The Forgotten Soldier

by Brad Taylor

  Jennifer smiled, dropped her swimsuit cover-up, and picked up a mask and snorkel. She said, “He’s having fun. We don’t need to bring him up. Let ’em see me instead.”

  I adjusted the focus and said, “Yeah, I’m sure they’d rather have that view.”

  She threw a towel at my head and left the cabin, going to the rear of the boat, where the dive platform was located. She made a show of prepping her mask, then slid into the water with a dive-marking buoy. Plying our cover for action.

  We were currently anchored about four hundred meters off the eastern end of Grand Cayman, near Rum Point, and directly across from our target—a large stone house overlooking the ocean. It was rented for the party tonight by a ranking member of Grand Cayman’s Barclays Bank Trust Company, and it was a pretty impressive structure. Built on an outcropping of rock, it was made to look like a turreted castle with three floors, each complete with balconies, and had an infinity pool and two sunbathing areas terraced into the rock flowing away from the house, the lower one sitting right by the ocean’s edge.

  Earlier, we’d done a reconnaissance from the road running by the house and I was surprised at the security that was in place for this party. The building was behind a fifteen-foot stone wall, with the gate manned by two goons. Inside, near the front door, was another checkpoint, and the landscaping consisted of a thick tangle of jungle-like growth. It was going to be damn near impossible to penetrate the place. At least from the landlubber side. The ocean was a different story, but in order to do anything from there, we had to lull the security into thinking we were innocuous. In this case, a charter boat out for a night dive.

  The easiest way to accomplish the mission would have been for the Taskforce hacking cell to simply get us invitations, but they’d failed—which told me how invested this bank was in security. There were very few pieces of cyberspace that those guys couldn’t own. But security was a double-edged sword, a facet I hoped to exploit.

  Without an invitation, we were left with two courses of action: Penetrate the house covertly while the party was going on, or magic ourselves into the house in formalwear. After looking at the security and the terrain, I’d opted for scenario two. After all, nobody checks an invitation once you’re inside the ball. Just ask the White House gate-crashers. With that decision made, we needed to work only on the magic component to get my team inside.

  The hacking cell had managed to get us a floor plan and some historical data points on previous parties the bank had hosted—to include the interesting fact that Qatar had more than a 10 percent stake in Barclays International. All of the soirees had been at this location, habitually rented by the bank to entice foreign deposits in its system.

  After studying the data, one tidbit stood out—a strange activity that occurred at every party: The host made guests give up their electronics. Cell phones, cameras, and anything else with a battery was confiscated, which was something the guests apparently preferred. Past events had included some high-profile celebrities, and I suppose selfies were verboten. Or maybe it was to prevent the digital existence of other shenanigans that went on.

  It didn’t interfere with our mission, but it did present an opportunity. Having all the cell phones located in one spot was something I couldn’t pass up. Originally, I’d planned on simply getting Knuckles and Jennifer inside the party, with Knuckles wearing a recording device slaved to directional microphones built into the buttons on the sleeves and front of his tuxedo. Each mic was under his control, allowing him to turn one on and another off, depending on where the targets were located, thus preventing him from having to awkwardly rotate, trying to get audio.

  Basically, he was a walking human bug.

  With the cell phone confiscation information, I’d decided to expand the mission. While Knuckles wandered around gathering audio, I wanted to get Jennifer inside whatever area they used to store the electronics and have her copy the SIM cards of our target cell phones. It would be exponentially more information gleaned.

  I heard a splash from the diving deck and saw Jennifer coming out of the water. I looked at the tablet, and sure enough, they were watching. I was also sure they weren’t watching because they thought we were some nefarious secret intelligence organization about to cause them harm. Not that I blamed them. I’d have done the same thing.

  Because I’m a misanthrope.

  She came in, wringing out her hair, and said, “Knuckles was right below me, exploring some old rowboat that sank. I told him to come up.”

  I said, “I think we’re good. If he climbs the ladder with a tank on his back, they’ll fade away. Come here. Take a look.”

  The sun was sinking below the horizon, and the first guests were arriving. I tapped the tablet and said, “I’ve been watching the posture, and they’re focused almost exclusively on the front, where the road is. There’re only a couple of guys on the deck, and they’re by the pool, up high.”

  “Anything on the phones?”

  Immediately zeroing in on her part of the mission.

  I said, “Yeah. They’re taking the phones to a bedroom on the left. The one that’s a stand-alone.”

  She leaned forward, looking at the screen but seeing nothing except a few early arrivers. She said, “The one with the sliding glass door? The bedroom that’s separated from the rest of the house?”

  “Yeah. That one. Any ideas on how to get in?”

  The building had seven bedrooms. Six were inside the house. One, the seventh, was accessed only by a sliding glass door on the left side of the compound, right in front of the infinity pool. I wasn’t too surprised, since it would be the single location they could store all the phones without worry of someone wandering in—especially with a man outside—but it did present a problem.

  Jennifer tapped the screen, switching from the video feed and bringing up the 3-D floor plan the Taskforce had given us, rotating it until she found what she was looking for.

  “Right there. If I can get to the top bedroom, I can scale down outside and enter through the bathroom. Nobody will expect that. No guards.”

  “But how will you get to that bedroom? It’s the master at the top of a spiral staircase. I doubt it’ll be in use for the party.”

  I heard a splash, then Knuckles shouted, “Give me a hand?”

  I shouted back, “Screw you. Some of us are working. Glad you got a dive vacation.”

  Jennifer laughed and went to the platform, helping him up and pulling his tank off of his back. She set it aside and Knuckles said, “Really? I’m preventing them from penetrating our elaborate cover, and you scoff?”

  I said, “They smell the seaweed on you, and you can explain it. Jennifer told me you were just screwing off down there.”

  He rubbed his hands through his ridiculously thick hair and said, “Diving is never screwing off. Helps to get my mind right.”

  I said, “Okay, Frogman. Whatever.”

  Jennifer switched back to the video feed and said, “Target. Target’s here.”

  Knuckles quit drying off and came forward. He tried to pop me with the towel and I wrapped my hand around it, jerking him off-balance. Jennifer hissed, “Stop it. Look at the screen. Is that him?”

  We immediately quit, feeling a little foolish. We both leaned into the monitor, seeing a well-groomed older man of about seventy, flanked by two women half his age. Well, maybe a quarter his age. And both were stunners, their clothes leaving little to the imagination.

  Knuckles said, “Yep. The Brazilian. Now just waiting on the guy from Qatar.”

  We watched security make them place their phones in a Faraday bag—a special pouch designed to prevent any electronic emissions either in or out—then seal it, tagging it with a number. Jennifer hit the image capture, and we had the number on the bag. The security man with the bag began to move outside of view, and Jennifer manipulated the tablet, panning the camera.

  K
nuckles said, “Wait. What are you doing? We know where they put the bags. Keep on the target.”

  He tapped the screen, moving the scope back to the Brazilian. And the stunners.

  I said, “Yeah. That would be best.”

  Jennifer saw the reason for Knuckles’s call and slapped my shoulder.

  She said, “Really? That’s what you want to see?”

  I stepped back and said, “No, no. I was checking out the target. Knuckles, pan to the Faraday bag.”

  He grinned and did so. Jennifer crossed her arms and gave me a hip bump, glaring.

  The security man came out of the glass doors next to the infinity pool and took the bag to the same bedroom. The disconnected one.

  I said, “Looks like that’s the target room. A little rough to get into.”

  Jennifer panned the spotting scope back and we saw an influx of people, the host greeting each one. Within five minutes, a man came in, wearing a tuxedo and a sissy-looking groomed beard, flanked by two men with the same facial hair. They were Arabs, no doubt about it. Jennifer split the screen and brought up our Qatar target package, the image given to us from the Taskforce on the left of the screen, and the live action on the right.

  I said, “That’s not him. No match.”

  We waited until the unknowns had finished their Faraday transfer, the security man running a wand over each to make sure they weren’t hiding anything. He tagged the pouch, allowing us to get the number.

  We continued, watching every guest who arrived, but our target from Qatar never entered. I now had a hard call. Abort? Or go ahead, with the other man the focus? In the no-fault world of the Taskforce, this was a definite abort. No way was the mission worth the risk. Nobody was going to die because of the meeting. No direct threats to the nation were involved. It was just a stupid expansion of our mission set by the Oversight Council.

  On the other hand, when on earth would we get to do a movie-version James Bond mission? Never, that’s when. No way was I flying all the way to the Caymans, renting a dive boat and formalwear, just to walk away. That was simply a nonstarter.

  We watched the last guest enter, the crowd now at about seventy people, and Jennifer said, “Okay, no target. Let’s contact the Taskforce and ask for guidance.” Like this was some super-secret sniper mission to assassinate a head of state.

  I looked at Knuckles and read the same feeling I had. I said, “You good with this?”

  He grinned. “Are you kidding?”

  Jennifer looked back and forth between us and said, “We don’t have our target. We’ve met abort criteria.”

  I said, “Nope. That sissy-boy in the beard is the target. You’re going in. All we need to do is wait an hour or two to let them get juiced.”

  8

  Three hours later, on the other side of our boat, shielded from the castle, I slowly lowered Jennifer into the small rubber Zodiac. Already in, Knuckles helped to keep her from falling overboard. Something necessary, given the dress she was wearing.

  A black, formfitting top with long sleeves, the dress was actually a Lycra bodysuit. The long, flowing skirt was simply applied to her waist by Velcro, allowing her to remove the skirt and operate unencumbered. At the small of her back was a waterproof pouch, making the skirt look like it had a bustle. In her left hand was a pair of high heels.

  Knuckles stabilized her waist and I let go of her hand, saying, “Looks like the Taskforce is going to get their money’s worth from those shoes.”

  She sat on the bench in the middle of the small rubber craft and smiled, saying, “My favorite piece of Taskforce kit.”

  She’d had to dress up once before, on a mission in Kenya six months ago, and had gone hog wild buying an outfit on the Taskforce’s dime, including a ridiculously expensive pair of high heels called Jimmy Choos. I couldn’t believe how much they cost—and neither could the bean counters when we returned. But it was a successful mission, so the boss, Kurt Hale, had shushed them and allowed Jennifer to keep the shoes. Up until now, they’d held a special place in our closet, gathering dust.

  I climbed down the ladder and took my position in the rear of the Zodiac. I was nothing but the infil-exfil platform for this mission. I said, “Comms check.”

  First Knuckles talked, then Jennifer answered. I couldn’t hear either one, because they were wearing microscopic earbuds that slaved through Bluetooth to small transmitters hidden in their clothing.

  Ordinarily, we communicated through a proprietary earpiece that worked encrypted through the cell network with our special Taskforce phones. Looking like an ordinary cell phone Bluetooth, they usually blended in fine, but since the host of this party confiscated all cell phones, running around with that in their ears would look a little silly. We’d opted for a covert communication system, which had far less power. It would allow Jennifer to talk to Knuckles, but I wouldn’t be able to hear anything on the dive boat.

  Satisfied, Knuckles looked at me and nodded. Dressed in his tuxedo, his hair in surf-boy disarray, he really did look like something from an Abercrombie & Fitch poster. I chuckled.

  He said, “What’s so funny?”

  I glanced at Jennifer, her dirty-blond hair piled high on her head, wearing expensive-looking earrings and a faux emerald necklace, and said, “I can’t believe we get paid for this shit.”

  Knuckles grinned and said, “Somebody’s got to do it.”

  I said, “Okay. Primary mission is the audio for the Brazilian and the guy from Qatar. Specifically, any discussion of investing in the mine and the reasons why Qatar would be interested. Secondary mission is the cell phones. Jennifer, if you can’t get upstairs to the master bedroom, let it go.”

  She nodded, but said, “I think I can get up there. As a female.”

  “How?”

  She grinned and said, “Let me worry about that.”

  I paused for a moment, then nodded. She was pretty good at solving problems, and I knew she was working some plan that wouldn’t be finalized until she was in the lion’s den, after she could take a look at the atmospherics.

  I said, “Okay. Showtime. Knuckles, cast off.” He did so and I turned around, starting the outboard by punching a single button. It was a fairly powerful motor, but was electric. All that came out was a small whine, like that of a remote-control car.

  We broke the cover of the dive boat and circled to the left, toward a small beach and away from the rocky outcropping the house sat upon. We’d remain out of sight of the castle until we were beneath the level of the rock, then slide in parallel to the coast, out of view of the security by the pool.

  Scooting along barely fast enough to cause a wake, I said, “Any changes to contingencies?”

  Knuckles said, “Nope. This goes south, and we’re running straight to the water. I’ll activate the beacon in my phone once I get the chance, but the only early warning will be you with an eye on the scope. You see us getting thrown out, you start chugging forward in the Zodiac.”

  I nodded, then said, “What if you can’t get out?”

  “Then you’d better call in a Taskforce assault team.”

  Neither one of them had a weapon, because we’d decided it would be too much to try to hide. Well, the lack of weapons wasn’t exactly true. They had their hands, and their fighting skills were positively lethal.

  I grinned and said, “Not much of a plan.”

  Jennifer said, “We’ll get out. That’ll be the easy part. Getting in is going to be the issue. We might be in the water before you’ve made it back to the boat.”

  Knuckles glanced back at me, and I saw a smile in the moonlight. Jennifer clearly didn’t like our plan. Knuckles had come up with it, and I thought it was downright devious.

  We reached a point where we were below the line of sight of the men on the patio, and I slowed the boat to a crawl, lowering my night vision goggles. I cut closer to the shore, paral
leling the rock and looking for the parapet of the lowest sunbathing deck. I saw it above me, about ten feet up the cliff, a primitive set of stairs cut out of the stone leading down from it to the water. Jennifer pulled out a thermal scope, checking for body heat along the top of the crest and around the deck.

  I puttered closer, seeing the waves slap into the rock. I whispered, “Hey, the surf’s worse than it was before. I’m going to get bounced into the cliff.”

  Crouching down, Knuckles said, “You call that surf? That’s nothing. I should have known better than to let an Army guy drive the boat. Just get it close. I’ll buffer while Jennifer gets out, then I’ll go, pushing you away.”

  We crept toward the stairway and I slowed further still, letting Jennifer complete her sweep. She put the scope down and nodded at me, her eyes bright with excitement, making me grin involuntarily. A year ago, she would have been soiling her bodysuit. Now she looked like a kid about to take a roller-coaster ride. Eager for the prospect of some harmless thrills. Only this one might not be so harmless.

  We bumped into the rock, the underside eaten away from years of surf, making a mushroomlike shape. Knuckles grabbed a plant growing out of the stone and pulled us forward until we were abreast of the primitive staircase. Shoes around her neck, Jennifer scrambled up, clambering with one hand while hoisting her skirt with the other. I waited until she was clear, then hissed at Knuckles.

  Still holding the plant and starting to exit, he turned around. I said, “Remember what we talked about. She likes to push things. She wants those cell phones, but don’t let her push too hard. You have the experience here.”

  He grinned and nodded, saying, “I’ll bring her back in one piece. We might be wet, but she’ll be fine.”

  He slipped out of sight, kicking the rubber of the Zodiac and pushing me away from the rocks. I did a tight turn and motored about fifty feet away, sweeping the crest of the sunbathing deck with my night vision. I caught a slash of movement, but nothing else. I turned around and began steaming back to our dive boat and my lonely vigil.