“Yes, a prison,” she clarified. “Saint Stephen’s Reformatory. On Saint Stephen’s Island in the middle of the Ottawa River. It used to be Canada’s own little Alcatraz. According to the zoning applications, he’s planning to turn it into a hotel.”
“What a romantic getaway,” Boxers said.
Venice ignored him. Again. “But I can’t find any records that he’s followed through on the plan.”
“I don’t get it,” Irene said. “Are you suggesting that he bought that property with the idea of kidnapping Mrs. Darmond’s children?”
“No,” Venice said. “I’m suggesting that he bought the property to fund whatever he’s interested in funding. The fact that it’s still a prison merely plays into his hand. Think about it. It’s in the middle of a river, accessible from a single bridge. If I were going to run a summer camp for would-be terrorists, I could think of worse places. A great place to make a last stand, if it came to that.”
Jonathan felt a chill at the realization that they might be dealing with a fortress. The room fell quiet as everyone thought through what they’d been told.
“It makes too much sense to dismiss it,” Jonathan said, breaking the silence. “But how do we confirm it?” His eyes drilled Irene. “Do you have influence over the satellite taskers?”
“Not without making all of this official,” she said.
“But my guys have Peter in custody now. We can try leaning on him a little harder. He was pretty talkative for you.”
Irene pulled out her cell phone and pressed buttons.
Jonathan pivoted to face David and Becky. He made a V with his first two fingers and pointed at both of them simultaneously. “Honest to God, you two. You’re seeing shit that you have no right to see. If even a hint of this appears in some newspaper—”
“I get it,” David said. His tone was harsh, his words percussive. “You’ve made that point already.”
Becky held up her hands in surrender. “Ditto. I understand.”
Jonathan held his glare, gauging their sincerity. He liked what he saw: equal parts fear and indignation.
Jonathan turned to Venice. “Have you already talked with our friend down south?”
She nodded, knowing that he was referring to Lee Burns, a former unit colleague who owned the SkysEye satellite network, for which Jonathan paid an astronomical fee every year to have access to a view from above that nearly rivaled the imagery that Uncle Sam could produce through the NSA and the air force.
Venice said, “I’ve actually pulled up some interesting imagery in the War Room. If you—”
“I need to speak to you both outside,” Boxers said. “Now.”
From the tone alone, Jonathan knew what he wanted to talk about, and it was probably a conversation worth having.
“Excuse us,” Jonathan said. He followed Boxers and Venice out into the area — he supposed you could call it a lobby — that separated their offices and the War Room.
The door to Jonathan’s office had barely closed when Boxers said, “What are we about to do?”
“Launch a rescue mission,” Jonathan said. “We’re going to do what we’re good at.”
“At what cost?” Boxers said. Even at a whisper, his voice was louder than it should have been. He leaned down when he spoke, an effort to get close to their faces. “And I don’t mean dollars. Do you see how many people we’re about to bring into the circle? Reporters, for God’s sake. Are you crazy?”
Eighty percent of Jonathan’s professional life these days was lived outside the law. Not the wrong side, but the outside. Whenever the covert element of Security Solutions kicked into gear, the laws of any land became irrelevant. This meant that he and Boxers routinely broke laws, and that Venice was an accomplice every time they did it. OpSec was a critical concern.
“Look,” Jonathan said, “Wolverine already knows what we do. She’s been involved in half of the ops anyway.”
“I’m not worried about her,” Boxers said. “She’s got skin in the game. If we testify, she’s toast. That makes her trustworthy. But these others…” He let his voice trail away.
“I agree with Boxers,” Venice said, words that rarely escaped her lips. “And that very fact should tell you something.”
“It’s a hint that life as we know it is about to end,” Jonathan quipped, but it fell flat. “Okay, Big Guy, tell me what our alternative is.”
He shrugged. “We just walk away. A day ago, Yelena Anna Poltanov friggin’ Darmond was our precious cargo. She’s the one we signed on to rescue. Okay, she’s safe. We’re done. Declare victory and walk away.”
“And her son and grandkid?” Jonathan addressed that question to Venice, who looked away.
“You see?” Boxers griped. “That’s your weapon. You use it all the time. You try to make it about the people and not about the operation. I hate that.”
“But the operation is the people,” Jonathan said. Boxers’ eye grew hot, no doubt because Jonathan was being deliberately obtuse. He knew exactly where Big Guy was coming from. Back in the day when they did what they did under the auspices of Uncle Sam, the operation meant everything — trumping all of humanity except that of the team members. You did what you did to accomplish the mission, and if that meant trading your life for that of the PC, that was fine. The difference — the wild card — back then was that someone else chose the mission for you. These days, the risks were all hand selected, and when you started stacking them on top of each other, it could get daunting.
Jonathan looked to Venice. “You?”
He could almost see her brain racing for options behind her eyes, but nothing formed.
“If it helps,” Jonathan said, “I’m not thrilled by the cast of characters, either. The First Lady is… well she’s whatever the hell she is, but this is for her kids, so I don’t worry too much about her.”
“Which brings me back to my original point,” Big Guy said. “The reporters. There’s no such thing as a trustworthy journalist. And that’s a lesson all three of us have learned the hard way.”
“We’ve never been screwed by anyone whose life we’ve saved,” Jonathan said. Something about the words amused him — the fact that the world could be divided into slices that actually included such a category.
He sensed Boxers’ frustration. Apparently, Venice could, too, because she moved to lighten the mood. “There’s another way to think of this,” she said. “Dig, you already gave your fear-of-God speech, and they already know where we are and what we’re doing. You saved their lives.”
“They’re reporters,” Boxers growled. How could he make his point any clearer?
“And as long as they’re here,” Venice said, “they’re controllable.”
“You know they’re going to want to come along, right?” Boxers said. “They’re going to try some embed bullshit, and you’re going to buy it.”
“The bright side,” Jonathan said. “Maybe they’ll get shot.”
“Not a bad idea.”
“You’re always free to say no,” Jonathan said. As soon as the words were out, he knew he’d made a mistake.
Boxers swelled to his full height, and somehow more than his full girth. His face turned red as his jaw set. Boxers had never once refused to follow Jonathan into any Golf Foxtrot — goat fuck — and as often as not, Big Guy had been the reason why Jonathan had gotten to come home to do it again.
“I’m sorry,” Jonathan said quickly. “That was cheap and it was wrong. I’m really, really sorry.” He had no business throwing a passive-aggressive guilt trip on him. It wasn’t even Jonathan’s nature to do such a thing. “Chalk it up to being really tired.”
Boxers held his anger long enough to make his point, and then he deflated. A little. “Just what we freaking need,” he said. “Here we are about to invade Canada, and you’re too tired to think straight.”