by Alex Ander
Cruz raised her eyebrows.
“We’re fighting a war against an enemy that makes no distinction between combatants and civilians, including women and children. I make no excuses for my methods. I get my information through any means necessary.”
“Even if that means taking away a person’s rights and—”
“He has no rights. He’s not on—”
“American soil,” said Cruz, finishing his sentence. “You’re splitting hairs and you know it.” She turned her back on him and stepped away.
Hardy watched her. He knew she was right. His plan hinged on a technicality; however, he also knew time was not on their side. According to the kidnapper’s timeframe, there were less than twenty-two hours left before they would start hurting Abigail. At this point, Anderson Cole was the only lead to finding the kidnappers.
“Cruz, this is Abby we’re talking about. She’s not just the President’s daughter. She’s someone we both know. And right now, she’s somewhere…hopefully still in this country…being held by some sick bastards, who are using her to get what they want.” Hardy approached Cruz, placed his hands on her shoulders, and spun her around. “You need to understand that I’m going to do whatever it takes and I won’t stop, until Abby is safe.”
Cruz lifted her head and opened her mouth to speak.
He raised his hand. “Before you say anything, think about this…What if Abby was your younger sister…What if she was your daughter? What would you do to get her back safe and sound?”
Cruz needed a scant few seconds to formulate an answer. Even though she did not have any siblings or children, she knew in her heart that if Abby was her daughter, and she was missing, Cruz would move Heaven and earth to get her back. She felt like a hypocrite, chastising Hardy for doing something she would have done, too. With her chin, she motioned toward the door. “Do it.”
Hardy nodded his head before taking a step backward, spinning around and moving toward the door.
Watching him walk away, Cruz felt as if she was seeing something new in Hardy. She had heard about his passionate devotion to those who were close to him; however, those had been only stories. Now, she was experiencing this side of his personality. He disappeared behind the closing door. Even though it did not seem like an appropriate emotion to have at this moment, she felt her love for Hardy growing. She allowed her mind a few seconds to fantasize about having a family and children one day. Hardy was the man with which she wanted to build that family. She now realized he would do everything in his power to keep her, and their children, safe.
Cruz walked away from the door. A little ways down the hall, she stopped. Leaning against the wall, she touched the fingertips of her right hand to her head, chest, left and right shoulder, making the sign of the cross. “Lord, God, be with Aaron and help him get the information we need to find Abby. May he not have to use any unnecessary tactics to get that information. And, please be with Abby. May she find strength in You to stay strong. In Jesus’ name, I pray. Amen.”
Hardy shut the door after entering the room. He spied the soldier. “What’s it going to be, Private?”
The soldier hesitated, thinking of his options. Slowly, he walked to the prisoner and produced a key. He unlocked the handcuffs and stood back.
“Good choice,” said Hardy before jerking his left thumb over his shoulder. “Get a cup of coffee and do not open that door, no matter what you hear. Am I clear?”
“Yes, sir,” replied the soldier, moving toward the door.
Once the door was shut, Hardy took off his leather jacket and draped it on the back of the metal chair. He unbuttoned his flannel shirt and covered his leather jacket. He was wearing only a muscle shirt, jeans and shoes. His chest muscles bounced, when he came closer to the table, while his tight undershirt accentuated the size of his upper arms.
“Is this supposed to turn me on?” Cole was pointing toward Hardy’s muscular frame.
Hardy shrugged. “Whatever works for you,” he said. “It makes no difference to me. I just don’t want to get your blood on my clothes.”
Cole laughed and wiped blood from his chin. “You’re an arrogant piece of work, aren’t you?”
Hardy lifted his right leg and sat on the edge of the table to Cole’s right. “I like to think of myself as…confident. The President’s daughter has been kidnapped. Tell me what you know about it?”
Cole sneered. “That’s too bad and…oh yeah…screw you, as—”
Hardy cut off Cole before he could finish his sentence. Cocking his left arm, he delivered a left cross to Cole’s right cheek. His fist connecting, Hardy felt the man’s soft skin on his knuckles before hearing the crack of bone.
Cole nearly fell out of his chair after his head bounced off Hardy’s fist. His head spinning away from his assailant, Cole stretched out his arms to grab the table and keep himself upright.
“Wrong answer,” Hardy bellowed before getting to his feet.
…………………………
Nearly thirty minutes had passed before the door to the interrogation room opened and Hardy stepped into the hallway. He was wearing his flannel shirt and leather jacket again; however, he had his undershirt in his hands, wiping the sweat from his forehead and neck. His left cheek had a small cut. Two thin streaks of blood were slowly making their way to his chin before he swiped the undershirt across the area.
Cruz saw him as soon as he emerged. “How’d it go in there? Is he still alive?” She was being facetious, but a part of her was unsure and she wanted to verify the prisoner’s condition.
Hardy motioned toward the soldier, who produced the handcuffs and went into the room.
As the door opened and closed, Cruz leaned around Hardy and peered into the room. Standing straight again, she saw the cut on his cheek. Taking his chin in her hand, she pushed sideways to get a better view. “Are you okay? Did he hit you?”
“Several times,” replied Hardy, while dabbing the cut. “This was his best one.”
Anderson Cole came out of the room, his hands cuffed in front of his body and a chain around his mid-section. With his left hand clasped around his prisoner’s left arm, the soldier led his prisoner down the hall.
Cruz’s eyes scanned Cole’s face and body. Her eyebrows curled downward. Examining Cole, while he walked away, she spoke to Hardy. “Outside of his broken nose and a bruise on his right cheek, he looks fine. What happened in there? I expected the see the guard dragging what was left of him across the floor.”
Hardy’s cheek hurt from the blow he had received from Cole; however, he managed to give her a small smile. “Every interrogation is different, Cruz.” He took the undershirt away from his face and inspected it before re-applying the garment. “In the beginning, I gave it to him pretty good. He got in a few punches, too. I realized, however, he was only getting pleasure from hitting someone, especially someone working for the government. Remembering he has a second brother, I took another approach and threatened to find him and…well, you can imagine what I told him I’d do to his brother, if he didn’t cooperate.”
“That’s all it took to make him talk?” Cruz’s voice gave away her gratitude and surprise.
“Everyone has a weakness.” Hardy had his phone in his hand, tapping the screen with his thumb. “The key to a good interrogation is finding that weakness and exploiting it.” He gestured down the hall with his phone. “His weakness is his family. After reading Cole’s file that Director Burroughs passed out at the meeting, I thought I’d push that button.”
Cruz was impressed at Hardy’s skill and happy he did not have to resort to using excessive force. “What did you get out of him? Do we know where they’re keeping Abby?”
Hardy shook his head before putting his cell phone to his ear. “Director Jameson, it’s Hardy. We need to have a meeting. Cole gave up a name.”
Chapter 10: Run
December 22nd, 10:21 p.m. (Mountain Time)
Abigail and Layla had sneaked through the building, trying to find
the exit. They were being held in what appeared to be an antique shop. During their exodus, they had passed numerous items dating back hundreds, if not thousands, of years. Had they not been focused on getting free from their captors, they might have stopped to admire the unique pieces of art. Abigail poked her head through a doorway. Not seeing anyone, she motioned for Layla to follow her.
Stepping through the doorway, the girls entered a large showroom with several glass counters displaying many items similar to the ones the girls had already seen. Moving deeper into the room, Abigail heard voices nearby. She faced Layla and held her index finger to her lips before pointing toward a door on the other side of the room. Staying low and moving carefully, the girls were almost to the door, when Abigail heard a loud noise behind her. She whirled around and saw Layla standing near the broken pieces of a large antique vase. She watched Layla duck her head and raise her shoulders. She had bumped the vase by accident. “Run,” shouted Abigail, spinning around and bolting for the door. Her heart was pounding in her chest. Reaching for the door handle, she stole a quick look behind her to make sure Layla was coming. Whipping her head back around, Abigail ran headfirst into the arms of a middle-eastern man, who grabbed her and forced her to floor. She saw Layla attempt to get the man off Abigail, but he swung his left arm backwards and hit Layla in the side of the head, making her backpedal into the waiting arms of a second man. Layla screamed, but the man behind her put his hand over her mouth and her screams were muffled. Abigail continued to struggle, until she felt a sharp prick in her neck. She was familiar with what came next. Her vision dimmed and she saw a small black hole get bigger, until she lost consciousness.
Chapter 11: Operation’s Room
December 23rd, 3:30 a.m.; Operation’s Room (Fourth floor beneath the J. Edgar Hoover Building in Washington, D.C.)
After parking her black Dodge Charger in Hardy’s reserved spot in the underground garage at the J. Edgar Hoover Building, Special Agent Cruz walked with Hardy to the elevator. He pressed a few buttons on a keypad next to the elevator door. When the door opened, both of them stepped into the elevator. Hardy spun around and entered a separate security code and the doors closed.
“So, this underground fourth floor has been here all along…since the building was constructed?” Cruz was referring to the fact that the fourth floor had been kept a secret from the public.
Hardy nodded his head. “Apparently, it was built to serve as an underground bunker for the FBI Director in case his safety became compromised on the above ground floors. It was never used for that purpose, so Jameson made it into a command center for our operations.”
Cruz smiled. “Sort of like a bat cave for Special Agents that,” she made air quotes with her fingers, “don’t exist.”
Hardy chuckled. “Yeah, you could say that, I guess. No, its location is perfect for him. He can run the FBI from above and when we need to meet for,” he mimicked her and made air quotes of his own, “…secret agent business…he can take the elevator and be here in less than a minute.”
She smiled as the elevator came to a stop, a chime rang and the door opened. Stepping out of the elevator, Cruz saw a large room filled with cubicles; half were clustered on the right, while the other half was grouped together on the left. She followed Hardy down an aisle between the cubicles. “I can’t believe this has been here. I never knew it existed.” She rotated her head, taking in every detail of the room.
They came to a ‘T’ in the floor plan and Hardy went left, down a short hallway. There were two offices on the left side. The first door on the right was the Operation’s Room. It was simply called the OR and its purpose was a meeting room for mission briefings and debriefings. The last room on the right was Director Jameson’s office.
Light was pouring out of the OR. Hardy heard voices coming from the room. He glanced through the window of the first office on his left; it was empty. Veering to his right, he walked through the archway of the OR and entered the room, followed by Cruz.
Hardy took a few steps straight ahead and sat in a chair at the left end of a long conference table. On the walls to his left and right, as well as straight ahead, were several large monitors. In the corner to his right, there were several telephones hardwired and secure for conversations with the outside world. In front of every station, built into the table, was a small monitor with a keyboard tray under the table that could be pulled out, if someone wanted access to a computer. He motioned for Cruz to sit in the chair to his right.
“Since we don’t need any introductions, we can get right into it.” Director Jameson was seated at the head of the table, to Hardy’s left. He pivoted to his left and nodded at the woman seated across from Hardy—Charity Sinclair.
Charity Sinclair was a twenty-two-year-old information specialist, working for Jameson and with Hardy. She was highly skilled in the area of computers and information technology. The duties of her job entailed providing the technical details of missions and assisting Hardy when it came to intelligence and technology. She was relatively new to her job, having started working for the FBI only a few months ago; however, she had already proven to be a valuable addition to the team.
Charity nodded and tapped the touchpad of the laptop computer, resting on the table in front of her. She picked up a remote control and swiftly turned her head to the left. Her shoulder-length dark hair, tinged red, followed her movement, cascading over her right shoulder. She pushed her red plastic eyeglasses further up her slender, petite nose before pointing the remote at the largest monitor in the room, mounted on the wall facing Jameson. Operating the device in her hand, a picture of a man appeared on the monitor.
“This is Ashar Yamadi.” Charity rose from her chair. Her three-inch, red high heels clicked against the hard floor, while she walked toward the large monitor. She was dressed in a muted red blazer, a matching pencil skirt with a side slit and tan nylons. She had been at home when she first learned about the kidnapping. Jameson had told her she was going to be attending the meeting with the President, so she had dressed accordingly. At the last minute, Jameson had re-assigned her to begin gathering information on the kidnapping. “He’s an Egyptian citizen, believed to be somewhere in the United States. Intelligence officials have linked him to the terrorist organization, Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis…or ABM for short. ABM is also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant…or ISIL, and it is the most active terrorist group operating in Egypt. Although ABM has not made any threats against the United States or our Western allies, the group’s rhetoric does contain anti-American and anti-Western overtures.” Stopping her, Hardy asked a question.
“Hold on, Cherry.” Cherry was a pet name given to her by her father when she was a little girl. Only her family and close friends called her Cherry. “No one knows where this guy is…how is that possible?”
Charity shifted her weight from her right foot to her left foot. “Yamadi is a relative newcomer to the battlefield. He came to this country on a student visa two years ago and…as far as we know…never left. His visa has since expired and U.S. intelligence sources—”
Hardy shook his head. “What? He came here as a student. His visa expired, but he’s still in the country and no one knows where he is.” Hardy leaned back in his chair. “This keeps getting better and better.”
“You haven’t heard all of it.” Charity pressed a button on the remote. A picture of a shopping mall showed on the monitor. Police and medical vehicles could be seen in the foreground with the front half of a SWAT truck. People and bodies were scattered on the ground outside the doors to the mall. “The government has tied Yamadi to recent terrorist attacks at a Washington state shopping mall,” she clicked her remote and a similar scene was displayed, “…a Florida night club that killed thirty-two people and wounded another fifty-one…” Charity made another image appear on the monitor. This picture was the worst. Everyone’s feelings were the same when they saw it. Charity paused a few seconds to check her feelings. “…and lastly, this school shoot
ing in Arizona just one month ago, where ten children were killed and more than two dozen were wounded. Three adults lost their lives and five more were wounded.” As soon as she finished her sentence, she clicked the remote to remove the scene from the monitor.
No one said anything. The image of the school was in the forefront of everyone’s mind. Cruz was the first person to break the silence.
“How do we know that Yamadi was involved in these attacks if the government doesn’t know his location?”
Charity wagged her finger at Cruz, while she hurried toward her laptop. “That brings me to this.” She hit the touchpad on her laptop a few times and all of the monitors in the room displayed sheets of paper with text on them. Certain areas on the paper were circled and highlighted. “I’ve been working on cross-referencing the information from the flash drive,” she looked and pointed at Hardy, “you got from Dahlia, with our intelligence agencies and I’ve discovered some similarities.”
“Who’s Dahlia?” Cruz had never heard the name.
Charity was silent. Her eyes shifted from Hardy to Jameson and back again to Hardy. She was waiting for one of them to answer the question.
Hardy eyed Jameson, who nodded his head. Hardy pivoted his chair toward Cruz. “Dahlia St. James is a woman I ran across two months ago when we took down a terrorist cell that was planning an attack in the Northeast. She’s an assassin who…focuses her skills…on suspected terrorists.” Hardy was choosing his words carefully. “She helped me—”
“Wait a second. She’s an actual assassin?”
“Yes,” replied Hardy. “She helped me escape from a warehouse in Philadelphia. Later, she turned over a flash drive that contained information from terrorist Tahir Muhammad’s computer.”
Charity interjected. “The data on the drive has been very helpful in the war on terror.”
