The Devil's Ransom, page 34
Fabio exhaled and said, “Roger all, mission control. Valkyrie One standing by.”
They floated through space for another thirty minutes, the space station finally visible in the distance, when mission control came on, saying, “Valkyrie One, Valkyrie One, we have control. I say again, we have control.”
Skyler keyed his mike, saying, “You have all systems up and running? All systems are green?”
“Roger that.”
“Then let’s dock. I can see the space station. We’re almost there.”
“Uhh . . . this is mission control. We recommend an abort to get you home. I think we’ve had enough adventure on this trip.”
Skyler said, “That’s a complete waste of money and time. We’re within an hour before we dock.”
“Yes, sir. Your call.”
Fabio looked at Skyler, then the other two, stopping on Abigail. She slowly shook her head left and right.
He returned to Skyler, said, “Fuck you, asshole,” and slammed his fist into the abort button.
Chapter 72
I walked into the Four Courts Irish pub about five minutes before it opened, right at 4 p.m. I saw a scrum of people all working to get the place ready and a man came forward, saying, “We aren’t open yet.”
I said, “You are for me. Get me Bryce.”
He started to say something else, and Bryce came through the kitchen door. A rangy man with salt-and-pepper hair, he was the manager and an Army veteran. He took one look at me and shook his head.
He came forward and told the waiter, “I’ll handle this.” The waiter walked away and he said, “You lost someone.”
“Yeah, we did. And the men involved are coming here today. Sorry.”
He smiled and said, “Don’t be sorry. It’s the least I can do.”
The Four Courts Irish pub was where we held all our memorials. It had a unique place in my heart because a bunch of assassins had tried to kill me inside the place a long time ago. Bryce wasn’t read into our program, but he believed in what we did, even if he didn’t know what that was. We’d shown up one day toasting a fallen soldier, and then we’d kept showing up, until he’d pulled me aside one afternoon. He’d seen us keeping to ourselves, knowing we didn’t want to be disturbed, and had told me if we wanted privacy the next time, the bar was ours. He’d never asked any questions, and being located so close to the CIA, I’m sure he thought that was where we worked, and I didn’t disabuse him of the notion.
All I knew was that when I showed up, he shut down the bar.
He flipped the sign on the door to closed and said, “I’ll be serving the drinks.”
“I appreciate that. I really do.” I’d initially tried to pay to rent the place, but he was having none of it. He didn’t even let us pay for our drinks.
He chuckled and said, “Don’t worry about it. Last year this time we were closed permanently because of COVID. One night is nothing. Rum and Coke?”
I said, “Sure,” and moved to a table. He brought the drink, then ushered the waitstaff out of the bar. I sat in silence for a moment, then the door opened. George Wolffe and Blaine Alexander came in, looked around, then walked to my table.
They took a seat, Blaine saying, “You like cutting it close, but yesterday was damn near a record.”
I laughed and said, “I saw the capsule landed safely.”
“Yeah. A little bit of drama afterwards for the network shows, but everyone’s safe.”
“What happened?”
“The mission commander got out of the capsule and decked the owner, Skyler Fitch. He was waving to the cameras all smiles one second, then sitting on his ass rubbing his face the next. Pretty sure that astronaut won’t be taking up the next flight.”
Wolffe said, “Where’s Jennifer?”
“At Reagan National picking up Amena. I had Kylie fly her up here.”
“Really? You’re going home tomorrow.”
“I know, but when we talked to her last night she begged.”
He smiled, saying, “And you can’t tell her no.”
I took a sip of my drink and said, “Nope. That’s the truth.”
Bryce came over and took their orders. When he left, I said, “So what’s going on with Dylan Hobbes?”
Wolffe said, “That’s a sticky one. President Hannister wants to keep the Iran narrative alive. If Dylan’s actions hit the light of day, it’ll be a debacle. Iran will use it as leverage any time we say they’re doing something wrong.”
“Just like the WMD thing from Iraq.”
“Exactly. If we say they’re starting up new centrifuges, they’ll say, ‘You mean like when you said we hacked your spacecraft?’”
“So, what’s going to happen?”
“Well, as far as Iran knows, we fervently believe they did it—and our actions against them may very well give them pause if they’re planning on any cyberattacks in the future.”
“I meant with Dylan. Tell me he’s just been labeled DOA.”
Wolffe chuckled and said, “We don’t do that to American civilians.”
“We have before.” A long time ago, on the same mission where I’d almost been killed in this very bar, I’d uncovered a cancer inside the National Security Council. A man who was Ollie North times ten. He’d almost started a war, and when I’d prevented it, he’d met his just rewards.
Wolffe said, “Standish wasn’t a civilian, and we didn’t kill him.”
I laughed and said, “Only because he was already dead when we arrived.”
Wolffe waved his hand and said, “Old history. Either way, Dylan isn’t DOA.”
“So, he just skates? Keeps raking in the money with his corporation like nothing happened?”
“He thinks he’s a patriot. He believed he was bringing the country together, trying to fuse the partisan divide by focusing our attention on a common enemy.”
“Off the backs of people he murdered? Who cares what he thinks? We’re giving him a pass because he thought he was doing good?”
Blaine held up a hand and said, “Keep it down. He’s not getting off. He’s going to jail for murder.”
“Murder? How?”
“Last week one of his guys fell down the stairwell, bashing his head into the concrete. The fall killed him and was ruled an accident.”
“Now?”
“Now the authorities are taking a harder look. And Dylan, because he doesn’t want to be DOA, has agreed to plead guilty to murdering him.”
“Did he?”
“Not as far as I know, but it works.”
I leaned back and said, “I guess that’s the best we’ll get.”
Blaine said, “Shit, you’re just lucky your entire team wasn’t thrown in jail from the assault.”
After we’d solved the ransomware problem, we’d secured the crisis site, then I’d thrown the entire mess into Wolffe’s lap, letting him figure out how to conduct extraction. He’d pulled some strings, and we’d given control of the site to Department of Homeland Security guys from the National Counterterrorism Center down the road. Their agents processed the people we’d tied up while we fled the scene, dragging Dylan Hobbes with us.
I had no idea if they even had the authority to assume control, but we’d gotten out clean—although Wolffe was still dealing with the fallout. Luckily, he had the president of the United States on his side. They were calling it a “national security exercise conducted by DHS,” basically “admitting” that the exercise had gone awry, and the “DHS” team had hit the wrong target. Instead of a bunch of role players in a rented building, they’d attacked a live office. It made the DHS boys look like buffoons, but it worked. The press became bored quickly.
The door to the bar opened and Veep, Brett, and Knuckles came in. Bryce waved at them, Knuckles did a twirl with his hand, telling him to bring over some drinks, and they sat down.
Wolffe said, “Only missing the females.”
Knuckles said, “They’re on the way.” He turned to Wolffe and said, “What’s the deal with Carly and her star?”
Wolffe technically still worked for the CIA, same as Carly, but because she was sheep-dipped into the Taskforce, her star on the CIA memorial wall was an open question.
Wolffe said, “Kerry Bostwick is making it happen. I don’t know how, but she’ll get her star.”
Knuckles nodded and said, “Good. Good man.”
The door opened again, and I looked up with expectation. Instead of Jennifer and Amena, it was Johnny and Axe, from another Taskforce team. I was surprised to see them, since we hadn’t advertised we were doing this.
Wolffe saw my expression and said, “I told them. They did some work with her in Colombia. They wanted to be here.”
I nodded, saying, “I’m impressed. Axe doesn’t do these things.”
Johnny was lanky, full of ropy muscles like a cowpuncher. Axe looked like a Call of Duty character. About six feet four, with a clean-shaven head and a full beard, he wore the muscles on his body like a display. He wasn’t body-builder large, but he was most definitely intimidating.
I stood up, shook Johnny’s hand, and said, “Thanks for coming.”
He said, “Wouldn’t miss it. Free drinks and all.”
I laughed, and the door opened again. I saw Jennifer, wearing a sundress and sandals, her hair a tousled mess in a clip, looking like a surfer just off the beach. I smiled at her, and from behind her Amena came running.
She wrapped her arms around my waist and buried her head into my belly, saying, “I missed you.”
I squeezed back, saying, “I’ve only been gone a few days. But I missed you, too.”
She smiled and I let her free, saying, “Okay, the gang’s all here.”
I waved to Bryce and he came over. To the group, I said, “Anyone know what Carly drank?”
Knuckles said, “Bourbon.”
I squinted, because I knew that’s what he drank, and he said, “I’m not making that up. In fact, she drinks Bardstown. The Prisoner.” He turned to Bryce and said, “You have that?”
“I do. It’s in the back.”
Knuckles said, “All the way around.”
Bryce delivered the drinks, and everyone looked at me. I said, “Knuckles, it’s your show.”
He turned to Jennifer and said, “You do the honors.”
She nodded and said, “For Carly.”
We all said, “For Carly.”
She said, “May she rest in peace.”
In unison, we said, “Peace is an illusion. May she continue to fight.”
We downed the whiskey and I saw a tear in Jennifer’s eye. I put my glass down and went to her, wrapping my arms around her and kissing her forehead. Amena stood next to us awkwardly, not sure what to do. I brought her into the embrace.
We broke and I said, “It’ll be good to get back to Charleston. I could use some sleep.”
Amena said, “Jennifer told me you’d take me to the Air and Space Museum before we go.”
I looked at Jennifer and she wiped her eyes, smiling. She said, “As long as we’re here. Kylie is staying because of Veep. I figured it couldn’t hurt.”
I chuckled and said, “As long as I don’t have to sleep in a tent.”
Amena said, “Me either.”
We drifted apart, talking to the others there, dusk starting to fall, and I found myself with Axe.
He said, “I heard you had those Badr guys dead to rights, in the crosshairs, and didn’t take the shot. That true?”
I’d thought about that decision a lot in the last few days, wondering if it had been right. I knew that Shakor and his friends had American blood on their hands, and they deserved to be planted, but killing a man takes something out of you. It’s like a chip in the armor of your soul each and every time. Killing in self-defense was one thing, but putting a bullet in their heads that day was something else.
I said, “It’s true. I let them walk.”
“Even after Carly?”
I said, “We slaughtered the men who hit her. They’re dead. This wasn’t them.”
He said, “You’re a better man than I am. I’d have smoked them no matter who they were. Badr 313 aren’t good guys. In fact, I’ll probably end up doing that very thing someday. Cleaning up your leftovers.”
And that was the crux of the argument. Had I let Shakor go only to have him kill some other Americans? But you can’t see the future. You can’t put a bullet into somebody’s head just because you think he might be dangerous. Because of that, I hadn’t taken the shot. By all rights, they should have been dead for what Ghulam had tried to do against Branko, and I’d let them live. It would haunt me.
I said, “Maybe you will, Axe. Maybe you will. But I have to look in the mirror each morning, and I want to like what’s looking back.”
He nodded and said, “I hear you. I know.”
His eyes held a sense of loss, and I realized he’d been in a similar situation before and had gone the other way. I didn’t know what to say to that. He clinked my glass and said, “To Carly,” then wandered away, joining Knuckles and Brett.
I sat down in a chair and saw Amena hovering near the bar. She’d heard the conversation. She came over and said, “This is because someone died, isn’t it?”
I hadn’t explained anything to her, just letting her run around the bar figuring she wouldn’t understand, but I should have known that was dumb.
I said, “It is.”
“Carly was a friend?”
“Yes. A friend.”
“And you had the ability to avenge her death and didn’t take it, like you did with me?’
She’d heard the exchange between me and Axe, and now I was going to listen to my adopted daughter tell me how I’d screwed up. Amena had lost her entire family to a sociopathic Chechen, her father and brother killed right before her eyes. She had a little bit of a vengeance streak because of it, and I’d satisfied that streak, killing the man hunting her.
I said, “Honey, this was a little different. It wasn’t the same thing. The men weren’t trying to kill me. It was a meeting we’d agreed to have.”
She stared into my eyes, then said, “But you regret it.”
I said, “I don’t know. Maybe I do. It’s not that simple.”
She crawled into my lap, saying, “My father used to tell us to do the right thing. Even when I was stealing from the tourists in Monaco, he would say that. I kept what I did hidden, because he would never understand, but we needed money for food. I’d come home and get a lecture about how it was easy to do wrong, but sometimes hard to do the right thing.”
She laid her head into my chest and said, “I think what you did was the hard thing. But it was the right thing.”
And that was all the absolution I needed.
Acknowledgments
I will tell you this up front—Croatian gelato is the secret to life. I’ve had gelato in Italy, and here in the United States, but that stuff in Croatia is on another planet. If I could have written an entire book centered on that, I would have.
For the first time since COVID, I had the opportunity to travel for book research, but the options were limited. Most countries still had massive restrictions, but Croatia said, “bring it on.” Truthfully, I had an entire book research trip planned for the country for my previous novel, End of Days, but COVID sidelined it. When the world started to reopen, my wife, the DCOE, said, “Where are we going?” I’d already done the planning for Croatia a year before, and said, “No brainer.”
Our first stop was Zagreb, the capital of Croatia, and I’m indebted to our guide for setting the tone for the rest of our research. In Zagreb alone he showed me the Gric Tunnel, and when I asked for a local’s only speakeasy, he told me how to find the Café A’è. He asked where we were headed, and suggested the Makarun restaurant in Split, along with an underground airfield Tito had during the Cold War. (I really wanted to use that, but it was surrounded by old minefields and off limits.)
As is our want, we decided to rent a car and drive down the coast through the entire country, figuring that it can’t be that hard. Of course, that didn’t work out. Not that the country was hard, just that my GPS was a little pathetic at directions. Every day was an adventure. For instance, if you ever visit the Plitvice National Park, be sure and get a map, because the posted signs are absolutely worthless. We took what we thought was the “2 hour” hiking route, and then found ourselves in the middle of the woods inside a driving rainstorm. Eight hours later—EIGHT HOURS LATER—we made it out. Only a part of that made it into the book. The cave where the treasure is buried. That place is real, and we saw it within thirty minutes. The rest of that? Just something for the history books and my wife.
We hit many towns along the coast, and some of the stories are hilarious. At one point, we were waiting in the car line to get on a ferry and it was completely full. The guy at the terminal waved us forward, and I said to Elaine, “What’s he trying to tell us? Park somewhere until the next ferry?”
He was standing there in his yellow vest and furiously waving. Elaine said, “I think he wants us to board.” I said, “Where? The entire boat is full.” She pressed the gas (because I always make her drive) and he parked us sideways on the ramp of the ferry. I couldn’t even open my door to get out. I said, “I’m not sure this is legal.” Elaine said, “Who cares? We made it onboard!” My own personal Jennifer.
An hour later we were in Korcula, which, of course, made the book. Marco Polo, according to legend, was from there. The boutique hotel in the book is real, but I wasn’t going to spend the money to stay there. (Well, I wanted to, but couldn’t justify it. The only thing available was the China Room, and it was really on the edge of being rockstar stupid.) The DCOE found our digs, and that’s what the Taskforce uses in the book.
There’s a reason Game of Thrones is mentioned several times in the story, and it’s because it was referenced everywhere we went, to the point it got to be a little ridiculous. Klis Fortress was majestic, but it had now become a GOT pilgrimage site. The old town of Split is one of the coolest places I’ve ever visited—and the cellars in the book exist, but once again, with a GOT twist (okay, if you have to know, it’s where Daenerys kept her dragons). In fact, the old town now includes a GOT museum. Speaking of Split, our guide in Zagreb had been right—the Makarun restaurant was stellar—and he didn’t know it, but the setting was perfect for Branko’s safehouse.
