“Take it up with your boss. What I do might offend your squishy liberal sensibilities, but it’s necessary. You know it.”
“Yeah, it takes a real hero to sodomize a prisoner with a nightstick.”
Graves looked bored. “I’m sure we could have this sort of intellectual discussion all day, but we have to get a move on.”
“I’m ready,” Cade said. “Where are the analysts who will assist Zach?”
Graves walked out into the main area of the hangar.
“I don’t need any assistance,” Zach grumbled, as they followed.
Three people waited by the plane. They were dressed in cheaper versions of Graves’s business wear.
“These are my top analysts,” Graves said. “Book, Candle and Bell. You don’t need first names.”
They faced one another by the open door of the jet. Nobody offered to shake hands. Cade could feel the fear coming off them in varying degrees. They’d been briefed about him, clearly, but they were all struggling with the actual experience of seeing him in the flesh.
Book, the first man, was older than Zach—late thirties or so. He wore his hair cropped military-short and regarded them with dark eyes and a scowl. He kept his weight forward, on the balls of his feet, and looked hard and lean. If he was a data analyst, Cade was a vegan.
The second man, Candle, fit the stereotype of an information junkie much better. Unlike Book, his hair was longer and messy, and he wore five-day stubble. He had the greasy self-assurance Cade noticed in most of the politicians and their employees in Washington, utterly sure they had all the answers.
The last in line was a young woman. Bell. She wore no makeup. Her dark brown hair was tied back in a bun. Her face was open, honest and quite lovely.
Zach finally noticed her. He dropped his sulk. He straightened up, standing taller.
“Then again, it might not be so bad, having some backup for a change,” he muttered to Cade.
Cade could almost smell the hormones rising in Zach’s blood.
He said a small curse, only to himself. This was going to complicate things. He just knew it.
FOR A MOMENT, no one spoke. Then Candle, shifting uncomfortably in the silence, smirked. “Hey, check out my tie,” he told Zach.
Zach looked down. Candle grabbed the sides with his fingers and stretched it—and then the geometric pattern resolved itself into words.
EAT ME, it read.
Candle laughed like Carlin had returned from the dead. Book sniggered nastily with him.
Zach and Cade stared back. “You get that from the novelty section of Brooks Brothers?” Zach asked.
“Lighten up,” Candle said. “It was just a joke.”
“Right,” Zach said. “Like your beard, then.”
Bell might have sneezed, or it could have been a laugh. Candle’s face turned red and he glared at Zach.
Book shifted forward. “Oh. A smart-ass, huh?”
“Sorry, it’s been a while since I’ve operated on your level. Is this where you take my lunch money?”
Book reached for Zach’s lapel, as if he was going to grab it, or maybe poke Zach in the chest.
A blur, like a snake striking. Book’s face was ash-white and his wrist was locked in Cade’s grip.
“Never touch him,” Cade said quietly.
Book tried to pull away. His eyes widened when he realized he couldn’t.
Nobody else moved.
“It takes approximately forty-two pounds of pressure to break the average human bone,” Cade said to Book. “Some are more brittle. Some are more durable. Unless you want to find out the breaking point for each and every one of yours, you will never touch him. Understand?”
Graves let out a weary sigh. “That’s enough, children,” he said. “Book. You’re out of line. You too, Candle. I expect you to treat Mr. Barrows with courtesy, and not just because Mr. Cade could turn you both into a stain on the carpet. Are we clear?”
Book nodded. Cade looked at Candle, who nodded also.
Only then did Cade release Book’s wrist. He blinked away tears. “I apologize,” he said, in a tone that sounded like knives being sharpened.
“Good. You’re all friends now,” Graves said. “Try to play nice while the grown-ups are out.”
Graves turned his back on them and walked up the stairs into the plane. Cade pulled Zach a few steps away.
“Goodbye kiss, I guess . . .” Candle stage-whispered. Book muttered something, still massaging his wrist.
Cade ignored them. “Do not trust them,” he said to Zach.
“You think you need to tell me that?”
Cade touched Zach’s arm. He never did that. But he wanted to make sure Zach was listening.
“Listen to me. Don’t trust them.
Any
of them.”
Zach nodded, but his eyes darted over to Bell.
Cade felt some irritation. He’d warned him. He couldn’t do any more.
He turned to go, but Zach opened his case. He removed a false bottom and revealed two plastic bags, nestled in a self-contained cooler system.
Blood.
“Your in-flight meal,” he said. “I have a feeling you might need it before this is over.”
He closed the lid on the case and handed it over.
Cade was almost touched. “I didn’t realize you carried this.”
Zach shrugged. “Hey. Who’s got your back?”
Cade took the case with him and got on the plane.
The pilots were used to secrecy; the cockpit door was already closed and locked when Cade boarded. The shades of the windows were sealed shut. No one would see in, and more important to Cade, no light could enter.
The standard seats had been removed and replaced with couches that could fold into beds. A fully stocked fridge and galley kitchen took up much of the forward space, and a door separated a bedroom and full bath with shower in the back.
“Beats hell out of flying in the cargo hold, I bet,” Graves said, his coffee cup now exchanged for a full tumbler of Scotch.
The luxury barely registered with Cade. What he really noticed was the scent, under the cleaning chemicals, of blood and bowels spilled on the deep-pile carpeting. Pain and desperation and fear, hidden but not gone.
“It’s what I expected,” Cade said.
He took his seat across the aisle. A few moments later, the jet rolled from the hangar and air traffic control cleared them a space in the line. The Gulfstream rose into the air like it was sliding on polished silver rails, and they were on their way across the Atlantic.
BACK IN THE HANGAR, Zach looked at his new coworkers.
Book glared. Candle did his best to imitate Book from behind his thick glasses.
Bell broke the silence. “Is the dick-swinging over, or do you guys need to wrestle?”
Zach couldn’t help it; he laughed.
She offered her hand. “Look. We’re going to be working together. Let’s try to keep the casualties to a minimum.”
Zach shook her hand. He tried not to notice the softness of her skin. “Fine by me,” he said.
“Dickhead,” Book muttered, not quite under his breath.
“Knock it off, Book,” Bell snapped at him. And Book, remarkably, cringed at her tone.
“Sorry,” he said, both to her and to Zach.
Zach realized she was the one in charge.
“All right,” he said. “Where do we start?”
“We’ve got an office rented,” she said. “Neutral ground. I didn’t think you’d want to invite us to your secret headquarters. We didn’t want you in ours, either.”
Zach nodded. His attention was drawn by two big men entering the hangar from the outer door. Their heads were shaved so close that the stubble looked like the bluing on the barrel of a gun. They wore boxy suits that barely covered them and earpieces trailing down the back of their necks. Private security. The product that A/A specialized in. They looked as if they’d been pulled out of a life-sized blister pack of action figures.
Bell followed his glance and saw them.
“That’s Hewitt and Reynolds,” she said.
The big men joined them. They towered over Zach.
“They’ll be our shadows for as long as we’re on the job,” she explained. Book and Candle smirked as if she’d said something funny. Zach didn’t get it. “I doubt we’ll need them,” she continued, “but without Cade in town, I thought it might be safer.”
Both Hewitt and Reynolds—he wasn’t sure which was which, and neither man looked about to introduce himself—stared down at Zach.
Zach recognized the look immediately. They homed in on him. Bullies. And, contrary to the crap spouted by Zach’s parents and teachers, bullies in this weight class were not scared of anyone who would stand up to them. They didn’t pick on people who were smaller and weaker because they were cowards. They did it because they liked winning every fight.
And despite their size, they didn’t seem all that healthy. Up close, Zach could see the acne dotting their faces, the greasy look of too little sleep and too few showers.
They smiled at him. Zach made a mental note never to be caught alone with those two.
Ever.
SIX
I toiled wholeheartedly in the vineyards because it was fun, fun, fun. Where else could a red-blooded American boy lie, kill, cheat, rape and pillage with the blessings of the All-Highest?
—CIA operative Colonel George H. White
CHANTILLY, VIRGINIA
T
he U.S government spends more than $50 billion annually on classified activities, ranging from secret aircraft to covert military units, all wrapped up in what insiders called “the black world.” Zach figured that a pretty good chunk of that money was spent on rent in Chantilly alone.
Chantilly was filled with corporations that existed mostly in theory, anonymous blocks of generically named tenants—Excelsior Transport LLC, Tech Solutions Ltd., Performance Design Inc.—in the office parks located near Dulles Airport. If the CIA ever decided to relocate, there would be a lot of vacancies to fill.
Zach and his new colleagues parked their sharp black Humvees near one of these buildings, which looked exactly like its neighbors. A man was still putting the finishing touches on the new name on the glass door: BBC CONSULTING.
“Don’t I rate a spot in the name?” Zach asked.
“Just pretend one of the B’s stands for Barrows,” Bell told him.
The offices were new, but plain: white-box workstations at every desk, freshly assembled from kits. Hewitt and Reynolds took up guard positions at the door. Zach and the others gathered in a conference room that had a table still covered in plastic wrap.
Bell tore it away with one hand, stuffing it into a nearby wastebasket.
“It’s show-and-tell time,” she said. “You share what you know, we’ll do the same.”
“Why don’t you go first?” Zach said.
Bell rolled her eyes. “If it makes you feel better,” she said.
She gave him an expanded version of the basic facts they’d heard from Prador. A prisoner transport, sent from A/A facilities, had been routed to a group of Somali pirates. Whatever was actually inside was a mystery, but about an hour after it arrived, the Snakeheads began attacking the yacht in the gulf. That’s when Cade stepped in.
“How did you track the shipment?”
“We keep a comprehensive database,” Bell said.
“What’s in it?”
She shook her head. “Classified. We’re not about to let you look at proprietary information.”
“That’s not a very cooperative attitude.”
“We’ll search the database. We’ll relay what we find to you. Those are the terms. And before you go running off to tattle, Mr. Prador already agreed to them.”
Thanks ever so much, Will, Zach thought. He thought about arguing, but it would be a waste of time. He’d have to rely on Bell and the others to get the info he’d need.
“All right. Then you tell me: where was it supposed to be from? What was the fake info on the records?”
“Routine transfer from Egypt,” Bell said. “Pretainees on their way to another interrogation facility in Ukraine.”
“Pretainees?”
“We’re not allowed to call them prisoners, since they haven’t been charged,” Bell said. “And they’re no longer ‘detainees,’ either. ‘Enemy combatant’ is a big no-no. So there’s a new classification, called ‘indefinite preventive detention.’ Those are the pretainees.”
Zach grimaced. “It’s amazing we haven’t won the War on Terror already.”
Bell flushed a little. “If all you can do is make jokes—”
Zach wasn’t done. “Who had access to this prisoner transport?”
“We don’t know,” Bell said.