Firepower, John Cutter [best summer reads .txt] 📗

She gasped and sat bolt upright, staring wildly around. Her hair was mussed, and she was panting softly. “Oh Jesus. I thought I was…”

“You were back in that cell?” Vince asked softly.

“Yes.” She brushed hair out of her eyes. “Fuck this. There any more coffee?”

“In the fridge.”

She got up, wincing at the pain in her shoulders and back, and went stiffly to the minifridge, getting herself a bottle of cold coffee.

“I was captured, in Syria,” he said. “They tortured me. Mostly with electricity. Car batteries. Beatings. They treated me to a waterboarding, too, because, they said, the CIA was doing it.”

“It was.” She opened the coffee and drank a little. “I saw in your file you were captured and tortured. Command advised you not to go back in-country for at least three months. Maybe transfer to the states, work as a trainer. You talked them into letting you stay on the job.”

“I had to wait till I could get a mission in that town. Where I could slip off, after, and take care of those assholes. That way…”

“Catharsis.”

He nodded. “Pretty much.” He gave a dry chuckle. “Helped a little.”

“How’d you get away? It didn’t say. Just that you escaped.”

“Someone was careless. They tied my hands in front of me and turned their back.” He shrugged. “I killed him and four others and headed out.”

“When you went back…”

“Only three of them left from… before. But I took care of them. Just — cut their throats.”

“You didn’t torture them.”

“No one should torture anyone. Not them, not us.”

“I agree.”

“Did it take a long time to get past it?”

“I… would like to tell you I got completely past it. That’s not true though. I can say it got better. But I still have the nightmares sometimes. I’m sorry it happened to you.”

“Yeah, well, me too. But — half the refugees to the USA have been tortured. It’s not like I’m alone. Thanks to you, it was over faster for me than a lot of others. That’s twice I have something to thank you for, Vince.”

“You’d do the same for me,” he said. “For anyone.”

She nodded. “I would.”

“You ready for today?”

“No. But I’ll be there. In that seat, piloting this heli.”

“It probably will be a bridge too far in your career, Deirdre.”

“I know.” She looked around. “Is that a head?”

“Yep. There’s a restroom in this thing. Big ol’ luxury choppers, what can you say.”

“Cool.”

She went to the door of the little toilet and sink booth, like something in a 747, and he looked again at the GPS screen…

*

Shortly before nine that overcast morning, Mac Colls pulled the big dark-blue Buick up in the alley, parking next to a dumpster, behind Flesky’s green Chevy Malibu. Flesky popped the trunk.

“We’re running a little late,” Mac said, turning off the engine and getting out. The alley smelled of last night’s Chinese food leavings. “Come on, let’s do this. Get the kid out and ready.”

They were in an alley a block from Central Police Station 305, in the Third District of Washington D.C. There was room here to operate — it had all been scouted out. The spot was a wide place in the alley behind a Chinese restaurant and a small weight-lifting gym. The alley ran between two side streets.

“Get out, kid, and stay close,” Buster said.

“I’m not a kid,” Shaun said, opening the door. Except for asking for a piss break, it was the first thing he’d said since the drive from Ostrovsky House. They got out, Buster leveling the gun at Shaun across the top of the car. “Get to the front of the car, slow,” Buster said. “Ain’t no one around to see me shoot you, so don’t make me do it.”

“This whole thing is a lie,” Shaun said, walking to the front of the car. “The vest is real and you guys aren’t. You’re just liars. You probably don’t even believe half of Gustafson’s bullshit. You just want to feel important.”

“You get that from Bobby Destry?” Mac said, chuckling, as Shaun came to the open trunk of the Chevy. “You know what happened to him? He’s dead. We executed him.”

“I don’t believe anything you say, except,” Shaun’s voice was flat, almost monotone, but he was breathing hard and his fists were clenched, “I do believe you’d shoot me.” He turned to look at Buster coming over with gun in hand. “Because you’re the kind of guys who shoot people in the back.”

“Okay, so you’re not only a deserter,” Buster said, “you’re a traitor. You talk like a traitor to your people. Infected by the lies of the Jew agents.”

Flesky, a gangly Russian with a bald head and a full blond beard, was taking the heavy explosive vest from the trunk. “Ve be so keer-ful vis zis.” He had an atrocious accent. Another fucking immigrant, white or not, in Mac’s view.

Then Buster said, “Who’s that?” He nodded toward the west end of the alley, where a black sedan, probably a Crown Victoria, was pulling up in the street, blocking the alley egress. “That our people?” he asked nervously.

The car sat there. A man in dark glasses watched them — then drove on.

Mac’s mouth had gone dry. “Nah, that’s not us. But — it’s nothing. Must’ve been sitting in traffic for a minute. Let’s get the vest on him.”

Buster was still looking toward the egress of the alley, frowning — and Shaun Adler saw his chance. He bolted toward the street, running past Mac — who stuck his boot out, catching Shaun’s back foot. The young man went sprawling, cursing to himself. Then he scrambled to his feet — but Mac grabbed him, spun him around, and punched him glancingly in the jaw.

“Ow — fuck!” Shaun blurted, staggering back against the