Threat warning

CHAPTER EIGHT

Back in Fisherman’s Cove, Jonathan sat at his desk, with the fickle yet adoring JoeDog sleeping flatulently at his feet.

No matter how much he tried to avoid the soul-stealing administrivia that came with running a company, investigative findings had to be reviewed and approved, checks needed to be signed, and the occasional mega-client needed to be stroked. Most of the truly painful boredom was shared by his lead investigator, Gail Bonneville, and his office manager and technology guru, Venice Alexander. (It’s pronounced Ven-EE-chay, by the way, and she was known to lose patience with people who blew it more than once.) Even with layers of middle management in place, though, the boss was still the boss, and only so much could be delegated.

On the far wall, Fox News was running with coverage of the jihadist attacks that threatened to “paralyze America.” Some outfit that called itself the Army of Allah had released a video of a mother and her half-naked teenage son cowering at the feet of black-clad gunmen. The mother recited a prepared text-a rant about godless heathens and the inevitability of Islam’s rule, blah, blah, blah. While they spoke, an Arab translation crawled along the bottom of the screen.

The Army of Allah took responsibility for both the mall and bridge shooting incidents, plus the school bombing this morning. They promised that more violence was on the way. The shootings would continue, in fact, until the United States withdrew from virtually every geopolitical stance it had taken in the last seven decades.

Jonathan knew that the hostages were destined to die, if in fact they hadn’t already been killed. In his experience, impossible demands translated to a simple desire to kill. They were photo ops, really, designed to create iconic images of violence that would raise the stakes on terror, and the Army of Allah was doing a hell of a job so far. For the Wilson Bridge Massacre-that seemed to be the sensational moniker with the most legs-that image was the photograph of two ravaged and bloody child seats side by side in the back of a family sedan.

Between the various tableaus of carnage, the talking-head shows ran a loop of experts who seemed united in the belief that Islamist sleeper cells had been activated, and that their existence was evidence that our decade-plus of war had failed to protect us.

One day, Jonathan thought, he’d like to become a talking head so he could go on television and tell all those assholes to shut up.

In fact, he made them do exactly that with the mute button. He had paperwork to do, after all.

His intercom beeped. “Digger, I’m sorry to bother you, but there’s something in the lobby you need to attend to.” It was Venice Alexander.

“What brand of something?” he asked. Not that it mattered. He’d help polish the furniture if it would rescue him from this tedium.

“A visitor. An Army colonel named Rollins.” She spelled it. “He says it’s an urgent matter.”

Spelling the name was hardly necessary. There were few people drawing breath whom he loathed more than Roleplay Rollins. “What does he want?”

“He won’t say.” She softened her voice. “But he seems very agitated.”

Jonathan thought about telling him to pound sand and disappear, but his curiosity was piqued. “Bring him back to the office, please.”

“Into the cave?” Venice gasped. It was the corporate term for their highly secure executive suites, and no one from outside the company was ever invited back here. Precious few from inside the company were ever invited back here.

“Escort him every step and make sure that Rick searches him for weapons. Be sure he finds the one on his ankle.”

Three minutes later, Venice knocked on the door and opened it without waiting. At five-four, with chocolate-brown skin and a flawless complexion, Venice Alexander looked nothing like the computer genius she was. Her face showed utter confusion as she ushered in a graying man in jeans and a polo shirt, whose hair hung nearly to his shoulders, and whose beard made him look like a street panhandler. To those who knew what to look for, he looked exactly like the Delta Force operator that he was.

“Hello, Roleplay,” Jonathan said, leaning his butt against the front of his massive desk. Part of the reason for bringing the son of a bitch back here was to let him see just how little his Machiavellian games had affected Jonathan in the long term. JoeDog’s tail stopped wagging when she heard the tone in her master’s voice.

The visitor shuffled his feet. He clearly knew he was not welcome, and would rather be anywhere else in the world. “Not many call me that anymore,” he said.

“Not many people know your true nature anymore,” Jonathan countered. Rollins’s real first name was Stanley, but in the Unit, everybody got a nickname. The colonel preferred Iceman, and that stuck for a while until he advanced through the ranks and started to put his own career in front of the men he commanded. That was when Jonathan hit on the alliterative Roleplay Rollins, and it stuck like Krazy Glue.

“Are you going to invite me to sit down?” the colonel asked.

“Only if you promise to leave soon.”

Venice got squirmy. “I’m going to leave you two alone.”

Jonathan stepped forward, beckoning her closer. “No, no, no. I want you here. When you’re dealing with Roleplay, witnesses are never a bad thing.”

“Oh, for God’s sake,” Rollins groaned.

“Say what’s on your mind,” Jonathan said. “Then get the hell out of here.”

“Fine,” Rollins said. “Boomer Nasbe’s family has been kidnapped by terrorists, and we need help getting them home.”

Rollins’s delivery had the feel of something he’d rehearsed, and it landed with all the force he’d no doubt intended. Boomer had been a rookie member of the Unit at the time Jonathan was leaving, and part of a different squadron, but the organization was small enough that everyone knew everyone else. Jonathan’s recollection of the kid was that of a hungry go-getter who could run forever and bench-press nearly three times his body weight. He’d heard through the grapevine that Boomer had pulled off some impressive heroics in Afghanistan.

Jonathan gestured for the sofas and chair over near the fireplace. “Have a seat,” he said. “You, too, Venice.” Answering Rollins’s unasked question, he added, “Think of her as my Miss Annabelle.” He referred to the still-sharp, still-impressive eighty-year-old who had been the commander’s secretary since the days when the Unit was first formed.

The colonel looked impressed. Miss Annabelle’s were tough shoes to fill.

Jonathan left the leather people-eaters to his guests while he took the wooden William and Mary rocker for himself. Years of parachute jumps, bullet wounds, and general abuse had made it difficult for him to get comfortable in soft furniture. Before sitting, he asked if anybody wanted something to drink, but no one did. JoeDog took up the patch of carpet next to the rocker.

“What happened?” Jonathan asked, crossing his legs.

“We don’t know, exactly,” Rollins said. “Have you been watching the news? They’re the family at the feet of the terrorists in the new video.”

Jonathan shot a look to Venice, who recognized her cue and stood immediately. “I’ll have it set up in the War Room in five minutes,” she said, walking toward the door in the office wall that led directly to their high-tech conference room.

“Bring Gail in, too,” Jonathan said.

“What about Boxers?”

Jonathan looked at Rollins, and then back. “Make sure he knows the colonel is here, and what the purpose of the meeting is. Leave it to him.”

Venice acknowledged the gravity of his tone with a twitch of her eyebrows, and then left them alone.

Without the buffer of a witness, Jonathan felt his hatred returning, and his ears turned hot.

“You can’t hold a grudge forever, Dig,” Rollins said.

Jonathan raised a forefinger in warning. “You don’t want to open that door. Not in here. Not on my turf.”

Rollins made a show of looking around. “It’s not as if it ruined your life. You seem to be doing okay.”

“I was rich the day I was born,” Jonathan said. “I give most of it away and I’d still never be able to spend it all. Not in ten lifetimes. It was never about making a living. It was about honor, and you proved you had none.”

Rollins did not rise to the bait. “We all have jobs to do. Not all of them are enjoyable. If you had done yours, you’d still be in the Unit.”

“I saved three lives that night.”

“But to do it, you took five lives that the NCA deemed more important than the ones you saved.”

“Don’t flatter yourself,” Jonathan spat. “Your whim is not the National Command Authority. We were in position, we’d taken four days to get there, and they were going to execute those kids.”

“I gave an abort order, and you ignored it.”

“It was a bogus order. You misunderstood it.”

“Jesus, Digger, do you want to go through the whole court-martial again? We can’t retry it, but even if we did, the fact will remain that you disobeyed an order.”

The door from the hallway flew open with enough force to make a dent in the wall it slammed into, and Boxers stormed into the office. Born as Brian Van de Meulebroeke, Boxers stood closer to seven feet than six, and likely bent the needle on most bathroom scales. When anyone that big moves that fast, you know that damage is going to be done. His eyes showed murder.

“Box, no!” Jonathan shouted as he shot to his feet. JoeDog slinked under the coffee table.

Rollins scrambled to rise from the depths of the sofa, but he never had a chance. Boxers closed the distance in five quick strides. He grabbed a fistful of Rollins’s shirt in one hand, and his hair with the other, and effortlessly lifted the colonel over the back of the sofa. He heaved him onto the floor with enough force to make two table lamps jump and tumble over.

“What did I tell you last time I saw you?” he shouted.

Rollins landed on his back, his head bouncing off the carpeted floor. He looked stunned. Or maybe terrified.

“Box!” Jonathan yelled. He’d never seen Big Guy this spun up. This homicidal. As he vaulted the back of the sofa to intervene, the conference room door flew open again.

Venice yelled. It wasn’t a scream, exactly, but rather a guttural expression of surprise.

Jonathan dove for his friend, catching him by his belt and pulling to restrain him.

Boxers whirled on Jonathan, his fist cocked. He was that far gone. When Jonathan winced-a full-force blow from Big Guy could be fatal-Boxers’ eyes changed. Horror replaced rage.

In the hallway, Rick Hare and Charlie Keeling-two of the full-time security guards at Security Solutions-appeared at the door, hands gripping their sidearms. What they saw was clearly not what they’d been expecting.

“Everything okay in here, Mr. G?” Rick asked. His eyes shifted to the various parties, trying to decipher it all.

Jonathan kept Boxers’ eye. “You okay?”

Big Guy whirled to Rollins, pointing two fingers like a weapon.

“Look at me, Box,” Jonathan said.

“I told him I’d kill him next time I saw him,” Boxers said.

The security guards stepped in to take positions around Rollins. With the bad guy identified, they knew who to target.

“And you damn near did,” Jonathan said. He smiled and winked.

Venice stood with her hands on her head, her mouth slack. “What is this?”

Jonathan held up a hand for silence as Gail Bonneville arrived in the doorway. Her hand was poised near the Glock on her hip, but then she relaxed. “Oh, there’s got to be a good story here,” she said.

With reinforcements in place, JoeDog felt secure enough to bark. Just once, as if to remind everyone that there was a four-legged killing machine in the room. The absurdity of it made Jonathan chuckle in spite of himself. He directed his attention to the security team. “Thanks, guys. We’re all okay here. Just a flash of anger.”

Rick Hare looked unconvinced. “You sure, boss?”

Jonathan nodded. “I’m always sure. Not always right, but always sure. How about you, Roleplay? Are you hurt?”

Colonel Rollins eyed Boxers with ill-disguised hatred as he rose to his feet and brushed himself off. The front panel of his shirt was torn at the buttons. “I’m fine,” he said.

The guards clearly sensed the tension, but they also understood their order to leave. “We’ll be at our posts,” Rick said. “Just give a shout if you need something.”

Jonathan smiled. “If anyone out there asks what happened, tell them that a bookcase fell over.”

Charlie Keeling touched two fingers to his brow as acknowledgment. Gail pulled away from the door to allow room for them to depart, and then asked Jonathan if she was to stay or leave.

“I want you here for this,” he said. “Let’s gather in the War Room, where we will all keep our hands to ourselves.”

Boxers nearly vibrated with anger, but when the tension left his shoulders, Jonathan knew that he was back with the program.

As they filed into the War Room, Venice pulled Jonathan to the side. “I’ve never seen Boxers like that.”

“Did you find the video?”

She clearly wanted more, but knew better than to push. “Cued up and ready to go,” she said.

Tension remained heavy in the air as they filed into the War Room. Jonathan wasn’t sure where the nickname for the space originated, but given the activities that were often planned in this space, it was apropos. Detailed in teak and mahogany and featuring calfskin-soft chairs, the War Room offered all of the latest in communication and presentation technology. On the far end, Venice had already retracted the panels in the wall that housed the 106-inch projection screen, where the frozen image of the terrified Nasbes stared at them, frozen in time. He’d already seen it, of course, but it was time to pay attention.

He asked, “Colonel Rollins, would you like to catch us up on what you know before we start watching?” By using his official title, Jonathan hoped to defuse the tension.

Rollins leaned forward and cleared his throat. “The people you’re going to see are Christyne Nasbe and her son Ryan, sixteen. We don’t know how they ended up in the custody of terrorists, but we suspect that they were somehow taken after the Wilson Bridge incident last night. They live on Bragg when Boomer is home, but they’re apparently up here visiting her sister in Mount Vernon.”

“Does Boomer know the family has been taken?”

“He was the one to tell us. He found out purely by chance. He thought he recognized them despite the masks, and when he tried to establish contact with them, he couldn’t. They weren’t at the address where they were supposed to be staying, and both of their cell phones were turned off. We did a little checking and discovered that the SIM cards had either been disabled or removed.”

Jonathan asked, “Is he just going by the voice?”

“That was the first thing that caught his attention. But then he looked closer. It turns out that the son, Ryan, has a birthmark on his belly. It shows on the video.”

Gail asked, “Why are you coming to Security Solutions? A case like this has FBI written all over it.”

Rollins hesitated. “I’d rather we discuss this in private, Digger.”

Jonathan shook his head. “My team gets to know what I know.”

The colonel took a moment to think it through. “Here’s the thing,” he said at last. “The FBI is a civilian agency. I’m sure they’re fine at what they do, but they’re pretty damned distracted right now, and we want the Nasbes’ safety to be the first and only priority, not just one of many.”

Gail started to object, but Rollins held up a hand to signal that he wasn’t done yet.

“There’s also the Unit connection. The FBI can’t know that, and I think it’s clear that the kidnappers don’t know it, or they would have mentioned something about it in the video.”

Gail didn’t get it. “And why can’t the FBI know?”

“Because the FBI is packed with unnamed sources,” Rollins answered. “Deep Throat, anyone? What isn’t leaked to the press is revealed though congressional hearings. I owe Boomer more than that.”

Jonathan nodded to Venice, who pushed the buttons to make the lights dim and the picture come to life.

The setting was all too familiar, although Jonathan wasn’t sure that he’d ever seen it staged with multiple hostages. The boy, on the left of the screen, was shirtless and wore what appeared to be blue jeans. The mother wore a nondescript black-on-black outfit that looked oddly stretched out and disheveled.

“Do you see the birthmark?” Rollins asked.

Venice froze the frame.

Rollins pointed from his seat. “Look there on his stomach. Just to the left of his navel. Our left, his right.”

Jonathan leaned forward, as if by shortening the distance by five inches he could see the image more clearly.

“I see it,” Gail said. “Looks like a little check mark.”

“That’s it exactly,” Rollins said.

Jonathan took it on faith. One of these days, he was going to have to get glasses.

The picture had been framed tightly so that none of the captors’ faces showed. In fact all they could see of the captors were legs wearing black pants-Jonathan counted four pairs-and the muzzles of the AKs that were resting against each of the victims’ skulls.

Christyne Nasbe spoke for both of them. As she did, Arabic subtitles crawled along the bottom of the frame. “People of America,” she began. From the first words, she sounded as if she was reading, but how could that be, with a hood over her face? “We and our satanic government have brought suffering to the peaceful people of Islam for many years. We have murdered tens of thousands of innocent children while they slept in their beds, and we have martyred countless holy warriors as they fight every day only to create a world that will live in peace, free of the sloth and the wickedness brought by our Western ways. We need to realize that we can never win.

“This week, the Army of Allah began a new holy war that will bring you to your knees. They are many thousands strong, and they have already begun their battle, first in Kansas City, and on Monday night in Washington, D.C. This morning, they took the battle to our children, killing our youth as we have killed so many of theirs. The killing will continue until the United States government apologizes to Islamic people everywhere and withdraws all U.S. forces from the Middle East and Afghanistan. If an announcement to that effect is not made by next Wednesday, one week and one day from today, my son and I will be martyred for everyone to see.”

The instant before the image clicked off, the boy’s voice said, “Martyred means murdered in English.”