The Operative (32 page)

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Authors: Andrew Britton

BOOK: The Operative
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CHAPTER 24
NEW YORK, NEW YORK
H
unt had no interest in what his colleagues from the New York field office were saying. He knew what had happened here; he’d helped to plan it. He knew what they would do in response, and it was unfolding around him. The FBI was the perfect reaction machine. Something happened, they checked the playbook, and they deployed.
That kind of thinking was what had brought Hunt to this point. He had grown up in a family of cops. He remembered his grandfather’s frustration when Miranda suddenly became more than just the surname of a Brazilian samba singer. Suspects, even those caught in the act, suddenly had more than just their constitutional rights. Those rights had to be spelled out while the perps spit and swore at you. Hunt’s father was young enough to adjust—and was pushed backward into oncoming traffic on Philadelphia’s Broad Street by a mugger whose rights he was reciting. The elder Hunt never walked again.
Hunt had grown up believing in preventative action, which was why he’d joined the Bureau. He thought he would have the opportunity to infiltrate criminal organizations, sniff out terrorists in their communities, track clearly unrehabilitated felons as they returned to their previous lives. Hunt wanted to do it all with the fidelity, bravery, and integrity that was the FBI motto. He also had his own subset of that, his own personal marching orders: foresight, boldness, and imagination. His father and grandfather often spoke of the sixth sense a lawman had or acquired for knowing who was square and who was not. Hunt possessed that instinct. It didn’t matter to him who had to be put down to protect “the good.” It had never mattered to him.
Even in the more trivial times of his youth, he’d learned that winning was just the beginning of success. Young Alex had been playing king of the hill in the backyard when his neighbor’s Doberman, Sergeant Pepper, was let out, and spurred on by the rowdiness of the kids, it impulsively jumped the fence and went on the attack. Terrified, the other boys scattered toward the house, but it was Alexander, the king, who stayed and faced the canine head-on. His mind quickly chose a different battlefield.
Hunt ran down the hill, across the street, and channeled the pursuing dog into the small cemetery on the adjacent block, where he industriously picked up a collapsed tombstone and used it brazenly to crush the dog’s back before it could fully latch on to his leg.
Sergeant didn’t die instantly, but instead wriggled and whimpered on the manicured lawn while Alexander’s friends slowly congregated and then celebrated their safety with applause and taunts to the now debilitated, squirming creature. Hunt challenged any one of them to finish the job, to match the strike he had been forced to make. And no one stepped forward. Having sustained only a scratched ankle and calf from the initial chase, Hunt took a deep breath and brought his foot down heavily on the creature’s chest, crushing the remaining life out of it.
Checkmate
. He then methodically dug a hole with his hands and buried the remains under a nearby willow tree, the other boys uselessly stomping the earth down afterward, and then Alex went home without saying another word. His friends kept quiet about the missing dog. The deed was done and couldn’t be undone, no matter what sentence was passed—nor did they wish to answer to Hunt if they spoke up. His equanimity had protected not only him, but them. And to them, the small fee of silence was worth the price of security. And Alex’s reward of preserved loyalty, however useless his cohorts were at the time, taught him to start choosing his associates more carefully.
Friends with better hits
.
It seemed to Hunt that humankind had become apprehensive and could no longer keep pace with an exceptional willingness to prevail. To stand one’s ground. To fight inflexibly for sovereignty. And sacrifices just became footnotes to his many Bureau successes, casualties of his inviolable crusade for better traction. For the greatest advantage.
Because of the rules, because the Federal Bureau of Investigation was so concerned with rights and with not offending this group or that by profiling, by eschewing critical eyes on the borders, on mosques, on ethnic neighborhoods, or on markedly nonethnic neighborhoods where white supremacists were known to dwell, the FBI had lost the all-important first-strike capacity.
And so the United States of America became the giant who had to take the jabs while waiting for the opportunity to kayo an opponent. That was true at home, and it was true abroad, where most of the hate was nurtured. Trask had said it best in their first meeting.
“No more surgical strikes, no more military body bags,” he’d said. “We’ll turn the desert to glass and clean up with Windex.”
Getting to that point would come with an awful price. But it was necessary. And before Hunt’s father died, the AD wanted to be able to go to his bedside and say, “Dad, we went on offense, big-time.” He wanted to see the old man smile before he died.
Hunt had walked over to the agents to stall his guests. But he was watching them, and when he saw Bishop peel off, he had a good idea where he was going. Hunt was about to excuse himself when his Minotaur beeped. He stepped from the others, watching Bishop, while he took the call.
“Where is Muloni?” the caller asked.
“She was across the street from the lab,” Hunt said behind his cupped hand. He had begun walking briskly toward the retreating Bishop. The crowd would keep him from getting too far. Kealey was watching Hunt. There was no getting around him, and Hunt motioned for the man to move in that direction.
“I checked domestic tracking and ID,” Trask said. “She requested two cab destinations today. The second was to your location.”
“That’s standard operating—”
“I don’t care,” Trask interrupted. “It’s time the renegade was eliminated.”
For Baltimore, for Franklin May, Hunt had assumed a philosophical attitude toward killing: the good of the many outweighed the needs of the few. That made what he was ordered to do palatable.
“I’ll take care of it, sir,” he said as he folded away the phone.
Hunt carried a Sig Sauer P220 Equinox. The Sigs were being phased out in favor of Glocks, with their smoother trigger action, but the AD was fond of his .45 semiautomatic. He didn’t reach for the weapon in his deep shoulder holster, not yet. But he was folding and unfolding his fingers, his eyes zeroing in on Bishop as he walked, watching the area around him—and making sure, all the while, that he stayed wide of Kealey.
And then Hunt saw Bishop come to a hard stop at the foot of Spruce Street. Kealey was slightly behind him. He couldn’t risk drawing now; the CIA expat was certainly packing, as well. Hunt waited until he was at the edge of the crowd, which thickened as he neared City Hall Park, where the people he put behind him would shield him.
 
There was not enough room between the cab and the car ahead of it for Bishop to stand in front of the cab. Since he didn’t want it to go anywhere, he yanked open the passenger door.
“Hey, it’s
occupado!
” the driver shouted.
“It’s okay,” the passenger told him. “I’m getting out.” She pushed a twenty into the plastic tray and slid from the cab.
The driver muttered his thanks for being stranded in a no-go zone as she slammed the door. Bishop was staring at her.
“You first,” he said.
“That’s not how it’s going down,” she replied.
Bishop was perplexed. He assumed she was here tracking Veil. He hadn’t wanted to say anything until he knew for sure that
she
knew. That was SOP packaged inside IA über-caution. But what Jessica Muloni had just said to him was something else entirely. It wasn’t a prelude to information exchange. It was a command, as if Bishop were a suspect and she was the arresting agent.
Muloni pulled him away from traffic, toward the sidewalk. They stood beside the Pace University building. It was less crowded here, beside the bridge.
“Put your hands in your front pockets,” she said. Her voice and eyes were steel, and her right hand was behind her. He felt sick. She had a piece in her belt, under her shirt, and she was prepared to pull it on him.
“What?”
“Do it!”
He obliged.
“Tell me everything, now,” she ordered.
“What the hell’s going on?”
“Just goddamn answer me!” she snapped. “Your little girl was killed
yesterday!
What are you
doing
here, Reed?”
Bishop regarded her sadly. “Jessica, how did Veil get away?”
“You tell me!” she shot back.
“I have no idea, and for the record, I’m not here alone.”
“I know.”
It was then that Bishop realized how careful Muloni had been. She had situated them so that his left side was facing the bridge. He was looking uselessly out in the direction of the South Street Seaport. She, on the other hand, could see the surging crowds. She was also a step and a half away from him. Basic FBI training included disarming a gunman with a grab and twist of the hand while turning and stepping aside; he would need two steps to execute the maneuver, time enough for her to draw and fire.
“Where is she, Reed? Bishop was silent. It was obvious that Muloni had been following him. It took only a moment for him to consider the ways she could have known he was here. He wished he had asked Kealey who else knew the president requested him to go to New York. Was it possible that someone at a cabinet level, at a director’s level, was involved in this? Were there secretaries taking notes, or was it all being digitally recorded, as all official meetings in the Oval Office were? That wasn’t just for reference. It was for blackmail of chatty, duplicitous, or even drunk world leaders. It wasn’t that Bishop refused to believe there was duplicity at that level; he had seen all kinds of corruption and perversion of purpose in his years with IA. Considering all options came with the job. He simply didn’t want to believe it.
More likely, Muloni was the problem. Had she been at One West, working with Hunt? Was she the AD’s backup? Had she spotted them at Penn Station?
But this was a secret mission. How did she find out? he thought.
What did he miss? Where did he slip up? What would he have done had he not been here?
Funeral arrangements
.
The Bureau would have created a death notice, which was standard for family members. That would have been circulated internally at the Bureau. But there would have been no funeral home attached.
That, plus Veil had escaped. Maybe someone put the two together, reasoned he had agreed to be involved with the trackdown, watched him, saw him get onto the train... .
“I asked you a question,” Muloni said thickly.
“You’re way off base, Jessica,” Bishop replied.
“You’re here with a former Company man, a lone wolf. Way outside the Bureau comfort zone.”
“Cluzot had to—”
“Enough! Everyone around you was gunned down at the station this morning. Left, right, behind, in front. But not you.”
“I don’t know why that happened, either—”
“
Bullshit!
I will put a bullet in your leg and step on it when you’re down,” she said. “You
will
tell me what you know.”
“While your crony Alexander Hunt keeps the cops away,” Bishop said. “He’s the bad egg, Jessica—”
“Really?” She looked past him. “You can tell him that to his face. He’s on the way over now.”
“Don’t trust him, Jessica. There’s something wrong with his operation—”
The young woman brought the firearm around, held it in both hands, pointing down in front of her. “Last chance.”
If Hunt
were
coming, Bishop was certain that Kealey would be right behind him. He needed to stall.
“If you let me get my cell, I’ll show you what I know about Veil,” he said.
“Left hand,” she said.
“I know the drill.”
Bishop slipped his left hand from his pocket. He used his thumb and index finger to reach across his waist slowly and remove the cell phone from his belt. He held his left arm in front of him, removed his right hand from his pocket, raised it palm up, then brought his index finger over and accessed his e-mails. He scrolled slowly to the one he had received on the train that morning. He turned the phone toward her.
“Read it,” she said.
As he expected, Muloni didn’t want to come forward or take her eyes from him until Hunt arrived.
Bishop turned the phone toward him and read: “Cargo from Quebec hijacked. Believed to be in NYC.”
Her lips drew back in a tense, straight line. She cocked the hammer of her .38. “I got that, too. I’m going to count to three. One ... two ...”
“She’s working for the Bureau,” Bishop lied.
Muloni regarded him suspiciously. “Killing civilians?”
“No,” he said, his mind racing to think of an answer she would buy. “Hunting the sniper who is doing that.”
Muloni didn’t release the hammer. “Who is this other sniper?”

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