratva tracking me down, maybe even Russian SVR. This crew was clearly speaking Farsi.”
“Could it have something to do with anything you did in the Teams?” Vic asked.
“I guess it’s possible, but you know how that works; you are banging targets every night, grabbing people and bringing them back to the FOB for interrogation. A lot of guys did that.”
“Not a lot of guys then got caught up in the Capstone experiment and were labeled a domestic terrorist by the U.S. government, only to have their picture splashed across cable news and social media outlets for months.”
“There is that,” Reece agreed.
“If they knew about this safe house, they would have hit you here. They could have come in by water or the road or both. Too many variables to do a VI en route from D.C. to Annapolis,” Vic said, using the abbreviation for “vehicle interdiction.”
Reece looked at the stairs that Katie had just walked up, and then back to Vic.
As if reading his mind, Vic said, “Unless they were after Katie.”
“It’s feasible. I don’t know. Things are not adding up. I go after a network that helped facilitate 9/11, one of the targets in Chicago has a heart attack as I’m surveilling, I take one out in Atlanta and then get told to stand down by the president as this airborne hemorrhagic virus paralyzes the country. I come back to Northern Virginia to recalibrate and suddenly get targeted by nine guys speaking Farsi? If what I was doing was Agency sanctioned, I’d say we have a mole in our midst, but this was not Agency sanctioned. This was me and the president.”
“For the moment, I’m going to set aside the debate over legalities and chain of command and usurpation of authorities and the myriad laws you broke. Don’t worry, we will revisit those later. Right now, I’m more concerned about foreign hit teams on U.S. soil targeting you and possibly others from Ground Branch. I have a cleanup crew coordinating with local law enforcement on scene. If any of these hitters are in the systems of any Western intelligence service, we will know in a few hours.”
“Am I interrupting anything, gentlemen?” Katie asked hitting the base of the staircase and walking toward the kitchen.
She had cleaned up as best as she could. The blood that had dried on the right side of her face was gone and she was in fresh clothes.
“Not at all, Ms. Buranek, please join us,” Vic said, standing and pulling out the counter chair.
“Please call me Katie, Mr. Rodriguez.”
“Vic, please.”
“Vic,” Katie said. “Since we are forbidden from drinking the nectar of the gods for another night, can I get anyone some decaffeinated tea?”
“Let me,” Reece said.
“You will probably ruin it with cream and honey,” Katie said with a smile. “I’ve got it. Vic?”
“No, thank you. I need to coordinate with the cleanup crew and see if we can get some answers on who these guys were.”
“You might want to wait. I called my friend Haley Garrett at the CDC to let her know I was alive. She was planning to stop by tonight to help me with a story. She’s on her way over now. I tried to discourage her, but she does not dissuade easily. She also has some information she wasn’t comfortable sharing on the phone.”
“What do you mean?” Vic asked.
“I don’t have specifics, but she doesn’t think this virus originated in Angola. She thinks it’s a bioweapon.”
CHAPTER 43
HALEY GARRETT ARRIVED THIRTY minutes later. Even though Katie had warned her about the additional security, she looked a little perturbed by the armed men in the driveway. The two old friends shared a warm hug.
“Katie, oh my God, are you okay?” Haley asked, shooting daggers at Reece.
“Yes, I’m fine, just some scratches. Haley, you remember James. And this is Victor Rodriguez.”
The two men shook hands with Haley, who studied them both the way a witness would analyze perps in a lineup from behind a two-way mirror.
“It’s okay, Haley. Like I explained on the phone, these are two of the good guys.”
Haley continued to take stock of the CIA operatives. She was dressed in running shoes, jeans, and a UC Davis sweatshirt. Her black hair was tied back and retro-vintage Ray-Ban prescription eyeglasses were perched precariously atop her head. She had the stern look of someone who could win any argument simply by wearing down and outlasting her opposition.
“I think we should sit down for this,” she said, making her decision.
They moved to the spacious dining room and sat around the far end of a long rectangular table.
Reece looked up and noted that the ceiling was adorned with hand-painted roses.
Sub rosa.
Appropriate, Reece thought.
“Mr. Rodriguez, what exactly do you do for the government?” Haley asked.
“I work for the State Department.”
“Ah, of course,” she said. Everyone in Washington knew that State Department was a euphemism for the Central Intelligence Agency. “Well, in that case you just might be the perfect person.”
“Perfect person for what?” Vic asked.
Haley looked at Katie, Reece, and then back to Vic.
“This virus is not ‘airborne’ in the way we’ve become conditioned to understand the term, and I doubt it originated in Angola. I also suspect it is connected to the attack on Katie and James tonight.”
“I’m sorry, Ms. Garrett, I’m not following.”
“Neither are my bosses at the CDC. Hysteria has gripped not just the popul
ace but also the scientific community. My job is to follow clues, much like a detective. So, we have a suspected index case in Angola; almost five hundred people die, but the virus burns itself out like we’ve seen in the past. So far, nothing unusual. Only this time, a carrier boards a plane at Quatro de Fevereiro International Airport and brings the virus to the United States. It’s happened before with the virus burning out on U.S. soil, but something is different about this. The virus has mutated. It has evolved. It’s a new strain. How do we know? Because as of tonight close to three thousand people have died in Colorado and Texas, people who in no way could have had blood-to-blood contact. We know the Angola flight landed in Johannesburg and then from there flights departed to JFK and Atlanta, with follow-on flights around the nation to include airports in Dallas and Denver. Therefore, it’s airborne. Our worst nightmare, right?”
“That is my understanding,” Vic said.
“Then why do we not have cases in Johannesburg? Why no cases in Europe or the Middle East? In South Africa, passengers from Angola transferred to flights going to Dubai, UAE, Frankfurt, London, and Barcelona, but we only have cases in Dallas and Denver?”
“Maybe the carrier was not yet contagious until they got to Dallas or Denver?” Reece offered.
“I admit that is a possibility, but I submit that it is much more likely to be in either one specific location or to have spread to multiple areas around the world. Isolated to two cities is peculiar.”
“We see that in Africa, don’t we?” Vic asked. “Isolated to a single village.”
“Yes, but typically villagers aren’t traveling, which helps contain the spread,” the doctor countered.
“I read that the CDC officially identified it as a new strain of Ebola,” Reece said.
“That’s true,” Haley said. “It looks like a new mutation of Ebola under a microscope.”
“A new strain that’s airborne,” Vic said, confirming the official account.
“Yes, but airborne does not mean that it’s being spread via respiratory means,” she said.
Vic leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms.