Rend, p.18
Rend, page 18
Oh well. He was done, officially, with the FBI. Those dickheads could kiss off for all he cared… Except that, Allyson worked for them. Why are things so difficult? he asked himself as he stretched his hands over his head to lengthen his tortured abdominal muscles. He saw the housewife’s face peek around her perfectly placed curtains in the dining room and it made him grin again. Even for an old guy, he still had it.
He went inside and checked his phone to see if Allyson had called, but there were no missed calls, so he scrolled through his contact list until he found the number for his shrink. It had been over a month since he talked to her and things had definitely changed in his head about his outlook for the future. Even if he never heard from Allyson again, he believed that he had it in himself to find someone and settle down now.
He pictured his shrink saying something like, “And that’s what we call growth.” He shook his head and laughed at the thought that he, Asher Hawke, could change after forty-nine years of being who he was.
He’d seen the incremental steps away from his former life, maybe the mission in DC had been what he needed to finally sever the bonds that the Company may have still had on him. After he was relieved in the field, there was no way they’d come back to him now. The realization hit him like a ton of bricks. He hadn’t thought of the second- and third-order effects of what had happened.
He was actually free. Free from the ever-present potential recall to service. Free to do as he pleased. Free to go where he wanted. Most of all, he was free to fully commit himself to someone in a normal, healthy relationship.
He made the appointment with the psychologist for later in the afternoon and then went to the bathroom to shower and get ready to face his new existence.
INTERLUDE
05 May, 0612 hrs local
Jake Jones’ Residence
Near Kennedyville, Maryland
Agent Campbell checked the safety on his M-4 again as the sedan travelled slowly down the gravel driveway so it wouldn’t make too much noise and alert the occupants that someone was approaching their home. The target building was a simple brick home estimated to be approximately 1,300 square feet with a large outbuilding capable of storing a tractor. The warrant stated that they were authorized to conduct a search of the residence of Jake Jones, a freelance journalist who often went on worldwide news assignments according to the townspeople nearby—although the Bureau’s analysts had discovered that most of the photos he used in his articles were stolen from other photographers.
This was the fourth home in as many days that Campbell’s Hostage Rescue Team was tasked to hit. After they’d secured the remaining documents in Washington, the Bureau had focused on the kidnapping and artwork theft. Agents paid special attention to the “seams” as Hawke had called them. There were several locations that met the definition of a seam, especially where The Wall met the water and there were underlaps in military coverage. They’d gone back and studied satellite imagery over the years and in several instances, there’d been a dark vehicle of some type near the same place on The Wall over on the Eastern Shore of Maryland.
A little more digging into the people of the area revealed several potential targets, but so far they’d come up empty. Campbell got the sense from the Bureau’s lawyers that if they didn’t find anything on this raid, then the judge was going to stop granting these exploratory warrants until there was rock-solid evidence against the suspects. They’d discovered a few pot plants at the second home and handed the homeowner over to the local sheriff, but they’d come up dry on the kidnapping case.
Campbell stepped out of the car and tightened up the side straps on his ballistic vest. He mentally shook his head in amazement when the unbidden thought appeared that said he’d rather be going after zombies since they couldn’t shoot back. The earpiece came to life as the members of his team checked in. As the team leader, it was his job to coordinate the team’s movement and try to avoid getting himself mixed up in the actual breach so he stood back while they prepped for entry.
He scanned the house skeptically. Sure, the guy was a sleazeball with no journalistic integrity, but why did the Bureau think he should be on the short list of suspects? He’d done a tour in the Army, even spent time on The Wall, but there really wasn’t much on the guy after that. His neighbors said that he kept some strange hours, but that certainly didn’t damn someone, especially a journalist with deadlines that didn’t revolve around a nine-to-five schedule.
“This is Baker Two. I’m in position at the back door,” the radio announced.
“Got it, Baker Two,” Campbell replied. He peered through the morning’s dim light at the four-man stack lined up along the front of the house to breach the door. “I have a visual on Baker Three at the front door.”
“Roger. Already checked for explosives residue on the door, we’ve got nothing,” Baker Three answered. “We’re ready to go when you give us the word, boss.”
He checked his memory for anything that they might have missed. Jake Jones was unmarried, lived alone in the small two bedroom home, didn’t own any registered firearms and hadn’t received any specialized explosives or special operations training in the military. This should be a simple search of the home and outbuilding, as listed in the search warrant. Shit! he’d forgotten about securing the outbuilding while they searched the house.
“Hey, Eddie,” he said to the Sheriff. “Can you have a couple of your guys go secure the outbuilding while we search the house? Don’t let them enter it though. The judge’s warrant only covers the Bureau.”
“It’s not my first day on the job, Caleb,” the sheriff replied. “Yeah, we can secure it for you—and we won’t enter the building.”
He nodded his thanks and once the deputies had surrounded the outbuilding he clicked on his radio. “Baker Three, this is Baker One. We’re a go.”
Campbell watched as the section leader from Baker Three reached around the doorframe and knocked firmly on the door. He shouted, “FBI. Open the door!”
“There’s movement in the house,” the agent monitoring the directional sound microphone stated.
“Movement in the house,” Campbell relayed.
A muffled voice shouted from inside, “Who is it?”
“FBI, open the door!” Baker Three repeated.
“What do you want?” the voice asked.
“We have a warrant to search this property. Open the—”
Gunfire rang out, cutting the officer off and four holes punched outward in the center of the door where Baker Three would have been standing if he’d simply knocked on the door instead of reaching around the frame.
“Fuck! Breach! Breach! Breach!” Campbell bellowed into his microphone.
The fourth man in the stack ran around his comrades and slammed a heavy breaching tool into the door’s edge where the deadbolt should have been. He dropped the ram and continued on to the safety of the brick wall opposite the rest of his team as the door splintered and flew inward.
Baker Three pulled the pins on two flashbang grenades and tossed them hard into the room around the edge of the door. He turned around to shield himself from the concussion and as soon as the grenades went off, Campbell saw the HRT stack enter the home. From where he stood, he could hear the team shouting “Clear!” from the front room.
Where’s the shooter? his mind screamed at him with no answer. He knew better than to interrupt the team as they cleared the home, so he ran over to the shelter of a large tree that was ten feet closer to the action, but still far enough away that he could maintain control over the entire operation. He wanted to be in the room clearing it with his men, but as agents promoted within the Bureau, they moved further and further away from the tactical side of the job.
“This is Baker Three. Front room is clear. Preparing to enter the kitchen.”
“Acknowledged.”
Another loud shockwave emanated from the home as the HRT employed more stun grenades to flush out the shooter. Three shots rang out and then several more.
After a tense moment of shouting from inside the house, his radio crackled. “Baker Three is down! Repeat, Baker Three is down!”
“Fuck!” Campbell screamed in frustration. “Eddie, call the paramedics up here! We’ve got an agent down inside.”
“Will do,” the old sheriff replied and leaned into his car to pick up the radio microphone that would bring the ambulance down the long driveway from the street.
More shots rang out from inside the home and then two reports came from the general direction of the home, but not from the inside. What the fuck is going on! his mind asked frantically.
“This is Baker Two. We have subdued the suspect.”
Baker Two was at the kitchen door to grab the suspect if he ran. They must have seized the opportunity and shot into the house from the outside. It was risky since the rest of the team would have been roughly along their gun-target line, but it must have worked.
He temporarily forgot protocol and jogged up to the house. When he got there, two team members were performing CPR on a prone agent and another lay forgotten near the doorway from the front room into the kitchen. Beyond the door in the kitchen, he could see Baker Two handcuffing a bleeding man in a white t-shirt and underwear. He had two entry wounds near the center of his chest that oozed blood slowly. He’s a goner.
Campbell knew that his men had the medical situation in hand and ran to the agent lying in the doorway. It was Baker Three, Brendan Willoughby. The entire front of his face caved in where a bullet had smashed into it. He pressed two fingers against Brendan’s jugular, but there wasn’t a pulse. The bullets had likely exploded into his brain and killed him instantly.
He idly wiped the blood from his fingers into the carpet when a loud banging noise echoed throughout the home. He whirled toward the sound with his rifle pulled up tight against his shoulder. “Did you clear the rest of the house?” he shouted.
“Uh, no sir. We started trying to help Willoughby,” one of the men said behind him.
“Fuck! One of you, come with me,” Campbell ordered.
He waited until he got the appropriate tap on his shoulder indicating that the other agent was at his back. He cursed under his breath and made sure to file it away in his mind that these two men needed retraining on clearing procedures. You cleared the home, then provided buddy aid.
The banging continued from the left-hand bedroom until he stood beside the doorframe, similar to what Baker Three had done out front. “This is the FBI. Who’s in there?” Campbell shouted through the door.
The banging stopped and a female voice answered, “My name is Katie… I’ve been here for a long time.”
Campbell dropped his rifle on its sling and unlocked the doorknob from the outside. The door pushed in a few inches, but a locked hasp kept it from opening wider than a couple of inches. “Hold on Katie, we’re going to get some bolt cutters and cut the lock.”
“Mmm, okay,” she replied. “I heard a lot of shooting. Is Jonesy alright?”
Caleb looked over his shoulder at where the paramedics were working on both Jones and the agent. They had a bag on Jones, pumping air into him while another EMT brought a spine board to slide under him. “Is Jonesy the man who lived here?”
“Yes,” Kate answered in exasperation. “Is he okay?”
“He’s been shot, but he’s going to make it,” he lied.
“Oh my God! I’ve got to get out of here and see him. Jonesy! Jonesy! I love you, baby! Jonesy!” she screamed and began pounding on the door again.
Campbell looked over at the other agent who’d come with him and mouthed What the fuck? Miller just shrugged and held up the bolt cutters.
“Hey, Katie… Katie, I need you to stop hitting the door. We’ve got the bolt cutters and I can cut the lock, but I need you to step away from the door. Okay?”
“Yeah, okay. Come on, man. Hurry up!” she pleaded.
He twisted the lock toward him and slid the blades over the steel before he flexed his muscles, squeezing the handles. The lock popped off with no problems and Katie jerked the door open. She tried to push past Campbell, but he grabbed her. “Katie. Katie, look at me,” he said.
She continued to fight him until she realized that he was much stronger than she was and she relaxed and looked at him. “What?” she shouted into his face.
His eyes widened in recognition. Katie was the actress who’d disappeared last year. There’d been all sorts of speculation in the media about what happened and the Bureau had even said that there was a strong possibility that she was one of the victims that the mafia kidnapped and then deposited behind The Wall, but Campbell had never expected to be face-to-face with the award-winning actress.
“Miss Belington?”
She stared hard at the FBI agent and then threw her hands up to her head, pulling down hard on the hair at her temples. “It’s just Katie,” she screeched. “Where’s Jonesy?”
The actress struggled against Campbell briefly until he let her go and she stumbled into the kitchen. She screamed out in shock at the sight of all the blood and collapsed to her knees beside Jones.
“Oh my God, Jonesy. Oh my God, what did they do to you?” she wailed.
Campbell looked over at Miller and said, “Call psych now. She’s fucking lost it and we’ve got to get her talking to someone.”
Miller nodded and trotted out of the house. Campbell risked a quick glance into the bedroom and saw a simple mattress on the floor, a box of crayons and some paper. The only other thing visible in the room was a flimsy rubber laundry basket with clothing folded neatly inside it. The bastard had kept her locked away in a room with nothing that she could use as a weapon; it was Spartan living at its best. He couldn’t even imagine what it must have been like for her here.
He walked slowly toward the kitchen where Katie held Jones’s hand sobbing. Stockholm syndrome, cut and dry, Caleb thought. He remembered back to his training for HRT, the FBI psychologists estimated about eight percent of kidnapping victims developed Stockholm syndrome in some form or another. Katie seemed to be displaying an extreme case, but the sooner he could get her away from Jones and talking to someone qualified, the sooner she’d be able to cope with what had happened to her.
“Katie, the paramedics need to take Jonesy to the hospital. If they don’t take him soon, he might get hurt more.”
“Are you going to hurt him?” she asked and spread herself wide in front of the suspect.
“No, of course not,” he said. Don’t place blame, he thought as he remembered what the instructor had said about people experiencing this phenomenon. “He has to ride in the ambulance to see the doctor. The paramedics have done everything they can do without an operating room.”
She nodded and then clutched her stomach and cried out in pain. “Oh, God. My baby! Something’s wrong with my baby!”
“Shit. Hey guys, we need to take Katie to the doctor now!” he shouted to the paramedics who were zipping Brendan’s body into a biohazard bag.
He walked slowly over to the young woman and crouched down beside her. “Katie… Are you pregnant?” he asked hesitantly.
“Yes, you stupid fuck! Why the fuck wouldn’t I be pregnant, we had sex three or four times a day!”
“Um, okay Katie. We’re going to take you to the hospital and the doctor will check you out. I love children; they’re so special and say the funniest things. How far along are you?”
“I… I don’t know,” she looked bewildered and then focused on Caleb’s eyes. “I’m sorry that I called you a stupid F-U-C-K,” she whispered as she spelled out the word.
“It’s okay, Katie. I’ve been called a lot of things in my career,” he replied.
“What… What month is it?” she asked tentatively.
“It’s May.”
“How long have I been here?”
He hesitated for a moment and then replied, “You’ve been here about a year.”
“A year?” she repeated flatly. Caleb watched the emotions war with each other across her face while the paramedics lifted the unconscious suspect from the ground behind her. Finally, sorrow won and she broke down sobbing. He reached out tentatively and placed a comforting arm around her shoulder.
She buried her head in his armpit and cried uncontrollably. He began to get uncomfortable as the other agents and deputies stopped what they were doing to see what the commotion was. Finally, Miller tapped him on the shoulder and mouthed The shrink is on the way here.
He nodded his thanks and gently pulled the actress’ face from his shoulder. “Katie, let’s go to the hospital. After the doctors make sure you and the baby are okay, there’s someone there who would like to talk to you.”
She wiped at her cheeks to get the tears away and screwed her fists into her eyes to stop any more from coming. “Alright,” she replied. “Can… Can you take me? I don’t want to go with the paramedics in an ambulance. I think… I think that may be too much for me to deal with right now, y’know?”
Campbell thought about his responsibilities here on site. He had one dead agent, another critically wounded, a wounded suspect already on the way to the hospital, site exploitation that they hadn’t even begun—including the shed out back—and to top it off, he hadn’t reported any of it yet. Abandoning the site to take Katie to the hospital wasn’t against any type of protocol since as a kidnapping victim, she was ultimately the reason the FBI was here, but it wasn’t something that would normally happen.
“Yeah, I can take you to the hospital,” he said. He pulled out his cell phone, “I’ve got to make a few calls to have someone else come out and take over here, though.”
He started to get up and she clutched at his hand, “Don’t leave me!” she screeched causing everyone to look their way again.
“Why don’t we go sit in my car while I make these phone calls? That way we’re not sitting on the floor anymore.”
She looked around the small house and then her eyes stayed on the cabinet to the left of the sink. Katie pointed like a frightened child toward it and said, “I know how he did it. He told me everything.”
