Hidden Threat

by Anthony Tata

  “This is starting to sound like the deck of cards from Iraq,” Matt said.

  “It’s better though. The bad guys supplied the deck. We know it’s right.”

  The aircraft buttoned up and began to roll, lifting into the sky and circling higher and higher until it had the altitude to soar above the Hindu Kush Mountains. The three men studied the target and wondered how they might neutralize the objective while capturing the individual.

  “No sign of armed guards?” Matt asked.

  “None. This is a small neighborhood in Little Aden, west of the port city of Aden,” Hobart said.

  “Kids, women?”

  “Nothing.”

  “When do the medics arrive?”

  “Usually at nightfall. They are there about an hour and then leave.”

  “Looks like a decent landing zone right there,” Matt said pointing at the flat roof. “Or there.” The second area was simply the backyard. They would have to land, forcibly breach their way in, and then fight whatever was on the inside. Not a good option, Matt thought.

  “This is a tough nut. VD just wants to drop bombs on all three houses and call it a day,” Hobart said.

  Matt looked at Van Dreeves who had removed his headset and was eating a power bar. Van Dreeves just shrugged.

  “Hey, a bad plan beats no plan,” Van Dreeves said.

  Matt, though, had an idea.

  “Why don’t we time this so that we’re there when the medics go in? Kill/capture them before they get in, keep one alive, and then let him take us in?”

  “We’ll be over the target in three hours, which is about thirty minutes before the medics would arrive. You’re suggesting landing off the objective and then moving toward the house,” Hobart said as he played with the screen, rotating the view to wide. There was an empty lot, which gave way to miles of desert about a quarter mile away.

  “There,” Matt said. “Let’s land there and move into position along the back,” Matt said.

  “As good an idea as any.”

  The three men spent the next two hours mapping out their plan of action, rehearsing, and checking their equipment. At the thirty-minute mark, they rigged their parachutes, pulled on their oxygen masks, secured their weapons and ordnance, and moved toward the aft of the C-17.

  The ramp lowered, and Matt could see the Sea of Aden mixing with the setting sun. He imagined that it was a beautiful sight from the ground, but from 20,000 feet above sea level with fully loaded combat gear, he had other things on his mind.

  The green light flashed and the three men were tumbling through the sky. The air was warm even at these altitudes in this part of the world. Van Dreeves was first to deploy at about 800 feet, then Hobart, and finally Matt. They were quickly on the ground and the darkness had settled over them during their descent. The landing zone had proven sandy and forgiving, which for Matt was a blessing. His injuries still smarted a bit and he would take all the freebies he could get.

  They stowed their gear in kit bags, hid it beneath some palm fronds, and then Matt led them to a wall guarding the compound four houses from the target. They had exactly one hour on the ground before an MH-47 from the base in Djibouti would come screaming across the 150 miles of water where the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden met. They would be picked up and raced back across the Gulf of Aden to a secure U.S. base.

  They moved quickly along the shadows cast by the walls of the compounds until they reached their target. By Matt’s calculations they had four minutes before the medics arrived. They had thus far been like clockwork, always showing up within a few minutes of darkness every night, indicative of a routine medical schedule where they were trying to mask their identity.

  Van Dreeves moved across the driveway, hiding behind the high shrubs. Within seconds the sound of the gate opening was rattling through their ears. Matt watched as the ambulance dimmed its lights and turned into the driveway. The three men were immediately padding behind it as the gate screeched to a close.

  The driver exited the vehicle and walked to the rear to be greeted by a stun gun from Hobart. He wrestled and writhed but there was nothing he could do against the high voltage being applied to his system. He would be lucky to live. Hobart flex cuffed the man. Matt watched and at first blush the man did not impress him as a medic. Matt moved up to the passenger door at about the time the passenger was exiting and used his Glock to knock him unconscious. The man fell into his arms, and again his instinct was that these men were not medics.

  Van Dreeves opened the back door of the ambulance and he and Hobart dragged the flex-cuffed driver into the back. The ambulance contained a variety of gear, mostly toolboxes.

  Matt gave the passenger a smelling salt, which woke him and the three men quickly went to work on him. Hobart flex-cuffed him. Van Dreeves held a pistol to his head, and Matt asked him questions in Arabic.

  “Do you have the key?”

  The man’s frightened face gave away the fact that he did. Matt pulled a series of swipe cards and keys from the passenger’s pocket.

  “Who is inside?”

  “No.”

  “Who?”

  “No one is inside,” the man said, visibly shaken. Matt smelled urine and saw the stain in the crotch of the man’s white uniform.

  “Who is inside? Where is he?”

  “Cannot say,” the man replied. “Cannot go in.”

  “You know we will kill you if you don’t tell us,” Matt said.

  Either someone shot him from a distance or he had a heart attack, because the man simply slumped over. Not seeing any blood, Matt surmised that the man had fainted. He felt a weak pulse. They tossed him in the back of the ambulance.

  “We’ve got 40 minutes,” Matt said. “Time is burning.”

  They locked the ambulance and ran up to the front door in tactical fashion, weapons outward, scanning in all directions. Matt unlocked the door and rolled into the foyer calling, “One up.” He heard Hobart and Van Dreeves come inside and acknowledge that they were clear.

  They moved through a dining room, kitchen, living room, and study, all of it in pristine condition, as if done by an interior decorator, Matt determined that the house was like a Potemkin Village, the fake villages set up by the Soviets and North Koreans to trick its own residents, visitors, or both. The deeper they bore into the house the more convinced Matt was that no one lived here, especially the top of the Database.

  “Found the stairs down,” Hobart said.

  The three men flew in unison down the stairs and through a door into an antechamber. There was a metal safe door that required a hand scan.

  “I’ll wait here. You two go get one of the two medics,” Matt said. “Twenty minutes.”

  Hobart and Van Dreeves were out and back in less than three minutes, dragging the driver. They slapped his hand onto the scanning device, which didn’t work so they tried an identical one next to it, which unlocked the door. Van Dreeves had snagged a toolbox from the back also and he opened it as Matt and Hobart went into the dimly lit room.

  Air conditioning was blowing full blast onto a server farm. A room the size of a suburban basement housed server racks from floor to ceiling. Was this the actual database, Matt wondered? Or was it the center of operations?

  “I’ll be damned,” Matt said.

  “What’s really behind the curtain?”

  They heard the man mutter, “No,” about the same time Van Dreeves said, “Holy shit.”

  “What?” Matt asked.

  “There’s a second hand scanner. I think both men had to scan at the same time.”

  Van Dreeves was looking at a series of red numbers falling all over each other to reach zero.

  “Get the hell out of here,” Matt said. But before he took a step toward the door, he reached in and grabbed two server boxes, really nothing more than small hard drives, stuffed them in his outer tactical vest, and followed Hobart and Van Dreeves up the stairs and out of the front door as the house exploded.

  CHAPTER 83
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br />   Spartanburg, South Carolina

  FRIDAY Morning (Eastern Time)

  Amanda spent the remaining nights until graduation in Jake’s parents’ home. She told them everything from start to finish. The sheriff had personally come by and removed Jake’s security anklet immediately after the police had informed Harlan that they’d found a memory chip with pictures of the burning house on Dagus’s desk. There was also a photo of an unconscious Riley Dwyer lying on the patio in her backyard. They were the trophy shots of a psychopath, the detective had told them. Like a hunter holding up a deer head, Dagus had captured his crimes on digits. Damning evidence for sure. “Slam dunk,” the detective had said.

  “How did you sleep?” Jake’s mother asked. Mrs. Devereaux was a pretty, redheaded woman who could still wear petite junior clothes. She was definitely too perky in the morning, but Amanda had always liked her.

  “Fine. That guest room mattress is super comfortable.”

  “Well, you’ve had a rough ride, honey. I don’t know what comes next, but life should be a bit easier for you from here on out.”

  “Why do you say that, Mom?” Jake chimed in across the breakfast table. He quit chewing his french toast long enough to ask the question.

  “I’m just saying that I see a maturity in Amanda now that I hadn’t seen before. She’s grown up a lot in the past few weeks.”

  “Mom—”

  “No, Jake, she’s right,” Amanda countered. She put down her fork and looked at Jake. “I’ve changed. What my father taught me, what you helped me find out, has given me a new perspective. I’m not perfect by any stretch, but you know what?”

  “What?” This time he had a mouthful of eggs.

  “Jake!” His mother scolded.

  “I’m ready to talk about my dad.”

  They sat in silence until Mr. Devereaux came into the house wearing an Egyptian cotton Bobby Jones golf shirt, tan khaki shorts and Docksiders. He was holding a newspaper in his hand. He was an older version of Jake. Tall, handsome, deep-set brown eyes, and thick, dark hair that was difficult to tame.

  “The Observer. Front page.” He put the paper in front of Amanda.

  Amanda slowly opened the newspaper. The byline was Mary Ann Singlaub. The title was: “House Burning at Lanier Linked to Malicious Mother Syndrome.” The subtitle read: “Melanie Garrett and Gabrielle ‘Nina’ Hastings Arrested on Charges of Child Prostitution.”

  She scanned the article and it read pretty much how she and Mary Ann had discussed it should. There were facts and figures about insurance fraud, visitation denials, and child abuse in the story. Riley Dwyer was quoted multiple times as the preeminent source on parental alienation syndrome. Amanda had specifically given her two quotes that she could use from her.

  “My father was my hero until they changed everything. Suddenly I was living in a world where we were hiding from him; I was being used as a bargaining chip for more money, and I was going to the doctor about once a week. I didn’t realize until I saw my father’s files that my mother was making money off me every time she took me to the hospital.”

  She continued scanning and saw her second quote.

  “My mother and grandmother robbed my father and me of at least ten years of our lives together. Once they are convicted in a court of law, those two women should get at least that for a prison sentence.”

  Those two women. She was sending a message to them in prison that she was completely disowning both of them. She would start completely on her own.

  And she would be okay.

  CHAPTER 84

  Spartanburg, SOUTH CAROLINA

  Amanda looked up at Jake as he brushed back some hair from her eyes then kissed her forehead. For Amanda, the days leading up to graduation had been filled with several visits to Harlan’s office to discuss finances and the future. High school graduation had been rather anticlimactic and, perhaps, a harbinger of things to come. The time had passed quickly as she focused on preparing for adulthood.

  They were standing on the porch of Jake’s house with his parents sitting in the Lincoln Town Car, having already said their good-byes to Amanda. Jake was wearing a T-shirt that said “Metallica” on the front, and on the back, “Security.”

  Amanda was wearing khaki shorts and a light-blue polo shirt. The weather was sufficiently warm for her to wear her Teva sandals.

  “It has been weeks and still no word on your dad’s funeral?”

  “Matt called last night and said there were some complications. The Special Operations command has opened an investigation. I should know something soon.”

  She saw Jake look away and then back at her. They locked eyes for a while, hers scanning back and forth between his.

  “What?” she asked.

  She felt him sigh as he spoke.

  “I leave in a few minutes for The Citadel, you know. I don’t necessarily agree with your decision to go to Africa for this program. I’d rather you go straight to Columbia, you know, so we’d be close.”

  “Jake, we talked about this yesterday—”

  “Please just let me finish,” he interrupted and emphasized the point by kissing her softly on the lips so that she couldn’t speak anymore. “I was going to say that I support you, even though I may not agree. You know I’ll worry about you over there. It’s not a safe place.”

  “The world’s not safe anymore.”

  “I don’t agree, Amanda. We’re safer today because of men like your father who go out and make the people who want to do us harm go away.”

  Amanda leaned into him, turning her head so that she could lean on his chest. “I believe that now.”

  “I know you do. That’s probably part of what this Africa trip is about. You have to promise me, though, that you will be safe, okay?”

  She pulled away and smiled that beautiful grin. “I promise.”

  With that, Jake got into the back seat of the Lincoln, which drove away, leaving Amanda standing alone in the front yard.

  She had one task left to complete before she caught a ride from Riley Dwyer to the airport.

  CHAPTER 85

  South Carolina

  Amanda summoned her courage, studied the Mapquest directions, and headed southwest toward the Georgia border.

  She demonstrated her apprehension by missing the first parking attempt as her car straddled the yellow line of a visitor’s space in front of the Leath Correctional Facility for Women in Greenwood. Harlan had mentioned to her that Leath was the primary facility for women in the state of South Carolina.

  Before departing for Africa, she wanted to say good-bye to her mother and grandmother. As horrible as they had been to her and her father, she now realized, they were still a large factor in her life. She recognized if she were ever to be able to understand what had transpired during her childhood, that understanding would begin with her matriarchal lineage. She was also cognizant of the fact that one of the prime lessons she had learned was that no one was ever as bad or good as they may initially seem.

  That point, though, was rather difficult to accept at this moment. She smoothed her khaki shorts and tugged at the collar of her preppie shirt as she exited the Benz. Having the lighter knocked from her hand onto the accelerant-soaked carpet wasn’t supposed to happen. She had never intended for the house to burn. She just wanted the threat to be real enough to test her mother’s motives. She had convinced herself that it was her mother’s hand that had converted threat into reality.

  Partly because she had chosen to press charges, Melanie and Nina were confined while the criminal fraud units continued to dig through the insurance claims. Not only health insurance, but jewelry, automobile, and homeowner’s policies were all being reviewed. Harlan had told her that the initial report was that her father had uncovered only a portion of the racket that her mother and grandmother had nicknamed The Free Money Club.

  “I’m here to see Melanie Garrett and Nina Hastings,” Amanda said through the glass window in the outer foyer of the Metro. An African Amer
ican woman smiled at her as she shuffled through some papers and then clicked a mouse on a computer.

  “Number 945473 . . .” The woman stopped, recognizing Amanda’s confusion. After a moment she asked, “First time?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Amanda was embarrassed, but maintained her strength to continue with this process. It would be so easy to walk out now, but it wouldn’t be right. And today she was all about doing the right thing.

  “It’s okay, honey. Let me see some ID.”

  Amanda promptly displayed her South Carolina driver’s license, which satisfied the woman whose name she could see was Brenda.

  “Okay, now, you’re going to go right over there, and that nice man is going to open a door for you and sit you down at a table. After that, he will bring your mother in. The guard will be outside the door if you need him.”

  If I need him? All these years she had needed protection from her mother, and now the system was finally going to provide it when she was in jail. Her mind wrestled with the irony of that for a moment when she realized that the woman had said nothing about Nina.

  “What about my grandmother?”

  Brenda looked at the computer screen and asked, “Name?”

  “Gabrielle Hastings.”

  After a moment, Brenda looked up and said, “Her lucky day, I guess. She was released this morning.”

  Amanda stood motionless in the center of the tiled foyer. One moment the double-lock barred door to her right seemed directly next to her, then far away, only to be followed by the thick clear ballistic door to her front zooming in and out.

  How could this happen, she asked herself? She had provided the e-mails that clearly showed her grandmother had prostituted Brianna to Dagus as a way to blackmail him into cooperation in the nefarious scheme. What more did they need?

  “Wouldn’t they have both been released?” she heard herself ask Brenda.