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  “We’re good to go,” Jonathan said. “Big Guy, try to drive quietly into the driveway. Let’s not spark a panic if we don’t have to.”

  Boxers parked the Suburban directly behind the Tal-leys’ vehicles to slow down any exfil plans they might have. As he threw the transmission into PARK, he said, “Give me thirty seconds to get in position at the back door, and say the word.”

  Jonathan and Gail glided as silently as possible up the porch steps. He carried a battering ram, and she carried a Halligan bar in case the entry got complicated. Jonathan positioned himself on the knob side of the front door on the right while Gail took the hinge side. In the back, if Boxers was true to form, his entry tool for a house of this era would be the sole of his boot.

  “I’m set,” Boxers said over the air.

  Jonathan said, “On my count. Three . . . two . . . one . . .” On the silent zero, Jonathan heaved the ram into the spot where the lock’s hasp met the jamb. The wood splintered and disappeared under the impact. The reverberation shook the whole structure to its foundation. He released his grip and let the ram’s momentum carry it airborne into the living space. Gail dropped her Halligan onto the porch deck at her feet and brought her rifle to her shoulder.

  With his rifle at high ready, Jonathan crossed the threshold and swept his muzzle left. He ignored the back door as it exploded open and Big Guy stepped in.

  “FBI!” Jonathan yelled. “Federal agents! Down, down, down!” Boxers and Gail shouted the same words, with the effect sounding damned intimidating.

  He’d taken only three steps into the room when he saw through the dining room that Angela Talley was standing frozen in the kitchen. She looked terrified.

  “One in the kitchen,” Jonathan reported to the others on the channel. “Angela Talley, put your hands up and drop to your knees!”

  She complied, but she wasn’t the one he wanted.

  “Where is Eric?” Jonathan shouted.

  “I’m right here,” a voice said from somewhere ahead and to the left.

  “Show yourself with empty hands,” Jonathan commanded.

  Angela said from her awkward position on the floor, “What’s going on?”

  Jonathan ignored her. “We’ve got this in here, Big Guy,” he said. “Cover the green side in case he tries to rabbit out a window.”

  “Eric, show yourself now. Don’t make this any worse than it needs to be.” As he spoke, Jonathan sidestepped oh so slowly to his right—cutting the pie, as they liked to say in his business—to gain a visual on his target.

  “I’ve got eyes on him through the window,” Boxers said. “He’s standing against a wall of cabinets, inside and to your left. I can’t see his hands.”

  “Don’t be stupid, Eric,” Jonathan coaxed. “This doesn’t have to end in tragedy.”

  Finally, Eric Talley stepped into Jonathan’s field of view. He held a knife in his right hand. It looked like a six-inch carver, the kind that you’d expect to pull from a kitchen knife block.

  “He’s got a knife,” Jonathan announced. “Put that down, Eric. Don’t bring a knife to a gunfight.”

  “I can’t do what you want me to do,” Eric said. His tone was matter-of-fact, yet amped with emotion.

  Angela stood again.

  “Get down!” Jonathan ordered.

  “Shoot me,” she said. To her husband: “Eric? What the hell?”

  The man’s eyes showed no fear, and that bothered Jonathan. What bothered him more was that they showed commitment. Something bad was about to happen.

  “What’s going on, Eric?” Jonathan asked. “Don’t make me shoot you in your own house. In front of your wife. Just put the knife down.”

  “I’ve got a reticle on his ear, Boss,” Boxers said.

  “Don’t shoot yet,” Jonathan instructed. “He’s still too far away to pose a real threat.”

  “I’m tellin’ you just in case,” Boxers said.

  Jonathan didn’t respond. He kept his sights locked on Eric as Gail crossed behind him to open up yet another shooting lane.

  “Come on, Eric. It’s over.”

  “What’s over?” Angela snapped. The frustration had converted her voice to a squeak.

  “I’m sorry, Angie,” Eric said. He looked straight at Jonathan as he brought the point of the knife up to the side of his own throat, and then used the palm of his left hand to punch the blade all the way through the other side of his neck. His knees buckled, but on his way down, he pulled the knife free with a slicing motion that launched a fountain of gore.

  “Holy shit!” Jonathan yelled.

  Angela screamed, “Oh, my God! Oh, my God! Eric!” She turned on Jonathan like an angry dog and launched herself at him. “What did you do!”

  He felled her with a single punch, and she hit the floor hard, clearly unconscious.

  “Tie her hands behind her,” Jonathan instructed.

  Gail objected. “Oh, come on, Scorpion.”

  “Please do what I say. This is some of the weirdest shit I’ve ever been involved with, and as far as I’m concerned, she’s part of the problem. Mother Hen, our target just cut his own throat.”

  As Boxers reentered the kitchen, he drew to a stop. “Oh, holy Christ.”

  If a stopped heart truly defines death, then it took Eric Talley at least thirty seconds to die, with each ventricular contraction launching a crimson streamer into the air. The first six pumps or so hit the ceiling, but then it dwindled to a flow and finally stopped. When it was over, the kitchen had a macabre Jackson Pollack vibe to it. Jonathan stomach churned when he realized that the air itself tasted like copper.

  “Okay, kids,” Jonathan said. “We take ten minutes to scour this place for whatever we can find, and then we get the hell out of here.”

  “What about her?” Gail asked as she rose from the task of cuffing Angela.

  “We’ll call Wolverine when we’re on the road, and she can figure out what to do from there.”

  Eight minutes into their burglary, Angela Talley regained consciousness. The screaming was awful.

  Chapter Eighteen

  As Jonathan swung his BMW M6 from Ox Road into the main entrance of Burke Lake Park, he reminded himself of the least likely advice he’d received from the least likely source. On his way to his car, Boxers had warned him not to lead with his anger. So saith the monster of a man who woke up angry and got steadily crankier during the day.

  The ticket taker had abandoned his station, so Jonathan forewent the ten-dollar admission fee for out-of-county residents and piloted his M6 down the lake road and into the woods. A thousand years ago, as a little boy, he’d attended a fire service event here at the park, courtesy of the guys at the Fisherman’s Cove Fire Department, who’d allowed him to be their firehouse mascot after his mother died. He didn’t remember much about the place beyond a miniature train that he thought was fantastic and an old-fashioned merry-go-round with a brass ring dispenser that he couldn’t quite reach.

  This would be a new venue for meeting Wolverine. Jonathan was too pissed to drive all the way into DC, and according to Dom, Irene was too pissed to put the meeting off. She was the one who proposed meeting here, a spot near her house. A later phone call established the specific picnic pavilion number where they’d meet.

  The leaves were at the height of their autumn splendor, the thermometer on his dash said it was sixty-two degrees outside, and if this had been a different day, he’d probably have thought it was beautiful. For now, it was hard to see any color but red.

  The pavilion sat by itself, about twenty yards off the road, surrounded by trees. Jonathan was the first to arrive, but he was ten minutes early. He parked the BMW, climbed out, and walked to the picnic tables. There were at least a dozen of them spread a comfortable distance apart, about half of them under the protection of a wooden pole barn roof with no walls. He could imagine this as a great venue for a family reunion, provided you could see past the spiderwebs and bird shit.

  The woods provided lots of sh
ade, and if you squinted just right and cocked your head a little, you could see the glitter of the sun off the surface of the lake itself.

  The sound of crunching gravel drew his attention to an official Washington black Suburban with the requisite black Suburban follow car pulling down the access road. The Tweedle brothers stepped out of the front doors, while two other security pukes flanked the follow car. With that phalanx in place, Tweedle Dee (or was it Dum?) opened the rear door, and Irene Rivers climbed out. She was dressed for a work day in a gray business suit. Her hair was tied back in a ponytail, and her eyes showed murder.

  She strode toward Jonathan with the intensity of a torpedo homing in on a destroyer. When she’d closed to within ten feet, she said, “Have you lost your mind? What were you thinking?”

  “Don’t lead with your anger,” Jonathan said. “A friend of mine told me that once.”

  “Don’t you even,” Irene growled. “Do you have any idea the position you’ve put me in? The position you’ve put the Bureau in?”

  “You’re talking about the Winterset thing?” Sometimes, Jonathan enjoyed the simple thrill of pulling her strings.

  “You’re goddamn right, I’m talking about the Winterset thing. Was there anyone in the town you didn’t tell that you were FBI?”

  “Really?” Jonathan said. He felt his own anger control system beginning to fail. “With all the shit that’s gone down in the last couple of days, you’re most worried about a public relations problem?”

  “You harassed a thirteen-year-old boy, Digger! And you knocked a woman unconscious after attending the horrific death of her husband. Let’s not forget the cherry on top of the poo sundae: you tied her up while she was unconscious.”

  Jonathan cast a nervous glance toward Irene’s guard dogs. “Let’s use our inside voices, okay, Wolfie? First of all, that kid was a witness and a potential victim. Second, I had nothing to do with Eric Talley’s death, and third, zipping up the wife was standard procedure. I did nothing that you would not have done in the field.”

  Irene smacked the picnic table with an open hand. “But I’m actually an FBI agent!”

  “I didn’t steal my creds, Wolfie. You gave them to me with instructions to make this Retribution thing go away.”

  Some of the wind left the director’s sails. “Retribution?”

  “Yeah. This terrorist op has a name. They’re calling it Retribution.”

  “Retribution for what?”

  “I have no idea,” Jonathan said. “Maybe there wasn’t enough foam in his latte one morning. And by the way, the reason we know that tidbit is because we were able to rescue Logan Masterson from the guys you sent to kill us. Let’s talk about that for a moment, shall we?”

  Irene’s sails faltered a bit further. “Our people were victims of that attack.”

  “Boo-hoo,” Jonathan said. “I mean no disrespect, but . . . No, I take that back. They were running a torture chamber, so I do mean disrespect. We left some extra bodies for you to examine. What has that shown?”

  Irene motioned with her head for Jonathan to follow her toward the woods. “They’re all former military,” she said. “Special Forces types.”

  “How are they linked?”

  “We don’t know that yet.”

  “Let me give you something to look at,” Jonathan said. “I guarantee that all of their credit scores are in the crapper. I think we’re looking at a mercenary army that’s doing what it’s doing for the paycheck. Masterson told us he got half a million for the high school hit. Talley’s farm was in trouble. And how the hell did that assault team in South Dakota know to hit the prison?”

  That last question startled Irene, made her jump. Her face was uncharacteristically blank. Jonathan couldn’t tell if she was trying to construct a bluff or if she’d been genuinely taken off guard.

  “Come on, Wolfie,” Jonathan said. “This can’t be the first time you’ve thought about this. You’ve got a major leak somewhere in your system. I don’t know if it’s your Bureau or the Agency, but somewhere people are talking, and the talking is posing a threat to me and my team.”

  Irene seemed to deflate. “This isn’t our first rodeo together, Dig. You know I’ve always been plagued with leaks. When I plug one, another springs open. I try to limit the sphere of knowledge to as small a crew as possible, but I can’t do my job if I keep everybody out of the loop.” She grew uncomfortable as she cleared her throat and asked, “How certain are you that the leak isn’t from your shop?”

  “One hundred percent,” Jonathan said. “And I know this because most of my team were the ones getting shot at.”

  “And Mother Hen has a crush on you,” Irene added. “It must be nice to be surrounded by loyal team members.”

  The image of Derek Halstrom in his ridiculous too-tight suit appeared in Jonathan’s mind. He pushed it aside to stay on point.

  “You know, Wolfie, a question came up among my team that I didn’t have an answer for, and I confess that it troubles me.”

  Irene arched an eyebrow and waited for it.

  “How come my loyal little team is smarter than the entire intelligence and law enforcement apparatus of the United States government?”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Irene said, and her expression doubled down on her confusion.

  “We tracked down Eric by tracing his cell phone. Why didn’t you guys think to do that?”

  She smiled. “Honestly? Because I was hoping you’d think to do it. Your methods are so much faster and easier.”

  “What if we’d failed?”

  “Then the Bureau would have had to do it the old-fashioned way. You know, following all that Fourth and Fifth Amendment stuff. The framers never foresaw what we’re living through. I think there’s a civil war coming, and anger levels across the country are so high that I don’t know that we can stop it. If my team and I go all Wild West on these assholes and deliver old-fashioned justice, we dead-end at the courthouse and go to jail.”

  “The same place I will go if I get caught,” Jonathan observed.

  Irene gave him a playful slap on his shoulder. “That’s why you get the big bucks,” she said as she reached into her jacket pocket. “I have something for you here.” She handed him a thumb drive.

  “Oh, Wolfie, you shouldn’t have. And I didn’t get you anything.”

  “Take it to Mother Hen and let her loose on it.”

  “What is it?”

  “It’s a direction for you to go.”

  “How about more of a hint that that?” Jonathan said. “It’s been a long few days. Coyness is less appreciated than usual.”

  Irene winked at him. “I’m giving you a face. Not much of one, but it’s a face.”

  “Of a terrorist?”

  “Yup.”

  “Why aren’t you guys pursuing him?”

  “We are,” she said.

  “Then why do you need me?”

  “Because, for reasons previously discussed, I’d rather you find him first.”

  Jonathan didn’t like the implication of her words. “I’m not an assassin, Irene. I’ve told you that before.”

  “I’m not saying you are. But I’m fairly certain that when you come eye to eye with him, he’ll give you reason to shoot.”

  * * *

  Two hours later, as the sun was nearly done with its daily journey, Jonathan and the team sat in the War Room, watching the screen as Venice waded through the files on Irene’s thumb drive. So far, it remained blank.

  “You know we’re waiting, right?” Boxers grumbled.

  “You know that being snarky doesn’t make me go any faster, right?” Venice grumbled back.

  “The information is more important than the reveal, Ven,” Jonathan said. “If we’ve got a face and a name—”

  “Do you think I’m stalling you?” Venice snapped. “Do you think I am unaware of the time crunch here? I know as well as you that lives are at stake, and I’d like to believe that you had enough faith in me
to understand that.”

  Jonathan caught Gail’s glance, and she twitched her head. This was not the time to push.

  So, they waited.

  Finally after thirty minutes that felt like ninety, Venice gave her keyboard a final, triumphant poke, and the big screen at the end of the conference table jumped to life. The first image was fuzzy at best. Clearly lifted from some kind of enhanced security camera footage, it showed what appeared to be a man in nondescript clothing stepping away from a plain white van.

  “This is from Bluebird, Indiana,” Venice explained. “One of the bombing sites. The FBI believes that this is the van that held the explosives.”

  “And that the blur is the guy who set them?” Boxers asked.

  “Exactly. Now, take a look at this.” The screen changed to reveal what appeared to be a parking lot. An attendant’s booth occupied the foreground, and behind it they could see a swath of dormant emergency vehicles.

  “This is the parking lot for the city administrative building in Bluebird,” Venice explained.

  “Why are the pictures so blurry?” Gail asked. “Even by security camera standards, these are awful.”

  Jonathan said, “I’m going to guess that all the close-in cameras were destroyed by the explosion.”

  “Exactly,” Venice confirmed. “That’s in the case notes. According to the time stamp, this picture was shot about thirty minutes before the blast. Can you see our bomber there in the lot?”

  It took some imagination, but someone was clearly walking through the lot. Jonathan was willing to stipulate that it was the person the Feebs declared him to be.

  The screen images changed about once per second for the next few frames, showing the blurry man approaching the guard booth in a kind of jerky animation.

  “Here’s where it gets strange,” Venice said. “This bomber has set God only knows how many pounds of explosives to kill dozens of people and destroy a sleepy little town, but watch this.”

  The blurry man, who was more in focus than he’d been, stopped at the attendant booth.