End Game

CHAPTER FIVE

Boxers lived on Swann Street, in a part of the city that had only recently begun to recover from the devastation of the 1968 riots. He’d bought his Federal-style townhouse — DC’s answer to the New York City brownstone — ten years ago for a song, back when the street was a haven for drug dealers and muggers. Since then, gentrification had begun to take root, and in some stretches of the street, home values had more than quadrupled. Secretly, Jonathan had always wondered if the mere sight of Boxers entering and leaving his house hadn’t convinced the miscreants on his block to take their business elsewhere.

No one wanted to mug Sasquatch.

“Are you going to call him first?” Venice asked.

Jonathan chuckled. “Not a chance. But I think it’s probably important that mine be the first face he sees.” He glanced at the dashboard clock. Twelve-fifteen. “Oh, yeah. I definitely need to be the first face he sees.”

With the lateness of the hour came the challenge of finding street parking. Rather than rolling the dice on something closer, Jonathan took the first space he found, thus committing them to a four-block walk, three of them past places where gentrification had not yet begun. As they climbed out of the car, Venice said, “Clearly, you’ve never worn high heels.”

“Only because you’d think less of me if I had,” Jonathan replied.

Never much for the late-night party circuit himself, Jonathan was surprised by the number of revelers on the sidewalks up ahead. The fact that they were all headed toward the bars at the end of the street, as opposed to away from them, surprised him even more. From the way most of them walked, and the volume of their voices, he guessed that these bars were not the first ones they’d visited.

“Don’t look so horrified,” Venice teased. “There’s a whole world outside of Fisherman’s Cove.”

“Oh, I know. I’ve blown up a lot of it, remember?” Jonathan got out of the car and walked around the Venice’s side. He didn’t want to let on, but his danger radar was pinging. He also didn’t want to mention that they were still a block away from a house where a man had been murdered in his sleep, and whose killing remained unsolved. “Be careful on the brick sidewalks,” he said as he opened her door and offered his hand to help her out.

As they walked away from the car, Venice’s posture stiffened and she sidled closer to Jonathan. “This isn’t a very safe neighborhood, is it?” she asked.

Jonathan didn’t answer, though he wished he’d thought this through a little better. In Upper Northwest sections of the city, a hundred-thousand-dollar car drew a casual glance, but in this stretch, it was truly a traffic-stopper. It was bad-guy bait, too, and it wasn’t until they’d begun their walk down the street that Jonathan noticed the scrawny predator tucked away into the alley just behind their parking spot. As they walked, the skinny fell in behind them.

Jonathan draped his right arm around Venice and pulled her closer still. “In a few seconds,” he said, “I might ask you to take a step off to the side. If I do that, please don’t ask for details.”

“What’s happening?”

“You’re asking for details,” he said. “Maybe nothing.”

But when a second skinny stepped out from under the stairs two houses down, Jonathan knew that it was going to be something.

“Well, look at you two,” said the skinny in front. “Aren’t you pretty?”

Jonathan nudged Venice, and she retreated to the opening of a stairwell that led to what Jonathan believed was called an English Basement. Translation: a subterranean space for which the landlord could charge an obscene rent.

“I know that she’s pretty,” Jonathan said. “But I’ve always thought of myself as average.” He test-drove a smile, but it didn’t take. “Are we about to have a problem here?”

“Depends on how much money you’ve got in your wallet,” Front Skinny said.

Jonathan heard the staccato beat of running footsteps behind him, and without looking, he knew that Back Skinny was charging him from behind. Jonathan whirled and smashed the heel of his hand into the space between the charging man’s ear and his temple. The guy’s head spun nearly 180 degrees, and the rest of his body followed in a floppy horizontal pirouette that landed him faceup on the brick sidewalk. Jonathan thought he was still alive, but he didn’t much care.

With the six o’clock threat neutralized, Jonathan faced off again with Front Skinny. “I’m sorry,” he said. “We were in the middle of a conversation.”

With quite the flourish, Front Skinny flopped open the locking blade of a tactical knife, the kind that is designed to cut deep and inflict mortal damage. “You’re gonna die, white boy,” he said.

Jonathan shook his head. “Actually, I’m not. And you don’t have to, either, if you just walk away.”

“Dig,” Venice moaned from his right. It was a plaintive sound. It was one thing to hang around on the outskirts of violence, but it was something entirely different to be in the middle of it.

Jonathan ignored her. As of this instant, Skinny Front’s future lay entirely in his own hands. “Think it through, son,” he said. “There’s still time to walk away.”

“You hurt Jamal,” he said.

“Only because he was trying to hurt me,” Jonathan said. He took care to keep all emotion out of his voice. “And did you see how well I took care of him? He was unconscious before he knew he’d been hit. I gotta tell you, I’m pretty good at this beating-up-people shit.” As he stated that last sentence, he realized it was a step too far. He’d forced Skinny Front’s hand with a challenge. Maybe it was just as well.

The skinny made his move. He lunged at Jonathan, leading with the knife, coming in with an underhand slashing motion that worked in every action movie, but rarely worked in real life. Jonathan clenched the knife-hand wrist in his left fist, and fired a piston punch to the skinny’s liver with his right, dropping him to his knees. Even as the kid sagged, Jonathan drove his right elbow into the kid’s brachial plexus — the Mr. Spock place between the neck and the shoulder that served as the conduit for all the wiring to the skinny’s arm. The kid yelled as he dropped his knife, and started to fall face-first. Jonathan stepped over the kid, never letting go of his wrist as he collapsed. Skinny Front had nearly faced-out on the brick walkway when Jonathan planted a foot between the kid’s shoulder blades, pulling up as he twisted the wrist. A soft double pop — the sound of two twigs breaking in the woods — followed by a howl of pain told him than he’d snapped both of the bones in his attacker’s forearm. The way it flopped to the sidewalk when he let go underscored the anatomical damage.

Having nearly broken a sweat, Jonathan turned back to Venice and offered his hand. “Sorry about that,” he said. “I think it’s safe now.”

Venice didn’t move. Her eyes were huge, her mouth slightly agape as she stared at him.

“It’s really okay,” he said.

“Oh, my God,” Venice said.

For a second, Jonathan didn’t get it. Then he threw a glance to the kids on the ground. One of them moaned for help, and one of them had no idea that he was of the Earth. “You’re worried about them?” That was beyond his comprehension. “You know he was trying to kill me, right?”

It took her a moment to gather the words. “That was so… easy.”

Jonathan smiled. “A few years ago, it was easy,” he said. “But trust me. I’ll be sore tomorrow.” He pointed up the street with the crown of his head. “We should get moving. On our way back, I’ll bring the car to you, in case these guys have friends.” They started walking.

“You should call the police,” Venice said.

“Um, no. The situation is stable now.”

“At least an ambulance.”

“If they need help, they’ll call for it. Not our problem.” Jonathan’s glance was drawn to Venice’s stare. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“I’ve never seen that before,” she said. “I’ve always known what you do, but I’ve never actually seen it.”

Jonathan scowled. “I can’t tell if you’re impressed or appalled.”

“A little of both, I guess. Why would they come at us like that?”

“Easy money. They saw a guy in a penguin suit with a beautiful lady and they read us as weak.”

Venice looked over her shoulder, back toward the spot of the scuffle.

“They won’t follow,” Jonathan said.

“I just hope they get home okay,” Venice said.

Jonathan laughed. “Oh, good God.”

By the time they got to Boxers’ door, Maryanne’s Chevy was already double-parked out front. One of the bennies of government plates was immunity from parking violations. In DC, where predatory parking enforcement was a major source of revenue, a parking pass was more valuable than gold.

Maryanne opened her door as they approached and met them at the curb. “Is he expecting us?” she asked.

“Yeah, sure,” Jonathan said. He winked at Venice. “Follow me.”

He opened the decorative wrought-iron gate and climbed up to the stoop. He pushed the doorbell. Over and over and over again. He heard Venice say, “Oh, my God, Digger,” and then he heard movement from inside. He kept pressing the button.

“It had better be an emergency,” Boxers roared from somewhere beyond the door, “or there’s by God going to be a corpse on the sidewalk!” Not everyone who said stuff like that meant it literally. Boxers was an exception.

Jonathan saw Big Guy’s shadow approaching from beyond the mottled glass and noted that he was moving… with purpose. Even as the door tore open to reveal Boxers’ towering form, Jonathan continued to press the button.

“Goddammit!” Big Guy roared. “This had better—” Recognition came immediately. “Dig? What the hell?” He looked past Jonathan’s shoulder to see Venice and Maryanne. “Am I throwing a party I didn’t know about?”

“Can we come in?”

Boxers hesitated. Uncharacteristically self-conscious, he looked down at himself. Clearly roused from bed, he wore a pair of — wait for it — boxers and a T-shirt.

“Don’t worry,” Jonathan said. “You’re fine. We’re the ones who are overdressed.”

Big Guy pivoted out of the way to allow them to pass. Jonathan beckoned for the others, and thirty seconds later, they were inside and standing in the foyer.

“I didn’t know you liked antiques,” Venice said.

Because of his size and his penchant for violence, many people underestimated Boxers’ intellect and sensitivity. The artifacts in the room were more than mere antiques. Many of them were collectibles worthy of museums. To Jonathan, all of it was either a vase or a statue.

“I think I’ll go put some pants on,” Big Guy said. The ancient stairs creaked as he climbed to the second floor.

“I heard that he was a large man,” Maryanne said. “But I don’t think I understood the scale of it.”

“Definitely better to have him on your side than the other,” Jonathan said. “Let’s have a seat.” He led the way to the right of the foyer into the living room, which was dominated by a shallow fireplace. Typical of the nineteenth century, when fireplaces were a main source of heat, the lack of depth often made twenty-first-century citizens nervous about having a fire so close to their living space. Jonathan happened to know that Boxers had spent a small fortune getting that fireplace certified to modern fire codes, and that he routinely kept it stocked and burning during the winter months. The antique theme carried into the living room, but with a modern flair that allowed for comfortable, oversized cushions.

“Look at all the books,” Venice said, taking in the floor-to-ceiling shelves that flanked the fireplace. “I had no idea.”

“Box is an interesting guy,” Jonathan said. He winked. “Don’t let on to others that he knows how to read. It’ll ruin everything.”

Jonathan helped himself to the end of a love seat closest to the foyer, while Venice took the opposite end.

Maryanne shifted her gaze back and forth from the two leather chairs that flanked the fireplace. “Which one?” she asked.

Jonathan pointed to the one on the left. “That one has the bigger butt print,” he said. “I’d take the one on the right.”

She sat.

Boxers was back down in three minutes. “Okay, Dig. What gives, and who’s this?” He pointed to Maryanne.

Jonathan brought him up to speed with what they knew so far. “Now, given Agent Rhoades’s persistence, I’m guessing that we’re about to hear the details that she previously didn’t want to share.” He looked at Maryanne. “Am I correct?”

Maryanne sat forward in her chair. “You can never repeat what I’m about to tell you.”

Jonathan rolled his eyes. Oh, please.

Maryanne caught it. “Bear with me,” she said. “Back in the late eighties, when people on our side of the Iron Curtain were drunk with our defeat of the Soviet Union, the apparatchiks on the other side were running for their lives, both literally and figuratively. Glasnost and Perestroika brought with them a world of insecurity for a lot of once-important and now irrelevant people.

“Power grabs became the way of their world, and there were a hell of a lot more groups to worry about. The Czech Republic, Georgia, the ’Stans, and God knows how many other former Soviet republics were all claiming their independence politically. That posed a huge problem in terms of strategic weapons.”

“The nukes were spread all over the place,” Jonathan said, jumping ahead in her story.

“Exactly. The Politburo, God love them, were the scaredest of the lot, presumably because they knew what disaster could be wrought by the loss of central command authority. They also knew that they couldn’t account for every warhead. While that detail didn’t become clear until later, the US had long suspected such.”

Jonathan exchanged a look with Boxers but said nothing. Back in their Unit days, the two of them had crawled through the weeds in that part of the world to help determine that very fact.

Maryanne continued, “NATO forces initiated Operation Gardenia, funded mostly by our federal government, to locate and reconsolidate all the scattered nukes under central Russian control.”

Venice reared back in her seat and raised her hand. “Wait a minute. You’re telling me that we actually helped our scariest enemy reacquire nuclear warheads?”

Boxers laughed. “You look surprised. Do you have any idea how many times your boss and I have been shot at by weapons purchased by the same Uncle who sent us into battle against them?”

“Remember,” Maryanne said, “after the fall, Russia was our new good friend. The powers that be were confident that they would never use the weapons against us.”

“Unbelievable,” Venice said.

“Moving on,” Maryanne said. “We thought we got them all, but when you’re dealing with those kinds of numbers, there was no way to be sure.”

“Let me guess,” Jonathan says. “We were wrong.”

“Exactly. And by quite a lot. More than twenty, although that’s really just a rounding error considering the thousands of warheads that were involved.”

Boxers tossed his hands in the air and guffawed. “Well, then, if we’re only talking twenty twenty-five-megaton warheads, what’s the point of talking at all?”

“What does this have to do with the Mitchells?” Jonathan asked. “I know you told me he had nuclear engineering experience, but how does that come into play?”

“Here’s where it gets a little complicated.”

“Just use small words and I’ll try to keep up,” Jonathan said. He hoped his irony was transparent.

“Bernard and Sarah Mitchell are from Chechnya,” Maryanne explained. “As you might know, that’s not the most stable corner of the world.”

“Never has been,” Jonathan said. “Their terrorists make Hadji look like an amateur.”

“So you already know,” Maryanne said. “That’s good. That’s helpful. When he expatriated to the United States, he went to work for a company in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, called Applied Radiation Corporation, which managed the reclamation of radiologically contaminated military facilities.”

“Uh-oh,” Boxers said.

“It’s not what you’re thinking,” Maryanne said. “Yes, he was involved in Operation Gardenia, but he was a good guy. A couple of years into it, he was approached by an old friend named Gregory, from Chechnya, who shared with him an ambitious plan to seek retribution for the years of Soviet brutality. He wanted Bernard to share information on the location of old nukes.”

“Actually,” Boxers said, “this is running pretty close to what I was thinking.”

“Here’s where it goes different,” Maryanne assured. “This Gregory guy was a good friend, and there are few people in the world who hated the Soviet Union more than Bernard. But Bernard was also a family man, and he was proud of his then-recent American citizenship. He pushed Gregory away and told him to never contact him again.”

“How do you know all of this?” Venice asked.

Maryanne continued as if she hadn’t heard. “Gregory left, and he left angry. He called Bernard a traitor and he disappeared. Two weeks later, as Bernard was between the front door of his house and his car, on his way to work, an unknown man jumped from behind a bush and beat him with a baseball bat. Broke his right shin, his left forearm, and three ribs. Didn’t say a word until after the beating was finished, but then told him that he would do as Gregory asked, or he’d find his wife blinded by acid and his son crippled with a baseball bat.”

“Now that sounds like Chechen payback,” Jonathan said. Chechen rebels had recently killed over three hundred schoolchildren in a terrorist raid in Russia. Nasty, nasty folks to get crosswise.

“This is where I come in,” Maryanne explained. With a nod toward Venice, “And how I know all these details. Of course Bernard agreed to comply — it’s always smart to agree with the guy who’s trying to kill you — but he had no intention of doing so. He called the FBI, and I became his case agent.”

“Case agent for what?”

“You doubled him, didn’t you?” Jonathan guessed.

Maryanne nodded. “Historically, we’ve found that newly minted citizens are often the most patriotic. In Bernard Mitchell’s case—”

“What’s his real name?” Boxers interrupted.

“None of your business,” she said. “And if that’s a deal breaker, then we are done.”

Jonathan didn’t press the point. He’d seen this before. For whatever reason, aliases and birth names, once declared to be classified, tended to remain that way — to the point where confessed terrorists who had been put into witness protection in return for their testimony against their former jihad-buddies were able to disappear and recycle themselves in their old stomping grounds because nobody updated the no-fly lists with their new names. Jonathan saw no urgency in knowing Mitchell’s real name.

“In Bernard Mitchell’s case, he was furious at the threat to his family and ashamed of the actions of his friend. His was one of the best motivations in the world — revenge. I told him that the easiest way to protect him would be to put him to work for us. We would feed him with false information that was laced with just enough truth to make it seem reasonable. If we did our jobs right, as the Chechens followed the bread crumbs, we’d be able to see where they were going and what they were doing.

“Financially, it was a pretty sweet gig for the Mitchells. Bernard was on three payrolls simultaneously — the rebels were paying him for his espionage, we were paying him for playing along, and ARC was paying him for his real expertise.”

“I don’t quite follow what kind of useful, sustainable intel he could provide,” Jonathan said. “I mean, you can dance for a while, but sooner or later, wouldn’t he have to cough up a nuke?”

Maryanne smiled.

“You’re shitting me,” Boxers said. “You gave up nuclear warheads? Tell me they were dummies.”

“They were doctored,” she said. “To set off a warhead requires a complex series of electronic impulses. To initiate the process requires a complex code. We changed the code.”

“But there’s still a nuclear warhead?” Venice asked.

“There had to be,” Maryanne said. “There’s a predictable amount of radiation leakage outside of the warhead casing. We needed to keep the radioactive material in place, or else the leakage wouldn’t be there, and without the leakage, they’d know that they had a fake.”

“I can’t imagine a single thing that might go wrong with that plan,” Boxers said, his voice heavy with sarcasm.

“Trust me,” Maryanne said. “Without the codes, these things are just radioactive paperweights.”

“You just used the plural,” Jonathan said. “How many are we talking about?”

“A few.”

“Can you put a little more meat on that number?”

“Five to eight.”

Boxers’ jaw dropped as he leaned in closer. “You don’t even know the precise number?”

“It’s complicated,” Maryanne said, “but yes, we don’t know the precise number.”

“How big are they?” Venice asked.

Maryanne shook her head. “Not very. Full-up, with the casing, they’re about six inches in diameter, a little over thirty inches long, and weigh under a hundred fifty pounds.”

“So, they’re not all that powerful,” Venice concluded. She seemed relieved.

“Zero-point-seven-kiloton yield, give or take.”

“Before you take solace in that number,” Jonathan warned, “she’s saying that the warheads are the equivalent of seven thousand tons of TNT.”

“So, we’re talking artillery rounds,” Boxers said. “The equivalent of our W-forty-eights.”

From the early sixties through the early nineties, the US, its allies, and the Soviets all developed nuclear warheads that could be fired from standard artillery pieces. They were rendered obsolete by more reliable delivery systems, but the Soviets apparently felt compelled to keep some of them around.

“Did the Russians know you were playing this game with their mortal enemies?” Jonathan asked.

“Of course not. In fact, Russian records showed that the very warheads we were tracking had in fact been destroyed.”

“You’re saying they lied?” Venice said.

“It’s what they do,” Maryanne said. “That in itself became an important data point. It was useful to know that our new allies would rather lie than be embarrassed.”

“So what went wrong?” Jonathan asked.

“We’re not sure. About a year ago, Bernard’s Chechen friends started getting anxious, started making unreasonable demands. We got the sense that they were testing him to make sure he was really on their team.”

Venice said, “That means someone tipped them off? That must have scared the Mitchells to death.”

“It gets better,” Maryanne said. “Not only do we suspect that someone tipped off the Chechens, we think someone tipped off the Russians, too. They found out that we were playing nuclear games with terrorists and they were not happy.”

“This does not seem unreasonable to me,” Boxers said.

“We were learning a lot about Chechen terrorist networks,” Maryanne said. “So, now, all of a sudden, there’s a back-channel diplomatic firestorm. CIA is pissed, and State is furious. The White House was blindsided, and your friend Wolverine has had some serious explaining to do. Overall, the last few weeks have been interesting.”

“So,” Jonathan said. “About the hit on the Mitchells.”

Maryanne uncrossed her legs and recrossed them the other way. “Yeah, about that. We don’t know exactly. As things got progressively hotter with the Chechens, Bernard fell out of touch with the Bureau. He started skipping our regular meetings, wouldn’t return phone calls.”

“Probably because he was frightened,” Venice said.

“Undoubtedly. But that’s not how it works. When you’re on my payroll, you play by my rules.”

“You started applying pressure,” Jonathan guessed.

“I had to. I was worried that he might be considering going rogue and working for the other side. I needed to keep tabs, and he wasn’t playing along.”

Jonathan’s eyes narrowed as a piece fell into place in his head. “I think I see where you’re going,” he said. “You applied a little too much pressure. You drove him to the other side.”

“I don’t know that for a fact, but I suspect it, yes. And here’s the really embarrassing part — we think he got the arming codes for the warheads.”

Jonathan gasped.

Venice said, “I don’t understand. I thought the codes were fakes. You said they were nuclear paperweights.”

“They are. Except we left a back door in the coding software that would allow us to make them active again, just in case.”

“In case of what?” Venice said.

“In case we don’t have enough friggin’ world crises,” Boxers said. “You feds amaze me. If the world takes a step away from the abyss for just a few seconds, one of you steps in to push it closer again.”

“Easy, Box,” Jonathan said.

“Don’t tell me to take it easy,” Big Guy snapped. “Somewhere toward the end of this discussion, she’s going to ask us to undo this mess, and you’re going to say yes, because it’s what you always do. I’ve earned the right to bitch about it, because that’s what I always do.” He turned back to Maryanne. “And how the hell did he get ahold of these codes?”

“We think the CIA gave them to him.”

“Holy shit!” Boxers exclaimed.

“Why the hell would they do that?” Jonathan asked.

“I have no idea. I’m not even sure that’s the case, but that’s where the evidence points.”

“Pretty incendiary guess.”

Maryanne shifted her legs again. She wasn’t going to expound, and Jonathan wasn’t inclined to press too hard. Yet. “So, that’s a lot of moving parts,” he said. “If the Mitchells were going to hand over the codes, why would the Chechens hit them?”

“Who said it was the Chechens?” Maryanne asked. The speed of the delivery led Jonathan to believe that she’d been waiting for the opportunity. “For all we know, it could be the Russians in an effort to keep the codes out of the bad guys’ hands. For that to be the case, though—”

“Somebody on our side of the pond would have had to tip them off,” Jonathan said, completing her statement.

“Exactly. That could mean CIA, State, or even, I’m sorry to say, the Bureau.”

“Which is why you’re soliciting help from us instead of from the normal channels,” Jonathan said. “You don’t know who to trust.”

Maryanne confirmed by arching her eyebrows.

“Ah, crap,” Boxers said.