Tears of Abraham

CHAPTER SIXTEEN FATHERS

BELLEVUE, TENNESSEE

The fender bender was unremarkable; they’d witnessed several in the last few hours, so when the wreck began, Henry was not alarmed. Carlos, however, was more observant and attuned. He later explained his reasoning.

“I’d been making goofy faces at those kids for half an hour. Meanwhile, that dick in the truck was so scrunched up on the wheel I could feel him from the other lane. Tight and mean-looking. Even in the dark, man, I could feel him there all bunched up, coiled up like a damn snake. And after that shit we saw earlier that day? I just knew this guy was like that.”

Carlos was out the door at about the same time the guy in the truck decided to go crazy. It was quick, and Henry was opening his own door as the first shots cracked in the night.

Martinez, who’d been sleeping in the back, bolting forward, a step behind, coming out the passenger-side rear door while Carlos was already in front of the vehicle.

The guy in the truck blasted out the front windshield of the van before Henry knew violence was about to happen.

Carlos was shouting and moving. It happened too fast.

Henry scrambled around the rear of the van while Carlos came around the front. The kids were wailing, and then there were two quick shots right on top of each other.

The redneck with the shotgun was falling backwards, and the man on the ground was dead, shot in the face at point-blank range.

Henry shot the murderer once in the chest as the man tumbled. Carlos stood over the guy and stomped on his throat.

Martinez and Henry went to the children and tried to console them, shield them, and they clawed and squirmed and cried inconsolable tears. Carlos held the dead man’s wife while spotlights illuminated the street from above, and a helicopter hovered a few hundred feet overhead.

“Go!” Martinez ordered. “Go! Go! Go!”

Henry left the children and the van and sprinted for the shelter of trees and homes up the slope. They were targets, and if they remained, more people would die. Henry hated it, running, slipping in the wet dark, the helicopters thudding overhead and the children crying, mourning the loss of their father. He wanted to fight.

He followed Martinez into the trees while loudspeakers demanded order. It might be a matter of minutes or seconds before the enemy analyzed video data and issued orders. Their gear abandoned, location known, the Wolves fled the scene of the crime.

Henry switched his night vision on. They sought the darkest places, the deepest shadows as they ran. They crouched, sprinted, crept, and lay still as stone. They moved through homes both abandoned and occupied, waiting for the buzz of a hunter-killer, which would be the last sound they would hear if the enemy had access to those particularly nasty drones.

They humped it all night and slept the next day in a basement at a day-care center, surrounded by children’s toys. They were hungry and thirsty and hunted.

“If I’d been half a second faster, that man would be alive,” Carlos said in the dark.

“I should have been there before you,” Henry said. “I didn’t see it coming. I should have.”

“It’s quick, man,” Carlos said. His voice was thick with emotion. “Evil is. It’s so fast you don’t even see it strike and then it’s already too late. Damn it. You try to stop it, but it moves so quick, like lightning. It’s done before you even see it. By the time you hear the thunder, see the flash, somebody’s dead.”

“It’s my fault,” Henry said. “I was closer.”

“No it’s not,” Martinez said. “Stop whining. You’ve seen men die. I don’t mean to be harsh, but self-pity and philosophy don’t save lives. You sound like a couple of cherries right now, and I’d like you to shut up. Get your shit together, get focused on what needs to be done instead of bitching about what happened, ’cause you can’t change that.”

“Copy that, sir,” Henry said.

“Fuck you, Sarn’t Major,” Carlos said. “All respect.”

“You want to change things? You want to win? Be the lightning,” Martinez said.

Lightning craves a thing to strike. Henry yearned for a target. He’d witnessed a father murdered, a man simply trying to get his family someplace safe, killed in a traffic jam because he’d run into the wrong guy at the worst time. Now those children would grow up without a dad, and there wasn’t any way to make sense of it. The chaos, the injustice, the essential roiling unfairness of it all.

“Be the lightning” was a hollow exhortation, the kind of thing a sergeant major was supposed to say, but which did not ring true at that moment. Martinez was probably barely keeping his own act together, worrying about his children back in Texas, not wanting to face his vulnerability or mortality in the wake of what they’d just witnessed.

Fathers die, even though they don’t want to admit it or speak of it, as if by acknowledging the brutal truth a man gives death an undeserved power over him. It’s a primitive, primal thing. The reason men avoid doctors, neglect wills, and hope for sons and daughters.

The next night, they set out again, ghosts moving silently through the shadows and darkest places. They saw houses lit with kerosene lamps and candles, and a few with generators. The city was mostly dark, though.

Packs of dogs roamed the streets looking for food, dogs released by owners who could no longer afford to feed them, hunting for cats and squirrels and garbage. The rain abated and the temperature dropped to below freezing, the roads slick now with ice.

Helicopters thudded overhead every half hour or so, and fighter jets screeched past in tight formations. The air was bitter and tasted like war.

In the suburb of Donelson, they slipped into a ransacked Walgreens and found a few cans of SpaghettiOs and dog food, which they ate with plastic spoons. The food was disgusting and cold, and Henry licked the can clean.

At a looted pawnshop, they searched for weapons, and came up dry. They did, however, find a battery-operated SAT phone in the back pocket of the bloated corpse of what was probably the shop’s owner. The phone had a trickle of juice left in it.

“Make the call,” Martinez told Henry.

“It’ll be tracked,” Henry said.

“Maybe. The bad guys already know we’re here. At least you can let her know you’re still alive. Your buddy might answer, or he might not.”

“You sure about this?”

“Yeah. If I had somebody on the other end who would answer, I’d do it.”

Henry called Bart’s number from memory. It was part of a bug-out plan he’d put in place years ago. Three beeps, and then…

“Go,” came Bart’s voice on the other end.

“Barkis is willing,” Henry said.

“Coyote,” Bart replied, the signal clicking and breaking up.

“Out,” Henry said, ending the call.

“You sure that was him?” Martinez asked.

“It was his voice. Doesn’t mean it was him for sure, but I’m pretty certain, because he said ‘Coyote.’ I know what that means. Nobody else would.”

“Well, all right,” Martinez said. “Feel better?” “Yes. Yes I do.”

They waited another day and night, observing Berry Field, the Air National Guard base attached to Nashville International Airport, from a distance. There was not much activity. A pair of soldiers with German shepherds performed perimeter patrols. There appeared to be little security, and the base was no longer home to aircraft. The hangers were shut and the airstrips vacant.

“About oh three hundred,” Martinez said. “That’s when the body is at its worst, the most sluggish. We know that Corporal Simmons will let us on. He’s good people. If he can convince whoever he’s on patrol with we’re okay, we might be able to get in to the op center undetected. The armory is bound to be empty, but Simmons might help us with that.”

The plan was risky, and Henry could see a hundred different ways it was likely to fail. They had little choice, though.

Jets landed and took off from Nashville International Airport, which had clearly become a regional operations center.

Henry slept fitfully, waking up from the sound of the planes and from the drowning dreams that plagued him.

He dreamed of his father, dying hard in a hospital. He woke gasping, fighting for air. He knew what it was to lose a father. Those poor kids, they’d seen it happen in the street, seen their daddy get killed by some redneck tweaker. It was senseless, unfair.

He tried to go back to sleep, but sleep would not come. He thought about Taylor, that perfect baby girl, growing up without her father, and he felt shattered. He wondered what he’d been doing with his life. He spent another uncomfortable hour, and then it was time.

“Let’s say hello,” Martinez said.

Henry and Carlos cut across the street and approached the main gate, timing their advance to coincide with the patrol. Henry hoped Simmons was on post again tonight. Out of sight, Martinez would be creeping ahead from a position on the opposite side of the base.

The dogs started barking before Henry and Carlos made it to the fence. The patrolling soldiers sauntered toward the gate.

“Simmons,” Henry hissed, feeling a bit ridiculous. He crouched in an open grassy area, waiting to be shot. His night vision optics, advanced as they were, did not reveal the details on the faces of the two oncoming men, but they did reveal the laser sights, a perfect straight line cutting across the green night, ending at his chest. Carlos received an identical deadly beam himself, dancing and moving as the perimeter guards drew closer.

The dogs stood growling, awaiting a command, and poised to attack.

“Simmons,” Henry repeated. “It’s Wilkins. We’re what’s left of the Wolves.”

The lasers winked off. Henry stood, holding his breath.

“About time,” Simmons said. “Welcome home. I was told to expect you last night.”

“Great,” Carlos muttered.

“Why the sarcasm? Welcome home, Wolves.”

“Now what?”

“Debrief. You two could use a shower. I could smell you before I could see you.”

“I’m a bit confused,” Henry said, standing.

“War’s over, brother,” Simmons replied. “And you’ve got some friends in high places.”

Corporal Simmons and the other soldier, whom Henry had never seen before, walked with him and Carlos to the fenced outbuilding Henry had been to hundreds of times, the nondescript concrete shack with a neatly stenciled sign over the front door which read simply “Maintenance.”

They walked past rows of lawnmowers, shelves of tools, the smell of pesticide and rotting grass and mildew heavy in the air.

Henry waited while Simmons pressed a nail in what looked like a bare wall. The touch screen beneath it lit up.

“Wilkins, Henry. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot.”

Carlos chuckled over Henry’s shoulder.

“Confirmed,” said a female voice through a tiny hidden speaker. He’d done this many times, but never at zero-dark-thirty, and never fearing for his life.

He watched while the panel on the floor slid back, revealing a steep metal staircase illuminated by harsh naked light bulbs.

Their footsteps clanged and echoed in the tight space, the concrete walls amplifying each step, and the air was close and smelled like another day of training ahead.

Simmons had his weapon slung over his shoulder. He appeared relaxed, grinning and joking over his shoulder.

“Damn war’s over,” he said. “Finally. That libtard of a commander in chief resigned. The VP was killed when the war started. So the Speaker of the House is our new president. They’re reconvening Congress in Boston, if you can believe it. Symbolic, I guess.”

They went down several stories and walked through another metal door, into the Wolf Den.

The underground facility was a Cold War relic, designed originally to house regional VIPs in the event of a nuclear war with the Soviets. It had been abandoned for decades, until the Wolf Pack was formed, and then money and technology flowed back into the sprawling underground labyrinth.

A gymnasium-sized room served as a live-fire exercise area. The Wolves rehearsed breaching and clearing rooms, using portable panels which they could easily configure to mimic the layout of a building or series of rooms. Sandbags formed a ring around the area. They called it the Rat Maze.

“Who’s your friend,” Carlos asked as they turned a corner, heading apparently for one of several briefing rooms.

“Oh, that’s Wallace,” Simmons said.

From the nonchalant tone Carlos used, Henry guessed he had noticed the same things about Wallace, who walked behind them.

“He doesn’t say much,” Simmons added.

At the first landing on the way down, Henry had made a point of getting a better look at Wallace. He was a large man, over six feet tall and at least 250 pounds, icy blue eyes and a rusty two-week beard, and a way of diminishing himself that set off alarm bells in Henry’s head. There was a killer stalking Henry’s six. Carlos knew it. And Wallace probably knew that they knew.

“Say hello,” Simmons said.

“How ya doin’?” Wallace said from behind.

“He’s another New York mick,” Simmons said. “Don’t say much, but he’ll drink you under the table. Ain’t that right, Wallace?”

“Damn straight. You still owe me a hundred bucks from the other night.”

The bullet had not yet found his brain, but Henry was fairly certain where it would come from when the time came.

Simmons, leading the way still, opened the door to the briefing room.

Henry walked through and froze.

Profound relief swept over Henry’s soul.

Two men rose to their feet at the head of the wooden table, and Henry grinned.

It had been more than a year since he’d seen his father-in-law, and at the moment there were few people in the world he would rather have encountered. Admiral Bates, dignified as ever even in standard fatigues bereft the rows of ribbons which normally adorned his uniform, smiled back at Henry.

“Thank God, son.”

“Sir!” Henry said.

“Shit,” Carlos said.

“Have a seat,” the unremarkable man standing beside the admiral said.

Henry was looking at his father-in-law, a man he trusted, watched football games with, carved Thanksgiving turkeys for, and Henry had never once seen the man defer to anyone.

“Iceman,” Carlos whispered. “Jack fucking Stryker.”

“I’m sorry, son,” Admiral Bates said, his usual baritone grating with defeat, his face tight. “I had no choice.”

Henry did not sit. He stared at the admiral in disbelief. It was worse than being sucker punched, worse than a cheap shot to the balls. He’d been stabbed in the soul.

“Please sit down,” the admiral said.

Henry sat, feeling wooden, aware of the two armed men behind him.

He did not understand.

“Weapons on the table,” Stryker said. He wore black fatigues and a thin smile. He was an average-looking man, short dark hair and a lean build.

Henry prepared to attack, visualizing possible outcomes and responses, trying to come up with a plan of action that did not end in his own death. He came up empty.

Stryker tapped a screen built into the surface of the desk, and two monitors over his shoulder came alive. Each displayed a three-dimensional view of Henry’s home in Key West. There was Suzanne, picking oranges and looking tanned and beautiful. On the other screen, Taylor played beside a pool choked with algae.

Henry tasted bile as he placed his sidearm on the table. The light inside him, the hope and joy and purpose, was gone, snuffed out in a moment.

“I’m so sorry,” the admiral said.

Henry placed his palms on the table.

“Good dogs,” Stryker said. “So, you have something I need. Something the Directors require. You will not live to see another day, but I can promise you that your family will not be harmed. You’ll be buried in Arlington, full honors, and be remembered as heroes.”

“Give him the drive, son,” Admiral Bates said. He met Henry’s gaze and fl looked back down at the table.

Stryker chuckled, and his lips curled into a humorless smile.

“They don’t have it,” Stryker said. He arched his eyebrows. “Martinez does. And he’s where? Think hard.”

“Fuck you,” Carlos growled.

“On overwatch, perhaps?” Stryker went on, as though Carlos had not spoken. “Waiting. Maybe headed for the airport to try to hack the system? No, I don’t think so. He’s here.”

Henry fixed his eyes on his family. A thousand miles away, but here in living color so real he could almost touch them.

Stryker pointed with his thumb at the screens. “When Martinez gets to the op center, he will be detained. If he does not willingly give us the drive, you’re going to convince him it’s the right thing to do.”

“So,” Stryker said, grinning again, making Henry think of a barracuda. The man was implacable, predatory, and possessed of an innate stillness, a cold and calculated conservation of movement, and the soulless eyes of a fish. “Confine them separately. We won’t have to wait long.”

“Hands on top of your head,” Simmons said. “I’m sorry about this. Orders.”

With his hands zip-tied behind his back, Henry walked into a chain-link cell, a temporary holding area he’d placed terrorists in. A concrete floor, nothing to sit on, four feet by four feet, a place targets would wait until men in suits from agencies with three letters would whisk them away to God knew where for enhanced interrogation. Henry never dreamed he would end up in one of these sad prisons.

Simmons placed a black hood over Henry’s head, and Henry took it. At least they didn’t gag him. His breath was hot and stale under the hood. He was smashed. Betrayed by his country, shot through his Achille’s heel by the man he’d respected and trusted more than most men he knew. Defeated by his ally. Henry sank to his knees.

The worst of it was the knowledge he’d let Suzanne down, put their lives at risk. He’d spent his entire adult life trying to defeat the bullies of the world, fighting against what he believed was injustice, and it was all for nothing.

It was like Carlos had said. The evil, the lightning, happened faster than the eye could follow. It shouldn’t be that way. It shouldn’t be like this.

He pushed himself against the rear of the enclosure and rubbed the plastic tie binding his hands against the metal fence, as he’d seen his former prisoners do. None had escaped, and he recognized the futility of it.

He pictured Taylor in the morning sunshine, hope and goodness, and he refused to surrender. His shoulders ached and his back burned as he moved his hands back and forth. Beaten, battered, yet still breathing, Henry struggled and raged against his bonds.

And something occurred to him, a detail he might have caught onto instantly under normal circumstances. It was after four in the morning in Nashville. Key West was an hour behind, still dark. But the video feed showed daytime. The feed wasn’t live. It was still chilling, terrifying. He’d talked to Bart, though. Maybe. Maybe they were crossing the water right now. Maybe Suzanne would live to laugh and love again someday. And on down the line, perhaps Taylor would remember him, a small fragment perhaps, a sunny glimpse of a moment which fades too quickly of a day on the water, and she might smile, then, looking back.

Henry prayed for his wife and child, something he seldom did anymore. God had let him down before, and he placed more faith in brains and brawn and bullets than he did in the Lord. Still, he tried. He prayed for his family and for forgiveness and strength.

Help me, God. To defeat me, they must destroy me. I will fight for my tomorrows. Even if I die, if my life mattered, then I am undestroyed. My memory lives on, at least, and the things I did right hopefully overshadow the things I got all wrong, and a part of me remains. Didn’t Daddy say something like that at the end? I didn’t get it then. I do now. I understand. Cancer had destroyed the old man, who wasn’t old when he’d died. Life knocked him down time and time again, yet Henry could hear his father’s voice, steady and wise and indomitable, still alive. It is not an easy thing to destroy a good man.