Hidden Order

CHAPTER 16

Bill Wise looked like Santa Claus crossed with one of the toughest bikers the Hell’s Angels had ever produced. He had white hair, a thick white beard, and towered over Harvath by a good five inches and an additional seventy-five pounds.

He wore dark jeans, a pair of black Frye boots, and a faded Dallas Cowboys jersey. On his right wrist was a copper bracelet — the kind used for warding off arthritis, and on his left was an expensive Panerai diver’s watch.

As Harvath stepped inside, Wise stole a quick glance toward the street, closed the door, and then offered his hand.

“Thanks for seeing me on such short notice, Mr. Wise.”

“First of all, it’s Doctor Wise and second of all, give me a break with all the formalities,” he replied with a smile. “If Peaches says you’re okay, then that’s good enough for me.”

Peaches was the nickname the Old Man had been known by back in the day. According to legend, he was one of the roughest interrogators the Central Intelligence Agency had ever produced. He had a reputation for taking the hardest cases, the worst of the worst, and could be absolutely brutal with the enemy. It was said that if lives hung in the balance and time was of the essence, Reed Carlton was the man you wanted on the job. The fact that he was willing to go to some pretty extraordinary lengths in his interrogations had earned him the amusing and also chilling sobriquet of Peaches. He was anything but sweet.

Signaling for Harvath to follow, Wise led him into the warehouse. They passed through a small reception area, its walls covered with pictures. In addition to noticing that Wise had traveled the world, often heavily armed and in the presence of indigenous fighters, he discerned that the man was a scuba diver, private pilot, Eagle Scout, photographer, motorcyclist, NASCAR and IndyCar fan, and a hunter with a ranch in San Saba County, Texas.

“Do you hunt?” Wise asked after noticing Harvath admiring his ranch photos.

“Strictly bipeds these days.”

Wise chuckled and led him through a heavy sliding door into the main section of the building. It was a large, loftlike space with thick metal trusses and a pristine, epoxy-coated concrete floor. Parked near a wide roll-up door was a trio of perfectly restored vintage SUVs — a green 1960s Land Rover, a metallic gray 1970s International Harvester Scout, and a white 1980s Jeep Grand Wagoneer with wood paneling. Beyond them were a handful of older motorcycles in varying states of refurbishment. Harvath could make out a Triumph Bonneville as well as an Indian and what looked like a Crocker.

“Are you the force behind all of these restorations?” Harvath asked.

“I am,” Wise replied. “Ever since I was a kid, I’ve loved taking things apart and putting them back together.”

As Harvath admired the machines, the man added. “Don’t ever retire. You’d be surprised how expensive ‘puttering’ turns out to be.”

This time, Harvath chuckled. He still had no idea what Wise had done for a living, but if he was like any of the other retired spooks he’d met in his lifetime, Wise had probably done his share of consulting after leaving the Agency and had made quite a few bucks doing it.

The garage portion of the warehouse ended at an enormous floor-to-ceiling glass display case. Inside was row after row of vintage typewriters and antique sewing machines. The display delineated the beginning of Wise’s living area.

There was a stainless steel kitchen, a massive library with columns of twelve-foot-high bookshelves that went all the way to the structure’s rear wall, and a giant drafting table that served as the man’s desk. Hanging on the wall near it were a myriad of degrees, one of them a Ph.D. in psychology, as well as several diplomas and commendations from the Army’s 75th Ranger Regiment and 5th Special Forces Group. Next to those was a sleeping area, then a living room with a sectional couch, and finally a wooden bar that looked like it had been salvaged out of some small Irish pub.

“Something to drink?” Wise asked, walking around behind the bar.

“What do you have?” said Harvath, regretting the question almost as soon as he had asked it.

“Whiskey or ice tea.”

“I guess I’ll have an ice tea.”

“Whiskey it is,” said Wise, removing two glasses and setting them atop the bar. “I’m all out of ice tea.”

There was a brightly colored oil painting collage of George Washington hanging behind the bar. Harvath thought he recognized the artist. “That’s a Penley, isn’t it?”

“It is,” the man answered as he handed Harvath his drink. “Great artist and an even greater American. I stumbled onto him a few years ago and now try to get to all of his exhibits.”

“A body in motion,” Harvath offered.

“Tends to stay in motion. Words to live by in retirement.”

“What exactly is it that you retired from?”

Wise took a sip of his drink. “The best way I ever heard it described was ‘armed anthropology.’ I was in the Army for a long time, predominantly the Special Operations community. The Army put me through undergrad and grad school, where I made the art of killing my focus.”

“You mean how soldiers kill?”

“Not just soldiers: anyone or any organization. Soldiers, law enforcement officers, gang members, contract killers and assassins, psychopaths, nation-states, terrorists — you name them and I studied them.”

“Sounds very interesting.”

“Fascinating stuff and I didn’t leave a stone unturned. From how our kill rate in combat skyrocketed once the Army switched from bull’s-eye targets to silhouettes, all the way to how and why mass murderers select their victims and places of attack.

“What I uncovered is that there is a particular mental makeup that excels in combat. Certain aspects of that makeup could be taught, so that day-to-day soldiers are more efficient on the battlefield, but there are other aspects that can’t be learned. You have to come wired a certain way. As we drilled down and began identifying what those mental markers were, our results began to shape the screening process for certain compartments within the Special Operations community.”

Compartments. Harvath found the word choice interesting, as if it were something that needed to be contained. “So the military was looking to select for its most lethal killers.”

“That was part of it, but as you know, Special Operations is about a lot more than just killing the enemy. In my case, we were also trying to teach the Army’s SF teams what to screen for when they infiltrated foreign countries and worked with insurgent groups. Our Green Berets needed mini-Ph.D.s that would help them evaluate the potential in the combatants they were supporting. In essence, they needed to be able to rapidly assess if they were helping elevate and train the right people, or if there were better candidates for certain positions. Like I said, I found it to be fascinating work.”

“The Agency must have thought so, too, at some point if you ended up over there, right?”

“They did,” said Wise, taking another sip of his drink. “It was at a time when they were experimenting with a lot of interesting programs. They made me an offer that the Army couldn’t even come close to matching, so I moved over to Langley.”

“Where you continued what you had been doing for the Army?”

“But with much bigger budgets.”

“Off book or on?” asked Harvath, referring to where the money had come from for these interesting programs.

“What do you think?”

Completely black and off the books, thought Harvath. Wise’s area of expertise was not something the CIA would have likely wanted congressional input on. The politicians would have only watered it down, if not shut it down completely. Members of Congress barely understood the complexities of the military battlefield. What they knew of the intelligence battlefield you could fit in a shot glass.

“Okay, so you’re Dr. Kill, armed anthropologist,” Harvath continued. “Why am I here?”

Wise had been called that so many times, he’d lost count. Normally, it made him smile. This time, though, his face was dead serious. “You’re here because Reed Carlton thinks I might be able to help with your case.”

“Can you?”

“Maybe, but first I want to see how much you know about your victim.”

“Victims,” Harvath replied. “Plural.”

Wise shook his head. “There may be hostages, plural, and a dead body, singular,” he said, gently chastising Harvath for correcting him, “but the object of all this is a singular victim and the sooner you understand that, the closer you’ll be to solving your case.”