Page 11 of Cross Down
“Still classified, far as I know,” I say, remembering how the Army Reserve had called up me and a couple of others with “special talents” to be part of a highly classified CIA operation. “Be careful here, Mel.”
“I will,” he says. “But I need to talk to you about it, John. Face to face. Not over the phone, not via e-mail. It’s very important.”
The parking enforcement officer gets closer, nods in my direction, takes out the handheld device for issuing tickets.
“Mel,” I say, “I’ll do my best, but I’m balls to the wall here. It might be a week or so before I’m free.”
“It can’t wait that long, John. Trust me.”
The officer is at the front of my Grand Cherokee, noting my license plate. I give the horn a quick beep to get her attention. It works but she doesn’t look happy. “It’s got to wait, Mel, because—”
“Because you and the Metro Police and every other agency in DC are up to their necks in these terrorist attacks, right?”
“A good guess,” I say, “but you know I can’t talk about that.” I reach into my jacket pocket, pull out a slim leather wallet, unfold it, and display my detective shield to the parking officer. She leans in to look, sticks her tongue out at me, and gets back up on the sidewalk.
“That’s why I’ve got to see you,” he says. “I don’t know who might be listening in on my phone calls. But you figure out a way to see me as quick as you can.”
I try to keep my voice light. “You’re beginning to sound paranoid, Mel,” I say.
Mel says, “You should be paranoid. All of us who went on that cross-border expedition into Afghanistan should be paranoid. I think what we did and saw there is connected to all these bombings and shootings.”
Then he ends the call.
Chapter
10
In the counterfeitAmazon delivery van, Pope looks at the uniformed man knocking on the window.
He could floor the accelerator or lower the window and put a round through the man’s forehead, but the point of this mission is to stay quiet and under the radar until the real shooting begins.
Pope powers the window down. “What’s wrong?”
The man passes over a sheet of paper and says, “What’s wrong is how you, me, and thousands of others are being oppressed by this mega-rich corporation that doesn’t pay any taxes and works us to the bone with minimum pay and benefits.”
Pope looks at the orange leaflet, sees that it’s about some sort of meeting for Amazon workers. He looks again at the man and realizes with embarrassment that the guy is just wearing a private security firm uniform.
The man says, “Besides being a security guard, I also work over at Amazon Logistics in Springfield, and I know that’s where you get dispatched from. There’s a meeting coming up about filing the proper paperwork to get unionized. Come join us, brother.”
Pope drops the leaflet on the seat next to him. “I don’t think so.” The light ahead turns green.
“We’re trying to change the world!”
Pope takes his foot off the brake, steps on the gas, and says, “Aren’t we all.”
He drives a few yards and then Leon’s voice comes through his earpiece. “Everything all right up there? We thought we heard you talking to someone.”
Pope says, “Just a concerned citizen, that’s all. Looking to spread the joys of unionization.”
“I don’t think there’s a union for what we do,” Leon says, laughing.
“Me either,” Pope says.
Chapter
11
I park myGrand Cherokee in a rare empty spot across the street from Metro Police headquarters, an old and depressing-looking stone and marble building. If you put a barbed-wire fence around it, it could pass for a state penitentiary.
