Primary Command

Luke slammed his head again.

“FREEZE!” a deep-throated voice screamed.

The muzzle of a gun was pressed to Luke’s temple. It jabbed him there, hard. In the corner of his eye, Luke saw two big black hands holding the gun, and a blue uniform looming behind them.

Instantly, Luke put his hands in the air.

“Police,” the voice said, only slightly calmer now.

“Officer, I’m Agent Luke Stone, with the FBI. My badge is in that jacket over there.”

Now there were more blue uniforms. They swarmed Luke, pulling him away from Murphy. They pushed him to the ground and held him face down against the stone. He went as limp as possible, offering no resistance. Hands roamed his body, searching him.

He looked at Murphy. Murphy was getting the same treatment.

Don’t have a weapon on you, Luke thought.

In a moment, they pulled Luke to his feet. He looked around. There were ten cops here. At the far edge of the action, a familiar figure loomed. Big Ed Newsam, watching from a modest distance.

A cop handed Luke his jacket, his holster, and his badge.

“Okay, Agent Stone, what seems to be the problem here?”

“No problem.”

The cop gestured at Murphy. Murphy sat on the flagstones, arms around his knees. His eyes looked a bit fuzzy, but coming back.

“Who is that guy?”

Luke sighed and shook his head. “He’s a friend of mine. Old Army buddy.” He cracked a ghost of a smile and rubbed his face. The hand came away bloody. “You know, sometimes these reunions…”

Most of the cops were already moving away.

Luke stared down at Murphy. Murphy was making no effort to get up. Luke reached into the pocket of his jacket and came out with a business card. He looked at it for a second.

Luke Stone, Special Agent.

In the corner was the SRT logo. Under Luke’s name was a phone number that would reach a secretary at the office. There was something absurdly pleasing about that card.

He flipped it at Murphy.

“Here, you idiot. Call me. I was going to offer you a job.”

Luke turned his back on Murphy and walked toward Ed Newsam. Ed was in a dress shirt and dark tie and had a blazer draped over his shoulder. He was as big as a mountain. His muscles rippled under his clothes. His hair and beard were jet black. His face was young, not a line on his skin.

He shook his head and smiled. “What are you doing?”

Luke shrugged. “I don’t really know. What are you doing?”

“They sent me to get you,” Ed said. “We’ve got a mission. Hostage rescue. High priority.”

“Where?” Luke said.

Ed shook his head. “Classified. We won’t know until the briefing. But they want us ready to move as soon as the briefing is over.”

“When’s the briefing?”

Ed had already turned and was heading back down the hill.

“Now.”

CHAPTER FOUR

12:20 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time

Headquarters of the Special Response Team

McLean, Virginia

“Don’t worry. You look real pretty.”

Luke was in the men’s room of the employee locker room. His shirt was off and he was washing his face in the sink. A deep scratch ran down his left cheek. The lower right side of his jaw was red and bruised and beginning to swell. Murph had clocked him a good one along there.

Luke’s knuckles were raw and ripped up. The wounds were open, and blood was still running a little bit. He had clocked Murphy a few good ones himself.

Behind him, big Ed loomed in the mirror. Ed had put his blazer back on and was every bit the consummate, well-dressed professional. Luke was supposed to be Ed’s superior officer in this job. He couldn’t put his own suit jacket back on because it was dirty from when he had thrown it on the ground.

“Let’s go, man,” Ed said. “We’re already late.”

“I’m going to look like something the cat dragged in.”

Ed shrugged. “Next time do what I do. Keep an extra suit, plus an extra set of office casual, right here in your locker. I’m surprised I need to teach you this stuff.”

Luke had put his T-shirt back on and was starting to button up his dress shirt. “Yeah, but what do I do now?”

Ed shook his head, but he was grinning. “This is what people expect from you anyway. Tell them you were doing a little tae kwon do sparring in the parking lot during your coffee break.”

Luke and Ed left the locker room and bounced up the concrete stairwell to the main floor. The conference room, as close to state-of-the-art as Mark Swann could get it, was down the end of a narrow side hallway. Don tended to call it the Command Center, though Luke felt that was stretching the facts a bit. One day, maybe.

Nervous butterflies bounced against the walls of Luke’s intestines. These meetings were a new thing for him, and he couldn’t seem to get used to them. Don told him it would come to him in time.

In the military, briefings were simple. They went like this:

Here’s the goal. Here’s the plan of attack. Questions? Input? Okay, load gear.

These briefings never went like that.

The door to the conference room was straight ahead. It was open. The room was somewhat small, and twenty people inside would make it look like a crowded subway car at rush hour. These meetings gave Luke the willies. There were endless discussions and delays. The press of people made him claustrophobic.