Returned, p.6
Returned, page 6
Pedro Uno had built himself a compound well outside of town. He and Sarah had raised a family here, and were working on grandkids. There were more lights on than normal. More cars, but that was Juan-Pedro and Ernesta arriving in a beater that was parked next to Uno’s pickup.
Sarah was standing with them. Joie got another big hug when she emerged.
Everyone got dragged inside because the sun had been down long enough and the cold had crept in.
Joie was back in the guest room she usually stayed in. Ernesta was a door over. The building settled quickly into silence and darkness.
Tomorrow would be here all too soon.
CHAPTER 14
Taylor counted to ten before he reacted. As usual, Staff Sergeant Stone was just the messenger here. Probably volunteered to walk in with the bad news to save some corporal from getting reamed. Not the first time.
Still, the man stood at parade rest with a hard smile on his face. The kind that might offer you the first punch, before he kicked your ass and maybe curb-stomped you.
Stone was a killer, masquerading as a paper-pusher.
“Disappeared?” Taylor confirmed.
“Affirmative, sir,” Stone growled. “We have folks watching the place from a discreet distance. Neither Daring nor Hernandez appear to be on site. They left no forwarding address.”
Taylor rubbed his eyes. He should have known that Joie would pull a stunt like this. That was what she did. How she’d been trained.
And the last month off had just been a month off. Not a radical change in operational patterns.
“No, she left us an address,” Taylor replied. “Camp Monarch in the Virginia mountains. Don’t alert them yet, but I need to know how quickly we could get there from here in a pinch.”
“Getting out of DC on wheels would be the longest part,” Stone replied immediately. “We have secure communications. No reason you can’t move to Fredericksburg or Charlottesville and drive. Alternatively, we stage you and a chopper at Quantico or someplace. The other long spot is the drive up into the mountains. And that assumes that you don’t just park your ass at Monarch and wait. Sir.”
Always, tacking sir on the end like an insult. But that was Stone. Hard-headed son of a bitch. Excellent at what he did, even if he didn’t jump out of planes anymore. Didn’t take an ounce of shit from a senator or a four star.
Good man that way.
“We don’t want anyone looking at Monarch,” Taylor reminded him. “Nothing interesting about the place, at least to outsiders, and I include Senators that have your cell phone number on that list right now. This stays deep inside the immediate family unless and until we have a reason to expand it.”
“Easier keeping secrets if you’re out in the field,” Stone pointed out helpfully.
“Cuts both ways, Stone,” Taylor replied.
The man blinked. Almost recoiled.
“Close the door,” Taylor ordered.
They were alone. His scanners didn’t note any bugs in here. And they would.
“Too many people already know about things, Stone,” he continued.
“Hernandez?” the man asked.
“Not just her organization,” Taylor waved that off. “Here in DC. Across SOCOM. Even Senators and Representatives.”
“Understood,” Stone said.
Just another reason Taylor kept the man around. He didn’t have an opinion on many things. Just nodded and got to work. And he kept quiet.
“I will tell you this, Stone, and deny it under oath later,” Taylor continued, watching those hard eyes perk up. “There is shit going on that doesn’t fit into the right sets of patterns. And those things go back to the 2040s.”
“We have a mole, sir?” he asked.
“I don’t think so, Stone,” Taylor said. “The reactions in places would be different. The actions of certain players would be different as well. This feels like something has changed inside the organization and we’ve been kept out of the loop.”
“Is that why you wanted Graydon?” Stone asked sharply. “He’s settling in nicely and devouring reports and data like a starving man.”
“Among other things,” Taylor nodded. “The man is that smart. And has proven that he can keep his mouth shut, both in his old life and in dealing with Daring and Pham. Now that he’s come on board, I want you to run interference for him. Keep folks off his ass under the guise of getting him up to speed.”
“He know that much about us?” Stone pressed sharply, maybe a little upset at security issues.
“No, but he dated two of our agents and his specialty is assembling patterns from data and making use of it as information,” Taylor replied. “I think three days of reading recent files and shit will start to stand out to him as wrong. Or incomplete. Something. I want you paying attention, and making sure he understands that I think he’s right, rather than misunderstanding something. And keep me in that loop, because I think he’s got the exact nose I need to find whatever it is.”
“You got it,” Stone nodded. “Still think you should be elsewhere anyway. Gut feeling.”
Taylor studied the Staff Sergeant. Stone didn’t have those sorts of things often. Feelings. Or if he did, he rarely mentioned them. Taylor nodded.
“Get me a rotorcraft out to Quantico,” he decided. “Stationed there for a week or two, available on zero notice, so maybe two and they can trade off training and maintenance while we’re in place. I’ll run things from there in a private office well away from the training staff. You run things here. We’ll need to arrange transport for Graydon when he calls, but I won’t know where he is.”
“You assume he’s going to find something?” Stone circled back. “Just like that?”
“I’ve dangled the one thing that will get his attention, Stone,” Taylor smiled.
“Daring? Or Pham?”
“No,” Taylor said. “A mystery.”
CHAPTER 15
Joie studied the vehicle. She couldn’t help the scowl on her face.
“You’re sure?” she asked Dos, standing next to Uno and Juan-Pedro.
Uno and Sarah were on the other side of Ernesta, those two women with arms around each other’s waists like long-lost sisters.
Uno grinned, his face almost splitting in half. Dos was even worse. Juan-Pedro was the one with a nervous look. She turned to the youngster for an explanation.
“So everybody went back to monster transports,” he said evasively. “You know. Middle-classed, middle-aged wife with one or two kids. Sport Utility Vehicle designed to carry eight comfortably in three rows, plus a small space all the way back. Lifted so they feel important. Offroad tires, even though the only time those are ever needed is when somebody backs over the flower bed.”
“What’s this?” Joie asked, gesturing to the…thing.
“Station wagon,” Juan-Pedro replied, walking close.
Noonday sun was up. Dry heat coming in the dust that swirled, even with as green as everything was at Uno’s hacienda. Kids and grandkids were all off doing whatever. Maria and Dos had come for a lovely brunch.
Joie followed Juan-Pedro. Got close. Smelled the old, worn-out car smell that didn’t develop for the first generation or so.
Four wheels. Long wheelbase. Maybe longer than Ernesta’s car that they had left south of the border last night. Four doors, well forward. Long cargo bay aft. Like the kind that would take sheets of plywood between the wheelwells inside. Similar to Uno’s pickup, but with the bed covered over entirely, and nothing separating the bed from the cab.
Juan-Pedro put a loving hand on the roof.
“2077 Morgan Freetrader,” he said. “Back before they went out of business the third time and called it good. You have a stupid amount of battery life because this one doesn’t have a smuggling compartment underneath. Designed as a camper, where you can drive it anywhere, and two people can sleep inside. Or haul a teardrop trailer behind it and load the inside with everything you might want for a few weeks in the middle of nowhere. Solar panels on the roof mean that you can have a long lunch and regain maybe a quarter of your battery power. Sunny day you might not touch the batteries at all cruising.”
“Why is it so low?” Joie asked.
She was used to big SUVs. The military had them for everything, mostly for the ground clearance and the ability to beef up the suspension for armor or heavy troopers.
“It’s a station wagon,” Juan-Pedro said. “Old design upgraded from a sedan car platform. Looks low because it’s so long. Same height as their sedan models in those days. Other than food and potty breaks, you can just set the autopilot and drive.”
“All the bondo worries me,” Ernesta stepped close, pointing at the hood, most of the driver’s side panels, and a good chunk of the tailgate.
Uno could no longer contain his giggles.
“That’s why we hired the kid,” he finally managed. “All that is paint! Just looks like bondo. He came up with it in his high school chemistry class as a project. We make it custom in two flavors. One just washes off a layer of paint sealant underneath with a powerbrush. The other gets baked on and makes your car look like a complete beater to a cop driving along. Nothing about this car suggests the kind of top speed it can get if you put it to the floor.”
“Crazy fast?” Joie asked.
“Stupid crazy,” Dos replied. “Found a straightaway outside of town when the kid was done. It went zoom.”
“How about at night?” Joie asked.
“Standard plugs when you hit a truck stop or pull off the highway for pit stop and food,” Dos said. “You’re about forty-three hundred kilometers from here, give or take. Two days hard drive straight through with breaks. Three if you don’t push. Four if you want to enjoy the trip.”
“We’re ahead of schedule and under the radar,” Joie said. “Four days would be when they started to get nervous, since we didn’t fly from Mexico City to DC. Let’s get everything loaded and go.”
“Oh, and I did include a series of small compartments for guns and gear,” Juan-Pedro said. “Since this was my senior thesis for Dos. I need to show you all those, both inside and outside.”
“Outside?” Ernesta perked up.
“Some asshole tries to jump you while you are fiddling with your forward or rear plugs, you pull a gun on him,” Juan-Pedro smiled. “Figure it’s easier to explain to a cop than to your surviving relatives.”
“I am a gun,” Joie said.
“Sure, but that cannon kinda stands out in a firefight, from what the old farts tell me,” Juan-Pedro agreed, teasing Uno and Dos. “You want low profile here. And we’re probably talking muggers, not strike teams. That gear goes inside.”
“Show me,” Joie commanded.
How much of this preparation would she need?
All of it, she feared.
CHAPTER 16
Valmy was in his office with the fantastic view of the Potomac River. He’d just come from yet another quiet budget meeting with a key senator on the Foreign Services committee.
Central Asia was starting to settle down at last. That idiot in Almaty had fired his Prime Minister and promised reforms. That, plus a crackdown on protesters, had turned the temperature down to the point that the Joint Chiefs were considering ordering Carrier Strike Groups and forward-staged assault units back to base.
Finally.
All that previous stupidity couldn’t have happened at a worse time, at least as far as Valmy was concerned. Romana Pham, Tyche, going rogue threatened everything he’d spent years accomplishing.
Seriously, what the hell had gone wrong with the woman? She should have been perfect as the next candidate for his program. Career army. Special forces. Inner courtyard kind of person. Never even wanted kids, so that hadn’t been what caused it.
She’d just vanished. Right out of the middle of a facility so secure it should be impossible.
Of course, that was Army-impossible. Troopers who stuck with TRC made the impossible seem routine.
A knock at the door, followed a moment later by it opening.
Captain Konicek wore fatigues in the office when he was here, like a man called in from the field or a training exercise. Standing order. Valmy wore dress greens when he had to maintain an image with civilians. Wouldn’t do to look too martial all the time.
They might wonder.
“Sir, we’ve got a new report off the wire from Langley,” he said, stepping in, closing the door, and handing Valmy a file.
Konicek came to parade rest, like he would wait all day. Not a good sign. Anything easy and he might have departed immediately.
Valmy opened the folder and swore in six languages as he read the cover letter. Then he checked the notations.
“What idiot sent Mithras to Hanoi?” he snarled angrily.
“Nobody I’ve been able to identify, sir,” Konicek replied. “Took ten minutes to confirm that before bringing it to your attention.”
Valmy flipped to the back. Langley, but unsigned, so it could be anyone. The CIA Headquarters was really more of a postal forwarding address for these sorts of things than anything else these days, since so many different departments and agencies maintained their own specialists.
Briefly, he wondered if they should all be brought back into one shop again. The government had tried that three times in the twenty-first century. And undone them each time, either because they got too sclerotic with bureaucracy, or because it put too much power in too few hands.
Valmy agreed on that part. Better to spread these things out thinly than have a single man or woman in charge of all the intelligence information the US Government acquired.
Too easy to slant things. Just look at what he was doing inside TRC without the sorts of close supervision that might have caused more than one Senator to knock on his door and volunteer to live forever.
As if those corrupt punks deserved a gift like that.
“I’ll assume Kehoe then,” Valmy growled. “Letting that fool run wild for a while. What resources do we have close at hand?”
“Almost none, General,” Konicek replied. “Everything got moved west of there, including some of the teams that might otherwise be available. And they are all under Joint Chiefs right now, so we can’t easily pull them back without questions.”
“Agreed,” Valmy grimaced.
He reread the report. Not much to it. A picture of Mithras, standing head and shoulders above most of a crowd. Hard neighborhood. Valmy even recognized where in Hanoi it had been taken. He’d done a few deals around there before he got his second star. Setting up TRC to turn into the sort of organization he needed.
The giant man was reported to have slipped into a restaurant after circling it like it was a meet. That was what caught the watcher’s eye. Second time around the block they got a camera on him, then sent it up to a station chief who had bounced it priority back to the States.
“Konicek, you are about all I have to handle this one,” Valmy decided. “Assemble a small support team that can pass for locals in Hanoi. No more than six. Carry your gear and don’t expect to be able to call for backup. No cavalry here, because as you said, everyone is in Central Asia right now.”
He paused as the man nodded, then looked at the picture of Mithras again. Damned fucker had gone rogue. Valmy could just feel it in his bones.
Might be time to Revoke the man entirely. That would be a problem, since they couldn’t RDR him like they had Captain Daring when she’d been getting too close to Valmy’s secrets.
“Captain, you will be prepared for an executive action order signed by the Joint Chiefs when you arrive,” Valmy said. “Am I clear?”
Konicek nodded, eyes suddenly hard and cold. Somebody might finally decide it was time to assassinate Mithras, instead of capturing him, like Daring had managed to do. In spite of what should have gotten her killed, Mithras severely fucked up, and Argentina protected.
The last two years felt like one ongoing mess to put out a fire. And now some fool was throwing more gasoline on it.
“Dismissed,” Valmy ordered. “Expect movement orders in six to ten hours, departure priority. You work out the details with my staff.”
Again, the man nodded. No salutes. They were always undercover, even when wearing uniforms.
Konicek closed the door behind him and Valmy went back to his reports on Daring, forwarded from Kehoe’s office, since they were in the process of running the woman directly.
And she’d vanished as well, according to everything.
Was there a connection with Faulkener? Or was it just well-developed paranoia on both parts to hide as much as possible? He’d made sure they were all trained that way, so Valmy could only bitch at himself.
Still, he wouldn’t put up with much from Daring, this time around. Anything, actually, if he didn’t need her chasing down Pham.
Valmy considered his options. All bad at this moment. Give him a week of calm in Central Asia and he’d be in a better spot. People would be returned from where the Joint Chiefs had borrowed them.
He had serious doubts that he’d get that week.
Valmy keyed the intercom on his desk.
“Sir?”
“Locate Lieutenant Vanlaere and get her in my office soonest,” he said.
“On it, sir.”
Too many foxes. Not enough hounds. Maybe it was time to push.
CHAPTER 17
Mitch had come down from his mountain, but hadn’t brought two stone tablets bearing any revelations with him. Still, it had felt like that, descending.
Kehoe had been serious, too. Three big military trucks had parked at the trailhead and a whole bunch of soldiers had hiked up to his lookout, bearing everything they had needed to pack him up and haul him down to Seattle.
The drivers had even been good enough to navigate Capital Hill in those rigs, which took some doing. Then he’d left everything in his parents’ basement. Kehoe had booked him first class commercial to DC and it had been like the old days. At least for a few hours. Pampered luxury with personal flight attendants.
