THINGS ARE ACCELERATING,” said Blue Man.
He, Robie, and Reel were sitting in Reel’s black SUV on a quiet road about a mile outside of London. In the distance they could see oil rigs and crews pecking at the earth with drill bits and detonation guns.
“The police are all over the property,” noted Robie.
“Well, there was no way we had the resources to clean up something like that. But that was a big loss for them, thanks to you.”
Robie glanced at Reel. “Thanks to me and Jess. I thought you were on the other side of the world on assignment.”
“I was.” Reel was a female version of Robie, tall, lean, rock hard, with the calm and resolute features of a fighter pilot. “But then I got the call to come to wonderful North Dakota, where there were pressing matters that needed my attention.”
“You were following me?” said Robie, his features troubled.
“I knew your itinerary, otherwise I would not have been able to. Don’t worry, you’re not losing a step.”
“Your timing was impeccable, I understand,” noted Blue Man.
“I’m six feet under if she was a second later,” added Robie. “Jess and I checked some of the bodies out before we left the scene.”
“They weren’t members of our military,” said Reel. “They weren’t even from this country.”
“Foreigners on domestic soil,” murmured Blue Man.
“Which begs the question of why,” said Reel.
Robie said, “Decker told us about the farmer who saw the man trying to escape. Speaking gibberish?”
“A foreign language, possibly Arabic or perhaps Farsi. I believe Mr. Decker would have already come to a similar conclusion.”
“So it’s a prison, then,” said Robie.
Reel interjected, “It’s no secret that some of the prisoners at Gitmo have been transferred to federal prisons across the country. But that Air Force facility is not a prison, at least not that anyone’s told me.”
“Perhaps they haven’t told anyone,” suggested Blue Man.
“What’s going on with Gitmo now?” asked Robie.
“Past administrations either tried to keep it open or shut it down. The latter turned out to be harder than it looked. It now costs about thirteen million dollars per prisoner. Currently, there are roughly one hundred prisoners there.”
“So one point three billion bucks to house them,” said Reel.
“A steep price,” added Blue Man. “But no one seems to know what to do about it.”
“So you think they transferred some of them up here?” said Robie. “Why?”
“I didn’t say that,” said Blue Man. “These might be new prisoners. We’re still fighting over there, of course. Taliban, Al-Qaeda, ISIS, even Houthian rebels and Iranian operatives, and other groups that are not as well known.”
“So that Air Force station might now be Gitmo Two?” asked Reel.
“And maybe doing things to prisoners there that are no longer allowed at Gitmo One,” mused Blue Man.
“Meaning torture?”
“I used to talk the company line and say, instead, ‘enhanced interrogation techniques,’ but things like waterboarding, well, we need to call them what they are.”
“How in the world could something like that get authorized?” said Reel. “And at a military facility? The DoD has always been against that sort of thing. It violates the Geneva Conventions and opens up American soldiers held as prisoners to the same kind of treatment.”
“It might not have been authorized, at least not through the proper channels,” said Blue Man. “I think the politicians have learned their lesson on that one.”
“Which brings us to this,” said Robie. He took out a thumb drive and inserted it into the USB port on his laptop. He brought up the photos he had taken the previous night and turned it toward Blue Man.
“This guy was meeting with Sumter, and whatever they’re doing is definitely not on the up-and-up.”
Blue Man looked at the pictures of the older man.
“Recognize him?” asked Reel.
Blue Man nodded. “Patrick McIntosh, a former, obscure congressman who did little during his time in DC. He has since made his mark, first as the head of a think tank, and now as a formidable lobbyist and kingmaker with a Rolodex that would rival anyone else’s, and a desire to make as much money as possible by any means possible. He is supremely well connected in all the corridors of power that matter.”
“Never heard of him,” said Robie. Reel nodded in agreement.
“Which he would be delighted to hear. McIntosh does what he does from the shadows. The only time he seeks the limelight is when it suits him, usually accepting some honor for philanthropy that he performs only to keep in the good company of people he needs to further his own goals.”
“You sound like you know him well,” said Robie.
“I’ve had my run-ins with him. I found him prepared, methodical, ruthless, shockingly lacking in empathy, and not above lying when it advantaged him in some way. Given that, I have always been surprised he didn’t rise higher in government.”
Robie passed Blue Man the recorder he had used to tape the conversation of the two men. “You need to hear this.”
Blue Man turned on the recorder and listened to the conversation with great interest.
When it was done, he turned the recorder off and closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them, Robie said, “What will you do with that?”
“I will do what needs to be done. And I will move swiftly. If they are keeping a prison over there, we need to nip this in the bud as quickly and quietly as possible.”
“You need any help from us on that?”
He held up the recorder. “You’ve given me all I need.”
Reel folded her arms over her chest and gave Blue Man a stern look. “And what’s our next move?”
“The two of you will shadow Decker and Jamison. I’ll let you know when you can fill them in on what you know and have them reciprocate. Based on our comingled intelligence, we can hopefully then map out a strategy going forward.”
“Do you think it wise to share what we know with them?” said Reel, looking surprised.
Robie said, “We can trust them.”
“And since you saved Mr. Decker’s life, I would think that he will believe he can trust you,” said Blue Man. “And he can, up to a point.”
“You see our agendas misaligning at some point?” queried Robie.
“I have seen that happen before, so I can’t say it won’t happen now. We simply need to see how it plays out.”
“When do you want us to meet with them?”
“Now,” said Blue Man. “Whatever is being planned up here has a short fuse. I sense we have no time to waste. And it’s not just this prison business. There’s something else going on here that is far worse. A ‘ticking time bomb’ reference does not provide for either restful sleep or dalliance. Now, drive me to the airstrip. I need to get back to DC as quickly as possible. I have many things to arrange and not much time to do so. And then, I have a meeting to attend.”
Reel put the SUV in gear and they drove off.
AMOS DECKER? REX MANNERS. Heard you wanted a line on an AWOL named Ben Purdy.”
Decker had answered the call while sitting in his hotel room the next day.
“That’s right, Rex, thanks for getting back to me. What do you have?”
“A name and an address. Beverly Purdy. She lives in Montana, a few hours from the border with North Dakota, which I understand is where you are now.”
“That’s right.”
Manners gave him the address. “Beverly Purdy is the mom. She’s a widow, and Ben is her only kid. She lives on a farm, raises some crops and cattle. I don’t know if Purdy is there or not, but it seemed like a good place for you to start.”
“I appreciate the assist. Be sure to email me a bill. I can give you my address.”
“Don’t worry about it. PIs do each other favors. You’ll be able to return it one day. Good luck.”
Manners clicked off, and Decker put his phone away. He called Jamison and filled her in. When they Googled the location of Purdy’s farm, they found it was about five hours from London.
“Should we grab Kelly?” asked Jamison.
“I don’t want to involve him in something that might come back to haunt him. There may come a time when we have to tell him, but now is not that time.”
They met up downstairs and drove out of town heading west.
“Did you contact Robie?”
“Not yet. I was going to when the PI called. Let’s check out Purdy and then we can hook up with Robie when we get back.”
The long drive seemed longer than it was because there was nothing to see except landscape that never changed.
“I’ve never been in a car this long without seeing another car,” observed Jamison as she drove along. “And I grew up in Indiana.”
“This is Big Sky country.”
Jamison looked out the window. “You got that right. You don’t get this sort of impression in DC or New York.”
Decker glanced at her wrist, where she had tatted Iron Butterfly. “You said your mother got you onto that band when you were a kid. After they re-formed.”
She smirked. “Wow, good memory.”
“Still listen to their music?”
“I’ve moved on to Janis Joplin, and the Doors.”
He glanced at her hand. “When I first met you, I noticed the slight indentation on your ring finger from when you were married before.”
She glanced sharply at him. “I’ve never known you to make small talk. What gives?”
“Maybe I’m evolving.”
“Okay.”
“You’ve never really spoken about your ex. You just told me you were married for two years and three months, then things went sideways. He wasn’t the man you thought he was and maybe you weren’t the woman he thought you were.”
She frowned. “Sometimes your perfect recall is really irritating.”
“How do you think I feel? So?”
“Nothing to really say about it other than what I already did. Dan was different when we dated. He was all things I liked. After we said our vows and started living together, he became all things I disliked. And maybe I became that way to him. Though I don’t think I ever really changed.”
“Amicable split?”
“We were both too young and I was too naïve. Way too naïve. He . . . he took advantage of that, at least thinking back I see that.”
“Where is he now?”
She shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine.” She glanced at him again with an annoyed look that she finished off with a warm smile. “Right now, I think I liked it better when you had no interest at all in personal matters.”
He held up his hands in mock surrender and then stared out the window. “When I woke up from my coma in the hospital after getting wrecked on that football field, I thought everything was normal. I thought I was still normal. Until it happened.”
“What happened?”
“You know the little monitor on the stand they have to record your vitals?”
“Yeah.”
“When I looked at the numbers there, I was seeing them in all sorts of different colors. At first, I just thought my vision was still funky, or maybe I was just out of sorts. You have to understand that I still didn’t know what had happened to me. But later, when I looked at the clock on the wall, same thing—weird-ass colors. Then I knew I was definitely not the same. And when I had to interact with people, well, it was a brave new world. I’m sure the doctors and nurses were glad to be rid of me. I was a royal pain in the ass. I was somebody else but only in the same body. My way of coping was just to . . . not cope. Just move on as though I’d always been that way.”
“But you seem to understand it a lot better than when we first met. Back then you were really aloof, and impossible to read. And you had absolutely no—”
She stopped and looked nervous.
He glanced at her. “No filter? You’re right. And I’m not that much better now.”
“You don’t walk out of rooms while people are still talking to you nearly as much as you used to,” she said encouragingly.
“I guess progress is measured in baby steps.”
“I know we’ve talked about this before, but what is it really like not to forget anything?”
“My personal cloud, you mean?” he said, tapping his temple. “It’s probably a lot like your memory, only mine’s a little more neatly organized and a lot more accessible than yours. You have it all up there, too, but some memories are so crowded out by others that you can’t reach them anymore. I don’t have that problem.”
“A blessing, and a curse.”
“It is if you have something you’d rather forget, which most of us do.”
“I know it’s hard, Decker.”
He stared out the window at an endless sky, which, to him right now, seemed as big as his personal memory. “Life is hard for everybody, Alex. Anybody who says otherwise has just decided to ignore all the shit that comes with waking up every day and walking out the door.”
She said, “So your way of coping is focusing entirely on your work?”
Decker glanced at her, his features inscrutable. “My way of coping is just finding the truth, Alex. If I can do that, then I can deal with everything else.”