Against All Enemies (11 page)

Air leaked from the room as the reality of Big Guy’s threat made its mark.

“I think that sounded more threatening than Big Guy meant it to be,” Jonathan said, aware that his statement was more lie than truth. “But this is the worst possible time for you to lie. If you have no intent of contacting Dylan—or, worse yet, if you intend to betray us—this is the time for you to tell us to walk away.”

Jonathan pointed to Christyne with his whole hand, as if it were a knife blade, or maybe a karate chop. “You know that we work hard in what we do, and you know that we will fight to make things right. You don’t want to be the thing that is wrong. Tell me you understand that.”

A new level of fear invaded Christyne’s face as she nodded emphatically. “I do understand. Just as you understand that if you ever harmed us, Dylan would not rest until you were dead.”

Jonathan smiled. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

Chapter Eight

“V
ictor Carrington,” the man said as he took the seat next to Ian. “You look frightened. Don’t be.”

Victor Carrington was Ian’s avatar on the Uprising boards. Alternatively, he called himself the Commander. “What would I have to be frightened of?” Ian said. He thought he’d pulled off the causal disinterest thing pretty well.

The man visually scanned the inner circle around them, as if looking for eavesdroppers. “I think that high treason would be a good start,” he said. “Most people I know in your line of work get jumpy at that one.”

Ian felt an icicle form in his chest. He chose to say nothing.

“David Little,” the man said, offering his hand. “Sorry to be so confrontational, but I wanted to make sure I had your attention.”

Reflexively, Ian accepted the man’s handshake. “I don’t . . .” His voice trailed away.

“I know,” Little said. “It’s a tough thought. Life imprisonment. Death penalty. It’s a lot to absorb.”

“Why are you here?” Ian managed to ask.

“I’m going to convince you to take a walk with me. If only as an alternative to the above.”

“Where are we walking to?”

Little allowed himself a smarmy smirk. “Wherever I take you. I don’t mean to be an alarmist, but sometimes there are no delicate ways to say something. If it helps, I think you will find the trip to be a worthwhile investment of your time.”

“Who are you really?”

“I don’t have the authority to tell you that,” Little said. “And whatever conclusion you can draw from that statement will no doubt take you very close to the answer.”

Ian’s brain worked the problem in a second. The guy had a name—or at least a pseudonym—but he had no authority to offer more. Put that in context with the thick neck and the fact that he didn’t bring a contingent of cops with him, and Ian’s instincts brought him to some form of covert operator. What he didn’t know—and apparently wouldn’t know until the appointed time—was for which agency. “You have my undivided attention,” he said.

“Right answer,” Little said. “Really, this is good.”

No one could possibly understand the garbled nonsense that poured from the loudspeaker, but Ian knew from experience that they were at the Rosslyn station, and when Little rose from his seat, so did he. Like every other corner of Washington, DC, and its surrounding suburbs, Rosslyn, Virginia, was the repository for a lot of spooky activity. Crystal City in Arlington housed much of the Navy, the farther-flung suburbs of Fairfax and Chantilly and Centreville housed the really scary parts of the CIA and the National Reconnaissance Office, and the really,
really
scary stuff was in far-flung areas of western Virginia and eastern Maryland. That left Rosslyn with the lesser-terrifying elements of a dozen different alphabet agencies. In his mind, Ian imagined that each of the long-term leases for those agencies was officially registered to Acme Greeting Card Company.

Little said nothing as he led the two-person parade out of the Metro car and up the escalator to the concrete canyon that defined this northernmost part of Northern Virginia. Ian squinted against the sunshine and pulled to a halt as they stepped out onto the sidewalk on Wilson Boulevard.

“Your head’s in the wrong place,” Little said, apparently reading Ian’s thoughts. “You’re thinking that you’re somehow being kidnapped, or led away against your will. What you should be thinking is that you’re very, very close to achieving your dream.”

If that was supposed to make things clearer, it missed the mark.

“Is the Uprising real or isn’t it?”

Ian’s insides seized.
He knows.
He said nothing.

“Of course we know,” Little said.

Christ, he can read my mind!

“Relax. We’re on your side.”

“My side of what?” Ian said, floating a bluff. “And who’s
we?
”

Little chuckled. “The first question insults my intelligence, but I get that you’re vamping for time. And when you follow me, you’ll see the answer to your second question.” He thumped Ian playfully on the arm with his elbow. “Come on, Colonel. You’re a soldier. You’re supposed to embrace new adventures.”

“Suppose I refuse?” Ian said. “What happens if I say no?”

Little scowled with mock earnestness. “Hmm. Well, I’m not going to hurt you, if that’s what you’re worried about. But between you and me, how long do you really think you would last in the general population in Leavenworth?”

Ian’s heart and head raced in near-panic mode. This was the nightmare, the unthinkable. Getting caught had always been a risk, but it had been such a different one, such a manageable one. And he’d been so careful. Now his world had been reduced to only two terrifying choices: he could try to run, or he could follow. But they already knew so much.

“It’s just up here, Colonel,” Little said. “And I swear to God that no one’s going to hurt you.”

“And that’s precisely what you would say if you were going to hurt me.”

Little laughed. “Yes,” he said. “Yes, I suppose it is. But here’s a little detail for you: My boss needs you too much to let you get hurt.”

“Yet he’ll let me rot in prison.”

A shrug. “In ten minutes, this will all make sense.” Little waited for Ian’s answer. He seemed to have all the patience in the world.

“I have no choice,” Ian said aloud.

“I don’t see much,” Little agreed. With that, he started walking up Wilson Boulevard.

Ian followed. Just past the Hyatt, Little turned right into a towering office building that had seen better days, and led the way inside without bothering to see if Ian was following. Truly, he had no choice. The lobby security guy looked up as they approached, but after a brief dip of his head, he turned back to whatever interested him on his desk.

“If I’m not out in a half hour, call the police, will you?” Ian said. He tried to keep his tone light enough not to be alarming, but serious enough for the guy to give some thought if he in fact did not reemerge from wherever they were going.

The guard made no indication that he’d heard Ian, but the words caused Little to stop, turn, and smile as he waited for Ian to catch up. He said nothing as he pressed the Down button on the elevator.

Of course it would be the basement.

The car dinged, the doors opened, and Little motioned for Ian to enter first. The interior walls of the elevator car were draped with dark green quilted moving blankets, typical of any elevator used for freight. Ian wondered if the blankets would also muffle the sound of a gunshot. Little pressed the button for B3 and the doors closed.

Fully aware that any escape option—as fragile and unlikely as they had ever been—had now evaporated, Ian concentrated on slowing his racing heart. He took a deep breath through his mouth, held it, then released it as a silent whistle. Whatever was coming, he needed to think clearly, and that wouldn’t be possible if he didn’t do something to contain the surging adrenaline.

The elevator jerked to a halt and the doors opened onto a concrete tomb of rooms that clearly were never designed for paying tenants. With dingy tile floors and battleship-gray concrete block walls, the low-ceilinged corridor reminded him of a hospital morgue, or maybe a bunker.

“Out and to the left,” Little said.

Ian complied, and was oddly relieved when Little accompanied him.

“Third door on the right.” Painted the same color as the walls, the doors down here were all made of smooth steel.

Ian stopped at the appointed place. “Do I need to knock?”

Little reached around him and rapped lightly with the knuckle of his middle finger. “No, I got that.”

Five seconds passed, and then the knob turned. The door opened to reveal a man who could have been Little’s clone—thick neck, wide shoulders, shaved head, and very serious eyes. A black T-shirt clung to a heavily muscled torso. Unlike the man who’d escorted him to this spot, however, the greeter at the door openly carried a pistol on his hip. It looked like a government-issue Beretta M9. Ian wasn’t sure where the mounting evidence was pointing him, but he was growing more and more uncomfortable.

“Really?” the new guy said. “This is him?”

“Victor Carrington in the flesh,” Little said.

Unsure whether that was his cue to introduce himself and shake hands, or merely to stand quietly, Ian chose the latter.

The guard stepped aside and let them enter. “The old man is waiting,” he said.

The phrase resonated with Ian. In military parlance, “old man” was synonymous with commanding officer. Everything about this so far had screamed military, and that was just one more confirming element.

The inside of the room looked like the office of a busy blue-collar worker. Work orders dangled from pins on a full bulletin board, and where the floor was not taken up by mismatched gray and beige file cabinets, they were cluttered with cleaning supplies, air filters, fluorescent light tubes, and various other items critical to the maintenance of an office building. Ian’s escorts (captors?) indicated an inner door.

“In there,” Little said.

Ian hesitated. “Who is it?”

“Open the door and you’ll know.”

Steeling himself with another deep breath, Ian squared his shoulders and pulled the door open to reveal another office, this one only slightly nicer and neater than the anteroom. The man who’d summoned Ian stood from a wooden chair in front of the cluttered desk that dominated the room. “Thank you for coming,” he said. “I apologize for the theater, but surely you understand.”

Ian thought he recognized the face, but when he heard the voice, he knew for sure. His heart rate doubled. Again. “Holy shit,” he said. Then, very quickly, he added, “Sir.”

General Manfred Brock, United States Army chief of staff, seemed amused by Ian’s rush of recognition. “You look frightened,” he said. “There’s no need. We are all here to commit the same crime.”

Ian feigned ignorance. “Excuse me?”

General Brock bore none of the physical stature of his lofty rank. At five-six and maybe one hundred thirty-five pounds, he’d famously commissioned customized stars for the epaulettes of his uniforms because there simply was not enough room from his shoulder to his neck to accommodate the standard four-star array. There was nothing youthful about the man, from his sun-leathered flesh to his close-cropped white hair, but nor was there anything elderly about him. This afternoon, he wore civvies, blue jeans with a denim shirt, both components sharply pressed.

“You know the old expression,” Brock said. “Never bullshit a bullshitter. We can dance all day around the fact that you are the father of the Uprising, but you need to know that I know the truth. In fact, I believe that that is the true source of your unease right now. Are you going to tell me I’m incorrect?”

Ian didn’t bother to try. “How did you find out?”

Brock sat back in his seat, gesturing for Ian to do the same in the adjacent chair. “I presume you’re aware that I have a lot of very smart people working for me,” he said. “At last count, about three hundred fifty thousand of them. Though if Tony Darmond and his puppets have their way, it will be a lot closer to two hundred twenty thousand. Among those smart people are folks who are quite adept at computer wizardry. You in fact are one of them, are you not?”

Ian settled into his seat and crossed his legs, trying his best to appear casual and calm. “I believe you know exactly what I’ll do for you, General.”

Brock waved at the air. “No
general
in this room,” he said. “In fact, no rank at all. If this goes bad, we’ll all hang from the same size rope.”

Ian felt his cheeks flush. He looked to Little and his clone, but got only stone faces in return. “What exactly are we talking about, Gen . . . Sir?” There were limits to the suspension of honorifics.

“Treason, of course,” Brock said. The words spilled from him lightly, as if he’d just named his favorite color. “Isn’t that what the Uprising is all about?”

Ian hesitated before answering. Truthfully, he’d never allowed himself to think in such blunt terms. “I suppose it could be considered that,” he said.

“Do you prefer terrorist activity?” Brock asked with a broader smile. “That is, after all what the Brits would have called the Minutemen had the term existed in the eighteenth century. We get to call them patriots because our side won. It’s all semantics. It’s all just words. They don’t matter.”

But they do matter,
Ian thought. He understood the general’s point, but why did he find it so offensive? “I’m not a terrorist,” he said.

“Murderer, then. And conspirator. Once you start down the road of capital offenses, the titles get progressively more offensive.”

Ian gaped. He found himself breathing through his mouth.

“You are responsible for the murder of Congressman Blaine, are you not?”

Jesus Christ, how can he know?

Brock crossed his legs as well, and laced his fingers across his lap. “I sense that I’m making you more nervous. That’s not my intent. In fact, my intent is quite the opposite. I want you to know that I am impressed with your activities so far.”

Ian’s head swam in confusion. “Impressed? I don’t understand.”