Max Collins - Executive Order

The accountant’s expression revealed doubt breaking through the rote history lesson drilled into him by his masters.

Rogers asked, “Who is on the board, Lawrence?”

“Even if I gave you the handful of names I do know, it wouldn’t do you any good. They are too well entrenched, with their followers spread throughout every level of government. The Alliance is everywhere. You think you can protect me when you can’t even protect yourselves. Already they have one of yours.”

“Who you will help us get back.”

“In exchange for what — protective custody? I wouldn’t last an hour. Hand me over to your FBI friends or the CIA to get information out of me, and see how long it takes for you to get the phone call that I had a heart attack in the earliest stages of interrogation.”

Reeder said, “Your people will trade for you.”

“Will they? Or, once they know I’ve been captured, will they just kill me, too? I’ll be tainted, understand? Sacrifice, remember? You, Agent Rogers, and your whole team, will be eliminated. Mr. Reeder, you’ll merely have your life destroyed, your family dead and yourself possibly in prison. That suicide you encouraged last year could easily become a murder.”

Rogers looked at Reeder in alarm.

Reeder, coldly, said to their prisoner, “Then maybe it’s in our best interest for you just to disappear into that hole in the ground.”

“If you kill me, they will find you, all of you, and kill you .”

“Big talk from such a small cog.”

His upper lip peeled back over his teeth in a rictus smile. “You think you’re up against a small cadre of the powerful, but in reality there are thousands of us in government — department heads, middle management, worker bees — a grass roots army working to save America from itself.”

“Okay,” Reeder said, “then just give us that handful of names you do know, and we’ll release you. No one the wiser. You can’t betray us without betraying yourself, right?”

“Those names, those few names, are my only leverage. I give them to you, maybe I do wind up in the forest. But... if you let me go, I will — as you say — have to keep my mouth shut to save my own skin. And if you people just drop all this, and go about your business, it will all be over in a matter of days.”

Morris meant that the country would either be at war or not.

“If we go head-to-head with Russia,” Reeder said, “we might all be over.”

Morris said, “I’m sure the President will have done the right thing by then.”

That gave Reeder a sudden chill — did Morris know some big-picture thing that they didn’t? Did the cog know where the wheel planned to roll?

Miggie, who’d been working at DeMarcus’s desk in the office area, caught Reeder’s attention with a wave.

“Give him something to drink,” Reeder told Wade, standing, nodding toward the captive. “If he needs a bathroom break, walk him down there.”

“I’ll have to untie him,” Wade said. “He could piss in a bottle or something.”

Reeder shook his head. “We’ve got plenty of duct tape.”

Morris was listening to all this with the hangdog expression of the captive that he was.

Reeder and Rogers went over to Miggie, who looked up from his tablet at them in frustration. They spoke low.

“Something?” Reeder asked.

“Someone,” Miggie said, and his eyes went to Rogers. “Fisk. She’s wondering why we seem to’ve dropped off the edge of the world.”

“Shit,” Rogers said.

Reeder frowned at Mig. “She contacted us how ?”

“She didn’t exactly contact us. I hacked my work e-mail, where she sent me a memo. Seems Ivanek’s checked in with her, and Bohannon, too... but she hasn’t heard from the rest of the team and that’s making her nervous.”

Amused despite the situation, Rogers asked, “You hacked your own e-mail?”

Shrugging, Miggie said, “You guys tell me be careful, I’m careful.”

She asked, “Can we get back to Fisk and not give ourselves away?”

“You don’t trust her?” Miggie asked.

“I barely trust myself.”

Reeder reached for a shelf and came back with another of DeMarcus’s untraceable burner phones; handed it to Rogers. “Get her on this, Patti. Best not mention our guest.”

“You think?”

With a dry chuckle, Rogers headed out onto the landing and shut the door behind her.

Reeder sat on the edge of the desk and asked Miggie, “Fisk say anything else about Ivanek?”

“Just that he checked in.”

“How about Bohannon?”

“Just that he said everything was cool. Jerry knows enough not to tell the AD he’s been sitting surveillance for us on Ivanek’s place... but whether he and Trevor have connected, I got no idea.”

Reeder let out a big sigh. “Our communication system leaves something to be desired.”

“Burner phones are better than tin cans and string,” Miggie said, “but just. Hey, when you wanna go sub rosa, things get harder. I did get a text from Jerry, though, on my burner.”

“And?”

“He’s been looking hard at Secretary Yellich. You told him and Wade to look for anything odd, remember?”

“And?”

Miggie handed his phone over. “And read this.”

Reeder did: *AY not CD*

“What’s this mean?” he asked the computer expert.

“No clue.”

Reeder curled fingers at Wade, who was duct-taping Morris back into the kitchen chair after a bathroom break. The big man came over and Reeder showed him the message on the burner.

“He’s your partner, Reg — what do you make of this?”

Wade read it, shook his head. “Typical Bohannon shorthand shit. Maybe a third of the time I have to ask him what the hell he means. ‘AY’ is probably Amanda Yellich.”

Miggie said, “I texted him for clarification but haven’t heard back yet.”

Reeder turned toward the nearby door. “Isn’t Patti done yet?”

Miggie glanced at the clock on his tablet. “It’s been a good five minutes, anyway.”

Reeder went outside, found the landing empty, and something cold traveled through him. From the top of the stairs, he quickly scanned the area, saw nothing and no one, then rattled down the metal stairs and started for Tenth Street.

Muttering, he walked at a hurried pace, hand over the butt of the nine mil in his waistband, and when he got to the corner, he turned it and about ran headlong into Rogers coming the other way.

“What the hell?” she asked, backing away.

He let out a breath. “Sorry. Panicked a little — worried you’d been gone too long.”

“It’s nice to know you care. But after I talked to Fisk, I figured I’d better ditch the phone.”

“What did you do with it?”

“Burial at sea.”

The Anacostia River ran past the Navy Yard, with access to the water just to the west.

They started back.

He asked her, “What did Fisk say?”

“Ivanek’s at his desk at the Hoover Building. We’ll leave him there, until we know where everybody is.”

“Ignorance is bliss, I guess. And Bohannon?”

“He’s headed back to the Hoover, too, she says.”

They were at the stairs now, and started up.

“So,” Reeder said, “for now we leave them on the bench.”

“For now,” she said.

They went inside. Miggie was at his tablet, Wade guarding the prisoner, who gestured to Reeder with an up-and-down motion of his head.

Reeder walked over and planted himself before the captive. “What?”

The accountant’s smile was a joyless thing, but it was there.

“I have a suggestion,” he said.

“It is difficult for the common good to prevail against the intense concentration of those who have a special interest, especially if the decisions are made behind locked doors.”