Divided States, page 16
Lori hits rewind. The muted slam of a car door. Then nothing. Forty-six seconds of silence until Boudreaux snaps in her face.
“What did you say?” she asks.
“I said it helps me find—”
“No, before that. Before I came out of it.”
Boudreaux’s eyes widen. “I told you constant pit stops are one of the modafinil’s side effects.”
What in the actual fuck? No drug’s ever pressed her mute button, prescription or otherwise. But if modafinil can do this every time, if she has a way to shut out the noise, maybe Lori can escape this miserable existence.
“Has this ever happened before?” he asks.
Lori shakes her head.
“Okay, here’s what we do. There are a few tanks half a klick east. I’ll drive down and park behind one, then hoof it.” He reaches into the console and pulls out the satphone. “I’ll call when the threat is neutralized. What’s the number?”
A solid plan—if Lori were helpless. But she’s not. In fact, though she’ll process the implications later, she’s never felt more in control. “No. I’m good.”
He leans over, grips her shoulder in that caring way Jeremiah did after her confession. “Your mind’s literally not in this. And there’s nothing wrong with that.”
If he believes Lori about her jacked-up brain, maybe Boudreaux can also believe her now. “I know it sounds that way, but that’s not what’s happened.”
Boudreaux studies her face like the answer is tattooed on her forehead. “Tell me what did.”
“I found clarity.”
A slow nod. “Copy that.”
Lori spends the short drive silently recalling tactical procedure until she sees a human-shaped mound through the slush and windshield wipers. Boudreaux parks and they exit in synchrony.
It takes her two steps to realize there’s only one body and no silver sedan.
Fowler’s gone.
32
ERIC
Unknown location
Eric gave up yelling after a few minutes. Whoever’s driving the car knows he’s in the trunk and has only stopped for what he assumes were intersections. The car’s turned twice, but he can’t be sure where they were when he woke up, the base of his neck cut and swollen, wrists zip-tied behind him.
Eric’s eyes are closed as he remembers kneeling over Rita, his friend for decades and his lover for years, the most constant presence in his life while he worked to keep bad men in check.
The most accomplished liar he’d ever met.
But even in her final minutes, spent trying to explain away her deceit and insist she only betrayed some of his trust—that she only manipulated some of his actions and feelings—Eric wanted to move forward with her. In the moment before Boudreaux’s bullet tore through her hair and skin and bone and brain, Eric was formulating an argument that would bring her back to reason.
Though he’d seen people shot, Eric had never been close enough to feel the spray, warm flecks on his frozen cheeks. It wasn’t real. Couldn’t be real.
His last thought before waking up in this rolling coffin?
Maybe I can still save her.
Eric’s eyelids flutter open when the car begins to slow. Another stop. The roads have been too rough to be Provincial Highway 18—not that it kept the driver from hauling ass—but the precipitation was lighter, which meant they’d been heading north. He prepares for the car to start moving again, but the car rocks forward and stops.
Park.
The trunk pops open, and though storm clouds are blocking what little light has made it over the horizon, his eyes are barely adjusted when the driver’s face comes into view.
“What the hell are you doing here?”
Eric was prepared to see Gates, thinking he’d loaded Eric into the trunk of Rita’s car after escaping the firefight. Boudreaux wouldn’t feel the need to cuff Eric, even if their goals no longer aligned. The INSTA team would’ve put him down, and Lori deferred when given the chance.
The other logical option was an unsub. The plane that landed just after Lori and Boudreaux had been carrying Gates. But perhaps he’d brought someone unknown to everyone but him. Having an ace up both sleeves would fit Gates’s MO.
Hell, the way this day was going, Eric had even considered one of his officers turning on him.
But never Robert Moore.
“You always had more heart than brains,” Moore says. “Roll over.”
“Screw you.” Eric tries spitting at Moore, but his mouth is dry and the spittle barely clears the trunk.
Knowing he won’t live to see the world burn gives Eric some comfort. But that doesn’t mean he has to make it easy on the sonofabitch.
“If you’re going to shoot me, you’ll have to look me in the eyes.”
Moore’s hand shifts, and Eric starts the Lord’s Prayer. He’s on hallowed when it hits him—Moore’s holding a blade, not a pistol.
“I just want to take off the cuffs so we can talk.”
Eric doesn’t want to comply. Moore’s just as deadly with a knife, and turning that metaphor into reality is his brand of gallows humor. But even if Moore’s plan is to cut Eric loose, part of him would rather die in this truck than take orders from this traitorous piece of shit.
Then again, if he can get his hands free, maybe Eric can exact some personal revenge before his nightmare comes to fruition, so he rolls over and grits his teeth. When Moore cuts the plastic, Eric takes a moment to let his muscles relax. He flexes both hands twice. Rolls his shoulder. Breathes deeply.
But he doesn’t roll over.
“All right,” Moore says. “Let’s go.”
As Moore reaches for him, Eric flexes his right arm and swings the elbow back. The timing isn’t perfect, but it connects solidly enough that Moore’s out of the frame when Eric rolls over. Eric bails out and lands on top of Moore.
That’s where his plan falls apart.
Eric was a skilled operations officer and always passed the required physical and combat training with no issue. Moore, on the other hand, is an ex-Marine who contracted with Ground Branch in the Special Activities Center. Eric eventually talked Moore into applying for a paramilitary operations officer opening. Becoming a PMOO meant Moore could lead GB but also climb the company ladder with Eric.
But Moore always preferred wartime ops and never lost his edge.
In fighting Moore, Eric had hoped to get lucky, maybe land within reach of the knife or knock the wind out of Moore. But, just like every other time Eric had felt froggy, Moore spends about thirty seconds wrestling with him before ending the fight with a rear-naked choke.
“You done?”
* * *
“Let me get this straight.” Eric’s in the passenger seat, where he sat and looked for weapons as Moore drove like hell and explained his version of the last week. “You were on the flight that landed right after Lori and Boudreaux?”
“We were supposed to be a few hours behind, but our pilot wanted to make sure we missed the storm. I was pissed we were so close, though. I froze my balls off for twenty minutes waiting for my local team to pick me up and get to your offices without raising suspicion.”
Eric had made so many assumptions over the last nine hours. For instance, he’d been positive Gates was in that plane. It made infinitely more sense than the truth: Gates had already been nearby, messaging him from a hotel room. Or the house Eric and Rita used to share before he moved out to give her space. The thought made him equal parts furious and ill, though some of that is from the massive headache.
“And you didn’t know Gates would show up?”
“You think he’d’ve made it in the building? We were caught too off-guard and too far away to intercept him. Annie was still in her case, so we couldn’t neutralize him, either.”
Eric glances in the backseat to check again. Yes, the long gun is still in its case. More interesting are the two pieces of technology. Directly behind Moore sits a new laptop, its screen open and buzzing with lines of code and scrolling numbers. The other looks more like the first computer developed in Bill or Steve’s garage, but the screen’s missing and the keyboard’s not quite right. The power cable is also wrong and looks more like the thick coax cable.
Neither will work as a weapon. The Ka-Bar and at least one handgun are somewhere on Moore’s person, but wrestling them away would be futile. At this point, Eric’s only move is lunging at the wheel when Moore’s defense is soft.
So Eric keeps him talking.
“And Boudreaux didn’t alert us to the tail because he knew your team would be back there.”
“Bingo.”
Moore had already told Eric about climbing on top of a nearby storage tank and watching the meet through Annie Oakley’s scope.
“Why didn’t you just take us out? You had clean shots.”
But Eric does understand. His objective wasn’t just stopping Gates. It was stealing the bomb for himself and the Federalists. Reynolds and his team would’ve fought Moore just as hard as Gates if he’d started shooting.
“Young was supposed to tell her ex we were coming to secure the payload, but we hadn’t accounted for the blonde woman. Then Boudreaux screwed the pooch by starting a firefight.” Moore glances at the car’s nav. “My team said the truck’s still driving north on the eighteen, just outside of Ralston.”
“Why aren’t you with them?”
Moore must know he won’t get any information from Eric. Their history is too long and strained for building new rapport, and enhanced interrogation would be too emotional to be effective.
“Because you’re no longer an enemy combatant. You’re an asset.”
Good. Keep thinking that.
“When I saw the blonde was aiming for you and not Reynolds, something didn’t add up,” Moore says.
“Her name’s Rita. We have a rocky history.”
“Oh I could see that, even from up there. But you didn’t see Gates give her the kill sign”—Moore takes his right hand off the wheel and slashes it across his throat—“just before you ran toward her.”
Whatever happens next. That’s what Rita said just before Boudreaux’s bullet tore through her face. Had she and Gates planned to kill him all along?
“That’s when I knew you didn’t have the full picture. I told my guys to follow the truck while I retrieved you. I’m glad you’re not eating your way through retirement like Gates.”
“Where is Gates?”
“Don’t know. He took off in your dually. Boudreaux and Lori chased him in the Escalade, but my team hasn’t seen either vehicle.”
Three missing. One dead. Another taken. How had a simple trade gone so wrong?
“You trusted Gates too much,” Moore says.
All this time, and they’re still in sync. Sometimes they’d jinx each other at work and catch shit from everyone else in the room. Then the ball-busting would stop and they’d get back to the business of keeping America safe. He and Moore were a hell of a team once.
Stop it.
“And you’re capable of offering an objective opinion on Randall Gates?” Eric asks.
Moore’s smirk is infuriating. “You always said you’re better at reading people, but I’ve known Gates was a psychopath since Venezuela.”
Eric clenches his jaw. “That wasn’t his fault.”
It was mine.
Two months into Gates’s three-month timeout, counterterrorism obtained human and image intelligence suggesting Russia had shipped a cache of nuclear warheads and ICBMs to Venezuela, a doomsday scenario on par with the Cuban Missile Crisis and whatever history books call this cluster.
Gates charged Eric, who was still an acting Deputy COS, with confirming CTC’s intel. The weapon was being stored at a secret military installation south of the Orinoco River in the state of Delta Amacuro. Satellite images confirmed an encampment there, so Eric brought in a team from GB for recon.
As they prepared for the op, Eric and Moore each recognized a fellow Texan. By the end of the first night over arepas and rum, they’d calculated the odds of having tackled each other on the gridiron at 100 percent. Eric played quarterback and corner for Longview and Moore was a wideout and strong safety for Marshall.
The next morning, Gates got word that the HUMINT had been right about the location of the military camp but wrong about the shipment. Russia used the shipment disinformation to identify an asset, who was presumed dead.
Gates should’ve sent GB home. But the encampment was new information and the acting COS decided it was worth the risk despite knowing the intel was tainted. They’re already here, he said. And they’re soldiers. They can handle it.
His presence in Caracas was the result of a bureaucratic pissing contest, but Eric had been COS for nearly a year and knew he could get the intel another way. There was no reason to risk it.
But Eric wasn’t COS. And even if they reverted to their previous positions, Gates was still his boss. What was Eric supposed to do? Go to Gates’s immediate superior? The DDO? Sure, he demurred, but jellyfish show more spine than Eric did when he sent Moore and five other GB operators into the Venezuelan jungle.
Two survived.
Gates called them and the rest heroes while explaining his actions. In private, he told Eric they were contractors, not Agency officers, and therefore expendable pawns for those charged with protecting America and her democracy.
Eric believed him, and for years he and Gates did that.
Didn’t we?
“And Even if you put Venezuela on Gates,” Eric says, “That was a tactical mistake. An op gone sideways. That doesn’t make him a psychopath. It’s not like he sent you to go butcher women and children.”
Moore shuts his eyes for so long Eric nearly reaches for the wheel. They’re red when his lids lift, and Eric realizes the second toughest SOB he’s ever met is holding back tears.
“You really can’t see it, can you?”
Can’t see what?
Then it clicks. The New Year’s Eve attacks.
No. For the love of God, please, no. Eric chokes on his tongue. His fingers tingle. When his heart rate increases past 150 beats per minute, Eric thinks he’s having a heart attack. But he tries polygraph countermeasures and calms down in less than a minute.
“Why?” It’s all Eric can manage, and even that barely slips through his sand-dry throat.
“I’m sure you know China’s been revising its nuclear strategy since Taiwan, focusing on our new centers of power over here.”
Eric nods, his breathing still irregular.
“Well, I got intel last week that they’d recalibrated their ICBMs and upped the readiness level. I’m sure Gates did, too.”
Except for MANIFEST, Gates monitored all the nuclear activity overseas and updated Eric with the intel he needed to know—like, say, if their largest geopolitical adversary had its nuclear arsenal aimed at them with its index finger curled around the trigger.
“When Boudreaux called—on my encrypted line, and I’m still trying to figure out how that happened—he said the timetable had moved Destiny’s timetable up. You were still slow-playing the asset, so Gates found a more direct way to use her. Put her in danger and keep her from making contact, knowing you were tracking her and would call Boudreaux for an extraction. If you hadn’t thought of bringing her here for the exchange, he’d’ve told you to.”
Played like a fiddle.
“In addition to the shooter in New Orleans,” Moore continues, “Gates had someone else there, waiting to kidnap her. But thanks to Boudreaux’s warning, we took him out and my team secured her. They weren’t supposed to ditch the watch, but I suppose that’s not important now.”
The weight of it all seems to stop Moore there.
“MANIFEST,” Eric says, only a bit shaky now that the panic attack has mostly passed. “We called the operation MANIFEST, not Destiny. And Boudreaux has buddies everywhere, including guys who still work at the NSA.”
What Moore said makes sense, but there are a few lingering, horrifying questions. “Why stage shootings in so many cities? Why all that carnage just to secure one asset?”
“Boudreaux’s guy didn’t say anything about that. In fact, he didn’t know there’d be a shooting in New Orleans. He just knew she’d be in danger and taken. My guess? Gates figured you’d question everything if he tried to make it look like a random kidnapping or mugging or whatever. But if she were just caught up in a massive international terrorist plot, you’d be too focused on her safety to sniff out his plan.”
Would Gates really kill hundreds of innocent people—once and future Americans, he’d hoped—just in case Eric was smart enough to stop his grotesque plan?
And what about the gash in Lori’s leg? “The guy shot her, though. What if she’d died?”
“Look, I don’t know everything. She probably wasn’t supposed to get shot, but she was one of only a few survivors in New Orleans.”
Eric’s not sure he buys that. Especially when he considers the source.
“I still don’t understand where you fit into this. Why would Boudreaux, who’s always been more my friend than yours, cash in a chit with his NSA contacts to call your backstabbing ass instead of warning me?”
Moore pauses, probably so he can come up with a convincing lie.
