“Send them in, please,” said General Middleton as they entered, and the Trident group went ahead and took chairs around a table. The Secret Service agent opened the door again, and two more people entered.
Agent Carolyn Walker looked refreshed, in a starched white blouse with a crisp collar and tailored gray pin-striped trousers. The night at home had helped her. Dave Hunt of the FBI still appeared disgruntled but was in a different suit. Their eyes took in the four people waiting for them, and puzzlement was written on their faces because they had put one of them through the wringer the previous day and another one had threatened to kill both of them.
“Please, have a seat,” said Middleton, sweeping his hand toward vacant chairs. He smiled. “Thank you both for coming over on such short notice.”
“General, what is this about?” asked Walker. The urgent summons to attend this meeting had left her in a foul mood. The Old Exec was neutral ground, neither Pentagon military nor government granite. It guaranteed no home field advantage for bickering agencies.
“Simply put, you two are back in the game.” Middleton leveled his gaze at them but did not raise his voice.
“And what game is that, exactly?” asked Hunt.
“Probably the biggest of your careers.” The general opened his file and slid out the picture of Juba. “You took this in Paris, right? The subject’s code name is Juba, and he is a motivated and extremely skillful terrorist operative. We believe he is about to hit the United States with a poison gas weapon much larger than the one that went off in London. We have to stop him.”
Walker nodded but put the picture aside. “We want to help, believe me, but I don’t take orders from you, General.”
“Me either,” said Hunt, his voice not much more than a growl. “I’m FBI, and she is Department of Homeland Security. We have our own chain of command. I know the letter that woman waved at us yesterday outranked us for the time being, but that was then. Big difference.”
Middleton was unperturbed. “Earlier this morning, the directors of both of your agencies signed authorizations of temporary duty assignments for you. Now you’re mine.” He slid a document to each of them to verify his statement. “You are veteran and experienced agents, cleared for Top Secret material and beyond, so here it is. Everything I am going to tell you is above top secret.”
“Way above,” agreed the Lizard, pointing a finger toward the ceiling. He had opened his laptop. “Big way.”
The general glanced over. “That is Lieutenant Commander Benton Freedman, our do-it-all electronics and communications officer. Next to him is Marine Captain Sybelle Summers, whom you met yesterday. And finally, the man you captured, Gunnery Sergeant Kyle Swanson, also USMC. The four of us make up Task Force Trident, and that is what you are now attached to.”
“So it’s a military black op outfit?”
“Is Swanson an assassin? We saw him shoot Saladin.”
“Let’s just say he is a specialist,” Middleton replied smoothly. “And, no, we are not really a military unit at all. We just carry the baggage for Swanson. Now, the reason you could not identify him yesterday is that he is officially dead, with a headstone at Arlington to prove it. Every record was scrubbed clean a couple of years ago. Swanson was the best scout-sniper in the Marine Corps and specialized in black ops. His death was staged to create a unique place in which he could still operate under the deepest of covers. He simply ceased to exist. The Invisible Man.”
“Excuse me, General,” said the Lizard in a quiet voice.
Middleton ignored him, concentrating on the sales pitch. “Trident was set up to support Swanson. We work for him, because he needs specialized backup, and putting him under the Department of Agriculture didn’t seem appropriate. Don’t worry, this is totally legitimate, just way off the books.”
Walker rubbed her eyes. “This is confusing. Why do you want us involved when you have all of the Pentagon resources under your thumb?”
Kyle finally spoke. “Because you both impressed me. You not only snatched me off the street in France and got away with it, but you also were willing to bend the rules to get the answers you needed. I want that kind of help for this job.”
“General Middleton.” The Lizard again tried and was ignored.
Kyle continued, “You continue to run your normal operations and use every trick in your books, but cut us in on everything and help push things along with any special needs we might have. Nobody knows about Trident, but everyone jumps when the FBI or DHS shows up on their doorstep. You two bring a lot to the table for this job.”
“You’re going to kill this guy? We can’t go along with another assassination. That Saladin hit was obviously illegal, but it was done on foreign soil.”
“Of course.” Middleton smiled again. “If a congressman ever asks, we want to arrest Juba, same as you. I’ll back you all the way.”
Dave Hunt grunted. “I can live with that, but let’s look at this from the other side of the line. Even Swanson here admits that we are pretty good at what we do. So why do we need Trident?”
Kyle placed both hands on the wooden tabletop. “All due respect, Agent Hunt, but you guys are never going to catch Juba if he doesn’t want to be caught. He is a master at this sort of thing, and I think he has slipped over a psychotic edge to a point where he doesn’t really care who he kills. I want to find him and get his attention enough so that I’ll be at the top of his list. The two of us have a bit of a history, so it will be more than a matter of professional pride for him. It’s personal. He will want a clean hit and the satisfaction of seeing me fall.”
Walker looked at Swanson. “You want to set up a duel with this guy? You can make someone that mad?”
Sybelle and Middleton nodded in the affirmative. “Recall how angry he made you yesterday?” Sybelle said. “Pissing people off is perhaps what he does best.”
“General!” Freedman interrupted again, his voice urgent, and he would not be refused a third time.
“What is it?” Middleton snapped.
A red warning light was flashing in the corner of Freedman’s computer. “The Connecticut State Police just pinged the NCIC for any and all available information about Swanson.”
BOSTON
Private investigator Chris Lowry spent all afternoon gathering the remarkable life of Kyle Swanson: birth records, family genealogy, education, mentions in wills, Social Security number, job history, a couple of scrapes with the police, driver’s license, and then into the Marines. All of it was down in black and white, even with pictures of the young man in the yearbooks of South Boston High. The military file from the Marines was precise, and all of the dates matched. It was odd that the service had been so willing to help when usually there are iron rules against giving a service jacket to a non-family-member. He had listed it all on a yellow legal pad, and everything locked together like a neat puzzle. That was what bothered him. Life was never this neat. Clerks screwed up. Papers were misfiled. Memory played tricks. Information did not always match. This was too clean, as if it had been made that way on purpose. Sanitized.
With the data logged into his laptop, he started hitting the sidewalks, looking for those whose names had been linked along the line with Swanson back in the day. The good thing about a place like South Boston was that many family members stayed in place for generations, and it was easy to track them down. His cover story was that he was a magazine reporter putting together a piece on this true American hero and he needed personal anecdotes. Most were happy to share their memories, and steered him to Kyle’s schoolhood chum Michael McLaughlin.
McLaughlin, a short and scrappy man, had been Swanson’s best friend in high school and his baseball teammate. Kyle and Michael had been friends for years, and Swanson always felt better when he was pitching to know that McLaughlin was roaming behind him at shortstop. Those nervous, fast feet and incredible reflexes helped Mike make double plays out of hard-hit balls that taller players could not have even reached. Michael also had a remarkable combative streak that went far beyond mere competition. In a day when schools were moving to rubber cleats, Michael stayed with the metal ones, persuading the coaches that they improved his footing. Kyle would often see Michael sitting close to his locker, hands inside and out of sight, sharpening his spikes. Kyle Swanson had always made a point of hitting an opposing batter early in the game, just to set the tone for the day. That tactic would put a runner on first base, who would try to retaliate by taking out the shortstop on the next ground ball, and Michael would grind the runner up like hamburger. Swanson kept score of the players spiked by Mike.