Sabotage (6 page)

"That's where we left it that day. It got me thinking, and after more troubling reports from my military and economic advisors, I had Vince flown up to D.C. for another chat. Apparently, he'd been thinking about it too, because he already had a plan."

"Let me guess," Cal said, "He wanted to see it for himself and maybe take a friend along for the ride."

The president nodded, "They went in with a good cover as oil investors looking for strategic partners in the region. As far as I knew, they had all their bases covered. The last I heard, they were on their way home, but then there was nothing. No word. No call. Then you called asking me point blank about an operation."

"Is that it? That's the whole story?" Cal asked.

"That's it." They were all quiet, digesting the news.

Gaucho finally asked, "That doesn't explain Bragg, Mr. President. I couldn't get any word out of them. Some of those guys I've known for twenty-odd years."

Cal answered for him, "That's their job. OPSEC is king. Brandon told them to keep their lips tight, so they did.”

Zimmer nodded.

"So what now?" Gaucho asked.

"We're working on that," the president said, "The best we can hope for is that Vince and Karl can make it out on their own."

“No offense sir, but that sure as hell sounds like they're getting the raw end of the deal. Leaving them out there like that. I know they're big boys but — “

He held up a hand to cut off the rest of Gaucho’s coming remarks. “I know. I'm not saying we're doing nothing, but you've got to understand the position I'm in; there's a lot at stake here. The president of Djibouti is in a tenuous situation as well, despite the influx of foreign investment. They've been very obliging up to this point, but if they found out that we’re sending in soldiers to snoop on one of their biggest investors—that might not sit well.”

Cal could see that Gaucho wanted to press. Hell,
he
wanted to press the president. No one would, though. That was one of the benefits of being a soldier. You rarely had to take politics into account. Since he'd met Brandon Zimmer, Cal had come to understand more fully how heavy the burden was when you truly had to take everyone's interests into account. Luckily that wasn’t Cal’s job.

He was about to ask if they'd considered using any of the troops at Camp Lemonnier, maybe under the pretense of a training operation out in the boonies, but at that moment the president's head turned. He put up a finger for them to wait. He nodded to whomever had come in before saying, "Guys, I'm going to put you on mute for a second. Hold on."

His head remained turned. Then Cal saw Zimmer's jaw tense. There was a curt nod, before he turned back to the screen. He unmuted the sound, his eyes hard now, and said, "Well it looks like the Chinese have made the decision for us. The Secretary of State just got an inquiry from the Chinese Ambassador asking why we have covert operatives conducting industrial espionage in Djibouti."

Chapter 7

Those eyes—those damn eyes—bloodshot and yellow like someone had dripped red food coloring into a bulbous egg yolk. They burned into him—accusing and shaming him. He tried to wriggle away, tried to slap the unseen face, but he couldn't. He was just a kid again, his hands too small, ineffectual against the man's body. He felt his throat constrict, and then he smelled it, that awful smell. Like stale wine and onions. He winced and tried to turn away, but he couldn’t. The eyes kept following him, and then just like that, they were gone.

It took Congressman McKnight a moment to realize where he was. Why did he have that dream? The smell and the eyes were so familiar. It had been his father—the damned drunk. If there had been an international prize given for worst father of the century, Tony McKnight was confident his dad would have topped the list of contenders.

But why the dream now? His father was dead. He had a clear conscience about what he'd done. He'd only been a kid, but the decision was easy and one he never second-guessed.

McKnight eased himself up from the hotel bed and blinked a few times to clear the vision that had been stamped in his brain like he'd stared into the sun too long. Now the smell had moved to a taste and it made him want to spit on the floor. He shook the thoughts away and tried to clear his head.

Why that dream? Why now?

He washed his face in the bathroom, brushed his teeth not once, not twice, but three times. The smell and the ambient taste of his father had finally left.

Why now?
McKnight thought. He was just slipping into a new T-shirt thinking that maybe a walk, or even a run, would do him some good when he heard a knock at the door. It was one of his always-present assistants. The only time he had to himself was in his hotel room, and even that wasn't sacred anymore. The staffer walked in without a greeting, already spouting off the morning's agenda. McKnight listened to him a moment, resisting the urge to bark at the boy, telling him to leave him alone.

"Hold on," McKnight said calmly, "That first meeting - the breakfast."

The staffer looked up, obviously peeved he had been interrupted. "Sir, the one with donor from Sedona?"

"Yes that one," McKnight confirmed, "Reschedule it, and I want you to tell my security detail I've decided to go for a run."

The look on the man's face was priceless. It was as if McKnight had just called his mother a no-good gold digger.

"But sir, there's so much on the—we just— “

McKnight did cut him off this time. "We've been going non-stop for weeks. I need a few minutes to myself. Make sure everyone else knows. Tell the security detail to be here in five minutes."

He turned to find his running shoes, cutting off any further rebuff from the staffer. The kid did his job. Less than a minute later McKnight's phone dinged. The morning schedule, already reworked.
Good. Maybe a few miles and some sweat will get that damn bastard out of my head
.

It worked. Less than an hour later he was back in his hotel room showering and refocused. He couldn't remember the last time he'd had a muddled day. It was no way to start off a morning. He was always looking forward, facing down the path instead of behind, but as he combed his hair he couldn't help but wonder what other surprises the day might hold.

The thirty-minute breakfast with the wine baron transformed into a five-minute ride to the next event. The donor didn't seem to mind. He was more concerned with getting a selfie with the congressman to send his daughter proof that his money had bought time with the future president. McKnight took it all in stride, knowing that if the Chinese didn't come through soon he'd need as many donors as he could get.

Just before lunch, after he had delivered a steaming pile of pizzas to one of his local campaign offices, a message came through. It was his moneyman. The first couple sentences did not put McKnight at ease. The Chinese were still dragging their feet. The American operatives had yet to be found. As a result, the deal was incomplete. That was the bad news, but as he scrolled through the moneyman's explanation, the next part came into stark focus—the good news.

The Chinese were offering him an olive branch, a token of goodwill to the future president of the United States. Those were the moneyman's exact words. A bit too melodramatic for McKnight, but hell, he needed some good news. He scrolled down further. A brief explanation and then a series of pictures and then, wide-eyed with sudden excitement, there was a video.
There was a goddamned video
. "Yes," McKnight muttered under his breath.

One of his staffers asked, "Did you say something, Congressman?"

McKnight shook his head, "No, I'm fine. Thank you, just some good news."

"Are we almost there?" the staffer asked the driver.

The driver looked back over his shoulder and announced, "Fifteen minutes, Congressman."

McKnight didn’t even hear it.

Perfect. Just perfect
. He replied to the moneyman's message and instructed him to disseminate the information in any way he saw fit, but to wait until McKnight had a chance to make his own public statement. He wanted to light the fire and then watch it rage. He tapped send. Off skittered the message, blazing through encrypted protocols in a twisted path much like McKnight's own.

Maybe that dream had just been an omen that his father was watching and obviously jealous. Yes, that had to be it. Well, McKnight would show his father. He would show that piece of crap despite everything he'd said and put young Antonio through, that young boy was now a man, and that man was reaching for the stars. Soon he would control the stars and then forever he would stamp out his father's memory.

Chapter 8

Karl insisted he was fine, but Vince knew otherwise. At first he thought it was just fatigue, but he knew there was something really wrong as they made their way across the lake. Its choppy surface cast them this way and that, and if not for Christian’s catlike quick reflexes, Karl would have gone overboard. Karl normally would have been concerned by the near miss. Instead, he shrugged it off and became gruff to the point of being abrasive.

But even in the dim light, Vince could see that his friend's eyes were unfocused; he looked half drunk. And when he coughed it sounded wet, like a career smoker. Vince had seen Karl smoke plenty of cigarettes over the years. Hell, they all had. It was a perfect cover, but he didn't remember the cough, so it had to be something new.

When Vince asked his friend again if he was okay, Karl pushed him away, and this time sat deeper in the oversized canoe. The steady drone of the outboard engine continued as the hull slapped against the waves, one after another in a steady rhythm. Maybe he had been hurt in the crash. It was possible. Vince had seen it before. You got hurt, yet all the adrenaline coursing through your body helped mask the pain so you could ignore it. Then when the adrenaline left your body, the injury became apparent. He didn't want to press Karl. He trusted him too much, but if there really was something wrong he needed to know now.

The voyage had been relatively calm and safe up to that point, but as they closed in on civilization, there was a much higher risk of being seen, and all four of them needed to be at their best to get through it. Vince was sitting right in front of the grandfather piloting the craft.

The colonel leaned close so only the old man could hear him inquire, "Could we head to shore soon? I think maybe we should all get some rest."

The man nodded his understanding, and then Vince felt the boat veer left ever so slightly. Karl must have sensed it too, because even though he sat grumbling to himself, he turned to Vince and asked, "Where are we going?"

Vince pointed to the shore and announced, "I figured we might want to hunker down and get a little shuteye for tomorrow." Karl seemed to mull it over, as if he was deciding whether to agree or throw in a veto, but in the end he just nodded. Off the boat he continued to be sullen and withdrawn.

Once they were on shore, they carefully concealed the boat. The four travelers shared a single MRE from Christian's backpack. While Vince felt like he could have eaten four of the damn things, Karl only took small nibbles of the orange pound cake. It appeared it took every ounce of energy he had remaining. This was usually the time when Karl Schneider was cracking a joke or giving his boss a hard time, but he just sat there, nibbling away, avoiding eye contact.

But still Vince had to trust his friend to tell him if he was in real pain. Some guys just went into a sort of hibernation mode to let their bodies heal on their own, and now that he thought about it, he’d never even seen Karl injured, so he didn't know the man’s telltale signs. Some men showed it on their faces, others in the way they walked or talked, and still others shut down, although that didn't happen often in the elite confines of Delta.

Vince awoke to an overcast sky which barely allowed the sun to peek through. He rolled over in their hiding spot to see Karl's face. He was asleep, but that wasn't what concerned Vince. His chin was red, like he’d dipped it in a bowl of paint, and there was blood dripping from it.

Vince shook his friend awake and when Karl didn't snap back to reality like he usually did, he continued to shake Karl until his eyes opened. It was quite visible to Vince that Karl was struggling to regain his bearings.

Vince handed him a bottle of water. "How are you feeling, partner?"

Karl snagged the water and chugged half the bottle before he realized what he had done to their limited supply. He handed it back apologetically. "What time is it?"

"Quarter after ten," Vince answered, "How did you sleep?"

Karl pinched the bridge of his nose, "I've got the damnedest headache. I can't remember the last time I was this dehydrated."

"You've got something on your chin," Vince said.

“What?" he reached down to touch his chin, the blood sticky on his fingertips. Karl's eyes darted from his fingers, to Vince, and then back to his fingertips.

"How badly are you hurt?" Vince inquired.

Karl ignored the question, trying to wipe the blood off on his shirt sleeve. When he was done, he still looked like a kid who had tried to drink too much Kool-Aid, and it spilled over, leaving behind a red stain on his skin.