Without Measure: A Jack Widow Thriller Page 19

  Malory had said that he was the only one left. He had said that there were British sailors too. He had told me that they were all dead. He was the last.

  I bet that the dead British sailors were killed by Danner.

  The trucker that I had ridden in with the night before had told me that he was hauling bullets for Lexigun, Danner’s father’s company. Malory had spoken of brainwashing. ISIS was trying it. Only they had succeeded, to a point. I could only imagine what it was like being tortured and brainwashed for ten long years.

  I could only imagine what Mike Danner’s mind was like now.

  I wasn’t sure about mind control, but brainwashing over the course of a relentless ten-year period filled with ISIS propaganda made it all rather convincing.

  Brainwashing may not work, but certainly they could’ve convinced Mike Danner to betray his country, his father, and his friends. They did abandon him to those monsters.

  Mike Danner was the key.

  Suddenly a new thought entered my mind. If Danner had converted to ISIS, what did he plan to do with a small arms manufacturing company?

  I didn’t have time to worry about that because I heard noise from the rooftop access door.

  The door swung open and Raymond stood there with a confused look on his face. He was confused because he was counting the people on the roof and his brain was registering that his count had been one short.

  CHAPTER 48

  THE ONE SHORT was of course his asset, Malory.

  I had never known anyone from Her Majesty’s Secret Service before. Then I realized that that might not even be their official title. In the US, we called the president’s guards, the United States Secret Service. However, on the face of it, that made no sense.

  The US Secret Service is commissioned with protecting the president. What’s so secret about that? It made more sense to call them the US Protection Service. The Secret Service sounded more like an organization that kept secrets or worked in espionage, like the CIA.

  Whatever Raymond’s official title was, he had stopped counting and now was staring me down with cold eyes. He had his pit bull look again.

  I turned toward him and did the only thing I could think of.

  I charged full speed at him.

  My body was big, but I was rather lean because I walked a lot. Ever since I left the Navy, I had walked or hitchhiked everywhere, and occasionally I took public transit.

  I hadn’t slept in over twenty-four hours, which wasn’t the best feeling in the world. But I also hadn’t eaten anything in about the same amount of time. At that moment, I was grateful for the lighter stomach.

  I sprinted straight at Raymond, no holding back.

  Raymond was fast and well trained, as an American agent would’ve been as well. But in any situation, the advantage always comes from the element of surprise, which I had. It may have only been a couple of seconds long, but I had it all the same.

  Raymond drew his weapon, but by the time it was out, I was barreling down on him.

  I rammed him straight back into the stairwell. He slammed into the wall and let out a loud groan that surely was heard by anyone on the third floor and maybe the entire damn building because it echoed down the stairwell.

  Two things happened that I was also grateful for. The first was that Raymond hadn’t broken his neck, which was a concern that I had had. I didn’t want to kill the guy. I didn’t even want to hurt him, but no way would he have given me the same courtesy. As far as he knew, I’d just thrown his boss off a roof. He would’ve shot me first and asked questions later.

  The second thing that I was grateful for was that he had dropped his gun. I picked it up while he was still dazed. It was a Glock 17. I racked the slide and ejected a chambered round. I tried to catch it, but I missed it. It bounced off the cement floor and rolled off the edge. I heard it bounce and rebound and ricochet down the stairwell.

  Quickly, I ejected the magazine. It was fully loaded with 9mm parabellums, which was one of my preferred rounds to have. I inserted the magazine back into the gun and racked the slide again. I pointed it at him.

  He was still on the ground, but completely dazed.

  I said, “Stand up!”

  My old cop voice came back. It was like riding a bike.

  Raymond said, “You’re not getting away with this.”

  I ignored him and said, “Get up!”

  He stood up, slowly.

  I said, “Faster.”

  And I rushed toward him, bunched up his collar and threw him in the direction of the roof access door. I said, “Move!”

  He stumbled forward onto the roof. Then he said, “What’re you gonna do, throw me off too, mate?”

  Raymond started to turn around to face me, only I wasn’t in his line of sight anymore.

  I slammed the door on him.

  I heard him rush toward it. The door had a fire exit push-bar handle, which meant that once it was pulled all the way shut from the inside, then it was locked, from the inside.

  I heard him huffing and puffing on the other side, but I had no idea what he was saying because of that accent. He had become virtually incomprehensible.

  He sounded like he was screaming complete gibberish, which I assumed was also laced with British profanities.

  I spun around and ran down the stairwell. I didn’t wait to see if each landing was safe; I just kept going. Which made me think of Mike Danner; after he shot Carl and the others, he must’ve rushed down the stairwell at the command building the same way.

  Then I thought of the cameras at the exit gate. I was certain that if Romey’s guys checked those, they’d see Warren’s Ford Taurus leaving. They’d probably see Mike Danner sitting in the seat next to Warren.

  Before anyone knew what was going on. Mike Danner had killed five Marines and coerced Turik to run out the front door and kill himself. Which distracted the MPs onsite long enough for Danner and Warren to walk right out the back, get into Warren’s Taurus and drive off.

  No one thought twice about it because maybe not many knew that he was supposed to have shipped off. Or maybe there was too much commotion to think about it.

  Colonel Warren had thought that he was saving his wife’s life by going along with Danner’s commands. Turik had thought that he was saving Fatima by doing the same. But that was all a lie. Which to Danner was the same as him waiting for ten years to be rescued. Malory had said that Danner had been released six months ago.

  He probably killed his own father. Or perhaps, his father had committed suicide. Maybe he had found out that his son had become something else. He wasn’t the Marine who shipped off anymore. He’d returned an ISIS fighter.

  I stopped at the second floor, didn’t run down to the first floor. I heard the third door above me swing open, which was Connell, I presumed.

  I opened the second-floor door and walked through it. I stuffed the Glock 17 into the waistband of my jeans, covered it with my jacket. I had two handguns now, which was better than one. But the Glock 17 was by far the better of the two.

  I casually walked down the hall, past the dorm rooms. The floor was relatively silent. I heard television sets and ambient building noises. I also heard snoring.

  I figured that most of the guys had been bored. Boredom was often the worst part of being under base lockdown.

  I walked to the elevator. I had thought that Romey might be on it. So I pressed the call button. The elevator opened and was empty. I stepped in and pressed the ground floor button.

  Before the doors closed, I did one last thing.

  I pulled out the Glock 17 and fired it into the empty corridor.

  CHAPTER 49

  THE GLOCK 17 IS A GREAT HANDGUN.

  It’s one of the most reliable and has all the necessary stopping power for ninety-nine percent of street combat situations. However, like most guns, it’s not quiet. In the echoing walls of the Harriton dorm building, among the sleeping and relaxing Marines on lockdown, a single gunshot from a Glock 17 is very loud. I
might as well have blasted a shotgun into the corridor.

  I heard Marines yelling and heavy doors flinging open and bare feet running on the tiled floors.

  The elevator doors opened on the first floor and Romey was standing there, her Glock drawn. I was a little scared that she’d try to arrest me, but I also knew that she was more levelheaded than, say a British agent who had just had his asset fall off a building.

  She looked at me and said, “What the hell happened?”

  “Come on. Let’s get to the car.”

  “Widow, I can’t leave.”

  I grabbed her by the arms, which wasn’t planned and, also, not the best move to make. But she didn’t fight back.

  I looked into her eyes like a long-lost lover and I asked, “Romey, do you trust me?”

  She faltered for a second, like the question was a stun grenade. Then she said, “Of course.”

  “I’m glad you said that. Then trust me. We need to get out of here. I’ll explain later.”

  She didn’t question me. She said, “Okay.”

  We ran out of the double doors to the Harriton dorm.

  Outside, I already saw flashing blue lights coming at us from the distance of the police station.

  Romey hit the gas. She drove faster than I had seen her so far. She whipped us around corners, taking different routes than I had seen before. She reached for the switch to the light bars. I stopped her, my hand covering hers, gently. I said, “Leave them off.”

  She nodded. We continued to speed from one street to the next. We passed the chopper, the landing strip, and the command building. One checkpoint remained. The other MPs probably ran toward the commotion at Harriton dorm.

  They watched us fly by, but probably didn’t think anything of it. Romey was their ranking officer, after all.

  We were headed to the gate, when Romey slowed the vehicle. I said, “Be careful.”

  She nodded and didn’t say anything.

  I said, “Don’t worry. If this goes bad, you can always just tell them I took you hostage.”

  She gazed over at me, quickly and then back to the MP at the gate. She asked, “Are you?”

  “Of course not.”

  “It looks bad, Widow. Looks like you threw him off.”

  “I know. But you know I didn’t.”

  “I know that. But why are we running?”

  I said, “Get through the gate first.”

  She nodded. She slowed the car more. She was about to keep driving through, but the guard at the gate held up his hands. He waved her to slow.

  She said, “Widow, what do I do?”

  “Better stop. See what he wants.”

  “He’s gonna want to know why we are rushing out of here. He’s gonna want to know why a foreign diplomat was thrown from a roof and we are leaving the scene.”

  “One way to find out.”

  The MP walked up to the window. I recognized the guy. It was Berry, from earlier.

  Berry saluted Romey and said, “Ma’am.”

  Romey leaned across slightly out the window and said, “Berry, I’m in a rush. Make this quick, Marine.”

  She sounded agitated, which was good acting on her part.

  Berry leaned down and looked at me. Then he looked around the car, briefly. He looked once more at Romey and looked like he was staring at her chest, but not in the kind of way that I had earlier. I had snuck a peak at her frame, only I wasn’t so obvious about it.

  Romey spoke in an angry tone. She said, “Can I help you Marine?”

  “Ma’am, I don’t mean to be a first-class jerk here, but you’re not wearing your seatbelt. Neither of you are. You know that’s regulation. It doesn’t matter what your rank is, ma’am.”

  Romey looked over at me. I saw relief sweep across her face. She looked back at Berry.

  We both put our seatbelts on. And she said, “Berry, step aside. We’re conducting an investigation here.”

  He nodded and stepped back and saluted her again. We drove off, through the gate, and fought through the remaining media.

  CHAPTER 50

  WE LEFT ARROW’S PEAK in Romey’s rearview, along with the media. They didn’t seem inclined to follow us.

  Romey said, “They never radioed over the system about Malory.”

  “Maybe they’re trying to keep the media in the dark. Lots of those guys have radios and police frequencies.”

  “Or maybe, they don’t want to alert me that I’m wanted as your accomplice.”

  “Maybe.”

  “That’s not funny, Widow.”

  “Don’t worry. You’ll be cleared soon enough.”

  Romey said, “Where the hell are we going?”

  I said, “Do you know where Lexigun is?”

  “Of course.”

  “What about where Michael Danner lives?”

  “That’s easy. He lives at Lexigun. It’s an industrial complex and their house is behind the property.”

  I said, “Good. That’ll be easier.”

  “What’s going on?”

  “Malory told me about Good Measure.”

  “What is it?”

  “It’s not Good Measure. It was God Measure.”

  She said, “Stupid name.”

  “I don’t know. It’s a Brit thing. I guess. God Measure is what Turik said, not Good Measure.”

  “So what is it?”

  “It was a mission. Only you wouldn’t have found it because it was a joint mission between General Carl and Malory.”

  “Like a private mission?”

  “It looks that way. It’s so off the books, I doubt anyway left alive in either government even knows about it. At least not all of it. I’m sure that Eastman knows something. Plus, whoever his bosses are.”

  Romey drove on. She kept her lights off and the siren off, but her speed up. Not as fast as before, but fast enough.

  I said, “The short of it is that before the politician Malory, and the Lord of Sea in the Royal Navy, Malory was an MI5 agent. There was a traitor to the crown who led his team to Jordan and a terrorist. They attempted to kill the terrorist, only it all came out of bad intel and they ended up killing his children, wife, and brother instead.”

  “Bombing?”

  “Naturally.”

  “Doubt the terrorist forgot that so easy.”

  I said, “He didn’t. He abducted Malory’s teenage daughter.”

  “Oh, God!”

  “Yeah, gets worse. He taunted Malory with video files and emails. He only told me about one, but I doubt that was it. There were probably years of it.”

  “What kind of video?”

  I said, “You don’t want to know.”

  She nodded, said, “Then what?”

  “Carl and Malory are old friends. Not sure how or how long. But they’ve been friends a while. They had a scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours sort of thing. I’d guess. So, Malory was told by his government to drop it. Which he must’ve pretended to do. And the years went on. Eventually, Malory found al-Zarqawi.”

  “Zarkada?”

  “Al-Zarqawi. He’s the terrorist.”

  She nodded.

  “Doesn’t matter. He’s dead.”

  “They killed him?”

  “Yeah, but there’s more.”

  “What more?”

  “Al-Zarqawi was in some remote location. Malory went in with a joint team of special forces.”

  “British and Marines?”

  “Yep. Carl agreed. I guess he saw it as opportunity to kill a big fish. Or a promotion. Or both.”

  “So he took Turik in with him?”

  “Turik was there. Malory was there. A couple of Brits, who are all dead now, by the way.”

  She looked at me, breathed out. Then she said, “Hang on.”

  She came to that four-way stop on the highway that I had seen in the morning and she took a right, headed north. She said, “Lexigun is this way.”

  I nodded and said, “There were three Americans on the mission. One’s
still alive. Guess who?”

  “Michael Danner?”

  I nodded.

  She said, “Is this in 2006?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s when Mike Danner went missing. When he ran away from a post. They said he walked off or got lost or something. Then he was captured by ISIS.”

  “Only, he didn’t walk off. That was a bullshit story, concocted by whoever.”

  Romey said, “Maybe Carl?”

  I said, “No. It sounds more politician made to me. Probably from someone on the Hill or in the White House or the Pentagon. Even the generals there are basically politicians these days.”

  I glanced ahead and saw a street sign for Lexigun. It must’ve been the only thing on this road.

  Romey said, “Michael Danner came back like a year ago. I think.”

  I said, “Six months ago.”

  “His father. He died like two days ago. They said it was suicide.”

  “I doubt it. He probably found out who his son really is now. Probably took him a year. Danner would’ve been highly monitored. Doctors around the clock. They probably dismissed his father if he ever complained about his son being different. They probably told him to give Mike some time. And so on.”

  “Or maybe he killed himself. Maybe he couldn’t take who Mike had become.”

  I said, “Maybe.”

  I didn’t tell Romey about the brainwashing. Wasn’t sure that I believed it myself. Wasn’t sure that she didn’t already suspect that he was different. Ten years in captivity will change anyone. I was sure she knew that.

  She asked, “Do you think he converted?”

  “Converted?”

  “I’ve heard that ISIS makes you convert, renounce your own religion to become Muslim.”

  I nodded and said, “Unless you already are Muslim. ISIS kidnaps more fellow Muslims than anyone else. Can’t convert someone who is already a believer.”

  She didn’t speak.

  We saw the drive to Lexigun. The street ahead twisted and turned into another direction, which meant that I was wrong. The road led to more than one thing, which I wasn’t interested in.