Lethal Force (2 page)

“Mister Jake Adams?” the man asked, his voice nearly cracking when he spoke. He cleared his throat to help with what he had to say next.

Jake looked at his guide and then back at the man. “
No habla Englese
.”

The young man's eyes shifted to the guide and then back to Jake. Then he cleared his throat again. “I've seen your picture, sir.”

Jake shook his head and walked up to the young man. With one swift movement he shoved his left thumb into the man's sternum and extracted an automatic handgun from inside the man's jacket and pointed it at his face. But the young man, bent over slightly, was too busy trying to catch his breath from the blow to care about the gun in his face.

Backing up a couple of steps, Jake said, “You can tell your friends in Buenos Aires that I'm retired.” He noticed the taxi driver was getting nervous, and so was his guide, Paulo.

The young man protested with his left hand while his right tried to rub life into his sternum. “Sir, I work for the American Embassy.”

“I know who you work for,” Jake said.

“My name is Devan Stormont,” the man said, and then shifted the briefcase from his right to left hand to extend his hand to be shaken.

Jake lowered the gun, dropped the magazine to the dirt and extracted the 9mm round from the chamber. Leaving the slide back, he handed the gun back to the man. He turned to his guide and said, “Give us a minute, Paulo.”

The guide nodded and shuffled toward the driver's seat of the SUV.

“Now,” Jake started, “what does the CIA want with me?”

“You misunderstand, sir,” Devan said. “I'm with the State Department.”

“Well then they're not paying you enough,” Jake said. When the man looked confused, Jake continued, “Your suit is off the rack, probably Nordstrom's Rack. You come here in a crappy cab that you're lucky did not spontaneously explode on the way here. Your briefcase is older than you. You're carrying a Beretta M9, standard government issue, which you probably checked out from the marine detail at the Buenos Aires Embassy. And your tactics suck. If you think you might need to carry a gun, then you sure as hell better know how to use it. Based on your carrying your gun under your left arm pointed backwards, you're clearly right handed with a cross draw. You should have gotten out of the cab with the briefcase in your left hand, leaving your right hand free to draw your weapon. Also, you should have released the safety before getting out of the car.”

The young man look deflated, as if he had been asking girls to dance all night and gotten none to do so.

“All right,” Jake said. “What do you want? I have a stag roast that will be starting to dry out really soon.”

The embassy man lifted the briefcase as if to get approval to open it. When Jake didn't protest, the man clicked it open, removed a sealed envelope, and closed the briefcase again. He handed the envelope to Jake, who shook his head and reluctantly accepted it. Jake knew a diplomatic pouch when he saw one. It was waterproof, sealed and signed, and he would have to sign a chain of custody indicating he had gotten it. What was inside would be likely Top Secret. He really didn't want to know what was inside. That life was behind him.

The envelope was on the light side. He could only guess what was inside.

“You are to open the envelope in my presence,” the state department man said sheepishly.

Jake shook his head and swiftly drew his filet knife, then slid it across the seal. He pulled out a single piece of paper, a letter topped off with the official seal of the U.S. House of Representatives. He was being summoned to testify before the House Subcommittee on Intelligence—an oxymoron if he ever heard one. This wouldn't be his first dog and pony show. During his years with the CIA, he'd testified a few times before senate and house sub-committees. All of them were highly classified behind closed doors with only a limited number of members present to protect his identity. In fact, they had never used his real name and he had used a disguise. But this time would be different. They used his real name and, from what Jake could tell, this would be in front of cameras. Somebody wanted to make a show of this. Members of congress flocked to cameras like moths to a street light.

“I don't have time for this crap,” Jake said, swishing the paper through the air.

“Mister Adams, that's an official subpoena from the U.S. Congress.”

“I know what it is, Sonny. But I'm retired and on vacation. When I'm done here I'll be heading down to Tierra del Fuego to catch as many sea-run Browns as humanly possible for a full week.”

“And then?”

Jake shook his head. He hadn't planned that far ahead. He still had his apartment in Innsbruck, Austria. But in January it was too cold there. It made his synthetic left knee ache. He wasn't planning to return to Austria until April or May. The same was true of his ancestral home in Montana. He couldn't go there until June. He was considering someplace warm for a few months. Perhaps the West Indies or Costa Rica.

Jake looked at the letter again. “Two days? How am I supposed to get there by Friday?”

The state department man smiled. “We have that covered, sir. It's an hour drive to San Martin. A two-hour flight to Buenos Aires, and then a ten-hour flight to D.C.”

“I am not flying coach,” Jake said vehemently. He still had the second half of his first class ticket from Argentina to Houston, from where he could fly almost anywhere.

“In the envelope, sir,” the man said with a smile.

Jake found a second piece of paper, folded in half against the side of the envelope. It contained his flight information and a hotel in Washington. Regardless, he still wasn't sure he wanted to comply with this order. He had followed orders all his adult life. But now he only followed his own path.

“I am to accompany you to Washington.”

“No way. I don't need a baby sitter. And I won't ride in that death taxi,” Jake said, pointing at the decrepit car.

“Fine. We'll take the vehicle you rented at the San Martin airport.”

Of course they would know about that, Jake thought. He had done nothing to cover his tracks on this trip. At the time he didn't suspect he needed to hide from his own government. But they could track any Visa he used. Well, not any Visa. Only those with his real name. Without saying another word to the state department man, Jake got into his guide's SUV. He guessed the stag roast would be dried out by now. Damn. That would have tasted great.

Corvallis, Oregon

A steady rain pounded the roof of Professor James Tramil's Toyota Camry as he drove slowly down 39
^th
Avenue a few blocks from Oregon State University. Tramil had worked late in his lab until he had gotten a call from his colleague, Professor Stephan Zursk, asking him to stop by his home as soon as possible, which was out of the ordinary. The two of them had worked together all day in the nanotech lab, and Stephan had left at eight p.m. Now, after midnight, they would both normally be well asleep, ready to get back at their work by six a.m. But this current project was right on the cusp of a major breakthrough. They both knew it. In fact, Tramil had e-mailed his friend just a few hours ago, saying he thought he had broken their little stalemate. Maybe that's why Stephan had called him to come to his place in the hills northwest of town.

Tramil hated this rain. The only good thing about the rain from November to March in western Oregon was it was much easier to focus in the lab, under the stark florescent lights. There was nothing distracting him outside. He didn't ski. Hiked in the mountains only during the summer months. And only went to Portland to fly out of PDX to some conference. His only vice, if one could call it that, was his long runs every other day. He had gotten used to running in the rain, and even preferred it to bright sunny days. He also rarely got back to the home of his youth in Marquette, Michigan. He smiled thinking about checking the weather in the U.P. on his phone that evening. They had just gotten a foot of lake-effect snow off of Lake Superior and were expecting to get a new front push in from the south off of Lake Michigan—a double shot of the white stuff. Yeah, things could have been worse than this rain.

He slowed the car and turned up a lane that would bring him up into the hills, where the houses were a bit newer and larger, with half-acre lots. Stephan's house sat on a hill with a view of the coast range mountains.

That was strange. Stephan's house came up on the left, but there were no lights on. He pulled up on the street out front and considered what to do. Checking his phone, he saw that Stephan had called him only thirty minutes ago. Perhaps he'd gone to sleep. He had sounded somewhat distracted. Maybe even a little reticent. This was not normal for him. In his late fifties now, Stephan always said that time was running out on him. He had to make a major contribution to his field now, or he might as well retire. He was usually the most straightforward person Tramil knew. “Get to the point,” he would always say. But during this last call, he had not followed his own mantra.

Tramil considered just putting the car in drive, making a U-turn, and heading to his small house near the campus. Maybe he'd get a good microbrew before McMenamins closed.

Suddenly a light came on somewhere in the house. Okay, Stephan was awake.

He shut down the car, got out into the heavy rain, and started for the front door. Just as he passed the living room picture window, Tramil heard a scream, followed by two flashes of light. He stopped in his tracks. Was that what he thought it was?

Silence. Only his heart pounding loudly, trying to escape through his throat.

He stood at the door now unsure what to do. Just as he touched the door knob, the door swung in and Tramil saw the long pistol before looking up to a tall man dressed in dark clothing, a mask over his face.

Tramil ran, vectoring away toward the driveway. He heard a number of coughs through the rain. Then he reached the corner of the garage, heard a couple more silenced shots, and felt a pain in his posterior. He knew this area, having been to Stephan's house many times. But what if there was another shooter around back? Instead, he turned left and ran into the woods, the wet tree limbs slapping his face and making him trip a few times.

When he got to the hill, he fell and rolled downward until he hit a small patch of sagebrush. Getting up swiftly, only looking behind him for a second and seeing nothing, he continued running.

Tramil didn't stop running until he had gone more than a mile. His heart was racing more than on his normal runs, but then he wasn't being shot at during those. He leaned against a tall cedar to catch his breath.

He felt a buzz in his pants, followed by U2's
In God's Country
. Grasping it quickly and seeing the number came from Stephan, he answered swiftly.

“Stephan? Are you all right?”

Nothing on the other end.

Think, Tramil.

“You are shot,” said a voice on the phone. Stephan's phone. “You will die soon.”

He almost forgot the pain in his backside. Reaching his hand around his right side, he finally felt pain in his right buttocks cheek.

“I don't think so,” Tramil responded, and then stopped the call. Then he quickly called 911 and said what had happened at Stephan's house. Done with that call, he turned off his phone and removed the battery.

Slowly now, more cautiously, he moved through the woods toward the OSU campus. The pain in his buttocks now started to throb with each step he took. His judgment was clouded. His adrenalin was quickly turning to shock, as the cold dampness plastered his clothes to his skin. The scientist in him knew that shock would quickly turn to hypothermia if he didn't get somewhere warm and out of these clothes in a hurry.

But where?

Was his colleague dead? If so, why? And why were they trying to kill him as well? All of these questions rattled through his brain as his teeth started to chatter from the cold, wet air.

Washington, D.C.

When Jake Adams was finally called before the House subcommittee on intelligence, he was nearly dead on his feet. Although he was used to traveling long distances on flights, trains and cars, it had gotten a lot harder as his age passed through the mid-forties. First class had helped, a new deal for Jake, and he had even gotten a decent five hours in the D.C. hotel the night before. Yet he still yawned as he took a seat in the hard oak chair in front of the microphones, multiple cameras pointing at him, and the half-moon table with members from both parties looming over him like dozens of St. Peters ready to judge him. From the cryptic letter summoning Jake to this fiasco, and from what he had heard so far from a waiting room before being called in, he had a small understanding of what they wanted from him.

His state department escort Devan Stormont had been a bit spastic during the long trip, had stayed in the room next to his in D.C., and even accompanied Jake to the waiting room. But that was where they had parted ways.

Jake was sworn in and the questions started. Well, he thought they were going to ask questions. But most of the members on the left simply used their time to talk to the cameras and excoriate Jake on his actions during that whole Berlin affair. Members on the right used their time to put words in his mouth and explain to anyone who cared to listen that Jake's actions had been honorable and just.

For his part, Jake tried to keep his head from exploding, giving simple yes and no answers.

Finally, a congressman from the great state of California was up for questions and shuffled through his prepared speech asking pointed questions, one after the next, without allowing Jake a chance to respond to each. Ten in all. What the congressman didn't know was that Jake had a near perfect memory and would have no problem answering each and every one of his attacks on Jake's character.

“Sir, is it my turn?” Jake finally said into the microphone.