Brett Battles - No Return

He nodded, and tried to smile.

I hope you’re right .

Commander Forman stared out the window of his office over Armitage Field, fuming. It had been a stupid idea from the beginning. He had told Laredyne as much. But they had been insistent, and in the end, Forman had thought, What harm could it do? At worst, they’d be right where they were before the flight, and at best, they might have turned things solidly in their favor.

What harm could it do? Forman shook his head in disgust. The twisted pile of metal that had once been an F-18 proved how faulty that line of thinking had been.

Pilot error. That’s what he had put in the report, and in a way it hadn’t been a lie. If the pilot had followed Andersen’s protocols, he would have never tripped the glitch in the software the engineers at Laredyne had yet to find a fix for. The error then triggered a massive systems shutdown. That son-of-a-bitch pilot had decided on his own that a test run meant trying everything out instead of following the road map he’d been given.

And now Andersen himself was a problem. Forman had thought he’d played the lieutenant commander perfectly, taking an interest in the man’s career, promising a transfer to a Pentagon job, then using the influence that had gained him to guide Andersen when he wrote the protocols. Then, after the crash, Forman had moved quickly to solidify Andersen’s culpability, creating what he thought was going to be the perfect scapegoat.

But the lieutenant commander hadn’t stuck to his script. His task had been simple. Make sure Wes Stewart wasn’t a problem. Forman had picked up early on that Andersen had some underlying resentment toward his old friend. But no, instead of shutting Stewart up, he had actually turned on the commander.

Still, it wasn’t the end of the world yet. They just needed a few more days. Once the Senate Appropriations Committee vote was over, Forman could finish the mop-up operation and move on to more important things. Like discussing how his actions deserved an even cushier post-Navy job at Laredyne than the one he’d been promised.

And if things did take a bad turn, he had Andersen to throw into the fire.

His desk phone rang. He punched the speakerphone button.

“Yes?”

“Call for you, sir. Mr. Wesley Stewart.”

Forman paused. Stewart. The other problem. The commander had yet to figure out if he really needed to do anything about him yet.

“Put it through.” He picked up the handset. “What can I do for you, Mr. Stewart?”

“We need to talk.”

“Talk? About what?”

“I want you to release my friends.”

“Your friends? I’m sorry. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You don’t? Well, how about this. Jamieson. Know what that means?”

Forman sat up. He did need to take care of this problem.

“Interested in talking now, Commander?” Stewart asked.

“I don’t know what it is you think you know, but if it’ll help clear things up I’ll meet with you. Why don’t you come to my office and we can-”

“I have a better idea. Be in the parking lot behind the La Sonora restaurant at seven-thirty tonight. Alone.”

“Really. I don’t think we need to …” Forman didn’t finish the sentence.

The line was already dead.

The man was awake, showered, dressed, and fed by the time his phone rang.

“Hello?” He nodded as he listened. “No. That makes sense to me. When the opportunity is there, you go for it.… Don’t worry. Everything will be in place. I’ll be at the rendezvous point waiting.”

He hung up and allowed himself a smile. Finally it was going to be over. Tonight he’d be sleeping in his own bed, his wife curled up beside him.

He walked down the hall, opened the door to the master bedroom, and flicked on the light. As he’d expected, the girl hadn’t moved. That drug was some good stuff.

Might have to try it myself when we’re all done .

“We’ll be leaving in a few minutes,” he said to the unconscious woman. “If you need to use the can, say so now.”

He paused.

Silence.

“Suit yourself.”

Immediatelyafter he got off the phone with Stewart, Forman called Lieutenant Jenks.

“I’ll have a tracking chip,” Forman told his man after he’d brought him up to speed. “You and Wasserman and a couple of men take a helicopter and follow us. If it looks like I’m in any trouble, or the chip stops emitting a signal, come in hard and fast. I don’t care where we are. But otherwise stay out of sight. I’m not supposed to meet him until seven-thirty, so that’s when you should get in the air. Understood?”

“Yes, sir.”

By the time Forman pulled in to the parking lot behind La Sonora, darkness once more had claimed the desert.

Wes checked the time. 7:28 p.m.

He and Danny were two hundred feet away, around the back corner of a Rite Aid drugstore. Wes’s Triumph was parked in the shadows nearby. Another dozen feet back, Dori waited inside her Lincoln, ready to move on Wes’s signal.

“Do you see anyone else?” Wes asked after Forman got out of his car.

Though they had a clear view of the La Sonora parking lot, lighting was poor.

“No.”

Forman scanned the small lot for a few moments, then entered the restaurant.

“You want me to go check?” Danny asked.

Wes thought about it for a moment, then nodded. “Good idea.”

Keeping in a crouch, Danny jogged out from their hiding place and headed toward Forman’s car.

Groaning, Wes almost yelled, “Just act normal!” But he held his tongue and watched Danny approach the car and peer inside. After a few seconds, Danny turned and shook his head slowly side to side, then started sneaking his way back.

Wes pulled out his phone and texted Alison a single character:

?

She was stationed at the other end of the alley, hiding out next to the Spirit gas station and watching the road. Her reply came through quickly.

Clear .

Good. It looked like the commander had actually done as he’d been told.

Wes looked over his shoulder at Dori in the Lincoln.

“Okay,” he said. “You’re on.”

She nodded, then started the engine and cut across the Rite Aid lot into the alley. A few seconds later she pulled to a stop behind Forman’s sedan. As she did, Danny ducked back around the corner with Wes.

“Guess we’ll see if this works,” he said.

Wes kept his eyes focused on the rear of the restaurant. “It’ll work.”

“Where is he?” Danny said after a couple of minutes had passed.

Wes had been wondering the same thing.

Another minute.

“Do you think he might have gone out the front?” Danny asked. “Maybe someone picked him up out there?”

“Why would he do that?”

“I don’t know. It was just an idea.”

Thirty more seconds.

“I’m going to go check,” Wes said.

“Wait. If he sees you-”

“If he sees me, he sees me.”

Wes had barely made it ten feet toward the alley when Forman reemerged from the restaurant. Wes stopped moving, hoping the darkness would conceal him. But it was unnecessary. Forman headed straight for his car, not even glancing in Wes’s direction. He didn’t even seem to notice Dori until he reached the door of his sedan.

“Get in my car and I’ll take you to Wes,” she said, her voice carrying just enough for Wes to hear.

This was a critical moment. If Forman tried to make a phone call, or said he needed to get something from his car first, Dori would take off and leave him where he stood. The meeting would be scrubbed, and Wes would be forced to think of an alternate plan.