Jad Bell: Bravo Part 11

Loughridge found himself mouthing the words as Jacoby said them. Lucas, predictably, exploded.

"The f.u.c.k you are telling me I don't need to know that? Who the f.u.c.k do you think you are?"

"I'm with army intelligence. There's been an incident. MPs are en route."

"They have no jurisdiction."

"I can give you a number to call-"

"You can give me answers. These your men? Who're these other guys?"

"You don't need to know that."

Lucas spun around, pointed at Loughridge. "Take them in. You take them all in, you book them on suspicion of murder."

"Yes, sir."

"The f.u.c.k he thinks he is, telling me what I need to know and what I don't need to know. Military intelligence. f.u.c.king contradiction in terms. What's that called? A contradiction in terms."

"An oxymoron."

"That's right, f.u.c.king oxymoron. You run these oxymorons in, you charge them and put them in separate f.u.c.king cells, and then we'll see what they think I need to know and what I don't."

Loughridge led the procession, Jacoby in the back, with Hollister and the short one, then Dole and the tall, ponytailed one, following, heading south into Leesburg. Jacoby just sat there, in the backseat in his cuffs, eyes closed, head tilted back. By the time they were halfway there, Loughridge was sure the man wasn't faking it.

He really was asleep.

You're not military intelligence, Loughridge thought.

It was after eight by the time all three were booked and processed and put into their separate cells for holding. The last Loughridge saw of Jacoby was as he was being escorted down the hall, past the security door. Then it clanged closed, and that was that, and Loughridge went to get changed out of his uniform and to call his wife, to explain why he was late. She was very understanding, the way she always was, and Loughridge once again found himself thinking how lucky he was to have found her, that she had consented to marry him.

He got home and had a light snack, then showered, changed into his pajamas, and spent an hour reading the novel he was working his way through. It was a thriller, about a CIA-trained killer who had gone rogue to hunt down terrorists and who could apparently take multiple rounds without ever being hit in the vitals. Bullets didn't seem to slow him down. In fact, they seemed to speed him up. Loughridge found himself wondering what kind of bullet could do the damage he'd seen that morning. Something big, he knew. Something that could kill a car as easily as a man. Fifty-caliber, probably.

He was tired, but now he was curious, and he couldn't get the image of the dead man out of his mind. It was changing, though, becoming less painful, less obscene. He went into the sewing room that also served as his home office, booted up the desktop, then did a Google search for .50-caliber sniper rifles. The very first hit was for the Barrett M82, and Wikipedia told him that it was an antimateriel weapon and in service with the military. There were a couple of YouTube videos, people test-firing the gun, and in one of them, a man fired off a whole clip in less than two seconds. He learned that it had an effective range of two thousand yards and could punch through half an inch of steel at the end of its trip.

Loughridge yawned, shut down his computer, and headed for bed. His last thought before drifting off was that there was no way-no way-those guys were from military intelligence.

Dole and Hollister were already in when Loughridge showed up for work at eleven that night.

"Get this," Dole said. "Those three guys?"

"From this morning?"

Hollister nodded.

"About an hour after you left, guy comes in from the army, full uniform, wearing eagles."

"A colonel," Hollister said.

"A colonel, he comes in, he's got three MPs with him, he walks up to Rivera at the desk, and he says he needs the guys we brought in released into their custody."

"For real," Hollister said.

"So Rivera calls Lucas, and Lucas blows a fuse at the colonel. Swearing up and down, insulting him, making a big stink about jurisdiction and how the military has no leg to stand on here, like that. And the colonel just takes it, doesn't say anything except pull out his cell phone and dial a number, and then as soon as Lucas has to stop and catch his breath, this guy just hands him the phone. So Lucas takes it, right? And he starts in on the phone and then he stops, and Rivera swears he just loses all his color. He doesn't say anything. Just listens for, like, five seconds."

"And?" Loughridge asked.

"And then," Dole said, "he apologizes. He apologizes. You believe that?"

Loughridge shook his head. "Who was he talking to? Who was on the phone?"

"No f.u.c.king clue. Lucas just hands the phone back to the colonel, he turns to Rivera, and he tells him to give the colonel anything he wants. Then he goes back into his office and stays in there for the rest of the shift."

"And the three guys? Jacoby and those guys?"

"The MPs cuff them, and they all walk out with the colonel leading ten minutes later." Dole grinned. "What do you think about that?"

"Yeah," Loughridge said. "Yeah, you know what?"

"What?"

He opened his mouth to speak, then shut it again. He thought about four men in two cars driving deserted back roads in the predawn of a summer morning. He thought about an antimateriel rifle that could go from full to empty in less than two seconds and maybe faster if the sniper using it really knew what he was doing. He thought about .50-caliber rounds that could turn a man from alive into Jell-O.

He thought about Jacoby, the man's patience and manners and manner, too. Jacoby, not Loughridge, not Lucas, not any of them, had been in control of the whole situation the entire time.

He thought about the one thing Jacoby kept repeating.

Dole and Hollister were waiting.

"Never mind," Loughridge said.

Chapter Twelve.

BROCK GETS THE news during the early morning brief at the Pentagon, and even though the operation is referred to by code name and the a.s.set in question referred to as just that, an "a.s.set," he knows they're talking about Tohir, and he finds himself both angered and relieved at the same time. Angered because, as far as he's concerned, the Architect has gotten impatient and was unwilling to wait for Brock to do what he has been asked to do, and angered all the more because this means the Architect has his own a.s.sets on the ground capable of performing the a.s.sa.s.sination. Relieved because it means Brock won't have to arrange it, a problem he's been wrestling with for the past three days and that has stymied him more than he cares to admit. If it had been anything else, he could've tasked an operator to it, maybe even dressed it up as a proper action, but as it stood he'd been looking at options outside of his purview, and he hadn't yet found any he liked.

So yes, it is a relief, but it is also troubling. Never mind the fact that he can't be sure yet that it is Tohir who's been killed. Details are sketchy at the briefing; he learns there's been a compromised operation outside of Leesburg, and that the detail responsible for the movement was detained by the Loudoun County sheriff's department and is now under arrest at Fort Detrick, ostensibly for dereliction of duty. He learns that the whole thing has been an unmitigated disaster, and that there is going to be h.e.l.l to pay. That's the extent of it, but it isn't enough.

Brock needs to be sure.

Calling Danny Ruiz is out of the question; he has no oversight of Task Force Indigo, just as Ruiz has no reason to interact with Bravo-Interdict. Direct contact just to ask what happened would be so inappropriate as to beg suspicion, something Brock is careful to avoid. This leads him to Heath, and that makes more and more sense as he considers it; part one, Heatdish was their a.s.set, they've got a horse in this race, so interest is justified. Part two, and perhaps more compelling, if the Architect has a shooter or even shooters on the ground, it's not impossible that he's uncovered Blackfriars's part in Heatdish's capture. This could put Blackfriars at risk, and if there's one thing that Emmet Brock is certain of, it's that Abigail Heath will mama-bear to shreds anyone or anything that threatens one of her operators. Casting it as concern for Chief Petra Nessuno will not only make it palatable, it'll give it all urgency.

He reaches for the phone.

"Heath."

"Captain, Brock."

"Sir, what can I do for you?"

"I've got a whisper that Heatdish was taken out of play during transport this morning out of Leesburg."

There's just a fraction of a pause before Heath says, "Whisper?"

"I'm not going to call up Colonel Ruiz and ask him, for obvious reasons. But I've got a bigger concern here."

"I think I'm on the same page."

"Do you know where she is?"

"I can locate her."

"Maybe you want to bring her in and keep her close to you for the time being. Set up out at Belvoir, see if she can't help you confirm this, confirm what happened. If Echo has this reach and she's compromised, I do not want him looking to settle accounts with her, not after everything she's done for us."

"Understood."

"Let me know what you find," Brock says.

He goes about his business then, because frankly, there's a lot of business for him to attend to. A half dozen more meetings before two that afternoon, by which time he's back in his office and Heath is waiting for him on the line. She's confirmed the attack and is trying to get a positive identification on the body. By four, she's able to do that, too, and declares that Tohir is dead.

"Send me what you've got."

The files are on his computer within five minutes. He transfers them to a thumb drive, takes it with him when he leaves the Pentagon at half after six. He heads with the rush-hour traffic in the direction of home before pulling off in a supermarket parking lot and taking his burner phone from the glove compartment. His first call goes to voice mail.

"Twenty-one hundred," is all he says before he hangs up. He dials a second number.

"This is Jordan."

"Make time for me tonight," Brock says.

"I have plans."

"I'll be there at ten thirty."

Jordan laughs softly. "All right. Should I make you something? Will you have eaten?"

Brock finds himself wondering if she did it, if she could've murdered Tohir. He dismisses that thought as absurd, as paranoid. She belongs to the Architect, yes, but she's a different weapon entirely.

"I'll be there at ten thirty," he repeats.

"Very mysterious," Jordan says. "I'll be waiting. Will you be staying?"

Brock hangs up, enters the supermarket. He drops the phone in the trash can beside the shopping carts, buys a gallon of milk, a box of cereal, some veggies, just to make everything look good, just in case he's being watched. He gets back to his car and resumes the battle against the traffic, and when he gets home his wife isn't there, and he's relieved. He puts the groceries away, gets out of his uniform, and takes a shower. He shaves, even though he'd shaved that morning. He wonders if Jordan is going to shave, too, and when he thinks that, he has a moment of self-loathing unlike any he's ever felt, so strong he swears aloud.

"f.u.c.k honor," Brock says.

He struggles. He calls himself a traitor and calls his own actions treasonous. He calls himself weak, and venal, and old because he cannot stop himself from wanting this woman as much as he does, knowing everything he knows. He calls himself stupid, and a coward.

None of this keeps him from getting dressed again, this time in civvies, or from writing a note to his wife saying that he'll be late, or from stopping to buy a new burner phone. He puts it in the glove compartment where the old one went. The thumb drive is in his pocket. He tells himself that life is about compromises, and that he is and always will be a patriot, that what he does he does for the safety and security of his country, a country that is naive and asleep and complacent.

He tells himself that he is using Jordan just as much as she is using him, and that in the end he will come out ahead.

Then he tells himself that Jordan probably thinks exactly the same thing.

Larkin is seated at the bar when Brock arrives. "Bar" is probably a misnomer, although there is a long counter with a bartender behind it. Calling the place a private club gives it too much credit. Rather, it's a place for people who can afford to meet discreetly and socially in the D.C. area to do just that; it's the kind of place where the clientele is almost invariably white, and if you see a woman who isn't serving drinks or isn't keeping someone company, you mark it in your calendar as a day to remember. Larkin calls it the Four-Four-Two, because that's the number on the brownstone, and Brock has never asked who owns the place or who runs the place or how many people know about the place. This is Larkin's world, and Brock always feels like he's invading whenever they meet here, and he resents it like h.e.l.l. Brock is two years Larkin's junior, but put them side by side and Larkin looks ten years younger, because Larkin comes from a cla.s.s and a level of wealth that can afford doctors to defend against his particular means of self-abuse. Like the clientele, Larkin is white, and like the rest of his a.s.sociates in this matter, with the notable exception of Brock himself, Larkin is very, very rich.

"I bought you a drink," Larkin says, waits for Brock to take it. He raises his gla.s.s, waits for Brock to do the same. "To Jamieson."

Brock refuses to echo the sentiment, but he drinks just the same.

"Are we on again?" Larkin asks.

Brock runs his eyes around the room. There's piano music playing from somewhere invisible, and muted conversation, and n.o.body is giving them any attention. It doesn't make Brock feel better. The problem with D.C. is that the town is lousy with people listening, people who know people, and you never know where or when you'll be recognized, even in a place like this. They meet here because it limits exposure, but it doesn't eliminate it entirely. So Brock takes an extra minute to be sure, and Larkin waits because he doesn't want to draw attention.

"I'll know by this time tomorrow," Brock says.

"I'll tell the others. They'll be pleased," Larkin says. At least he isn't whispering. Brock had to explain to him that when people whisper in public, that's what draws attention.

"What changed?" Larkin asks.

"The problem went away."

"Most do if handled properly." Larkin finishes his drink. "Has he set a price?"

"I'll know that by this time tomorrow as well."

"It's getting expensive. For all of us."

"We can call it off," Brock says. "Just let things run their course."

Larkin shifts on the stool, looks at him, curious.

"You've seen the news, you know the climate. We don't need another one."

"You're losing your nerve, Emmet?"

Brock just stares at him, wondering what it must be like to never have doubts. He thinks that Larkin has never seen violent death outside of fiction. He thinks that Larkin and the rest of them must be very sure in their beliefs to raise the question of courage.

Larkin shakes his head, reaches for his wallet, puts a hundred dollars down on the bar.

"We want what we paid for," Larkin says. "We don't intend to pay again."

"We got what we paid for."