Jonathan waited at the base of the stairs for Boxers. He had to laugh when the Big Guy’s massive frame filled the doorway. With his ruck in place and the two duffels in his hands, squeezing through the door took on the elements of a high school physics calculation.
“There’s some butter in the galley if you need to slather up,” Jonathan quipped.
“My mama’s womb had a bigger opening than this,” Boxers grumped.
Jonathan let it go. No matter how close the friendship, jokes about men’s mothers were eternally off-limits.
“I vote you tell Mannix we’re done with his sardine can,” the Big Guy said when he joined his boss on the tarmac.
Austin Mannix had thrown in two years’ access to his private plane when Jonathan negotiated the fee for this latest job. Given their line of work, it helped to have air service that was traceable to a third party. Commercial aviation options were out of the question. Between the two of them, they carried enough weapons, ammunition, and explosives to repel an invasion. You never knew what might go wrong on even the simplest of ops, so it always paid to be prepared. One man’s preparation, though, was a TSA agent’s heart attack.
But man this plane was tiny.
“We’ll see,” Jonathan said. “At least it’s based in Fredericksburg.” Other airplanes they’d negotiated for had been hangared in Dulles and Leesburg, easily an hour farther away from Jonathan’s home in Fisherman’s Cove.
“You say that like it’s a good thing. It’s still a long friggin’ drive.”
Again, Jonathan let it go. Jonathan knew how much money the Big Guy made for his contributions to Security Solutions, and there wasn’t a community from Miami to New York City where he couldn’t afford to live comfortably. Very comfortably. The fact that he’d chosen the hustle of Georgetown over bucolic Fisherman’s Cove was his own problem.
Crossing in front of the civil aviation terminal building, Jonathan plotted a straight-line walking course toward the Batmobile, Boxers’ pet name for Jonathan’s customized and armored black Hummer H2. While not especially fast, the truck held its own on the highway, but it truly earned its keep off-road where, despite its weight, it could climb trees once you engaged the four-wheel drive.
He hadn’t paid attention to the nearby vehicles until the doors of a black sedan opened in unison and disgorged two men in suits and sunglasses.
“At last,” Boxers grumbled. “The day gets interesting. You thinking good guys or bad guys?”
“Feds,” Jonathan said, knowing full well that he hadn’t answered the Big Guy’s question.
“Just so we’re clear,” Boxers said, “if they draw, I draw.” He’d long been on the record that he would never tolerate any form of incarceration, whether at the hands of a foreigner or the local constabulary. Like anyone who had to deal with the meddling bullshit that doubled these days for due process, he had a particular hard-on for feds.
“Let’s clear our hands, then,” Jonathan said. He dropped his two duffels to the concrete, reducing his weight by one hundred pounds and clearing the way for him to draw the Colt 1911 .45 that always rode high on his right hip. Loaded with eight rounds, one hot in the chamber, that was six more bullets than he’d need if it came to a shoot-out.
Boxers likewise dropped his duffels to clear access to his holstered 9 millimeter Beretta.
They kept their gait steady as they approached the two men who’d clearly meant to intimidate them more than they had. You might even say they looked a little frightened themselves.
The guy on the driver’s side lifted his hands to show that they were empty. “Whoa, whoa, whoa, guys,” he said. “We mean no harm.”
Jonathan shifted his eyes to the other one. “And you?” He stopped striding when good guys and bad guys were separated only by twenty feet and a door panel.
Mr. Passenger Side resisted joining the program. He took a hesitant step back, then stood his ground. His hands remained out of sight at his sides when he said, “We’ve done nothing to threaten you.”
“It’s more about you feeling threatened,” Boxers said with a grin.
“Don’t be an idiot, Kane,” the driver said. Closing in on fifty, the driver had an easy twenty years on the younger man named Kane. One of the greatest gifts of maturity and experience was the ability to read the dynamics of a situation for what they were.
They were definitely feds, Jonathan decided, and the different degrees of swagger defined in his mind the difference between old school and new school. Since 9/11, federal law enforcers had been bestowed with remarkable power that they seemed oddly incapable of not overflexing.
“Let me guess,” Jonathan said. “FBI.” Actually, the matching high-and-tight hairstyles and attention to fashion spoke more of Secret Service, but he couldn’t imagine how this could be their jurisdiction.
“Yes, sir,” the driver said. “Special Agent Edward Shrom. This is Special Agent Carlton Kane. We both report out of headquarters in Washington. I’d be happy to show you my creds if you promise not to go Chuck Norris on me.”
“Not necessary,” Jonathan said. “I have every confidence that you have the skill to forge a set of creds if you were so inclined.” He drilled Kane with his gaze. “Son, if you don’t show me an empty pair of hands right by God now, we’re going to have an issue.”
Somewhere north of eighteen and south of thirty-five, Kane had the look of a quarterback from a second-tier school. He had a lot of neck, but not much girth, and the kind of self-righteous smirk that Jonathan loved so dearly to wipe away.
“I am a federal officer, Mr. Grave. I’d be careful—”
“Oh, for God’s sake,” Shrom said. “Give it a rest. Either show him your hands or draw down on him. Just stop dancing.”
Jonathan liked Shrom.
Grudgingly, Carlton Kane raised his palms so that Jonathan could see them.
“Thank you,” Jonathan said. He felt tension drain from his shoulders. “So what’s up, gentlemen?”
Shrom answered quickly, as if hurrying to get in before his young partner could screw things up. “I have orders from my boss’s boss, Director Rivers — I believe you know her as Wolverine — to talk you into taking a ride in the car with us.”
Boxers made a growling sound that perfectly reflected Jonathan’s unease.
“Where would we be going and why?”
“That’s need to know, sir,” Shrom said. “I can’t answer that.”
“You want us to go with you to a place where we have no need to know where we’re going?” Boxers asked with a derisive chuckle. “What are you Fibbies smoking these days?”
“We’re the ones who don’t have a need to know,” Kane said.
Jonathan cocked his head and smiled at the illogic. “And how are you going to drive us to a place you’re not authorized to know?”
“I’m betting they drive blindfolded,” Boxers quipped.
Shrom forced a smile that looked more like a wince. “We know the where, Mr. Van de Muelebroecke, although I suspect that it’s only a first step. What we don’t know is the why.” The fact that he knew Boxers’ real name was a card well played.
“Suppose we say no?” Jonathan asked.
Shrom seemed ready for that one. “When I asked the director that very same question, she guaranteed me that you would say yes if I told you she said it was important. The choice to come along or stay is entirely yours.” He paused and shrugged. “That’s it. That was the speech I was told to make.”
Jonathan inhaled deeply through his nose and vigorously rubbed his chin. He’d known Irene Rivers for years — since long before she ran a field office, let alone been named director. He’d done the kind of work for her that the FBI officially never did, yet needed to do to protect the citizens of the United States. Her Wolverine code name had started as a joke nearly two decades ago, a quasi-insult that reflected her feisty personality. As so often happened in the unpredictable world of nicknames, it stuck as her handle within the tiny covert world of Security Solutions. The only way for these two Fibbies to know that the name even existed would be if Irene had shared it with them.