King and Maxwell

CHAPTER 31

ALAN GRANT LOWERED HIS PISTOL with the laser sight on the Picatinny rail as Sean drove off.

It would not be as simple as a trigger pull, although the time would come when it would be something that basic. He slipped his gun back into its shoulder holster and sat there with the engine running while he thought through some things.

Mary Hesse, a DTI grunt. Worked with Sam Wingo teaching him how to speak languages of the Middle East. She was a dead end. But there were other trails out there that could lead King and Maxwell somewhere.

He put his Mercedes sedan in gear and drove out of Chantilly, heading west toward the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. The roads turned from interstates to highway to state routes and finally to rural road switchbacks.

He finally turned onto a gravel road, drove up a hill, turned left, and skidded to a stop in front of a small, ramshackle cabin. He climbed out of the car and checked his watch; it was nearing midnight. Time was meaningless to him. He had long ago ceased to operate on a nine-to-five schedule.

He popped the trunk and looked down at the woman lying there.

Her hands and feet were bound with flexi-cuffs, mouth taped, eyes blindfolded. All these steps were probably unnecessary since she was drugged. But he was a cautious man. Cautious people, he had found, lived to fight another day.

He lifted her up and carried her to the porch. He set her down, unlocked the front door – triple locks and a security system run off a propane-fired generator that also provided lighting – picked her back up, and carried her over the threshold.

There was nothing matrimonial about the gesture.

He walked into the back room where the window had been blacked out.

There was a metal table in the middle of this room. He laid her down on the table, removed her blindfold, and stepped back. He took off his coat and laid his pistol aside. It would just get in his way. He turned on the overhead light.

As he watched, she started waking up. He looked at his watch. Right on time.

Jean Wingo’s eyes fluttered once, twice, and then remained open. Her look was confused at first; then she looked to the side and saw him.

She stiffened, her eyes instantly filling with apprehension.

Grant gently removed the tape covering her mouth.

She said breathlessly, “What are you doing?” She looked around. “Why did you bring me here?”

“To talk.”

“You drugged me, tied me up, and now I’m lying on a metal table. You could have just called, for God’s sake.”

Grant could tell the woman’s courage was returning.

She tried to sit up. He put on a pair of leather gloves and forced her back down on the table. With her legs and arms bound it was not a difficult thing to do.

“Please let me up.”

“Not until we’ve talked. I need a debrief.”

“Where are we?”

“In a safe place.”

He pulled up a chair and sat next to her.

“Can I sit up, please?”

He put an arm under her back and helped her to a sitting position.

She eyed him warily. “What do you want to know that I haven’t already told you?”

“For starters, why did you leave?”

“Tyler hired these detectives. I got nervous.”

“You left without permission. You signed on for the mission. You can’t change the rules midway through.”

“I understand that, Alan, I’m sorry. But conditions on the ground change. And I had to change with them. These detectives–”

“I have that under control. Your leaving has complicated things. Tyler is now with King and Maxwell. I lost three men to them. This all could have been prevented if you had spoken up and controlled Tyler. If he hadn’t gotten suspicious he wouldn’t have hired anyone. He would have believed what the Army told him and that would be that.”

“Wingo sent him an email.”

“Which we know about. But it could have been sent by anyone. Not necessarily his father. Again, if you had stuck to the script, which had this contingency built in, it would have been taken care of.”

“Look, I’m sorry, okay? Every plan does not go smoothly.”

“Mine did. Until now.”

“What, did you bring me here to torture me? Or kill me? How is that going to help things?”

Again, Grant could tell she was nervous but trying to cover that with bravado.

“No and no. And it wouldn’t help things. I just want to see if you have any useful information to convey. Then I will redeploy you. But you need to understand that you screwed up. There have to be consequences, Jean.”

“I think I more than carried my weight. I got designated as Wingo’s ‘bride.’ I carried this whole thing pretty flawlessly the last year. The kid never warmed up to me. And Wingo was Wingo. It hasn’t exactly been a walk in the park.”

“I understand that. Just tell me anything you might have learned and we can head back to town.”

“I left the house when things started to get hairy. I called you and told you what I was doing.”

“And I told you to stay the course.”

“Easy for you to say.”

“What else?”

“That’s pretty much it.”

“Any more communications from Wingo on his son’s email?”

“There was nothing. Wingo hasn’t tried to contact him again.” She looked curious. “What exactly happened over there? You never said.”

“Wingo lost the cargo, but my people lost him. He’s out there. Probably trying to figure out what happened and attempting to get back here. He has made contact with his immediate superior. Said superior did not believe his explanation. He is a marked man. DoD is putting major resources toward finding him. We’re of course looking for him too.”

“So he won’t stay out there long.”

“But we don’t need the DoD to find him, because they might just believe that he didn’t take the cargo. Then they start to look elsewhere. I want their focus on him.”

“So you need to find him first.”

“As you remarked before, easier said than done.”

“Then we better get to it.”

“Agreed.”

He pulled his knife, cut her hands and feet free.

He flipped her his Glock 9mm.

She checked the mag, chambered a round, pointed it at him. “Sorry, Alan.” She fired the weapon. Or at least attempted to. But there was no bang and no bullet was propelled down the barrel.

“Helps to have a firing pin,” said Grant, who seemed unsurprised by her attempt to kill him.

He struck, the knife passing across her neck, severing all her major arteries. He backed away from the blood spray. Her gaze was on him and he continued to watch her. Waiting.

Jean fell to the floor and a few seconds later finished bleeding out.

He stared down at her for a few moments. “Consequences, Jean.”

He wrapped her in plastic and tied her up tight like a present.

The dug grave was waiting in the woods a quarter mile away. As he put the last shovelful of dirt over the hole, he said a silent prayer and considered the fact that Sam Wingo was a widower for the second time.

He doubted the man would care about that right now. He had other things to worry about. He walked back to the cabin, cleaned up, and got back into his car.

He didn’t like losing Jean, but some things were sacrosanct. You followed orders. You didn’t make the rules up as you went along. There was a chain of command for a reason. A very sound, historically verified reason.

And Grant was, above all, a disciplined soldier. It didn’t matter that he no longer wore the uniform. It wasn’t about something you wore. It was all about what was inside the clothes. Discipline. Honor. Respect. Reliability. Professionalism.

Jean had violated all of these.

He didn’t have the option of court-martialing her.

There was really only one option left. He had employed that option but only after she had failed his loyalty test. He was a fair man. If she hadn’t tried to kill him, she would still be alive. She had and she wasn’t.

He drove on.

He had a list. He had checked it twice. It was time to move the ball forward.

He had one billion euros. He didn’t personally need all of it. He just needed a tenth of it.

But he believed it would be money very well spent.