“How long?” Nathan asked.
“Three hours on the button. I took your phone. Henning called about an hour ago, said the Lear will be here by twenty-three hundred. He wants you to call him back.”
“You get the logs from the Castle?”
“Yep, and it seems Ernie had a frequent visitor, besides his brother Leonard. His ex-wife from Pensacola when he was a drill instructor at the naval air station. Her name’s Amber Mills Sheldon. It’s worth pursuing.”
“Definitely. You get an address? Phone number?”
“Just what she wrote in the log, but it’s old. Our guys are checking it out. We should see if she’s in the NCIC database. If she is, we’ll get the most current info.”
“I’ll ask Henning to run her. Anybody else visit him?”
“Not a soul.”
“Why am I not surprised. Did Thorny get you anything on Leonard’s Gulf contacts yet?”
“I don’t expect to hear from him until tomorrow morning.”
“I should be back from the Castle by midday.”
“With a little luck, we’ll have a starting place to hunt these guys down.”
“Agreed.” Nathan’s cell bleeped to life from a restricted number. “Hello?”
“Nathan?”
“Dad,” Nathan said. Harv gestured, asking if he should leave the room. Nathan shook his head.
“Am I calling at a bad time?”
“You’re working late tonight.”
“Goes with the territory. We need to talk.”
Nathan said nothing.
“I hear you’ve been busy out there.”
Was this an attempt at a thank-you? “Yes, I have. We have, Harv and me.”
“You saved a bunch of lives with that warning shot you fired at the compound. I’m glad you were there.”
“Frank Ortega asked us keep an eye on things.”
“I know, he told me. He also told me you want to speak to Director Lansing.”
“I’ve already spoken with him.” But you already know that, he silently added.
“May I ask what you talked about?”
“Harv and I are going after the Bridgestones.”
“I see.”
“Before murdering twenty-one federal employees today, they beat James Ortega to a bloody pulp, cut six of his fingers off, and then burned him alive.” Nathan waited through an uncomfortable silence. “You still there?”
“Yes, I’m here.”
“Frank didn’t tell you that part?”
“No, Nathan, he didn’t tell me that part, and I didn’t ask.”
More silence. He knew his father was wondering why he hadn’t been told. In Washington, information was power. “Look, these guys have to be found and interrogated. You want every ounce of that Semtex accounted for, don’t you? Especially after today?”
“The FBI has its own people for that. They don’t need you.”
Nathan sighed.
“You need to back off and let the FBI handle things from here. I can’t-”
“You can’t what?”
“All right. I can’t protect you if you continue down this road of vengeance.”
“It’s not vengeance and I don’t need your protection.”
“You’re not in the CIA working on foreign soil anymore. This is the United States of America. You can’t just grab people off the street and interrogate them.”
“Watch me.”
“Damn it, Nathan. This isn’t Nazi Germany. Your brutal methods are illegal and insidious. Let it go. This isn’t your fight.”
“The hell it isn’t. One way or the other, the Bridgestones are going down. If the FBI finds them before I do, that’s fine with me. So you called to warn me off, is that it?”
“If you persist with this manhunt of yours, you could go to prison and I won’t be able to help you.”
“Like you helped me in Nicaragua?”
“That’s a hateful thing to say. I had no idea where you were being… held.”
“You can say it, Dad. It’s just a word. Tortured. You had no idea where I was being tortured. For three weeks.”
“They… I couldn’t find you.”
“Oh? Harv found me.”
No response.
“And guess how he did it? He grabbed people off the street and interrogated-”
“I know how he did it,” Stone interrupted.
“Yeah, well, there’s a big difference between you and Frank Ortega. Frank Ortega did everything possible to find his missing grandson, even bend the precious Constitutional rights of a couple of shit birds in the process. I don’t need you to lecture me on violating human rights, I’ve had firsthand experience with it.”
“Clearly it was a mistake to call.”
“Clearly. One last thing. I debated telling you, but what the hell. The Bridgestones know I was the shooter who killed their little brother. They also know you’re my father. That makes us both targets. So you watch yourself, Senator, because clearly, this isn’t over.”
Nathan ended the call and hurled his cell onto the bed. He closed his eyes, slowed his breathing, and tilted his head back. He was vaguely aware of Harv shifting his weight in the chair near the window. After a good minute of silence, Nathan said, “I guess I didn’t handle that very well.”
“No, you didn’t.”
“I let him get under my skin. I should’ve known better.”
“Yes, you should’ve.”
“Well, aren’t you just overflowing with good advice.”
Harv grinned at him. “Did you know your ears turn red when you’re angry?”
“You know, I honestly didn’t.”
“Well, they do. Go take a look in the mirror and don’t break it, okay?”
“Cute, Harv.” Nathan walked into the bathroom and flipped the switch. He looked at himself in the newly replaced mirror, turning his head from side to side, getting a good look. “I’ll be damned,” he muttered. He splashed some water on his face and rested his weight on the counter.
“Make sure you wet your ears,” Harv called from the other room. “I wouldn’t want you to burst a blood vessel. Those damned cauliflowers are ugly enough.”
Chapter 14
Three thousand miles away, Stone McBride replaced the handset into its cradle and shook his head. How the hell did the Bridgestones know Nathan was the shooter and why hadn’t Frank told him what they’d done to James? Stone wondered what else he hadn’t been told. What a mess.… As if his life and this Semtex business weren’t complicated enough already. He hit the intercom button. “Heidi, I need to speak to FBI Director Lansing again right away. I also need Kevin Ramsland on the line.”
It was obvious his son still held bitter feelings about what had happened in Nicaragua, and rightfully so, but Stone knew those feelings were misdirected. Despite what Nathan said, he had made a genuine effort to find him. During Nathan’s captivity, he’d called CIA Director Kallstrom dozens of times, asking for updates, asking if there was anything he could do that wasn’t already being done, and he’d received the same answer every time. Stone was essentially told the situation was delicate in nature and that we’re doing everything possible to find your son.
To some degree, he’d understood Kallstrom’s position. The presence of a covert CIA sniper team working in Nicaragua would’ve been a major scandal, and sending a SEAL team in involved considerable risk of exposing that scandal. Besides, no one knew where Nathan was being held. Containment could’ve been lost. So why hadn’t it become a scandal? They had Nathan. Surely they must have known he was CIA. They’d had three weeks to wring it out of him. And they had tortured him to the brink of death. He didn’t like thinking about it.
Stone shook his head, trying to clear his mind. Now wasn’t the time to rattle this cage. If his son wanted to blame him for what happened, so be it, there was nothing he could do about it, but for now, he had more important things to worry about. If Nathan pursued this reckless manhunt of the Bridgestones and broke laws in the process, he was on his own. Impatient, he hit the intercom button again. Heidi informed him she was still waiting for return calls from Lansing and Ramsland.