Connect the Dots
Page 24
“Either he does or I do,” Jake announced.
Charley watched as Ruby turned her hazel eyes up to Jake and smiled at him. “So it’s like that is it?” Charley sat silent, fascinated by the exchange. It was familiar but not intimate. They really were best friends.
Jake nodded and tugged Charley closer to him. “Ouch.” She cringed.
“I’m sorry, sweetheart.” He kissed her temple.
“It’s okay.”
“When’s the big day?”
She almost spit her coffee out through her nose.
“What big day?” Mickey asked, re-entering the room. He handed Charley a yellow notepad and pen.
“The wedding, you dope.”
“Wedding?” Waldo squeaked out. “What?”
Jake sat next to her, grinning from ear-to-ear. Charley nudged him with an elbow.
He cleared his throat. “I asked, she accepted.”
“When did you do that?” Waldo wanted to know.
“On the plane. In the bathroom.”
“And here I thought you were just joining the mile-high club.”
The room burst into one gigantic round of laughter as her face flushed.
“Well, I’ll be damned.” Waldo leaned over and kissed her cheek. “Congratulations.”
The others offered their congratulations with handshakes and hugs all around.
“Okay, can we get back to business before we open the champagne?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Mickey,” he mumbled as Charley commenced her drawing.
“What the hell is she doing?”
“She is putting the puzzle together, piece by piece, or as Charley likes to call it, connecting the dots.”
Thirty minutes later, she turned the paper toward the others and showed them her conclusion.
“The US Ambassador paid the PKK or had Blackwater provide PKK with weapons and money in return for bombing the BTC pipeline so we could force Russia to advance. That way the US/Georgia could retaliate, not attack, and have another reason to send more troops overseas to protect and build the Silk Road. Once again, the US gets the little countries to ask for help. In return, we have them do our bidding with “black sites” in the so-called war on terror.”
“Your conclusion is based on these connections between people, places, and events.”
Charley nodded.
“That’s damned brilliant.”
“Now what?” Jake asked.
“I’ve got some calls to make. It may take some time to line up all the evidence but we will and then we nail the bastards no matter how far up this goes. Even if that means we go to the media to do so.”
Charley gasped. “I can’t…”
Mickey held up a hand. “No one will know that you put this together.”
“He’s right. This is how we have to do it,” Jake soothed. “And if he says no one will get your name then no one will. Otherwise, he’ll answer to me.”
“And me,” Waldo added.
Ruby clapped her hands together. “Now that the work is complete, let’s have that champagne.”
EPILOGUE
Two weeks after their return from Central Asia, Charley and Jake were in Michael and Ruby’s living room when the TV newscaster made the announcement. “Stay tuned for a late breaking development in the world of intelligence and espionage.”
Charley paced the cherry wood floor non-stop, worrying her lower lip.
“Jake. Please put the girl out of her misery before she wears a hole in the wood floor that I installed.”
Jake grinned and shook his head then reached out, snatched Charley’s thin wrist in his big hands and tugged her onto his lap. “Ruby’s a liar. I helped her install the floor. She could not have done it without my big, strong hands.”
Ruby coughed a laugh. “Yeah, between you and Michael, I’m the only one who knows how to read directions.”
Jake felt the muscles in Charley’s legs start to relax and she gave him a thin, tentative smile. She was concerned she had done the right thing. He could not blame her. What she did and what was about to be announced would rock the intelligence community for decades to come, but in his opinion and everyone who helped her make this happen, Charley Duston was a heroine.
Wrapping his arms around her waist, he pulled her close, kissed her worry lip, and then whispered in her ear. “I love you. I’m proud of you.”
He heard the quick intake of air and when she sat back, he saw the tears brimming. “Don’t cry, sweetheart.”
“And we’re back,” announced the newscaster.
“In a twisted set of events that included the arrests of several high-ranking government officials, an unidentified source revealed the locations of the black site prisons the President previously said had been shut down and the CIA refused to acknowledge.”
Charley’s heart pounded against her rib cage and her breathing grew rapid. “Maybe if I close my eyes I won’t be so nervous.”
Jake lifted her hand off her chest, brought it to his lips and kissed the palm. It did nothing for her racing heart, it only shifted the reason behind its beating, but she loved him for it.
“Who is the unidentified source, Jim?”
“No clue, Nancy. That’s why it’s unidentified.”
The other newscasters laughed, but Charley held her breath. They could not name the source. They just could not! She wanted a life. With Jake. Revealing her name would result in catastrophe. She would be dead. Charley squeezed Jake’s hand until her knuckles were white. He didn’t flinch. He smiled at her and returned the reassuring squeeze.
“Don’t worry, Charley.” Michael, sitting next to Ruby on the other leather sofa grinned at her. “No one knows where the information came from. They do not have your name.”
How could he be so certain?
“If there’s one thing you can always count on from Mickey, it’s his word.” Ruby said it so matter of fact that Charley did believe him.
She gentled her grip on Jake’s hand but he did not pull back.
“What is a black site?” asked another newscaster.
“A black site is a secret prison located in a foreign country, manned and managed by foreign military personnel.”
“What does that have to do with the US and the intelligence community?” asked Nancy.
“The US worked out an extended rendition agreement according to the NATO rules with various government officials overseas. The extraordinary rendition would allow the governments and military officials to deliver and house people accused of terrorism to a black site prison where the CIA could then interrogate the detainees. And yes, ladies and gentlemen, the CIA is accused of using enhanced interrogation tactics such as waterboarding, which is considered a form of torture.”
Charley heard someone on the television news gasp. That was how she felt.
“I’m sure there will be a lot more information to come, but for now, the last of the information I have is the list of the black site prisons.” The newscaster read off the list of the named black sites then followed it up with another important discovery.
“As part of the investigation into the black sites, the unnamed source identified the parties responsible for starting the Georgia—Ossetia war.”
The television clicked off and Charley jumped. Jake stood, taking her with him and set her on her feet. “You did it!”
When she looked up into his moss green eyes, she saw love, pride, and their future.
“We did it.” She spun around to see Michael and Ruby standing right behind her. “We all did it. I can’t thank you enough.”
“Then don’t,” Michael cut in. “It’s the rest of the world that should thank you.”
Charley shook her head. “All I did was connect the dots.”
Global Spider’s Web of Black Sites
* * * *
* * * *
Black Site locations:
http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/stories/rendition701/map/
http://assembly.coe
.int/Documents/WorkingDocs/doc06/edoc10957-1.jpg
Yerevan—Armenia
Stare Kiejkuty Military Intelligence Base—Poland, near Szymany
Guantanamo Bay—Cuba
Abu Ghraib—Iraq
Mihail Kogalniceanu military base—Romania
Bucharest—Romania
The ‘Hangar’ Bagram Air Base, Parvan Province—Afghanistan
The Dark Prison, AKA the ‘music prison’, former ‘Salt Pit’, Kabul—Afghanistan
Kandahar Air Base—Afghanistan
Vlinius—Lithuania
Ain Aouda—Morocco
Temara Detention Facility—Morocco
Udon Thani Royal Thai Air Force Base—Thailand
Jaslyk Prison, Karakalpakstan Autonomous Republic—Uzbekistan
Tashkent—Uzbekistan
Palestine Branch, ‘The Grave’, Damascus—Syria
General Intelligence Department (GID) Detention Center—Jordan
Al Jafr Interrogation Center—Jordan
State Security Investigations National Headquarters ‘Egypt’s Guantanamo’, Nasr City—Egypt
State Security Investigations Stations, Lazoghly—Egypt
Mukharabat al-Aama Headquarters, Cairo—Egypt
Tora Prison—Egypt
Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) Detention Facility, Peshawar—Pakistan
Kohat Prison—Pakistan
ISI Detention Facility, Karachi—Pakistan
Addis Ababa—Ethiopia
Djibouti—Africa
National Intelligence Headquarters, Banjul—Gambia
Diego Garcia—Indian Ocean
Camp Bondsteel—Kosovo
ABOUT AUTHOR DENISE ROBBINS
Denise Robbins, born and raised in the Midwest, migrated to Florida, and finally settled down to her home in New Hampshire that she shares with her kittens Mischief and Mayhem.
From her back deck, she sits outside, listens as the old roller coaster from the local amusement park inches its way up the wooden structure on its clanking chains, and waits to hear the kids scream in terror and delight. The best mental therapy a girl could ask for. The long, cold winters in New Hampshire provide the serenity and motivation to write excitement into the night.
After twenty years in the computer technology industry, Denise decided to use that experience and her passion for mysteries and suspense to write her first techno-romantic thriller novel, IT HAPPENS IN THREES and her second novel, KILLER BUNNY HILL. Keep your eyes out for NEVER TEMPT DANGER.
In addition to writing, Denise enjoys scuba diving (only in warm water), snowboarding, and playing in her garden.
It Happens in Threes
ISBN-13 978-1-60318-086-3 ISBN-10 1-60318-086-9
Once burned, twice learned, did she dare trust again?
Seeking to escape her stalking ex-fiancé, savvy computer expert, Ruby Goodman, flees to her family’s vacation home. Always a healing place, Florida is the best spot for her to reassemble the crumbling pieces of her personal and professional life in safety. But somehow her high school sweetheart and first love, Michael Augustson, always appears when she least expects—but needs—him most. This time the only man she’s ever truly loved needs her help to catch an international thief. But can she risk her life by becoming involved in his scheme? And does she dare to lay her heart on the line for a man who may disappear at any time?
Forced into some ‘R and R’, unflappable special operative, Michael, takes refuge in Florida where he runs into his old love, Ruby. Brilliant and a whiz with computers, Ruby is the answer to his prayers. He needs someone to crack the computer systems of an elusive money laundering thief. While working with her, Michael finds it a challenge to keep his distance from Ruby because he fears his passion for her may endanger both their lives. The only way to keep Ruby safe is to keep her close. Is it because of the threat to her life? Or is it because the stubborn, independent and infuriating but passionate Ruby has become a threat to his heart?
Killer Bunny Hill
ISBN-13 978-1-60318-130-3 ISBN-10 1-60318-130-X
A Killer is on her Bunny Trail…
Shot while snowboarding, Samantha Spenser lands on a stranger’s doorstep without her memory, but with a shooter on her tail. Even after the stranger saves her from the gunman and offers her refuge, Sam begins to fear for her life when Max, holding a gun to her head, demands to know the location of his abducted brother. Is the man with the whiskey-colored eyes her savior who will protect her, or the shooter who wants her dead? If Samantha trusts the sexy man to unravel the mystery of her amnesia, will he discover she is an innocent bystander or a deceitful criminal?
The last thing he wants or needs is the complication of a gorgeous snow bunny half dead from bullet wounds on his doorstep. Frustrated by the lack of clues and even more discouraged by the lack of help from his agency and his brother’s, special agent Maximilian Stone sets out in search for his kidnapped brother. First, he must solve the mystery of Samantha, the intriguing woman sleeping in his bed. Is there a connection between Snow Bunny and his missing FBI brother? Or was she brought in by a darker enemy to destroy Max before he can find them?
Don’t miss the next Techno-Romantic thriller novel
by Denise Robbins:
Never Tempt Danger
If there was one thing Maureen had learned, it was Never Tempt Danger.
She saw his death before it happened.
With his blood on her hands and a government research project in the balance, Maureen Gillman does the only smart thing she can. She disappears.
Special Agent Lucas Danger is assigned to find her and her robot. Lucas is not the only one after Maureen.
Who will get to her first?