Huck swallowed thickly, his voice broken and an octave higher as he replied.
‘Go to hell,’ he spat with a feeble veneer of bravado. ‘I’ve done what you asked, we’re finished.’
Aaron watched Huck Seavers for a long moment, and then he twitched his shoulders as though he were about to strike. Seavers flinched in fright and recoiled further in his seat. Aaron watched him for a moment longer before he opened the limousine’s door and climbed out once again.
He turned away from the vehicle and walked across the apron, heard the limo pull away as he pulled a cell phone from his pocket and dialled a secure number. After a series of prolonged digital buzzing sounds as various security protocols were activated, the line rang and was picked up almost immediately.
‘Report?’
‘Meyer is controlled,’ Mitchell said. ‘One hundred million must be wired into these accounts, stand by.’
There was a moment’s pause, and then: ‘Go.’
Aaron relayed the account numbers and then waited patiently as they were diligently recorded.
‘What of Meyer? What are the guarantees?’
‘The man’s word and not much else. That said, he’s been pushed to the edge and he knows that any further provocation will be met with merciless retribution. Meyer has found his price and I believe that he can be contained without further need for bloodshed.’
‘The assault in Nathalie was a mess,’ came the retort. ‘We barely had time to cover our presence and it’s only good fortune that the Pentagon swallowed the story of a terrorist group hiding out in the woods.’
‘The media disinformation I initiated has taken the heat from us,’ Aaron reassured the voice on the line. ‘Right now, we have both removed Meyer from play and also ensured that General Nellis’s lapdogs are neutralized. They’ll be running from law enforcement for weeks and unable to interfere further in our operations. What of the DIA?’
‘Nellis is under investigation as we speak and Jarvis is under arrest, but if we push too hard then we risk exposing ourselves and defeating the object. The General has the ear of the president and can still kick up a fuss that we might struggle to contain.’
Aaron stopped for a moment as he considered the delicate nature of what Majestic Twelve was attempting to achieve. General Nellis was far too high a figure to consider silencing permanently. Any threat against his life would draw far too much attention to the inner workings of the DIA and perhaps to their interest in MJ–12. The publicity such an event could generate was to the detriment of the cabal and absolutely must be avoided. However …
‘He needs to receive a message,’ Aaron replied finally, ‘a clear message that any further digging into our affairs could be detrimental to more than just his career.’
‘Agreed. But how do we send that message? Any threat to his family is as good as a threat to the man himself and would only entrench him further.’
‘The threat must be close to home, but not personal enough to provoke aggression,’ Aaron replied softly. ‘I believe we have the perfect target.’
‘Whom?’
‘Jarvis.’
Jarvis heard the guards coming as he sat in a featureless cell, the mattress thin and uncomfortable. Half a lifetime served in the US Marine Corps had served him well and taught him the virtues of ‘hurry up and wait’, but none the less he was relieved that something was now happening.
The cell door opened and two armed guards stood back either side of it and beckoned him forward. Handcuffs were presented to him and Jarvis allowed himself to be restrained without complaint. The time for defiance would come later, not now when he was sealed deep in the heart of the FBI’s Headquarters on Pennsylvania Avenue — resistance here would be both futile and likely to see him incarcerated beyond the view of the public or legal aid forever. That was how the intelligence community liked to deal with such things: in house. Jarvis knew that his greatest threat now was to simply disappear forever, much like the inhabitants of Clearwater, Missouri, but without the benefit of ten million bucks.
Nobody could hear you scream in a maximum security prison.
The guards led Jarvis through the small cell block to the elevators, where they then took a ride up through the building to the top floor, direct. No stopping on other floors, no access to witnesses or contact with people outside of his predicament. Jarvis was in the system now as an enemy combatant, in effect, and was being treated as such.
The top floor was deserted as he was led out of the elevator, something which would have been ordered a few minutes before his arrival. The guards guided him toward the Director’s office, and Jarvis braced himself to find out what would happen to him and who had taken General Nellis’s place at the DIA. Replacement, in his experience, was what always happened to those who dug too deep. He had lost count of the number of well — intentioned senior officers in prime condition who had retired due to ‘family matters’, or ‘ill health’ or with an ‘unblemished record’. Such men and women were staunch patriots and rarely retired until they were unable to walk or talk straight, unless they were pushed from behind the scenes.
The office door was opened by one of the guards and Jarvis was propelled inside. The door closed behind him and to Jarvis’s surprise General Nellis awaited him, his hands folded before him. Nellis looked up at Jarvis, his features emotionless.
‘I take it that I’m not about to be released with a presidential pardon and the Medal of Honor,’ Jarvis said, his hands still cuffed.
No humour appeared on the general’s face as he replied.
‘They’ve got us over a barrel,’ he replied simply. ‘We’re out of moves.’
‘We’re never out of moves.’
Nellis dragged a hand across his face and with the other pushed a photograph on his desk toward Jarvis, rotating it with his fingers. Jarvis looked down and saw a picture of a bright red Ford Ranger, its hood crushed as it lay on its roof in the middle of a highway, surrounded by fire — retardant foam and emergency service crews.
‘This vehicle crashed on a Virginia Interstate yesterday evening,’ Nellis said. ‘The occupant was killed outright, pronounced dead at the hospital. Braking trails on the road suggest a hit and run according to local police, but there were no witnesses and nobody’s come forward with information.’
Jarvis raised a questioning eyebrow, although he already suspected a connection with the case in which Warner and Lopez were embroiled.
‘The occupant was Red McKenzie, one of the former inhabitants of Clearwater, Missouri, whom your people located and spoke to a few days ago.’
Jarvis closed his eyes.
‘Could be a coincidence,’ he suggested, hearing his own words and despising them. ‘McKenzie was a drinker, he could have lost control.’
‘The only thing that he lost control of was his life,’ Nellis shot back as Jarvis opened his eyes again. ‘The autopsy was completed out this morning. No alcohol in his system, no drugs. He died from blunt force trauma due to the impact from the oncoming vehicle, which flipped his truck over three times and partially crushed it. That requires a big damned impact, and yet there’s no evidence of any debris from the other vehicle but some small fragments of glass and plastic. What does that tell you, Doug?’
Military truck, maybe a four tonne transporter or similar, Jarvis thought but didn’t say.