Quest for Honor (24 page)

She kissed his chest, but said nothing. He kept going, the words and feelings finally bubbling to the surface. “Last time was at her mother’s funeral, six years ago. What the hell does that say about me, that I can only see my brother at funerals? And now he’s—”

She heard the catch in his voice. “What’s the matter? Is your brother ill?”

“No. He’s…I can’t tell you anything. It’s classified.” He wanted to tell her, desperately wanted to, but held back. The training, the duty, his oath…”He’s going into harm’s way,” he said finally. “And it’s sure as hell not in Wisconsin.” Suddenly he felt almost overwhelmed by the fear, the dread that Jim was going to be in trouble, and there wasn’t a damn thing Mark could do to help him. He suddenly sat upright, cradling his head in his hands.

“Shh, it’s all right,” she whispered, holding him.

“No, it’s not all right. It’s wrong. He’s my brother. I’ve got him and my son and my niece and that’s it.”

She stroked his hair. “You have me,” she said. That brought a smile, and a kiss. “Maybe your brother is doing the same thing you are.”

“What do you mean? He’s not in the military—“

“I didn’t mean that. What he’s doing now, I know you can’t tell me but it’s obviously dangerous. Perhaps he’s searching for the same thing you are.”

“And what would that be?”

Her green eyes were deep and searching. “I’ve heard you talk about your work here,” she said. “It’s more than just being in the Army, doing your job. For you, anyway, it’s a lot more than that.”

“Somebody’s got to do it.”

“Yes, that’s true,” she said. “But while many are called, few are chosen. You’ve been chosen, Mark. I just have that feeling about you. There’s a sense of…well, decency about you that I don’t always see in military men. Or civilians, for that matter. Especially civilians.”

“Well, I’ve been called a lot of things, but ‘decent’ is a new one.”

“Have you ever thought about why you do what you do? I mean, the real reasons why?”

He looked away for a second, then back at her. Outside, a siren started to wail. He waited for a second, expecting to hear the crump of an explosion, the rattle of small-arms fire, but it didn’t come. He forced himself to relax. He thought of his father again. Not a very well-educated man, but hard-working. Ed Hayes was a little rough around the edges, but he loved his wife and his boys, would do anything for them, and he loved his country, fought for it and risked his life to help people stay free. He stood for something, Never got rich because of it, never became famous, he just did what had to be done, because…why? Then it came to him, so simple, yet so true.

“It’s…it’s a matter of honor,” he said slowly.

She smiled. “You don’t know how refreshing it is to hear a man say that.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

M
c
Lean, Virginia

T
here had been
a time, when Jim was reading a novel by one of his favorite authors like Dick Couch or David Poyer, he imagined himself in the middle of some clandestine operation for the CIA, or in the field with the Marines, or at sea on a Navy destroyer. He imagined how exciting it would be, the challenge of the work, the camaraderie with his fellow agents or sailors or soldiers. Certainly a cut above the rather humdrum life he’d chosen for himself.

Now he was here, working with the CIA at their headquarters in Langley, and he was getting bored. Perhaps
impatient
was a better word. Something was going to happen, he was going overseas, but when? He’d been here three days already, and the excitement of seeing CIA Headquarters had worn off a day or so earlier. He was beginning to miss his house back in Cedar Lake, his cat, the dojo, even the office, for God’s sake. And what about Gina? Would the spark die out?

When they arrived in Washington late that Saturday night, they took him to a townhouse in the suburban Virginia town of McLean where he would be staying. He was under strict orders not to go outside without permission. There was an agent on duty with him at all times, sitting in the living room, reading or watching television. So far he’d counted four different men on the detail, all of them young, very fit, polite but not talkative. He sensed they were bored, too, and probably a little frustrated with their assignment, but they were professionals and did their job.

Sunday he spent settling in. The closet in the master bedroom held a selection of casual clothes in his size, and the dresser had a decent supply of socks and underwear, in case he ran out of what he’d been allowed to bring along. There was no telephone. A room set aside as a den held a nice selection of books and a computer with some games installed but no internet connection. Allenson came by around five and they went out to dinner at a quiet restaurant nearby, but their conversation was all business. She filled him in on his schedule for the week, deflected his few questions about her work and background, and drove him back to the townhouse, giving him a brief smile and handshake as he exited the car. The agent on duty was standing in the front door.

He could leave if he wanted to, that had been made clear. Until they were airborne on their way to Africa a few days later, he could pull the plug at any time. All he had to do was tell his minder that he wanted to go home, and arrangements would be made. Within a few hours he’d be back in his own house.

But he knew he wouldn’t do that, and, surely they knew that, too.

Monday, Allenson showed up promptly at eight in the morning and took him to the CIA building in the neighborhood known as Langley. It was impressive, but he’d seen it on TV and in the movies many times, so he wasn’t awed by it.

Filled with people who all seemed to know where they were going, tight security, meticulously clean, the building seemed to know how important it was. Allenson showed him to a conference room, where he met a few other people. They talked about his background, and asked Jim to detail his martial arts training. When he asked about the mission, they told him that would be the topic of another meeting. After lunch in one of the building’s cafeterias he was given a tour. He saw the scale model of the A-12 Oxcart surveillance jet, the successor to the U-2 and predecessor to the SR-71 Blackbird. A plaque said the jet could fly more than three times the speed of sound at 90,000 feet. There was the Directors Gallery, busts of Nathan Hale and President George H.W. Bush, the only CIA director ever to become president. There was the museum, a library with over 125,000 volumes, and so much more. They even had a gym, a very nice one at that, and he was allowed to get in a workout. That, at least, had been refreshing. After that, back to the townhouse and a quiet evening.

Tuesday’s agenda included some indications as to what was on the horizon. Already knowing from the day before that the only firearms training he’d ever had was as a kid shooting at cans with a .410 shotgun on his uncle’s farm, they told him he would not be handling any guns on this trip. He suspected that would’ve been the case even if he’d known everything there was to know about guns. Couldn’t argue with them on that one. He’d probably wind up shooting himself or someone else.

They went over some very general particulars about the mission. They’d fly direct from Washington to Germany and then Djibouti, in the Horn of Africa, a place Jim had heard of before, vaguely. When he looked it up that night in an encyclopedia at the townhouse, he found out a lot more. That would be the staging area. From there, probably somewhere into Somalia. When would this happen? Well, that was still a bit up in the air. They would know soon enough, and they assured him things would start moving quickly after that.

Over lunch he mentioned that he’d never been to Washington. Denise asked him if there was anything in particular he’d like to see, and he told her about two sites that held a certain interest for him. An hour later he was in a car with his minder at the wheel. It was a hot day, so they stopped by the townhouse first so he could change into some light linen pants and a cotton polo shirt, and he spotted a hat store where he bought himself a straw fedora. A short time later they were in the capital.

They only had a few hours to spare, so he wanted to make the most of them. The Vietnam Memorial was very moving, crowded with old veterans and younger people he assumed were the children of fallen vets, some of them weeping as they touched a name etched into the black granite. He wondered if someday they’d put up memorials for the men and women who’d never made it back from Iraq and Afghanistan. There was a bad moment when he thought of seeing Mark’s name on a granite wall years from now.

His second and last stop was the Korean War Memorial. It was too bad his father had never made it here. What would Ed Hayes have thought of the nineteen stainless steel statues of wandering soldiers, their hands clutching their rifles, many eyes looking haunted, peering ahead or to the side in search of…what? The enemy? A missing comrade, maybe, perhaps an end to the cold and pain and brutality. There were a few veterans here, a bit older than their Vietnam-era counterparts. Jim sat on a bench near the Pool of Remembrance and read the inscription on the plaque: “Our nation honors her sons and daughters who answered the call to defend a country they never knew and a people they never met.”

His father had done that, his brother was doing it right now, and finally it was Jim’s turn. He hoped he’d be up to the task.

The Wednesday morning briefing contained nothing really new. Yes, the mission was a go, but they still didn’t tell him when. He got the impression they would know something in another twenty-four hours or so. Until then, he would just have to wait. He asked if he could call his daughter, and Gina, to let them know he was okay. Allenson talked it over with someone by phone, then said fine, and he was given some privacy in the conference room, but had to place the call through an operator. Maybe they were worried about him calling MSNBC to blow the whistle on the whole operation.

Mickey was relieved to hear his voice, but knowing someone was surely listening in, he couldn’t tell her much more than what he’d said back on Saturday. Gina sounded happy to hear from him, and concerned, but Jim found himself fretting that whatever spark they might’ve had up in Rice Lake would be gone by the time he got back from the mission. He promised to get in touch with her as soon as he got back, hopefully in a few days, and they’d get together.

Allenson was waiting at the door of the conference room. “I thought we might go out for lunch,” she said. She was becoming a familiar mealtime companion by now, and their conversations tended to steer away from the mission, but on the ride to a ritzy shopping area she called Tysons Galleria she said, “I get the feeling you’re a little impatient, Jim.” At least they were on a first-name basis now. Jim had been wondering if that would ever happen; if he’d discovered anything about the CIA and its people by now, it was that they were all business.

He hadn’t thought it was that obvious, but these people were trained observers, after all. “Well, I appreciate everything you people are doing, and I know we have to wait for…something, but yeah, I could use a little action.” He looked at her, then chuckled. “I didn’t really mean that like it sounded.”

That brought a bit of a smile. “That’s all right.” She flipped the car’s signal arm to the right as the entrance to the Galleria approached, then flipped it off. “Tell you want, I know a little place not far from here, a little more down to earth.”

“Sure.”

Five minutes later she pulled to the curb. Jim had presumed that McLean wouldn’t have anything resembling a rough part of town, but this area was noticeably down the ladder a rung or two from their original destination. Denise led the way to a small bar and grill. “Great burgers here, Jim,” she said. “I assume you’re a burger guy?”

“With cheese and maybe some bacon, I could be persuaded.”

The interior of the Bull Run Bar & Grill had muted lights and a décor that was vaguely Civil War-era. Jim remembered that the real battles of Bull Run had taken place only about twenty miles from here. Since they were in Virginia, he wondered why the bar had adopted the Northern name for the battles, rather than Manassas. He took in the other patrons: three of the booths were occupied, two with couples, one with two women. Two men in suits sat at one end of the bar, with a lone man near the middle.

They took a moment to look over the menus. “I have to use the ladies’ room,” Denise said. “When the waitress comes, I’ll have the special of the day.”

Jim had considered that, too. “Italian beef. With the house fries or the potato chips?”

“Fries, please.” She slid out of the booth and headed toward the far end of the room, turning left past the bar.

“Hi there, welcome to the Bull Run,” a soft Southern-tinged voice said.

“Hi, I’d like—“ He froze. The waitress was young, maybe early twenties, but she could’ve been…

“Excuse me?” she said.

“Uh, sorry. I’ll have the bacon cheeseburger, and my friend gets the Italian beef. Fries with both.”

“Sure thing. How about something to drink?”

That stumped him. He thought about ordering a beer, but Denise was on duty, and technically he was too, he supposed. “A couple of lemonades, please.”

“All right, great. Be back with your drinks in two shakes.” She gave him a dazzling smile and walked away toward the next occupied booth. He couldn’t believe it. Even from behind, she looked like Suzy, from their college days. His heart started beating a little faster. He took a deep breath and forced himself to keep calm.

He couldn’t take his eyes off her, though. As she took another order, he noticed a couple differences from Suzy. She didn’t have the Cindy Crawford-style beauty mark on the right cheek like his late wife, and she was a couple inches taller. But otherwise, it was uncanny—the build, the hair, and that smile.

He also enjoyed the view from the rear as she walked toward the far end of the bar. Had Suzy ever worn jeans like that? No, come to think of it, this gal wore them even better—

“Hey, darlin’, c’mere.” The lone man at the bar grabbed her by the arm as she went by.

“Excuse me, sir. How can I help you?”

“Oh, I can think of a couple ways.” Jim zeroed in, all senses alive now. The man was about thirty, and more crudely dressed than the other men in the bar: ball cap, sleeveless tee shirt, jeans, boots. Jim saw a tattoo on his left bicep, two metal studs in the left earlobe. As he turned on the barstool, Jim caught a thin rectangular bulge in the right front pocket of the jeans. Knife, probably a butterfly.

The bartender was on the phone at the far end of the bar. The two men at the near end had stopped their conversation and were looking at the lone man and the waitress. Jim saw their body language; they weren’t going to do anything.

“Sir, please, you’re hurting my arm.”

Jim slid silently out of the booth.

“Now, honey, you been ignorin’ me an’ that ain’t polite. You an’ me could have a real fine time together.” The waitress tried to pull free from his grip, failed, gasping as he tightened it.

“Let her go.”

The man saw Jim for the first time. “Fuck off, dude, this between me an’—“

“Wrong answer.” Jim reached for the man’s hand and peeled away the pinky finger, twisting it back and around counter-clockwise. The man gasped and the waitress yanked her arm free. “Time for you to go,” Jim said. He stepped behind the man and brought the hand around and up, into a chicken-wing hold. He applied just a bit of pressure to the elbow with his left hand and lifted the man off the barstool.

He staggered and Jim saw him reach with his free right hand for the knife. “Don’t try it,” Jim said, applying a hair more pressure to the hold. The man yelled in pain.

“Hey, man, that hurts!”

“I’ll bet it does,” Jim said. “Not as much as this, though.” He cranked the arm another couple inches, bringing a scream of pain. “Now, let’s walk nice and easy to the door, my friend, and there’ll be no need for me to break anything.”

The two men at the bar were staring with wide eyes as Jim marched the man past them and out the door. He gave the guy a none-too-gentle shove. “Don’t come back.”

The man lurched away a couple steps, his left arm dangling, but the right hand went for the pocket and out came the knife. “I’m gonna cut you, man!” He flipped the butterfly knife open and twirled it at his side, shoulder-high, then started to swing the four-inch blade around in a slashing arc. It would’ve done some damage, but Jim had kept himself relaxed and breathing normally and his Systema training came back to him without a thought. He flowed underneath the slashing arm, guiding it around and back at the man as he fired a left punch into the kidney area and kicked at the inside of his right knee. The man buckled and went down as Jim gently twisted the knife hand, freeing the weapon.

The man was on his back on the sidewalk and Jim had his right knee on the ribcage and left foot pinning down the right arm. The guy’s eyes bulged as he realized the knife blade was now only two inches from his own throat.