by Fiona Quinn
She pointed at the tower again. “The hole’s up there at the top, and it goes all the way down to the ground below. So hold on to your chompers if they’re like to fall out on ya.” She wiggled her hips as she stepped back and squatted a bit as if acting out the event. “Once you’re in position, hovering over that hole, lying flat out on your back, mind you. Well then, you do a back bend into the hole, and you reach your lips out as far as you can get them. And you kiss the stone.” She put her hands on her back and said, “Oof.” Then raised her brow and nodded.
The audience chuckled.
“Well, anyway, it took three nice tourists to pull this old gal back up onto her boots. When I was standing there, putting my hat back on my head, the attendant asked me if now that I’d kissed the Blarney Stone if I felt more eloquent.” She sent the audience a long look.
Remi had discovered that Senator Blankenship knew how to work a long pause.
“I said, ‘Eloquent? Hell, honey, I’ve always dressed nice.’” She offered up a broad wink.
The crowd roared with laughter.
“So, I’ll leave you with this. We are all eloquent when we speak to each other with open minds and respect. Ever since I was a little girl and watched The Big Blue Marble, I thought that as we speak to each other, as we learn from each other, as we lift each other up, we will only make progress. When we make progress together, we all prosper. So let's all stand shoulder to shoulder, and let's move toward a brighter future. Thank you for your kind hospitality.”
The audience burst into applause and whistles.
Senator Blankenship punctuated her speech with a bit of Texas-style boot shuffle, raised her hand to say goodbye, and walked off.
The Big Blue Marble, huh? Interesting, Remi thought as her phone pinged. She glanced at the screen, then swiped to answer. “Hey, Joli. Any word?”
“About—?”
“Éloïse and Marie-Claude?”
There was a long pause.
“Remi.” She stopped.
Remi felt cold wash through her system. She waited…
“Remi,” Joli finally said, her accent thicker than normal. “There will be no quick answer. You’ve reported on this type of thing. You know what Éloïse and Marie-Claude are caught up in. This is a long road. Years. Decades. Sometimes never. Yeah…sometimes never…” Her voice sounded like it had fallen off a cliff. Remi couldn’t make out the end of her sentence.
Remi swallowed. She had no words.
A Canadian colleague of Joli’s had been kidnapped in Syria. Put in a hole in the ground for over a month, she was eventually sold to ISIS. An Arab businessman bought her and returned the reporter to Canada. It had taken almost three years.
Others weren’t as lucky.
“Okay then, were you calling for some other reason?” Remi tried to pull out of the fog that wrapped her.
“I was wondering if you’d heard about the Pegasus Project?”
“Doesn’t ring a bell…”
“My newsroom just sent out a warning. A private group out of Israel developed spyware that they were licensing to various governments.”
“Okay…” Remi reached for a pad and pen in case she needed to jot notes.
“It has to do with military-grade spyware originally developed to track terrorists—but get this—the governments were using it to track journos.”
“Wait. Someone’s hacking our phones? Tracking us? Who found this?”
“A Parisian non-profit and Amnesty International. There’s a group here in Toronto that’s been following Pegasus for a while now. They’re looking through the data that showed up—sent by some whistleblower. It looks bad. Human rights groups, politicians, as well as journalists, are being monitored. They got hold of some of the phones on the whistleblower’s list, including thousands of phone numbers. Each phone that they analyzed was infected by the Pegasus program. My number was on the list. They think it’s because I was working over in Hungary.”
“Didn’t you have security on your phone?” Remi doodled question marks onto her pad next to the word Pegasus.
“This program can break through anything. Anyway, since my phone was on the list and I speak to you at least once a week, I thought you might want to check on yours.”
“Should I just toss my phone and start again?” Remi asked.
“Maybe? I think knowing if you were being surveilled is an important question.”
“Yeah, yeah, do you have a resource?” Remi scratched the pen back and forth over the pad.
“I’ll text you a number. Ask for Jean Marie. Tell him we’re friends.”
“Yup, thanks,” Remi said. “I’ll do that. Thank you. Are you safe?”
“Are any of us?”
And that’s how Joli left the conversation. Remi stared at the phone. Was it corrupted?
A moment later, there was a ping as Joli dropped a text with a number and no message.
It was too late to call a stranger tonight. Remi put it on her mental list of things to do in the morning.
The phone rang again. Liu.
“Hey, I was just about to reach out to you.” Remi twiddled her pen nervously. “Have you heard of the Pegasus infection?”
“Yeah, actually. We have our lawyers checking on all of our journalists’ phone numbers. In the meantime, we’ll be sending out letters suggesting you get new phones and new phone numbers.”
Remi moaned.
“I know it’s a pain. But no one’s going to talk to you if they think the connection is compromised. Also, not why I’m calling. Turn on CNN now.” He ended their connection without a goodbye.
Remi reached over to her coffee table for her remote and pressed the buttons to get the news channel playing.
A journalist stood in front of a courthouse building, the wind whipping her hair across her face as she spoke into her hand-held mic. “We’re at the courthouse in Sacramento. We’ve just been told that the judges have reached their decision on the Spencer Ackerman case. Spencer Ackerman is a retired SEAL.”
Remi looked at the time, eight-fifteen in D.C. It was just after five in Sacramento. Remi’s phone pinged with a text.
Greg: They let the SEAL off. I’m sorry. You tried.
The reporter on CNN said, “Last year, Remi Taleb, reporting for the Washington News-Herald, broke a story about Navy SEAL Ackerman that led to charges being brought by the Navy. It began with a Memorial Day cookout in Afghanistan that involved allegations of sexual assault.” She pulled the strands of hair from her mouth, then simply gripped her hair in her fist and continued without missing a beat.
“Taleb reported out about a string of incidents that had involved the elite special operators’ team, not just Ackerman. This came on the heels of the Secret Service incidents that included drinking to inebriation and engaging prostitutes while out on assignment protecting the president. The Navy didn’t want to tarnish the SEAL’s reputation in the way that the Secret Service brought public scrutiny and condemnation to their organization. In an unprecedented move, the Navy brought the entire platoon back to the States, citing leadership failures.”
Remi leaned forward, listening, knowing that Greg would have the inside scoop. They were letting Ackerman get away with it. Unfathomable.
“This was the same platoon that had been led by Special Warfare Operator Chief Stanly Gotwald,” the reporter continued. “He was charged with taking pictures with the corpses of Islamic fighters, shooting civilians, and rape.
“In Akerman’s case, he has been charged with intercourse without consent. As described to this reporter, in the military justice system, sexual assault has to rise to the level of ‘life-threatening’ for the victim in order for the crime to be classified as rape. According to the allegations, the victim was penetrated against her consent while she fought to get free. However, her bruising and lacerations were not deemed to be life-threatening. Therefore, according to the military, she was not the victim of a rape.”
People started to pour out of the court
house doors.
The reporter was focused and undaunted by the stampede. “Ackerman’s lawyer insists on his client’s innocence, though the victim, Jane Doe, went immediately to the hospital where they obtained a sample of semen, and it was positively identified as Ackerman’s DNA. The trauma nurse photographed Jane Doe’s bruising, including the bruises that encircled her neck. Ackerman maintains that the victim enjoyed rough sex. He was, according to Ackerman, engaged in a consensual role-play with the victim.”
As if. Remi blew out hard. That poor woman. This would retraumatize her, knowing that the guy did this to her and yet walked away a free man on this count.
“This case comes on the heels of other high-profile rape cases such as the case in Minnesota where the judge ruled just yesterday that a man could not be charged with felony rape because the woman he raped had done vodka shots and passed out in his apartment. He had sex with her after she blacked out. She never gave her consent to have sex with the man.
“According to Minnesota law, ‘Mental incapacity’ to give consent only applies if the perpetrator gave the substance to his victim without her knowing about it, such as date rape drugs. However, if a person chooses to drink, then that law cannot be applied. The Minnesota man was cleared of wrongdoing.”
Can you imagine that? Remi thought. You drink, you get drunk, a man finds you, rapes you, and it’s all hunky-dory.
Her phone dinged. Without taking her eye off the news stream, Remi answered, “Hey.”
“It’s Tony. You in Ethiopia still?”
“D.C., heading to London tomorrow.”
“Pshhhhh… All righty.”
“Why?”
“America just did a drone attack in Somalia against Al-Shabaab. I hoped you could pop down.”
“No can do. Pedro’s in the area, though.”
“Good. Thanks.” And he disconnected.
Remi put her phone under her thigh and reached for her mug of lavender tea in the hopes she could soothe her nerves.
Remi refocused on the television.
“Women’s groups are watching the outcome of this case.” The reporter was saying. She hadn’t yet confirmed what her friend Greg had texted about Ackerman walking away a free man. “Texas Senator Barb Blankenship has been working across the aisle with Michigan Senator Margaret Tallow to develop new regulations for sexual misconduct in the military. Their aim is to take rape reporting out of the victim’s chain of command, among other measures, to make military life safer for both women and men.”
The reporter then cited the incident where two Marine Raiders and two Navy SEALs broke into a Green Beret’s room in Mali, tying up the Green Beret. The assailants had hired a local man to rape the Green Beret as an act of hazing. The Marine was all set up to film the rape. However, the Green Beret died of asphyxiation before that could happen.
“Blankenship and Tallow want to end these assaults,” the reporter concluded.
Remi quickly scribbled notes to talk to Senator Blankenship about the Ackerman case and the two female senators’ progress in the reforms. Would the male senators prevent the legislation? And if so, why?
Okay, maybe there’s a story worthy of writing on this assignment.
Though, her main aim was to get to Jean Baptiste and offer what support she could.
Chapter Six
T-Rex
Tuesday, Washington D.C.
“Hey, look at this,” Ty called out, lifting his phone.
Echo Force had commandeered a meeting room in their hotel to do their prep work for this assignment. It was out of the way and big enough that security shouldn't be a problem if they kept their voices down.
Dressed in BDUs—battle dress uniforms—they’d pulled from their packs that Winner had loaded onto their transport plane yesterday. They were waiting for a more appropriate set of clothes to arrive.
Nitro’s wife, Laurel, was now in her car, making the six-hour drive from Fort Bragg with close protection clothing and equipment.
“When I took Rory for his jog this morning,” Ty said, “we ran past a doggy day care with walk-in hours at their dog paddle pool. We were the only ones there.” He held up a video of Rory dropping his ball into the water.
In a low crouch, eyes on the prize, Rory dramatically stalked to the other side of the pool, froze, then leaped into the water, as if surprising his prey, to grab the ball and swim to the end with an exit ramp. He did it over and over again.
The men chuckled at Rory’s antics.
Rory laid under the table at the men’s feet, his chin resting on his paws, lifting his brows and looking from man to man.
Ty stopped the video replay and attached it to a text message. “I’m sending this on to Tripwire.”
“How’s he doing?” Havoc asked.
“Health-wise? About the same. I try to send updates on Rory to Trip each week, make things a little easier on the guy. Tough break getting medically released from his SEAL contract and their reassigning Rory to Echo. As tight as Tripwire and Rory were, it must have felt like losing a limb.”
“He still going to adopt Rory when Rory is retired from service?” T-Rex asked.
“That’s the plan.” Ty bent to look under the table at Rory. “Not that I’m not going to miss you like hell. But they’d never let me adopt you since I’m never at home.”
“He’s still with Iniquus?” T-Rex asked.
“Yeah, their Cerberus Tactical K9 team. He’s working a dog named Valor. Search and rescue. Since he doesn’t need to pull off an exfil like we had in Niger yesterday, he’s able to keep up with that workload.”
“Good gig,” Havoc said. “Great organization.”
“Yep.” Ty looked through his phone's photo album for a good action shot of Rory to send Trip also. “They’ll be over on the eastern Mediterranean Sea about the same time we are. They’re heading to Israel. Tomorrow, I think they leave out.”
“Cerberus?”
“Yeah, both their Alpha and Bravo teams are cross-training with Israeli and European rescue for urban disasters.” Ty leaned forward, elbows posted on his thighs as he scrolled when his phone pinged. “Ha! Speak of the devil, Trip sent a picture of Valor.” He held up the photo for Havoc and T-Rex to see.
A beautiful female German Shepherd was whole-body hugging a woman with curly brown hair.
“Who’s that?” T-Rex asked, taking the phone. “She looks familiar.”
“Dani Addams. Military vet. She took care of Rory when he got injured.”
“Yeah, I remember now.” T-Rex handed it back.
“There was a search and rescue mission where Trip and Valor found Dani. She’d been on a path along a cliff that collapsed in a storm,” Ty said. “Trip and Valor dug her out and saved the day. Everyone got home safe and sound. It looks like Trip and Dani are going the distance. They’re engaged.”
“Well, hey now,” Havoc said. “Good things can come from bad circumstances.”
“Yeah.” Ty tipped back in his chair. “Something about bad circumstances can make things spark. If you ever want to hear the psychology behind it, CIA Officer White filled my ears with that crap. I can tell you all about it.”
“Worked for you and Kira, though,” Havoc said. “Where’s Dani stationed now?”
“Maryland. Still doing military veterinary care.”
Havoc kicked his feet up onto a nearby chair, crossing his ankles, getting comfortable. “Has Dani met Kira?”
“After the terror attack at D-Day’s party, Dani came over to help calm Kira down. I thought, another woman, you know? I had just met Kira, and though we both had feelings… Yeah, I just thought it needed a woman’s touch, and Dani was the only woman I knew in the area.”
“It help?” T-Rex asked.
“Dani was able to calm Kira down a bit.” Ty scrolled quickly through his pictures and held up a photo of Dani and Kira lying on the floor holding hands with Rory and Valor draped over them.
“Hell of a thing.” T-Rex could see Kira heading Ty in one o
f three directions. Kira could be a stabilizing influence as Ty continued his job. She might be a distraction. Or, she could be a reason to not sign his re-up contracts and maybe try to get a gig with Iniquus, so he could stay closer to home with a better work-life balance. Only the first option was okay with T-Rex. “Then she gets involved in not one but two terrorist incidents in a matter of days.”
Ty seemed to pick up on T-Rex’s concern. “We’re working through it. It’s good for Dani and Kira to have made friends.” He swiped his phone closed and laid it face down on the conference table. “I think it’s the dogs that brought them together. All’s good.”
T-Rex nodded and turned to his computer. It was time to get on the video call with Burnside and Winner.
He tapped the last button and waited for them to log in.
While Ty was exercising Rory that morning, T-Rex and Havoc had headed to the barber shop. Their hair was now cut to military specs, their faces clean-shaven.
T-Rex kept painting a hand over his jaw. It felt strangely naked, like running to the coffee shop without his pants on. At least his neck didn’t itch anymore. And his hair wouldn’t blow into his eyes and distort his vision.
T-Rex preferred this look. But he worked in Africa and the Middle East, so safety often came down to how well he could blend. Though, at his size, he stood out no matter where he went in the world.
“Gentlemen.” Burnside’s voice pulled all eyes to the screen.
“Sir.” T-Rex sat up straight, shoulders back, chin tucked.
“Have you received and reviewed your advance prep packet?”
“Affirmative, sir.”
