High Treason

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

David felt as if he were living someone else’s life. The events of the past couple of days were so far beyond the bounds that typically defined his existence that for a moment out there on the range in the glare and the cold and the sun, he felt a little dizzy. Was it possible to have so vivid a dream?

The answer, of course, was no, but that didn’t make the surrealism of the moment any more… real.

Now they were gathered back in crazy Striker’s little house, boots off and warming near the fire, while the entire team snarfed down pizza and hotdogs. Apparently, that was all Striker had in his fridge. It wasn’t till he smelled the food that he realized how hungry he was.

He found out the hard way that Big Guy was hungry, too. Damn near lost his arm reaching for the same pizza slice as he.

Together, they ate like locusts, consuming every morsel within ten minutes.

When the table was cleared of dishes, Scorpion pulled a heavy-duty laptop out of his enormous backpack — he called it a rucksack — and positioned it so everyone could see the screen.

After a few taps on the keys, a daytime picture of Saint Stephen’s Island appeared in high definition.

“This is the latest satellite imagery we have,” Scorpion said. “The good news and bad news is the addition of more guards. Here, here, and here.”

David couldn’t see what he was pointing at.

“Look for the shadows,” Scorpion explained. “They’re easier to make out than the tops of heads.”

Of course. Once he saw that, the human forms were obvious.

“These images refresh every four minutes,” Scorpion went on. “Mother Hen will be monitoring them back at the War Room and will let us know if anything changes significantly.”

Yelena raised her hand. “I don’t understand how more guards can be anything but bad news.”

“It means that there’s something there on the property that’s worth a closer guard than yesterday. In my mind, that means that your family has arrived.”

He clicked another button, and the imagery changed to something that resembled a photographic negative. “This is thermal imaging,” he said. “Remember yesterday, when we looked, only this area at the top appeared warm? Well look now at the southern wing. It’s warm now, too. According to the drawings we found on the Internet, and augmented by records Mother Hen dug up, that entire building is stacked cell blocks. Three floors of them, except for the wing where we expect the PCs to be, which is four floors.”

“How are we going to know which level they’re on?” Becky asked.

Scorpion held up both hands, as if to ward off an attacker. “No. There is no we inside the compound, unless you’re talking about Big Guy and me. You three will be outside the compound. More on that in a minute.”

David felt an emotion that was hard to describe. Could it be disappointment that he wasn’t going to be shot at? Maybe it was just disappointment that he wasn’t trusted enough to be on the real team.

“I want to be there,” Yelena said.

“I know you do,” Scorpion said. “But this isn’t about what’s best for you, it’s about what’s best for your son and grandson. Big Guy and I have been doing this for a long time. The fact that we’re here talking to you is perfect evidence that we’re good at what we do.”

“But—”

“Hear me out. In the very best case, if everything breaks our way, we’ll already be dealing with two people who may or may not know up from down. To add a third — and with all respect, consider the possibility that you might get shot or be injured — now we’ll have more victims than operators. It’s not a sustainable model.”

David watched as the words rolled over the First Lady — they pierced her, really — he saw her try to construct an argument, and then abandon the effort when the inherent sense of it all settled into her brain.

“Big Guy and I will move heaven and earth to reunite you with your family.”

Becky tentatively raised a hand. It hadn’t been going well for her thus far, and she seemed hesitant to step in something again. “Suppose you and Big Guy, you know, don’t…” She couldn’t complete the sentence.

“Make it?” Scorpion prompted. “Suppose we get killed? It won’t happen.”

“You can’t know that.”

“I have to know that. I have to know that beyond any shadow of doubt, because if I consider failure to be an option, then failure becomes the only possible outcome.”

“That’s hubris,” Yelena said. “That’s arrogance.”

Scorpion seemed taken aback for just a few seconds, and then he shrugged. “Okay,” he said. “But it won’t happen.”

David didn’t understand the point of the question in the first place. If the rescuers died, then everyone died. What was the point of even discussing that?

Scorpion clicked another key. The thermal image became a map. “We leave from here,” he said, pointing to a spot on a service road that ran parallel to the Ottawa River Parkway, roughly south-southwest of the southernmost point of Saint Stephen’s Island. “David, you and Becky will just leave the boat trailer there, and Big Guy and I will paddle around to the northern tip of the island, and that’s where we’ll moor the boat.”

In essence what he was describing was an inverted J, a route that seemed needlessly complicated and very long.

“Why not just go straight north to the southern tip of the island?” David asked. “It’d be a lot quicker.”

Scorpion’s jaw set and he drew in a quick breath. Apparently, Scorpion didn’t appreciate being second-guessed. “Remember that getting in is the easy part. Everybody’s dumb and happy because even though they’ve geared up with additional guards, none of those guards actually expects anything to happen. After things go boom and the shooting starts, it’ll start getting hairy. It’s the getting-out part that’s difficult.”

“More to my point,” David pressed. “Since the shortest distance between two points is a straight line, I don’t understand—”

Jonathan cut him off with a raised hand. “You will, okay? Let me finish, and when I’m done, we’ll get to whatever questions you still have. Deal?”

David set his own jaw. Scorpion wasn’t interested in input. David supposed he understood, but his life was on the line, too, you know?

“We’re going to kick this thing off with a big-ass explosion,” Scorpion said. The map on the screen moved, and they were looking at a satellite photo again. “The chapel is now designated Building Alpha. In fact let’s get the rest of the labels out of the way.”

The chapel — Building Alpha — sat nestled in the western wall. Across a tiny yard area, four wings comprised a near-perfect square. The northernmost east-west wing was designated Bravo. Then, moving counterclockwise around the remainder of the square, the wings were designated Charlie, Delta, and Echo. The north-south-oriented service buildings on the western wall of the compound were designated Foxtrot and Golf. The big building that was the main cell block — the northernmost building in the compound — was Hotel.

“The first seconds are key,” Scorpion explained. “We’re going to set charges in the chapel — Building Alpha — then move to the main gate between Foxtrot and Golf to set them off. That’s going to get their attention. When they’re running around trying to figure out where Armageddon just came from, we’re going to get into the cell block inside Delta, snatch the good guys, and then run like bunny rabbits.” He tossed a nod toward Big Guy. “Okay, three bunny rabbits and a big honkin’ tortoise.”

Big Guy flipped him off as David stifled a laugh.

“Won’t people be shooting at you?” Becky asked. A stupider question had never been asked, and she seemed to realize it as she shrank away.

“We’ll have contingencies in place to protect the Mishins,” Scorpion assured. The way he said it reinforced David’s feeling that Scorpion was deliberately holding back operational details. “But do I think it’s going to be a hot extraction?” Scorpion continued. “Oh, yeah. And this is where you three come in.”

David was aware of sitting taller in his chair.

“Once the noise starts, it’s going to be pure bedlam. That’s the intent. But since that River Street Bridge is the only way on or off the island, every cop and firefighter in Canada is going to be streaming in from there. We’re talking roadblocks and God knows what else. Can you see that in your imagination?”

David thought it was interesting that he actually waited for an answer to what he’d assumed was a rhetorical question. They all said yes.

“So before we blow the first charge, I need for you to be on the other side of the river in Quebec at this spot right here.” He pointed to a tiny inlet at the base of what appeared to be commercial buildings near the river shore on the Quebec side of the river. “This is our exfil spot, right here. If we do our jobs right, we’ll be en route back to the chopper by the time anybody even knows what the hell has happened. If you’re not there, everything else will have been for nothing. Do. Not. Screw. This. Up.”

David felt a chill. Where Big Guy radiated pure menace all the time, Scorpion seemed like a nice enough guy. Polished, even. Someone you might want to meet for a drink after work. But in that last statement, his eyes flashed a homicidal intensity that took David’s breath away.

Who was this man?

When the briefing was done, Jonathan and Boxers separated themselves from the others and wandered back to the barns. Striker had already moved the Huey out of the way so that he could hook a tractor to the EC135 and pull it out into the open.

“I don’t like other people in the cockpit,” Boxers said. “It’s his bird, but it’s our op. We have a way of doing things, and it’s worked real good for us for a long time. Why are you giving in so easily?”

As happened every winter at this time, Jonathan was more than ready for spring. He was tired of schlepping through snow. “Why are you wrapped so tight about this?” he asked. “He’s not a crop duster. He flew for the 160th, for God’s sake.”

“A long time ago.”

“We left the unit a long time ago,” Jonathan countered.

“But it ain’t like we stopped practicing the craft, is it? He doesn’t even have two feet.”

“And you don’t have two legs.”

“Bullshit. One of ’em’s just mostly titanium.” Boxers was the only person Jonathan ever knew who’d learned to walk again after taking a hit with a fifty-cal.

Granted, it was a glancing blow, but still. “Why are you being so… flexible? You’re never flexible on this stuff.”

Jonathan didn’t want to answer, because he knew how the answer would sound, and he wasn’t in the mood to take Big Guy’s shit.

“Okay, don’t tell me,” Boxers said. “What the hell, it’s only my friggin’ life. Not to mention the president’s wife, and her spawn. Oh, yeah, and two reporters, but I plan to push them out of the chopper, anyway, as soon as we’re airborne. I have no need to know.”

“I think he needs it,” Jonathan blurted. There, it was out.

Boxers pulled to a halt. “Oh, God. Tell me you didn’t just say that. He needs it? I don’t even know what that friggin’ means.”

But the level of his agitation told Jonathan that he knew exactly what it meant.

“He wants to feel relevant again,” Jonathan said.

“They’re his birds, he’s a goddamned war hero, and he wants to feel relevant again. I don’t see anything wrong with giving him a shot.”

Boxers gathered himself with a deep breath. “Good God, you’ve been sneaking off and watching PBS, haven’t you? Oprah, maybe? When did we become the friggin’ USO? I don’t give a shit what he needs to feel. Christ, I don’t give a shit what you need to feel and you’re as close to a friend as I’ve ever had. This is all about the mission, Dig.”

Jonathan planted his fists on his hips. “No shit, really? This is about a mission? Why hadn’t I thought about that?”

“I don’t mean to insult—”

“Then quit insulting. Quit insulting me and quit insulting Striker. That bullet took away more than his foot, don’t you see that? Do you remember what an artist he was in the air?”

“I remember he was a cowboy.”

“A cowboy who saved a shitload of good guys who would have been dead otherwise.”

“But look at him, Boss. He looks like he stepped out of Woodstock.”

“That’s just hair and attitude,” Jonathan said. “We’re cutting him a break. If we need to punt him at the end, we’ll punt him. You can take over midflight if it comes to that.”

“No, I can’t,” Boxers said. “That’s the thing. You haven’t looked inside the cockpit of that bird, have you?”

“I thought I did.”

“Well, next time, look again. There’s no second seat up front. The left seat is a passenger seat. He could have a heart attack or just go suicidal and there’d be nothing I could do about it.”

Jonathan had in fact not seen that. And it was outside his normal operating parameters to trust any outsiders with mission-critical responsibilities. But this felt like the right thing to do. “Striker flies the aircraft,” he said. He started walking again.

Boxers followed. Jonathan could feel his displeasure, but he also knew that Big Guy was a soldier’s soldier. Once a decision was made, he would respect it, even if he didn’t like it.

But if things went to shit, Jonathan knew to expect an earful.