Against All Enemies (34 page)

Ian spun on his heel and snatched his M4 from its resting place next to his headboard and headed for his bedroom door. He cleared the living room in six long strides, pulled open the door, and stepped out into the coolness of the night just as the soldier was climbing into the driver’s seat.

“Hey!” Ian yelled. “Stop!”

The engine cranked.

Ian took off at run, clad only in boxer shorts, and pressed his rifle to his shoulder. He shouted louder, “Stop, goddammit!”

The vehicle remained still. Ian approached cautiously. This was entirely new territory. He had no template to work from. He approached from behind the driver’s door, squinting through the darkness to see who it was, and to assess the level of threat he posed.

Tension drained from his shoulders as he saw the profile of Tommy Piper sitting behind the wheel. The boy’s eyes looked wet, and he looked shaken.

Ian slung his rifle and used his left hand to pull open the door. Tommy was a mess. He wore yesterday’s clothes, his hair was on sideways, and he’d clearly been crying. “Jesus, Tommy. What’s wrong?”

“I have to go into town,” he said.

“It’s two in the morning.”

“I know. I have to go.”

“Tommy, look at me.”

The boy pivoted his head. His eyes weren’t right, reflecting a head that wasn’t right.

“Talk to me, son. What’s going on?”

“It’s Mary. She’s sick. She needs me.”

Ian felt more tension drain. Homesickness was the bane of many soldiers’ existence, most often among the very young and the newly married. It was worst among new fathers. He was surprised to see it in Tommy. Rumor had it that the kid didn’t have personal ties to anyone outside the camp, other than the lady who ran Mary’s Diner. Apparently, she was some kind of foster mother to him. The lack of close ties was one of the factors that made him such an excellent adjutant. He could be trusted not to gab with people he shouldn’t be gabbing with.

“It doesn’t work like that, Tommy. A soldier can’t just leave camp. We have work to do. You know that we’re in a high-security lockdown.”

“Please, Colonel,” Tommy said. The edge seemed to have worn off of his panic, but he was still distraught. “She lives just at the base of the mountain. She’s the only person who’s ever given a shit about me, and she’s never asked me for a thing. If she called, then something is wrong.”

Ian had been in camp now for six weeks, and this was the first burst of emotion he’d seen from Tommy. It hurt his heart. “The orders are no exceptions, son. That includes you. Hell, it includes
me.
” That last part wasn’t true, but he hoped it sounded convincing.

“Please, Colonel.
Please.
The office doesn’t open until seven-thirty. That gives me five hours. I promise I’ll be back before then. I
have
to go, sir. One way or the other, I
have
to go.”

Ian heard the veiled threat of desertion, but he shrugged it off. The fact of the matter was that due to their daily proximity, Tommy got away with transgressions that others would not. And that was a slippery slope. Once an officer started making exceptions based on personal preferences, the fabric of discipline unraveled.

“
Please,
Colonel. I need you to do this for me. I swear to God I’ll be back early in the morning. You know you can trust me.”

Ian looked at the kid’s eyes. Justified or not, Tommy needed this. Sometimes, good leadership required making exceptions. “Look,” he said, “I feel ridiculous standing out here in my skivvies. Follow me for a minute.”

“But Colonel, I need to go.”

“I hear you, Tommy, but listen to me. I need you to follow me to my quarters.” This time, he didn’t wait for an answer, but rather turned and headed back toward his open front door. He was relieved when he heard Tommy climb out and close the truck’s door. He noted, however, that the kid left it running.

Ian entered the living room, turned on the light, and walked straight to the little desk he used for personal matters. He snatched a ballpoint and scribbled out a message.
Tommy Piper, General Karras’s adjutant, has permission to leave Camp Wainwright for a short period. He will return in the morning. Refer any questions to the undersigned.
Then he signed the note with a flourish.

Tommy had come no farther than the doorjamb, but he stood in a posture that was neither relaxed nor at attention.

“Here,” Ian said, offering him the note. “This will get you out and back in without a headache.”

Tommy looked genuinely relieved. Emotional, even. For an awkward couple of seconds, Ian feared he might start crying again.

“Thank you, Colonel,” the boy said. “I’ll never forget this.”

“Forget what?” Ian said with a wink. “I’ll see you at work bright and early tomorrow morning.”

Tommy stood there for a moment more, then snapped to attention and tossed off a picture-perfect salute. “See you tomorrow, sir.” He closed the door behind him as he left.

It took twenty-five minutes for the doubts to materialize in Ian’s head. He’d gone back to bed and might have already been asleep when it hit him. Camp life was defined by routine, the utter lack of the extraordinary. So why was Tommy Piper, who’d never, so far as Ian knew, been contacted by this foster mother—or anyone else for that matter—suddenly contacted tonight?

Sure, he’d said it was a medical emergency, but how can one verify such a thing? The emergency could have happened on any day or any night, but why this day and this night? Why must it come at a time when the camp was asleep and therefore most vulnerable?

Ian tried to slow himself down. Sometimes things just happened. Emergencies by their very nature did not follow a schedule. Certainly, Tommy Piper was loyal to the cause. He was above suspicion, and as such, Ian felt anger at himself for even considering the thoughts that were troubling him now.

But he felt what he felt. And that niggling voice in the back of his head had saved his life more than once.

Rolling to his side, Ian turned on the lamp next to his bed and picked up the phone. He dialed a three-digit extension. On the third ring, the man on the other end said, “Duty office.”

“It’s Carrington,” Ian said. “I want you to triple up on the guard detail tonight.”

“Is there a problem, sir?”

“Not officially, no. Call it an uncomfortable feeling.”

“Want me to sound the general alarm?”

Ian considered that. His misgivings were
that
strong. Absent an identifiable threat, though, it made no sense to pull everyone out of the rack and into full gear. How would he know when it was time to release them back to their quarters?

“No,” Ian said. “Just triple the guard.”

“Sir, are you aware that a soldier left the camp under your signature?”

“I am,” Ian said. “Mr. Piper is a big part of my concerns.”

“We need to take this to the FBI,” Rollins said at a whisper. They were up in Mary’s apartment, away from the others as Jonathan watched through the window for signs of this Tommy kid. “We’ve found what we needed to find. Now we need to turn it over to the professionals.”

“You’re welcome to leave anytime you want, Colonel,” Jonathan said.

“Oh, so we’re dick-knocking now?”

“Keep your voice down.” Jonathan pivoted his head to look Rollins in the eye. “This is about finishing what we started.”

“But the feds have a thousand times more resources than we do,” Rollins insisted. “Christ, they could use air power if they needed to.”

“But they won’t,” Jonathan said. He peeked through the curtain again.

“You can’t know that.”

“But I do.” He turned back to Rollins. “Let me hear your pitch to the FBI.”

Rollins looked confused.

“You know,” Jonathan continued, “tell me what you would tell them.”

“I’d tell them that there are a bunch of terrorists training on the top of the mountain.”

“Who are they?”

“What?”

“I’m the FBI,” Jonathan said. “You’re you. Let’s do some role-play—pardon the pun.”

Rollins’s face reddened.

“I have a point,” Jonathan said. “Play along. Who are these terrorists?”

“I don’t know them by name.”

“How do you know them, then?”

Rollins waved him off. “I’m not—”

“You started this, Colonel. Stick with it. How do you know there are terrorists at the top of the mountain?”

“We have evidence.”

“And how did you get that evidence?”

Rollins started to answer, but then the lightbulb came on over his head. “We don’t have any evidence that they could use.”

Jonathan pointed at his nose. “Bingo. Add to that the fact that the source of our inadmissible information is the federal government’s secret Public Enemy Number One, and that whole law-and-order response gets tough.” He turned back to the window.

Rollins was silent for the better part of a minute—Jonathan’s favorite part of that particular minute—and then he said, “You really love this stuff, don’t you?”

Jonathan thought about ignoring the question, but it triggered something in his gut. He looked back again. “Yes and no,” he said. The man asked an honest question, so if Jonathan was going to answer, he owed him an honest answer. “I don’t love the ops. I’m past the adrenaline-junkie shit of my youth. Every time I do this, it takes longer and longer for the soreness to go away. But I do love the clarity. There are good guys and bad guys. Getting past all the relativistic crap I laid down on Mary—all of which was true—I don’t get involved in that. I am Batman, breaking all the rules for all the right reasons. I like being Batman.”

“What does that make Big Guy?” Rollins’s eyes sparkled as he asked the question.

“Just scary,” Jonathan said. “At the end of the day, he’s just very scary.”

Outside, beyond the window, Jonathan heard a vehicle arrive. He spun back to the window in time to see a white, nondescript SUV pull into a parking space out front. A tall, skinny guy in a uniform spun out of the driver’s door and made a beeline for the diner’s front door.

“Okay, team,” Jonathan said. “We’re hot.”

Tommy Piper was at least ten years younger than Jonathan had pictured him in his mind. He was merely a boy, maybe twenty years old if he lied a bit. Certainly not old enough to buy a drink. The kid entered through the front door of the restaurant—clearly he had a key—and he tore up the stairs, bursting into the apartment that was Mary’s home, and that used to be his.

“Mary?” he called. “Mary, where are—Who the hell are you?” His expression turned from fear to anger when he saw Jonathan and his team standing in a loose circle around the living room.

“Sweetie, I’m fine,” Mary said, standing from her spot on the sofa. “I’m sorry to scare you, but it was the only way we could think of to get you to come down off the mountain for a visit.”

Tommy’s eyes never moved from Jonathan, who had taken a position closest to the door. “Who the hell are you?”

“That’s a little complicated, Tommy, but for now, how about you call me Scorpion?”

“That’s not a real name.”

“No, it’s not, but it will do.”

Mary moved to the boy with her arms spread, ready for a hug. “I’m sorry I scared you.”

He held out his hand and stiff-armed her in the chest. “Right,” he said. “I get that. Who the hell are these people?”

“Will you take a seat?” Jonathan asked.

“No.”

Boxers slipped behind Tommy to physically block the door. It was okay if the kid didn’t want to sit, but he wasn’t going to bolt out, either.

Jonathan shifted his weight to one side and crossed his arms. “Let me start with who we’re not. We’re not cops and we’re not FBI and we’re not any government agency who can send you to jail.”

The words resonated with relief on Tommy’s face, giving Jonathan two data points simultaneously. The kid was aware that he was breaking laws, and he wasn’t willing to pay too high a price for breaking them.

“But to be perfectly honest, we are very close to people who are all of that. You know that you’ve been committing the worst kind of treason up there on the mountain, right?”

As color drained from his face, Tommy’s eyes burned right through Mary. “You brought these people into our house?”

“She didn’t bring anyone anywhere,” Jonathan said. “We showed up on her front step and she got stuck with us.”

“But I’m also worried about you, Tommy,” Mary said.

Jonathan winced. Mary’s part in this drama was finished. She brought the kid to the house. Now he wanted her to shut up. He didn’t want this to get personal.

“Who are you to worry about me?” Tommy snapped.

“Easy, kid,” Boxers threatened. “The lady cares about you. Show some respect.”

Tommy whirled to give Big Guy some lip, but clearly did the math and decided not to. Boxers saw it and smiled. “Smart,” he said.

“Here’s the thing,” Jonathan said. “If we’ve done our research right—and we usually do—you and your pals up on the mountain are planning to commit murder. I confess I don’t know the details, but whether it’s one person or a thousand, someone famous or just another guy, murder is murder, and that means a quick trip to a padded table and a sharp needle. Know what I’m saying?”

Tommy’s eyes darted all around the room. If he was planning a reply, it wasn’t finding traction in his mind.

Jonathan continued, “Within a couple of days or a couple of weeks, it’s all going to come down around your ears. I’m certainly not going to keep your secret, and when I tell the people I intend to tell, you’ll learn a thousand lessons about what it means to piss off Uncle Sam.”

Without thinking, it seemed, Tommy helped himself to a hard-backed chair to Boxers’ left. His color was looking progressively less right. “Are you arresting me?” he asked. His voice was barely audible.

“You haven’t been listening,” Jonathan said. He kept his tone soft, reasonable. “I’m not a cop. I have no power to arrest you.”

“So, what do you want?”

“Information,” Jonathan said. “Treason Camp is ending tonight.”

Tommy scowled as he considered the words, and then he laughed. “What are you, five people? We’ve got two hundred up there.”