High Treason

CHAPTER THREE

About five miles into the drive, Jonathan began suspecting that he knew where they were headed. As they drove through Virginia’s Piedmont, the relentless farmland was spotted with shacks and mansions, all of this in the vicinity of George Washington’s birthplace on the banks of the Potomac River.

His suspicions were confirmed when Shrom directed Boxers to pilot the Batmobile through the open gate in the stone wall that defined Meadowlark Farms, a sprawling spread owned by a freelance spook named Griffin Horne, with whom Jonathan had worked a few times in the past.

Boxers shot his boss a knowing look in the rearview mirror, but he said nothing. If Irene Rivers was in fact here to meet them, she would not want her Fibbie minions to know that Jonathan and the Bureau used the same freelancers. That was especially true of the likes of Horne, whose allegiances had everything to do with good guys versus bad, and less than nothing to do with the alphabet soup that defined inside-the-Beltway rivalries. Jonathan had no doubt that Horne had worked for the FBI against the CIA or State, and then switched teams to work the other way around. Inside the government, where everyone claimed to be on the side of God and country, the border between good guys and bad guys was more of a blurry stripe than a fine line.

Boxers pulled to a stop just inside the gate. “Where to?” he asked. It was a bluff, of course. Horne conducted all of his business in the same place.

“To the barn,” Shrom said. “They said it would be easy to find.”

Easier for some than others, Jonathan didn’t say.

Easily fifty feet wide and seventy-five feet long, Jonathan suspected the barn was visible from a low orbit. The last time Jonathan conducted business here, Horne had left the huge double doors open for them. This time, they not only were closed, but they were guarded by clones of Agent Kane.

“Well, shit,” Boxers said, noting the guards. “Now I’m all scared and stuff.”

“Stop the vehicle,” Jonathan ordered when they were still fifty yards from the barn. “Time for all government employees to walk.”

“What’s going on?” Kane asked, indignant. Jonathan was beginning to think that indignant was the only trick Kane knew.

Jonathan explained. “You’re getting out and walking ahead. You’re going to tell the gentlemen with the squiggles in their ears to open the big doors and step aside. Tell them to keep their hands neutral, and assure them that if I see anything that looks remotely threatening, I won’t hesitate to kill them.”

Kane objected, “Who do—”

“Don’t,” Jonathan interrupted. “I’ve got eggs in my refrigerator older than you. You want me, you play by my rules. None of this is negotiable.” He paused a few seconds, waiting for them to read the subtext. “Including the part where you get out of my truck.”

Shrom poked his protégé in the arm. “That’s our cue to leave.” He tried to open the door, but it was locked.

Jonathan saw Boxers’ eyes looking for confirmation, and then the Big Guy released the locks from the front seat. The FBI agents slid out, pushed the doors shut, and started walking toward their doppelgängers at the barn door.

With the locks reset, Boxers drilled Jonathan with a glare in the rearview mirror. “Does any of this feel right to you?”

“Nope.” And being at Horne’s place didn’t improve things. The fact that his loyalties shifted so easily with the source of the paycheck made it dangerous to be the last to arrive at the party.

“Worst case,” Jonathan said, “we back out through the doors and run over a few people getting out of Dodge.” The Batmobile was as heavily armored as any government limousine, capable of deflecting armor-piercing ammunition. Combined with run-flat tires and massively reinforced bumpers, there was no fear of getting caught in a kill zone.

As additional insurance, Jonathan lifted a patch of carpet at his feet and revealed a push-button keypad. He entered the code, lifted a hatch, and revealed a cache of weapons. He lifted two collapsed M4 assault rifles and four loaded thirty-round magazines of 5.56 millimeter ammunition. He loaded and chambered both, and then wended his way past the middle row of seats to place a rifle and mag on the passenger seat next to Boxers. He then settled into the seat previously occupied by Agent Shrom and laid the second rifle across his lap.

They waited until Shrom and Kane finished palavering with the guards and the barn doors were wide open before Boxers started moving. “What do you think?” the Big Guy asked. “Slow or fast?”

“Split the difference, but with attitude.”

Boxers brought the Batmobile up to about twenty-five miles an hour approaching the opening — fast enough to make the guards think twice about getting in the way, but not so fast as to overcommit to the unknown. It helped that they both knew what the barn looked like inside.

As soon as they crossed the threshold, Jonathan relaxed. The first face he saw belonged to Irene Rivers. She stood with two men who looked vaguely familiar, but whose faces he couldn’t quite place. Irene’s posture, with her weight shifted to one foot and her arms crossed, told him that she wasn’t surprised by the drama of his entrance, and her smirk told him that they had nothing to fear from this meeting. “Okay,” Jonathan said. “We’re cool.”

Boxers hit the brakes and they jerked to a stop. “Who are the suits?” Big Guy asked.

“Ask me in five minutes.”

“Isn’t the tall one a White House guy?”

Of the two men, one stood a head taller than the other. With slicked black hair, white shirt, and thin black tie, he looked like he stepped off the set of a lawyer TV show, and yes, his face did look like one that was frequently featured on the evening news.

“Holy shit,” Jonathan said. “That’s Doug Winters.”

“White House chief of staff, right?”

Jonathan and Boxers exchanged grins. Yeah, this was going to be interesting.

“Leave the long guns in the truck?” Boxers asked.

Jonathan laughed. “Yeah, I think that’s probably best.”

They exited the vehicle together, and as they stepped down to the ground Irene started toward them. They met about halfway in the cavernous space. She extended her hand. “Leave it to Digger Grave to enter big,” she said.

Jonathan grasped her hand and covered the handshake with his left. He’d always liked Irene, even beyond what was necessary for their business relationship. Tall for a woman — he pegged her at five-ten — she clearly worked hard to stay in shape, and her strawberry hair was somehow always perfectly coiffed. She had a kind of perpetual smirk that told the world that it would be useless to ply her with bullshit. She’d worked her way through the ranks of the FBI the hard way, and still occasionally crashed a door or two just to keep her skills sharp. What was there not to love?

“It’s always a pleasure, Director Rivers.” Because of the other personalities in the room, he kept it formal.

She smiled and offered her hand to the Big Guy. “How are you, Boxers?”

He grumbled something that probably meant “Fine.” Ever conscious of his size, Boxers occasionally looked awkward when he shook hands with people — as if he were afraid he might hurt them accidentally. This was one of those times.

“Is that the White House chief of staff?” Jonathan asked quietly.

She winked. “Come on over. I’ll introduce you.”

The inside of Horne’s barn looked more like a movie set for a barn than a working one. An old baling machine sat in the corner along with a John Deere tractor that might have been new in the sixties. Lots of sharp implements hung from the walls, but the rust on the blades made Jonathan wonder if they’d ever been used. Sixteen-by-sixteen-inch columns supported the network of eight-inch beams, which in turn held up the thirty-foot ceiling. Typical of every time Jonathan had visited the place, the sheer volume of space seemed to absorb all the available light, bathing everything and everyone in perpetual dusk.

Jonathan and Boxers followed as Irene led the way to the pair of men, who made no move to step forward to meet them. Jonathan wondered if maybe Irene had instructed them to hang back, so as not to spook the newcomers.

Irene gestured with an open palm to the man Jonathan recognized. “Douglas Winters, meet Jonathan Grave of Fisherman’s Cove, Virginia.” To Jonathan, she added, “And as you guessed, Mr. Winters is the president’s chief of staff.”

Winters flashed a politician’s smile and extended his hand. “It’s a pleasure,” he said.

Jonathan hated politicians’ smiles. They rang too many warning bells. But there was no reason not to shake hands. He said nothing, though.

The smile faltered. “I’m getting the feeling that maybe you didn’t vote for my boss,” Winters said.

“I don’t remember who I voted for,” Jonathan said, refusing to rise to the bait. “Far as I’m concerned, it doesn’t matter. Been sent to war by both parties, been lied to by both.” On the spectrum of species that Jonathan admired, politicians occupied a spot significantly south of the sand flea.

“And to think you were never a diplomat,” Irene said. “This is Jonathan’s business partner, Boxers.”

Winters’ eyes flashed. “Boxer? More like mastiff, if you ask me. You’re a big fella.”

This time, Boxers looked less concerned about hurting the hand he shook, and the corners of Winters’ eyes twitched from the pressure. Boxers didn’t like to be teased.

Irene next gestured toward the shortest of the suits, the one whose distended jacket spoke of a holstered pistol. “And this is Director Ramsey Miller,” she said. “My counterpart at the United States Secret Service.”

Miller nodded instead of shaking, and that was fine with Jonathan.

“Quite the high-level meeting,” Jonathan said. “Secrecy, too. You’ve got my attention.”

“Have you paid attention to the news this morning, Mr. Graves?” Miller asked.

“It’s Grave,” Jonathan corrected. “No S. Get to it.”

Every clandestine meeting Jonathan had ever attended — and there’d been hundreds of them over the years — presented a kind of tarantella that required early posturing. Such meetings always involved strong personalities, and all of the players wanted to be in charge. Jonathan thought of it as dick-knocking, and in this case, since he was clearly the one with the skills that others wanted, he got to be the obnoxious one.

“The news reported a drive-by shooting last night,” Irene said, hijacking the narrative. “Six Secret Service agents were killed.”

Actually, that did ring a bell. “At a DC nightclub, right?”

“Exactly.”

Jonathan gave another nod to Miller. “I’m sorry for your loss, sir.” He meant it, too. Losing a member of your unit felt like losing a member of your family.

Miller said, “Thank you.”

Jonathan said, “Not to get ahead, but the fact that we’re here leads me to believe that maybe the media got a few details wrong?”

Miller deferred to Winters. “Well, they got it right insofar as they reported what we told them.”

“Uh-oh,” Boxers grumbled.

Winters continued. “The version of the story floated to the media has the agents dying on their own time during a random shooting. In reality, they were on duty, and protecting the First Lady.”

Boxers rumbled out a chuckle. “I knew this was going to be good.”

Jonathan said, “Was she stepping out again to someplace embarrassing?”

“She was kidnapped, Mr. Grave,” Winters said.

Jonathan’s jaw dropped. He didn’t surprise easily, but this one nailed him. He waited for the rest.

“That’s all we know,” Winters said. “Her entire detail was killed, and she was taken away.”

“By whom?” Jonathan asked.

“We don’t know.”

Jonathan looked to Irene. “How is that possible? She’s the First-freakin’-Lady. How does she get out of anyone’s sight?”

“The first step is to kill her security detail,” Miller said.

Okay, this was getting circular. “What do you want from us?” Boxers asked. “You’re the FBI.”

“We want to keep this incident low profile,” Winters said.

A laugh escaped from Jonathan’s throat before he could stop it. Irene put a hand on his arm to silence him.

“These are difficult times,” Winters said. “Our enemies feel more empowered than they have in years—”

And whose fault is that? Jonathan didn’t ask.

“—financial markets are fragile. Americans’ confidence in their government is at an all-time low. If this news leaked out, the results could be devastating.”

“Shouldn’t it be devastating?” Jonathan asked. “I mean, agents are dead and the First Lady is being held hostage. That’s pretty damned hot stuff.”

“Of course it is,” Winters said. “We’re willing to move heaven and earth to clear this up. That’s why we’re turning to you, Mr. Grave.”

Boxers laughed. “You’re shitting me, right? What, you got more important things to take care of? The president too consumed with raising campaign money to devote time to this little detail?”

Winters shot a forefinger at Boxers’ nose. From the posture, he might have been pointing at a hole in the ceiling. “Watch yourself,” he snapped.

Boxers growled.

“Let it go, both of you,” Jonathan said. “Why us? You are, you know, the federal government. A few million folks in uniform and all that.”

“It’s a domestic matter,” Miller said. “The military is banned by law.”

“Jesus.” Jonathan turned to Irene. “And last time I checked, you have a few ambitious people working for you, too.”

Irene held up her hands. “Don’t think I haven’t offered.”

“We can’t risk it,” Winters said. “The news is just too big. To do what we have to do would require the involvement of courts and other law enforcement agencies. There’s no way the secret wouldn’t leak out.”

“And the secret is more important than Mrs. Darmond’s life?”

“Of course not,” Winters scoffed.

“But kinda?” Jonathan prompted.

Winters set his jaw and took a loud, deep breath. “Are you willing to help us or not?”

Jonathan squinted and looked to Boxers for a hint to what he was missing. “You’re not willing to trust the entire United States government, but you’re willing to trust me? How does that work?”

Winters nodded toward Irene. “You come very highly recommended. Director Rivers assures me that you’re very good at what you do, and that you know how to keep secrets. We’ll give you all the access you need. And we’ll pay your gate rate.”

Jonathan started to say something, but Irene cut him off. “Do this for us, Dig,” she said. “I swear to you that we’ll give you all the resources you need.”

“People?”

“Except people. We figure that we’ve got some time to work. Whoever took Mrs. Darmond hasn’t yet contacted us with a ransom demand, and they haven’t put her picture up on a website. That means they want this to stay quiet, too. Or, they’re waiting for us to break the news.”

“Or maybe they’re in the process of killing her now,” Boxers offered.

“In which case, we still have the benefit of time,” Miller said. “If she is dead, then she will be no less dead in a week.”

In a twisted way, Jonathan actually admired the honesty, despite the coldness of the delivery. “Does the president know about this?” he asked.

“Of course he does,” Winters replied. “He’s worried sick, but he also understands the gravity of the global concerns.”

Boxers shook his head. “You’re telling me that in the entirety of the US government, you can’t cobble together a handful—” He stopped and turned his gaze to Jonathan.

They both got the Big Picture at the same instant. “You want us to break the law,” Jonathan said.

“We want you to find the First Lady,” Miller said, and he looked like the words might have upset his stomach.

Jonathan looked to Irene. She shrugged with her eyebrows. “If we follow the rules, we leave a paper trail. The paper trail will most certainly be leaked, and then it will be followed.”

Just to be sure, Jonathan said, “No warrants, no due process?”

“I’m told this might not be the first time you’ve done that,” Winters said. “In fact, rumor has it that you might have had something to do with thwarting an assassination attempt at one point.”

“Not that they have any evidence to that effect,” Irene said interjected quickly.

Jonathan’s mind raced. If Irene hadn’t been in the room, he’d have been out of there. But she had so much cred with him that he was nearly willing to ignore the warning bells in his head. At least temporarily.

“What about prosecuting the bad guys?” Boxers asked. Most of their conversations in the past had implied dire consequences for the Security Solutions team if they’d sullied evidence and therefore endangered the government’s case.

“Not all that much of a concern to us,” Miller said. “If you can find Mrs. Darmond, we don’t care what happens to the people who took her.”

Jonathan’s eyes narrowed. “You’re saying you want us to kill them.”

“I’m saying that we don’t care one way or the other.”

Jonathan shifted his eyes to the White House chief of staff. “I want to hear you say that.”

Winters didn’t drop a beat. “We don’t care one way or the other what happens to the kidnappers.”

Boxers said, “Cool.”

Jonathan held up a hand for silence and drilled his gaze through Winters. “Then we’ll let them go,” he said. “We’re not assassins.”

The words hung untouched. The unspoken truth was that each of them knew people who were assassins, but no one wanted it on even this small a record.

“Are you in or not?” Winters said, finally.

“What happens in three or four days if we can’t make this thing happen?” Jonathan asked. “People are going to find out.”

“And if they do, we’ll handle it,” Winters said. “We’d prefer that it not get to that. If it does, then we can take over the whole operation. You’ll be off the hook and the world’s economy and security will be destabilized.”

Jonathan ears grew hot. It was a cheap shot to lay all of that at his feet. “I’ll shoulder the responsibility that I sign on for, Mr. Winters. I don’t do politics.” He turned to Irene. “What resources do I get?”

“Whatever you need. In fact, I’ve got something for you both.” She reached into the pocket of her suit jacket and produced two pocket-sized leather folders, which she handed to Jonathan. He recognized them as FBI credentials. “I believe you already have the appropriate badges. But you need new names.”

The old aliases were now permanent fixtures on the Interpol list of fugitives. Jonathan thumbed open the first folder and saw Boxers’ picture. “Here you go, Jason Kaufman,” he said, passing it over. He noted that his own read Richard Horgan. “Are these real?” he asked.

“Real enough to get you through a background check, but not enough to get you a pension.”

Jonathan craned his neck to get Boxers’ vote.

“I’m in,” Big Guy said.

This was a mistake. Enough of the circumstances didn’t make sense, and the fingers of the kidnapping reached far too high into the world power structure for any good to come of this, but Irene had never once said no to him when he needed her.

“Fine,” he said with a sigh. “Start at the beginning and tell me everything you know.”