Читать книгу Blood Demons - Richard Jeffries - Страница 10

Chapter 3

“Your miscalculation was you wanted to beat him, to defeat him. But we weren’t there for him. We were there for his victim.”

Josiah Key was talking to his right-hand people in yet another interrogation room, which looked like almost every other interrogation room anywhere in the world. Four gray walls, one gray floor, one gray ceiling, one cheap table, five cheap chairs, one door, and one one-way window taking up most of one wall.

Nichols was going to argue the miscalculation, although Daniels knew better. “But if we could have captured him,” she started, “that would have helped us figure—”

“But we weren’t fighting him like we were trying to capture him.” Daniels sighed, already having accepted, and learned, from his mistake. “Admit it. We were fighting him like we wanted to shove his sneering teeth down his throat.”

Key smiled at the growing maturity of his associate. He was even kind enough to say “we,” when everyone, including Nichols, knew it really meant her.

Everyone at Cerberus had been relieved when Daniels, who was known to go after anything in skirts, pants, shorts, skorts, panties, G-strings, thongs, or anything remotely vaginal, had immediately started treating Nichols like a sister-in-arms and fellow Marine.

“I don’t shit where I sleep,” he once told Key when explaining how he targeted his “romantic conquests.”

Nichols exhaled strongly, laid her hands flat on the table, and slowly nodded. “Yeah, I get it. You’re right.”

“What do I tell you?” Key grinned, pleased she had taken responsibility, but he had to make sure she wasn’t just doing it as way to forget about it. “What do I always tell you?”

“You want to know how smart I am, not how tough I am,” she said in a mild singsong, but with an honest, comprehending smile.

“It’s not about how bad-ass you are,” Daniels chimed in like a five-year-old reciting his alphabet. “It’s about how effective you are.”

“It’s also not about proving how bad-ass you are,” Key stressed. “To anyone, especially yourself!”

The door finally banged open, as Key figured it would. It was the main reason they had started the lesson in the first place. Key knew it would drive Logan crazy.

Sure enough, in walked Patrick Logan—wearing, as was his custom, a full uniform, and carrying, as was also his custom, a thick file. He seemed to always want to have it at hand in case he needed something to hide behind.

Daniels looked behind him in anticipation, but to his obvious disappointment, there was no beautiful blond Second Lieutenant Barbara Strenkofski, who had been Logan’s aide when last they met. He had wanted to at least attempt a reconciliation after Daniels had left her “Mickey-Finned” in an Omani medical college break-room bunk bed—where she had successfully attempted to “romantically conquest” him.

Instead, there was a statuesque, violet-eyed brunette in a tailored uniform, sporting first lieutenant insignia. Logan looked pointedly from her to Daniels as she sat down, her notepad at the ready.

“Ah,” Logan snapped as he slapped the file onto the table and settled in. “The men from Cerebral.”

Key didn’t take the bait. Nor did Nichols, but she did check his chest and crotch in pointed silence. Key was certain Logan had purposely used the misogynist greeting, and fairly certain he had purposely mispronounced the organization’s name, but you never know. Somebody like Logan might actually think that was the name, but it made little difference to Key. He had heard every variation, from Cerebrum to Short Bus, in such a short time that he went back to simply saying he was from the CID—which actually wasn’t a lie. Logan had originally made both he and Daniels CID agents back in the day, and the question whether they were still CID, or even Marines, would probably have to be unraveled by the NCIS.

Instead, Key looked placidly at the florid, ambitious officer and said, as way of greeting, “Captain.”

Because they all knew Logan was far more thin-skinned than Key, they all expected the result. Logan stiffened, then sharply pointed at his uniform’s insignia. “Colonel,” he stiffly corrected.

“Oh, we got you a promotion, did we?” Key said like a cat toying with a mouse who was already dead. Cerberus had allowed Logan to take the credit for destroying the Idmonarchne Brasieri, and everyone in this room, except for maybe the buxom brunette, knew it. Getting a certain one of them to admit it, however, was a different matter.

“I got me the pro—!” Logan started before he realized he was acting the way he had wanted Key to act. “Never mind, Corporal Key. Maybe you could utilize your time to better advantage by telling me why I shouldn’t let the local Punjabi authorities do to you what they are threatening to do to you.”

If he was expecting Key to react in agitation, he really should have known better. It wasn’t like they hadn’t faced each other across much the same table in much the same room before. Key didn’t even respond to the “corporal” crack since, although he had since been promoted to major, once he threw in with Cerberus he decided to leave rank behind.

“Because they know as well as you that we all have a problem that won’t be solved with a hammer,” Key replied calmly, then continued by giving credit where credit was due. “No matter how strong and effective that hammer may be.”

Logan leaned back as if he had sprung his own mousetrap. “What we have, Corporal, is a terrorist problem, and I think that hammer you so accurately referred to will do just fine.”

Key exhaled through his nostrils and couldn’t help shaking his head in a “t’was ever thus” manner. He also leaned back and spread his hands to encompass the file on the table between them.

“So that’s the theory you’re going with?” he sighed sadly. “Terrorists who use a child as a bomb to damage property. Terrorists who can get from the base to the top of a mountain in minutes. Terrorists who survive an explosion that kills two park rangers who were farther away from the detonation than they were. Terrorists who can disappear from a lockdown even a TSA agent couldn’t avoid. You really want to walk into the teeth of this that way?”

Both Daniels and Nichols wondered whether Key had used the word “teeth” knowingly. They immediately decided he had.

Logan looked as if Key had repeatedly slapped him in the face with a fish, but he also looked as if he thought of himself as a prize fish fighter. “What I want,” he said tightly, “is for you and your Cerberus bozos to be as far away from this as possible, and if that means I have to lock the door of a Punjabi jail cell myself, I will.”

Key stared at him until Logan was impelled to continue, through gritted teeth. “The bomb,” he said, “was in the juice container.”

Key couldn’t keep his brows from raising a bit. Logan could guess all he wanted about what happened at Mount Rushmore, but he already knew that people exploded. They both had been on that beachfront in Yemen. They had seen it with their own eyes. He continued to just stare, waiting to see if Logan’s denial was so big it might swallow him.

The newly minted colonel took the moment to look to his new aide, who handed him a sheet of paper from the file. “Would it surprise you to know that Aarif Zaman has taken responsibility for the attack?” he asked, his eyes on the paper.

Key had to think about that bombshell, but didn’t need to think about it long. “Yes,” he said, “and no.”

That comment returned the favor to Logan’s eyebrows, which also raised. “Why yes,” he started to ask, “and why—”

He got no further because retired General Charles Lancaster strode in.

“What took you?” Daniels blurted.

“Making sure the colonel didn’t bogart our evidence,” Lancaster answered without hesitation.

“Bogart?” Logan blustered. “Your evidence?”

“Yes, our evidence,” Lancaster almost spat, swinging a piece of paper at Logan’s face as if it were a scythe. “Officially signed and authorized. When will you get it through your thick skull that we’re on the same fucking team?”

Logan grabbed the paper and read it so intently Nichols thought it might burst into flame. “When you bozos stop getting in my way,” he growled.

“We will when you stop making us,” Lancaster immediately retorted. “I don’t have to tell you that your interference resulted in the suspect getting away, but I want you to know that makes us all wonder if you wanted it that way.”

“What?” Logan exploded, vaulting to his feet. “What the— How dare— I don’t have to sit here and take that!”

The colonel’s tantrum didn’t faze Lancaster in the least. “There’s the door,” he said evenly, cocking his head toward the one exit. “Don’t let it hit you on the way out.”

After a chaotic moment when the colonel and his aide hastily gathered up their papers, Logan all but pushed the brunette into the hall, but stopped in the opening. He turned with his mouth open but froze when he saw everyone in the room patiently waiting and staring directly at him.

“I…I…” he stammered. “I am in charge of this operation, and I will tolerate no interference.”

Before anyone could reply, Logan slammed the door after himself.

Key sighed again and scratched his forehead. “Our evidence secure?”

Lancaster nodded. “And on its way to HQ.”

Nichols looked from them to Daniels. “What’s ‘bogart’?” she asked.

The retired general laughed. “A word to give away my age.”

When he said nothing further, Nichols shifted her quizzical gaze to Daniels.

“Don’t look at me,” the bruiser said. “I know as much as you.”

Key interrupted the direction the conversation was going. “Aarif Zaman?” he asked their leader.

Lancaster grew serious and nodded. “Yes. He took full responsibility, and, in not so many words, dared us to ‘catch me if you can.’” The retired general looked each of his operatives in the eye. “What do you think?”

“It’s a trap,” Daniels sniffed dismissively. “Zaman is one of the top a-holes in Afghanistan. By copping this sort of attitude, he’s mooning everybody from one of the shit-hole’s network of caves and basically saying ‘come kill yourself trying to kiss my ass.’”

Key nodded approvingly at his friend before returning his attention to Lancaster. “More specifically, it’s a challenge to a duel.”

Lancaster found this of interest. He put one hand on his chin and cupped his elbow with the other. “Elaborate.”

Key gave his superior a look that said “you know damn well,” but explained anyway. “Aarif, or whoever, could have easily set the explosive off in the middle of the biggest Mount Rushmore crowd they could find. Maybe even during the daily lighting ceremony where thousands are gathered in an amphitheater made specifically for the event. But if thousands, hundreds, or even dozens of innocent American tourists had been killed, it would have been an invitation for invasion. This was a slap in the face—just showing off—a come-on that states ‘look what we can do. What are you going to do about it?’”

Lancaster folded his arms and nodded. “Looks like we got ourselves a quorum,” he said.

“Yeah,” Key said glumly, “but the question remains, as Colonel Custer runs into an Afghan buzz-saw, what are we going to do about it?”

“Wait a minute, wait a minute,” Nichols finally exclaimed. “What is all this about? Our orders were approved. We made no secret of our assignment. Why did Colonel Logan even bring us in here?”

“Because,” Key answered her, “he wanted to know how much we knew.” He took a second to look directly into the one-way mirror. “And now he thinks he does.”

“Come on,” Lancaster commanded. “Time’s a-wasting. We got things to do.”

As the retired general led the way out of the interrogation room, Key told Nichols how the last name of legendary movie tough guy Humphrey Bogart came to be known as a term for holding on to something too long. Even afterward she still wasn’t sure, but Daniels promised to show her The Maltese Falcon before turning to Key with his own inquiry.

“Okay Joe, if you’re in a question-answering mood, finally, just tell me one thing. What does Cerberus mean anyway?”

Key laughed, truly enjoying the moment because he was certain it would be the last time he honestly laughed for quite a while. “I’ll tell you on the way back to HQ, Morty,” he promised.