High Treason

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

“This is bullshit,” David said. He and Becky sat together in his room. For the past couple of hours, they’d been biding time by doing nothing. So far, this Scorpion guy had been true to his word, up to and including the nice old black lady who’d seen to their every need.

“There’s been a lot of that today,” Becky said. “Which part are you finding particularly bullshitty?”

“It’s stupid to trust my future — my life — to people I’ve never met before,” he said.

Becky stewed on that for a few seconds. “I can’t disagree entirely,” she said. “But give credit for the fact that we’re alive because of them.”

“I thought you were against all of this,” David said.

“I don’t have a clue what I’m for or against anymore, David. Everything I’ve ever known, everything I’ve ever been — all of my accomplishments, such as they are — don’t mean anything anymore. Maybe I’m just grasping at straws. Pretending that I still have choices.”

“Here’s the thing,” David explained. “When I met with Grayson, he gave me the name and address of a guy in Lake Ridge — it’s in Prince William County — who he said should be able to give us some information.”

“A guy. Which guy?”

“His name is Billy Zanger. He’s on the president’s staff.”

“President of the United States?”

“That would be the one.”

“You want to meet with a staffer of the president of the United States?”

Hearing the question asked with such incredulity gave him pause. “He’s been bought and paid for by Grayson. Or so Grayson says.” The bought-and-paid-for line didn’t even raise an eyebrow.

“Why is Grayson sharing his sources with you?”

David gave her the thirty-second précis of his chat.

When he was finished, Becky cocked her head. “What, exactly, would you ask him?”

David started to answer, then stopped. “I have no idea. But sitting here does nothing but make me nervous. This is my life we’re talking about. And it’s all collapsing around me.”

“You can’t, David. Your face is all over the news. Suppose someone notices you?”

“People don’t look for faces,” David said. “Nobody pays attention to those pictures unless they’re watching America’s Most Wanted.”

“But if they do?”

“Then they do and I go to jail. That’s not a whole hell of a lot different than where I am right now.”

“Except for the locks on the doors, and the absence of anal rape,” Becky said.

David scowled. “Where did the ironic sense of humor come from? You’ve never had an ironic sense of humor.”

She folded her arms, emphasizing her breasts. “You have no idea what I’ve had or haven’t had. I was invisible to you until last night.” The way she delivered the line, it sounded less like a shot than it probably was.

David let it go. “I’m going to visit and talk with him,” he said. “It feels like the right thing to do. Do you believe in karma?”

Becky laughed. “Oh, please,” she said. “Tell me that the cynical David Kirk is not going all woo-woo when the chips are down.”

“Things happen for a reason,” he insisted. “If Grayson went to the trouble of telling me about this guy, there has to be a reason for me to speak with him.”

Becky stared at him.

“What?”

“Nothing,” she said. “You just continue to surprise me.”

David sighed. “So, are you coming with me?”

Her smile collapsed into a look of total shock. “You mean you’re really going? How are you going to get there? You don’t have a car.”

He shrugged. “They’ve got to have taxis, don’t they? Every place has taxis. And I have a pocket full of fresh money.”

“I have the drawings, Peter,” Jonathan said. “I know what your targets are. What I don’t have are the details of the how or the when.” Behind him, Vasily had fallen unconscious. The wetness of his breathing sounds told Jonathan that Arc Flash’s blows had caused one of the many broken bones to puncture the man’s lung. He sounded like he was drowning. Jonathan avoided looking at him.

Pyotr, on the other hand, kept staring, and as he did, he became increasingly unnerved. He said something in Russian that might have been a prayer.

“English,” Jonathan said.

Pyotr took his time answering, dividing the silence between Jonathan and Vasily. “You don’t understand,” he said, finally. “You don’t understand because you don’t want to understand.”

“Enlighten me,” Jonathan said.

“Americans are always focused on the wrong thing,” Pyotr said. His accent had grown thick enough that Jonathan had a hard time understanding what he was saying. “You determine that there is a single threat to your country, and then you focus all of your resources on that one thing. Even as the threat is weakened and ultimately destroyed, you refuse to look any further.”

“I’m not sure I understand what we’re talking about,” Jonathan said.

“We are talking about the downfall of the United States,” Pyotr said. “It is the thing upon which so much of the world is focused.” He allowed himself a smile. “You pretend that your enemies are religious enemies, and you fear only Muslims. You believe this even though those enemies die by the dozens under the rain of your bombs and the bullets of your secret killers.”

Vasily made a desperate choking sound that drew Jonathan’s attention. The man’s lips had turned a dull blue, and while his head bobbed as if asleep, his eyes remained open. Vasily was dying.

“I’m sorry about your friend,” Jonathan said. “It’s a terrible way to die. But a brutal death is part of the deal we all make when we go into this line of work.” Jonathan cringed at his own words. Hearing a man die as the result of torture meted out in his presence had stolen something from his soul.

“Look at me, Peter,” Jonathan said. “Try to ignore Vasily. It’s clear that he’ll be dead soon.”

Hesitantly, Pyotr retuned his gaze.

“You say that we don’t understand what are the greatest threats against us, but then you don’t tell me what the real threats are.”

“But you already know” Pyotr said. “We are right here.”

Boxers said, “I don’t know if you’ve noticed that you’re tied naked to a chair. I’m not feeling all that threatened.”

Sometimes, Jonathan wished that Boxers would keep his mouth shut.

“Ask any one of the passengers on that airplane in Chicago,” Pyotr said. “Americans are bullies. It’s not about your religion or about your so-called freedom. The world hates you for making war against peaceful people.”

Jonathan suppressed a sigh. With zealots, lectures all too often came as part of the package. Islamists were the worst of the lot, but former Communists came in a close second. He’d learned, though, that if you waited long enough, they’d abandon the bullshit and get around to the point.

“For Christ’s sake, Scorpion,” Arc Flash said, hefting his sledge.

Jonathan held out his hand to stop him, though he sensed that Horne was bluffing.

“Everybody benefits if you speed this along, Peter,” Jonathan said.

Horne said, “Screw this,” and he crashed the sledge down onto Vasily’s other shoulder, caving in that side, too. The blow elicited another shriek from the otherwise unconscious man.

“Screw you,” Boxers growled. He closed the distance to Arc Flash in three long, quick strides.

The little man tried to back up, but he couldn’t move fast enough.

Boxers ripped the sledge away with one hand, and drove Arc Flash into the back wall with the other. A shelf broke, raining torture tools onto the floor. When there was no place left to go, he pressed the sledge’s head under Horne’s jaw, at the spot where it met his neck, effectively cutting off his ability to breathe.

“No more,” the Big Guy said. His voice had turned raspy, a tell that Jonathan had come to recognize as the last station before Homicideville.

Jonathan considered intervening, but then decided that he didn’t care.

“Once more,” Boxers continued, “and I’ll gut shoot you and watch you bleed to death.”

Delivered by a different guy, those words might have sounded empty. Coming from Boxers, they sounded like a promise. As Horne’s face reddened, his eyes showed real terror.

His point made, Boxers pulled the sledge away and let the man breathe again.

Horne’s hands shot to his neck and he slid to the floor, gasping for air.

“Sit,” Boxers said. “Stay.” To Jonathan: “Sorry, Boss. He got on my last nerve.”

Big Guy recovered as quickly as he’d erupted, and Jonathan reminded himself for the millionth time how much better it was to have Boxers as a friend than an enemy.

Jonathan returned his attention to Pyotr. “They never did get along,” he said. “The good news is, for now Big Guy is on your side. He gets that you lost a friend — or will as soon as he dies of his injuries, but the fact remains that you are trying to blow up my country. In the process, you tried to kill the president’s wife. That’s bad juju, Pete.”

Pyotr scowled. “Jew?”

Jonathan laughed. “Juju,” he said. “Like voodoo.” The Russian still didn’t get it. “Never mind. The plan, Pete. What’s the plan?”

“Is already in play,” he said. He’d never sounded more Russian. “You cannot stop it.”

“Humor me.”

Pyotr looked down to his feet, a gesture of resolve to shut up. He’d said enough.

Jonathan inhaled noisily. “Please don’t make it go this way,” he said.

Pyotr continued to look at the floor.

“Hey Big Guy,” Jonathan said without shifting his gaze. “Do you still have the sledge?”

“Yup.”

“Would you shatter Pete’s left knee, please?”

“Love to.”

Jonathan more sensed than felt the Big Guy’s approach from behind.

Pyotr’s eyes grew huge. “No, no, no,” he said. “I tell you.”

Jonathan dared a look over his shoulder and saw the Big Guy with the sledge raised over his shoulder, poised for a home run swing. He’d never know if he was bluffing because he’d never ask.

“One chance, Pete,” Jonathan said. “I abhor torture, but I’ll watch you scream for mercy for hours before I let another tourist die on an airliner. Do you get where I’m coming from?”

Pyotr nodded like a bobble head. “Yes, yes. I understand. Please don’t hurt knee.”

Boxers’ shadow retreated.

“I won’t hurt knee if you tell truth,” Jonathan said. His Russian accent sucked.

“We have sleeping cells in your country,” Pyotr said. “They wait for orders to do violence.”

“What kind of violence?”

“Big violence. Big as East-West Airlines and even bigger.”

“Was that you?” Jonathan asked. “Did your sleeper cell shoot down the airliner?”

Pyotr smiled as he nodded. “Was perfect operation, no? You still do not know who was person who shot down.”

Jonathan shrugged. “We will,” he said. “We Americans aren’t good at everything, but we’re really good at ferreting out our enemies.” He didn’t add that Pyotr would be the very man to give them the intel they’d need to close that loop. “What does any of this have to do with Mrs. Darmond? Why did you attack her?”

Pyotr smiled. “Did you know she used to be one of us?”

Jonathan said nothing. In an interrogation, it was of utmost importance that information flow in only one direction. He asked the questions and the prisoner provided the answers. “Is it revenge?” he asked.

Pyotr scowled as if he didn’t fully understand the question. “Revenge is same as payback, yes?”

“I suppose.”

“Payback for how she betray her friends?”

“You tell me, Peter.”

“No. We are not interested in revenge. She knows secrets.”

“Of the targets you’re planning to hit,” Jonathan presumed.

“I don’t know what the secrets are,” Pyotr said. “I only know that she needed to be silenced.”

A piece of the puzzle fell into place. “So, the hit on the Wild Times Bar was an assassination attempt?”

Pyotr looked away.

“I need an answer, Pete.”

He nodded.

“And what about the police officer on the Mall?” Jonathan asked. “DeShawn Lincoln.”

“He saw too much and talked too much,” Pyotr said.

“What did he see and say?”

Pyotr shook his head. “I do not know. It doesn’t matter that I know. I do not design the machine. I am merely a mechanic.”

Across from Pyotr, Vasily managed one more giant breath, and then he died. The death rattle seemed to give Pyotr a moment of peace. Jonathan wondered whether it was because his friend was finally out of pain, or if it was because his boss could never rat him out for telling.

“By mechanic you mean killer,” Boxers clarified.

Pyotr did his best to pivot his head to see the Big Guy. “By mechanic I mean I fix things and make them right. I am a soldier.”

“Don’t honor yourself, asshole,” Boxers said. “You’re no soldier.”

Jonathan knew that the current path couldn’t lead to anywhere good, so he changed the subject. “And what about David Kirk and Becky Beckeman? What did they do that you had to fix?”

“The girl meant nothing to us,” Pyotr said. “She was — what is your word? Collateral damage. She was with Kirk.”

“And what had Kirk done?”

“Is that not obvious?”

“I need to hear it from you.”

“He also knew too much. He was Officer Lincoln’s last phone call.”

And so it was with cover-ups. Jonathan had seen the pattern a hundred times. Once a secret is blown, the only way to get the genie back into the bottle is to engage in a scorched-earth strategy of cleanups.

“The group that is doing this,” Jonathan said. The group you’re a part of. Does it have a name? Is it organized?”

“We don’t need a name,” Pyotr said. “We have memories and we have a mission.”

“Who’s the leader?”

Pyotr shook his head. “I do not know.”

“Then who is your boss? Who do you take orders from?”

He said a phrase in Russian that Jonathan didn’t understand. When pressed, he said, “I do not know the English. Perhaps drop dead?”

Boxers bristled. “Easy there, pal.”

“I think he meant dead drop,” Jonathan said, a term of art in the espionage trade that meant a pre-established location to leave and retrieve messages. It remained one of the most reliable means by which clandestine people communicated with each other. “Explain to me how it worked.”

Pyotr hesitated, but Jonathan sensed that it was mainly for show. The thing about breaking somebody was once the information started to trickle, a flow was generally close behind. As much as Scorpion hated to admit it, watching Vasily be tortured to death had loosened Pyotr’s tongue. People in pain may or may not give reliable information; but people in fear of pain would give up anyone and anything.

“My phone would ring at a precise hour. If it rang, then I would go to the drop dead. Dead drop. The instructions would be there.”

“Who called you?”

“I do not know.”

“Well, who was on the other end of the line when you answered?”

“I did not answer it,” Pyotr said. “The phone would ring at only one of two times per day if it was going to ring at all. At four fifty-seven exactly. Same time, morning or afternoon. Not a minute sooner or later. If it rang, I would go.”

“He’s lying,” Arc Flash said. He hadn’t yet dared to stand from where Boxers had planted him.

“Shut up,” Big Guy said.

Jonathan said, “You mean to tell me that you were never curious?”

“Of course I was curious. But I have orders, and the orders were not to answer when phone rang at four fifty-seven.”

Soldiers the world over suppressed all manner of emotions and foibles when their orders told them to. The story made sense to Jonathan.

“What sorts of things would you be instructed to do?”

“Mostly, I would be deliveryman. Pick up a package at one place and drop it at another. And before you ask, I never saw the people on either end of the delivery. I would pick up at a place and drop off at a place.”

“Always the same pick-up location?” Jonathan asked.

“No. Always same dead drop. It would then give location for pick-up. At pick-up, I get instruction for drop-off.”

It was a good way to control the flow of information, Jonathan thought. You never wanted human assets to know more than they needed to. Even now, under the heat of a coerced confession of sorts, Pyotr’s betrayal of his superiors could only go so far.

“Where is the dead drop?”

“In a restroom in Fairfax, Virginia. In hotel.”

“Which hotel?”

“Hilton Garden Inn on Route Fifty. Instructions would be taped behind toilet in men’s room off of the lobby. No one could see it if they were not looking for it.”

“And these packages. What would be in them?”

“Always orders not to look.”

“How often did you and Vasily work together?”

“Never before now. Never before this mission.”

“This mission to kill,” Jonathan clarified.

“Da. This mission to kill. But I do not know why. The dead drop told me to go to the park outside of the Foggy Bottom Metro Station wearing New England Patriots knit cap with blue Levis and white tennis shoes. I would meet a man wearing brown shoes, tan pants, and a blue ski parka. I would say to him, ‘sure is cold,’ and he would say, ‘I am ready for vacation in Saint Kitts.’ That person was Vasily.”

“This isn’t the first time you’ve seen him,” Jonathan said.

“Was first time in years. Since we arrive in America. He had orders for killing. I only assisted.”

“Who did his orders come from?”

“Should have asked him,” Pyotr said. It was his first jab back at his captors.

Jonathan shot a look to Horne. “Would have been nice to have a chance to. In fact—”

His earpiece popped to life. “Scorpion, Mother Hen.”

He pressed the transmit button on his vest. “Go ahead.”

“Two bits of news. First: Our recent houseguests have left. I have no idea where they went.”

“Idiots,” Boxers said to Jonathan. He was plugged into the same net and heard everything.

“I just received a message from Wolverine. She needs to see you ASAP. No details. And she said it has to be here.”

“Where’s here?”

“In the Cave.” While they spoke on encrypted radio channels, Jonathan was keenly aware that there was nothing that couldn’t be listened to or jammed by someone who knew what they were doing. The Cave meant the office. And it was an extraordinarily odd place to meet.

“That’s crossing the worlds a little too closely, don’t you think?” Boxers asked on the air.

“No argument from me,” Venice said. “I’m just reporting the request.”

“What’s her ETA?” Jonathan asked.

“You are to notify me when you’re an hour out, and then I will notify her.”

Jonathan looked to Boxers, gave his signature shrug. “I don’t like it,” Big Guy said off the air.

Jonathan pressed the transmit button. “Make the call. We’ll be there in thirty.”

“Stand up, Arc Flash,” Jonathan commanded.

The little man did as he was told. He might have been beaten, but he hadn’t been cowed. “More problems afoot?” he asked.

Jonathan took a step forward, and Horne responded with a concomitant step backward. “Listen to me, Torture Boy,” he said, leveling a finger at the man. “What’s done here is done, and by that I mean that you leave both of these men alone. I’ll get some of Wolverine’s people out here to take care of them. You just lock the door. Are we clear on this?”

Horne recovered his lost ground with a step forward. “I hear you, Scorpion, but never forget who I am, and where you are. I do my job, and you do yours, and if we both do them right, the world becomes a safer place. But don’t think for a moment that you scare me.”

“How about me?” Boxers said, stepping forward. “I figure I’ve got to make you at least a little nervous.”

He stood close enough that Horne had to crane his neck to see Big Guy’s face. He showed wisdom in not replying.

“Just don’t hurt them any more than you already have,” Jonathan said.