“What are you doing about it?”
He says, “I’m fixing it.”
“You better.”
The caller hangs up.
No matter.
He moves his hands across the desk again.
So smooth and powerful.
CHAPTER 21
CAPTAIN ROSARIA Vasquez is sitting in her government-issued GMC sedan, balancing a cup of Cumberland Farms coffee in one hand while flipping through the service file of Captain Amy Cornwall, reading and reflecting, looking for those little bits of information that will stand out, make her take notice, that little thread she hopes she can pull that will lead to a string out there somewhere, and not just a bit of nothing.
But so far, nothing is what she’s finding.
Born in Maine, joined the Army after high school, finished college in Maine, had a variety of schools and assignments, assigned to an infantry unit, one tour in Iraq, went through the sixty-two-day Ranger school—one of only a few women who managed to pass—and then ended up in military intelligence.
Two tours in Afghanistan—including the last one that resulted in the death of a Taliban prisoner—but otherwise reasonably routine.
Rosaria goes through the file, again and again.
Different schools—one thing about the Army is that if you want to learn, they are ready to offer it to you, one of the reasons she loves her service so—and it all seems routine. Scratch that, Captain Cornwall is a fine officer, with a bright future ahead of her.
So why did she bail out with her husband and kid?
Over the Afghanistan investigation?
Doesn’t make sense.
Nothing she saw of Cornwall in this folder stands out, all her time is accounted for—the different dates, the different schools and assignments. Everything—
Hold on.
She flips through the pages again.
Odd.
Just before her last deployment to Afghanistan, she went on an exchange mission, to Fort Campbell in Kentucky, one of the largest Army bases in CONUS—continental United States.
What kind of mission?
Hard to tell.
Lots of abbreviations and acronyms.
It looks like it was a unit assigned to work with an Air National Guard section that had deployed from Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada.
What was Captain Cornwall doing in Kentucky?
And the biggest question…she was assigned there for six months.
Left after four.
Ahead of schedule.
But why?
She smiles when she sees a familiar name attached to another form.
CAPT. A. MITCHUM.
She closes the folder.
That’s what civvies never, ever understand about military service. You can have friends across the world at various stations and bases, like an archipelago of relationships and friendships. It is odd to be transferred somewhere without having an acquaintance there to welcome you. In a usual time and place, to talk to Captain Aaron Mitchum would take phone calls, emails, appointments, and official paperwork.
But this isn’t a usual time.
She checks her watch, takes out her Galaxy phone, starts flipping through various map and travel apps, sees it would take about twelve hours to drive to Fort Campbell in Kentucky. Too long.
Then air travel it will be, using her government-issued Visa credit card, although the travel vouchers and paperwork will eventually be a pain in the ass before she got reimbursed. But to get from Ronald Reagan International Airport to Nashville…about two hours. Add three hours for additional travel to and from the airports.
Yeah.
She looks again at the smeared photocopy and the name Mitchum. Two years ago they dated briefly while they were both taking a course on logistics, and there was one thing that bonded them, even though he was as white as Wonder bread and straight as a ruler.
Both were orphans who had found a family in the Army, and who would do anything to protect their family.
CHAPTER 22
I’M NOW driving on Interstate 75, heading southwest through Tennessee, about an hour south of Knoxville. The highway is two lanes west and two lanes east, with a wide, grassy median in between and lots of open farmland and wooded hills in the distance. Kentucky is north of me and I’m trying not to think about the last disastrous time I was in the Bluegrass State.
Instead, I’m driving fast and sweet, keeping my speed about five miles above the speed limit, waiting for my burner phone to ring from Washington State and my old friend Freddy. I try not to be impatient. I try not to think of bad things—Freddy having second thoughts, Freddy being in a car accident, Freddy having a sudden aneurysm and keeling over just as she gets the information I need—and keep on driving.
I also try very, very hard not to think of anything bad that might be going on with my beloveds, my Tom, my Denise. A cold, hard kernel inside of me demands attention, demands me to acknowledge that in most kidnappings, the victim or victims are dead after the initial demand, but I’m trying hard to convince myself that it won’t happen here, because my mysterious caller wants to make an exchange, and he knows that I will demand to see Tom and Denise in good shape before presenting him with…with whoever the hell he wants.
That mystery man in remote Texas.
Another bad thought pops into my mind, and I check the burner phone.
Okay.
It’s still on.
I had a bad feeling I had accidentally switched it off or the battery was dead, but no, it’s fine. It’s operating. It’s keeping my presence in the telecommunications world unknown at the present time.
I pass a Walmart truck, think of where the other burner phone has ended up. No matter. And still, I know I’m violating lots of tradecraft by taking this major highway to my destination in Texas. Here I’m vulnerable, I can be tracked—hell, maybe I’m being tracked at this very moment via drones, surveillance cameras, passing vans and trucks that secretly belong to the DoD and are part of the grand, unknown domestic surveillance system.
It’s a trade-off. To keep from view and surveillance, I should be taking secondary roads and state roads all the way to Texas, avoid being out in the open on the interstate.
But that would triple my travel time, and that’s what I don’t have.
Time.
My burner phone rings. I switch on the directional and slowly pull over to the side of the road, and then go into the grassy area running parallel to the pavement. No use being parked close to the side of the highway and having some distracted trucker pancake me and my Jeep into steel, blood, and rubber. There’s a thick grove of trees off to the right.
“Cornwall,” I say.
“Amy…ah crap, hold on for a minute, will you?”
It’s Freddy and I’m eager to learn what she’s discovered—if anything—and what I’ll do about it.
A voice from past training comes to me: Intelligence is intelligence. It’s neither good nor bad. It’s information to be used. That is all. Stop trying to weld feelings on something that is inherently neutral.
Intelligence.
I take a breath. All right, then.
“Amy,” comes Freddy’s voice. “Another minute.”
“Sure.”
I need something to distract me from the roaring traffic going by me and the view of the nearby woods and wide fields. My iPhone is in my hand now. I flick through various prompts and screens, and come to a favorite: Last summer on Virginia Beach. Tom in his black swimming trunks, strongly striding his way back in from the water, standing in front of me, his body an okay body—he can’t get rid of those soft handles around those hips—but it’s his damn smile and eyes that still warm me and tug at me.