Recall (9 page)

Red raised an eyebrow.
Just like her mother.
Penny must have something in her youthful woman's intuition that said Jim was only safe on the outside. A good operator was also a good killer. Like a trained attack dog, the feral nature could explode when needed. Some people could sense it lurking under the surface, and like Penny, they subconsciously distanced their trust. But Red knew better of Jim. “Yep. That okay with you?”

She smiled. “Oh, yes. I love Uncle Jim. But he's scary, too.” She giggled and pulled the covers up under her chin.

Red stood, then gave the quilt one last tuck. “You're the oldest, sweetheart.” He wrinkled his nose. “Jackson and Nick don't understand. Can I trust you? Don't say anything that'll make them scared.”

She held up a hand like she was giving the oath of office. “Yep.”

He kissed her forehead, then without looking down stepped over Heinz lying next to the bed. He was Tom's dog, a big brute. With his two different-colored eyes, long legs in the front, short in the back, and missing half an ear, the beast looked like he'd been put together by Congress. Tom had named him after Heinz 57 Sauce since it had fifty-seven ingredients. Red called him at the door, but the dog glanced at Penny and put his head back down on the carpet.

Penny patted him. “Grandma lets me keep him in my room.”

Red walked downstairs. Mother and Tom were waiting at the bottom. He hugged his mother and gave Tom a handshake. She padded upstairs and went into the boys' room. Red scurried through the living room past the fireplace mantel that held his picture, taken at his pinning-on ceremony; Tom's Purple Heart; and a photo of his grandfather with crew in front of their B-17, the wingtip of an ME-109 still sticking out the fuselage.

Tom followed him outside, leaning on a cane and wincing. The rod made a
thunking
rhythm on the oak floor. Outside, Tom looked back, then shut the door behind them. His smile was slight.

“Don't worry about the kids. We raised you and your brothers well enough. Having your gang here brings some life back to this old place.”

Red had routinely bellyached to the kids how it wasn't fair that Tom was more patient now than when he was little. Like two different men, but the kids never believed him.

Tom straightened and pushed out his chest like a parakeet smoothing his feathers after a nervous spell.

“We haven't seen you for a while, son.”

“I know. We don't come by enough. But thanks for taking—”

“No. I mean, you're different now.
This
man”—he tapped Red's chest—“I haven't seen him for a while. Truth be told, I like him a lot better.”

“What do you mean?” Red knew, he thought. But wanted to know what his father saw.

Tom cocked his head to one side. “Listen, I'm not nearly as senile as you or your mother think. Whatever you've gotten yourself mixed up in, it's none of my damn business. We'll keep the kids as long as you need, under one condition.”

Red frowned. Here it comes. Old Tom. “Which is?”

A gust shook a few of the last long, thin leaves from the enormous pin oak in the front yard. They spun and darted like arrows in the breeze. Tom gripped his cane as if wielding a club. It was the look that told a much younger Red and his brothers to turn and run like hell. Tom plugged his fingers into Red's chest. “You gut every single one of those damn bastards. Understand me! I want their mothers to remember how hard it was to recognize their swollen blue bodies.”

“I don't know what you're talking about.”

“Like hell you don't. Listen, I'm proud of you. Always have been. But they made this one personal. If you don't come back with your bride, you'd better be in a body bag.”

The stitches in Red's head ached when he bumped them, stooping into the car. Tom shouted, “And tell your friends to call off the goons. We don't need anyone keeping track of us.”

“I'll mention it,” Red yelled out the window. Jim hadn't said anything about having his parents tailed, but it wasn't a bad idea. The kids would be safer.

He pressed the accelerator and pulled onto a dim street. His mom had always said Tom was never the same after Vietnam.
Darker
in some ways, she'd said, but
sweeter
in others. The only Tom that Red had known was the one with the twitch in his eye from nerve damage he got from “some bug over there.” The one who told him stories he didn't know whether to believe—about Charlie, the blue squads, and cold beer with ground glass. The one that worked him and his brothers all week in the sweaty heat on a two-acre God-forsaken garden, being eaten by mosquitoes and green-head flies.

However, Tom was also the one who had smiled when Red had come home from middle school with a black eye and bloody nose, hugged him tight, then took him to the garage and taught him how to throw a punch on a sand-filled canvas bag. No one tried to bully his younger brother after that.

Red ran crosschecks as he steered toward the Det, eyes never landing on anything more than a second. His mind seemed to grow sharper with time, as if coming down off a drug. Faces were imprinted with high detail. Even license plate numbers. The man with long legs, limping slightly as he crossed at the red light. His tilt indicated the graphite briefcase contained something heavier than papers. Red squeezed his eyelids shut till the car behind him honked. The light was green.

He couldn't turn it off, so he tried to think of Lori. Was she still alive? He'd gone after female assets before and every one had been tortured, raped, or mutilated. Tom was right. The kidnappers had made this one personal. He'd kill every one of them, slowly if he could. Guess that's why they have confession.

Lori woke to darkness. To her left only a faint glow from the light stick remained. How long had she been out? She lifted her head and looked around her coffin. Nothing had changed. How long had the kids' light sticks worked last Halloween? She remembered the devices still glowing faintly when she'd tucked them in bed the next night. They'd thrown the sticks into the corner of their room, the novelty eclipsed by an overdose-ecstasy of sugar and chocolate. Lori hated Halloween. The kids were hyped up for weeks. She'd cull their plunder while they were at school, throwing away at least half.

How would they grow up without a mother? Would Red remarry? Would Nick remember her later in life? She clenched her jaw, pulling her thoughts back in. Drugs must still be dulling her mind. She held her breath. The hum of engines was the only sound. Lower now and from a different direction, or maybe they'd moved her coffin around while she was out.

She listened again. No, these couldn't be the same ones. Definitely a different pitch, a different aircraft.

Judging from last Halloween, the light stick looked to be at least twelve hours old, maybe more. When her captor had held up the syringe, it held twenty CCs of something, but what? He'd want her under for two, maybe four hours while they switched planes. She didn't remember being kidnapped, so they must have given her something when they'd taken her. All that time under, plus whatever she'd spent in the coffin, awake, added up to at least fourteen hours. That made sense, considering the dying light stick.

Her captor had threatened to throw her into the ocean if she didn't stay quiet. That was a slip. Assuming it was the Atlantic, then New York to London would be around seven and a half hours. No. New York was too far away to have been the takeoff. Maybe Dulles, Reagan, or Philadelphia.

She threw her head back. Damn it. Who knows where they landed? London, Paris, Madrid, even Johannesburg.

She was on the second leg of a flight with no idea where it was headed. No way to know what she'd been given, if they'd used a contaminated needle, or if Tony would be able to get her out before they sawed off her head with a kitchen knife.

She couldn't let herself go that way. She strained her ears, trying to hear the horse's hooves on the metal floor, or maybe another bark from the dog. Nothing. When the plane hit some turbulence, she heard metal banging. Maybe cargo crates? There were no smells except her deodorant and the sweat-soaked polyester padding all around her.

She gave the lid a few quick kicks to see if anyone would answer. She didn't care if her captors put her back under. There was nothing else she could do right now. That was the worst part. Worse than smelling her own stink. Worse than needing to pee like she had when she'd been pregnant. Worse than having a spit-soaked gag in her mouth for fourteen hours. Being helpless was despicable. She should have seen this coming. She'd failed the kids. She'd failed Tony.

* * *

Red glanced at his watch as he pulled into the Det's parking lot: 21:56. He turned off the car and ran to the entry, swiped his card, and entered the millimeter wave scanner. After a thirty-second exam, the green light glowed and he blew through the warm foyer where Sergeant Ramirez was on duty again.
“Semper Fi.”

He clipped through the offices and down the hallway, past the debrief room where he'd started recall two days earlier. His head was down, thoughts back with the kids. He pushed open the door at the end and stopped, as if called to attention. The hangar ceiling towered over him, high enough it could fit the tail of a C-17. Ahead were two mid-sized Gulfstream VIP transports, a Bell V-22 Osprey, and two MH-60 Pave Hawks. He smiled when he saw an old Sikorsky MH-53J Pave Low. A few years ago he'd read an article saying the Air Force had retired its fleet and replaced the Sikorskys with the controversial Ospreys. Apparently, no one had given Jim the memo he wasn't allowed to have the older model.

Tinted windows capped the high walls. A crescent moon angled through a pane of glass from the south, faintly glaring off the white wing of one of the Gulfstreams. The polished concrete floor below reflected the distorted silhouettes of three Humvees. Even so, the hangar wasn't full.

His breath froze in the cold air that hinted of propane. Someone must be running a tug. A group of seven men in gray-black fatigues was gathered fifty feet away in front of one of the Pave Hawks. Jim's stance was still obvious in the dim light. Red started toward him.

As he approached, Jim jiggled his wrist. “Five seconds short of 22:00. That's a hundred and twenty-five push-ups, captain.” Several of the men jeered as another dropped and started pumping them out.

The team was in a circle with gear in the middle. Next to Jim was his set. Lots of Kevlar along with helmet, knee, and elbow pads. The body armor was different—not the Interceptor style. The vest held twelve clips and a KA-BAR, nothing more. Red was studying the weapons when the captain popped back up, breathless. Red glanced around the ring. Good to see a few familiar faces.

Jim put a heavy hand on Red's shoulder. His huge thumb looked more like a big toe. His gaze was distant, toward the closed hangar door. “We've recalled Major Tony ‘Red' Harmon.”

A flat “HOOAH!” rose from the group.

“See anyone familiar?”

Red eyed the circle of men. “A few. Sergeant Crawler, Marksman, Dr. Ali, and . . . Carter.”

Jim raised an eyebrow and pointed to the man standing next to Red. He was young, arms crossed, standing a step back from the rest of the group. A trim black toothbrush mustache framed his upper lip. “This is Staff Sergeant Rich Lanyard. He's—”

“New.”

Jim cocked his head. “How you know?”

“Don't. But he doesn't look haggard yet. My shadow for the op?”

“You and Lanyard are a set. Bring him back alive.”

Red extended a hand and the two shook. The kid had a firm grip. “Hasn't been a problem before.”

Jim frowned.

Shit
.
He
had
forgotten about that one. Maybe he'd wanted to. Red probed his mind, trying to remember the old team member's name, but couldn't. A rookie to the Det but not to spec ops. It had been in Afghanistan, in the boonies but on the way home. An RPG took out their transport and his partner had gotten a shard of floorboard in his belly under his ballistic vest. The kid hadn't even noticed till a few minutes later when blood filled his boot. He'd made it six hours to Bagram Air Base hospital, but died while they were working on him. Red's eyes focused on the distance, mind weary, to the Pave Hawk near the far wall. “Well, hasn't been a problem lately.”

Sergeant Lanyard's eyebrows drew close together, but he said nothing.

Red turned to Sergeant Crawler, the stocky, unshaven man next to Lanyard. His uniform was clean, but that's all that could be said for it. The trousers were worn, with patched knees. Boots looked like they'd been dragged behind a car with “Just Married” written across the back. Red remembered him as a good driver and mechanic, but headstrong and heavy on the trigger.

“Crawler, you still have a driver's license?”

He licked the unlit cigar to one side of his mouth and smirked, holding up three fingers. His Bronx accent was as thick as ever. “I saved yer ass t'ree times. Still no respect.” No response from anyone. Not even a chuckle.

He aimed his finger at the next one. “Marksman, still going by that? We got a name for you yet?”

“Marksman will be fine,” he said with a flare of his nostrils, like a bull about to charge. He was at least fifty when Red last saw him, but his deep black skin looked younger now. He stood several inches taller than Crawler, and even with his age possessed a more tight, athletic build. Red pointed to his head. “Lost the rest of your hair. Still carrying that M14 from our soiree in Brazil?”

Marksman pointed his toe to the weapon placed on a mat in front of him. “Same one.” He didn't like being called a sniper. “I've never earned that title,” he'd always say. His kill rate said different. The Det had stuck him with his nickname because he'd never give his real one. Only Jim knew who he was. His connection was probably through the CIA, but it didn't really matter. Why was he on this op? Jim had snipers, but only called Marksman when he needed language skills, too. Maybe Marksman knew Farsi.

“Your eyesight going to hold out long enough to tell which one's Lori, old man?”

“It's holding,” Marksman said with a patronizing tone.

Red bit his lip, then pointed to the next, the one who had done the push-ups.

“Captain Matt Richards,” Jim said before he could ask. “He's been with us two years. Air Force para rescue. Not as mean as me, but he'll be a fine replacement if I ever kick off.”

Marksman and Crawler exchanged glances.

Red continued around, running his fingers through his hair. “Dr. Ali, thanks for stitching up my head.” He leaned into Lanyard. “Lesson one. Doc holds a grudge.”

Crawler yanked the cigar out of his mouth and pointed it at Ali. “Yeah. My ass still hurts, doc! You kept tellin' me, ‘Suck it up. I gave you enough morphine to put a cow to sleep.' ” He pointed it at Lanyard next. “It wasn't till we got stateside and they pulled a four-inch piece of rusty iron outta my ass that they figured the damn rag-head gave me the wrong thing!”

Ali grunted. “Pakistani, you thickheaded wop! Pakistani.” His grin suggested the shot may not have been an accident.

Red kept going before the banter turned into something more heated. “Carter, I wasn't expecting to see you here.”

“Me neither.” His eyes flashed to Jim. “The colonel can be persuasive.”

Sergeant Crawler bit down on the cigar. “You calls it persuasion. I calls it extortion.”

“You would, damn guido.” Ali sneered. Marksman laughed when Crawler slapped a bicep in a
bras d'honneur
.

Jim picked up a notebook lying atop his gear, as if ready to go through the checklists. “Carter's intel through his office has been invaluable planning the op. Got more connections than Hoffa.” Jim mentioned a few other things about the detective, but glanced at Red when he mentioned
interrogator
.

“Prebrief?” Red asked.

“Soon,” Jim said. He pointed to the contents of Red's old locker, vacuum sealed, next to his equipment. The others harassed Red while he stripped and pulled on soft, worn, dark woodland camo fatigues. Everything still fit, even the insults. He bent and ran his finger across a patched hole in the knee. How could he have forgotten for so long? It had happened during a training exercise. Clearing a doorway, he'd dropped to a knee and fired a double tap at a target of a man gripping a pistol. The knee pad had slipped down and a ragged nail tore a neat hole. Was there anything else he couldn't remember? What else was waiting to surprise him? It all seemed so surreal two days ago, but now fit like his boots. Like the patch. Comfortable. Familiar.

Jim pressed the team through the lists. Each member checked his own gear and then his partner's. They ran through armor, communication, night vision, and enhanced auditory. That was something new. A techno geek had found a way to combine a comm set with something like a hearing aid on steroids. The gadget fit behind his neck and clipped to both ears like a Bluetooth. Red clipped his on and steps approached from behind. He turned to see who it was, but no one was there. Twenty yards distant a crewmember walked toward one of the Sikorskys.

“Takes a while to get used to,” Lanyard said. “I swear you can hear a fly fart. Direction can be a bitch, but I'd rather hear 'em than not.”

They pressed through the rest. Weapons, ammo, KA-BAR, and all other essentials were in the same place on each member so that everyone knew where the requisites were. Marksman was the only one with a different main weapon. Everyone else carried a Det M4. The “Det” designation meant that Gunny had tweaked them to his liking. Eight of the twelve clips were Det spec ammo. They had rounds loaded in-house, using modified propellants. That must have been what Gunny had tried to explain earlier.

“More constant barrel pressure as the bullet accelerates. Increased muzzle energy,” Jim said. The rounds also necessitated the custom barrels or they'd shoot out too quickly.

The other four clips looked like weak subsonic ammo. The subsonic stuff was nice when you didn't want to be heard, but you'd better be close to your target because the slugs were slow. Eight hundred and fifty feet per second, less than one-fourth the velocity of a Det round. They had heavier seventy-seven grain slugs, but at that slow speed the weight didn't help much. If they were supposed to be tactically silent, the MP5 would've been a better choice.

Red shrugged on the ballistic vest and felt for his clips. It weighed on his shoulders and dug into his neck when he reached for his M4. Smelled like the inside of a new car. A variant on the Modular Tactical Vest, Lanyard told him. They didn't carry any food except a couple protein bars and a single canteen with iodine tablets. Wherever they were headed, they weren't staying long.

Gear checked out, everyone stripped it off and put it next to their rack in berthing.

Berthing had been Jim's idea, to control the team before a deployment so everyone would be on time, rested, and focused. Problem was it had a Navy name, was almost as confining as a ship's quarters, and meant more waiting. It was right off the hangar, through a thick insulated door to deaden sound. A Navy squid, built like a brick shit-house, stood next to it. Even Crawler looked at him suspiciously as they filed in with their gear.