Back Blast

PROLOGUE

The host of the garden party accidentally left his phone in the kitchen, so when it all went to hell he was the last to know.

Seconds before the debacle he stood on the patio with his wife, chatting with guests over the music from a four-piece jazz ensemble set up by the pool. It was late evening and too cold for an outdoor event like this, but the host and his wife had erected a dozen flaming gas heaters, and enough red wine had been consumed to warm the blood of everyone in attendance.

Denny Carmichael was in his sixties but lean and tan, with a deeply lined but razor-sharp face and a formidable bearing. One of his wife’s friends had once confided in her by saying he looked like Abraham Lincoln’s evil twin. Denny and his wife traded gossip with a couple who lived in D.C. but weekended in nearby Easton, Maryland. Denny was wholly uninterested in the petty chitchat but his wife lived for this shit, so he stood there and faked it, swigging pinot noir that did little to ameliorate his boredom.

While his guests droned on about the cost of their neighbor’s new swimming pool, Denny looked around his property, regarded the Italianate patio, the opulent saltwater pool, and the meticulously maintained lawn sprinkled with their well-heeled friends. Eleanor liked to flee D.C. and drive out here to their estate in rural Maryland every week or two. It was expensive as hell, but his wife came from money, and this was what she wanted.

Denny thought of this place as his wife’s house.

And these friends were hers, as well.

Carmichael didn’t “do” friendships. He barely did marriage, for that matter. He lived for his work, and while everyone around him partied, he would much rather have been back at the office.

The jazz band finished a sedate rendition of “Sentimental Journey” to polite applause, but before the four-piece could fire up their next song, heads began turning towards several sets of headlights racing up the driveway.

Denny watched the lights approach, his already dark mood quickly blackening full-on to anger.

Three black Yukon XL SUVs parked on the grass alongside the driveway, fifty feet from the patio. All in attendance knew government motor pool vehicles when they saw them, because this patch of Maryland was only twenty-five miles from D.C., and most everyone here worked in the District.

Carmichael felt around in his jacket and realized he’d left his phone inside. He’d missed an important call, he had no doubt. He placed his wineglass on a café table next to him, made a quick apology to the couple standing nearby, kissed a perturbed Eleanor, and then started towards the driveway.

A dozen men in suits climbed out of the vehicles, and the gray veins in Carmichael’s forehead throbbed. The guests were not supposed to see these security officers, because they didn’t know what Denny really did for a living.

None of his wife’s friends knew he was the director of the National Clandestine Service, which made him the top spy at CIA.

The rage he felt over his protection detail alarming the guests was blunted by the fact that he knew these men wouldn’t be spun up like this without one hell of a good reason. Every security officer on Carmichael’s detail knew their boss would tear their head off for overreacting to a threat, so Denny took this show of force to mean something serious was going down.

“Talk,” he demanded when he was still strides away from the armed men.

The team leader was a forty-one-year-old former army major named DeRenzi, who was just like his protectee: all business, all the time. “Sorry, sir. You didn’t answer your phone. Orders are to cordon you off from the guests and hand you my mobile so you can take a call from the office.”

Five men moved between Carmichael and the stunned party guests, and squat P90 bullpup submachine guns came out of their coats, held at the low ready by men with intense, searching eyes.

Every one of the guests, the band, the caterers — even Denny’s own wife — stared, mouths agape, at this spectacle. Most in attendance knew Carmichael had served as an officer in the Marine Corps, but all thought he now worked in something banal at the Department of Homeland Security, as that was his official story.

Denny ignored the attention and asked no more questions of DeRenzi — he only mumbled an explanation that he’d left his phone in the kitchen.

DeRenzi responded with, “The office is sending air.”

To this Carmichael cocked his head. “Air? Jesus Christ.” He thought over the outrageous spectacle of a helicopter landing in the yard and whisking him away. “Are we at war?”

“Dunno, boss.” DeRenzi was muscle. He had no answers. Instead he handed his phone to his protectee and led him briskly towards the house.

Carmichael snatched it and held it to his ear while he walked. “Who is this?”

“It’s Mayes.” Jordan Mayes was Carmichael’s number two at NCS. He was a dozen years younger than his boss, but Carmichael could barely recall a time when Mayes was not by his side.

“Talk.”

“He’s here.”

“Who’s here?”

A brief delay from Mayes. Then one word. “Gentry.”

Carmichael stopped in his tracks. After a few seconds he spoke again, but his voice cracked. “He— Here? Here where?”

“Worst-case scenario? He’s got eyes on you right now.”

Carmichael looked around the lawn. In an instant his emotions cycled from fury through confusion, and then straight on to terror, and his voice went hoarse. “He’s in the goddamned States?”

“Best intel puts him in your state, Denny.”

Carmichael spoke quickly now; there would be no more pregnant pauses. “Get me the fuck out of here.” He began walking briskly, still cordoned off from the rest by DeRenzi and his men.

“Helo inbound. ETA five mikes.”

As he hurried along, Denny scanned his property. The tree line of pines in the distance, half-covered by thick mist, suddenly appeared foreboding.

Carmichael barked into the phone, “Five mikes, my ass. Expedite it!”