From the Ashes (6 page)

If they ever got better.

Jon checked himself and stopped that line of thinking in its tracks. He reminded himself that he wasn’t alone in this. He had company in his misery, and, if he could, he had to try to be strong for Mara. Less than 24 hours after she became engaged to the love of her life, he ends up dead. Under suspicious circumstances, no less. And poor Mara had to be the one to find the body.

He swallowed as the cityscape below grew in detail. He couldn’t be selfish with his feelings here. Somehow, he had to pull himself together. For Mara.

And for Michael.

Fifteen minutes later, the jet touched down on the tarmac at Dulles International Airport. Jon continued to stare out the window, watching the baggage handlers and ground traffic controllers going about their business. Just another day in the life. Business as usual.

The plane taxied to its gate, and the other passengers began to unload their belongings from the overhead bins. Jon took a deep breath.

Journey of a thousand miles. One step at a time.

After most of his fellow passengers had filtered out, Jon grabbed his carry-on from the overhead compartment and filed down the aisle to the exit, nodding a forced half-smile to the pilots and flight attendants who met the exhausted passengers at the door.

He drifted through the terminal, the barrage of advertising posters and duty-free signs passing by unnoticed. He walked as though in a trance, bumping into people and being jostled in return as he trudged blindly through the terminal. His body was in one place, his mind somewhere else entirely. Through passport control, through the baggage claim, through customs, and on toward the exit.

“Jordan Wagdy,” “Ms. Saibani Lakhani,” “Lloyd Reissig,” “Aya Gawdat,” “F. Moodley,” “N. Lawrence”; the placards with waiting drivers or hosts went on and on. None bore the name “Jonathan Rickner.” Jon wasn’t surprised, as he hadn’t arranged for anyone to pick him up from the airport, but he was somewhat disappointed nonetheless. His sense of aloneness increased in seeing all these people waiting to greet, wine, dine, and just
be
with these arrivals who they had likely never met before.
They
had company; he was alone.

Then a familiar face, not bearing a placard but simply a somber, grateful countenance pointed in Jon’s direction, appeared in the throng near the exit. At the sight, Jon smiled.

It was Mara. At twenty-five, she was a year older than Jon and a year younger than Michael, but Jon imagined that the past twenty-four hours had aged her more than all of the previous two years since Michael had first introduced her as his girlfriend. Her medium-length auburn hair, slightly less perfectly styled than usual, framed a face both familiar and not. Her hazel eyes were rimmed in red, her normally porcelain complexion tear-stained and ruddy, her lips free from lipstick and faintly tremulous. Still beautiful, but broken, like a war-torn cathedral. He hadn’t told her when he was arriving, just that he’d call her once he was in town. How she had discovered his flight information, he had no idea. But he was glad she had.

“Mara,” Jon said in a soft voice as he reached her, dropping his bags and wrapping his arms around her. She responded with an equally strong embrace, burying her tear-stained face in his chest. She began sobbing into his shirt, and he held her even tighter, rubbing his hand across her upper back in a comforting gesture.

He realized that this was the first time he had hugged or been hugged since he’d gotten the news. He needed the hug more than he had thought. It felt so good to feel the life of another pressing against his body, particularly the life of someone else close to his brother. The deep embrace, the touch of mutual sorrow and mourning, reminded Jon that, no matter how hard everything could get, life went on.

Mara nestled into his chest – small, alone, and scared. Her best friend and lover was gone, and everything she’d known and believed in was suddenly in danger of being devoured by fear and anguish. She was not yet his sister-in-law, and ultimately, would never be so, but Jon vowed right then, in this embrace, that he would do what he could to help her through this crisis in Michael’s stead, playing the protective brother role that he’d never officially have with her.

“Jon,” Mara said, loosening her grip on Jon and looking up at him with red-rimmed eyes. “How are you doing?”

“Honestly? I have no idea. I think I’m just on automatic right now. The shock stage of grief or whatever.”

“You mean ‘denial’?”

“Yeah, that one.” Jon took a deep breath. “What about you?”

Her face tensed up like she was fighting back a flood of tears. He pulled her into a tight embrace, trying – unsuccessfully – to hug the tears away.

She sighed as she buried her face into his chest. “I’m glad you’re here.”

Jon felt the wetness of her tears begin to soak through her shirt. “I’m glad
you‘re
here, too. I’m still reeling. God knows I would have probably forgotten how to hail a cab.”

Mara let out a little grunt of a laugh, her head still resting on Jon’s chest. They stood in silence, immune to the hustle and bustle of commuters around them.

Jon sighed, the movement in his chest spurring Mara to lift her head.

“So what now?” she asked.

“I’m famished. What time is it here anyway?”

“A little past nine.”

“You eaten yet? I could really go for some breakfast. My treat.”

“Not much of an appetite yet, I’m afraid,” she said, sniffling. “But okay.” Then she glanced at the bags to his sides. “Where are you staying?”

“I was gonna get a hotel. Somewhere over near Foggy Bottom.”

“No, you’re not. Come stay with me. My roomie’s gone to Florida with her boyfriend for the week. I... I could use the company.”

He sighed. “Alright. Thanks.”

“So, my place, then breakfast?” Mara asked as she grabbed his carry-on for him.

“Sounds like a plan,” Jon nodded thoughtfully, though a real plan for where to go from here was nowhere in sight. But, he reflected, even though his life may have been in turmoil, he at least had some solid company along for the ride.

Langley, Virginia

In a small corner of land officially allotted by the federal government to the CIA, the headquarters of the Division sat unassumingly, just another building lost in a much larger complex. The concrete-and-mirrored-glass facade bore no sign or other indication as to what the building housed, as even the privileged few who were granted free reign to explore the campus of the CIA’s headquarters were not allowed inside the building. Fewer than a dozen people in the entire country, not including Division operatives and staff, knew of the organization’s existence or purpose. The clearance required even to set foot inside the building was
exclusive
to those specifically granted license by the Division’s director.

Exiting from his black Mercedes sedan, a well-built Latino man, clad in a black double-breasted suit and sporting wraparound sunglasses, his dark hair shining in the sunlight, headed toward the small, two-story building. Though his head remained set on his shoulders, facing forward as he walked at a brisk pace toward his destination, his eyes swept from side to side beneath his dark sunglasses, scanning his surroundings as he always did. No matter where he was, no matter what he was doing. Being a field agent with the Division, Enrique Ramirez had found, was more than just a job; it consumed your whole life. Which, he realized, was fitting considering how the Division quite literally had taken his old life, as fire consumes the phoenix, and rebirthed him from the smoldering ashes of his staged death.

He climbed the half-dozen stairs to the front doors of Division HQ, his sweeping eyes noting the chewing gum stuck underneath the left-hand rail, and ticking off another day in his mind that maintenance had neglected to clean it off. Enrique was glad the maintenance guys weren’t responsible for the more important parts of the operation. As it was, the Division’s fate, and thus the fate of the nation, was in much more able hands – hands like his.

As the only child of first-generation American immigrants from Honduras, Enrique Ramirez had had a rough childhood. The inner city of Los Angeles and the cycle of poverty that afflicted so many of his peers plagued his upbringing, but it was his father, Juan Pablo, whom he feared the most. When Enrique was fourteen, he had come home to another of his father’s drunken rants, the paper-thin walls of the apartment ensuring that the family’s dirty laundry was no secret to their equally despondent neighbors. Juan Pablo was in the kitchen with Enrique’s mother, Luisa. Normally, his mother would try to calm him down, to placate him somehow until he sobered up. To yell back would only infuriate him further, and that was when he turned violent, as both Enrique and Luisa had found out more times than they could count. On this day, however, Luisa neither yelled nor placated. The voice that Enrique heard as he entered the house was fearful, pleading as though for her very life. And as he discovered when he approached the kitchen, he realized this was, in fact, the case.

His back to the entrance to the kitchen, Juan Pablo stood over the crumpled body of Enrique’s mother. Luisa’s blue gingham housedress was splattered with the crimson that leaked from her nose and mouth, and a pool of blood was beginning to form on the yellowed linoleum. Attempting to curl into a fetal position, she was shaking with fear and with the onset of shock. And Juan Pablo continued to yell, punctuating his hateful tirade with kicks to the shins, kidneys, arms, and face.

Enrique didn’t remember picking up the long cutting knife from the counter; it was just there, in his clenched fist, ready to help him dispense justice. Juan Pablo was so consumed by his drunken fury that he didn’t even notice Enrique come up behind him until the knife was already driven into his spine, almost to the hilt. The man whirled in surprise, flailing about to defend against his teenage son, but Enrique stabbed him again and again, pummeling him with his free hand in between thrusts. After his father had finally fallen to the ground in a bloody, dead heap, Enrique finally dropped to his knees beside his mother, who was still quivering on the floor. She looked at Enrique through blackened eyes that were already beginning to swell shut. Her lips seemed to form the word “why” as she exhaled a soundless bubble of blood from her mouth. Whether that questioning word was directed at him or his father, Enrique had never been able to decide.

Luisa died from internal bleeding on the way to the hospital. Juan Pablo had been dead before the paramedics even showed up. Enrique Ramirez, fourteen years old, was alone in the world.

After an investigation into the affair, the authorities decided not to pursue charges against the teenager. Between the history of abuse, the boy’s age, the motive of defending his helpless mother, and the passionate nature of the crime, the police wrote it up as self-defense, the justifiable homicide of a man no one would miss.

Months of counseling and years of revolving door foster families followed for Enrique. Social workers and guidance counselors described him as somber, angry, and lacking direction. But the day he turned eighteen, he discovered the direction he was destined for: the armed services.

When Enrique joined the United States Army in the build up to NATO’s invasion of Yugoslavia in 1999, he immediately stood out as a formidable soldier. Fearless and cunning, his instincts on the ground would often lead him to improvise changes to his missions – changes that always either granted surprisingly successful results or avoided the massive casualties that the ill-conceived original plan would have incurred. Even his senior squad members listened to his advice with an open mind, usually opting to follow the rookie soldier. But when one of his improvised missions took a turn for the worse, forcing him to separate from his squad and find his own way back through enemy lines to base camp, he got his first taste of operating solo. No squadmates’ backs to watch, no predefined mission parameters, a license to kill, and a lot of bad guys to use that license on. Not only did he make it back to base camp alive, but he also managed to kill seventeen of the enemy by himself: with only an M4, a pistol, one extra clip of rifle ammo, and a knife. The last four kills, apparently, had been made after he had run out of ammo, and judging by stories that circulated later on, the families of the deceased would have had no chance of holding open casket funerals.

He had risen quickly within the ranks, being put on special assignments, and eventually, due to his loner tendencies and his ability to make operational magic happen when given a long leash, he was assigned solo assassination missions: taking out high-profile or tactical targets as a splinter cell – for the United States neither condones nor partakes in assassinations of foreign leaders... officially, at least – backed up only by minimal reconnaissance and intelligence members with whom he rarely interacted, save for the occasional radio contact. He came to like it that way. Just him and his target. His guidance counselor back in high school would have said that he was channeling his anger at his dead father toward these surrogates, the enemy combatants he so efficiently dispatched, but Enrique didn’t buy into that. He was simply good at killing people who needed to be killed. Very, very good.

Enrique slid his plain white entry card through the reader next to the entry door – a door that, like the rest of the building, appeared to be made of mirrored glass, but was in fact constructed of two inches of steel, with the glass merely covering its exterior. In fact, all of the building’s windows concealed either a foot of concrete, six inches of steel, or both, immediately on the other side of the glass. Entering the building, Enrique removed his sunglasses and glanced at each of the five closed-circuit cameras trained on the small entryway; at each of the thirty-two tiny nozzles connected to pipes filled with cyanide gas that would be released should some unauthorized person try to gain admittance to their sanctum; at the vent in the ceiling used for sucking the gas away after the unwelcome guest had been taken out of play.