Dick Winchester in... The Pentagon Part 2

Hello! If you're new to the Dick Winchester series, I highly recommend starting with Chapter 1 of Book 1: The Box with No Name

This is Chapter 5 of Book 2. If you haven't already, I recommend starting at Chapter 1 for the sake of continuity:

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Book 2, Chapter 5

MP5 smacking into my chest as I hustled with a heavy-ass box of 7.62 NATO in each hand, I reflected on just how little life seemed to change. Despite all my success, I still was an ammunition rat, scuttling among the debris.

The parallels to where the legend of Dick Winchester first began amid the shell-hollowed cement apartment blocks of Mariupol, Ukraine were palpable.

Of course, the flashbacks also reinforced this idea.

A bullet whistled past and slapped the inner wall a dozen feet away, but this time it wasn’t cement chunks flying up at me. It was gray marble.

And instead of being left to fight on our own, far outside America’s umbrella of military might, this time my squad stood at the nexus of the Department of Defense and the mighty sword it wielded. The Pentagon.

A couple F-16s would really even the score, I thought to myself as I rounded the base of Fort Mulch. I was halfway up the hill of shredded wood when I remembered how incensed the security guards were at the mere suggestion of aircraft flying near the building. Still a bit sensitive after the last time.

Finally, I let the ammunition boxes drop at the top, slumping down to catch my breath behind the mulch bags currently serving as sandbags.

The M240 gunner paused at the end of his burst, “Hey, about time, Dick.”

Despite my ringing ears from the machine gun’s concussion, that voice was familiar. “Barry?”

Winchester Delivery Services’ top intern smiled at me before turning back to his gun. “Yeah, weren’t you wondering where I was?”

“Honestly, I kind of forgot. Too much going on.”

“Fair. It is a lot to be read into.”

He shifted from his prone stance. “Help me unpack these belts. Our friend M240 is a hungry one.”

The images of Mariupol clawing at the edges of my vision fled as a deeper sense of dread swept through me at the thought of how quick that metaphor had come to Barry’s mind.

And how that metaphor might have been previously deployed during his “intimate times” with Katie.

“Hey, you feeling all right?” that voice came again from a mouth that could have done all sorts of unspeakable things with, to, around my friend. “You look pale.”

“Oh,” I said, forcing myself to open one of the ammo crates. “All this shooting… brings up bad memories.”

It took all my willpower not to recoil from Barry’s hand on my shoulder. “I hear that. Ukraine was rough, huh?”

“You don’t follow the news, do you?” I recalled the Secretary of Defense asking me why she hadn’t heard from the Afghan National Army in a while. “Guess that’s the office culture around here.”

“Nah, too focused on the here and now, you know?” Barry said as he threaded the belt I handed him into the M240’s receiver and slammed it home. “So much to enjoy these days.”

With Barry’s full attention back to the fight raging beyond Fort Mulch, I let the shudders radiate from my spine and work their way out through my fingers and toes.

“Well, it’s been fun hanging out,” Barry’s voice broke into my convulsions. “But I think it’s time for you to get back out there. This isn’t the only thirsty girl on the battlefield.”

I watched as he gave the machine gun a reassuring pat with a hand that had been all sorts of places on my friend. I slid, allowing gravity to whisk me away. At the base of the mound, I took a moment to attempt to purge the bile roiling in my stomach.

Damn it. Only dry heaves.

But as I had learned in Mariupol, war did not wait for you to sort through the strange feelings of seeing your intern dating—and doing whatever else—with one of your good friends.

Hey, do you want to get back into the fight over there?

The thought spurred me into action. Until a new consideration froze my feet halfway through my first stride.

That didn’t sound like the trademark Dick Winchester internal dialogue. The voice was different. And “over there?” As if it was calling to me, not within me. Come to think of it, there did seem to be a direction to that voice.

Hellooo? Earth to Jackass?

I looked around, but no one was standing this far behind the front lines. Only a solitary tree and some brittle hedges interrupted my line of sight. As I stared, a stray bullet clipped off a branch.

Ow! Not another one.

My eyes focused on the tree, my mouth starting to form the thought my brain refused to entertain.

Yes, it’s me. The tree.

I shook my head, chuckling to myself. “Oh, I get it. The PTSD is kicking in, and now I’m hallucinating that the trees are talking like some Vietnam vet who’s gone over the hill. Very funny, brain.”

Yeah, but I’m not speaking Vietnamese, am I?

It—I?—had a point.

“Okay, so a tree is talking to me. …why?”

Another bullet struck its trunk. Fuck this! it swore in clear pain. I hate it here. This is the last time I hitch a ride on any old breeze that comes along.

I waited for it to work the anger out of its system.

Isn’t it obvious? So this yearly nightmare wraps up quicker and I can go back to attempting to grow some leaves before they all get shot off again. Also, because these walls are too tall and my seeds can’t fly away from this madness.

I searched through my Earth Science databanks. “Don’t birds eat your seeds, too?”

First off, you ever been eaten and passed through a digestive track?

“Can’t say I have.”

Well, let me tell you, it’s not fun. Second, birds don’t come in here because the central threat AI snipes any that get close. Feds can’t have their own drones spying on them.

“Wait… so birds actually aren’t real? I thought that was a meme.”

Stay on topic or I’m not helping you.

“Right, sorry. But how exactly are you going to help me? Last I checked, you don’t have 2nd Amendment rights.”

No, but we can help guide those who do.

“But you don’t have eyes…”

For Christ’s sake.

I waited for the tree to slap its forehead before recalling they didn’t have hands, either. Or a forehead.

Roots! We have roots! We can feel you bipedals walking around, especially in all your heavy tactical gear.

“I think I’m getting it now. But… we?”

Murmurs came from the center of the courtyard. Where more trees stood.

“Oh, I get it now.” I nodded to it.

One of your comrades beside the fountain needs a new magazine.

I sprinted over to the ammunition dump, noting the staccato of her M4A1. Digging into the outdoor storage bins, I came up with a bundle of fresh 5.56 NATO.

I started to sprint out from cover when the savaged oak beside the fountain called out, No, pass them to me.

One moment, my eyebrow was raising at what that meant. Then I shrugged and heaved the ammo load into its branches.

“Almost out,” the recipient shouted from the other side of the fountain. Then there was a thunk, followed by “Oh, never mind.”

Three seconds later, her fire resumed.

Give me a grenade, a gnarled cherry tree at five o’clock called out.

“What, why?” I asked out loud, figuring no one else would hear me over the reverb of assault rifles in the enclosed courtyard.

The frontal assault is a diversion. There is a group of attackers who have infiltrated your lines.

“How?”

CIA are sneaky like that, dude.

The cherry tree had a point. I hunched over the bins and retrieved an M67 frag grenade before working my way to its base.

Not yet, it stopped me a heartbeat from tossing the grenade up. I’ll tell you when. And pull the pin, first.

I stared for a moment. “Oh, right. No thumbs.”

Now.

I armed the grenade and hefted it into the branches, trying to see exactly how the tree was moving it, but the green cannister disappeared. I tensed behind the trunk, hoping this cherry tree knew how to handle a live grenade and doing my best to ignore how insane that sounded.

A moment later, the sound of light footsteps and hushed voices came from the other side of the tree, followed a second later by a barely audible plink.

Another second passed before a decidedly louder voice screamed, “Shit, gren—”

The rest of the sentence was drowned out by the explosion. I watched as bodies flew in all directions, including one that collided with the trunk and sank to the ground. I hoped that man had absorbed the shrapnel that would otherwise have hit my friend the cherry tree.

Behind the ammo crates, the oak tree now directed me. One is waiting to ambush you when you return.

The woman had picked her hiding spot well. But when she popped her head up at the sound of my approach, she caught sight of my boot flying toward her face as I vaulted over the crate. Her head cracked against the paving stones, and she lay limp.

“Well, consider me impressed, ammo runner.”

I looked up to find the Secretary of Defense rounding the fountain, her escort in tow and panting for breath. Meanwhile, she didn’t even appear to have gotten a speck of dirt on her pantlegs.

“I heard the explosion and came to investigate.” She nodded to the scattering of Langley office workers beside the cherry tree and at my feet. “But looks like you have things handled.”

All around, the sound of gunfire dribbled off, and the Secretary’s contingent let their shoulders relax. “Another exciting championship this year. Still, did anyone see what happened to Bobby?”

Heads up. One more rounding the hedge at three o’clock, the original tree called to me.

I started to wonder how trees understood clocks—or directions—but given there was only one hedge in sight that offered any kind of concealment, I rolled the dice.

In my periphery, the Secretary of Defense shrugged. “Oh, well. Guess he slunk off—”

The CIA man rounded the corner, and the Secretary’s words dropped off as I raised my MP5. Despite the ski mask covering most of his face, I could still see his eyes widen in surprise at my shooter’s pose.

I fired a three-shot burst into the man’s chest, and he collapsed into a long-dead flower bed.

We all ran up, weapons at the ready.

“Ouch,” the man groaned. I looked down, finding my neat shot group in the man’s Kevlar vest.

“So,” the Secretary of Defense said, kneeling to rip off the ski mask with all the theatrics of Scooby and the Gang unmasking that episode’s villain, “you decide to show your face after all, Bobby.”

Bobby nodded, mouth screwed up in pain. “We’re CIA, Janessa. Sneaking around is our best move.” Then his eyes met mine. “At least when you don’t have John McClane playing rear guard.”

“Be that as it may,” the Secretary said, moving the barrel of her M4A1 to center on his face. “We’re still in regulation unless you forfeit, so I’m within rights to shoot you at the moment.”

“Uncle,” the CIA director muttered.

“Louder,” the Secretary hissed, her finger taking up the slack on her trigger.

“Sorry, bruised chest.” Bobby managed to give her a wry grin before shouting, “Uncle! Game’s over, everyone.”

All at once, silence reigned over the courtyard, mingling with the smell of gunpowder. In this limbo, the Secretary of Defense locked eyes with the Director of the CIA for a long moment. Then she let her M4A1 fall to her side and offered him a hand up.

In short order, everyone from both sides got into lines and slapped each other’s hands with “Good game” exchanged all around. One of the opposing side even invited Agent 2 out for beers after.

He declined with a sad look. “Would love to, but I can’t. Already hit my one drink a night cap earlier, and can’t afford any friction with the misses right now.”

The CIA woman smiled knowingly before departing with her fellow office workers.

“Damn, Dick.” Teresa jogged up to stand beside me. “And I thought I had fun tonight.”

Agent 1 clapped my shoulder. “How’d you do it?”

“Well, I had a little help…” I started to look toward the original tree, but Barry was standing in my line of sight and shook his head. “Uh, from up above!”

“So, beginner’s luck.”

“Pretty much,” I said, still feeling Barry’s withering stare on my neck.

I moved toward the Secretary for our meeting at long last when something caught my arm. It was Barry’s hand, but this time with a vice grip. “They cannot understand that which they cannot hear,” Barry hissed in my ear. Then something fell into my pocket. “Do not betray their trust.”

“What was that?” Teresa asked as he walked away.

“Oh, just work stuff,” I said, feeling around in my pocket. Were those...

...seeds?

Just as I finally came within earshot of the Secretary of Defense, one of her assistants followed Barry’s example by muttering in her ear.

“So sorry, Mr. Winchester, but I have to rain check this.”

She saw the long look on my face. “I know, but the mission of national defense sleeps for no one. Not even my favorite local small business owner.”

A smile slid up one side of her face. “Tell you what, why don’t you come to our next movie night?”

“The Pentagon does movie nights?”

“Sure! And we have you to thank for that one. After you inspired us by projecting that commercial right onto the side of our building.”

Her smirk turned to a grin. “You know it was me who made that anonymous phone call telling you to add subtitles? Because…”

“…projectors don’t include sound,” I finished the sentence from the voice-distorted call.

She nodded. “Take that as a token of my good will. I’m rooting for you in the war to come.” Her face grew serious. “Which is why I need to pass on an urgent message. While there’s still time.”

Then, without pause, she snapped back to warm and personable. “Thank you so much for playing, both you and your impressive police officer girlfriend. I’ll have Agent 1 drive you home!”

“Hope you enjoyed your insider tour,” Agent 1 said, nudging Teresa and I toward the door.

“I’m… assuming we can’t talk about any of what just happened?”

Agent 1 laughed. “Go ahead and talk all you want, but only those nutcases who follow K-Incog are going to believe any of it.”

Yep, I thought as we walked the hallowed halls in our bulletproof vests, imagine how terrified all the conspiracy theorists would be if they realized how much worse our government actually operates.

***

Tune in next week when the story continues in the next thrilling installment of Dick Winchester in… The Movie Night

More Dick Winchester in...

The Opening Salvo (Book 1)

• Opening chapter: The Box with No Name

The Counterattack (Book 2)

1. The Deflation
2. The Interrogation
3. The First Date
4. The Pentagon Part 1
5. The Pentagon Part 2 — you are here
6. The Movie Night — drafting in progress