Cold Barrel Zero Read Free Page B

against them.”
    “Now it’s working the other way. And the measures to guard their families against the bad guys are going to hide them from us. They stole the records of everything we’d use to find them in the United States: next of kin, associates, means of support.”
    “For Christ’s sake. Someone has to know who these people are,” Barnard said. “We have the material from the investigations.”
    “The annexes were kept here.” It had been Barnard’s order, a way to control the political damage to JSOC by limiting access to the details of Hayes’s crimes.
    “You’re telling me that we have war criminals loose in the United States and they are goddamn ghosts! You know what these men are capable of.”
    “I do,” Cox said. This was what these soldiers had been trained to do: assume a name, a face, a life. Hide out for years if necessary. “We can work backward. Everyone leaves a trace, even if the paper’s gone. We know he came from Marine Special Operations. We can go back to his old unit. He stole his personal file, but we can pull the unit rosters by hand, talk to those who served alongside him, commanded him, reconstruct what we can about where he is likely to go and who is likely to help him stateside. He’ll need support.
    “Some of it may be on magnetic tape in a bunker, though that’ll take weeks to drag up. It’s going to be a lot of legwork.”
    “Well, we should get started.”
    Cox already had. “I will.”
    “Jesus,” Barnard said, surveying the empty file drawers. “They took the files for every cover identity in the field. They could sell those to our enemies. It would be a slaughter. Worse than Hanssen, worse than Ames.”
    “There’s that,” Cox said.
    “You don’t think that’s his game?”
    “If he hadn’t taken all of them, we would know where to start. He had no choice.”
    “So he’s covering his tracks. He’s on the run. This could be his last step, a disappearing act.”
    Cox shook his head. “No. He can disappear anywhere. This is overkill. He’d take a risk this great only to avoid a greater one later.”
    “Say what you mean.”
    “He’s back in the U.S. It’s suicidal, but that’s his psychology, why we selected him: he’ll always choose duty over self-preservation. He’s coming for us. He’s going to finish this. And now”—he waved his hand at the empty racks—“we won’t be able to see him coming.”
    “You’re on top of this?”
    “Yes. And it would be wise to let Colonel Riggs know, so he can take precautions.”
    “I’d like to keep this close to the vest,” Barnard said. Behind his back, he held the printout with the record of his biometric entry into the office.
    “Hayes nearly killed Riggs. He is likely to finish the job.”
    Barnard nodded. “You’re right. You find them, under whatever names, whatever lies they are living, and then we go after them with everything we have.”
    “I will,” Cox said, and he was already in motion, striding away with the safe dial in one hand and his phone in the other.
    As soon as his cell got a signal, he punched in a number, put the phone to his ear, and said, “Give me MARSOC.”

Chapter 4
    IN THE BACK of a box truck, Hayes laid two packets down on a steel shelf. The magnets inside clunked onto the metal. He picked up a simple Nokia cell phone, dialed a number, and placed it beside the devices.
    Each packet was about the size of a hardcover book and had a Nokia bound to the top with electrical tape. The phones’ plastic cases had been pried open, and a small piece of breadboard circuitry covered each keypad. As both phones rang, Hayes held the probes of a multimeter across the open wires and checked the current. It was plenty. He reattached the wires to the detonators and went through the continuity on the circuits one last time. Then he handed the packets back to Speed.
    “Strong work,” he said.
    Speed gave them a last once-over, kept one for himself, and handed the second to