Code Of Honor

Albert Bethke missed the cold war.

It was easier in those days. You had the United States, you had the Soviet Union, and you knew who the good guys were and who the bad guys were.

After the Berlin Wall came down, it all went to hell, as far as Bethke was concerned. Suddenly, they were working with the Soviets—or rather, the Russians, since there weren’t Soviets anymore. Bethke supposed that was how the old OSS boys felt after World War II, when they brought over Nazi scientists to help with the cold war. But this particular new world order just didn’t sit well with Bethke.

Still, he hung on with his job at the National Security Agency after twenty years in the FBI, and then had helped put the Department of Homeland Security together. But once DHS was up and running, he put in his retirement papers. He’d had enough.

Not that retirement was what he’d been expecting. At first, he did all the things he promised himself he’d get around to some day. He traveled all over the country, visiting the landmarks that he’d seen pictures and films of but never been to: the Grand Canyon, Mount Rushmore, the Empire State Building, the Statue of Liberty, the Southernmost Point of the U.S., and much more.

That took up three years, and then he was bored. Bethke had been both an administrator and a field agent, and he found he missed the excitement. Not enough to actually go back to work—though he had been told repeatedly by the directors at DHS that they’d take him back in a heartbeat—but enough to want to find more exciting things to occupy his time than play tourist.

So he found himself in New Paltz, New York, hiking in the Mohonk woodlands. Eventually, he planned to work his way up to proper mountain climbing, but hiking would do for now, help him rebuild his stamina. It would also get rid of the paunch that was developing. That paunch had put in appearances before, and it was always a signal to Bethke to get back into fieldwork.

Then, after a year or two of getting shot at, he’d go back behind a desk.

But that was all behind him.

It was the perfect day for a hike. It was a weekday, and it was drizzling, which meant that there was almost nobody else on the hiking trails. The few people he did see were doing the easier trails—Bethke went through the trees and up and down rocks.

The rain made it a bit more challenging, which made it that much more fun.

Bethke was dressed in brown hiking boots, white tube socks, a New York Mets baseball cap—which kept his thinning brown hair dry—cargo shorts and a plain white T-shirt, with a beige molle vest over it. Both the vest and shorts had plenty of pouches and big pockets, saving Bethke from having to bring a backpack. He carried bottles of water, power bars, his cell phone and .38 caliber bullets.

Those last were for the Smith & Wesson .38 Special in the shoulder holster that occasionally bit into his armpit as he climbed rocks or maneuvered around trees. The kids in both NSA and DHS had made fun of his “old-time” weapon. To Bethke, though, there was no point in a useless upgrade. Sure, he could go with a SIG-Sauer or a Glock or whatever the hell else they were using now, but as far as Bethke was concerned, a bullet was a bullet, and if you placed it right, it would do what you wanted it to do, regardless of what you shot it from.

In thirty years on the job, he’d never once missed what he was aiming at.

The kids would still razz him, of course, so Bethke would invite them down to the shooting range. Whoever grouped his or her shots closest would not have to pay for beer at the bar after they were off the clock. He’d even be generous and let them shoot first. They might do a decent job of grouping their shots in the chest or the head. Then Bethke would load his .38 Special and throw all six shots into the target in a perfect circle less than an inch in diameter.

Bethke never once paid for his own drink on those occasions.

He squeezed himself into a small passageway between two rocks, hoping there weren’t any bears. He really didn’t want to be in a position to have to shoot an innocent animal.

Once he made it through to the other side, he saw that a wooden ladder had been provided to get to the top of the rock. That was the end of this part of the hike, bringing him to a plateau that provided a great view of the area.

At the top was a no-longer-functional lighthouse, a few picnic tables, a public bathroom in a small stone structure, a very large rock that was sitting in the middle of the grass and mud and a spectacular view of Lake Mohonk. The mist from the clouds and rain covered the mountain like a blanket.

Best of all, Bethke didn’t have to share it with anyone except for the young couple walking toward the lighthouse. He wished he’d had the foresight to bring a camera. His cell phone had one, but the quality was crap.

For a few seconds, he just stood and took in the view. Something was bothering him, though—he couldn’t quite put his finger on it.

Then he very slowly turned his head so he was once again facing the couple, making it look as if he was simply gazing over the misty vista ahead of him.

The man was tall and skinny with short curly brown hair and plastic-rimmed glasses. He wore a loose-fitting rain slicker, denim shorts and hiking boots. His girlfriend or wife or whatever was very short and curvy, with wavy brown hair tied back into a ponytail, and was wearing a tight T-shirt that barely contained her large breasts. The shirt was untucked, hanging over a pair of what appeared to be elastic waistband sweat pants. She also wore hiking boots that seemed too big for her feet.

It could’ve been nothing. The man’s slicker and woman’s boots could simply have been too big. That sort of thing happened.

But the former could also be used to hide a holster and the latter to hide a knife sheath.

Then the man leaned in to whisper something in the woman’s ear. She giggled, and he was smiling as he spoke, but when he leaned over, Bethke saw the outline of a bulge pressing against the slicker.

Bethke immediately dived to the ground and unholstered his .38. If he was overreacting, he’d apologize to the couple, but better safe than sorry. He’d made his share of enemies over the years, after all, and he couldn’t risk that one of them might be here.

Even as he fell to the wet grass and mud, the man pulled out a 9 mm OD Green Glock 19, a compact model designed for carrying concealed.

It all happened fast enough that the man hadn’t consciously registered that Bethke had dived to the ground, so his first shot went over his target’s head.

Bethke needed a second to catch his breath—he’d just been doing a heavy hike, and his fatigued muscles and overtaxed lungs were reminding him just how long it had been since he’d done any kind of field work—and then he loosed a shot at the man.

As always, Bethke hit what he was aiming at: the man’s center mass. The .38-caliber bullet sliced through the man’s jacket and shirt like a hot knife through butter, cutting into his chest, splintering his ribs, and ripping into his heart.

The man squeezed off one more shot before he expired. A 9 mm round flew through the air and slammed into Bethke’s left shoulder. He winced briefly against the pain of the bullet, which was now lodged in his rotator cuff—it wasn’t the first time he’d been shot.

The woman had lifted her shirt, exposing a Charter Police Undercover .38 that was tucked into the waistband of her sweats, drew the weapon and fired off two shots that flew over Bethke’s head.

That was just cover fire. She was diving behind her “husband’s” corpse, using the body as a shield. That told him a lot about the level of ruthlessness Bethke was dealing with.

Knowing it was going to hurt like hell, Bethke rolled on the ground to take cover behind the rock. The woman’s .38 rounds hit the mud where he’d been with a squelch, and others hit his Mets cap, which had fallen off while he rolled. More shots followed him until he was behind the protection of the rock.

Bethke took a moment to compose himself, even as the woman’s last two rounds ricocheted off the rock.

“Hey!”

The voice came from behind Bethke. Whirling, with his back now to the rock, he saw an overweight man wearing a sweatshirt with the words Lake Mohonk emblazoned on the chest and white shorts running clumsily toward the tableau. He wore a backpack, and his ample belly was bouncing in rhythm with his strides.

“Hey, lady, what the hell’re you doin’?”

His FBI instincts taking over, Bethke said, “Sir, get down!”

“That lady’s nuts!” the fat man said, still running toward Bethke.

Then Bethke’s spook instincts kicked in. The woman was an assassin who used her partner’s body as a shield—yet this man was in her sights and she didn’t shoot.

Which meant the fat man was part of the team. Bethke raised the S&W with his right hand and threw a shot. This was another reason why Bethke preferred his old-fashioned revolver: he could fire it with one hand, especially if he was leaning against a rock that could absorb the recoil.

The shot wasn’t quite as perfect—it only hit the fat man in the shoulder, about an inch above his heart. It stopped him running, but even as blood stained his gray sweatshirt, he held up his left hand, which was holding a Hibben UC-458 throwing knife, which flew from his hand and lodged in Bethke’s right thigh, cutting through skin and muscle and penetrating the femoral artery.

Feeling the blood start to pour out of his leg, Bethke squeezed off a second shot at the fat man. This one nailed him right between the eyes, splintering his skull and spattering blood all over the grass.

The fat man fell backward to the ground with a wet impact that kicked up quite a bit of mud. Bethke forced his left hand to clamp down on his right leg in what was probably a vain attempt to stanch the bleeding. The bullet wound in his shoulder wouldn’t let him raise his left arm, but as long as he was seated on the ground, it was easy enough to try to hold the wound together. He also kept the knife in, since that was actually doing more than his hand was to keep the femoral artery from leaking out all over Mohonk Mountain.

It also meant he couldn’t really move from this spot. The woman had had enough time while Bethke was dealing with the fat man to do any number of things, including possibly reload her .38.

Then the woman appeared before him. The muzzle of her erstwhile partner’s Glock was staring Bethke right in the face. This close, Bethke could see the way she had modified her boots in order to hold knife sheaths. But she wouldn’t even need those knives. Bethke toyed with the notion of raising his S&W, but she’d blow his head off before he could even start moving his arm.

Since he was pretty obviously dead anyhow, he tried to at least find out one thing. “Why?”

The woman shrugged, her ponytail bouncing. Bethke realized that he wouldn’t get an answer. She and her two dead partners were probably hired assassins who were given a target. Such people were almost never told the why, only the who. If they were caught, they couldn’t give any specifics to law enforcement.