Hunt the Dragon (2 page)

More rounds came zinging past, burning through the night air, then a muffled burst from a distance, and a groan.

“Got him, Deadwood. Over!” Mancini's voice through the headset.

Manny was solid. He'd depended on him all these years in scrapes all over the globe, like his right arm and leg.

Crocker pulled Fradkov to his feet. His eyes had become slits of fear, self-loathing, and pain. The Russian had pissed himself. Blood and urine ran down his leg to his foot. No time to attend to the wound now.

“You'll live.”

He hoisted him into a fireman's carry, up the embankment that grew even steeper over loose and loamy ground, through shrubs and ground cover, sweating profusely, breathing hard. The firing below let up, replaced by the sound of crackling flames and a woman calling out in Russian. The heavy smell of burning rubber, metal, and gasoline filled his nostrils.

One last burst of energy and he emerged from the trees to the road with Fradkov on his back. His heart thumped fast. Looked left, then right. Familiar-shaped bodies approached out of the shadows. He flashed his Maglite twice, then heard something hit the ground near his feet.

He looked down and saw the black polyester belt Fradkov had been wearing around his stomach. Bent down and retrieved it with the Russian still on his back.

“Boss, you okay?” Suarez asked.

“Fine. Get him in the car.”

“Fucker is covered with piss and shit.”

“Doesn't matter.”

Mancini leaned into the wheel, driving at full speed, headlights out. Suarez in the passenger seat looked back to see if they were being followed. Akil on one of the 345cc four-stroke Bullet Electras zoomed up behind them, on their right rear bumper.

On the backseat Crocker brightened at the growl of the single-cylinder engine as he set the Russian's injured leg. Reminded him of his own bikes over the years and the feeling of freedom, wind in your face, tearing down country roads.

He watched the rise and fall of Fradkov's chest and on his thigh saw a splotch of dark red reflected in the moonlight. Reaching for his med bag on the floor, he opened it with his right hand and ripped the plastic off a blowout patch with his teeth.

“Romeo, anyone following?” he asked into his head mike.

“Nothing but road, Deadwood. All fucking clear.”

“Watch your language.”

“Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

He smiled, fixed the patch over the wound to Fradkov's thigh, and saw the sneaky look in the Russian's eyes. He was reaching for the belt, which Crocker had tossed on the floor.

“Mine,” the Russian groaned.

“Not anymore.” Crocker snatched it away from him and unzipped one of the pockets, which was stuffed with money. Brand spanking new hundred-dollar bills.

“Give me!” the Russian grunted.

Crocker pushed his hand away. “Keep quiet.”

I
t was
already 1013 and Crocker was running late, which he didn't like. But the DC Beltway was jammed and the 395 not much better, and he was in a lousy mood despite the fact that “Tumbling Dice” by the Stones was pouring out of the stereo.

For the past several days he hadn't been able to stop thinking about next week's pretrial hearing on the breaking-and-entering and aggravated-assault charges that had been filed against him in Fairfax County, Virginia. Like the court was tossing the ivories with his fate.

Epic BS.

He assumed the meeting he was now rushing to concerned that. News of it had been texted to him last night by an aide at ST-6 headquarters. Simply: “Presence required. 1711 17th Street. 1030hrs.” Since returning from the Ukraine, he'd been feeling anxious, trying to settle into his new apartment and get his life together.

It didn't help his current state of mind that his wife had left him after his previous very difficult deployment to Syria and Turkey.

The sky hung milky gray over the glass-and-steel towers along the K Street corridor—very un-April-like for DC. Crazy city had been built over a swamp—actually “wetland with trees,” according to a recent article in the
Washington Post
.

As he turned up 17th Street, he told himself that there was no way he would serve time in jail if convicted and he would appeal if he received something even as light as a three-month sentence. In his head he was already planning his escape to Patagonia or New Zealand—two raw, sparsely populated locales where he imagined an individual could still carve out his own destiny without interference from corrupt cops and narrow-minded public officials.

Not that he really wanted to. He loved the United States and what it stood for.

Crocker gripped the steering wheel so hard the muscles in his back and neck tensed. He was getting himself worked up, just like ST-6 psychiatrist Dr. Petrovian had warned him not to do. According to the doc, repeated trauma had produced symptoms of PTSD, including erosion of his faith in God, justice, and predictability. His psyche needed time to process and integrate some of the shocking shit he'd experienced. Some of it haunted him day and night—the human degradation and destruction in Syria, the surprise attack on his teammates, the Dear John letter from Holly when he returned home.

The only people he trusted these days were his Black Cell teammates, who had suffered through some of the same shit he had, minus the rejection from his spouse. But they weren't here now and couldn't help him with this—a personal, judicial matter. An unjust stupidity.

Pigeons looped in front of the windshield as he spotted the address on a brick office building on his left and turned his pickup into the entrance to the underground parking lot. Screeched to a stop at the barrier, maybe a little too abruptly, so that a second later an armed African American man emerged from the booth looking alarmed.

“ID, sir?” the guard barked.

Crocker lowered the stereo and understood why the big dude in the blue blazer might be concerned. Based on his appearance—the beat-up fifteen-year-old pickup, his head-to-toe casual black attire (jeans, tee, pullover, boots), and unshaved face—he could easily be mistaken for some angry wacko with a beef against the federal government. DC was full of them—anti­–gay marriage protestors on Capitol Hill, antiabortion advocates across from the White House, free speech activists in front of the Supreme Court, angry veterans demanding better and more timely medical attention.

He showed the guy his Virginia license, and the guard frowned.

“Sir, this is a federal building. Do you have an appointment?” he asked, placing his right hand on the holstered pistol at his side.

“Yeah, but I don't know who with. Maybe an attorney.”

“Which agency?”

“Excuse me?”

“Sir, this is a government facility. Entry requires a government ID or prior appointment. If you don't have one of them, I'm going to have to ask you to leave.”

Crocker reached into his wallet and produced the laminated card that identified him as a Tier One U.S. military operator with a TS (top secret) SCI (sensitive compartmented information) Rainbow 9 clearance.

The guard nodded. “That's better, sir. Thank you.”

He felt unprepared as the guard scanned a list attached to a clipboard.

What the hell am I gonna say? That I didn't know I was breaking the law when I broke into that lady's window?

“Sir, proceed to Level B. Park anywhere you find an empty space, then take elevator one to the fourth floor.”

“Thanks.”

He descended into the dark garage, still not knowing what this meeting was about. Thinking ahead to the pretrial hearing, he decided he couldn't trust his attorney—a sharply dressed recent grad from Georgetown Law School. Nice kid, but maybe a tad too sure of himself. He had tried to convince Crocker that the charges would be reduced to a misdemeanor and he would escape with a slap on the wrist.

What if he was wrong? Overconfidence didn't sit too well with Crocker. Besides, the circumstances of the case were so absurd he shouldn't have been charged in the first place. Sure, it had been wrong to break into a woman's apartment, but how could the court ignore the fact that she had been ripping off his seventy-six-year-old father, and that Crocker had caught her smoking crystal meth with a Fairfax County cop—the same one who had filed the charges?

His blood pressure rising, he stood near the back wall of the elevator, staring at the perfectly pressed uniforms of the two officers—one female, one male and Hispanic—standing in front of him whispering to each other about the long-term value of investment property on the Eastern Shore. He had a vacation house there as well, which he had used so many times with Holly. It had been their refuge. She had been his safe place. His harbor in the storm.

People, even military officials with desk jobs like the two riding with him now, didn't understand the perils the United States faced around the globe, and the stakes. He didn't blame them: How could they be expected to if they hadn't seen the horror, violence, and human misery he had? How could they appreciate the razor-thin line between civilization and chaos, good and evil, free society and forced obedience that men like him fought to protect?

Dr. Petrovian had warned him not to let his mind spin wildly like this. He tried to catch himself as he exited the elevator and stepped into the over-air-conditioned lobby. But how could you trust a justice system in which pampered superstars like O.J. Simpson got away with murder and poor people were shot for driving with a broken brake light—a story he'd just seen reported on CNN?

The male clerk behind the desk dressed in civvies examined his ID again, then asked him to sign a ledger and follow him down a gray hallway lined with photos of former secretaries of the Treasury.

Where the hell am I?

No signs on the walls or plaques beside the doors.

The clerk punched a code into a keypad at the end of the hall, pushed open a wooden door, and stepped aside. Crocker's eyes darted, registering as much as he could see in the dark room in two or three seconds—a dozen men and women seated around a rectangular table, all relatively young, all in civilian clothes, facing the wall to Crocker's right where something was projected onto a screen.

Another symptom of PTSD was hyperawareness. His mind raced as he blinked twice and tried to focus on the image—a blowup of something that resembled a president's face. Benjamin Franklin.

I'm in the wrong place.

He was about to excuse himself and leave when a voice from the other side of the table interrupted him. “Crocker, glad you could make it. Have a seat.”

The woman had said it like she was singing, which stood out in this bland, cold place. As he pulled back a chair and sat, he traveled back into his memory bank, to a town in the Caribbean. Palm trees, colonial buildings golden in the sun.

Jeri Blackwell?

Seconds later, he located her wide dark face near the head of the table on the opposite side. One of the first African American women to join the Secret Service. She and Crocker had accompanied President and Mrs. Clinton on a trip to Ghana, Uganda, Rwanda, South Africa, Botswana, and Senegal in '98, when elements of ST-6 provided backup and support. Previous to that they had met in Cartagena, Colombia, while President Clinton was attending a regional drug summit.

“Hi, Jeri,” he said. “Long time.”

“Sure has been, honey. Good to see you again. Pour yourself a cup of coffee. We're looking at those bills you brought back from Russia.”

“Oh.” Suddenly the pieces snapped into place. The captured money, the fact that the Secret Service was the government agency that investigated financial crimes, including the counterfeiting of U.S. currency, and his presence.

“Something I can help you with?” Crocker asked. “They were part of a stash we found on a Russian official in the Ukraine.”

“I stand corrected. Watch.”

She gestured to the projected image on the screen to his right: a blowup of a hundred-dollar bill. A thin young guy in a tight gray suit and gelled hair directed a laser marker at the collar of Franklin's jacket. In a slightly nasal voice he said, “The overall quality is exceptional in terms of paper, ink, watermark, et cetera. But if you look closely along the left lapel you might be able to make out a slight anomaly.”

Crocker's mind drifted back to the house in Chincoteague—the view of the ocean, the long walks he and Holly had taken along the beach, making love in front of the living room fireplace, the sweet delicate scent of her body.

The young man continued, “Missing is the microprinting near the collar. It's a small detail, but highly significant. All the new Treasury bills have it. These don't. Here's a genuine Franklin for comparison.”

The room went dark for an instant and a new slide appeared on the screen. The young man said, “If you look closely, you can make out the words ‘United States of America' along the lapel.”

He missed her at least forty times a day, which Dr. Petrovian said was natural. In time she would fade from his memory. He wasn't sure he wanted that to happen.

Jeri caught his eye and smiled at him. He glanced back at the screen and tried to focus. Benjamin Franklin stared at him from the hundred-dollar bill with a weary, slightly disapproving expression.

Outside in the hallway, she told him that she would be continuing the probe into the counterfeit hundreds in Las Vegas. “Okay if I ask your CO for permission for you to join me?” she asked.

“Okay. Sure,” Crocker answered. “What's up?”

She put her hand on his shoulder and whispered, “Surveillance. You'll be there to back me up in case you're needed. Chances are nothing's going to happen. You can sit by the pool for a couple days, sip margaritas, and relax.”

“Thanks, Jeri. I think I'd like that.”

“You look like you can use some personal time.”