Chapter 4 - The Dead HandlerAt 11:47 p.m., Colonel Nathan Cole and I were sitting inside a dark SUV three blocks from the address in Alexandria.
Technically, I had agreed to go alone.
Technically, Cole had agreed that I would appear to go alone.
Those were very different things.
“You’re not carrying.”
I looked at him.
“Excuse me?”
“The message said come alone. If they frisk you and find a weapon, we lose whatever advantage we have.”
“I didn’t survive nine years by attending hostile meetings unarmed.”
He held out his hand.
“Claire.”
“No.”
“You have an ankle holster.”
I stared.
“How did you know?”
“I used to do this professionally.”
“So did I.”
“That’s why this conversation is annoying.”
Despite everything, I almost smiled.
Almost.
I removed the compact pistol from the borrowed ankle rig and handed it to him.
He raised an eyebrow.
“The knife too.”
I sighed.
Pulled the narrow blade from inside my coat.
He stared.
“Anything else?”
“Do you want an honest answer?”
“No.”
“Smart.”
I got out.
The address belonged to a shuttered printing warehouse near the river.
Broken windows.
Faded brick.
A loading dock covered in graffiti.
Exactly the sort of place people chose when they wanted no witnesses.
Cole’s team had already established positions around the surrounding blocks.
Nobody would intervene unless I gave the phrase.
Rain in Arlington.
Simple.
Unnatural enough to notice.
I crossed the street.
A side door stood open.
Inside, a single work light illuminated the corridor.
I followed it.
Twenty feet.
Right turn.
Another light.
Someone was controlling the route.
At the end of the hallway stood a large production room.
Abandoned printing presses sat beneath sheets of dust.
In the center was a chair.
David Mercer sat in it.
My knees nearly gave out.
He looked terrible.
Thinner.
Older.
A scar ran from his jaw toward his left ear.
His hands weren’t tied.
That was the first thing I noticed.
The photograph had shown ropes.
Now there were none.
My instincts screamed.
“David.”
His eyes lifted.
For several seconds, he simply stared.
Then he smiled.
“Hello, Blackbird.”
I didn’t move.
“You’re not a prisoner.”
“No.”
“You sent the messages.”
“Some of them.”
The pain of seeing him alive became anger so quickly that it almost made me dizzy.
“You let me believe you were dead.”
“I needed you to believe it.”
“For nine years?”
“Yes.”
I crossed the space between us and slapped him.
The sound cracked through the warehouse.
His head turned.
He didn’t resist.
“Fair,” he said.
I hit him again.
“Also fair.”
I wanted to hit him a third time.
Instead I stepped back.
“You have sixty seconds before I walk out.”
“You won’t.”
“Fifty-eight.”
His smile disappeared.
“The Blackbird program was compromised from inside.”
“I know.”
“You know pieces.”
“Then give me the rest.”
He rose carefully.
He moved like a man carrying old injuries.
“In 2017, we were running an investigation called Meridian.”
The name meant nothing to me.
“That wasn’t in my compartment.”
“Exactly.”
He walked toward an old metal table.
“Meridian started as a financial investigation. Missing reconstruction money. Then weapons began showing up where they shouldn’t.”
“Corruption.”
“Much worse.”
He placed the brass key on the table.
My key.
I stared.
“You broke into my apartment.”
“No.”
“Then how did you get that?”
“Someone else did.”
“The people who blew it up?”
“Yes.”
“And you took the key from them?”
His expression darkened.
“Eventually.”
I understood.
The men who had entered my apartment had not left comfortably.
David continued.
“Meridian uncovered a small network of American officials, contractors, foreign intermediaries and military officers who profited from prolonging instability.”
My stomach tightened.
“Trafficking weapons?”
“Among other things.”
“How high?”
“High enough that when we started identifying names, people died.”
He looked directly at me.
“You were one of them.”
I crossed my arms.
“I’m standing here.”
“Because I changed the report.”
My breathing slowed.
“What?”
“After Harrow, your extraction was compromised. Somebody inside our own system rerouted the rescue team.”
“Who?”
“I didn’t know.”
“But you suspected.”
“Yes.”
He leaned against the table.
“So I declared Blackbird killed.”
I stared.
“You erased me.”
“I saved you.”
“You abandoned me.”
His expression cracked.
Just slightly.
“I know.”
For a moment, neither of us spoke.
Nine years of anger doesn’t disappear because somebody says they had a reason.
“You could have contacted me later.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because we still had a leak.”
“For nine years?”
“Yes.”
I shook my head.
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“It will.”
He pointed toward the key.
“That opens a safe-deposit box.”
“Where?”
“Geneva.”
I laughed bitterly.
“Of course.”
“Inside it is a ledger.”
“What kind?”
“Names. Payments. Dates. Shell corporations.”
“Proof?”
“Enough proof to destroy careers.”
I looked at him.
“And you gave me the key without telling me?”
“You were the only person I trusted.”
“That’s an interesting definition of trust.”
“I needed you to have no idea what you possessed. If someone interrogated you, there was nothing to reveal.”
My mind raced.
“Then why come for it now?”
“Because someone has found the box.”
“How?”
“I don’t know.”
“And they need the physical key?”
“Along with biometric verification.”
My stomach dropped.
“Whose?”
“Yours.”
I stared.
“You used my biometrics?”
“It was the safest option.”
“You made me the lock.”
“Yes.”
Anger returned.
“You had no right.”
“No.”
At least he didn’t pretend otherwise.
A sound came through the building.
Metal.
Soft.
Almost nothing.
My head turned.
David saw it.
“What?”
“We’re not alone.”
He reached toward his jacket.
“Don’t.”
He froze.
I listened.
Footstep.
Second level.
North catwalk.
One person.
Maybe two.
I looked at David.
“Who knew we were meeting?”
“Nobody.”
“That’s never true.”
A shadow moved behind a dusty window above us.
I said clearly:
“It sounds like rain in Arlington.”
David frowned.
Then gunfire exploded.
The overhead light shattered.
I dropped behind the metal table as rounds tore through the warehouse.
David rolled behind a printing press.
Three seconds later, Cole’s team entered from two sides.
“Federal response! Drop your weapon!”
More shots.
Somebody screamed.
I crawled toward David.
“You armed?”
He pulled a pistol.
“You?”
“Cole confiscated everything.”
David almost laughed.
“Still making friends.”
A shooter appeared above us.
I kicked a loose metal rod across the floor, grabbed it, and swung upward as he jumped from the platform.
The rod struck his wrist.
His pistol flew away.
He turned toward me.
Big mistake.
I drove my elbow into his throat.
Then my knee into his abdomen.
He staggered.
I shoved him against the press.
Cole appeared from the darkness and pinned the man.
“Clear!”
Another voice called from the rear.
“Second shooter down!”
I looked at the man Cole held.
Black clothing.
No identification.
But something protruded beneath his collar.
A chain.
A metal tag.
I pulled it free.
My body went cold.
Five numbers.
The same five numbers tattooed beneath the broken wings on my arm.
Cole saw them.
“What is that?”
I stepped back.
“No.”
David stared at the tag.
For the first time since I entered the warehouse, he looked truly afraid.
Cole turned toward him.
“You recognize it.”
David didn’t answer.
Cole grabbed his jacket.
“Who are these people?”
David looked at me.
“We have to leave.”
“Who are they?”
“Claire.”
“Tell me.”
His voice dropped.
“Those numbers weren’t your operation code.”
I touched my forearm.
“What?”
“That’s what we told you.”
“Then what are they?”
David looked toward the captured shooter.
“They’re a membership number.”
My stomach twisted.
“Membership in what?”
He swallowed.
“Meridian.”
The warehouse suddenly seemed too quiet.
I stared at the tattoo I had carried for eleven years.
Eight people had worn the symbol.
I had watched some of them die.
I had believed it represented our unit.
Our sacrifice.
Our loyalty.
David’s next words destroyed everything I believed about it.
“The team that trained you wasn’t hunting Meridian.”
May you like
He looked ashamed.
“They were part of it.”
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