CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Faith was so emotionally overcome by the past few days that when Michael relayed the news to her, she didn’t react at first. She only nodded and replied with a numb, “Okay.”
“He’s going to be fine. He’s beaten to shit, but nothing’s permanent.
No bones broken, which is a damned miracle.
It seems his worst injury is a mild disc herniation in his neck, probably from when he unclipped his seatbelt and fell to the ground.
He’s at the VHC Health Center in Arlington.
I’m staying with him, and his two guards are on their way back now. ”
Faith frowned, and a mild frustration rippled through her that would probably have been searing anger if she wasn’t so overwhelmed. “Where were they?”
Now there was no mistaking the anger that coursed through Faith. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She was definitely not going to be easy on her idiot husband. “Okay. I’ll be home in four hours or so. Well, I’ll be at the hospital. You know what I mean.”
She and Jessica were at their gate in Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport waiting to board their flight back to Washington, D.C.
They had given their report to the various local agencies involved in the animal shelter case as soon as Caldwell was taken into custody, then packed up and headed to the airport right away.
Faith wanted to get home to David as soon as possible, and now that she heard what happened over at the base annex, she was glad she’d made that decision.
David had gone and gotten himself obsessed and nearly killed. She couldn’t leave him by himself.
“Take your time,” Michael said. “He’s safe for now.”
Faith could think of a thousand ways the CIA could kill David in the hospital.
They could have a nurse poison his IV. A cafeteria worker could slip something into his food.
An assassin could shoot him through his room’s window.
A hitman could just walk into his room and smother him with a pillow.
Maybe Michael could stop the last possibility, but not the others.
This was the damned CIA they were dealing with.
David had fallen neck deep into quicksand and dragged everyone else with him. All for a working dog he’d seen twice.
What if it was Turk?
Faith looked at her dog, who stared up at her with his big, brown, compassionate eyes. She smiled softly at him. “You’re daddy’s very brave, Turk. Even if he is an idiot.”
“Can’t say I’m not a little impressed,” Michael agreed. “He’s got some spine. Miraculously still in one piece too.”
Faith laughed. “Thank you, Michael. It means so much to me that you helped him. I owe you big time.”
“You owe me so much that you might as well just make everything out to me in your will. That still won’t be enough. But I guess you’re my friend, and I love you, and all that shit. See you soon, okay?”
“Okay.” Her smile faded a little. “How’s Ellie?”
“In the dark at the moment,” Michael replied, “but I’m going to call her after you hang up and bring her to speed. I’ll let you know how she is after that.”
Faith took a deep breath and formed an O with her mouth before softly releasing it. “Yeah. Okay.”
“It’ll be okay,” Michael reassured her again. “Just get back home, and we’ll figure out where to go from here.”
“Yeah. Sounds good. I’ll text you when I land.”
She hung up, and Jessica immediately said what Faith knew she was going to say. “I’m going with you.”
“You can’t. This is going to be a career-ender, Jessica. Maybe worse than that.”
“Go to hell,” Jessica replied. “I’m going with you.”
Faith raised an eyebrow. “To hell?”
“Sure. Why not? I hear the hot springs there are to die for.”
Faith burst into laughter. She pressed a hand to her face, and her lips trembled as her laughter threatened to turn to sobs.
Jessica wrapped her arms around her and pulled her close, saying nothing.
Turk pressed his body to her and looked up with his perfect eyes, strong and loyal and kind.
Faith let the embrace happen, thanking God for good friends.
And praying that the hell she had dragged them into wouldn’t consume them.
***
“Jesus,” Faith whispered, “God damn.”
She, Michael, and Jessica were eating a very late dinner—or at this point a very early breakfast—and drinking unhealthy amounts of coffee in the hospital cafeteria.
Rogers, Hammerton, and Turk was upstairs in David’s hospital room.
He was asleep thanks to heavy sedation by the hospital, not quite a medically induced coma but close.
His injuries weren’t life-threatening, but there was enough damage that the hospital wanted him asleep for at least the next twenty-four hours to give his body time to catch up.
Faith and Jessica were staring blankly ahead while Michael gave them time to process the story he’d just told.
“And you’re sure he’s dead?” Faith asked.
“Yeah. He wasn’t breathing when I carried David to the car.”
Faith lifted her coffee cup to her mouth as she considered the implications of this.
She didn’t feel guilty for the man’s death.
He was a CIA agent and a government employee who was no doubt only following orders, but his orders were to kill her husband to keep him from exposing an illegal CIA operation that tortured dogs to turn them into…
“This mind-control thing is real?” Jessica asked.
“Well, they sure seem to think it is,” Michael replied. “They seem to have latched onto some research by a guy named Martin Ramsey that suggests that dogs are telepathically sensitive and that the right combination of drugs and conditioning can unlock that ability.”
Faith and Jessica both stiffened at the mention of that name.
Dr. Martin Ramsey was an animal behaviorist they had both suspected of murdering psychologists in Miami.
He had not only believed in the possibility of telepathy with dogs but also believed that he could communicate with dogs himself.
He claimed to have spoken telepathically with his own dog and with Turk.
Faith had just written him off as a crackpot, but now…
Well, now he was still a crackpot. It was ludicrous that the CIA actually believed his bullshit. But then again, this was the organization that thought pumping people full of LSD would let them spy on Russia from the other side of the world and kill enemy agents with their minds.
“So, Ramsey’s working with them?” Faith asked.
“No,” Michael replied. “He was found dead in his home a few weeks ago. It was ruled a suicide.” He smiled thinly. “It was ruled a suicide.”
“So, they killed him,” Jessica said.
“I leave you to draw your own conclusions,” Michael replied, “but I conclude that yes, they did.”
Faith took a shuddering breath and bit her lip hard so she didn’t cry.
The CIA had killed a man who wasn’t investigating them.
Or maybe he was. Faith didn’t know. The point was that they were definitely willing to go that far.
They had succeeded in killing Ramsey, and if Michael hadn’t shown up in the nick of time, they would have succeeded in killing David too.
“Shit,” she whispered, rubbing her forehead. “Shit.”
Jessica leaned back in her chair, shaking her head. “Jesus. The fucking CIA. Why?”
“Who knows why they do anything? There’s a reason they’re called spooks. They don’t think like normal people. I guarantee this dog project is only one of dozens of things they have going on that would make the rest of us scream in horror.”
“But why?” Faith asked. “Why telepathically control animals? What do we gain from that?”
Michael smiled again, but his eyes were hard. “I stopped asking myself why when I walked into a shed in Salinas and found the bodies of nineteen headless women hung on hooks so the meat could ‘season’.”
Faith remembered that case. It was when she was still in training.
The killer was known as the Butcher of Monterey, and he’d led the FBI on a merry chase for several months before Michael found receipts from a convenience store in Salinas and suggested that the Butcher of Monterey might actually be from that town.
“Yeah, but… this is the CIA,” Jessica exclaimed. “They’re the good guys.”
“They pledge allegiance to the same flag,” Michael replied. “Doesn’t necessarily mean they’re good.”
Faith took a deep breath and straightened.
“Philosophy aside, we have to decide what we’re going to do.
Michael killed a CIA agent. It’s probably going to look to them like David killed him.
There won’t be any more warnings. We’re officially at war with the most powerful intelligence agency on Earth.
” She looked at Jessica. “This is your chance to back away. What comes next is going to be very dangerous and will probably result in the deaths of all of us involved.”
Jessica’s eyes flitted back and forth between Faith and Michael. Both FBI veterans wore identical serious expressions. She swallowed and said, “Well, fuck it. In for a penny, in for a pound.” When Faith started to protest, she said, “Oh, shut up, Faith, I’ve made my choice.”
Michael grinned and hooked a thumb at the younger woman. “I like her.”
Jessica blushed, and Faith realized that her new partner found her old partner attractive. She hoped the heartbreak of finding out about Michael’s wife wouldn’t be too much for Jessica to handle.
Congratulations, Special Agent. You’ve officially identified the least of your worries.
“Step one is getting you guys to safety,” Michael said. “I’m going to call some friends of mine and get you set up in a safehouse. Jessica, if you’re involved in this, that means you too.”
“What about you and Ellie?” Faith asked. “You guys can’t be out in the open either.”
“I still have a field office to run,” Michael reminded her.
“I’ll find a safe place to hole up, but it’s going to have to be in Philly.
Which brings me to my next point: I’m also in for a penny, in for a dollarbuck, but I can’t stay in Quantico indefinitely.
We need to systemize our communication so we can share data with each other. That’ll be step two.
“Step three is going to be planning this investigation in earnest. This is very much not the same thing as investigating a serial killer. There are aspects to this that will affect how we can proceed. I’m going to ask very nicely—read, demand—that you guys don’t move forward until I tell you to. And you’ll have to let me take lead.”
Faith blinked. “Wow. Not that I’m complaining, but… you sound like you’ve done this before.”
“Not exactly this, but… well, let’s just say that Philly got real fun after you left. I’ll tell you the whole story later. Right now, we’re going to make sure you three have a place to stay where the CIA can’t easily get to you.”
He drank from his coffee cup, gulping the brew down until the cup was empty.
Faith noticed Jessica’s eyes travel up and down his bulky but muscular frame.
She must have heard the “and Ellie” part of Faith’s earlier question, but she supposed there was no harm in looking.
Besides, she imagined they would have bigger things to address than Jessica’s burgeoning crush.
“You’ll notice that I said, ‘easily,” Michael said.
“This is the CIA. Every crazy thing you’ve heard about them is less crazy than the truth.
It’s not a matter of if they can get to us.
It’s a matter of if they believe the cost of getting to us is worth the reward.
Sneak peek at what our tactics are going to be: the goal is to make them believe the cost is not worth the reward.
We’re basically going to make them give up.
Think North Vietnam versus the US. Annoying example, I know, and marginally traitorous, but it gets the point across.
Don’t think of this as bringing people to justice, think of this as making the CIA’s goals too expensive.
That might mean not bringing people to justice and contenting ourselves with the cessation of the 93rd’s program.
“Anyway, I think that’s all we can talk about right now. I’m going to get some shuteye. I have a room in the hotel across the way. There are vacancies if you guys want a room, but I figure Faith is going to want to stay with David.”
“Yes,” Faith agreed.
“I’ll probably grab a room,” Jessica said. Her eyes flickered to Michael again, but she pulled them away and looked down. “I’ll see if Rogers and Hammerton want to join me. At the hotel, not the same room.” She cleared her throat and looked at Michael. “Is your wife going to come down?”
She reddened, but Faith got the feeling she wasn’t trying to hit on Michael, just to remind herself that Michael wasn’t available. Poor kid. Maybe when this was over, Faith would try to find her a date.
“I’m going to try to convince her,” Michael replied, “but she’s stubborn. The whole thing with… Anyway, she’s stubborn. I might have Chavez stay over, I don’t know.”
He had stopped himself just before mentioning in front of Jessica that Ellie was Franklin West’s ex-wife. It was a secret that few knew and one that Ellie preferred to keep from becoming public knowledge.
It also meant that Ellie was a lot tougher than she seemed. They all were. Faith understood that they were facing a different kind of enemy than anything they’d ever encountered before, but that didn’t mean they were helpless.
She got to her feet. “I’ll see you both later. Michael, thank you again. Jessica, you too. It’s nice to have people I can rely on when the whole world’s going to hell.”
“Like I said,” Jessica replied. “Great hot springs.”
Michael blinked. “What?”
“I’ll tell you later,” Faith said. “Good night.”
She headed to the elevator that would take her to the third floor where David recovered from his brave, foolish, noble quest to save abused dogs from a cruel organization that saw them as nothing more than experiments. Faith would make sure that her husband succeeded in his quest.
They might be facing a threat unlike any they’d ever encountered, but so was the CIA. They would learn quickly that torturing animals to test some crackpot pseudoscience wasn’t at all worth the price they would pay.
And the people who had tried to murder her husband would face justice for their crimes. Faith would make sure of it.