One Rough Man (53 page)

“Hello, young lady, we’ve been waiting for you. I’m Payton Warren,” he said, extending his hand.

Jennifer didn’t even begin to know what to say so she simply shook his hand, mute.

To his left was Kurt Hale. She looked around, recognizing the secretary of state and the secretary of defense. She saw other faces that she didn’t know, but felt she should, vague recollections from Sunday news shows.
What’s this all about? Why am I here?
She went from face to face, waiting on someone to tell her what to do. At the far end she saw a man with a horrendous visage. His face was scabbed, without any eyebrows. His arm was in a sling, a set of crutches to the side of his chair. He was smiling at her. The smile was real and familiar.

I
saw Jennifer look from face to face, waiting for her to get to me, wanting to see the same glow I had experienced when she entered the room.

It dawned on me that I had been subconsciously holding back, protecting myself from the meat-cleaver of disappointment if it was a case of mistaken identity and someone else was at the Dulles Airport. Maybe secretly protecting myself against the trauma of having the newly formed scab covering the loss of my family ripped out raw had the unthinkable happened. In that moment, I realized that Jennifer had been right in Bosnia: Her death would have destroyed me completely. Left me broken beyond repair.

I watched Jennifer continue to search for some indication of why she was here or someone she recognized. She looked like shit. Like she’d spent the last twenty-four hours sleeping on park benches and knew the next twenty-four hours held nothing but the same. She finally got to me. I saw her face change from a lack of recognition to one of shock, then she fell backward into a chair.
Not exactly what I expected
.

From behind her, Knuckles jumped up, saying, “Whoa! Hang on there. You okay?”

I could tell she recognized him, but she simply stared like she was seeing a ghost.

He asked again, “Jennifer? You all right?”

Something clicked within her, and without a word, she jumped up and raced over to me.

Holy shit, she’s going to hug me.
It would hurt, but I didn’t want to stop her
.

She stopped short, smiling, tears running freely down her face. She leaned over and gingerly kissed my forehead on the crew-cut of singed hair.

“You bastard. I guess you do have ten lives.”

I grinned. “Yeah, I guess so. Took you long enough to get home. I was starting to worry.”

She ignored everyone else in the room, simply taking my hands into hers and staring at me. After a second, she seemed to remember where she was, and what had led to this meeting. She asked, “What happened? What’s going on? Why isn’t everyone dead?”

Kurt said, “Well, we ended up being very, very lucky. Scientists are still studying the material, but it looks like the WMD was only deadly to those genetically predisposed.”

“What’s that mean?”

I took over. “The weapon they found was an ancient sack of spores from a plant that’s probably extinct. It causes major anaphylactic shock in people predisposed to be allergic to it. Basically, it causes the same reaction as in someone allergic to bee stings, only a hundred times worse.”

“Okay ... that still sounds pretty bad. Isn’t it?”

“Yeah, it is, but I managed to kill Carlos before he could set off the device. He fell on top of it, which somehow caused it to go off. His body tamped down the explosion, like a soldier jumping on a grenade. On top of that, it looks like folks from Europe aren’t nearly as susceptible to the spores as guys from Guatemala, where they came from. Luckily, I fall into that camp.”

Jennifer processed that, coming to the natural conclusion, “So, the whole thing was a waste of time? All that death and destruction for nothing? Ethan’s death—”

The president spoke. “No, not at all. The bomb killed close to fifty people, but the team forced the terrorist to set it off far enough away from the ceremony that the representatives attending were able to escape before they were contaminated. Because of our unique security relationship with Bosnia, we were immediately asked for help. Most of the deaths
were
caused by the spores, but we were able to alleviate any concerns of a WMD rapidly, taking the emotion out of the attack. There’ll be conspiracy theories for years about it, but the majority of the world thinks it was a conventional attack.”

Kurt interjected, “Mainly because the terrorist put all his faith in the spores and didn’t embed any shrapnel in the explosive. He also knew what he was doing. He kept the explosive power low to prevent burning up the WMD material, which worked in our favor, especially when his own body lessened the blast radius. If he had set off a conventional bomb with higher explosives and shrapnel, we probably would have had the same amount of casualties, so the story’s plausible.”

The president continued. “If he had made it to Israel, and had been able to implicate the Iranians, it would have caused immediate retaliation. He would’ve killed hundreds, and Israel would have feared a second strike. Unlike Bosnia, they wouldn’t have asked for our help or listened to any pleadings of restraint. Trust me, the WMD was real. Real enough to get us into World War Three.”

“Okay ... I guess that’s good news.... Wait, that didn’t come out right. I mean I’m glad the effort was worth it. I couldn’t live with Ethan’s death on my conscience if this was all for nothing.”

She squeezed my hands, her face now alive, the broken look gone. “Ahh ... this is a bit much to take in all at once. I’m not sure why I’m here. What do you need from me?”

The president spoke again. “Nothing. We were meeting here to discuss the repercussions of the whole affair when you landed. I asked for you to come here simply to thank you. You have immeasurably helped the country, and quite possibly the world. Your perseverance deserves my thanks as the representative of the American people.” He gave his winning campaign smile. “That’s all I wanted to say. If there’s any way I can help you, don’t hesitate to ask.”

Jennifer winked at me, then smiled at the president with all the charm she could muster—which was substantial.
Uh-oh
.

“Well, sir, I appreciate it. I really do. Unfortunately, I promised Pike I was going to kick someone’s ass in the U.S. government for leaving us hanging out there. I suppose I should start with you. Can you help with that?”

I closed my eyes.
I cannot believe she just said that
. When I opened them again I saw a roomful of the most powerful people on earth looking anywhere but at her. I could tell she was enjoying this immensely. She continued. “Then again, you guys did do the right thing in the end, so maybe I’ll let it go. I guess all’s well that ends well.”

I squeezed her arm a little harder than was necessary, trying to shut her up before she did some real damage.

“Hey, guess what?” I said. “The folks you want to beat up took care of our little problem in Charleston. We don’t have to worry about that anymore.”

I thought she was going to rip into the rest of the group just for the enjoyment, and prayed she wouldn’t. She grinned at me and said, “Okay, then, how about a nice hotel room?”

The room broke into relieved laughter. The president said, “I think I can manage that.”

He grew serious again. “Ladies and gentlemen, I appreciate your time, but I have a press conference in an hour. I can’t thank you enough for your service.”

The meeting broke up with people shaking hands and saying good-bye. Shortly we found ourselves outside, me hobbling along on my broken ankle with Jennifer trying unsuccessfully to help. Eventually, everyone was gone and it was just us. She looked around, noticing we were alone.

“Where are we going? Better yet, how are we getting there?”

I said, “I guess we go hail a cab.”

“Wow,” she said, “that thank-you didn’t last very long.”

Jennifer began walking toward the gate with me hobbling along beside her, when someone shouted behind us.

“Jennifer ... Pike?”

“Yes.”

“The president asked me to give you guys a ride to the Hay-Adams Hotel here in D.C. You have the Presidential Suite, compliments of the White House.”

“All
right,
” she said. “That’s more like it.”

 

 

THIRTY MINUTES LATER Jennifer was admiring the view from the living room of our suite, the White House majestic in the last glimmers of twilight. Now that we were alone, she brought out the questions she knew nobody but me would answer.

“Hey, what happened to all the bullshit threats about the Taskforce bringing down the administration? Everyone kept saying we had to do all the work because using it was too risky. Why isn’t there the big disaster everyone talked about?”

I knew what she was asking was highly classified, but it never crossed my mind to tell her a story. More than anyone else, she had earned the truth.

“It turns out that Dr. Evil is a guy in the National Security Council. He hired all of the trained killers. Their attempts in Bosnia gave the Taskforce a way out. We’ve blamed the whole thing on them, saying that a Lone Ranger hired a bunch of mercenaries to stop a terrorist. He’s going to be indicted as a reluctant hero.”

“That’s the guy I saw on the news? Standish something-or-other?”

“Yeah. With all the press talk of the U.S. outsourcing combat power to independent contractors, it’s plausible. The Taskforce is good to go.”

She bristled. “Good to go? Are you kidding? What’s going to happen to him? He tortured and killed a whole family. He tried to kill
us
. He should be strung up from the nearest tree. Now he’s going down in history as ‘helping America’? How’s that justice?”

I didn’t want to go there. I wanted to leave all of this behind for others to sort out. I tried to soothe her. “He’ll get what’s coming to him.”

Jennifer squinted at me, her expression alone telling me she didn’t think that was good enough. After what she had said to me on the hillside in Bosnia, I wasn’t going to elaborate on what that meant. She wanted justice for the man’s actions but probably couldn’t stomach the Taskforce version. Luckily, she let it go.

“Okay. I guess in Washington getting indicted and suffering humiliation is what constitutes the worst that can happen.”

I crawled onto the bed, trying to find a comfortable position that didn’t rub my burns. “Why don’t you get cleaned up? Maybe we can go get a bite to eat at a real restaurant for a change.”

For the first time, Jennifer seemed to realize she was wearing the same peasant clothes she had worn for days. She ran a hand through her greasy, black-dyed hair.

“Yeah, that sounds good. Great, actually. What am I going to do about clothes?”

“We can go shopping first. Maybe put it on the president’s tab.”

“Even better. He owes me more than a hotel room. Give me thirty minutes.”

She went inside the bathroom and I heard the sink start to run.

Jennifer hadn’t asked the obvious question of why on earth Standish had wanted a bomb to go off in the first place. I had seen his initial FBI interrogation and it had made me sick to my stomach. Made me want to jump through the two-way mirror and slice him open with the broken shards. Of course, the Taskforce would have frowned on that. Not because I had killed him, but because I had done it in front of everyone. Bad form. I’d have to be satisfied with someone else delivering justice.

Standish had been completely unrepentant, shouting at the interrogators that his actions were necessary to protect American lives. He seemed to firmly believe that his efforts were not only legitimate, but good for the nation. The thought disgusted me. He sounded just like all of the terrorists I had ever chased. The only thing missing was him shouting, “It’s God’s will!” Like every other psychopath who justified his actions as nothing more than destiny.

I knew there was no such thing. “Destiny” was a tool used by the vicious or weak to explain a tragedy—nothing more. If God controlled our destiny, then wouldn’t the good guy always win? Where was God when Hitler killed the Jews? Where was He when the planes hit WTC one and two? In the genocide in Bosnia or Rwanda? Was mass rape a destiny? Or just fucking evil?
Where was the destiny in my family being murdered?

Jennifer had asked about the chances of us colliding, thinking that it was meant to be because the odds were astronomically against it, but I knew better. I had seen the truth. God, or fate, or destiny—whatever the hell you wanted to call it—had never crossed my path.
You make your own luck. Just like I did in Machete’s compound.

The thought sounded like a cracked bell as soon as it came into my head.
No way should I have survived that.
The more I reflected on the last couple of weeks, the more it seemed there
was
some invisible hand looking out for Jennifer and me. Every time we were on the verge of failing, something happened that spurred us forward. It made me wonder.
Maybe there is a purpose. Maybe Jennifer’s right.

I didn’t like the thread I was working, didn’t want to stare too hard into the looking glass, because believing in one meant I had to believe in the other. That the loss of my family was for a reason, which was something I could never embrace.

I heard the shower stop, blessedly bringing me back to the present, or more precisely, my future. Kurt had offered me a job back at the Taskforce. A recall to active duty. The offer was compelling and conflicting at the same time. I could go back to being a rough man protecting our way of life, but the choice would mean losing Jennifer.

After all we had both been through together, I had become as close to her as any other teammate I had known. A part of me, I knew, wanted more than that. Another part, much more powerful, was repulsed by the notion. It would be a very, very long time before I could ever let go of Heather. Maybe never.