No Fortunate Son (5 page)

K
ylie Hale felt shame wash through her as her bladder released, leaking through her jeans and staining the concrete floor. She tried to prevent it, but she had been tied up for so long, and she was afraid to shout out. Afraid of drawing attention to herself. She could see nothing in the darkness and probably couldn’t even if there was light because of the cloth bag on her head. She began to weep, small hitches that she willed herself to contain. She failed. Lost in the fear of what had occurred, wondering where her date had been taken, she lay and shook, the urine dribbling on the floor.

Twenty-four hours ago she’d been worried about college finals. Now she feared for her very life. She could barely comprehend the turnabout. On the dirt road the men had flex-tied and hooded both of them, showing little compassion before shoving them both in the trunk of a car. They’d been told not to say a word, then tapped in the head with the barrel of a pistol to seal the threat. Driven for roughly an hour, they’d stopped, and she’d spent the night in the trunk, the claustrophobic hood preventing her from seeing anything. When the engine had fired up hours later, it had snapped her eyes open, the panic returning. She heard a multitude of other engines, then felt the vehicle drive up a ramp. She heard a bellowing foghorn and knew they were on a boat. Which meant they’d left England.

Eventually, they’d begun moving again, the engine lulling her and the exhaustion taking over. By the time they’d stopped again, she’d lost track of how long they’d been driving. She’d been ripped out of the trunk, hearing her date shouting behind her. She was thrown into a
dank basement smelling of loam and mold, the cold seeping through her clothes. For the longest time, she’d lain completely still, afraid to move. She remembered what the men had said when they’d originally captured her and knew she was in serious jeopardy. The only thing unknown was the time.

She rolled over onto her back, worming her way out of the urine puddle. She sagged into a ball and began weeping again, then heard a shuffle in the darkness. She froze, the sound shooting fear through her body. A groan, then scraping. She remained mute. She heard a whisper.

“Kylie? Kylie, are you in here?”

It took a moment for the words to penetrate, then the relief flowed through her. “Yes. Yes, I’m here. Are you hurt?”

“Only my pride. I’m okay.”

Before she’d been crammed in the trunk, she’d heard him fighting, and heard the punishment delivered. She was fairly sure he was downplaying how hard they’d treated him.

She said, “What do they want? Why did they take us?”

“It’s me. I won’t let them hurt you. I promise.”

“You? Why? What did you do?”

“Nothing. But it’s me.”

She heard a squeak, and then footfalls on wooden steps, each one ratcheting up her anxiety. They reached the concrete and stopped next to her. She strained her eyes through the bag, seeing a dim shadow.

“You pissed on my floor? Jesus, Mother Mary, and Joseph.”

The Irish accent was pronounced, so much so she had trouble following it. She was jerked upright into a sitting position, causing her to tremble. She felt hands on her skull and she began to scuttle backward. The voice said, “Calm down. I’m removing your hood.”

It slid off her head and she saw two men, one over her and one over her date, both with rough clothes. The man above her was tall and thin, with an ascetic, hatchet face, the veins on his neck standing out like a marble sculpture. Behind his left ear was a tattoo of a harp. The man over her date was younger, with a thick beard, like a lumberjack.

The man with the tattoo squatted down to her level. “Why would you piss on my floor?”

The view of him was disconcerting. Scary. “I . . . I didn’t want to.”

He studied her. He said, “You may call me Seamus. I am a soldier and work with a soldier’s creed. I do not kill civilians if I can prevent it, but you’ve presented me with a problem.”

Her date said, “Leave her alone. You have me. That’s enough.”

Seamus stood up and walked to him. He removed the hood and said, “Nicholas Hannister. Yes, we do have you, and unlike the lady, you are not a civilian. And don’t think your name will protect you.”

Nick said, “Look, everyone will know soon enough that you have me. Letting her go won’t matter. You can take her back where you found us and just let her walk away.”

“No, everyone will
not
know. The last thing the United States wants is this to become a circus in the press. And there will be enormous pressure from your government to find you. I cannot risk that your floozie has some clue in her head.”

The back-and-forth between them confused Kylie, making her wonder who Nick really was. She knew his last name as Seacrest, not Hannister, and he hadn’t told her anything to indicate his family was rich or well connected. If that were the case, why was he enlisted in the US Air Force?

Seamus walked back to Kylie and said, “What is your name? I know his, but not yours.”

“Kylie. Kylie Hale.”

“Well, Kylie, do you have any reason I should keep you alive? Are you valuable to anyone?”

She began to weep, saying nothing, the tears running down her face.

His eyes stayed on her for a beat, then he stood and nodded at the bearded man. He came over and untied her feet, then raised her up. Nick started thrashing, getting nowhere with his feet tied at the ankles and his hands behind his back.

He shouted, “Don’t do it! Leave her alone. I’m warning you. Don’t.”

Seamus slammed a boot into his stomach and said, “Shut the fuck up. If you’d told someone you were going out with her, we would have waited. Blame yourself.”

Kylie was halfway up the stairs, her legs barely moving, the bearded
man dragging her steadily upward. Seamus turned to go and Nick shouted, “She’s my fiancée! She flew in to surprise me. I didn’t know she was coming. Don’t kill her because of that.”

Seamus turned back. “Your fiancée?”

He nodded furiously. “Yes. My mother and father love her like me. Even more than me. She was staying with them last week and set up this surprise.”

“Then why were you fucking her in the backseat of a car?”

Nick paused, then said, “Girls aren’t allowed in the barracks.”

“You never heard of a hotel?”

“Look, I don’t know. We were just . . . overcome, I guess.”

Seamus shouted up the stairs. “Hold it.”

Kylie sagged to a step, still weeping. Seamus marched up to her, cupped her chin, and raised her head. “Is this true?”

Lost in her own despair, Kylie hadn’t heard the conversation. She said nothing, almost catatonic. He squeezed her chin and repeated, “Is it true?”

“What? Is what true?”

“Are you his fiancée?”

She looked down the stairs and saw Nick staring at her intently. He faintly nodded his head. She hesitatingly said, “Yes.”

Her mind struggled to keep up. To comprehend what Nick was doing. She saw Seamus considering her answer and prayed he didn’t ask any questions about Nick’s family. Nick had been extremely evasive whenever anything like that came up. Even secretive. She’d never pressed.

He leaned back and said, “We researched Nicholas for over six months, and you never surfaced. Why is that?”

From the floor, Nick said, “The Secret Service insisted we keep it quiet. She can’t be officially protected, and they saw her as a potential leverage point.”

Kylie thought
, Secret Service?

Seamus smiled. “Well, they were right.” He nodded at the man holding her. “Take her back. We’ll see how the honorable Phillip Hannister deals with two missing he holds dear.”

As the man jerked her back down the stairs, the name swam around her head, seeking purchase. He kicked the back of her knee and forced her to the ground, flex-tying her feet again. As the darkness descended from the hood, her memory clicked, and she knew why they wanted Nick.

Phillip Hannister, the vice president of the United
States.

The Hunt

G
oing through the metal detectors of the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, I was a little disappointed in Kurt’s choice of meeting location. I always preferred hitting up a small pub—of which there were plenty in DC—but for some reason, Kurt had decided that the McDonald’s attached to the museum was the way to go. Considering it was ten in the morning, I guessed that was okay.

On the civilian side, Kurt was ostensibly the president of Blaisdell Consulting. On the military side he was a PowerPoint Ranger staff officer working at the Special Operations Division of the Joint Staff in the Pentagon. The multiple personalities would have given me schizophrenia. For security reasons, because of the myriad different cutouts and cover companies tangentially associated with the front known as Blaisdell Consulting, Jennifer and I never went to the physical building next to Arlington Cemetery in Clarendon. Any time we needed a face-to-face with our command, we did it off-site. And this situation was definitely one for a face-to-face, especially given the strange instructions Kurt had relayed on the phone call yesterday.

Based on Knuckles’s recommendation, I’d patiently let the letter sit on my desk for the better part of two long days. Well,
patiently
was a polite way of putting it. I’d paced around and read it so many times that Jennifer had asked if I’d worn out the words. I’d finally figured that a day and a half was long enough and picked up the phone to call Kurt. Jennifer had stopped me, saying I’d promised her to let it sit for two full days. I’d started to argue, then my cell had rung. Strangely enough, it was Kurt.

Stranger still, he didn’t want to talk on the phone. He’d told me to
pack clothes for a week and to fly to DC. To which I’d responded, “Is the Taskforce going to reimburse me for the airfare? If not, you can fly your ass down here.”

He’d said, “I’ll pay you back. Both you and Jennifer.”

Not
the Taskforce will pay you back
or
Blaisdell Consulting will reimburse you
, but
I’ll
pay you back
. And he wanted Jennifer to come as well, with enough clothes for a week. Strange indeed.

We wound our way through the displays, moving around the simulated moon landing outside of the interior entrance to the food court. Through the glass I saw Kurt in the corner, sipping a cup of coffee. Dressed like a businessman, he glanced my way and nodded. Jennifer broke to the counter to get her own cup and I went straight to him. He stood up and shook my hand, saying, “I know you have questions. Let me talk first.”

I nodded and sat down. He said, “Did you get a hotel?”

“Yeah. Just dropped our luggage off. Embassy Suites in Old Town.”

“Good. Well, first things first: It’s true Grolier Recovery Services has been ‘laid off.’ I’m working to rectify that, but my briefing to the Council on your behalf was preempted by other things.”

“What does that mean?”

“I’ll get to that in a minute. For you, the primary problem is that prick Billings. He’s steadily grown convinced that you are a threat, and Brazil was the last straw. As secretary of state he convinced enough Council members to vote you out.”

“Brazil? I stopped a nuclear weapon!”

“I know, I know. But you also went on the warpath, eliminating Russian members of the FSB. When we originally sent you to Bulgaria, Billings was the dissenting vote. When you ignored the Council’s orders, he went into ‘I told you so’ mode.”

“They attacked
us
, sir. They killed Turbo, Radcliffe, and Decoy. Came damn close to killing Jennifer and me. And it was the Israelis who did most of the killing.”

He held up his hands, “Pike, you don’t have to convince me. I have no problem with what you did. Well, except when you basically told me to fuck off.”

I felt my face grow red in embarrassment. He was right about that.

He said, “Look, I’ve ordered the Taskforce to keep all linkages. We aren’t shredding the cover mechanisms and you’ll be kept on Blaisdell Consulting’s books like everyone else. But I’m going to need some time before I can get in front of the Council again.”

“Why? Knuckles said something about a soldier dying and that the VP’s son was missing. Is that what’s got the Beltway’s panties in a knot?”

And he told me about the whole hostage mess, which was pretty damaging. I could see why everyone was spinning out of control. If we didn’t find them, the administration would be held hostage by both the press
and
the terrorists. Everything that occurred would be under the prism of the captured Americans, with half saying any military action the United States executed was unjustified and conducted solely to prove we don’t listen to terrorists, and the other half saying we were cowering down and
not
doing military action because of the terrorist demands. It wouldn’t matter what crisis we were dealing with—the hostages would taint our response.

He then topped off the debacle with a nice little cherry that the VP’s son was apparently an analyst with potentially catastrophic intelligence in his little weenie head.

“Who do they think it is?”

“The consensus is an Islamic group, but I tend to agree with the D/CIA. It’s much too complex for them. I guess we’ll know soon enough, because we’ve been given the mission to find out.”

“The Taskforce? How the hell are they going to do that? It’s not like they can liaison with a foreign police force as an official US government entity. Whose bright idea was that?”

“The president’s. The entire Taskforce is now dedicated to this. I’ve got teams headed to Okinawa, Brussels, and Honduras. Knuckles is going to England.”

The conversation was starting to confuse me. Why tell me what the teams were doing when I had no need to know?

Jennifer sat down, sliding over a cup of coffee. Kurt said, “Good to see you, Koko.”

She took his hand, smiled, and said, “Good to see you as well, but please don’t call me Koko unless I’m on a radio.”

Kurt looked at me and I said, “Yeah, she’s not into the whole callsign thing. Aggravates her. Anyway, are you telling me that you want Jennifer and me to help with this mission? Even after letting us go from the Taskforce?”

“No. Unfortunately, I’m not. Remember my niece? Kylie?”

“Well, yeah, of course, what about her?”

When I was still in the Army, on active duty, Kylie had been a fixture at any unit function. The truth was we all took a liking to her to the point where she became sort of a unit mascot. She was always hanging around at our get-togethers, grabbing us beers and wanting to hear stories from the teammates. My wife actually took her under her wing for a little bit, letting her babysit our daughter and taking her out for “girl talk” occasionally. But that had been years ago. When I had a wife and daughter.

“She’s on a student exchange from the University of Virginia to Cambridge University in England. My sister called right when this other crap was brewing. Kylie hasn’t called home, and I’m worried about her.”

Kurt was a permanent bachelor, but he treated Kylie like a daughter, much to her mother’s regret. In turn, Kylie adored him as if he were her real father. Like the father she’d never had. When Kurt’s sister had divorced, Kylie had taken her mother’s maiden name, and I was fairly sure it was because of Kurt and not her mother.

The mother, on the other hand, was a piece of work. Kurt seemed to tolerate her, but she was a peacenik with her head in the dirt. Always going on and on about how evil the CIA was and how the United States used the military to ensure the flow of oil or whatever else was current at the time. If she’d called Kurt for help, she was desperate.

Still not understanding the significance, I said, “Worried how? She’s a college kid. They do that shit all the time. What do you mean?”

“Not like this. She’s been gone for forty-eight hours, Pike. Just gone. She’s dropped off the face of the earth, and I think she’s in real trouble.”

The fear on his face was a little bit of a punch, reminding me of my own daughter. Reminding me of what I’d lost. He saw my face and immediately knew the wound he was cutting open. Jennifer saw it too. She clasped my hand and they both closed in, leaning forward as if they
were now discussing a terminal disease with a patient, which aggravated me. I could take the pain. I’d been through it already.

I said, “What do you want me to do? Why’d you tell me about the missing men? The Taskforce mission?”

“No reason, except we bought a new Rock Star bird. A Gulfstream 650. It has longer range, faster flight, and more storage than the G-Four you blew up. Knuckles is taking it to England on its maiden voyage. I want you to go with him.”

The Rock Star bird was a nickname we had for a Taskforce Gulfstream IV that was specially modified to infiltrate Taskforce equipment into a country. It was outfitted with everything from suppressed weapons to technical surveillance kit, all hidden in special compartments in the walls of the aircraft to defeat host nation immigration procedures. I’d used it on the last mission to detonate a nuclear bomb over the ocean—which hadn’t gone over too well, considering its cost.

He continued, “I want you to find my niece. Make sure she’s okay. I’ll pay for your flight up here today and pay for your per diem in country. Just tell me she’s okay.”

I saw the pain on his face and felt my own memories start to bubble. The loss. And the chance to prevent another one.

I said, “As a Taskforce member, doing secret shit?”

“No. As a friend of the family. Knuckles will be doing the secret stuff under a cellular telephone contract. You land and walk away. I’ve already talked to Knuckles, which is why I’m sending him to England. He can keep a secret. You can’t mention that I allowed you to use Taskforce assets. You get there, you can talk to anyone you want. Give them my number, my sister’s number, whatever. The only thing you’ll be doing with Knuckles is flying over with him.”

I was running the implications through my head, and he misinterpreted it as hesitation or aggravation at having to hide what I was doing. He said, “Pike, I’m sorry about the Oversight Council. I didn’t want that to happen, and you’re getting a raw deal, but I need you on this. I need you to do what you do best. Find her for me. Please. As a friend.”

Jennifer said, “Kurt, of course we’ll go.”

He leaned back and exhaled.

I said, “Sir, there was never a question about that. And don’t worry about the pay.”

He said, “I’m really scared. I’m afraid of what you’ll find.”

I grinned. “Focus on the circus going on back here. Kylie’s probably teaching the limeys to play beer pong. It’ll be a walk in the park.”

“And if she’s not?”

Jennifer said, “She is. Don’t think that way.”

Kurt kept his eyes on me, an unspoken question on his face, the pain just behind the eyes. He and I knew of a different world that could have touched Kylie. A place of evil that rarely knocked on the door of the average civilian. A place that was causing him nightmares. A place that had found me already. And he knew it.

I said, “Jennifer’s right. Don’t worry about it. I’ll go get her. I understand no backup. No official help. Doesn’t matter. If she’s in real trouble, they made a mistake in the target. Whoever took her will wish they’d taken the VP’s son instead.”

He squeezed my arm, glancing at Jennifer. “Pike, I know I have no right to ask you, but I don’t want just questions answered like the police have already given. I don’t want to hear ‘no clues.’ I cannot live with ‘we’ve done all we can.’”

He looked out the window and said, “She’s in a world of shit. I can feel it, and I can’t do anything about it with the crap going on around here. I can’t leave.” He returned to me, I swear with a touch of shame. “Will you do what’s necessary? Can you? After what happened with the Council? I need to know.”

I understood what he was asking, and I was a little surprised that he thought he had to. I knew he’d given me permission to go after the Russians, even if it wasn’t articulated, but this was on a whole different level. This wasn’t about national security. This was personal. Which in my internal code was much, much higher.

I locked eyes with him, feeling my daughter. Feeling a chance at redemption. I gave him the answer he wanted. “I’ll get her back. Trust me, there is no measure of the pain I will inflict to do so.”