Divided States, page 26
“But when the military’s involved, Congress and the American people were supposed to hold cowboys like you accountable.”
That’s basically correct, but nobody involved would ever put it in such black-and-white terms.
Before Eric can correct him, Moore scoffs. “That’s such a simplistic view. But what should I expect from such a simple mind?”
“Says the guy who sold out and started doing the company’s dirty work.”
Here we go. Eric doesn’t have much time to start a brawl. When the other guard comes back with Lori, it’ll be that much harder to get control of the room.
“The way you talk, I’d say you never even served,” Eric says. “Only a civilian would talk the way you do. See, we’re the guys proud to have taken out the leaders of Al-Qaeda and ISIS. I guess y’all are the other guys.”
Taggart rushes to Eric and jerks him to his feet. “I’m Sgt. Jack Taggart of the United States Army. That’s who I am. You’re the one in the room who never served, asshole.”
Taggart draws his pistol and whips it across Eric’s face. As he falls to the table, Eric kicks Boudreaux’s leg, hoping he’ll react and rush Taggart while he’s preoccupied.
Boudreaux nods and stands. As he does, movement in the background catches Eric’s attention. Through eyes spotty from the impact, he sees the door to the conference room open.
Lori steps through first, wearing the same shirt but scrubs for bottoms. Her escort’s wearing the same clothes, but they’re wet, like he washed them and didn’t bother to dry them.
He may be wet, but the man they call Dust Devil moves just as quickly as ever as he races past Lori and shoves the butt of his rifle upside Boudreaux’s temple.
51
JEREMIAH
Jeremiah stands, determined not to let Lori face the same hell he just watched Mac go through. He makes it two steps when a gunshot brings the room to a standstill.
His ears are ringing, but Jeremiah sees Taggart pointing his M18 in the air, debris from the cheap ceiling panels falling in front of his face.
“If y’all want to get this party started early, I can do it.” Taggart’s words are muffled, but everyone understands or gets the gist.
Jeremiah sits beside Lori, and the rest of the hostages follow suit like a kindergarten class after the teacher finally loses his shit. Said teacher and his assistants, Prickly Pear and Dust Devil, have a confab in the corner, though Jeremiah can’t hear what they’re discussing.
Lori leans in, keeping her eyes on the guards. “I told Dusty I heard commotion out in the lobby, with the doctor and nurses. He said he’d send Taggart out there since apparently the doc has to be handled with kid gloves.”
As they watch Taggart holster his pistol and leave the room, Jeremiah wishes things had turned out differently for Lori. She is so capable. He’s told her before, but Jeremiah has dreamed of an alternate reality where they met while he was still in DEVGRU. She would’ve been the best female asset his team—or any of the teams in Black Squadron—would’ve ever worked with.
Even now, after years of treating herself like garbage and a day that would make most people give up, Lori had the presence of mind to get out of that closet and convince the enemy to divide their forces and leave the dumbest in charge of securing a group of elite operators.
He hates that they met when both their lives were so jacked up, him a drunk, her an addict—though hers wasn’t always chemical. When she was addicted to being murder police, Lori was a major asset to her community. Had she the chance to channel that obsession into AFO and OPE work with Jeremiah, maybe she could’ve stopped wars, been an anti-Helen, acting as her own Trojan Horse.
“Follow my lead,” Lori whispers before turning toward the two remaining guards, who are now standing sentry at either side of the door, rifles leveled. “You two okay? I didn’t mean to get anyone in trouble.”
Are they okay? Jeremiah’s not sure what game Lori’s playing. What the hell lead is he supposed to be following if she’s sucking up to the enemy?
“Yes ma’am, we’re okay,” Dust Devil says. “And thanks for the help. I guess you and the doctor are our primary objective.”
And the rest of us are to be neutralized. Did Lori want the rest of us to know we’re on the chopping block? Could be motivating. It definitely pisses off Jeremiah.
“Well here,” Lori says, “before Sergeant Taggart comes back, why don’t I get started introducing you to everyone like I said I would.”
Prickly Pear looks at his buddy, confused. “What’s she talking about?”
“You know the guy you brought out of the closet after I left?” Dust Devil leans over like he’s telling a dirty joke. “He was in Delta.”
“Bullshit. If he was, you’d never know.”
Dust Devil looks at Lori, appealing to his new friend.
“Let’s start at the bottom and work our way up,” Lori says, nodding to Fowler. “First we have a former intelligence officer with the CIA. You were the deputy director, right?”
“Not quite,” Fowler says. “That was my boss, Randall Gates. He’s the one—”
“Yeah, he was working for K,” Prickly Pear says. “Sergeant Taggart told us. Said you’re too big a pussy to go through with the mission.”
“Boys, there’s no reason to call names,” Lori says. “Especially when you know he won’t be with us for much longer.”
Jesus, Lori.
“Like I said, I was starting at the bottom.” She tilts her head toward Moore. “This man’s name is Robert Moore. He also used to work for the Agency, but he was a Marine before that.”
“We heard sarge earlier,” Dust Devil says.
“Well, what he didn’t tell you is that Moore was one of the CIA’s top assassins.”
Moore flashes anger. “That’s not very accurate.”
Lori forces a smile. “Oh, don’t be modest. You used to be an American James Bond. But I bet you drank Kentucky Bourbon, not fruity martinis.”
Is this where I start taking her lead? If not, Jeremiah can’t fathom what Lori’s doing.
“I know you can’t talk about it, but c’mon, we all know what you military boys do for the CIA.” She turns to the guards. “I’m sure you two have heard the rumors.”
They nod.
“You missed it earlier, but Sergeant Taggart said guys like him ruined America’s defense by operating without proper authority,” Prickly Pear says. “He told us not that long ago that an assassination started the first World War, and we were one assassination from a third. That’s why our mission with K is so important.”
Dom hocks a loogie and spits. “American armed forces never assassinated anyone. We eliminated the leaders of enemy states as part of our national security. Your sergeant wouldn’t know a damn thing about what it really takes to defend this country.”
“You mean the Republic of Oklahoma?” Dust Devil says, grinning like he’d just caught his teacher writing the wrong answer on the board. “I’d say we know more about protecting that than you do, old man.”
The kid giggles. Jeremiah grins.
Dom growls.
“Calm down, Dom,” Jeremiah says. “It’s okay. I’ll explain it to him.”
Jeremiah understands where Lori’s going with this. Her new buddies are obviously interested in special operations forces. They probably wanted to be in units like DEVGRU and Delta before the secessions, so they’re immersed in an interesting situation.
In other words, these two are distracted.
And while Lori was never a military wife, she always understood one thing when Jeremiah went off on a transport.
A distracted soldier’s a dead soldier.
52
LORI
Lori taps her boot against Jeremiah’s, letting him know he’s right. She doesn’t know how much time they’ll have with just these two guarding them. Since she was lying about the commotion in the lobby, Lori’s surprised Taggart hasn’t come busting through the door yet.
But she needs another minute or two before Dusty will be impressed enough to leave his post. If she can trip him and slip her handcuffed hands under her ass, there’s hope of getting control of a gun.
Lori also needs time for the drugs to kick in. She took one and a half Oxy and Dusty took the leftover. She’s getting right, and he’ll be feeling real good soon.
“In fact,” Jeremiah says, “Dom here wasn’t just Special Forces. Tell’em where you ended your time in.”
“Can’t. Classified.”
Dusty takes a step their way. “C’mon man,” he says, a drunk trying to convince his sober buddy to take a shot. “Who’re we telling?”
Hansen shakes his head, but Jeremiah leans toward Dusty. “He was Intelligence Support Activity.”
Now Prickly moves away from the door. “No freaking way. Gray Fox?”
“Only in Afghanistan,” Jeremiah says. “We call them Orange, and they keep secrets even I don’t know. Hell, I’ve known the guy since we called him Undertaker in JSOC, and even I can’t tell you what rank he retired at. He was a master sergeant in SF, but everything after that’s classified.”
Hansen looks satisfied. Jeremiah always said he was racist, misogynistic, and an all-around prick—likely a result of his weird-ass upbringing—but Dominic Hansen was the second smartest SOB he met while working with Joint Special Operations Command.
Right below MacLaughlin.
“Hey Mac,” Lori says. “What was your nickname?”
“You just said it.” She turns away for a few wet coughs. “Mac.”
Jeremiah translates. “I think she meant when you were in 24 STS.”
Prickly takes a few more steps in their direction. “24th Special Tactics? I didn’t know they had women.”
Almost there. Just keep them talking.
“Just one,” MacLaughlin says. “Four of us completed special warfare training, but I’m the only one who got into special operations. Made chief master sergeant as a combat controller.”
“Hold on a minute,” Prickly says, stepping so close Lori thinks about jumping him now. “You’re telling me that we have 24 STS, ISA, DEVGRU and Delta all here at this table.”
Dusty’s pupils are nearly pinpoints as he speaks. “So, y’all’re all”—he puts up slow air quotes—“Tier One operators here. Commanded by Jay-Scotch and shit.”
Prickly puts a hand on Dusty’s shoulder. “You okay, soldier?”
Lori can’t afford for Dusty to blow up the plan yet. “He’s fine. He just wants to hear Mac’s nickname when she was working with the rest of these guys.”
MacLaughlin coughs again, but with a grin. “Special Sauce.”
Jeremiah alleviates everyone’s confusion, including Lori’s. “Because advance field ops always went better when she was in the mix. Plus, everyone thought Big Mac was too on-the-nose.”
Even Prickly laughs at that.
Jeremiah and Boudreaux are both a little farther down the table than she is, which is why she saved them. Lori needs one of the guards to feel the need to be close to the most well-known of the elite operators. That’s when she can strike, with Jeremiah as her backup. And Boudreaux—if he’s done pissing and moaning.
“And then there were two,” she says.
“Yeah, yeah,” Prickly says. “Master Chief Jeremiah Reynolds was DEVGRU.”
“Were you there when they shot UBL?” Dusty says, a bit more coherent.
“Christ, how old do I look?” He pauses for another round of laughter. “No, though I was with the tribe before going to Black Squadron.”
Prickly gets closer. “But you started in Red, so you probably knew some of the guys who were part of Neptune Spear in Abbottabad, right?”
Lori could do it now, and Taggart’s been gone so long she’s beyond antsy. She taps Jeremiah’s shoe again. Even if he wasn’t, Jeremiah needs to lie so the kid’s in enough awe for them to take him down.
“Affirmative. I knew at least—”
Dusty stumbles forward, nearly into the table, as he rounds the corner. “Wait a damn minute.” He’s nearly to Boudreaux. “I came back in here to meet this guy. He was in goddamn Delta, man. I want to hear one of his stories.”
Now both guards are in the ambush zone. Jeremiah already knows what to do, so Lori looks at Boudreaux. He’s been reading her mind all goddamn day. He needs to do it one more time.
But when they make eye contact, he looks sad. “Not really. I was mostly G Squadron. AFO and battlespace preparation, that stuff.”
Lori widens her eyes and clenches her jaw. She didn’t want to be so overt, but it’s now or never. She tilts her head to Boudreaux’s right, where Dusty is leaning against the table.
He seems to get it, and Lori kicks Jeremiah one more time.
But he doesn’t jump up. Instead, Jeremiah starts talking. “You were in G? I was Stingray. How do we not know each other? I did more than a few joint ops with your squadron back in the day, and we’re just about the same age.”
Hansen points his chin at Boudreaux. “Same here.”
MacLaughlin also looks curious. “I knew all those guys, too. I never knew anyone called Boudreaux, real name or otherwise.”
This is not the time to solve a locked-room mystery, but Lori has lost everyone, so might’s well get it over with. “Fine,” she says. “What do you say, Boudreaux? You been lying to everyone?”
Or just me?
Boudreaux glances at Fowler and Moore, but they look too amused to do his dirty work.
“I worked with all of you, at one point or another. Back then, Reynolds and MacLaughlin knew me as Big Easy.”
The recognition is almost instant, with simultaneous exclamations of no way.
“But Hansen over there,” Boudreaux says, “he knew my rank and real name.”
“Command Sgt. Maj. Michael Hawke.” Hansen looks like the biggest sixth-grader on the planet. “But we used to call you Mike behind your back.”
Dusty’s the only one impaired enough to say the name quickly and out loud. And since they’re in a hospital, he found it amusing to phrase it as a nurse paging a patient.
“And that’s why I needed an alias when I went private. That joke’s too easy to remember. Hard for Michael Hawke to stay hidden. Easy for a guy named Boudreaux in Louisiana.”
“Why Boudreaux?” Lori asks.
“I liked Louisiana and knew I wanted to live there. Plus one of my favorite bad guys from TV once used Mike Boudreaux as an alias.”
Mac hacks up another piece of her soaked lung. “But you weren’t as”—she curls her neck muscles, revealing her own nice peaks—“and your chin had a human beard, not that thing. And your voice is all wrong, too.”
“The Unit prioritized running over lifting. The beard and voice—”
Prickly shoves one of the empty chairs across the room. “All right, enough with the family reunion.”
Lori nods at Boudreaux. “Couldn’t agree more.”
She bolts upright. Jeremiah follows a second later, and together they sweep Prickly’s legs out from under him. She doesn’t see Boudreaux take out Dusty, but his grunt and the sound of his rifle hitting the floor tell her the plan’s working so far.
Prickly still has his rifle, but not for long. Lori bends in half and works her hands down past her ass. The skin around her wrists is burning, but nothing dislocates. She sits and finishes the move, her legs slipping through her arms like a hula-hoop.
They’re still cuffed, but her hands are in front now.
Jeremiah’s kneeling on Prickly, but he hasn’t lost control of the gun. Lori kicks him in the side twice, then reaches down to relive the solider of his weapon. By the time she does, Boudreaux is beside her, untied hands holding Dusty’s rifle.
“How the—”
“I’ll show you the trick sometime,” he says. “Let’s go to the closet and get something to cut off everyone else’s.”
They rush across the hall, which is still empty and not yet filling with more Oklahoma Guardsmen. Boudreaux opens the door and flips the light switch and rushes inside. Lori’s not sure what he’s doing until Boudreaux returns with a pair of red-handled pliers. She puts down the rifle and holds out her hands. When he’s done cutting the flex-cuffs, Boudreaux hands her the tool and points to the conference room.
“Cut one of them free, then come help.”
Lori pockets the pliers and picks up the gun.
“Oh yeah,” Boudreaux says. “And shoot the guards.”
Boudreaux follows her out of the closet but turns left, muzzle out, eyes down the barrel.
When she reaches the conference room, Lori lets the rifle hang by the shoulder sling and motions for Jeremiah to turn around.
“Cut everyone loose.” She snips free one hand. “I’m going to help.”
“No,” he says as Lori rips away the rest of the plastic. “Let me.”
They don’t have time for a protracted staring contest, but Lori doesn’t want to budge.
“I’m the better shot,” he says. “Or, actually, Dom is.” He motions for Lori to give him the pliers so he can cut Hansen free.
“Fine.” She walks over to Hansen, rifle still dangling by her side. “But I’m following him. You cut everyone else loose.”
