The Ascendant: A Thriller (38 page)

He needed to do right?

Garrett still couldn’t believe General Kline had said that. Since this whole thing had started, when had it ever, even for a moment, been about doing right in the world? He was dealing with the military after all, an organization that trained people to kill. And if this was about doing right, then were the Chinese wrong? Was the United States on the side of moral good? Were we so innocent? Garrett didn’t buy that for a second—moral good was for suckers.

And what about what Metternich had told him on the train, about doing somebody else’s bidding? What if Metternich was telling him some form of the truth? If so, who was the bad guy then? The U.S.? Then how was working for the government doing right in the world?

Contradiction layered upon contradiction, lie upon lie.

Garrett’s hands shook with rage. He had, for a moment in General Kline’s living room the night before, actually considered tying off the length of wire
around his neck and watching the old bastard choke to death. He had wanted to, really wanted to do it, but at the last second backed off. And, again, not for moral reasons; not because it would be wrong to kill the general, but because he would eventually get caught, and then sent to jail. Garrett did not want to go to jail.

He told himself it had been more of a cost-benefit analysis than a moral judgment. But maybe even that was a lie—a lie he told himself to keep a distance from how he really felt. But how
did
he feel? Did he see himself as a patriot? Or a traitor? Or
both
?

He opened a carton of Wheat Chex and poured the cereal directly from the box into his mouth. He had grabbed the cereal from Kline’s kitchen as he left, as well as a half gallon of orange juice. He washed the Wheat Chex down with the juice, and wished he had something else to eat. He was still starving, but at least he could function now without his hands trembling. The fire in his brain, however, seemed constant, a steady ache that Garrett worried might never subside.

He had something else he’d taken from Kline’s home the night before: a cell phone. It was a cheap model, one the phone companies gave away when you opened an account, and Garrett suspected it belonged to one of Kline’s children. He’d snapped the battery out of the phone the first chance he’d gotten, but he was hoping Kline hadn’t deactivated the account. He would hold on to the phone in case he needed it. Just for one call.

The Homeland Security agent’s car was parked about a half mile away, on a quiet McLean street, keys tucked on top of the right rear wheel, but Garrett didn’t dare drive it anymore. Alerts would have been issued by now. Homeland Security would have gotten its story straight: Garrett was probably listed as an international terrorist, a threat to the nation, or who knows what else. They’d probably charge him with rape and murder if they could. He was undoubtedly a wanted man.

So it was decision time. Stay? Or go?

If he fled, he would need to find a route out of D.C., and then a place to hole up until he could figure out a way to clear himself, or untangle the web of people and organizations that wanted to either use him or kill him. Or both. Without his wallet, or even a single dollar in his pocket, that would be hard at best. They had confiscated everything when they pulled him off the Metro train.

He supposed he could get a message to Mitty Rodriguez, and have her wire him some cash, but Homeland Security would undoubtedly be expecting that,
and they’d be waiting for him when he went to pick it up. No matter where he went.

And then there was Hans Metternich, whoever the fuck he was. Anyone who could just show up on a Metro train and then disappear again without a trace was worth worrying about. And being afraid of. Maybe it was Metternich who had tried to blow him up in New York. Maybe Metternich, despite his protestations, actually did want Garrett dead.

To Garrett, the world had become very hostile. And very dangerous.

Plus, he had Celeste Chen’s fate to consider. She was in China on
his
orders. If he cut and ran she would be on her own, with no one in the States to watch over her or provide help if she got into trouble. It wasn’t like he’d suddenly become a den mother, but abandoning Celeste now was a little too selfish. Even for Garrett.

So that left staying. And cooperating with Kline and the Defense Intelligence Agency. Again, he’d be in their system. Unless, of course, he was running that system, and wasn’t that what Kline had dangled in front of him? Continue running the Ascendant program? Did Garrett believe him? Or trust him? Absolutely not.

But perhaps he could use him; use Kline, and Ascendant, to give himself some time and some leverage. If he was actively working for the DIA—and whatever other government agencies were supporting him at the time—then they would be invested in keeping him safe. And breathing. At least for a while.

And Ascendant did offer up the other benefit of being in opposition to the president, Secretary Frye, and the U.S. military. If he succeeded, then those people and organizations would be furious; and there was nothing Garrett wanted more than to piss those fucking bastards off.

Still, Garrett wasn’t crazy about those two options. There didn’t seem to be a viable long-term solution in either of them. But he was in too much pain and too hungry to come up with any others. He brushed the dirt and leaves off the raincoat he’d wrapped himself in for warmth, hid the cereal and juice under a bush in case he needed to come back for them, then walked to an empty parking lot on the edge of the park, and slotted the battery into the back of the stolen cell phone.

Garrett Reilly dialed a number . . . and hoped he was making the right choice.

T
he military policemen who had driven Bingo and Lefebvre back to their hotel—a Ramada Inn just west of downtown Alexandria—told them to pack their bags and await further orders. Bingo tried to explain that he wasn’t in the military and that they couldn’t order him to do anything, but the MPs seemed unimpressed. They said he should not leave the hotel, call no one, and that additional security agents would stop by every few hours to check on them.

Bingo packed his bag in ten minutes and spent the next twenty-four hours watching the History Channel in a cold sweat. The hotel phone rang every few hours; he always answered on the first ring, and could hear someone on the other end of the line, but they never said anything, just listened as Bingo said “Hello?” and then hung up. His heart skipped a beat every time this happened.

Lefebvre knocked on his door the next morning and said they should go get a latte at a coffee shop a few blocks away. When Bingo asked how come, Lefebvre said casually, “Stretch our legs. Get the blood flowing. Just ten minutes.”

Bingo went, against his better judgment, and knew he’d made a mistake the moment he entered the coffee shop: Alexis Truffant, dressed in civilian clothes, was sitting in a corner, waiting for them. Bingo hadn’t seen her in a week and a half, and she looked tense.

“We don’t have a lot of time,” Alexis said as Lefebvre took a seat next to her. The place was mostly empty, but Bingo noticed that Alexis’s eyes were constantly scanning the front door.

“I don’t think we should be here,” Bingo said.

“You’re probably right,” she said. “But we
are
here, so let’s make the most of it.”

“Where’s Garrett?” Lefebvre asked.

“I’m not sure,” she said. “And I don’t want to know.”

Alexis leaned close to Lefebvre and whispered in his ear. Bingo couldn’t hear what she said, but when she was finished the lieutenant was silent for a full minute. He seemed troubled to Bingo, as if at a moral crossroads. Then he said, “It’s a big decision. I need some time.”

Alexis said he had until midnight, but no longer. Lefebvre stood, nodded curtly, and left the coffee shop.

Alexis turned her attention next to Bingo: “Do not go back to your hotel room. Do not pick up your clothes or any other personal belongings. I’m going to give you a prepaid wireless phone. You’ll go to the library, use one of their public computers to log on to the Internet. Find a commercial space that’s for lease for the next month. It needs to be medium-sized, at least two thousand square feet, out of the way—preferably in a bad neighborhood—and have close access to an Internet backbone line. It would be best if the space had gone unoccupied for a long time, ideally a year or longer. The owners need to be willing to take cash up front and ask no questions. Alternatively, you need to be able to break in and secure the space without arousing suspicion or tipping off the landlord.”

“Break in? You mean illegally?” Bingo asked, his voice rising an octave.

“I mean that exactly,” Alexis said. “Do all of this ASAP, and make sure you’re not being followed. Secure the space and wait for further instructions. After you get those instructions, ditch the prepaid cell phone.”

“Uh-uh, no way,” Bingo said. “They told me. Homeland Security said. The war room is shut down. They said I should wait in the hotel until further orders.”

“These
are
your further orders.”

Bingo tried to laugh, but it came out as more of a snort. “No they’re not,” Bingo said. He might not have much in the way of courage, but he was no fool, and what Alexis wanted him to do seemed of dubious legality at best, and full-out treasonous at worst.

Alexis took a deep breath, then she smiled warmly at Bingo, and for a moment he thought it was all going to turn out just fine—she’d say that he should just go on home, forget about all this craziness and get on with his life.

Instead she said, “You’re right, they’re not. But you’re in a bit of a tricky position. If you go back to your hotel now, Homeland Security will come around. They’ll see that Lefebvre is gone, and they’ll ask you what you know. And you’ll have to tell them you met with me, and that we discussed plans. That will make you at the very least a suspect in their eyes, and at most an accomplice. You will be detained. Indefinitely. Maybe brought up on conspiracy charges. Obstruction of justice. It will not be fun. However, if you do what I’m asking, yes, it will be risky, but at least you stand a chance of living the remainder of your life as a free man.”

She stood up, still smiling, pulled a cell phone out of her purse and handed it to him. “Your choice,” she said, and walked out of the coffee shop.

Bingo stared at the cell phone. He was pretty sure most of what Alexis had just said about indefinite detention and obstruction of justice was a load of crap, but given the events of the past month—and the deep-down paranoia his mother had raised him with—he couldn’t be one hundred percent positive, and even a small chance of jail time was enough to make him sick to his stomach.

He dropped the phone into his pocket and slunk onto the sidewalk, hands jammed miserably into his pockets, eyes looking for anyone who might be watching him in turn, and as he did this he had one overriding thought, and that was: if he survived this lunacy, he was going back to his bedroom, locking the door, and never coming out again. Ever.

S
ecretary of Defense Frye sat in the backseat of an unmarked car, parked unobtrusively on a quiet suburban street in Silver Spring. He stared at the Homeland Security safe house that, until a few hours ago, had held Garrett Reilly, but was now unoccupied. A deep weariness and disappointment ran through his body.

No one ever lived up to your expectations in this town, he thought. No one.

He shifted his body slightly to face the man sitting next to him in the darkened Chrysler. Agent Paul Stoddard had his left hand and forearm in a cast; he had dark, black stitches laced into the skin on his temple, over his left eye. The eye itself was ringed with a black and purple bruise. He looked like he’d been beaten with a baseball bat.

“How did he escape?” Frye asked, his face betraying none of the emotion he felt coursing through his veins.

“We’re not sure, sir,” Stoddard answered. “He managed to disengage his hand restraints. That caught us by surprise.”

“How’s that even possible? He’s a kid. With a skull fracture.”

Agent Stoddard grimaced sheepishly. “We have a forensic team going over some video we had running. We think he may have had help.”

Frye frowned. “Help? Who else saw him?”

“Well, sir, us,” Stoddard said, pausing. “And DIA personnel.”

Secretary Frye let out a short puff of breath. He knew exactly who had seen Garrett Reilly, and why. Oh, he knew. Did no one in this town have any sense of loyalty?

“General Kline?” Frye said.

“Yes sir.”

“And that girl who works for him . . . ?”

“Captain Truffant, yes sir.”

Frye bit down hard on his lower lip. “I want twenty-four-hour surveillance on both of them. Get a warrant if you have to.”

“Already ordered, sir. We’re tracking Kline, but Captain Truffant has gone off the grid. Cell phone turned off. Not at home, or her office.”

“No, of course not,” Frye said. “She’s disappeared. And she’ll remain invisible until we no longer need to find her.” Frye could taste a hint of blood in his mouth. He had bitten through his lip in frustration. “What about Reilly?” he asked. “We have leads on his whereabouts?”

“The FBI has been briefed. They’re putting a team on it.”

“What do they know about the case?”

“That Reilly is a national security threat.”

“Metro PD informed?”

“We thought that would be”—Stoddard hesitated as he searched for the right word—“imprudent.”

Secretary Frye gave him a long look. “Why? What’d you do to him?”

“We interrogated him.
Aggressively.
Sir.”

Frye snorted a quiet laugh. “Almost wish I’d been there for that.”

There was a minute’s silence in the car. Frye wiped the droplet of blood from his lips. He had built a long and illustrious career, in business and in politics, zeroing in on the sources of problems and then fixing them with a combination of intelligence and raw power. He was never indiscriminate with that power, but he believed—truly and fervently—that if you hesitated in the application of targeted force, you would be lost. Chaos would swallow you whole. That was true in business, in politics, and in national defense—particularly in national defense.