The Emerald Scepter

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

The helicopter from Kabul had been delayed several hours by a security alert that grounded all civilian aircraft after a suicide bombing in the city. Amir used the time to show off the new school and water system he had built for his village. Eventually, he and his family gathered at the airstrip with their guests.

When the helicopter appeared, Amir said, “My family and I will be very sad to see all of you go.”

Hawkins conferred with Calvin in a low whisper and said to Amir, “We have an idea that may soften the blow.”

Hawkins handed the keys to Calvin’s desert vehicle to Amir, who said, “I don’t know how I can repay you.”

“How about letting me borrow your satphone again and we’ll call it even.”

Amir handed him the phone and told him to keep it. There were tearful good-byes, then everyone climbed aboard the helicopter. As the chopper lifted off and gained altitude, Hawkins saw the desert vehicle making tight figure eights and wondered it had been a mistake to give the fast little buggy to a lead foot like Amir.

There was little conversation on the flight to Kabul. The passengers were weary from their ordeal and the engine noise made conversation difficult even using headsets. Hawkins clicked on the satellite phone and tried to reach Sutherland so he could tell her everyone was in good shape. There was no answer. He connected to his own phone number, and retrieved a texted message she had sent the day the expedition left Kabul.

Hawkins clenched his jaw as he read on the small screen Sutherland’s description of the intricate web connecting Murphy to the ambush five years ago and the attempts on her life. He cursed himself for dragging the young woman into this mess, then leaving her to fend for herself. The helicopter landed in Kabul early in the evening. Abby said she planned to go to the Global Logistics Kabul office to line up a flight home and invited Cait to go along.

“We’ve got a few things to take care of. We’ll stay here,” Hawkins said.

As soon as the two women were out of earshot, Hawkins said, “Got a big favor to ask you, Cal.”

Calvin nodded as he listened to Hawkins’ request, then rummaged in his luggage and handed over a thin tube-shaped object.

“Pretty serious stuff,” Calvin said. “You going to need help?”

Hawkins slid the shiny cylinder into his pocket.

“Going solo on this one, Cal. Tell Abby I’ll be back in an hour or so.”

“What if Abby asks where you went?”

“Tell her I’m taking care of unfinished business.”

He bumped fists with Calvin, then strode off to find a taxi that would take him into the city.

Murphy was at the Serena Hotel bar. He had just emptied the contents of his hip flask into his third fruit juice and was enjoying the fiery-sweet flow of liquid down his throat, when a bellhop tapped his shoulder and handed him an envelope. Folded inside was a sheet of hotel letterhead and a printed message.

“Mission accomplished. Need to see you. No phone. Your place. Rashid.”

“Who gave you this?” Murphy said.

The bellhop touched the top of his head. “Bald man?”

Murphy tucked the note in his pocket, tipped the bell hop and slid off his stool. He made his way erratically through the lobby and out the door to the parking lot. He fumbled with the keys to his armored Chevy Tahoe SUV. As he heaved his bulky body behind the wheel, he heard the back door open and shut. A voice spoke in his ear:

“Hi, Southie. Remember me?”

Murphy glanced in the rear-view mirror and saw Hawkins’ manic grin. Struggling to keep the surprise out of his voice, the DEA agent said: “Hell, Hawk, scared the crap out of me. Didn’t know you were back in town. I guess the mission went okay.”

“The mission was fine.”

“That’s good, man. So what’re you doing here? I got a note to meet Rashid.”

“The note was from me. I told the bellhop to say it was from a bald man.”

“Uh, what happened to Rashid?”

“Why do you think anything happened to him?”

“Figure of speech. I got him the guide gig. Thought the ungrateful bastard wanted to thank me.”

“He can’t do that because he’s vulture bait.”

“Dead?”

“Very.”

“Jeez, what happened?”

“He got frisky with a lady friend of mine.”

“Oh hell. I should have warned you that he had a problem with women.”

“He had a problem with men, too. He tried to kill me and ran off with our dune buggy. I caught up with him.”

Murphy dropped his hands onto his knees. “Can’t say I really liked the guy.”

“Too bad, because you’re going to join him if you go for that gun between the seats. Pick it up by the butt with your thumb and forefinger and hold it over your shoulder. Please don’t make me shoot you.”

Murphy hesitated. “You’re bluffing. Security guys would never let you onto the hotel grounds with a firearm.”

“They’d let me get in with a special ops ball-point fitted out with a .22 caliber blank that will drive a dart into your brain. Real James Bond stuff, Murph.”

Murphy winced as a sharp object dug into the base of his skull. He followed Hawkins’ instructions, slowly handed the gun over his shoulder and put his hands back on the wheel.

“Glad you got the point. Now pass me the gun you carry in your belt holster.”

Murphy dug out the compact .22 backup pistol and handed it to Hawkins.

“Good memory. You don’t trust anyone, do you?”

Hawkins removed the magazines and emptied the rounds from each gun. “I don’t want any distractions. Tell me why you sicced Rashid on us.”

“Rashid was a last-minute desperation choice. I had to use the little pervert because I didn’t have time to put a better plan into place.”

“A plan for what?”

“To sabotage your mission.”

“Who gave you the orders?”

“Dunno. I get my assignments on the phone. Someone calls. A voice gives me an ID code so I’ll know it’s legit, and tells me what to do. I didn’t know what your mission was. Still don’t.”

“Did the voice tell you to kill me?”

“They used the word neutralize. Nothing personal.”

“That makes me feel better, Murph. Someone tried to neutralize me back in the States, even before the mission got underway. You know anything about that?”

“Whaddya know, something I didn’t do! I’m clueless on that score, Hawk. Maybe someone was afraid you’d dig into the past and stir things up. From what little I know, the guys I work for don’t like loose ends.”

“Were Abby and Cal considered loose ends, too?”

“Aw crap. Yeah,” he said.

“Were you working for the same voice when we met five years ago?”

“Hard to tell. Voice is computer-altered. Could have been anyone. I was a private contractor with the Company. You know that.”

“You were moonlighting for Arrowhead.”

The answer caught Murphy by surprise. “How did you know that?”

“Never mind.”

“Yeah, what’s the big deal? Arrowhead had contracts with the CIA.”

“What was your main job?”

“I was to develop local intelligence assets.” He chuckled. “Basically I got paid for hanging around the hotel lounge.”

“You did more than warm a bar stool. You cultivated Honest Abe as an informant. He was so important that he got wined and dined in New York. You were on his shopping trip to the Big Apple.”

“You do what you have to do in this business. You know that, Hawk.”

“All too well. Problem was, Honest Abe wasn’t so honest. While you were showing him the bright lights of Broadway, he had been giving CIA money to the Taliban for protection. That should have neutralized him, but he became even more valuable after you turned him into a double agent. How am I doing so far?”

“Spot on, Hawk. Like I said, it’s a crazy business.”

“It gets even crazier when I want to bring Honest Abe in to talk about a Taliban attack on a SEAL team. My superior says, ‘talk to Murphy first; he’s The Man.’ So that’s what I did.”

“I warned you Honest Abe was a protected asset, told you to stay away from him. Woulda saved a lot of trouble if you’d taken my advice. Like I said, he was valuable to us.”

“Understandable. After they picked the shrapnel out of my leg, I began to wonder how he knew we were coming.”

“Hard to keep a secret in these parts.”

“You’re the only one outside my superior officer who knew that I was contemplating a mission. You set us up, Murphy.”

“I warned the bastard to get out of town. He’s the one who decided to leave an IED.”

“Maybe you didn’t know Abe’s plans, but you told him we were coming and that’s just as bad.”

“Chrissakes, Hawk, that’s ancient history. Go home and stay there.”

“You’re starting to annoy me. I’m so annoyed that my finger might accidentally press the trigger. When I tried to find out how Abe knew I was coming, I ran into a brick wall. Tell me about the cover up.”

Murphy’s well-honed survival instincts told him that Hawkins was serious. The air seemed to go out of his body.

“You gotta go back to 9/11. Bin Laden’s bragging on TV after he knocked the towers down, mocking us, saying America was filled with fear. And he was right! Everybody was scared. We had to hit back in a hurry. You know how it is. The wolves respect a winner. If you’re seen as weak, it’s all over.”

“I was with a SEAL team that dispelled that notion,” Hawkins said.

“Damn straight! We really kicked ass. Invaded Afghan land and pushed out the Taliban. Took a while to catch up with Bin Laden, and there was a slight detour through Iraq, but that’s the stuff people knew about. There was a whole other war going on behind the scenes. Our guys decided that we had to fight dirty. Assassinations. Special rendition. Kidnapping.”

“Enhanced interrogation,” Hawkins added.

“I’m not afraid to call it what it was. Torture. But all the people wringing their hands don’t get the point. Water-boarding someone wasn’t expected to extract information. Anyone with half a brain knows you get more out of a source by giving him Twinkies and ice cream. It never was about intel.”

“So what was it about?”

“Revenge, Hawk. We wanted to send those bastards a message. You sucker punched us, but we’ve tossed out the Marquis de Queensbury rules. Mess around with the U.S.A. and we won’t just kill you, we’ll catch you and make you wish that you had never been born. You think they went after Bin Laden so they could bring him back and put him on trial? Hell no. He had a big fat bull’s-eye on his head.”

“So far, you haven’t told me anything new.”

“Try this on for size. The stuff that went public was only the tip of the iceberg. That was a CIA-contractor op that used legalese to back it up, but they couldn’t outright ignore the law. That was the job of a small sub-group within the larger operation.”

“What could this group do that the others couldn’t?”

“Pretty much anything they wanted to do.”

“Oversight?”

“Open-end approval at the highest level with minimal oversight. Deniability was important. If they got caught, they’d say it was a rogue operation.”

“Risky. With no control, it could very well go rogue.”

“It was a risk the top level was willing to take. They wanted the bad guys to know that there were things worse than death.”

“How big was the group?”

“Maybe six core people with on-call access to support. They called themselves Archer. Codeword for the guy who calls me is Arrowsmith.”

“Archer. Arrowhead. Arrowsmith. Cute.”

“Arrowhead was both the cover and the contractor. They set up an entity to take care of logistics, payroll and all that.

“The Arrowhead kids’ program.”

“That’s right. Very impressive, Hawk. No one would suspect an outfit that helped kids.”

“Where was Trask in all of this?”

“The unit needed a resident shrink with no scruples.”

“He fits the bill. Tell me about Captain McCormick. Where does he fit in?”

“He was with the original black ops team and moved over to the unit.”

“Did he have a role in getting me kicked out of the SEALs?”

“Probably. He was navy intel, but still attached to Archer. When the torture story went public, everyone went to the mattresses. CIA burned the videos of the torture sessions. Records were destroyed. The spin-masters came out and started spreading disinformation. Meanwhile, the Archer unit scattered to the four winds.”

“Trask was on the government payroll when he saw me.”

“He was in a holding pattern. A shrink in Oklahoma had dug up some stuff on Trask about his involvement with torture and tried to get him hauled up on professional misconduct. The charges were dropped when his accuser died in a house fire.”

“Of suspicious origin, no doubt.”

“Yeah, shit happens, Hawk. One more shrink won’t be missed.”

“What was your role, Murphy?”

“Arrowhead sub-contracted out my services. You don’t want to know the details. Water-boarding and sexual humiliation was for amateurs. Some stuff was real medieval. All that was missing was a black hood. I’ve got a strong stomach, but I had to get out. They got me a job with the DEA as a reward for my work. And here I am.”

Murphy took Hawkins’ silence as a signal that the conversation was over.

“That sums it up, Hawk. Can I go back to the bar now?”

“Shut up.” He prodded Murphy with the pen gun. “Why was Trask picked to process my psychiatric discharge?”

“Ambushing you and your guys was never in the works. Honest Abe pulled that stunt on his own to protect a stash of opium. But once you started asking questions that could have exposed the connection to Archer, you had to be stopped.”

“So they decided that the best way to stop me was to say I was crazy.”

“Hell, we’re all crazy in this business. I was just a hired goon. I haven’t heard from them in years until last week when they called. I was surprised as hell that you were coming back.”

“It sounds as if Archer is still in business and calling the shots.”

“It’s been reconstituted to deal with an evolving threat.”

“Talk English, Murphy.”

“We’ve hurt the bad guys. Drone attacks have kicked the crap out of the hierarchy. Killing Bin Laden was the icing on the cake, but we’ve had to contend with a new reality. The leadership is more diffused, with splinter groups showing their muscle.”

“Groups like the Shadows?”

“Don’t know why I’m talking, Hawk. You already know everything.”

“What makes the Shadows so dangerous?”

“No one knows who they are, for one thing. They’ve been hurt real bad and they want to hurt us. They think if they can do that it’ll give the radicals a leg up in some of the Arab countries that are torn between democracy and extremism. Security made it harder to get men into the States, so they started looking for other ways to cause problems at home and in Europe. Real whack-a-mole. We had to come up with new ways to deal with their evolving tactics.”

“Start bringing me home, Murphy. My hand is getting real tired.”

“Patience, man. We heard chatter about the Shadows growing, getting stronger. Archer was brought together again and expanded. It’s got some of the same people, but it’s more like a think tank with muscle.”

“Arrowhead still provides the brawn?”

“That’s my understanding.”

“Who provides the brains?”

“Classified. All I know is that the unit’s job is to squash the plot in the U.S. and deliver a KO punch against the Shadows.”

Hawkins remembered Sutherland’s report mentioning the death of Honest Abe. “I heard Abe has left this world.”

“He was killed in a DEA operation a couple of days ago.”

“Quite the coincidence.”

“Karma. He’s dead, Hawk. You can go home and forget about all this.”

Hawkins felt a twinge in his damaged leg.

“I might be able to forget that you set me up for an ambush, Murphy, and that trusting Honest Abe was just plain stupidity on your part.”

“You don’t have to get insulting, Hawk.”

“Here’s the thing. You tried to set me up a second time, and that’s unforgivable.”

“It was you or me, Hawk. I didn’t have any choice.”

“Yes, but I do. I’m going to choose not to kill you.”

Murphy puffed out his cheeks. “Damn, Hawk, I knew you couldn’t pull the trigger.”

Hawkins opened the door and stepped out. He skidded the guns under the car and tossed the ammunition as far as he could into the parking lot. “I’m sure you can get more ammo. You may be needing it. As you said. What goes around comes around.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Think about it. You screwed up. My mission was a success. I’m still alive. You said these folks don’t like loose ends. You know too much. Bang.”

“Maybe it’s time for old Murph to head for warmer climes.”

“They’ll find you and kill you, Murphy. But I may be able to help. They want something I’ve got. The deal is, you’ve got to do something for me.”

“I’m listening.”

“Tell your handlers we’ve talked, that I have what they want and will trade it for the guys who got me kicked out of the navy. Trask and McCormick for starters. I want their heads on a platter.”

“What’s in it for me?”

“I want you to be the middle-man. At the least, it will buy you time to make yourself scarce. Call my number at Woods Hole and leave a message when you hear back.”

“It’s a deal, man. No hard feelings?”

“This is a crazy business. Your words. One more question. Where does Marzak figure in all this?”

“Who?”

Murphy’s surprise seemed genuine. Hawkins told him to forget it and got out of the car.

Murphy shook his head. “You spooked me with an old Bic, didn’t you?”

Hawkins pointed the pen and pressed the trigger. There was a pop and the dart thunked into the metal just below the open window.

“Wrong again, Murph.”

Abby had been watching for Hawkins from the doorway of the Global Logistics Technologies plane. She saw him striding across the tarmac toward the jumbo jet and almost tripped in her haste to meet him at the bottom of the stairway.

Her eyes were narrowed, her jaw set and her lips compressed. She seemed to be searching for something in his face.

“Sorry I’m late,” he said. “Is everything okay?”

“You tell me, Matt. Calvin said you went into Kabul on an errand.”

“I wanted to talk to Murphy. I had questions I needed answers to.”

“I have to know, Matt. Did you kill him?”

“No, Abby. It wasn’t worth it. We just talked.”

Her features transformed from granite hardness back to flesh and bone.

“Damnit, Hawk!” she said, eyes brimming with tears. “I thought you’d gone off the deep end. You are the biggest pain in the ass.”

Unexpectedly, she threw her arms around him and gave him a kiss on the neck that sent a tingle down to his toenails.

“I’ll have to not kill someone more often,” he said. “Let’s go home.” He took her by the hand and started walking to the plane.

Calvin and Cait were already in the upper deck cabin. As Hawkins settled into the seat next to Cait, his friend hiked his eyebrows and drew his forefinger across his neck. Hawkins silently mouthed a no, which brought a wide grin from Calvin.

Abby sat next to Calvin and they all clicked their seat belts. Minutes later, the 747 was rumbling down the runway, engines at full blast as they lifted the massive plane into the skies. The sprawling city receded into the distance.

“So long, Afghan land,” Calvin murmured. “We’ll never forget you.”

Hawkins felt his leg twinge again. “That’s for damned sure.”