War of Shadows

by Leo J. Maloney

  Maybe I’ll luck out, Dan thought. Maybe there’ll be a speed trap or radar surveillance to ensnare us both. No such luck anywhere from Wilmington to Medford. Maybe I should call the highway patrol myself, Dan considered. But although the smartphone was still in his hand, he had more important calls to make.

  He called his daughter, Alex, twice. The calls went to message. He called Shepard. That one also went to message. He called Cougar—his best friend and partner Peter Conley. Message. He called Lily Randall, he called Karen O’Neal, he even called the numbers he had for his boss Diana Bloch—something he almost never did. All went to message.

  A hundred and fifty…a hundred and sixty…The speedometer trembled at the little red pin where the numbers ended. The Trackhawk was still, stubbornly, four car lengths ahead.

  “Idiot,” Dan seethed, shoving the phone down on the seat beside him. Why bother with the phone when he had the Zeta comm-link in his ear? It was so comfortable and ubiquitous that he had forgotten it in the literal heat of the moment. He pressed his right ear canal to initiate the connection. The resulting shriek deep in his head all but sent the car into the median.

  He regained control of the car in time to avoid a wreck, as well as wrench the tiny hearing aid from his auditory canal. It flew, like a dying bee, into the passenger seat’s well, bouncing on the floor mat beneath the glove compartment.

  What the hell? Dan returned his full attention to catching up to the Trackhawk, only to find that despite the Mustang’s slowing and wavering, the SUV was still almost exactly four car lengths ahead. You damn bastard…

  Morgan saw they were coming into Somerville. Then it would be Cambridge, and just beyond that, Boston. Neither of them could go a hundred and sixty there, not without committing vehicular homicide or suicide. But Dan could guess. Somehow, whoever was driving that SUV would stay four car lengths ahead. Whoever it was, they were that good—so good they could destroy his home, so good they could kill…kill his…

  The father and husband inside him couldn’t even bring himself to say it—to even think it. But the seasoned operative could.

  …wife…they could have killed my wife…

  The Trackhawk took Dan by surprise by all but leaping off the highway onto an all-too-familiar exit ramp. The surprise only grew when the SUV started speeding down back streets along a route Dan knew very well.

  His eyes widened as he realized the Trackhawk was moving as if the driver were a Zeta commuter. They were heading to the isolated parking garage that served as cover for the organization’s underground headquarters.

  Dan tried to catch up, but the ’68 Mustang, as repaired and reconditioned as it was, could just not keep up, not after all the damage it had suffered at the house.

  His fingers stabbed his phone’s digital buttons as his foot tromped on the accelerator. He practically slammed the phone to his ear as his other hand grew white-tight on the steering wheel. He was expecting Zeta’s answering message, so he could press a certain combination of numbers to get through, but that didn’t happen.

  The phone rang once…twice…a third time as both vehicles got closer and closer to the corporate complex that secretly housed Zeta headquarters. The closer they got, and the more times the phone rang, the more tense Dan became.

  “Come on, come on, pick up, pick up!” he found himself seething, his words drowning out the ringtone. He took his eyes off the tail of the Trackhawk to see if the phone was still connected.

  In that second, he felt and heard the Trackhawk sharply turn. When he looked up, its taunting tail was disappearing down an alleyway, leaving him a view of the entire parking garage that filled his whole windshield.

  He heard a click on the other end of the phone.

  “This is AZ27F,” he snapped. “Code—”

  He never got to finish his priority emergency message. The parking garage erupted like a volcano—a multi-tiered, billowing mushroom of flame engulfing the structure from its bowels to its crown.

  The phone went dead.

  Chapter 2

  Dan Morgan didn’t remember jamming the Mustang into reverse. He didn’t remember slamming his foot on its accelerator. But what he did remember was whirling around as far as he could without losing his grip on the steering wheel, and driving as fast as he could—backwards.

  The sound of his screeching Cooper Cobra Radial tires, complete with Outlaw II racing wheels, was drowned out by the concussive shockwave of the explosion, which was really saying something, considering the scream the car let out as Dan tried to make it retreat as fast as it had charged.

  Thankfully the access road behind him was clear, not just because of the lateness of the hour, but because Zeta had purposely chosen an out-of-the-way location that was infamous for its remoteness.

  Morgan kept his eyes locked on the roadway, not wanting to divide his attention or get distracted by the chunks of steel, glass, and concrete that were hurtling toward him. But, ultimately, after seeing that the road behind him was unobstructed and relatively straight, he forced himself to watch out, just in case a duck or dodge could save some part of him from being crushed by a cement cannonball, impaled by a steel spear, or decapitated by a glass ax.

  But as his head turned, he spotted something far more important—an alleyway guarded by steel and reinforced concrete walls. The lessons he had learned from the escape and evasion driving courses he had taken at the CIA and Zeta came crashing back into his brain like water exploding from a dynamited dam, and the Mustang reacted to his braking and wheel-spinning like it had been waiting all its life to be used like this. If the bastards inside the Trackhawk were watching from some safe vantage point, even they might be impressed by the precise expertise of the maneuver.

  One second the Mustang was speeding backward like a stone hurled from a vicious bully’s slingshot, and the next it had “drifted” until it was perpendicular to the sidewalks. Seemingly just a split second before a wall of spinning, smoking shrapnel slammed into it, the Mustang shot forward into the alley mouth as if kicked. The car chunked to a stop in the alleyway like an oiled ammo magazine sliding into the butt of an automatic weapon. But Morgan didn’t even have the time to exhale as a hailstorm of rock, iron, and crystal smashed and scratched the street like a monstrous cheetah’s claws.

  As fast as the monsoon of debris started, it rolled to a halt, quickly followed by a billowing cloud of dust that made a great smokescreen for him. In these years after 9-11, builders had been more careful about their construction materials, so Morgan felt relatively secure that he wasn’t inhaling carcinogens—that was just about the only thing he felt safe about.

  He took a moment to acknowledge he was alive before Jenny’s guardian-angelic face settled onto his mind’s eye like a lace shroud. No, she can’t be dead, he thought before he let rage blind him again. This time, killing whoever’s responsible just might bring her back, he lied to himself. Maybe not, he concluded as the dust settled, but that won’t stop me from killing whoever they are.

  Having unconsciously gone through the five stages of accepting death in two seconds flat, Morgan resisted, with consummate effort, slamming his car back onto the roadway to try finding the Trackhawk. Given the expertise of their detonation and driving, it was unlikely those obvious pros would let him catch them unawares.

  Instead, he tried forcing himself to think clearly, taking his first long breath since turning the corner on his street, which seemed like a lifetime ago. And with that breath came the enormity of the situation. Someone had not just destroyed his home, but the entirety of Zeta HQ—an accomplishment that boggled Morgan’s mind with its brazenness.

  He imagined how the enemy could have gained access to both locations, let alone set enough explosives to do what he’d witnessed in such a way that no one, in either location, had noticed them doing it. Whoever was in that Trackhawk, or whoever they represented, was impressively capable, vindictive, sad
istic, and deadly serious. And here Morgan was, alone, cut off from his team, his organization, and all their equipment.

  “Where’s MacGyver when you need him?” he heard himself mutter, before falling back on his training. With the silty dust of the explosion still shielding him, he slipped out of the car. He stayed outside just long enough to make a cursory examination of the area and retrieve the Beretta A400 shotgun from the trunk.

  Ever since a shotgun had saved his wife’s life three missions ago, they’d always kept one in the trunk of each and every one of their motor vehicles, as both protection and a good luck charm. At the thought of it, and her, Morgan’s eyes grew dark once again as a heart-rending “greatest hits video” of their relationship assailed his brain like a cloud of stinging nettles. Morgan knowingly crushed them as he got back behind the wheel, shoving the gas-operated, semi-automatic, camo-clad weapon beside him on the passenger seat.

  He hit the rectangular tab of the spring-lock opening of the gun box he had affixed under the passenger seat. When he straightened again, he was holding his high-strength, light-weight, stainless steel, friction-reducing, double-action, five-shot Ruger LCR snub-nose thirty-eight revolver.

  Morgan looked at both weapons, feeling some of the power the explosions had taken away returning to him. He had personally chosen these guns for good reasons. The Beretta could interchangeably fire any shell, from the lightest Olympic loads to the heaviest magnums, without adjustment. The Ruger was made of aerospace-grade 7000-series aluminum, and had a shrouded hammer so there’d be no snagging on holsters or clothing. As any gun man could tell you, an automatic, no matter how expensive or well made, could jam. His Ruger revolver never did.

  The thought made him feel the weight of his standard side-arm, snug in his shoulder holster. Although most of his fellow field agents preferred Glocks or HKs, Dan depended on his trusty double action, non-slip, .380 Walther PPK.

  So much for his personal high-caliber equipment. As he sat there, he continued his survey, sensing his stainless steel Smith & Wesson H.R.T. (Hostage Response Team) black knife in his boot, and the Boston Leather blackjack in his back pocket.

  Morgan smiled grimly despite himself, as more violent memories knowingly started crowding out loving ones. Especially gratifying was the look on his enemies’ faces when they’d thought he was helpless, only to have a molded lead weight inside a four-ply, heavy gauge leather pocket smash their skulls or pulverize their bones.

  And all he wanted to do was unleash all this weaponry on the occupants of the Trackhawk. But he also didn’t want to commit suicide. Whoever these guys were, they had eradicated his life and career in a single hour, and more than likely, would not be impressed with his paltry armaments.

  Dan gripped the steering wheel with one hand and slammed his other on the dashboard. He wasn’t Zeta’s Sherlock Holmes, he was their bluntest blunt instrument. It was not his job to plan, just attack. He was Zeta’s human version of the steel-shank and molded lead-weighted truncheon he carried in his back pocket. He looked up as the last of the silt settled, thinking furiously, or at least as furiously as Dan Morgan could—which, on second thought, was very furiously indeed.

  What crowded to the front of his mind was what Zeta had hammered into him and all the other field agents. Linc had called it the R.B. Protocol—referring to the Red Button that no one was supposed to ever push in countless comedies and cartoons. Peter Conley had called it D.A.C.—rhyming with “gack”—harkening back to the ludicrous instructions given to schoolchildren in the event of a nuclear attack: Duck and Cover. But Paul Kirby, Zeta’s officious, obsequious second-in-command bureaucrat with the bug up his bum, called it the Zeta Office of Risk Management plan in case of emergencies. He would.

  According to Kirby, what Morgan was experiencing now was Z.O.R.M. Ultra, i.e. the worst case scenario. The man’s annoying acronyms coursed into Morgan’s head like bee sting venom. The instructions had been clear: if Zeta was eradicated, his responsibility was to destroy all comm devices so they couldn’t be traced by the enemy, go underground, and wait for reassignment. As if controlled by Zeta puppet-masters, Morgan’s hands came up with his cellphone.

  “Cell phones suck,” Lincoln Shepard had told him—a sentiment Dan heartily agreed with, but for different reasons. For their internet technology expert, however, they sucked because they were so easily bugged. “Cell phones were basically made to be traced,” Linc had maintained. “As ancient as they now seem, there’s a reason organizations like the Internal Revenue Service still use faxes.”

  “They like to torture everybody with screeching dial tones?” Morgan had retorted. Dan, like every working man, was not exactly a big fan of the I.R.S.

  Linc had laughed. “Actually, yes. Faxes are basically unbuggable. Even if you can find a way to hack them, the gobbledygook you get makes you slave for every translated word, and the few words you’re able to decipher might not even go together.”

  Now, Dan thought as he wrenched the SIM card out of his smartphone, where in this fresh hell can I find a fax? As he crushed the SIM card, rendering the smartphone nothing more than an expensive paperweight, he remembered that some overnight delivery places still used faxes, but who did he know in Zeta who had a receiving machine, and how was he going to find their fax number? Call information? On what?

  Morgan raised his head like a bloodhound at a distant, but growing, sound of sirens. He knew by the noises what was coming. First and foremost, there was a shrill, three-tone alarm. That meant police in general, and an Interceptor Utility Vehicle in particular. Dan knew the way it switched tones depended on the traffic facing it. First tone meant “I’m here.” Second, more rapid tone meant “look out.” The third, most piercing, staccato tone all but shrieked “get out of the freakin’ way.” The third tone was the one that was pumping into the night.

  Following close behind were the air horn and Federal Signal Q-Siren of the Fire Department’s ladder vehicles, leading a phalanx of dual-tone-sirened Emergency Medical Services Ambulances, and Rumbler-sirened Emergency Medical Service vans. The Rumbler accompanied its siren with a loud “sonic thump” that could be heard over almost anything, as well as knuckling the heart, spine, and brain of anyone stupid enough not to get out of the way.

  As Morgan started his car and backed up toward the other end of the alley, he saw flashes of oscillating red, blue, and even amber dotting the street walls. Police dragnets were being tightened around the disaster perimeter, and pretty soon they’d start snaring him. Morgan’s lips grew tight as he realized there were two things he most needed: a landline phone, and a good stiff drink.

  Dan Morgan’s eyes remained chipped glass from sorrow and frustration, but his thin lips twitched into a grief-smeared grin. He knew one place he might be able to get both.

  Chapter 3

  The bar had no name. In fact, Dan thought of it as The Bar With No Name. It also had no sign, no neon beer lights, and caged windows only large enough to meet minimum building code requirements. Even if there had been neon beer lights, they probably wouldn’t have been visible through all the soot and dirt on the glass.

  Not surprisingly, The Bar With No Name tried to sink into a neighborhood that had one of the highest crime rates in Beantown. Wedged between the airport and the harbor, the area had been created by connecting several islands using landfill.

  Dan took one last look at his car parked by the curb and hoped the damage it had suffered in the last few hours would disguise its eminent steal-worthiness. He had considered leaving the shotgun on the passenger seat as a sort of warning that the owner was not to be trifled with, but ultimately thought better of it.

  Instead the Beretta was in a duffel bag he carried in his left hand. The Ruger was wedged in his pants at the small of his back, and his Walther, boot knife and cudgel were where they always were. Morgan took a second to silently thank the car in case this was the last time he ever saw it, acknowledging th
e irony of the Cobra tires that had taken it all and kept going. After all, Morgan’s code name was Cobra, and he didn’t care if anyone thought that’s why he had bought the tires. In reality, they really were the best ones for the ’68 Mustang.

  As he took his next step toward the bar, he glanced down at himself. His brown boots, blue jeans, black t-shirt, gray car coat, and driving gloves were suitably dusty and scuffed, but not so much that it might risk others wondering if he had just come from multiple explosions. By now the rest of the city would either be locked down, or about to be locked down, with visions of terrorist attacks dancing in people’s heads. But, in this shrinking corner of Eastie, aka East Boston, life dragged miserably on.

  As always, Morgan’s eyes scoured the entire interior as he walked in—pinpointing every person, detail, and exit. Two silent Hispanics were on opposite sides of a truncated bar along one wall, while a sullen African-American prostitute and her Caucasian john were in one of the three semi-circular booths along the opposite wall. The third booth had a couple of Caucasians who were deeply committed to a hissy fit while sharing a bottle of cheap scotch.

  Between them and the restrooms was what Morgan was looking for: one of the last of the pay phone booths in existence. Needless to say, the entire place stank of decaying wood, spilled rotgut, constantly replenished puke, and, somewhat incongruently, cat piss. Human piss Morgan could understand, but cat piss? What self-respecting feline would be caught alive in a place like this? For that matter, what self-respecting field operative would?

  Morgan exhaled as he walked silently past the bar and booths, grateful that he had stumbled onto the place during a previous assignment when they’d needed to rendezvous with a low-grade informer. He didn’t expect a “hello” or “what’ll you have” from the dour middle-aged Hispanic bartender who stared at a soccer game on a small TV screen, and he didn’t get any. Nor did he get any sullen stares from the other patrons. The Bar With No Name could have also been called The Bar With No Witnesses or even The Bar Where No One Cares. If the sitcom Cheers had been set here instead of a Back Bay bar, the theme song would’ve been “Where Nobody Knows Your Name.”