Ring of Fire

by Brad Taylor

  In the not-too-distant past, Chip had been one of them. Now he had an office. Not a corner one, to be sure, but at least one with a view of Manhattan. The corner office would come soon enough.

  He said a few pleasantries as he went through, leaving the cube farm behind on the way to his coveted space away from the chaos. He passed by his secretary’s desk—she wouldn’t be in for another hour—and unlocked his office. He swung open the door, and the reams of folders sitting on his desk gave him a spasm of regret. It was like a continual gushing of paper and electrons, all of them deals staggering in their monotony, with little inspiration and certainly no joy.

  Was this how his life was to end? Working day after day cloistered in an office, slaving to make a profit for a company that didn’t even know his name?

  Lately, he had taken to fantasizing about doing something else. Something in the outdoors, where the money didn’t matter. Maybe something in Alaska or . . . Borneo. Someplace that would allow him to flex his muscles instead of his ability to read numbers. A life he had always wanted to live but never had the courage to attempt.

  In exactly one hour and forty-six minutes, in the brief second before his life was extinguished, he would dearly wish he’d made that choice.

  He sat down to work, pulling the first folder to him. When his personal phone began buzzing over an hour later, he realized he’d lost track of time in the mind-numbing tedium. He glanced at his ridiculously ostentatious Hublot chronograph and saw it was eight forty-five in the morning. Too early for a business call from one of the partners.

  He recognized the number and relaxed, punching the answer button and saying, “Dexter, tell me the good news.”

  “How do you know it’s good?”

  “Because if it were bad, you’d wait until I had to track you down.”

  He heard laughter on the other end, then, “Yeah, it’s good. I got the contract. I have all the POCs and I’ve already talked to one. It’s real. I’m in.”

  Chip stood, gazing out at the Manhattan skyline. “I’m glad to hear it, bud. Last thing I wanted to do was answer for a two-mil loss. When do you leave?”

  “I haven’t figured that out yet. Hey, Chip, the reason I’m calling is I want to set up my own shell company in the Bahamas. With that law office in Panama like we did with the Saudis.”

  “Mossack Fonseca? Why? You doing something illegal?”

  “I thought you said it was perfectly legal.”

  Chip laughed and said, “It is, but it’s never used that way. It’s used to hide assets from taxes.”

  “Well, that’s exactly what I want to do, except hide it from that bitch of an ex-wife.”

  Chip saw a speck in the distance, growing larger. He put up a hand to shield his eyes and said, “Ahhh . . . I see. Yeah, I can set that up. Actually, it’ll work for taxes, too.”

  He paused, watching the speck grow impossibly large in the span of a second. He managed to get out “Holy shit,” before a Boeing 767, last known as American Airlines Flight 11, slammed into the side of the North Tower, tearing through the heart of the building with the force of an avalanche and bringing with it 350,000 pounds of steel and jet fuel that incinerated all in its path.

  —

  Sitting in the den of his house, Dexter heard Chip shout, then silence. He said, “Chip? Chip, you still there?” He got nothing.

  He redialed the phone, but Chip’s line went straight to voice mail. He stood up and went to his Rolodex in his makeshift office, digging through until he found Chip’s landline. It was no better. He went back into the den, thinking about whom he could call next, when he saw a breaking news story on his television.

  He sat down heavily, not believing the grainy image of an airplane smashing into the World Trade Center.

  He remained glued to the television the rest of the day, numb to the carnage. He spent hours on the phone with other fraternity brothers, trying to confirm what he already knew in his heart. Initially, like many, he felt outrage and anger. It wasn’t until later that he would feel fear, when he saw a picture of Mohamed Atta, the ringleader of the hijackers.

  A man he’d once seen at Tariq bin Abdul-Aziz’s house.

  3

  One day in September 2016

  I wiped the sweat from my eyes, the oppressive Charleston humidity making it feel like I was breathing water, even at seven in the morning. I waited for Jennifer to arrive, keeping track of her time and eyeing the eight-foot wood wall in front of me.

  This was it. The cutline for winning the bet, and Jennifer knew it. I could smoke her on flat runs, swimming, and everything else, but I would be lucky to beat her on an obstacle course—especially after she modified each obstacle to suit her strengths. But I had some leveling of my own planned.

  She ran up, sprinting the last hundred meters, looked at her time, then put her hands on her hips, breathing deeply. She said, “You want to do double or nothing? Before we go?”

  Standing there in her Nike shorts, ponytail askew, after losing all three of the first legs of the triad, she was making a pretty bold pronouncement. She had a lot to lose.

  I said, “What’s the ‘double,’ since we aren’t talking money?”

  She’d apparently been thinking about it, because she said without hesitation, “You clean the cat box and do the dishes for a solid month. No bitching about how you cooked or that the cat hates you. You just do it.”

  A pretty strict bet. We shared the duties in our house—which meant I let her do them when she couldn’t stand the filth building up—but if I lost, I’d be on her timeline. Which meant I’d actually have to clean.

  On the other hand, if I won, I’d get . . . well, something more.

  Choices, choices.

  Two weeks before, we’d started talking about the differences in physical abilities between men and women, a conversation born from the fact that women were now allowed into all combat positions in the military. I was against it for some select specialties, and—of course—she was for it all the way. One thing led to another, and we’d made a bet. A race, so to speak, with winner take all. To make it fair, we’d debated the rules and the course. We’d already completed 90 percent of the events, and I’d won handily on most—the swim being the only one that was pretty much a draw. But now we had the obstacle course on the grounds of the Citadel, the military college of South Carolina.

  As obstacle courses go, it wasn’t that big a deal—the usual log-walk-rope-drop chain of events—but after surveying the thing, Jennifer had made a modification for every single obstacle. For one, we couldn’t just climb the rope, touch the top, and come down. We had to climb the rope, get on top of the beam holding it, and traverse it to the far side.

  I knew why. She was a damn monkey, and she knew that while I could win on pure strength, I couldn’t match her climbing skills. I’d agreed because I knew I’d be so far ahead on points when we reached the obstacle course I’d be able to coast.

  Only I wasn’t that far ahead. Not nearly as far ahead in our agreed point structure as I thought I would be. She’d proven to be in better shape than I expected—especially on the mental side. The ruck march should have crushed her mentally, but she finished the damn thing only eighteen minutes behind me, slogging over the Ravenel Bridge on willpower alone, the sixty-pound ruck looking like a giant tick on her back, making me wish I’d run the entire twelve miles instead of keeping Jennifer in sight, toying with her. I really wished I hadn’t agreed to the point spread on the obstacle course. Because I was in danger of losing.

  But there’s no way I would admit that.

  I said, “Okay. You’re on. But if I win, I get twice as much.”

  She scowled and said, “I can’t believe you think that’s appropriate. I was assuming I’d just clean for a month.”

  I grinned. “You’re sure you’ll win. What’s the risk?”

  Still not
agreeing, she kicked the body armor I’d managed to scrounge from a buddy at a National Guard armory near our office in Mount Pleasant. She said, “This is a handicap that I shouldn’t have to wear. We don’t do big army.”

  “No, we don’t, but it’s a handicap for every single male on the battlefield. You want to prove your point, put it on.”

  She did so, now wearing about thirty pounds of ceramic plates ensconced in a vest that would alter her ability to navigate the obstacles. I put on my own armor, looked at my watch, and said, “Ready?”

  She nodded, staring at the wall so intensely it was almost comical. I said, “Five, four, three, two, one.”

  On the utterance of “Whuu—” she took off, hitting the eight-foot wall in front of us and leaping over. I shouted, “Hey!” but she wasn’t stopping. I sprinted to the wall, getting over it and seeing her on the obstacle called the “belly buster.”

  Basically, all you had to do was leap up onto a fat horizontal tree trunk about four feet off the ground, then jump out and catch another, higher pole and pull yourself over. Simple. Except Jennifer had dictated that you had to go over the top pole, then back around, then fling yourself to the lower pole again. If you couldn’t maintain your balance, you started over.

  I saw her leap, then swing her body in a circle around the log, like some Neanderthal gymnast on bars. She made it completely around, but her armor caught on something, threatening to cause her to fall. She clamped on with her legs just as I leapt up on the belly buster next to her. I swung my arms once, then launched myself into the air for the high log. I slammed into it, got around about half as gracefully as she had, and saw her fling herself back to the lower log. I did the same, smiling that I’d caught her. If she was slowed down by the armor on this obstacle, it would even it up for me the rest of the way.

  She balanced on the lower log, then leapt back to the high one, scrambling to get over it and on with the course. I hit the lower log, windmilled my arms, and fell off.

  Shit.

  By the time I was through it, she was already on the ropes, two obstacles ahead of me, climbing like a demented spider monkey even with the armor on. She scrambled to the top of the frame holding the ropes, then began running down the four-by-four to the far side. No way would I be able to match that.

  The course was two miles long, and I’d have to pray that the armor wore her out. I lost sight of her in the trees and just focused on my own technique, racing through obstacle after obstacle. Eventually, shouting penetrated the haze of my concentration.

  To my right, some guy in uniform was yelling and waving his arms around. I caught a flash of Jennifer ahead of me. I ignored him, picking up the pace. I had only about a quarter of a mile to catch her before the end of the course, and the way we’d dictated the rules, every second was going to cost me dearly in points. Maybe weighing this part so heavily wasn’t such a bright idea after all.

  I saw Jennifer scrambling up the second rope obstacle—this one was supposed to be a simple swing across a mud pit, but like an idiot, I’d agreed to Jennifer’s modifications.

  She’d gotten halfway up when she, too, heard the shouting. I saw her look at the man as I cleared the one obstacle between us. She climbed back down, then swung herself across the mud to the grass on the far side. I leapt up, grabbed the rope, and started climbing. She said, “Pike, there’s someone shouting at us.”

  I reached the top and said, “So?”

  I got on top of the beam just as the man reached Jennifer, screaming about what the hell we were doing here. He pointed up at me and said, “Get down from there.”

  I said, “Okay,” and tightrope-walked to the far side, arms out for balance. I hung from the beam, then dropped. I saw him with his hands on his hips, glaring at me, Jennifer looking like a toddler in trouble next to him.

  And I knew I was going to win. Jennifer had an innate moral streak that would prevent her from not following the man’s instructions. She would try to calm him and explain that we had permission to be here—which we did.

  I, on the other hand, would finish the course. I saw both of their mouths drop open when I took off at a sprint toward the final obstacles, then heard Jennifer shout, “Pike! Get your ass back here!”

  If I were smart, I really would have. But I had a bet to win.

  By the time I’d finished the course and circled back through the woods, she was in a fine fury, glowering at me as I walked up with a what did I do? look on my face.

  The man said, “She says you have permission from the Marine Corps to use this.”

  The Marine Corps ROTC department at the Citadel managed the O course. They’d actually built it, using their funds, but it was on Citadel property, so there was always a little push and shove over who actually had the right to grant permission to use it.

  I said, “Yeah, Gunny told me it wouldn’t be an issue, with it being Sunday morning and all.”

  “Well, he didn’t clear it with the grounds department. There are releases, legal issues, a whole host of things—especially with the way you were doing the obstacles. We have an SOP for this thing, and you were way outside of it. I’m within my rights to call the police on you for trespassing.”

  I raised my hands and said, “Okay, okay, we’re done anyway. Won’t happen again. Sorry for the trouble.”

  Indignant, he pointed his finger in my face, saying, “And I’m going to talk to the Gunny about this.”

  I was surprised he wanted to push it, given whom he was talking to. At six feet two, I was carrying more than two hundred pounds—and it wasn’t from a beer belly like he was sporting. With a day’s stubble highlighting a scar that ran down my cheek, I looked like a pirate, something Jennifer hated. She was always pestering me to shave because she said it made me look less than savory. Actually, she said scary. I decided to test that theory.

  I slapped his finger away and leaned into his personal space, saying, “Fine. Can we go now?”

  He took an involuntary step back, his eyes widening. He nodded without saying a word, and I began to walk to the start, supremely satisfied, Jennifer right behind me. When we were out of earshot, she punched my back and hissed, “I thought you said you had permission for this.”

  “I did.”

  “No, you didn’t. I’ve never been so embarrassed. And you kept going, leaving me there to try to explain. I don’t even know what a ‘gunny’ is.”

  I laughed and said, “So, is this about being embarrassed by that groundskeeper, or losing the bet?”

  That really set her off. “Losing? Losing! If I hadn’t stopped, he would have called the police. We’d be in the back of a squad car right now.”

  We reached the parking lot, where I’d prestaged a vehicle, and in a pious tone I said, “Always remember the mission. Mission comes first. I finished the O course ahead of you, which means I won every event. Which means I’m the winner.”

  She became apoplectic, her mouth opening and closing without a sound coming out.

  I said, “And I’m holding you to the double or nothing. I think you can pay the first installment when we get home.”

  Livid, she spat out, “I’ll do no such thing. You are disqualified for cheating.”

  I laughed and said, “Calm down, little Jedi. You’re going to blow a blood vessel in your head.”

  She took off her armor and got into the car without another word, slamming the door. I did the same, getting behind the wheel. Having had my fun and wanting to smooth things over, I said, “We’ll call this one a draw due to outside interference.”

  She muttered, “Because you knew I was going to beat your ass.”

  Before I could get out a smart-aleck reply, my phone rang with a special tone. The one telling me it was a secure call. Meaning we might have some business.

  I looked at Jennifer and saw the same little thrill I was feeling, the earlier fight lost to history.
No matter what I thought about the physical abilities of the fairer sex, there was no denying that mentally—at least for those like Jennifer—females were solid in a gunfight. I’d seen that numerous times firsthand. She wouldn’t admit it, but she lived for the missions just like I did.

  I put the car in drive and tossed her my phone, saying, “You can do the honors.”

  Driving back to our row house on East Bay, I got only her side of the conversation, but from what I heard, we were headed out pretty quickly. She hung up and laid the phone down. I said, “Well?”

  “Well, it looks like that Panama Papers scare has surfaced again. Kurt wants us in DC today. He’s got us tickets on a flight in a couple of hours.”

  “I thought they’d scrubbed that data and we were in the clear.”

  “Yeah, they did, but apparently there’s an ‘Agent Zero’ out there who’s got another load he’s going to release.”

  4

  Dexter Worthington glanced at the time once again, then went back to his computer screen, searching a news story, willing it to have additional information. He’d been doing the same series of motions every thirty seconds for the past ten minutes.

  Where the hell is he?

  He scanned the story for the hundredth time, and it didn’t get any less explosive. The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists—a collection of networked reporters who spanned the globe—was preparing to release a second data dump of the so-called Panama Papers.

  The first leak had occurred in the spring of last year, and it was the largest illegal data dump in history, encompassing terabytes of information, so much so that one could stack WikiLeaks, Snowden, and every other leak together, and the Panama Papers would far eclipse them.

  The target was a Panamanian law firm called Mossack Fonseca that specialized in offshore shell companies. Completely legal on the surface, its main focus was hiding wealth from authorities, as the intricacies and subterfuge of the shell companies were almost impossible to decipher—unless some insider calling himself Agent Zero decided to leak the information.