Back Blast

14

Catherine King didn’t always come in to the office on Sundays, but she was here today, preparing an investigative piece on a recent drone attack in Syria with a deadline of noon on Monday.

She had a corner cubicle area that wasn’t quite an office, but it was more than what most of the reporters at the Post got. A ten-by-ten space filled with books, magazines, newspapers, file folders, rolling duffels and backpacks, yoga mats and other fitness-related items, along with a few pictures pinned into the fabric of the wall of her cube.

Catherine had never married, never had children. She’d felt sure it would happen in her thirties, and when it hadn’t come to pass by her forties she felt sure she’d become too old and set in her ways to settle down. Now in her fifties, she threw herself into her only real loves: her work and her yoga practice.

This morning she’d come directly from her Sunday class at Georgetown Yoga, and she sat at her desk now in full loose-fitting exercise attire. She wasn’t concerned with her appearance, because the few people who worked in the office on Sunday afternoon had known her for years, and there was no one around she was out to impress.

Catherine focused on her article till a reflection in her computer monitor caused her to spin around in surprise. When she did she found a young man with thinning blond hair and a wispy mustache-goatee combo, a smile on his face and a backpack over his shoulder.

“Let me guess,” Catherine said as she stood and extended a hand. “You must be Andy Shoal.”

“A real pleasure to finally meet you.” He shook her hand eagerly. “I’ve followed your work since J-school. Before, even.”

“How nice.” Catherine forced a little smile at the comment, then she scooped a stack of manila shipping pouches off of one of the two extra chairs in her cubicle area and offered the seat to Andy. He plopped down and dropped his backpack on the floor, and she sat back down in front of her monitor, holding the pouches in her lap because she didn’t want to foul up her filing system by placing them on any other surface in the messy cubicle.

“Hope you don’t mind me dropping in unannounced,” Andy said, looking around at the mess while he spoke.

“Not at all. Apparently you not only work nights, but you also work weekends. Is that it?”

By way of explanation, Andy said, “I’m a cops reporter.”

Catherine understood. “I guess criminals don’t work bankers’ hours.”

Andy smiled. “Only bank robbers.”

Catherine returned a polite smile at the joke. “Did you find out anything new about the Brandywine Street murders?”

“The victims are all still in the hospital — one is in ICU — but I doubt they will be talking to me or the cops.”

“Why do you say that?”

“They are all getting charged with possession with the intent to distribute. They will lawyer up, and their lawyers will tell them to button their lips.”

“Any more from the police?”

“No description of the killer other than male, white, thirties. There was one thing that was really weird, though.”

“What’s that?”

“The killer left a bunch of fingerprints.”

Catherine scrunched up her mouth. That didn’t seem weird to her at all.

“In a symbol,” Andy added.

“A symbol?”

“Well, a number. He used his right thumbprint to make a big number six on a nightstand in the room with the dead guys.”

“It sounds like a calling card of some sort. Have you seen that at any other crime? A gang sign or something?”

“I haven’t, and I checked a nationwide database on gang signs. A six by itself doesn’t seem to mean anything.”

“Could be a message.”

Andy said, “You mean, to the CIA?”

Catherine gazed out the window and down onto 15th Street. “I don’t know.”

Andy asked, “Did you find anything out about the spooks who toured the scene?”

“Jordan Mayes I told you about. The woman’s name is Suzanne Brewer. She’s CIA as well, in their Programs and Plans office. Her job is to identify threats against the Agency, terrorists and such, and then task assets to eliminate the threats.”

“What does she have to do with Mayes?”

“No idea,” said Catherine. “According to my contacts she served in Baghdad protecting facilities, and then she served in Kabul and Sana’a, Yemen. She came back to HQ three years ago with a lot of accolades and commendations for her work and a promotion to go with it. She has an excellent reputation in the Agency.”

Catherine sat quietly a moment, just thinking. Andy did not get in the way of the process. She said, “It makes me wonder if Mayes and Brewer had information about the perpetrator last night. That he was somehow related to a threat against CIA. It would have to be something substantial to bring out the AD of NCS and a senior program officer.”

“What do you want to do now?” Andy asked.

“I’d like to know more about the man they are after. I’ll stay away from Carmichael for now.”

Andy said, “If you want I can reach out to Mayes. Just play dumb and ask him what he was doing there.”

King shook her head. “He won’t talk. At this point the best we can hope for is an official CIA press officer comment, which would be worthless.”

Andy sighed. It was clear to Catherine that he wanted a story, and he wanted it now. He said, “In your world, you can’t get people to talk. When I go to a crime scene to get an interview, I usually can’t get people to shut up.”

Catherine laughed. “Do what I do long enough and you learn to read between the lines. Often I get more information by what the CIA doesn’t say.” She spun back around to her computer, indicating to Andy she was ready to get back to work. “Keep your nose to the ground, Andy. My interest is piqued about Mayes and Brewer.”

Zack Hightower had been handed a garment bag in the Eurocopter, and in it he found a suit and tie. The control officer on board asked him to change out of his hunting gear, not because CIA demanded formality, but rather so he did not draw attention to himself in the building dressed in camo and muddy boots. He stripped down to his boxers as they flew high over Northern Virginia, and as he did so he could immediately tell his new outfit had been borrowed off another man; it didn’t fit very well around his muscular arms, and there was a hint of both antiperspirant and BO.

Zack smelled like a goat, however, so he just shrugged and put on the suit. The control officer kicked off his own wing tips and Zack slipped them on, finding them just one size too small.

The helo descended over the rolling hills of Virginia and landed on CIA property at seven p.m., setting down in the nearly empty parking lot on the bubble side of the Old HQ building. Even before the rotors spooled down, Zack was led out and then through the side door. He followed his control officer through the security checks, then to the elevators, where he stepped inside.

The Langley headquarters was familiar to him, but only from visits for an occasional briefing, seminar, or retirement party for a senior coworker. He’d never had a desk here, and as far as Zack was concerned, that was okay with him.

He raised an eyebrow when he realized they were heading up to the seventh floor. Zack worked for the Central Intelligence Agency for eleven years before being dismissed, but this was his first trip all the way to the top. Seven wasn’t exactly a hangout for paramilitary operations officers, after all.

Zack had spent the majority of his stateside time with CIA in training, mostly in Virginia and North Carolina but also in the mountains of Montana and Colorado, firing ranges in Mississippi and Arizona, the deserts of Nevada and the streets of D.C., where he and other SAD men honed their surveillance skills.

Zack’s unit of Ground Branch officers did have its own headquarters, an unmarked building in Norfolk, Virginia, but Zack had spent several years leading his six-man outfit of shooters to all points in the War on Terror, and in those years he and his team spent very little time stateside.

As he rode the elevator up with the other man, Zack did his best to act like this sort of shit happened to him every day, but in truth his mind was racing. Why were they pulling him in? Some old op needed a full accounting? Some new op needed the eyes of a veteran to straighten it out?

Was he being offered a way back in CIA?

Hightower didn’t dare hope for this.

A minute later Zack took a seat at a mahogany table in a dark-paneled conference room, and within moments of his sitting down, a side door opened and in walked Jordan Mayes, the second-in-command at NCS.

Zack was surprised to see such a highflier, but more surprised that Jordan Mayes looked like hell, as if he’d been up for forty-eight hours.

Hightower knew Mayes from both of their days in SAD, although Mayes had always been enough rungs higher on the management ladder to where he didn’t need to slum with labor much. From time to time Hightower would find himself face-to-face with Mayes, but he could count those occurrences on one hand.

Zack knew Mayes had always worked directly for Denny Carmichael. He hoped that was no longer the case. Carmichael had fired Zack a couple of years earlier, unceremoniously and cruelly. Hightower had been in intensive care at the time with a gunshot wound to his chest and a dangerous infection in his lungs, and Carmichael sent word down through a low-level flunky that his services would no longer be required. Zack had been devastated by this, but he was a good soldier. He filed no protest; he made no complaint. He just lay alone in the hospital till the doctors released him, then he went home from the hospital to his apartment in Virginia Beach, and did nothing but lay there and watch TV.

For a year.

He had no family other than an ex-wife who lived somewhere in Colorado with a daughter Zack had never met, so he basically sat at home and recuperated, watched the news and wished he was still part of it.

He’d only picked up the hunting guide gig in West Virginia when he ran out of money. He hated shepherding rich assholes through the woods just so they could shoot a fucking pig that wasn’t bothering anybody, but the money was good, and all the hiking, climbing, and shooting had molded Zack into reasonably good shape within a short period of time.

He’d fantasized about getting back on, if not with CIA, at least with some private military company, but Carmichael had stripped Zack’s Top Secret clearance, so Zack knew no real PMC would touch him. He had no interest in doing stateside static security work, so he just kept hauling rich civvies out on wild boar hunts, hoping something interesting would happen in his life.

And now he was face-to-face with the number two spy at the Agency, on the seventh floor of the Old HQB.

This was, at the very least, interesting.

Zack Hightower stood smartly, not quite at attention, but certainly displaying a show of respect.

Mayes nodded and sat down after a quick handshake. Under his arm he carried a thick file, and Zack suspected that his operational life, and perhaps his post-operational life, would be in that file.

“Thanks for coming in,” Mayes said.

“Happy to help in any way I can.”

“Denny wants a word.”

Zack swallowed. “Can I ask what this is about?”

“Better if Denny gives it to you cold.”

Carmichael pushed open the side door and all but stormed up to the table. If he had pulled an all-nighter with Mayes the evening before, then he was clearly a vampire, because Zack thought he looked good to go now at seven p.m.

Zack stood. This time it was at full military attention.

Carmichael’s greeting was, to say the least, several degrees cooler than that of Jordan Mayes. “I don’t do apologies, Hightower, so if you are waiting for one, prepare to be disappointed.”

Zack followed Carmichael by sitting back down, and pulling himself up to the table. “Not expecting one, sir.”

“You aren’t pissed about what happened to you two years ago?”

Zack shook his head. “I failed on a mission. That was unacceptable to you, but it was also unacceptable to me. I would have been disappointed if you’d not released me after that.”

Carmichael took in the comment. Then asked, “Fitness-wise, where are you?”

“One hundred percent.” Zack realized his tone had sounded hopeful, and he told himself to keep it flat till he knew what the hell was going on.

Carmichael looked to Mayes now. Mayes shrugged.

Hightower clarified. “Took a handgun round center-mass two years ago, but I’ve recovered. Been shooting every day. Long-range I’m better than ever. Running some, too. I’m not twenty anymore, but that’s an asset, not a liability. I’ll get any job done you need me to do.”

Carmichael looked doubtful.

“I can run a PT course right now.”

“I’m questioning your mental state.”

“My head is right, sir. I could put my hand in a candle and show you, if that’s what you are looking for.”

“That’s not what I want, either. I need to see that there are no hard feelings about what happened two years ago.”

“None at all, sir.”

Carmichael drummed his fingers on the table for a moment, then he seemed to let it go, and he went immediately to the subject at hand. “Courtland Gentry appeared in the D.C. area last night.”

Hightower had planned on keeping a cool stoic face, no matter what craziness Carmichael threw his way, but now he could not hide his surprise. “Oh, shit!”

“Killed two drug dealers in the slums, apparently to obtain money to finance his activities here.”

“Only two?” Zack quipped. The execs stared back at him, so he went on the defensive. “Look, if you think I knew about this, then you—”

Carmichael interrupted. “Any idea why he might have come here?”

“Permission to speak freely, sir?”

“This isn’t the fucking navy, Hightower.”

Zack shrugged, as if the answer was obvious. “He’s come here to kill you.”

It was silent in the dark conference room for a moment, and Hightower worried he might have overstepped his bounds. Then Mayes said, “That’s our assessment, as well.”

Hightower nodded slowly and a smile grew. Suddenly it felt like all his problems had just melted away. The past two years of his life, the depression born out of being ostracized by the Agency after failing a mission, disappeared. He had a job, a purpose. The old Zack was back.

With a wide grin he said, “I get it. I get why I’m here. You need me to stop him.”

Carmichael sniffed. “Don’t get ahead of yourself. You didn’t stop him last time out, did you?”

The cocky smile remained. “Sir, that op you sent me on in Sudan was as wrong as dick cancer, and you know it.”

Denny Carmichael did not reply to this. After a moment he said, “We brought you in to see if you could help us determine where Gentry might be, what he might do. Tactics and the like.”

“Damn straight. Nobody knows him like I do.”

After a gentle rapping on the side door a woman in a conservative blue outfit entered. Zack’s first impression was that she was hot. Not stripper hot, he told himself, but hot in sort of a sexy librarian kind of way.

She walked up to Hightower, who fought the urge to look her up and down. Instead he stood up, and she extended her hand.

Jordan Mayes made the introductions. “Hightower, this is Suzanne Brewer. She is the officer in charge of the Violator tactical operations center. As long as Gentry is in this area of operations, she is tasked with finding him. We’d like you to spend some time telling her everything you know about the man — his tactics, techniques, and procedures. Together you can fine-tune the hunt so the shooters know where to go.”

Zack was disappointed. A minute earlier he would have been happy plunging the toilets here at CIA, but now he wanted in on the hunt itself. “Who are your shooters? Ground Branch?” he asked.

“Negative. We are using JSOC,” Carmichael said. “They are already out on the streets. Until we have a positive sighting of him, we won’t have anything more than what you and Suzanne can develop.”

“Why not Ground Branch?”

“We are keeping Matt Hanley out of this for now.”

Hightower nodded slowly. There was some sort of intra-office feud going on between Hanley and Carmichael; this Hightower could see on Carmichael’s face.

Hightower put aside his desire to run and gun, and he nodded to the hottie in the business suit. “I look forward to working with you, Ms. Brewer.”

He’d do more than that if he got the chance.

“Suzanne is fine,” she said, and from her tone he instantly realized he would not get the chance. Despite the first-name, this one was all business. “The operations center is on the fourth floor. I have an office there where we can talk further. Violator has been in country about twenty hours, so we don’t have a moment to lose.”

“Then let’s get started.”

Mayes said, “That’s it, Hightower? You haven’t asked for anything. No money. No request for us to clarify your status. Why not?”

Hightower did not hesitate in his reply. “I understand what’s happening. This isn’t just about bringing me in to discuss Gentry’s habits. No, you need a guy like me on the street, in the hunt. You want me to remain off book. Better that way for you. If this breaks bad with a running shoot-out down the National Mall, you don’t want to be tied to it. You are bringing me on to help with TTPs, but if he’s located on U.S. soil, you’d rather some nobody like me went out and did the killing. Not a special mission unit tied to the military, or an operative tied to the intelligence community.

“You want some loser you can leave swinging in the wind in case you need to deny responsibility.”

No one said a word for an awkward moment. Then Zack added, “And I’m good with that.”

Carmichael and Mayes exchanged a look. Finally Carmichael reached a hand across the table. “Good to see you again, Hightower.”

The two men shook hands, and Zack looked to Brewer. “How ’bout you and me go and find that son of a bitch?”