CHAPTER 64
Outside New London, Connecticut
As the bird landed and taxied along some auxiliary runway, I peeked through the portholes to suss out where the hell we were.
Typically, the crew chief gave the person in charge of the passengers a headset to speak with the pilots, but not this time. I looked around at the two crew chiefs standing near the ramp at the aft end of the Chinook.
Both had dark-tinted eyeshades pulled down from their helmets, as well as stupid-looking cartoon-printed face shields covering their mouth and nose—one was The Punisher and the other was an evil clown face.
Each wore the typical olive-green flight suit, with a drop holster strapped to their right thighs.
They looked all business and ready for a fight.
Their aggressive and menacing body language was too cool for school. I immediately disliked them.
No way were these CSTC guys. I’d have given anything to see members of our Falcon, Eagle, or Hawk teams. Instead I was stuck with these two wannabe super alphas. Undoubtedly good at their jobs, but train-wreck personalities.
As the ramp lowered, I saw a couple of black Suburbans parked on the tarmac in front of a hangar.
A few people in suits huddled together, waiting for the blades to stop.
It wasn’t exactly the same feeling I’d gotten on Route Packers back in Iraq, but I had enough of a sixth sense to know that shit was about to go sideways.
We each grabbed one of the many ridiculous Louis Vuitton bags and headed off the ramp toward the gaggle of suits. As I passed Mr. Evil Clown Face, I nodded, smiled, mouthed Fuck you, and walked off the Chinook.
I should have been happy, but I wasn’t.
I should have been grateful that we were off the island and out of harm’s way, but I wasn’t.
I should have been excited that the authorities showed up to help us, but I knew that wasn’t the case.
Everything about this welcoming committee was wrong, and it pissed me off. I wasn’t going to put up with their shit for one second. I could feel the rage starting to boil and my fists beginning to clench. I was gaining emotional momentum as the physical gap between us rapidly closed.
I chose my target—the tallest suit in the group.
In about twenty seconds, he was going to start having a very bad day.
As I dropped the bag I was carrying, I thought I heard someone calling my name, but it didn’t register at first. Then I heard it again a little louder.
Who the fuck would call me Mr. Phillips, anyway?
It was attorney Samuel Starnes, who was standing among the suits and once again doing his job. I caught his eye and knew that he knew. My guardian angel had just spared Tall Suit from a righteous ass-kicking. I regained my composure in a couple of steps and offered my hand instead.
One of the group started giving us the down and dirty. Sam Starnes announced that we were all heading back to Maryland and said something about a debrief back at the clubhouse tomorrow.
The suits surrounded Rowan Anderson. I could hear them pelting her with questions, rapid-fire, giving her the business. Their tone wasn’t super-heated, but I could tell they were ganging up on her and that lit my fuse again.
When one of the tools extended his hand to Rowan, she handed him her pistol. My pistol.
“Hey, asshole, that’s mine!” I yelled as the guy gave me an eat shit grin.
They all stopped and looked at me as I stepped off. The guy knew I was right, and tried hard to save face in front of his buddies.
“Just give me the fucking gun, dude,” I said. It was a classic Fed ball-sniffing move, but I won. He handed me the Sig and I instinctively checked the chamber, made sure the pistol was on safe and turned away.
“Would you hold this for a second, Oliver?” I smiled politely at my friend. Then in one motion I did a one-eighty toward the Fed, cocking my right fist as I spun. Two of his partners tried to step in, but I was faster.
The Fed thought I was going for his face and raised his hands to block me, but I lowered my shoulder and went for the cross-check instead. The Hanson Brothers from Slap Shot would have approved.
I drove my left shoulder into his solar plexus and carried him about two feet into the side of the Suburban.
I don’t know which was louder—the thud of his body hitting the vehicle’s reinforced door or the half-cry, half-moan from this oaf—but it caught everyone off guard.
To my chagrin, the momentary Shock and Awe stunned his buddies for only about a second.
The next thing I knew, I was at the bottom of a 500-pound human dogpile.
But unlike the Team Rhino pile on at the Wilsons’ party, there was no laughing this time.
Samuel Starnes, Esquire, certainly wasn’t. “Enough of this shit,” he spat. “I don’t have the time.”
Starnes was clearly the kind of guy who moved mountains with a look, relegated people to the gulag with a blink, or forced capitulation with a stare. And if he looked at his watch, you were fucked.
It was clear that ignoring his command would be a costly mistake. One by one, we sheepishly extricated ourselves and retreated to our neutral corners.
Rowan gave me a look somewhere between incredulity and sorrow. Before I could explain myself to her, Starnes started barking out orders.
“Gentlemen, please help these Secret Service agents with the luggage so they can be on their way. Mrs. Harrison, if you would be so kind as to hop in this vehicle, these agents will take you to Washington, where your father is waiting. Agent Anderson, you will join them and return to your superiors. They are expecting you. Is that understood?”
It was more of an order than a question. But as before, it was obvious that when Sam Starnes was talking, you just shut your piehole and did whatever the man said.
In a nanosecond, the bags were stowed in the back of the Suburban and the suits were buckled in. Rowan climbed into the back. Though she gave me not so much as a backward glance, the asshole I’d cross-checked sneered at me as he closed his door and they sped away.
Starnes saw him do it. “Arrogant pricks,” he said. “Thirty pounds ago, I would have done what you did—given him what he deserved.”