Gideon's War/Hard Target (29 page)

“No.”

Collier blinked, surprised by Wilmot’s sharp tone.

He leaned close to the girl’s face. Her warm breath smelled of bitter almonds, the telltale symptom of cyanide poisoning. “I’m sorry, darling,” he said softly. “Truly, I am.”

In a quick and decisive movement, he pinched her nostrils shut with his thumb and forefinger, and clamped the rest of his hand over her mouth and chin, covering the lower half of her face like a muzzle. Her eyes widened, and she began to buck and writhe. Wilmot pressed her to the mattress with his left arm. She was surprisingly strong, her body fighting through the cyanide-induced weakness in a desperate attempt to preserve itself. He pressed down harder, pinning her pubic bone to the mattress with his massive forearm.

He was not insensitive to the sexual aspect of the moment, the girl’s breasts moving beneath her thin dress, her warm hips bucking beneath his strong arms. Christiane’s resistance, however, soon gave way to resignation, until her eyes stared emptily at the ceiling.

Wilmot removed his hand from her face. Then, tenderly, he lowered her eyelids and straightened her wrinkled dress. “I want her given a proper burial,” he said without looking at Collier. “Ground’s frozen solid. You’ll need a pick.” And with that, he left the barn.

1

GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY

Gideon Davis scrutinized the Windsor knot in his yellow tie in his rearview mirror as he waited for the stoplight to change. It had been eight years since he was last in front of a classroom, and tying a knot was just one of the skills he had lost. Now, as he fiddled with it in the mirror, he missed his days as a diplomat and presidential adviser, where he’d conducted his business in rolled-up shirtsleeves. At least his tuxedo had come with a clip-on bow tie.

The light turned green, and Gideon turned right off the bridge that connected Virgin si T‡ia to Washington, DC. The Mortara Center for International Studies was located in a tony section of Georgetown with rows of town houses and its fair share of diplomats and politicians sprinkled among the students and faculty. Gideon loved the energy of the area, the youthfulness of the residents, and the international flavor of the restaurants and shops. But it lacked the green lawns and space he wanted for the family he was planning to start with his fiancée, Kate Murphy.

Eighteen months ago he never would have imagined buying a Federal-style home in Alexandria, Virginia. But that was before a group of terrorists allegedly led by Gideon’s brother, Tillman, had seized Kate’s oil rig, the Obelisk, a state-of-the-art platform in the South China Sea. If not for Gideon’s intervention, the terrorists would certainly have destroyed the rig and, with it, the truth of Tillman’s innocence. Coming home to the United States, however, had proved more complicated for both Gideon and Tillman. Because Tillman’s long service as a covert operative had involved some rule bending, coupled with maintaining the plausible deniability of his superiors, he had worked without a net. For his efforts to keep America secure, he was prosecuted for “providing material assistance to enemies of the state” and sentenced to serve twenty years at the federal supermax prison in Florence, Colorado. As far as Gideon was concerned, his brother was taking the fall for a group of spineless bureaucrats. Gideon lobbied fiercely for his release and successfully petitioned the departing president to pardon Tillman. The pardon, however, ignited a firestorm of criticism, and the incoming president, Erik Wade, forced Gideon to resign from the State Department.

As bitter as he felt about the Obelisk affair, it was behind him now. Plus, he had come away from it with the woman who stood by his side during the ordeal and with whom he planned to spend the rest of his life. Kate Murphy was the loveliest woman Gideon had ever met, with auburn hair and hazel eyes that sometimes looked gray, sometimes green, depending on her mood. After nearly a decade of international troubleshooting, Gideon was ready to settle down. It was his good fortune that Kate agreed to have him.

When he pulled into the parking space reserved for him near the school, however, he wasn’t thinking about the Obelisk. Instead he was wondering about the lime-green Impala that he had noticed in his mirror, and that was now sticking to his rear. Maybe it was just paranoia, but the car seemed to slow when he did and made every turn behind him when they came off the bridge together.

He locked the Land Rover and walked down Thirty-seventh Street. At an alley he used as a shortcut to get to the school, he turned right. In his peripheral vision he could feel someone tracking his movement. He walked calmly, without rushing, until he came to the rear door of a deli where he usually bought his lunch. He ducked into the doorway and waited.

Within twenty seconds a wiry white guy approached carrying a small paper cup. His head swiveled constantly, as if scanning the area for an ambush. He wore a khaki photographer’s vest, khaki cargo pants that flapped around his emaciated legs, a black T-shirt and wraparound shades that gave him a vaguely military look. Gideon recognized the telltale signs of his addiction: methamphetamine. His gaunt face was ravaged, with a large angry sore festering on one cheekbone. As he passed, Gideon spotted the lump under his left arm. It had to be a pretty large piece—a .357 or maybe even a .44.

Gideon stepped from his hiding place and put the guy in a guillotine headlock. He regretted his actions immetheဆdiately. A sour smell came off the man’s body, like some kind of chemistry experiment gone wrong, and the tobacco-stained saliva in the Dixie cup spilled onto Gideon’s shoe.

“What the fuck,” the man spewed.

Gideon quickly disarmed the man of the gun—a .357, he noted—unloaded it, then stuffed it back in the man’s shoulder holster. “What the fuck yourself,” he said. “Why are you following me?”

“I just want to talk to you.”

The man wriggled in Gideon’s grip like a hooked fish. Gideon released him, and the man skittered backward and nearly tumbled into a passing student.

“I’m not an idiot,” said the man. “I know I don’t look right, but I’ve got information worth a lot to somebody.”

Gideon looked at his watch. His class started in ten minutes. “Information about what?”

When the man didn’t answer right away, Gideon shook his head and started past him.

“An attack on US soil. A high-value target.”

Gideon blinked, absorbing the tweaker’s claim. Then he turned around and faced the man.

“The people I’m dealing with? They’re talking mass casualties and they do not fool around. But before I tell you anything else, I want a hundred thousand dollars, cash American.”

“You’ve got the wrong guy,” said Gideon. “I don’t make deals in alleys with tweakers. If you’ve got that kind of information, talk to the FBI.”

“The FBI,” the man said disdainfully. “Bunch of backstabbing bureaucrats. I can’t trust them.”

“But you can trust me?”

“You think it’s an accident I’m coming to you?” A sneer of arrogance curled his lip. “You’re the Man of Peace shithead.”

As special envoy to former President Alton Diggs, Gideon had sometimes been referred to in the media as the Man of Peace, a moniker he had grown to hate.

“I can’t speak to the shithead part—”

“I read on the Internet you terminated twenty hostiles during that oil-rig operation. Man of Peace. There’s some real irony for you, don’t you think?”

Although the man’s words oozed bravado, his body language betrayed fear. The trembling hands, the constant scanning of the horizon, the nervous twitch in his cheek. He was definitely a meth tweaker, and paranoia was a symptom of his addiction.

“I still don’t understand why you’re coming to me,” Gideon said.

“Your politics may be misguided, but you seem like someone I can trust to do the right thing. After the way the government treated you, you could’ve gone underground, but you’re here, preaching the gospel to our youth. You are a true patriot.”

The way the man said it, it didn’t sound like a goem"ဆod thing. But it was true that even though the president had abruptly dismissed him from public service, Gideon remained dedicated to his country. Maybe he was naïve, but he believed certain principles were worth fighting for: truth, justice, democracy. The country had its problems, but he was not one to sit idly by and watch them fester.

“Who are you?” he asked.

“Ervin Mixon.” He cleared his throat and spat yellow phlegm on the pavement. “I like to think of myself as a freelance constitutionalist. Not some geek in an ivory tower, I mean hands-on. Second Amendment says ‘the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be abridged.’ Simple phrase. Doesn’t say ‘the right of the people to keep and bear revolvers shall not be abridged.’ Doesn’t say ‘the right of the people to keep and bear guns-that-only-shoot-once-when-you-pull-the-trigger shall not be abridged.’ Plain, simple English words. An individual wants to protect his home and hearth with a suppressed full-auto MP-5 submachine gun, that’s his constitutional right. I back up my beliefs by supplying like-minded individuals with specialty items that you can’t procure at your local gun shop.

“One of my customers is a guy named Verhoven—Colonel Jim Verhoven. Lives off the grid on a big piece of land way up in West Virginia.” Gideon was somewhat familiar with the area; it was where his brother Tillman had settled since his release from prison. Mixon continued, “Verhoven’s got a handful of followers in his militia, some of them bivouac on his property in trailers or campers. Most of these militia guys and Nazis and whatnot talk a lot of smack, but at the end of the day they’re not interested in getting downrange in any serious capacity. But one night I was there about a month ago, and I overheard Verhoven’s side of a phone conversation . . .”

He hesitated for a moment—his eyes sliding reflexively to his left. In his work as a negotiator, Gideon had become fairly expert at assessing whether people were lying to him and to one another. One of the simplest indicators or “tells” was the direction a person’s eyes went after making a statement. A look to their right generally means someone is constructing an image or a sound—in other words, lying—while a look to their left generally means they are remembering something that actually happened. Of course, it wasn’t foolproof, and for left-handed people, the direction was sometimes reversed. But Mixon’s gun was holstered for a right-handed person, and he had looked left before he resumed his story. “I’m not talking about the usual saber-rattling bullshit. He sounded serious.”

“Meaning what?” Gideon said. “What did you hear?”

“Some very specific operational details.”

“Go on.”

“See, we’re fast approaching the juncture where I need more than just good wishes.”

“Back up a minute,” Gideon said. “Because there’s something I don’t understand. You have a long-standing and profitable relationship with this guy Verhoven. So why are you ratting him out?”

Mixon’s mouth twisted bitterly. “I have some very pressing and assertive financial needs. Whatever I’m making from my business with Verhoven isn’t enough to cover that.”

“A hundred grand is a deep hole,” Gideon said.

“Look at me. I know what I am. I’ve been a stone-cold crystal meth addict for ten years. Only reason I’ve made it this long is because I use top-grade pharmaceutical-quality crystal. You think they give that shit away? So yeah, I’m always fishing for some extra income. I knew Verhoven was up to something that wasn’t just queer bashing. So I came prepared. And guess what? I caught Moby goddamn Dick.”

“What’s Verhoven planning to do? Set off a nuke in Dupont Circle?” Gideon was testing him, seeing if he’d overreach and make a ridiculous claim.

“Do I look like a fool? Where would a bunch of redneck militia guys get a nuke? But this is not some lone gunman trying to sneak a Glock into a campaign rally in Pittsburgh because his wife doesn’t love him anymore. This is an organized conspiracy of very serious operators. And if you don’t get on them double-quick, they’re going to execute their mission.”

“And you expect me to call some people and tell them to trust the story of a desperate tweaker?”

“No. That’s why I’ve got proof.”

“Proof?”

“A recording of Verhoven’s side of the conversation. Part of it anyway.”

“Let’s hear it.”

Mixon let out a wheezy rattling sound that was meant to be a laugh. “Not until I see some cash.”

Now Gideon was going to be late. But there was something about Mixon and his story that had the ring of truth.

“How did you record it?”

“Zoom H4.”

“What kind of mic?”

“Ergil 37D. Wireless.”

Gideon was trying to trip him up, to get him to reveal some sign of improvisation—looking up in the air while he was thinking, changing his story in midstream, odd facial expressions, inappropriate smiling or anything of that nature. But if Ervin had a tell, Gideon hadn’t spotted it yet. In fact, the informant didn’t miss a beat as he went on to describe in great detail how he’d recorded Verhoven’s conversation.

“And what did he say?”

“Yeah.” The man’s voice was presumably Verhoven’s. “We have the target isolated and surveillance established . . . We’ll wait for your instructions.” The recording stopped, and Mixon looked up at Gideon expectantly.

Although he didn’t realize it at first, Gideon had felt that old excitement rising up inside him as he listened to the recording. But thiset ဆ was not his fight, and not his job anymore. His new career was waiting for him about four hundred yards away, and it wouldn’t wait forever. And Gideon knew he’d gotten from Mixon all that he was willing to share.

“I can make a call,” said Gideon. “Someone in the FBI I can trust.”

“One person. Any more, and I’m gone.”

Mixon handed Gideon a scrap of paper. “This is where I’m staying. There’s a shopping mall about a mile down the road. Meet me there at six.”

“I’ll be there.”

“Good,” said the tweaker. “Your country is counting on you.”

2

McLEAN, VIRGINIA

Ervin Mixon was terrified. As he steered his Impala out of the parking lot he couldn’t get his right foot to stop jiggling.

Ten years ago he had been a pretty normal guy. Married, three kids, decent job as partner in a gun store down in Tennessee. Then he’d met crystal meth and it all went into the shitter.

There had been several points where he could have turned it around. Say, for instance, the day he decided to steal $41,000 from Ronnie Revis Jr., his partner at AAA Gun ’n’ Pawn back in Tullahoma. If he’d just bit the bullet and cleaned up instead, everything would have been different. Or maybe the first time he sold a bootleg full-auto SKS to David Allen Kring, the grand dragon of the Idaho KKK. Or maybe the time he sold six cases of MP5s to the Baltimore chapter of the Pagans Motorcycle Club, one case of which was real, and five cases of which were Taiwanese airsoft guns with the Day-Glo orange caps cut off the end of the barrels. That, in particular, had been a major mistake, one that had in turn forced him make certain promises to Jim Verhoven that he was not going to be able to keep.

Mixon swung onto the Jeff Davis Parkway and headed south, paralleling the Potomac, checking constantly in his rearview. Every time he saw a Harley, he about had a fucking heart attack, thinking he was about to get iced by the Outlaws or some other biker gang.

Driving through McLean, he noticed that there was nothing but colored people on the streets. Never been so glad in his life to see spooks. At least if a guy was black, you knew he wasn’t some biker or some inbred militia asshole from West Virginia, ready to terminate your shit.

A 360-degree battlefield. That’s what he was living in. The threats could come from anywhere.

He checked his rearview for the millionth time. What about that van? Hadn’t he seen that before? A white van with a bunch of ladders on top. Christ, America was so jam-packed with vans full of Mexicans, you couldn’t tell one from the next. At least he’d never fucked over the Mexican mafia. Those sumbitches played for keeps.

If he could just do this thing with Gideon Davis, get paid, he would clean up and start living right again. He’d said that after he scammed the Outlaws for fifty K, too. But then the money had all disappeared into a pipe, and before he could do anything to stop himself he was jonesingiv> d‡ again.

This time things would be different, though. This time he’d get clean. Definitely, this time.

He looked at his watch. Davis had said he would meet him tonight. The bastard had better come through, Mixon thought as he steered into the parking lot of his motel, the transmission bottoming out as he bumped over a pothole and settled into a parking space between two Dumpsters.

As cautious as Mixon was, though, he failed to see the Dodge Ram pickup with heavily tinted windows parked on the shoulder of Dolley Madison Road.

Behind the wheel sat Colonel James C. Verhoven, self-appointed commanding officer of the Seventh West Virginia (True) Militia. Nestled in his lap, concealed beneath a camo-colored Snuggie given to him by his beloved wife, Lorene, was a Rock River Arms AR-15 with a collapsible stock, quad Pickatinny rail fore grip mounting a green laser, a 230 lumen flashlight, and an Aimpoint red-dot scope. On his hip he carried his pride and joy, a Les Baer 1911 with a hard chrome finish, Novak ramp sights, and mother of pearl grips, running 230 grain Hornady jacketed hollow-points. He also wore a backup gun on his ankle—the old standby, a compact titanium J-Frame Smith .38 with Crimson Trace laser grips, loaded with 129 grain + P Federal Hydra-Shoks. Plus, of course, a little CRKT neck knife hanging by a piece of paracord under his shirt.

Verhoven’s eyes narrowed as Mixon’s Impala turned into the motel. He waited until Mixon had parked before easing into the far end of the Word Up Lodge parking lot. Unit two—Lorene and the Upshaw brothers—pulled up beside him in a white Ford Econoline van with CRUZ PAINTING & DRYWALL painted on the side and a bunch of ladders piled on top.

Verhoven gave the signal, then hopped out and strode across the parking lot, hands on the AR-15, followed by the Upshaw brothers. As Mixon climbed out of his car, Verhoven pointed his trigger finger at the yellow stripe peeking out from under one of the Impala’s half-bald tires and said, “So I guess you never graduated from parking school, huh?”

The subject looked blankly at the yellow stripe, blinked once, then looked up at Verhoven and said, “Oh, shit.”

Four seconds later, there were flex cuffs on his wrists and a sock in his mouth as he was dragged into the van, his feet kicking wildly. Verhoven saw the fear in Mixon’s eyes as he slammed the door shut, and the ruckus was over.

Two black men stood on the balustrade drinking out of paper bags and looking down curiously into the parking lot.