Dead Edge: the gripping political thriller for fans of Lee Child

‘Okay, now we have blast off. That’s more like it… You look like shit, by the way.’

Cooper stared at Earl through paint-peeled bars whilst cold water trickled, dripping off from split ends to channel down the side of his nose and balance on his philtrum like a circus act.

Cooper cleared his throat, imagining his hands round his long term buddy’s neck. ‘You’re enjoying this, aren’t you, Earl?’

‘Too damn right I am. At least in jail, you can’t go and run off on me.’

‘Where am I anyway?’

‘Where they brought you after your cannonball run, over a week ago. You were lucky they didn’t throw you in the county jail. Someone must’ve called in a favor.’

Cooper wiped his lips. Big mistake. Felt like he’d just been kicked in the mouth. ‘Don’t play games, Earl, tell me where I am. I haven’t got time for this.’

‘Oh, I think you’ve got plenty of time, Coop. In fact, with the list of things they want to charge you with, time seems to be all you’ll have. So off the top of my head, it goes something like this. Grand theft auto, aggravated motor vehicle theft in the first degree, reckless driving, exhibition of speed, vagrancy…’

‘Vagrancy?’

Earl nodded, his over-gelled, jet-black hair staying perfectly in place. ‘Take that one on the chin, Coop; something tells me that charge is going to be the least of your worries. Oh, and just in case you didn’t realize, this is before you add on skipping Judge Saunders’ afternoon court session, and everything he wanted to throw at you. Want me to carry on?’

‘Nope. I get it… How did you know I was here?’

‘Officer Monroe called me. He recognized your sorry butt. He was the officer who picked you up the last few times. Anyway, once the Feds realized you weren’t a significant threat to the president, and once you’d been checked out by the doc, they placed you in the custody of the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Department… Jeez, Coop, you got a big problem if you can’t remember any of this.’

And he was right. Not remembering was a problem because right then it led on to him remembering. The dam of amnesia crumbled, the flood of memory came crashing in, bringing an anxious tide of tight, strangling breath. ‘Is he… is he okay?’

Earl looked puzzled. ‘Who?’

Cooper gripped onto the cell bars as if a drowning man. He spilled his words as quietly as he could. ‘The President. Is he okay? Was he hurt…? Just answer me, Earl.’

‘Coop?’

Banging on the steel bars blasted an agony through Cooper’s shoulder. ‘Just answer me! Please!’

‘What’s going on?’

‘Earl, Goddamn it!’

Puzzlement drilled into Earl’s words and if Cooper hadn’t known him so well, it might’ve sounded like scorn. ‘Yeah… yeah, of course. He’s fine. Coop, what’s this about? What’s the President got to do with anything? I…’

Cooper didn’t hear the rest of Earl’s words. He just vomited. Right there. Retching up his relief. His fear from the pit of his stomach.

‘Christ, Coop. You okay? I’ll go and get someone.’

Cooper slumped hard on the iron contraption they called a bed. ‘No, it’s okay. Wait, look. I just need you to get me out of here. How much bail are they asking for?’

Earl’s feet shuffled. ‘Here’s the thing Coop, I can’t.’

‘Can’t what?’

‘Can’t get you out. Rather, I’m not going to do that.’

‘I love you, Earl, and I’m sorry about everything. Truly. But let’s put it right on the table; your jokes have never been funny, and right now, they’re even worse than usual.’

Earl’s expression became pitiful. ‘I’m sorry, Coop, this isn’t a joke. I promised I wouldn’t help to get you out, not this time. But I still wanted to come down to see if you were alright.’

Cooper stood up. Too fast. Pain ripped through. ‘What the hell are you talking about?’

‘I promised I wouldn’t. Look, I’d better go, I’ll get one of the officers to come and clean that up for you. And I am sorry… I’ll see you soon. Okay?’

‘Earl…! Earl! Don’t you leave me here…! Promised who…? I’m talking to you, Earl. Come back here—’

‘Hello, Cooper.’

That voice which sang the backdrop of his childhood. Screamed the setting of his youth. Cried the resentment of his military days and the chant of sorrow. That voice, it explained everything.

Cooper stared at his Uncle. Captain Beau Neill. Commandant and kin. One-time martinet, these days a monk.

With as much hostility as he could muster, Cooper said, ‘I take it this is your idea, Beau, not to get me out of here.’

Beau chewed on his unlit cigar. Dug his fingers into the top of his throbbing sciatic nerve, something he often told Cooper was his test of suffering. With disappointment dripping from his voice, Beau pulled a disappointed face. ‘What the hell did you think you were doing, Cooper? You never change do you? But no, for your information, keeping you here wasn’t my idea.’

Cooper gritted his teeth. Regretted it straight away. ‘Just get me the hell out.’

‘Sorry, no can do. There’s a person who thinks keeping you here just for a little while longer might help you think about what you’ve done, and I have to agree.’

‘I’m not a kid, Beau.’

‘No you’re not, Coop, but you sure as hell act like one.’

‘Is this what they teach you in the monastery, Beau? How to be compassionate?’

‘Oh don’t worry about me, Coop. I’ve got a lot to learn and a hell of a lot of sins to repent, so I’ll just go on and add this one to the list. And hey, I can live with that.’

‘Is this funny to you?’ Cooper said.

‘Not one Goddamn bit…Tell me something, Coop, because I need to know if you’ve lost your mind completely… Enlighten me as to what made you think it was a good idea to follow the President’s motorcade? Because I’m guessing that’s what you were doing. But here’s the really big question… Why?’

‘I dunno… maybe it wasn’t the smartest of things to do.’

The shaking of the head in cold disapproval was the epitome of disdain. Something Cooper knew Beau was well versed at. ‘You got that damn right.’

Cooper took a deep breath. Tried to hold onto his temper. Gave up trying. ‘What the hell was I supposed to do? Come on, tell me, seeing as you’ve got all the answers.’

‘What the rest of us did. Keep our damn heads and find out the facts first. If I’d had a knee jerk reaction and acted like that when I was a Captain in the US Navy, just because I’d heard something, what kind of Captain would that have made me? Or when I was serving in…’

Cooper cut Beau down. ‘You don’t have to give me a history of your military career, Beau. I served under you and I know exactly the kind of Captain you were.’

Beau stepped closer to the bars. Hissed his words. ‘Are we going to go through this again? Cooper, I was not responsible for the accident, and you know that.’

Hurt bobbed off Cooper’s words. ‘I never said you were, Beau. Problem is, when I’m stuck on one side of the bars – the wrong side – and you’re on the other and you won’t help me out, well, I can’t help but feel resentful… Reminds me of that day.’

Beau came back with hostility. ‘You can’t help yourself, can you?’

‘You were not only my Captain, you were my Uncle, and when I asked you… begged you to help, you turned your back and you walked away…’

‘Now you listen here, Coop, I don’t know how many times over the years I’ve had to say it, but it was too damn late. Now let it go.’

Quietly Cooper said, ‘You make it out like it’s a bad thing to love someone.’

‘You puzzle me, Coop. I don’t understand you, because the only relationship you seem to have or want is with a dead woman. What about with all the other people who care about you? You push them away. You don’t give a damn about them or how they feel. That’s why I don’t get this crazy car chase you did. The majority of the time you don’t want to know. But yet, you do a mad dash. Was it the drugs? Turn your mind?’

Cooper wanted to smash something. Anything. Anything which would give him some breathing space from his Uncle Beau. ‘No, it wasn’t the Goddamn drugs. I just… I just…’

‘Don’t say you care, Coop, because we both know you don’t.’

‘That’s bullshit. It’s just…’

It was Beau’s laugh which cut in this time. Harsh. Bitter. And Cooper wanted to grab right hold of him until he shut his mouth.

‘You were going to say, It’s complicated, weren’t you, Coop?’

Flatlined by Beau, Cooper appealed. ‘Just let me out of here. Please.’

‘Oh no, like I say, there’s someone here who thinks a few more hours locked up might do you good. Put some sense back into that head of yours.’

‘I don’t know what you’re playing at Beau, but I…’

‘Hello, Tom..’

Mid-sentence Cooper stopped. Left his mouth wide open.

‘You look like shit by the way.’

He stared at his wife. Rather, his estranged wife. Rather, his almost ex-wife and mother of his only child. He said, ‘So people like to keep telling me, but hey, it’s good to see you too, Maddie.’

WASHINGTON, D.C.

USA

11

a3 f5

‘I don’t get it. What the hell have you guys been doing?’

President John Woods sat chewing the top of his pen. He watched the grainy CCTV recording of the latest bombing attack on home soil as he sat in the over-air conditioned situation room whilst ignoring the tight cramps in his stomach – a direct and unwelcome result of last night’s state dinner held for the Prime Minister of Canada, where he’d consumed in enthusiastic abundance the Appalachian cheese. Today, however, he was sure as hell paying for it. He said, ‘You’re telling me there was no warning?’

Charles ‘Chuck’ Harrison, acting chief of the CIA Counter Terrorism Center took a sip of the iced water in front of him.

Slowly.

Shuffled his papers.

Slowly.

Sniffed and then inhaled.

Slowly.

Making damn sure the dozen or so gathered in the ‘sit’ room knew he was going to make the President wait. Because he didn’t appreciate it. Woods’ tone. Not one Goddamn tiny bit.

He could have understood, if he was some nappy-ass kid fresh out of college, or even one of Woods’ sycophants – who to his mind filled every inch of the White house. But then he guessed that was Democrats for you. Brownnosers talking about tolerance.

Heck, George W. Bush had had his faults, but at least he hadn’t held back when it came to getting the job done with air strikes and boots on the ground, or when enhanced interrogation was needed – as it so often was – for some fundamentalist full of warped ideology, who was less than forthcoming with vital intel. And contrary to what the 2014 Senate report had said about EI, it did make a difference. A hell of a difference. A few days of walling, waterboarding, electrodes to the genitalia, along with sleep deprivation music made the most brainwashed of men begin to talk.

To his mind, the FBI had sold their souls, reporting to the Senate that it’d been them, not the CIA, who’d gotten most of the information from the alleged mastermind of the 9/11 attack, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed – or KSH, as he was usually referred to. And as a consequence of their perfidy there’d been a public outcry with emotions running high and liberalists bandying about the word torture. Hell, he just called it getting answers.

Then Obama had come into his administration with so much fanfare. The black man had crawled out and celebrated in the streets as if they’d just been emancipated. It was a Goddamn joke, with the irony being that Obama had become a puppet to the white man anyway, worried about not learning from Afghanistan or Iraq, and not wanting another war. But they were at war. Had been for a long time now. The war on terror. And the sooner everyone realized they were in the midst of world war three, the better. Though Chuck wasn’t certain realization was going to help matters, because now of all times America needed a Republican as Commander-in-Chief, and what they’d been landed with was Goddamn John Woods.

John Woods stared at Chuck, knowing exactly what he was doing. He’d never like the guy, and he wasn’t sure why but instinct told him the man was a sadist and a racist one at that. And hell, it wasn’t just because he’d read the classified CIA reports on the enhanced interrogation in the black sites where Chuck had been in charge – though those had certainly added to his theory. Savage, and in excess of what was already excessive. No, there was just something about the guy. The same something he’d had about the guys in the college football team who strutted around fanning their tails. Peacocks. And the same something he’d had when he’d first met his ex-wife, but had pushed aside. Shoot, he should’ve listened to his gut on that one.

But then, Chuck wasn’t about personal and liking him was beside the point. Maybe it was better that way so lines never blurred. He was real good at what he did. Damn good. Experienced. He’d been a military man first, before changing direction to join the CIA, Counter Terrorism Centre. Worked hard. Eventually became Chief of Station in Khartoum, Sudan in the nineties, moving to Tehran, before getting the top agency post in Baghdad at the height of the Iraq war.

And now he was acting Chief of CTC, since Brent Miller’s debilitating stroke last month. The stroke hadn’t come as a surprise, only that Brent hadn’t had one earlier.

Brent had lived at the job. Sustaining himself on sixty cigarettes a day and very little else. He’d even had an aluminum fold-up bed in the office, as if on summer camp. And folklore had it that when his wife had picked up her stuff and left him, Brent hadn’t even noticed, even when he’d returned home on a few occasions for a change of clothes. It’d taken an email from his wife’s attorney a couple of months later for him to realise she’d gone and had filed for divorce.

Chief of CTC was one of the most pressurized jobs there was. No doubt about it. Even more so than his, Woods figured.

So for now Chuck was acting Chief. The only man at the moment who was really up to it. Whether or not relations between them would withstand the position becoming permanent, only time would tell.

Clenching tight and refusing to excuse himself for the call of the bathroom, Woods said, ‘Chuck?’

‘Mr President?’

‘You need me to repeat the question?’

‘With due respect, Mr President, it didn’t feel much like a question. More of an accusation with the finger of blame pointing directly towards the CTC. Something I take exception to.’

Shifting his weight onto his other elbow, to try to ease the build-up of gas and excess cheese, and trying to curb his temper, Woods shook his head. ‘For Christ’s sake, accountability goes hand in hand with the job.’

‘I agree, and I’d be happy to hold my hands up, but as the bomb was on Homeland, I’d say it was the FBI who needed to answer your question.’

‘I’m asking you.’

‘I know you are. But may I remind you, Mr President, the CIA doesn’t work on home soil. It’s not our jurisdiction.’

‘Oh come on, Chuck, cut the crap, who do you think you’re talking to? Officially that’s what you like to put out there, but both you and I know that’s far from the truth.’

‘All I know is without procedure there’s chaos, and I run my department by the book.’

‘Like I say, Chuck. Cut the crap. This is the CIA we’re talking about, not the New York public library. Don’t ever try to bullshit me. People are dying and getting hurt out there. America is on red alert.’

‘I repeat, Homeland is not our jurisdiction.’

‘If that were the case, why do you have this guy, David Thorpe, in your custody?’

Drily, Chuck answered. ‘Because he’s there on the CCTV footage. It’s obvious to anyone he’s our bomber.’

‘Don’t get smart with me, you know exactly what I mean… I want to know why, when this is an FBI issue, you took him off American soil to Turkmenistan to question him almost immediately after his arrest? I’ve had the director of the FBI on the phone as well as the Attorney General. And let me tell you. They’re not happy. And hey, what do you know, neither am I, Chuck.’

‘Mr President, if you’ve got a problem with the way I’m managing the CTC, I feel I’d have no other option but to step aside so a more suitable candidate could take over the role. My duty to this country and the security of the American people is paramount. I won’t hesitate on doing what’s needed.’

Woods rolled his tongue in the back of his mouth. Tried not to be goaded by the glint in Chuck’s eye – nor by the fact Chuck knew he was the best man or woman for the job, so he had him by the balls… Failed on both counts. ‘Start explaining, because I need to tell the FBI what the hell is going on.’

Chuck looked around the room. Made a sweep count of the number of pens in the pot-holder. Began to count the number of files on the table. Forced himself to break away. It was a habit. A tiring one. Surveying everything including the most banal of stuff. A direct consequence of working too long in intel. There was no switch off button. Ever. Not when you were on vacation. Not even when you were making love.

Drawing his eyes away, Chuck said, ‘Mr President, not everyone here is privy to the level of classified information we need to discuss. Perhaps we can convene with just the necessary?’

Woods nodded. Slightly afraid to make a sudden movement. Watched most of the assembled men and women walk out. Envied the fact they could use the restroom.

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