Torching the Crimson Flag

by Conrad Brasso

  With the job finished, he jogged out to the chopper, signaling David to start it up.

  The two agents walked over to him quickly, cutting him off. “What’s going on?” asked the woman.

  “Agent Morrow, right?” Trey asked, stalling for every precious second, as the rotors started to slowly move.

  “Yes, what’s going on?”

  “And you’re agent Lee?”

  The guy nodded.

  “I just showed Special Agent Schweitzer what happened over at the terminal. He needs you there right away. There’s still someone alive in there.”

  They both looked dubious. Agent Lee reached for his radio.

  “Verify if you want. We’re clear to go,” Trey said, jogging towards the chopper. “If I were you, I’d get to the terminal now!” he shouted, climbing on board. “That guy’s barely alive. Special Agent Schweitzer needs your help!”

  Agent Lee wasn’t getting his boss on the radio. “Wait!” he shouted. “Let me go talk with him!”

  “Let’s get out of here, David,” Trey said, nodding at the agents, giving them a thumb up.

  Suddenly the chopper’s blades sped up, creating a downdraft that whipped sand everywhere like little needles. Agent Morrow and Agent Lee quickly shielded their eyes and before they could respond, the UH-1 Iroquois lifted straight into the air and veered to the North. It was 292 miles from Ocracoke Island Airport to LaunchPad, about two and a half hours.

  Trey was riding shotgun with David, seeing his main job as making sure the pilot didn’t fall asleep on the job. Bruce was exhausted and fell asleep right away in his seat, but before he did, David handed all three operators a set of Bose A20 Aviation Headsets. They were the best for in-flight intercom, cutting out all but a whisper of the external roar from the chopper. Dr. Harris was next to Locke, wrapped in a blanket, having satisfied his hunger for now with an MRE that the operators fed him, and wearing a set of earplugs in his ears, also sound asleep. Tank was seated in the back and had been assigned guard duty. Seated in front of him were Sasha, Ivan, and his brother. David had put DeWalt Interceptor Ear Muffs on each one of them so they wouldn’t go deaf at the back of the helicopter but also so they couldn’t talk to each other. The team didn’t have any fancy black cloth to put over the trio’s heads, like the Russians had had for Harris when they took him, so they improvised. Bruce, Trey, and Tank changed out of their sweaty t-shirts and used them as blindfolds, tightening them over the hostile’s eyes and around their heads.

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Everyone in LaunchPad was ecstatic. Their primary objective was accomplished, and although Leo wanted to alert the White House, he knew that as soon as he did, Secret Service would want immediate custody. Dr. Stone wanted to debrief him first, and although they were all hoping to do it on the helicopter, having three hostiles on board with them messed up his plan. Recognizing that there’d be a few hours of downtime while they waited for the chopper, he consulted with Bao Zhen and Lin Lin Ma. They agreed rest was needed for everyone except Jasmine. She would stand watch.

  Bora walked out of the interrogation room where her team had been working, walked up to Dr. Stone, and said, “We have uncovered a lot. Can we have some time to debrief everyone soon? Maybe in the conference room?”

  Leo nodded. “Sure, Bora. Looking forward to it.”

  With that, the whole team went to bed except for Jasmine. Besides watch duties, her grandfather asked her to ready the rooms, and do any laundry, cleaning, or meal prep that needed to be done. She was well-rested from her earlier sleep and happy to contribute.

  Almost five thousand miles away, Michiko Imada and Boyd Carter were spending several hours poring over the satellite images from Honolulu Harbor, researching its history and memorizing key locations. Each year nearly a million tons of cargo are processed through it, making it one of the thirty busiest ports in the nation. Michiko had returned her necklace to the jewelers on Waikiki, gone back to her room, and changed. Boyd grabbed her kit and had come over to the Royal Hawaiian, just in case the cops returned to her room for some reason. They wouldn’t find anyone there. She stopped by the front desk and made use of the hotel’s car service, renting a black Nissan Altima. It was a very normal-looking car. Inconspicuous. And like most of the cars in Hawaii, the windows were shaded to prevent heat damage to the interior of the vehicle.

  “I think I have the place mostly memorized,” Michi commented, taking one last look at her tablet. “We should probably go down there and start looking around.”

  “I don’t even know what we’re looking for, do you?” Boyd asked, standing up and stretching. She knew the place pretty well, already. She and her uncle had entered that port by boat many times over the years.

  Michi shook her head.

  Suddenly, Boyd stopped wrapping a charging cable around her fingers. “Maybe doing a grid search of the harbor is the wrong thing to do.”

  “Because … oh! Of course!” Agent Imada said, with a short nod of her head, “Maybe we should find the harbormaster and ask him how he was able to pay off the school debt of his children.”

  “That’s right. It’s almost 5:00 P.M. He’ll probably be getting off work soon. We should also ask how well he knows the Wagners. It can’t be a coincidence that each of them gets almost $80,000 to their accounts on the same day.”

  Michi pulled out her tablet and started tapping on it. “We have his phone number.”

  “What? Really?”

  “On Linda Wagner’s phone,” Michi said. “It makes sense. She is on the board, and he has children enrolled there.”

  “Let’s see if Justin can get us a location.”

  When they tried to reach him, they were unsuccessful.

  “Try Saara?” Boyd suggested.

  There was no answer.

  Jasmine Stone had just finished prepping the interrogation rooms and was going to clean the conference room when she saw Saara’s tablet light up as she walked past the office area. It was charging on her desk. Recognizing Michi’s number, she called them back, using the secure app on her own phone.

  Michi’s phone lit up, and she saw it was Trey’s daughter. “Hello?”

  “Hi. I saw that you were trying to reach Saara.”

  Michiko nodded and put her on speakerphone. In the last LaunchPad operation, the two had become fairly close. “Hi, Jasmine. We’re trying to reach some people there. Is everything okay?”

  “They’re all resting. We’ve got great news! Dr. Harris has been rescued and is being brought here. They should be here in about thirty minutes.”

  “Wow! That is fantastic! Everyone’s safely returning?”

  “Yup.”

  “That’s so exciting! Such a relief.”

  “Wonderful,” Boyd agreed. “Really great. Hey, Jazzy? We need to speak to Justin.”

  “Should I wake him up?”

  “Could you please?”

  “Sure.”

  “Just have him call us.”

  “Okay.”

  Jasmine gently knocked on Justin and Bora Park’s door, but clearly, they were sound asleep. She knocked a little louder. Finally, she just went in and shook Justin awake.

  “Michi and Boyd need you,” she whispered urgently.

  “Thanks. I'll be right out,” Justin muttered.

  When he arrived at the office area, he contacted the two operators in Hawaii. Two hours of sleep had definitely not been enough. He rubbed his face as he talked, trying to focus.

  “Okay,” he said, tapping on his computer as they spoke. “I’ve got geolocation on the phone. It’s in the 96817 zip code.”

  “That’s the harbor.”

  “Give me a few minutes, and I’ll get something more specific.”

  As he was talking, Michi and Boyd, started gathering their things. In the earlier years of owning a cell phone, Justin used to access data from the phone towers. Every part of the United States is divided into regions by the phone companies, and those areas are usually referred to as reception ce
lls. Each cell is served by towers that monitor the phone as it moves around. When there are three cell towers locked on the same phone, triangulating software measures how long it takes for signals from each of them to communicate with the phone and compiles the data, rendering an exact location. But K.K. wasn’t just using a cell phone, he had a mobile smartphone. It was much easier to trace through his GPS location. The Global Positioning System uses microwave signals that go back and forth directly from satellites to the phone. The mobile device’s GPS receiver uses the data from the signals to triangulate location, speed, time, and direction.

  “Hey, Michiko, were you able to return that necklace?” Justin asked.

  “Yes, I did. Thank you for that. It worked perfectly.”

  “Great. Thanks for returning it. I was hoping I wouldn’t have to sell everything I have to replace it.”

  Boyd chuckled, and Michi said, “I think I was more nervous about wearing that than I was about the lunch with my target.”

  There were a few minutes of silence, broken only by the zipping of duffle bags. The ladies were ready to go.

  “Okay, got him. He’s at the corner of Democrat Street and Libby. There’s an abandoned warehouse there. He could be inside. If his location changes, I’ll text you.”

  The two ladies thanked him, ended the call, and took all of their things downstairs. As they were loading up the Altima, the valet casually asked if they’d be back again or if they were checking out.

  “I’m not sure yet,” Michi added. “I’ll probably be back tonight. My reservation is for a few more days, still.”

  Boyd drove since she knew Honolulu well. The warehouse was just over five miles north, and she drove along Ala Moana Boulevard almost the whole way there. Slowing down, she saw the large structure on the street corners Justin had given them. It took up an entire city block.

  “What is this place?” Agent Carter wondered, out loud, looking at the building. “There are no signs or anything.”

  “We are so close to where many of the container ships come,” Michi, seeing one of them berthed at Pier 41 and unloading 40-foot steel boxes that had “Honda” blazed on the side. The closer pier to them was empty. A big square white sign identified it as Pier 42. Between the Altima and the piers was a chicken-wire fence topped by barbed wire. A big double gate was in the middle of it with a small security booth.

  While Michi was looking at the harbor, Boyd was noticing that the workers at Keawi’s Auto Repair, across the street from the front door of the warehouse, had left their building. The last guy out had just locked the doors, and within minutes they all got into their cars and trucks and drove off.

  “I’m just going to pull into one of these spaces,” she said, driving into the parking lot and backing up beside an old Chevy K10 with a short bed. Both ladies had a clear view of the door to their target building and the little parking lot in front of it that had one vehicle on it. “That could be the harbormaster’s truck.” Agent Carter pulled out her phone, zoomed in on the license plate, and sent it to Justin.

  “Should we just sit here and watch for a while?” asked Michi.

  Boyd shrugged. “We might as well. The sun will set soon, and then we can get out and investigate.

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  “What the hell is going on?” the voice on the other end asked, irritated. “I’m getting phone calls from North Carolina, and there are dead people everywhere! Two bodies in a park in New Bern, a pigsty that’s littered with them, God only knows how many are dead in the Outer Banks … and apparently, people have cell-phone footage of operators that don’t have the big three letters blazed on their back in yellow. The FBI is furious.”

  Leonard had just answered his ringing phone. It was the fourth time the person had called, so he had decided to answer. It was a rude awakening. He rubbed the sleep out of his eyes to look at the time on his clock. 11:25 P.M.

  “A member of your team reportedly punched an agent in the …”

  “Sir, we got him,” Leo stated, interrupting him.

  “What?!”

  “We have Iris.”

  The Vice President was silent, trying to slow his adrenalin and temper his rage. “What do you mean, ‘You have Iris?’”

  “Iris is secure. He’s en route here for a physical, and then we’ll deliver him to the White House.”

  “No way! You get him there now!!”

  Stone knew this was going to happen. But he had to play the ace card to get out of the situation. LaunchPad had spilled way too much blood on domestic soil. None of it was wrong, but it was just a lot to clean up, even for the White House and the FBI.

  “Mr. Vice President, I’m asking you for sixty minutes to debrief him.”

  “Oh. So now you want to debrief him. It’s not a medical check-up!”

  “Sir, the medical is vital to the mission as well as to our safety and yours. We don’t know if he’s been hurt, poisoned, or made a carrier of a bioweapon. In any case, debriefing him is equally critical. There’s a very real possibility he possesses vital intel regarding an ongoing op.”

  “Listen, Leonard. Your job was to find him and bring him back. Congratulations. You did it. I don’t give a damn about another mission or him helping you find anyone. You bring him here!” he roared. Simmering down a bit, he said, “Look. In this case, the outcome was worth it all in the end. We’ll do the damage control. But now, you need to hand the football off to the talented men and women who have all the correct agencies backing them. They carry badges and everything.”

  Leo knew that Jack Sharp was no fan of LaunchPad’s. The Vice President wasn’t much of a color-outside-the-lines type of guy. Neither was President Webb. But while the Commander in Chief was a spineless politician, the V.P. was known for his almost heartless approach to everything. When he was running his first campaign for office, he’d fired his mother for sitting down on the job. After he’d spoken for seventy minutes, she’d taken a moment to sit and rest her back. He looked over and said, from the podium, “You’re fired.” That moment went viral, and Jack was living proof that bad publicity is better than no publicity. He won that first political contest and every election since.

  “Leonard! Is that understood?”

  “Okay, Mr. Vice President. Thank you for your common sense.”

  The V.P. hung up, and Leo was wide awake now. The two-hour cat nap was over, and it was time to welcome Nathan Harris to LaunchPad. “He’s probably hungry,” Stone muttered to himself as he got dressed.

  Trey couldn’t for the life of him figure out who the woman was. There was nothing about her in any information that Justin had compiled. When he had boarded the boat, he was surprised that she wasn't carrying any weapons. She wasn't dressed like an operator, and she certainly didn't have the physique for one. He assumed she was with the enemy because she wasn't with Harris. But now he needed to know before they walked into LaunchPad with someone that was unknown. The two thugs, he knew. He’d shot Ivan in the chest, and if the guy hadn’t been wearing a vest, he’d be dead. Stone decided to check with Bruce, first. He took off his aviation headset, unbelted his seat harness, and slipped through the narrow gap between his seat and the pilot’s. He shook his friend awake, and Bruce sat up right away, reaching for his Glock and looking like he was ready to shoot any unfriendlies!

  “Geez, dude! I almost pulled my revolver on you,” he shouted.

  Trey grinned and took off his friend’s headset. “Good dream, huh?”

  Bruce nodded and rolled his head around, stretching his neck. “We there?” he asked.

  Trey shook his head and spoke loudly over the noise of the chopper. “About twenty minutes out. You know anything about the woman?”

  Bruce pulled his friend closer and put his mouth near to Trey’s ear. “No. But you saw the tattoo, right?”

  “Where?”

  “Back of her left shoulder,” Locke answered, tapping his, in the spot where her tattoo was.

  Stone shook his head. “It was too dark
out. You were with her. I was focused on Iris.”

  “She’sTriad.”

  Trey’s eyes narrowed. It didn’t quite make sense to him. The Triad was dangerous, to be sure, but what interest did they have in adding the kidnapping of Nathan Harris to their resume?

  “Okay,” he said, patting his friend on the back and handing his headset back to him. “Go back to sleep. We’ll have some work to do very soon.”

  He moved back up to the front, sat down, buckled up, and put on his Bose A20s, adjusting the small boom mic. He clicked the switch to activate it.

  “David, the woman is Triad.”

  Hirsch was surprised. “The blonde?”

  Trey nodded.

  “Does that make any sense to you?”

  “No.”

  “Does she have her phone on her?”

  “All three of them had phones. I put them in a Faraday bag to block their wireless signals.”

  “Okay. Good thinking.”

  The chopper had just skirted the city of Baltimore and was almost at LaunchPad.

  Chapter Fifty

  “Didn’t Justin pack a mini-drone in your bag?” Boyd asked suddenly. Michi didn’t respond right away.

  Then she answered, “Yes.”

  “This would be a great time to use it.”

  Michi was silent. Sometimes she still hated losing face.

  “What’s wrong? Is it broken?”

  “I’ve never used it before.”

  Carter smiled, suddenly understanding. “Really? I thought you used one in Libya with Jasmine.”

  “Justin had set everything up to ‘auto’ and Jasmine controlled the iPad once we got going.”

  “No problem. It’s time you learn. They make them pretty foolproof nowadays. Get it out. I’ll show you.”