Blind Rage (12 page)

They were both armed with .9mm semiautomatic pistols and had access to a veritable arsenal of assault rifles, rocket-propelled grenade launchers, flash-bangs, smoke bombs, and other weaponry in the truck. Travis had handpicked them from a list General Turnbull had provided. They’d all washed out of the armed services for one reason or another. On one hand, that presented potential trouble. They were mercenaries. They were loyal only to a paycheck. Which was why Travis had been so careful in selecting the team of six.

One of them—Red, a former Navy SEAL—had simply grown too old, by some standards, to continue serving in the field. He’d chosen to resign rather than become a desk jockey and try to climb the ranks. Fred and Barney—Special Forces soldiers who’d known each other in Afghanistan—had been bounced out for infractions, but none serious enough to give Travis too much pause. He’d figured after reviewing their files and talking with them that they hadn’t gotten a fair shake. Neither had complained, however, simply chalked up their misfortune to being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Travis could live with mistakes. Striking an officer was one thing, but hitting an officer by accident in the middle of a barroom brawl was plain bad luck. Worse luck when the officer was a butthead who insisted on pressing charges.

At least none of them appeared to be a psychopath. The only one who worried him was Kenny, a former Army Ranger who’d been drummed out with an OTH—other than honorable—discharge for sleeping with a captain’s wife. That was bad enough, but Kenny’s file read like a fifth-grade troublemaker’s jacket. Insubordination, fighting, harassment—Kenny definitely liked to mix it up, but when it came down to crunch time, every man in his unit had sworn that Kenny was their go-to guy. Fearless and a crack shot, Kenny had saved his unit more than once in Iraq, so Travis knew he had the goods. But he didn’t trust Kenny, so he’d put him on yard duty to keep him close.

Travis rounded a curve in the drive and saw Kenny trimming the grass around a tree with a hand mower. Kenny had worked up a good sweat despite the cold, gray spring weather. It was good for the kid. He’d gotten a little flabby and could use the exercise. Travis saw Kenny spy the car from the corner of his eye, and knew Kenny had checked him out as soon as Travis’s SUV had entered his field of vision. Travis saw Kenny glance in his direction once more as he drove past, just to make sure of the vehicle’s occupant.

Luis, the only ex-marine in the group, raked a garden bed fifty yards away. There was a sad case. Kid had been decorated three times in Iraq. Someone in his unit had panicked one night on patrol and had shot an innocent civilian headed for home. Roused by the gunfire, a neighbor had burst out of the house next door, shouting and waving a kitchen knife. Feeling threatened, the nearest marine had shot him, too. Luis had tried to wave the others off, but a sort of madness overtook them all and they went through the house shooting everything that breathed to cover up their mistake. Everyone but Luis, that is. He’d kept his mouth shut, but word had eventually gotten out, and when the court-martial was over, Luis had been convicted of involuntary manslaughter even though he’d tried to stop the slaughter. Go figure.

Luis watched Travis with the same surreptitious gaze, the same wary expression as the others Travis had driven past. Travis grunted with satisfaction. They’d all proved to be alert. Travis feared that they might become complacent. Their biggest enemy was boredom. Hours and days of watchful anticipation could easily make them inattentive and careless. So far at least, they hadn’t relaxed their vigilance.

Travis swung the SUV around in a tight circle at the end of the drive and backed it up to the far garage bay door. He wanted it nose-out in case they had to leave in a hurry. He’d returned the rental sedan and bought the big SUV—with James’s money, of course. Travis couldn’t take a chance on someone in the company wondering about all the sudden expenses for mostly military equipment, so James paid for it out of his own pocket. The SUV had a powerful engine, a lot more room, and a few extras like run-flat tires, bullet-resistant glass, and bulletproof ceramic plates lining the doors. He’d taken James’s Range Rover in for the same modifications under the guise of an “oil change.”

On his way to the house, Travis scanned the water. Two hundred yards offshore, a small fishing boat bobbed gently. A lone man in a slicker and a floppy hat sat in the stern, holding a fishing pole out over the lake. He didn’t look like much of a deterrent, but Travis knew that Red could swim the entire distance to shore underwater, slip out without a sound, and kill a man a dozen different ways before he even knew Red was there. Age might have mellowed Red’s temper, but it hadn’t diminished his skills much.

Marcus, the sixth man and Travis’s second-in-command, was at school shadowing Tess. Marcus had also been Special Forces, and was the only one in the bunch other than Red to have an honorable discharge. In fact, his record was spotless. He’d left the army to work private security in Iraq. The money was better.

Everyone in place and all was calm. Things were too normal. It wasn’t just the transition from war zone in the ’Stans to the peace and quiet of civilian life that made the hairs on the back of Travis’s neck stand up and his skin itch. This was more like the calm before the storm, the silence before the first shot was fired during an incursion. Travis had felt it many times before. A muscle at the corner of his eye twitched. Something was going to happen—soon. Travis just hoped he’d prepared adequately to handle whatever threat materialized. The key was planning and preparation, but Travis knew that even backups to backup plans could fall apart. The question was how well he could improvise if all else failed. Especially with three civilians in tow.

He locked the vehicle and walked to the front of the house. Off to one side, Yoshi pruned a rose bush. He nodded curtly as Travis went up the steps, then quickly shifted his glance to the two men working in the yard, eyes narrowing as he watched them work. Travis shrugged and opened the front door. James stood in the entryway, staring absently out a side window.

“You’re home early,” Travis said.

“What?” James turned. “Oh, yeah. Slow day.”

“Everything all right at work?”

“Fine.” James turned to the window again. “I feel trapped in my own home, Travis.”

Travis followed his gaze to the two ex-military men posing as gardeners. “At least you have the nicest yard in the neighborhood.”

“You know what I mean. I feel like someone’s watching me all the time. I can’t turn around without feeling like someone’s there.”

Outside, Yoshi rose and walked briskly toward Luis, gesturing with his hands. Luis looked up with a puzzled expression. Yoshi snatched the rake from Luis and took two careful swipes at the flowerbed, looked at Luis, and thrust the rake back into his hands.

Travis sighed. “No one’s happy with the situation, least of all me. Despite those guys out there, you’re still too unprotected.”

“We’ve never needed protection before.”

“Until we’ve identified and neutralized the threat the general alluded to, I don’t think we have a choice.”

“And you trust him?”

“Jack?” Travis had never given it a second thought. “Why wouldn’t I?”

James shrugged. “You’re the one who said a lot of people would do anything to get their hands on the technology.”

“He already does. Well, did, until I let the prototype get blown up. What good would it do him to harm you or the family?”

James waved a hand irritably. “I don’t know. I don’t know what any of this is about. Maybe he wants to steal it and sell it to the Chinese.”

“Not Jack. He’s a patriot. He’d never sell out his country.”

“If you say so.” The furrows on James’s forehead smoothed, his anger gone like a passing cloud. “Tess got her SAT scores back. She did great. Sally and I wanted to celebrate by taking her up to the pass for the afternoon and go boarding.”

“When?”

“Tomorrow. Maybe the next day. Is that a problem?”

Travis rubbed his chin. “Actually, it might give us exactly the opportunity we need. I’m not sure I can pull it together that fast. Can you give me a few hours before you decide?”

“Sure. What do you have in mind?”

Travis was already headed for a computer. “I’ll let you know when I figure it out,” he said over his shoulder.

“What?” I shouted. “What’s wrong?”

I raced the rest of the way to the driver’s side door and leaped inside, expecting to find a crazed slasher in the backseat threatening Tess with a twelve-inch butcher’s knife. After the morning’s screw-ups, topped off by Carl’s stunt at lunch, I didn’t think the day could get any worse. But there was nothing like a girl’s scream to peg the needle on the fright-o-meter and send my adrenaline level soaring.

I found no knife-wielding psycho, only Tess holding a cell phone.

“What’s the problem?” I said, calmly now, though my heart was still attempting a prison break by slamming against the bars of my ribcage.

“I got an e-mail,” she said, dazed.

“Wait. How can you—?”

“I can’t
read
them. Text-to-voice software. They’re read to me.”

“And you speak your reply?”

“I
can
touch-type, you know. But yes, it’ll convert speech to text, too.”

“So, what does it say?”

“I don’t know.”

“Then why the he—?” I stopped myself and took a deep breath. “Why did you scream?”

Her lower lip quivered, and a tear leaked from the corner of one eye and rolled slowly down her cheek.

She spoke so softly I could barely hear her. “It says it’s from my dad.”

“But you said he’s . . .”

She nodded.

“Someone’s sick idea of a prank. Don’t let it get to you.”

She swallowed hard. “But what if it’s . . . ?”

“Really him? That would be tough, Tess. Not if what you told me is true. Don’t know that anyone’s pulled that trick for two thousand years. Unless it’s a ghost.”

“How can you joke about it?” She sobbed.

“I’m sorry, Tess. Really. Please don’t cry.”

She sniffed and toyed with the hands in her lap.

“Maybe you should find out what it says,” I said.

“I can’t.”

“Why not? C’mon. You have to find out sometime. Besides, I want to know who sent it so I can kill the bastard.”

She sniffed. “You’d do that? I mean, not kill somebody, but . . .”

“Well, it’s probably not in my job description, but yeah.”

“All right.”

She pushed a button on the phone. A tinny, robotic voice said, “Seeing is believing, Tess.
Zho
, Dad.”

“Oh, my god!” she cried.

Tears threatened to spill down her cheeks again, but she squeezed her eyes shut and dammed them up.

The sight of her crying, even almost crying, was my Kryptonite—it rendered me weak, indecisive, and nearly incapable of thought.

“What’s ‘
zho
’?” I said.

She didn’t hesitate. “Ex-oh, like hugs and kisses. He always signed his texts that way.”

The text recognition software was smart enough to try to pronounce it, but apparently not smart enough to know
XO
wasn’t a word.

“So, it really is from your dad?”

“Who else would it be from?”

“C’mon, Tess. How is that even possible? It’s gotta be someone’s idea of a joke.”

“That’s so mean! I
can’t
see. Who would do that?”

I didn’t have an answer for her, but I was willing to bet the building behind us held several candidates perfectly capable of such casual cruelty. Carl would have been at the top of my list, but I didn’t know if he had the brains to plan an attack this devious or if he only took advantage of spontaneous opportunities. Like sticking out his foot when I got close.

“I’ll take you home,” I said.

I pushed the starter button. Only then did I notice the slip of paper stuck under the windshield wipers.

“Damn!” I muttered.

“What is it?”

“Nothing.”

I opened the door, put one foot out, and reached around the door frame for the ticket.

“What are you doing?” Tess said.

“It’s no big deal.”

“Don’t tell me you parked in the handicap space.”

“Well, yeah. Why wouldn’t I? I mean, doesn’t blindness count as a handicap anymore?”

“Not without plates or a handicap card.”

“Yeah, I know. I just figured . . . Never mind. I’ll take you home.”

Tess was quiet on the way back to the house. An e-mail from my father would have shut me up just as fast, even if I figured he was still alive out there somewhere.

I parked in the garage and walked Tess into the kitchen. Since she’d run out on lunch, I figured she might be hungry. Rosa was cooking something—dinner maybe. For such a small household, she seemed to spend a lot of time at the stove, but then I supposed some dishes and desserts took more time to make than others. Coming from a generation raised on microwave cooking, I expected meals in minutes, not hours. Judging from the smells—cumin, oregano, coriander, cinnamon, and more—Rosa’s food was worth waiting for.

Rosa fussed over Tess and helped get her seated at the counter, then proceeded to shift gears and whip up lunch. Alice walked in from her office and raised an eyebrow.

“Oliver,” she said, “a word, please.”

I followed her into her office.

“You’re home early,” she said without sitting down. “What happened?”

I ran down the morning’s events for her, doing my best to report factually and not embellish them with overt emotion, especially mine. I summed up with, “She had a rough go. I figured she’d had enough.”

Alice managed to look down her nose at me, making me feel small even though I towered over her.

“All right,” she said slowly. “Perhaps this once. I don’t want you to coddle her, Oliver. She needs to regain her confidence.”

“Yes, ma’am. I understand.”

“How’s her homework load?”

“Not bad. Pretty light.”

“Well, after she’s eaten you can help her with that. Depending on what time you finish, you can leave for the day or stay for dinner, if you wish.”