WHEN HE GOT OFF THE PHONE,he was still high on adrenaline. He eventually put on some gym shorts, a T-shirt, and athletic shoes, went down to the fitness center, and ran off the high on the elliptical machine.
Back in his room, he showered, concentrating on his back: he’d have a major bruise where the Maglite hit, he thought. Out of the shower, he watched the end of a Dodgers game from the West Coast, flopped on the bed, and thought about getting old. He’d barely cracked fifty, but he’d lost at least a step in the past ten years, and maybe two steps. The three muggers would have beaten the shit out of him.
He spent some time brooding, and finally managed to get to sleep at two in the morning.
He’d gotten up the next morning, had shaved, showered, and was about to go to breakfast when Forte called and said, “You’re not fucking around with this Heracles place, are you?”
8
Forte said, “These are bad guys, Lucas. Mercenaries. There have been a dozen complaints filed against them by military people in Iraq and Syria, and more by the Iraqi and Libyan governments. They shoot first and ask questions later, but it appears that we continue to contract with them. By ‘we,’ I mean the Defense Department and contractors working with foreign governments. Can’t tell about the CIA, but probably there, too.”
“Do they work here in the U.S.?”
“They’ve got no special status here,” Forte said. “They poke a gun at somebody, and that’s ag assault, and they go to jail. They’re not LEOs. Not law enforcement officers, no way, shape, or form.”
“If they jumped me on the street...”
“Did they do that?”
“Somebody did,” Lucas said. He told Forte about the problem he’d had the night before, and described the three men; he left out the part about screaming for help like a little girl.
“Well, there you go,” Forte said. “It sounds like what I imagine the Heracles guys are like, though I’ve never actually seen them myself. Most of what they call action executives are former SEALs, Delta, Force Recon, Rangers, that sort of thing. You didn’t see a gun?”
“No. All three were wearing jackets that had some bulk—like they were wearing light armor, or maybe thick shirts, or padding of some kind, like they were ready for a fight,” Lucas said. “I suspect they were planning to take me down but not kill me. Killing me would cause somebody a much larger problem than what might pass as the mugging of an out-of-towner.”
“You’re sure that’s not what it was?” Forte asked.
“Yeah, I’m sure. They were all too neat. Uniform. They wore masks. They didn’t look like raggedy-ass muggers; they looked like... cops, actually.”
“Here’s what I want you to do,” Forte said. “Write it up, all the details. Put those cell phone photos with it. I’ll file it as ‘Attack on a U.S. Marshal, Unsolved.’ Then if you identify one of the guys, we grab him, file charges. With you as the only witness, we might not get far with it, but we might be able to squeeze the guy while we’ve got him...”
“Probably should have done that last night—or called the D.C. cops.”
“I’ll call the cops, inform them. I can somewhat mask the time of your report. If they think you reported it immediately... well, let them think that. That way, we’re on record with two different agencies.”
“All right.”
“So, sounds like life is getting complicated, but that’s why you were hired,” Forte said. “What else are you going to do about it?”
“Called Bob and Rae, for one thing. They’ll be talking to you guys about coming up here.”
“We’ll clear them through. Now, about that Ford F-250... There are forty-seven black F-250 short beds of last year’s model registered in the three zip codes surrounding the area wherethose plates were stolen. Black is a popular color, but the F-250 is pricey, so there weren’t as many as I expected...”
Lucas: “The West Virginia cop I talked to...”
“Armstrong,”
“Yeah, he said the truck was new, but didn’t specify a year, so maybe we should look at this year’s, too.”
“Nope. I talked to him this morning, soon as I got in, and he sent me some grab shots from the security video,” Forte said. “The taillights changed between the two years—it was last year’s model, not this year’s.”
“Did you get the driver’s licenses and run them?”
“I did. Got a whole bunch of hits, but nothing that went directly to Heracles. Several military people—more Navy than Army, but that could include SEALs. Criminal activity is all minor stuff. A few drunk driving arrests, domestics, like that.”
“Can you get me the license photos?” Lucas asked.
“We’re queuing them up now—my assistant is. You’ll have them in twenty minutes.”
