Ring of Fire

by Brad Taylor

  Johan stood up, his face hardening. “You think I work for you because I’m afraid of the guns?” He leaned in close enough for Dexter to smell his breath. “Is that what you think?”

  Dexter’s secretary entered, saw the confrontation, and scurried back out of the room. The door closed, and Johan continued, his voice scraping along like a rake over asphalt. “Let’s be clear, you and I, just to be sure we understand each other: I have fought terrorists my entire life. I started in South Africa, where I found women raped for no other reason than they were a different color of skin. I’ve seen things that would cause you to tremble just in the telling. I have fought against evil for my existence, and I will not be a participant in the same.”

  Dexter said, “Johan, I promise, I had no idea about any of this, and I want it stopped.” He tried to read him, but he wasn’t sure what Johan thought.

  Johan said, “So, what now?”

  “I . . . I don’t know. I mean, I don’t want to have anything to do with this. You stopped the leak. I guess, let it go. Let’s get back to business.”

  “That guy in Gibraltar is working on something. He’s not going to quit. And your name is tied to it.”

  Hearing the words, Dexter realized how deep he’d become embroiled in the state-supported system of Tariq’s family from Saudi Arabia. But he couldn’t tell Johan that. All he could do was mitigate. Mitigate, mitigate, mitigate.

  He said, “What do you recommend?”

  “Let me go there and interrogate him. Find out what that last transfer was funding. Find out who’s actually behind all of these accounts. Find out how they’re using your name.”

  Dexter already knew the answer to that, but he was more than willing to plead ignorance. He knew why they were using his name. Knew that his entire corporation was built on the death of others. He had never wanted to face that reality, but now it had come home. He decided to destroy the facts instead of embracing the calamity he had engendered. He took one more step into the abyss.

  “Yes. I think that would be best. Figure out what that guy is doing, and how he has an account tied to my name. Figure out who is to blame.”

  Johan relaxed, the violence in his demeanor escaping like air from a balloon.

  He said, “I’m on it. I will.”

  Dexter smiled, missing the menace behind the words.

  21

  I jerked Jennifer along by the hand, with her cursing my every step. “Pike, this is really stupid. Don’t do it. You remember the criteria for assault?”

  I said, “Yeah, of course. I’m the one who wrote them.”

  “Then you know you can’t engender the reasons for Omega. You cannot design an operation where you are forced to react. It’s in the damn charter.”

  “We always have the right to self-defense. I’m not asking for anyone to interdict, but I can’t plan for that.”

  “You just did.”

  I looked shocked, saying, “I’m just following a target. How could you say that?”

  She gritted her teeth and said, “I should call this off right now. Run back to Knuckles.”

  “And miss the opportunity to show the value of the weaker sex?”

  Her eyes flashed at that, and I knew I’d overstepped. She said, “So if I don’t do this, it’s because I’m a woman? Are you really trying to manipulate me like that?”

  I backed off immediately, because it was a pretty shitty thing to say. “Hey, come on.” I squeezed her hand. “I wouldn’t do this if I didn’t think you’d save my ass.”

  The scowl remained, and I said, “Okay, okay. If you want to quit, I will. But you have to admit we’ll never get a second shot. These guys are tied into a pretty sophisticated terrorist attack on US soil, and the Taskforce won’t want to investigate the thread. They’ll get arrested as drug runners, and that’ll be the end. Nothing will come out of that bank account.”

  She exhaled, blowing the air out of her cheeks. I said, “Someone else is going to die. Maybe not because this guy is selling dope, but because of what he’s attached to. You know it, and I know it. It’s always the nothing threads that lead to success. A parking ticket that catches a serial killer. Or an innocuous email leads to a terrorist in Bosnia. Isn’t this the right thing to do?”

  That was a reference to a bad guy we’d ended up chasing after I’d first met her. There, I was the one who wanted to quit, and she’d given me the same “right thing to do” speech. I saw a small grin slip out. She said, “You had better make sure we can get out of this.”

  I said, “Me? That’s Knuckles’s problem.”

  The target reached the man-made lake and made a beeline for the exit of the park, spilling out of the same gate he’d used to enter. He walked about the length of a football field down Calle de Alfonso, getting away from the park entrance and into a networked neighborhood of expensive apartments. We, of course, followed.

  I called Knuckles. “Status on Hyenas?”

  “They’re still on you. This could go on for miles.”

  I said, “No, it won’t. He’s going to make a left or right to confirm we’re following, and then they’ll make their move.”

  “What do you want me to do? Attack them? We didn’t bring any weapons, and I’ll bet they have some.”

  “No, no. Let it go. Both my phone and Jennifer’s are active. They’ll take them to prevent us from calling for help, but they probably won’t take our Bluetooth. They have no idea that we’re connected via real-time radio. And the beacon will remain with us, even if I can’t manipulate the radio. Let it play out.”

  The target took a right on a side road, and we followed. Knuckles said, “Pike, I think this is seriously dangerous. We’ll have to go back to the hotel to get weapons, then design an assault plan, then come in. You might be dead. I recommend abort. Just start walking away from him.”

  I saw a black van, no side windows, pull up next to the target. He leaned into the driver’s window and started talking. We either held up, which would look stupid, or we kept walking past him. I said, “Too late. This is it. Head back to the hotel ricky-tick. I’m going to need you soon.”

  Next to me, but on the net, Jennifer said, “We. We’re going to need you soon.”

  Knuckles said, “Don’t blame me for your choice of partner. You brought this on yourself.”

  We pulled abreast of the van, and I said, “You want Carly to go to selection, you’d better not let me die.”

  I heard, “What the fuck does that mean? Who said anything about Carly?”

  Then the door slid open and two men with pistols came out, jabbing them into our guts. The two Hyenas behind us closed the distance, shoving us into the van. We reacted exactly like we should have: in abject fear, cowering and showing no threat whatsoever. As the van rolled, we were forced onto our stomachs and searched, with both cell phones taken, but they didn’t do anything to our Bluetooth earpieces—which were still slaved to the phones.

  Our original target leaned in and said something in Spanish, a language I couldn’t understand. When I didn’t answer, he cuffed me in the head. I glared at him and said, “I don’t speak Spanish. Why are you doing this? If you’re terrorists, we have no money. We can’t pay.”

  He leaned back, reassessing. He said, “I know you aren’t police. So who do you work for? Why are you following me? We’ve never intruded on Marco’s terrain. Do you work for him?”

  I had no idea what he was talking about and told him that. He punched me in the head, causing me to grit my teeth to keep from slaughtering everyone in the van. Forcing myself to remember the end state.

  He said, “I’ll figure out who you are, make no mistake. It would be easier if you just told me now.”

  I reiterated our innocence and got another cuff to the head. I took it. The van eventually stopped, and we were hoisted out. I had one quick look and saw we were in a depressed area, with
graffiti everywhere. We were hustled into the foyer of an apartment complex and slammed against a wall. The men around us scurried about, unlocking a door; then we were jerked forward. We entered a small apartment and were thrown to the floor. Under my breath, I checked my radio, “Knuckles, Knuckles, we’re home. Acknowledge.”

  I heard, “I got you, I got you. At the hotel now. We’re probably twenty minutes out. Can you hold?”

  “Yeah. I think so. Don’t waste any time.”

  The target jerked me upright and sat me in a chair. Another man did the same with Jennifer. The target said, “Okay, enough of the bullshit. Why are you following me? Who do you work for?”

  Acting like I was terrified, I trembled and said, “I have no idea what you want. We’re American tourists. I have some money, if you want it.”

  He squinted his eyes, then slapped me, hard. “Tell me what you are doing.”

  A man moved next to me and used a pistol to poke me in the cheek, in his mind telling me he was a threat, not realizing he would be my first target.

  I moaned, “Nothing. I swear, nothing.”

  The leader glanced at the men surrounding Jennifer and said, “I can hurt you, but I don’t think that would be the quickest way to our answers.”

  “What do you mean? I swear, we were just walking in the park.”

  He said, “We’ll see.” He walked over to Jennifer, raising the level of the interrogation. Pushing me toward the breaking point.

  He said, “You like her?”

  I felt the first tremors of real fear. The assholes were supposed to focus on me. I could take the slaps until Knuckles showed up. This was not part of the plan.

  I said, “Yes. She’s my wife.”

  Jennifer looked at me with a touch of amazement, then shrank back as the two men next to her closed in. The target said, “Well then, maybe you’ll tell me what you were doing before we destroy her.”

  He flicked his head, and his minions jerked her out of the chair, forcing her onto her hands and knees. Jennifer screamed, “Pike!”

  I said, “Don’t do this. Please. Don’t do this.” I triggered my earpiece and said, “Where the fuck are you?”

  The men heard the words and looked at me in suspicion. I heard, “Five minutes. Loaded for bear.”

  I said, “Things are going bad swiftly.” The target smacked me in the head, not realizing I was actually talking to another human being.

  Two men held Jennifer’s arms, and she screamed again, “Pike! Pike!”

  Jesus Christ. This was a bad idea.

  I knew why she was screaming, and it wasn’t because she wanted me to save her. She wanted me to let her loose. But if I did, we would lose our ability to interrogate anyone, because she’d slaughter them like lambs.

  I made one more attempt, shouting, “Stop, stop. I’ll tell you what you want. I work for the United States Drug Enforcement Administration. The DEA. That’s all. We’re looking at marijuana infiltration from Morocco. Please, this isn’t necessary. You aren’t even the main target.”

  The men in the room had worked themselves into a frenzy, like a school of sharks in bloody water, circling my partner. Circling the one thing I held dear. I saw their faces and knew it was too late. They were going to do what they were going to do. And because of it, I was going to end their lives.

  The target said, “Well, it looks like you’re about learn what happens on my terrain.” He walked away from me, getting behind Jennifer. And then he flipped her sundress over her back.

  Jennifer, on her hands and knees, with her ass hanging in the air, looked at me and said once again, in a much quieter voice, “Pike?”

  I squeezed my eyes shut for a split second, resigned to the outcome. I opened them and locked onto her. She was trembling, but it wasn’t from fear. She was a finely tuned machine with the engine revving, waiting on the light to go green. I flicked the switch. “Take them out.”

  I sprang out of my chair, grabbing the weapon of the guy to my right, maintaining control and aiming it toward the ceiling. I drove my knee into his crotch, lifting him off the ground and causing his eyes to fly open comically. His arm turned into a noodle as he snapped forward in pain, raw saliva coming out of his mouth, his body now devoid of resistance. I torqued his arm back, snapping the elbow, then slammed his face into my knee, shattering the nose. He dropped, leaving me with the pistol.

  Our original target was stunned at the action, simply standing with his mouth open at the speed of events. Jennifer flattened herself on the ground, breaking the hold on her arms, then rotated around on her back. Surprised, the men attempted to contain her, but it was like trying to catch a dog on the loose.

  She lashed out with her foot, shattering one guy’s jaw, his teeth puncturing through his cheek as her foot demolished his face. She rotated her legs and wrapped them around the neck of a man bent over trying to trap her, jerking him to the ground from her back and snapping it by slamming his head into the concrete floor.

  She leapt up, and the target finally understood the threat. He raised a pistol, pointing it at her. I sprang at him, and the door behind us exploded inward. Veep came in, eyeballs behind an assault rifle, his face a vision of rage. The rifle spat two suppressed rounds, and the target’s head snapped back. He dropped like a cold bag of ground meat.

  The world went quiet for a moment, the only noise coming from the rest of the team entering. As they cleared the apartment, I checked on Jennifer. She collapsed into me for a split second, breathing hard, then remembered why the whole thing had happened. She smacked me in the gut, saying, “I told you this was stupid.”

  I surveyed the damage, seeing two men on the floor, one definitely dead, the other bleeding out from the split in his jaw. Behind me was another unconscious man, his arm irrevocably destroyed and his balls somewhere near his throat. The target himself had a third eye and wouldn’t be talking anytime soon.

  Knuckles came back into the room and said, “Well . . . this went pretty much like I thought it would.”

  I said, “Start SSE. Find me something.”

  22

  Jalal leaned back in his chair, exhausted from his trip and not wanting to hear the words his friend was saying. “What do you mean, you can’t get this into the shipment? You’re on the inside. You’re the man who has access to the containers. It’s just a tube.”

  Badis said, “You don’t understand how hard it is. The ship is being loaded tonight, which means all of the containers that will be boarded are in a secure holding area.”

  “Can’t you get into it?”

  “I could, but it wouldn’t matter. Each container has a cable seal with a bar code.”

  “You don’t have additional seals?”

  “I do, but the United States requires the manifest for anything headed to their country to be sent twenty-four hours in advance of the ship even being loaded. They have all the seal numbers. Even if we made it in, broke into that container, and then replaced the seal, it wouldn’t be allowed to board because the new seal number wouldn’t match the manifest. It would only draw attention to that container. They’d break it down and search every article. They’d find the explosives.”

  “And the explosives are already inside the container?”

  “Yes. I had to load it when I had the chance. Before the seals went on. Jalal, forget about the tube. Just let the explosives go off. It will be the same thing.”

  “No, it won’t. How much of a charge did you place inside?”

  “It’ll blow half the container open. If the container ends up in the middle or bottom of the stack, it’ll cause the entire stack to fall into the sea. Spectacular.”

  “So we get a visible display, but it won’t do anything to the port.”

  “It will once they realize that a bomb was smuggled in. Right now, they search a fraction of the containers. With this attack, and the tanker
one before it, they’ll be forced to search every container. It will destroy their shipping industry. They can’t possibly do it without disrupting the shipping chain globally.”

  “I agree, which means they won’t do it. They’ll scream and yell, and show flash and pomp, but they won’t let the trade stop. Only we can do that, by damaging the port.”

  Badis rubbed his hands together, like an old woman afraid of confrontation. He said, “You don’t understand, there is no way to get that tube into my container. Just no way. We can’t penetrate a secure area, find the right CONEX, then open the doors, breaking the seal, and dig around to find my explosive package. It looks like every other package in the CONEX, and the place is under constant surveillance. This isn’t like Tangier, where we planned the attack. They don’t care what comes into port. America does.”

  Jalal squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, then said, “Can you get me in?”

  “Yes. I have a temporary badge. The one they issue while the real one is being made.”

  He held out his own badge, a thick piece of plastic with Badis’s face emblazoned on it. “This is what you would end up with, and it’s embedded with biometric information. In this case, a retinal scan. I wave this at the reader, then lean in to look into a machine that reads my eyes. It takes a while to get them made, so in the interim, new hires are given a temporary badge. But you have to be with me to enter. Or with someone who owns a real badge.”

  “When are they loading the ship?”

  “Tonight, starting at ten P.M. They’ll run until one A.M., and we’ll have a shift change, which is when I work. We’ll continue for six hours straight, loading forty containers an hour, until it’s done. The ship is due to leave tomorrow at eight in the morning.”

  “Besides the seal mix-up, what would prevent a container from being loaded?”