It was just the three of us in the ER waiting area: the detective, Carmen, and me. A nurse in blue scrubs came out from one room, glanced our way, and kept going. Like all hospitals, the place smelled of cleaning fluids and mechanically-filtered air. We waited in silence while the detective reviewed his notes, made tick marks, and muttered his disbelief.
Miguel joined us with a tray full of coffees and handed them out.
Carmen’s phone buzzed, she turned away from us to read an incoming text.
“Thanks,” the detective said. He raised his steaming cup and took a long, deep sniff. “Strong. I like that. So then, you tied up Fitzroy, but someone else shot him in the head. Now, why would I believe that one?”
I started to speak.
Carmen smacked my arm and headed for the exit. “Jacob, Patterson’s on the move and has a twenty-mile head start.”
“I’ve got to go,” I said. “Call me tomorrow, after ballistics proves my story.”
We ran to the parking lot, where a large sedan, an Audi S8, cut us off. Cousin Elmer, Mr. Sabel’s car-wrangler, stepped out of the car. He tossed the keys to Miguel. “Since these guys wrecked the last two cars, you drive.”
Cousin Elmer took the keys to the shot-up VW and the rear-ended Panamera and waved down a flatbed tow truck.
It was like being back in the Army, where the Taliban could blow a vehicle out from under you and the motor pool would bring you a replacement before you had your hearing back. The Army aimed to keep soldiers on duty, and in the line of fire, as efficiently as possible. Sabel Security had the same agenda. The only difference was the new-car smell. Alan Sabel never kept a car long enough to lose the fragrance and the Army hadn’t requisitioned a new vehicle since the late ’80s.
I dialed up the Major, updated her, and joined her to a comm link with Carmen and Miguel.
“Bridgette called me directly with the latest,” the Major said. “She identified the contractor who kidnapped Pia, Velox Deployment Services.”
“Hell,” Miguel said. “Those guys are doing black ops for State now?”
“She expects them to land in an hour,” the Major said. “But she’s still working on where.”
“That’s why we planted a tracker on Patterson,” Carmen said.
“No need to brag, Carmen,” the Major said. “I’m going on mute here; I’ll continue to monitor you from the Ops Center.”
From Tysons Corner, we hit the beltway and headed for Maryland.
Patterson’s tracker showed him veering off I-495 onto Route 50 heading east toward the Chesapeake Bay. Miguel stepped up our speed as we crossed over the Potomac and into Maryland.
Carmen said, “We’re being followed.”
Miguel looked at me. “Who, Fitzroy’s flunkies? They waited at the hospital?”
“Should’ve taken out their driver instead of the headlights,” I said.
“What the hell, bro?” Miguel shot a glance my way. “You keep saying Pia doesn’t want us killing people.”
“Guys,” Carmen said, “Patterson took the exit to Davidsonville, the 424.”
She handed me her slate. I examined it and all the areas around it. Thirty miles east of Washington, the Chesapeake meanders through rural Maryland. Fingers of the brackish waters stretch between spits of land, throwing geography into a Mandelbrot set of infinite detail. Directionless roads break down into narrow feeder lanes that wander through wetlands, farm fields, and forests to waterfront homes or small docks. Patterson could be going anywhere in the warren of lanes around the hamlet of Davidsonville.
“Major, I need your help,” I said on the comm link. She acknowledged me. “Remember that list of CIA properties we used to find McCarty? I need to know any and all properties around Davidsonville.”
“Agent Carter’s on it now,” she said. She had an offline discussion for a minute. “We found something. I’m sending the coordinates to Carmen’s slate. What do you think?”
The display pinned a location about three miles southeast of Patterson. Zooming into street view, I checked out the location, a perfect open field of roughly thirty acres with four old sheds set back on a looping farm track. From any one of those sheds, a man could watch the approaches, direct his friends, and mislead his enemies as needed. I thanked the Ops Center team for their quick work.
“Give me a plan to shake the Fitzroys,” Miguel said.
“Take the 301 south,” I told Miguel. “A little short of four miles later, take Central Avenue.”
Miguel floored the Audi. The big sedan growled and shot forward like it had a Lamborghini engine. Which it did. We came to the 301 exit in seconds. Only grabbing the dashboard with both hands stopped me from going through the windshield when he slammed on the brakes and took the exit ramp.
Behind us, the Chevy drifted across the gore point but made the turn. When we hit 110 mph, Miguel throttled back to let the Chevy catch up. They made the move to the left lane, attempting to pass. Miguel toyed with them, pushing the car’s massive reserves just enough to keep them chasing. As we neared our second turn, they charged alongside. Miguel made his move, slamming on the brakes and diving into the cloverleaf exit from the 301 onto Central. The Chevy tried valiantly to make the turn behind us but slid sideways, drifting. It caught the rumble strips, tipped over, and rolled out of sight, slinging the sound of grinding steel-on-asphalt in every direction.
We followed Patuxent River Road at an alarming speed, then a series of winding farm lanes until we connected with the Mill Swamp Road. Carmen’s tracking showed Patterson hanging around Davidsonville, at a Starbucks, about ten minutes away.
Just past our target site was a large horse stable. We parked there and hopped the fence into the CIA’s farmyard.
We stood in the laurel bushes for a long time, listening. Silence echoed in our ears. Then an owl’s hoot. Then silence again. The moon strained through high, thin clouds. Anyone with thermal or night-vision goggles would see us no matter what we did, so we took a quick pace across a field of recently mowed alfalfa. We stalked the nearest shed, spreading out as we neared. It was aluminum with a cement floor and a tripwire across the threshold that ran to a hand grenade. Quite the welcome mat. Otherwise, it was empty. Only the faint scent of diesel fuel—the constant residue of farm machinery—wafted through the space.
Across the way was another empty, booby-trapped shed. Closer to the woods, the third shed had nothing in it but boot prints tracking across the dirt floor and a great view of the first two. We had one shed left to clear. It was at the end of a single gravel track, two hundred yards away. Weathered wood, cracked in places, it was almost large enough to call a barn.
Carmen checked Patterson’s location again. He was leaving the Starbucks and heading our way. We had five minutes to clear the last shed and set up our trap.
Miguel took the back, sneaking between maples and walnuts. Carmen took the left and hunkered down behind a wooden trough. The shed’s big sliding door stood open and I slipped inside. My thermal binoculars scanned left. Nothing. Then right. Nothing. Then up.
He was in the loft, aiming an MK 20 at my nose.
For every thousand soldiers in the United States Army, there are nine hundred ninety-nine whose gallantry and bravery and dedication would bring tears of pride to any red-blooded American. The last one-in-a-thousand would make anyone cringe. If you lined up a thousand of those not-as-good soldiers, there’d be one of them who’s so bad he’d turn the Dalai Lama into a death-penalty advocate. Looking down from the shed’s loft was that worst-in-a-million-man: Shane Diabulus. I’d recognize him in any darkened building on any continent. He was a war exploiter, a racist, a mercenary, and a sexual predator with a lethal weapon in his hand.
Worst of all, he worked for Velox Deployment, a contractor so bad Halliburton canceled a merger with them.
Diabulus said, “Wazzup, Jacob?”