Divided States, page 13
But for him, she’d been willing to fake it.
Listening to Clarke act surprised at Fowler’s tale of daring-do reminds Lori of Jeremiah the first time they dined out after hooking up post-separation. The way he couldn’t forgive her but feigned interest in the new restaurant for the sake of maintaining a respectable, stable, married life. He was willing to push aside headlines about a homicide detective being put on administrative leave. Then fired. Then no-billed thanks to what the media deemed a corrupt DA’s office bowing to a powerful police union that threatened a sick-out.
Jeremiah’s one of only three living souls who know the truth. Lori’s one of two who heard the sounds, the way they echoed, dueling screams fading into sobs and silence.
Lori’s last sober day? The one before she confessed to Jeremiah.
For reasons she’ll never understand, Jeremiah remained the dutiful husband, literally by her side on the Potter County Courthouse steps as the Houston lawyer announced how vigorously he would defend Lori in the family’s civil suit. But Jeremiah only had so many vacation days, and soon he was back on the road. When she was a cop, Lori filled time with extra shifts and studying for degrees and police exams. After she made detective, she worked her cases nonstop. When Amarillo wasn’t deadly enough, Lori volunteered to help rural Panhandle counties.
Without the job filling her spare time, she reverted to pre-academy Lori, the one who hopped from foster house to foster house and experimented with sins her father wouldn’t have allowed. The young woman who later realized being high—be it from alcohol, opiates, or another person’s touch—didn’t turn off her freakshow of a brain, but made her feel less alien.
After leaving the force, drinking away the spare time was easy. Though she’d switched to craft beer while on the job, Jeremiah kept a fun array of hard stuff in the house. It only took two trips for inhibition-less Lori to pull up her mental rolodex. She called dealers for Vicodin. Then Oxy. Lori could get as wild as she wanted when Jeremiah was away and knew how to hide it while he was home.
When he finally asked about her cash withdrawals, which were particularly noticeable without her half of their income, Lori thought about weaning herself. But it had been three months. Slowing down left Lori dope sick and, though she thought she’d hidden it well, Jeremiah isn’t stupid.
He isn’t rash either, so Jeremiah brought evidence to their inevitable blowup. The pill bottle underneath her side of the mattress. The emergency sandwich bag stuffed into the toe of a pair of shoes she keeps in their box in the top of the closet. The proof that sent him over the top? Her multivitamins, the ones she took in the mornings, sometimes standing beside him, that had been switched out for the opioids.
Jeremiah threw that bottle at her. She yelled. He screamed. She slapped, then punched, then kicked Jeremiah. When he went silent and started to leave, Lori jumped on his back. Jeremiah tried flinging her away, but Lori had the choke locked in, which is why she didn’t blame him for falling backward onto their glass coffee table.
Jeremiah checked into a hotel that night and was on the road by six the next morning. Then, before he called or confronted her at their home, Jeremiah found a cheap apartment. He tried to forgive her during the separation. Asked her to go to rehab. Begged her to put their marriage, their love, above her depression. But when Lori told him she felt neither depression nor love—that she was happier alone and high than she’d been during their years together—he filed for divorce.
When Jeremiah contacted her again more than a year later, he was unwilling to forgive, but willing to forget. I know we don’t love each other anymore, he’d said, but I can’t keep you out of my life, either. Her first instinct was to warn him off, to tell him she’d already ruined one man who cared about her despite the flaws of character.
Now, sitting in Fowler’s office watching his lips move, Lori wishes she’d done it. Then maybe Jeremiah wouldn’t be trying to keep her out of harm’s way, breaking every oath he’d ever taken in the process.
Clarke stands and Boudreaux follows—Is he showing off or is his chivalry honest?—and Fowler lifts his cheeks as she passes by on her way out. He’s already seated again when an older man blocks Clarke’s advance by filling the doorway. The man’s barrel chest is bolstered by a thick winter coat, not the paunch and waddle of most men his age. She pictures Boudreaux in ten years, but New Guy’s stare is colder.
For New Guy, unlike his ex-finance, Fowler jumps to attention.
“I didn’t know you were coming, sir.”
Sir? Fowler uses names with people he knows, never honorifics. Well, almost. He’s used sir in her presence exactly once, when he took a call while she paused outside his doorway to look for breath mints in her purse. He might use sir and ma’am upon first greeting, but New Guy isn’t new to Fowler.
“You didn’t think I’d sit on the sidelines while we’re under attack, did you sport?”
New Guy is originally from Minnesota but has lived elsewhere for a long time. They didn’t meet as children. Maybe college, but probably in the CIA.
“Everyone, this is Randall Gates,” Fowler says. “He’s one of my oldest and closest friends.”
Lori’s never heard the name. After Fowler makes individual introductions, Gates inhales deeply.
“That coffee smells wonderful,” he says.
Fowler turns to Clarke. “Would you mind?”
Though Lori expects her to look irritated by her continued relegation to barista, Clarke smiles and says she’ll be right back.
“I’d love some vanilla creamer,” Gates says. “And if you have it, just a dash of cinnamon.”
Now Lori’s awake.
26
ERIC
Gates can’t be here. He designed MANIFEST, and per the protocols, he is to be nowhere near the op’s moving parts.
Yet here Gates stands, shutting the door to Eric’s office.
“They up to speed?” Gates asks, his back to the room. Eric recognizes Gates’ tone, the one he uses during dangerous ops.
“Yes.”
Eric wants to say more, but his presence and question means Gates is now in full control of MANIFEST. Eric’s his deputy again, trusted with carrying out orders, not giving them. Asking why in front of the others would undermine the director’s authority.
The first person he addresses directly is Boudreaux. “I need to thank you for saving this operation. From everything Fowler’s told me, I expect you to be a hell of an asset for us today.”
“I appreciate that.”
Gates freezes for a moment. He’s expecting a sir from Boudreaux. He’ll never get one in this context. Maybe if they were having a drink, but not acknowledging a chain of command from someone who never served.
“As for you, Miss Young,” Gates says before shifting her way. “I’m sorry we had to bring you in under these circumstances.”
Lori’s gears are turning, which makes Eric nervous. On one hand, she has a law enforcement background and understands, to some degree, how an op can go wrong if someone disobeys orders. Lori also has a history of not giving a damn about consequences.
If her give-a-shit’s busted, this could get ugly fast.
“It’s okay, Randall. I was in this the moment that asshole shot me. I know the stakes.”
Gates nods. “Of that, I have no doubt.”
They were passive-aggressive, but Gates must not have taken much offense. He walks toward Eric, who expects to be the next person he engages.
Instead, Gates pulls out the office chair and sits.
“Say Fowler, could you go check on—”
His thought is interrupted by a knock at the door. Fowler doesn’t hesitate.
“Just in time,” Gates says when Rita appears with a Yeti coated in orange with a purple FAST logo, their most popular piece of swag for sales calls. He takes a sip. “Perfect.”
Gates reaches into Eric’s desk and pulls out the satphone without having to be told which drawer. He’s taken over the desk, same as he took over the room and the op.
Gates stands, looks at Boudreaux. “Hip and ankle?”
Boudreaux nods. “Plus a rifle in the truck.”
“Get yours,” Gates says as he walks past Eric. “And give him your keys. You’re riding with me.”
Eric tosses the keyring to Boudreaux and scrambles to the far end of his office. After Gates is out of the room, Eric catches Lori’s gaze and tilts his head toward the gun safe. She tells Boudreaux to go warm up the truck while she uses the restroom again. After he’s clear, Lori walks over.
Eric hands her one of two Glock 19s. “In case this goes sideways.”
“Why would it?”
“Your ex got to bring three of his people in case Moore ambushed him on the way here. They’re all armed, so we better be, too.”
Lori nods and racks a round.
***
Frigid wind stings Eric’s face as he turns toward the curb and watches Lori jog to the comfort of Eric’s white dually with the vinyl FAST logo across its side. Gates has a black Escalade running, heat no doubt on full blast. Rita’s new car isn’t there, but she probably parked it under one of the covered spaces behind the building.
Eric wants to question him as soon as the door’s shut. But he restrains himself. Gates will tell him what he needs to know when he needs to know it.
“You waited for her.” It sounds like a statement, but it’s really Gates demanding an explanation.
“I wanted to make sure she and Rita didn’t start talking.”
The excuse sounds lame, but it’s true. Lori did need the restroom, so he stood out in the hall. Rita poked her head out once but ducked back in after Eric shook his head.
When Gates doesn’t react, Eric wonders if he knows about giving Lori one of the pistols. His anxiety’s already at ten and they haven’t left the parking lot.
“It’s not that I don’t trust you,” Gates finally says, eyes still on the road. “I’d’ve aborted if anyone else were in charge, but I knew you could handle it. You did a helluva job getting us here.”
He shouldn’t need Gates’s approval anymore, but to ignore the satisfaction from getting an attaboy would be disingenuous. It’s been this way since he joined the Agency.
“But,” Gates continues, “I couldn’t ask you to do this alone. You see my presence here as a lack of confidence, when really it’s a compliment. We’re going to be partners on this thing.” He turns to Eric when they reach the one stop sign on the short route. “Work for you?”
Partners. Many leaders use the word as a carrot. If you perform well enough this one time, we can be equals. Eric knows better than to believe such nonsense. Then again, Gates, though never angry, has never blurred the lines between boss and underling.
Until now.
“Absolutely.”
Smiling is also rare, but Gates wears it well as they near the meet.
“You remember the last time we were in the field together?”
Eric mirrors Gates and adds a chuckle. “Caracas. You were pissed.”
“I was demoted to COS and sent to the most dangerous place this side of the Atlantic. You’d be pissed, too.”
Demotion isn’t a strong enough word for what happened. People joke about Siberia, but real punishment was going from running the Latin America desk to herding a team of edgy officers in Venezuela.
Eric should know.
“Well, I wasn’t exactly thrilled when you stole my job.”
Everyone assumes Gates is ex-military because of his demeanor and strength, but he was recruited while earning a Ph.D. in economics at Pepperdine. Gates is a genius and refused to pretend otherwise for the sake of office politics.
That’s why Gates, in a briefing on the seventh floor in Langley, told the Director of Central Intelligence that he was being obtuse for what was later seen as an inconsequential decision.
He was in Venezuela by the end of the week.
“Well,” Gates says, still smiling, “I’d say it worked out for both of us.”
True enough. After working so closely for three months, Gates placed his new favorite officer in his hip pocket. All he asked was acknowledgment of his superiority, and Eric had never seen evidence to the contrary.
Daybreak is still a few minutes away, but night has lightened into gray in the final pre-dawn minutes. Gates flips around and pulls into a caliche lot near a colossal oil storage tank. Once white, the seventy-foot-tall behemoth is covered in a dingy film of hydrocarbons and rusty soil. It’s just one of a thousand clustered into tank farms that stretch for miles south of Cushing.
Gates parks parallel to the road facing west so he’ll see the semi coming. Boudreaux parks behind him, but Gates rolls down his window and waves the truck forward.
“Always keep the rifleman between you and the other guy.” Gates loves finding teachable moments, whether his lesson was correct or not.
After a few minutes, Eric focuses on the lightening horizon, frustrated. “They’re running late.”
“Must’ve caught the edge of that storm. Nobody here knows how to drive in a little snow.”
“Two feet is more than a little snow—even for someone who grew up in Minnesota and lives in Wyoming.”
Cold weather isn’t Eric’s favorite, but heavy precipitation of any kind can mean a boost in sales and service calls for FAST. Not that he’ll have to worry about that anymore. Rita will get controlling interest in the business when MANIFEST is complete, and Eric will serve as deputy to Director Randall Gates under Alexia Ramirez, president of the restored United States of America.
Phase One will be done as soon as Jeremiah Reynolds pulls up with his nuke.
Phase Two’s timetable is a bit more fluid.
“What’s China doing?” Eric asks.
Gates glances down to the clock on the dash. 7:32.
“I may have time to get a sitrep.” He pulls out the satphone, dials, waits a few seconds. “Status? … Understood … Will advise when the payload …”
Eric follows his gaze to an eighteen-wheeler that’s just pulled into view.
“The payload’s here,” Gates says. “Phase Two is a go.”
He ends the call and replaces the phone. “Get the girl. I’ll wait here.”
Eric obliges and, for the first time all night, shivers as he steps out into the cold.
27
JEREMIAH
Columbus Petroleum Terminal,
6 miles south of Cushing, Northeast Province
Republic of Oklahoma
Jeremiah nods at Mac and pounds the roof of the cab. They’re moving forward with the plan, which is simple in theory. The execution won’t be.
He opens the door and steps down, gloved hands in the air. Mac stopped about twenty yards short of the white dually and black SUV, steam billowing from their tailpipes. Fowler is standing beside the Escalade and opens the door for Lori, who looks like a nine-year-old in her father’s winter coat.
Novak and Robb briefed Jeremiah on the other players. The older yet imposing man who leaves the pickup is Randall Gates—the brains of their operation.
The guy holding a modified Heckler & Koch 416 rifle is the brawn.
Jeremiah’s not naked, but his SIG Sauer and burner phone aren’t much comfort as he steps toward Lori.
“You can put your hands down, son,” Gates says over Blue’s idling engine. “We’re just playing a game of musical trucks here.”
Jeremiah looks back. Dom has already slid into the passenger seat, so Jeremiah acquiesces. At least now he’ll have a chance to pull his sub-compact before Boudreaux can raise his rifle.
“Before my team leaves the truck, Lori and I need to be in that Escalade and driving away.”
“You don’t expect me to agree to that, do you?”
No. But it was worth asking.
“Well then, I’m not sure where we go from here.”
Gates purses his lips as though he’s thinking and hasn’t planned the whole scenario already. “Let’s try this. Your people exit the truck without their guns, and we”—he jerks a thumb at Fowler—“drive away. Boudreaux can babysit you until we’re clear, then you get in the Caddy and go eat breakfast in town.”
Comebacks don’t come naturally to Jeremiah, but this one’s so easy he grins.
“You don’t expect me to agree to that, do you?”
He expects Gates to react negatively. A frown. A clenched jaw, at the very least. Instead, Gates smiles right back.
“Let’s game this out. You’ve got Ramirez positioned behind the trailer, waiting for a signal.”
Dammit. They stopped before turning onto the straightaway leading to the meet and Zeus held onto the back for nearly a mile. Jeremiah doesn’t react, but Zeus hears his name and moves away from the truck, flanking the group from the north, Roxie shouldered and hungry.
Boudreaux mirrors him.
“Welcome to the party,” Gates says. “So, the two rifles cancel each other out. You’ve got a pistol on you, but so do I. Fowler’s Glock gives me a one-man advantage if Hansen and MacLaughlin stay in the truck, which they’ll do since their goal is to not give up the payload at all costs.”
One problem with a simple plan: It’s easy for the other guy to figure out.
