Out of the Dark

56 Are We Ready?

Evan was burying the rental sedan in the darkness of an alley across from the target location when his RoamZone rang.

Immediately after leaving Naomi Templeton’s building, he’d saved a new message in the Drafts folder of the.nwhr.man@gmail.com.

“Request phone contact. Total privacy. Secure line.”

In the intervening hours while he waited for the sun to rise over Switzerland, he’d run a series of fast-strike break-ins focused on White House — approved vendors.

Remaining in his tucked-away vehicle, he answered.

Her voice came through, a burst of exuberance. “Holy shitmonkeys! Did you see the news?”

He tilted his head back, took a deep breath, and summoned patience. The moonroof showed only the impenetrable black sheet of the sky.

“I was there,” he said. “I don’t need to see the news. Is this line secure?”

“More secure than yours,” Joey said. “But mission wasn’t accomplished. He wasn’t neutralized.”

“I noticed,” Evan said. “Listen. Our friend, the agent? I just put her into motion.”

A brief pause while Joey regrouped. “Pertaining to what?”

“Pertaining to 1997. That should open up new avenues for you, new intel. I need you to use her phone to monitor her trail. GPS, parallel queries she might make in the databases, what new intel she pulls in. She’ll be on the trail, but I want you to hound-dog out ahead of her.”

“Given the tsunami you just put into motion after the motorcade attack, does this really matter anymore? Whatever went down in ’97? I mean, at this point—”

“Yes,” he said.

“Why?”

“I need to know.”

He’d allowed a rare uptick in his tone, a sharpness that surprised even him. While he’d been advancing the operation, the mystery of his first mission had been working on him like a thorn, burrowing deeper, growing inflamed.

To no avail, he’d scoured an ocean of intel. His only hope for an answer now lay with what Naomi Templeton, in her capacity as a special agent in charge, might uncover from the inside.

A deadness claimed the connection, highlighting every one of the four thousand miles between him and Joey.

“Okay,” she said.

Evan moved to hang up, but Joey said, “I did notice something important while I was poking around. The surveillance feed of past locations they flagged for you? The site where your foster home used to be and stuff? The code’s been hijacked.”

“Which means?”

“The imagery analysis is being siphoned off before the Secret Service sees it. Guess where it’s going?”

Evan recalled those whispers about Bennett’s early years in the Department of Defense, how he’d relied on the first Orphan to help steer his operational directives.

He said, “DoD.”

“That’s right,” Joey said. “It’s set up to autoforward through the DoD to an unknown source. The Service gets it on a three-hour lag.”

Evan said, “A lot can happen in three hours.”

“Yes it can,” she said. “Look, about the other thing with Agent Templeton. I can’t promise that whatever new intel she brings will give me enough to get you what you’re looking for. But I’ll try.”

“You take point on the past,” he said. “I’ll keep her busy in the present.”

He hung up, got out, and headed into the commercial kitchen across the street.

The security guard hefted his pants, the belt orbiting his pronounced waist like a line drawn around an egg. He wore a mustache that he thought enhanced his masculinity but in reality made him resemble a third Mario brother.

As he ambled around the corner of the blocky brick building, he clicked on his Maglite and dutifully checked the surveillance camera hidden under the overhang of the gutter.

The thick black power cord was severed.

Leaning back on his heels, he stared up at the cross section of tube for a moment, the dot of copper conductor glinting inside its rubber insulation.

His radio was at his lips. “This is Bill, location five. Intrusion. We have an intrusion.”

Bill hustled around to the rear entrance, wheezing now from fear and lack of gym time. The door rested slightly open, a black seam showing at the frame. The alarm hadn’t gone off, which was shocking. Given whom the catering company serviced, it was not an easy system to disarm.

The bright yellow backup security patrol car was there within seconds, his two colleagues easing the doors shut quietly so as not to alert any intruders who might be inside.

They circled up, Glocks drawn, nervous.

Bill gestured silently with two fingers, directing their movements like military guys did in movies.

Jayla wrinkled her forehead at him. “Why you waving your pudgy fingers all at us?”

“Just listen, okay,” he whispered, resisting the urge to put his hands on his knees to catch his breath. “You go in the side entrance. I’ll go in the front. Luis, take the other side. We’ll corner whoever’s in there.”

“And leave the rear entrance open?” Luis said.

“Well, there are three of us,” Bill said. “And four doors.”

“So why don’t we take the sides and the rear?”

“I say we take the rear door, this side, and the front,” Jayla said.

“This isn’t a democracy,” Bill said.

“Why not?”

“Because … well, I called it in,” Bill said. “We’re going side, side, front.”

Jayla rolled her eyes elaborately.

Bill said, “Let’s move.”

Jayla and Luis exchanged a look of forbearance before they left the huddle.

Bill fumbled the master keys out of his pocket and entered the commercial kitchen from the front. The frigid air hit him, cooling the sweat at the back of his neck. He passed a row of refrigerated units humming like slumbering beasts, his reflection wobbly in the stainless-steel panels. Fat padlocks dangled from several of the units — the ones with contents designated for 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

He kept his finger outside the trigger guard alongside the barrel, because he didn’t want to shoot some kid who’d broken in on a lark.

Not that a kid could slice through a surveillance system installed by the Secret Service.

Bill cleared the corridor and emerged onto the main floor. Beyond several floating cooktops arrayed like craps tables, a wide half-moon dais floated several steps above the floor, elevating one cooking display higher than the others for instructional purposes. Behind a butcher-block island adorned with carrots, mixers, blenders, bags of flour and sugar, a plate of sushi, and a vibrant green bunch of parsley, a man sat on a barstool.

Backlit by a single lamp dangling from an exposed beam in the ceiling, he remained so still that Bill considered — hoped — that he was a mannequin propped in place on the showroomlike stage.

Movement wavered in Bill’s peripheral vision, Jayla and Luis edging into view from either side.

“Don’t move,” Bill said.

The man said, “I’m not moving.”

Bill blinked sweat from his eyes. “Right,” he said. “Stay not moving.”

From his left he heard Jayla exhale with dismay.

“Listen carefully,” the man said. “I’m going to tell you what’s gonna happen next.”

He remained on that barstool, hands resting casually on the butcher block before him. Behind him to one side, the wind sucked at the rear door, clicking the latch assembly against the strike plate. The sound was unnerving, a doomed animal scratching at a cage door.

“You’re gonna let me walk out of here,” the man said.

Jayla stepped forward, weapon raised. “You’re staring at three guns,” she said. “And you got empty hands.”

“The thing is, you’re all perspiring already. Your eyes wider than normal. Nostrils flaring because you’re breathing hard. Which means you’ve already shifted into emergency mode. Which means a whole lot is going on inside you that you’re not even aware of. Your cortisol levels are up, your right and left cortices have activated, and your limbic system’s disinhibited. That’s what’s making you sweat, making you tremble. It’s eroding your fine-motor precision, even your perception.”

“Don’t matter,” Jayla said, her suddenly high voice ringing off the walls and the lofty ceiling. “We have numbers.”

“But you’ve drawn too close together,” the man said helpfully. “Which puts you all into range.” His hands stayed where they were, but his eyes ticked to the stovetop to his side. “This pot is filled with boiling water,” he said. “To which I’ve added oil, which makes it cling to the flesh and burn. The first thing I’ll do is knock it right off the burner, spraying you all. Then I’m gonna come over the top of this island with that pan.” His eyes indicated said pan, within reach of his left hand. “I have elevation, which means good momentum on the drop. While you two are clawing at your faces, I’ll hit you”—and now the eyes skewered Bill—“on the wrist of your gun hand. The pan’s cast iron, so that’ll do the job. Then I’ll turn my focus to you two.” The eyes found Jayla. “Leg sweep and you’re on the floor, wind knocked out of you.” Luis. “Back kick to your ribs, cracking the seventh and sixth. Maybe the fifth.” His jaw shifted. “I haven’t made up my mind on that yet.”

The man folded his hands on the table, as calm and resigned as a banker denying a loan. He regarded the three of them, frozen where they stood. “So,” he said. “What’s it gonna be?”

Jayla seemed to be speechless. The tip of Luis’s gun lowered a few inches.

Bill tried to speak, but his mouth had gummed up. He cleared his throat, an undignified harrumph, and said, “I’m sorry, sir. But I have a duty, and if I don’t honor that duty, then I won’t be able to look my fiancée in the eye when I go home tonight.” His voice shook a bit.

He did not add his next thought: If I’m lucky enough to make it home tonight.

“Okay, then,” the man said. He spread his hands calmly so they hovered a few inches above the butcher block. “Are we ready?”

Bill said, “Let’s just—”

A pan flew upward, the deafening clang of its impact with the lamp accompanied by total darkness. Something hit Bill in the face, and he screamed, pawing at the hot liquid. Only his responsible trigger-finger placement kept him from firing blindly.

Luis grunted, and Jayla’s boots shuffled against the floor, and then Bill sucked something into his lungs and coughed so hard he thought he might hyperventilate.

He managed to click his Maglite on, the beam stabbing the darkness. Particles textured the air, everything turned to Ground Zero grit, and there was no man behind the island, no man among them, no man behind him.

Bill kept whirling around, the beam painting the darkness with yellow swipes. Two more beams joined his, Jayla and Luis getting in on the act, and then Bill spit twice to clear his mouth and realized that what had hit him in the face wasn’t boiling water and oil but flour from the burst sack resting on the island.

All three of the flashlights zeroed in on the rear door, which now stood wide open, a rush of night wind parting the flour-filled air like the Red Sea.

The three guards stood shoulder to shoulder, still breathing audibly.

Jayla’s voice came in a hoarse croak. “The fuck,” she said, “was that about?”