workforce. Await my call.”
Keshawn said, “I can’t do that. I’ve already done too much to bring on heat. I have the lease for the warehouse in my name, and I’ve killed three people to keep our secret. We need to push forward now.”
“We can’t blindly tromp forward for a pinprick,” Rafik said. “If you go to jail, you go to jail. It is a sacrifice that must be made for the cause.”
“Bullshit! I’m not going to jail without doing something. If you think—”
Carl cut him off. “I know how to get explosives.”
The comment brought them both up short. He continued, “We only need military-grade explosives? Is that right? Something along the lines of the SEMTEX you were getting?”
Rafik nodded.
“Would C-4 work?”
Rafik knew the EFPs were specifically built with the U.S. plastic explosive Composition C4 in mind. He felt a sliver of hope. “Yes. C-4 would be perfect. Can you buy some? Secretly?”
“No, but just down the road here is a military base called A.P. Hill. It has a huge ASP that stores all sorts of ammunition for the National Capitol Region. All of the military units in D.C. come down here to train.”
“What’s an ASP? And how do you know all of this?”
“Ammunition storage point. It’s just a large area full of bunkers. It’s where units store their ammo for training. They don’t bring it with them back and forth. The ammo stays there, and they come down and use it. I know about it because I used to work on a cleaning crew that did the janitorial services for the post. The only job I could get right out of prison.”
“So how are we few men supposed to get it? Attack the post?”
“Well, yes, in a way. All we need to do is sneak onto the post after the cleaning crew leaves at four P.M., then cut the locks on one of the bunkers. I’ll know which one to hit by the signs outside.”
Rafik wasn’t sure what to make of the information. It seemed too good to be true. Keshawn explained, “Carl did a stint in the Army before prison. His job was ammunition handler. Trust him when he says he knows how that stuff works.”
Rafik slowly nodded. “Okay. How do you propose we get on the post? And deal with the alarms?”
Carl said, “The cleaning crew I worked on was a sort of jobs program for handicapped people. Some mentally retarded, others gimped out some other way. I was let on because I was down-and-out. You didn’t work every day, so as to spread the wealth around. The guards are used to different people coming and going. As for the alarms, every post I worked on had the alarms feeding into the post police station. We need to hit that, then hit the ASP. The alarms won’t matter then. They’re silent.”
“Won’t the theft cause a huge manhunt? We will still need at least three days to train each crew and give them their targets. Maybe longer. That’ll be done in Baltimore, at the warehouse leased by Keshawn. As he said, the exposure’s too great.”
Keshawn said, “I think I can help with that. A friend of mine still in prison in New York can help. I can get there and back by tomorrow morning. A little misdirection that will cause the police to chase a ghost.”
Rafik said, “Why would your friend agree to become a scapegoat? I don’t want to involve anyone else.”
“My friend won’t be the scapegoat. Someone else who fucking deserves it will be.”
60
Jennifer watched the DVD playing in the headrest in front of her but saw nothing on the screen. Her mind was running nonstop through the last few days, wondering if she’d started the corrosive effect on her soul that she’d seen in the men around her. And whether it could be reversed.
She noticed a shadow to her right and looked up to see Pike standing there expectantly. He glanced at the screen.
“
She pulled off her headphones, but he continued before she could say anything. “Can I sit down? Please?”
She nodded.
He settled into the aisle seat and said, “You okay?”
“Yeah. I’m fine. Watching a movie.”
“I could tell. Except the screen you were seeing was somewhere else.”
He rotated in the seat to face her. “Look, I’m sorry I snapped at you at the park. I was under the gun and needed you to perform. Like I knew you could. We really haven’t had a chance to talk about what’s happened over the last few days, and I want to make sure you’re all right.”
“I think I got everything I needed out of the hot wash.”
As usual, once the team had cleared Hungarian airspace, they had conducted a blistering after-action review. In what was starting to be a trend, Pike had been eviscerated yet again, this time for spiking the explosives while they were still under fire. Continuing with the trend, Pike had sloughed it off as “All’s well that ends well,” but she could tell the men were a little aggravated.
As for her, she’d finally been forced to tell how she’d taken down four armed men. How she’d decided to start from the back and work forward to prevent them from realizing they were under fire for the longest possible time. How she’d simply placed the red dot over their ears and squeezed. Making it sound easy, like flipping a light switch. When she began to tremble from the memory, she’d sat on her hands.
She didn’t discuss the fear of the moment. The paralyzing terror of dying. She also failed to mention the slow, dull ache she’d had ever since she’d committed an unspeakable act. Something that would make the next time easier, like a teenager working on his first pack of cigarettes — hacking and hating the first few, but eventually craving the smoke — and that just as the dumb teenager had begun an addictive destruction of his body, she’d begun a destruction of her soul.
She still didn’t understand how she’d done it. How she’d managed to keep shooting under the stress, but that wasn’t part of the hot wash anyway. For their part, the men had said nothing. Made no mention of her trembling. They’d listened in complete silence, staring at her with new eyes that made her uncomfortable. A group of cigarette smokers proud to have another addict.
Pike said, “The hot wash isn’t what I’m talking about. I don’t mean how you performed. I mean how you’re doing. Inside.”
She searched his face for something disingenuous, and saw true compassion. No artifice. He was worried, and not because she was simply a member of the team. He was worried about
She said, “I’m all right… I think.” She hesitated for a moment, wondering if she should let out her fears, then decided to go ahead. She found herself wanting to talk. Needing to talk.
“I’m not all right. I don’t think I’ll ever be all right again.” She reached over and stopped the movie. “I can’t do this. I can’t turn into a killer. I don’t want to. I don’t want to lose my sense of right and wrong. Like… like… those mafia guys.”
Pike caught the slip, and smiled. “You mean like me?”
She smiled back, relieved he hadn’t lost his temper. “Well, yes. Like you and the other guys. You talk about killing as if it’s a game. I don’t want to be that way. I like my sense of morality. I want to keep it. I’ve read about Nazi concentration camp guards and how they slowly turned into monsters. Normal family men who ended up twisted monstrosities. I don’t want to become that.”
“You think that’s what I am?” He waved his hand around the plane. “What they are?”
“No, no, no. I don’t think you are. Yet. But you can’t do this without losing your sense of right and wrong. You just can’t. You showed that in Cairo. I don’t think you’re a bad person. You
And there it was. She’d let it out. Ripped off the Tupperware lid exposing the stench of rotting meat below. She waited to see what Pike would do. He surprised her.
“Remember our talk in Cairo? About the dreams?”
