The Betrayer by Daniel Judson

After
exiting, it made three turns, then pulled up to a warehouse in what was clearly
a failed industrial neighborhood. A man Johnny had never seen before was
standing outside a garage-style door, smoking a cigarette. When this man
spotted the town car, he tossed the cigarette away and quickly raised the overhead
door.
    Johnny studied
the man as the town car passed into a loading bay. Then the door was pulled closed
behind them, the man remaining outside.
    Richter stayed
behind the wheel as McVicker and Johnny exited the vehicle. McVicker led Johnny
toward a glass-enclosed office at the other end of the long dock.
    Waiting inside
that office, visible through the tall panes of mesh-lined glass, were Cat and
Donnie Fiermonte.

Chapter Ten
    McVicker closed the office door
behind them. He and Johnny stood at one end of the narrow room, Cat and
Fiermonte at the other. Between them was an old metal desk, its drawers missing.
There was very little space for anything else.
    Fiermonte said to
McVicker, “We’d like to talk to Johnny in private.”
    Johnny shook his
head and said flatly, “He stays.”
    Cat wasn’t
surprised by this — Johnny, the soldier in the family, valued loyalty above all
else, always had. Whether or not it was blind loyalty didn’t really matter to
him, not years ago and clearly not now.
    “This doesn’t
concern him,” Fiermonte said.
    Cat cut in. “It’s
all right.”
    If Johnny was the
soldier in the family, then she was the peacemaker. Interesting how family
dynamics can continue, she thought, even between adult children, even when
whatever childhood bond you may have had has long since been broken.
    Fiermonte backed
down, but he wasn’t happy, that much was obvious. And he was nervous, too. But
most people were around McVicker, even men with the power of the state behind
them.
    “Thanks for
coming,” she said to Johnny. The last time she had seen him was two years ago,
shortly before his trip to Vietnam. She had tried to talk him out of going — what
would be gained by retracing their father’s steps? she’d said. Why not just
save the money he’d inherited — life insurance, their father’s minor savings,
proceeds from the sale of the house in Ossining. Or why not use it to buy a
place, like she had? Why the need to burn through it?
    But while the
allegations that had been leveled against their father had troubled her and
caused her career to suffer, Johnny had been all but devastated by them. He’d
built his life around the notion of honor and service. And heroics. The Coyle
Family Tradition — a long list of fighters going back to the Revolutionary War.
Their father’s posthumous disgrace, which followed too quickly the abrupt end
to Johnny’s own promising military career, had been a one-two punch that set
him back on his heels.
    Everything he had
believed, plus everything he had worked for — just gone.
    “How are you,
Cat?” Johnny said. It was a reserved greeting, at best, but she wasn’t
expecting anything more.
    “I’m fine.”
    “Dickey said you
needed my help with something.”
    It was obvious
that Johnny wanted to get down to business, that seeing his sister and asking
how she was doing was as much of a family reunion as he was interested in at
this moment.
    Cat gestured toward
Fiermonte. “Actually, we both do.”
    Johnny glanced at
the man standing behind her.
    “Good to see you
again, son,” Fiermonte said.
    Johnny nodded, respectfully,
then looked back at his sister.
    In his mind — still
a Ranger’s mind — he was counting the minutes till he needed to call Haley.
    He has changed,
Cat thought. Or, more accurately, he was the Johnny she remembered, only so much
more so. Guarded, taciturn, standoffish. A human fortress in every way. She had
become accustomed to people — colleagues — treating her coldly, so this
disconnect, and the utter loneliness it stirred deep within her, was something
she had dealt with many times before.
    Still, to get
this from