by Cindy Dees
The disrupted preparations for breakfast resumed. A few minutes later, a middle-aged Englishwoman whom Laura introduced as her son’s nanny strolled into the general chaos. She took efficient charge of both Adam and Michelle, who were fascinated by each other, and led them off to the nether regions of the mansion to play.
As Doris’s world-famous omelets slid neatly onto plates and the adults sat down at the table, Laura filled them in. Emily listened eagerly.
“Jagger, last night I took the liberty of looking into the charges against you. The evidence to support a claim of treason was turned over to the U.S. government almost two years ago. The assumption within the government has been that AbaCo made you an offer you couldn’t refuse and that you’d been turned.”
Emily gasped. “Jagger would never betray his country! He’s the most honorable and noble man I know!”
Jagger grinned. “Thanks for the vote of confidence, but we’ll need more than that to convince the feds to drop the charges against me.”
“What about the fact that they had you locked up in a box for two years?” she demanded indignantly.
He sighed. “I have no proof of that.”
“I let you out of that box! I’ll testify to what I saw.”
He sighed. “That only proves I was being held in a box two weeks ago. Nothing more.”
“I saw how pale and thin you were—”
Laura cleared her throat politely. “Actually, there might be some evidence to support Jagger’s claim. I can’t go into the details of how I know, but I believe that AbaCo has engaged in a systematic campaign of holding prisoners on ships in international waters, in the same manner they held Jagger. I believe they kidnap some of their own hostages, but they also appear to be willing to hold other peoples’ hostages for a hefty fee.”
Emily wasn’t sure she followed, but Jagger leaned forward intently. “You mean they’re throwing people in containers like mine and just sailing around in the middle of the ocean with them indefinitely?”
Emily’s stomach turned over. “You mean like a floating prison ship?”
Laura nodded grimly. “As long as the ship stays in international waters, there’s not much anyone can do to help these prisoners. Only when they come into ports for refueling can anyone move on rescuing them.”
Emily nodded. The Zhow Min had been at the Rock for just such a fuel stop when she’d freed Jagger. “Do you think more than one ship is involved? Or can we just alert the authorities to search the Zhow Min the next time it comes into port?”
Laura frowned. “If there is more than one ship, then the authorities will have to move very carefully. A bold rescue of the hostages on one ship might get all the others on the rest of the ships killed. Nobody knows for sure. The U.S. government dares not take any forceful action until it has proof one way or the other.”
Emily chewed thoughtfully for a minute. “What about the ship’s cargo manifests? Do they reflect the existence of these prisoner containers?”
Laura shrugged. “We’ve never managed to gain access to AbaCo’s record-keeping system, but I highly doubt they’d leave an easy trail for anyone to follow.”
Emily had to agree. She’d worked in the special cargo department for years, and she’d never run across any indication that such activity was taking place.
“As for the FBI charges against you, Emily,” Laura commented, recapturing her attention sharply, “they’re based on evidence that was turned over to the U.S. Customs Service about a week ago.”
Emily winced. “I’m guilty of the things they’re accusing me of. It’s how I found and rescued Jagger.”
Laura shrugged. “I’m certain that a competent attorney will be able to get the charges against you dropped, given the extenuating circumstances of needing to save a human life.”
“I didn’t technically know I was saving a human life. I was given a hint to peek into a certain container, and when I did, I stumbled across Jagger.”
Laura smiled serenely. “It’s all about how a good attorney spins it. I think you’ll be all right. As for you, Jagger, it would be helpful if we could prove that AbaCo’s holding prisoners in international waters. Your claims would be that much more believable.”
He sighed. “They’re careful. And my departure from their floating accommodations was rather abrupt. It’s not like I stuck around to gather evidence to prove that I was their prisoner for two years.”
“Understood. We’ll just have to catch them doing something else dastardly and take pictures next time.”
Jagger snorted and Emily echoed the sentiment. She’d worked for AbaCo long enough to know just how smart and devious her ex-employer could be. The next time the company slipped up could be a long time in coming.
Laura turned to her abruptly. “Emily, have you checked to see if your AbaCo computer passwords have been revoked?”
“I’m sure they were the moment I was discovered missing.”
“Too bad. It would’ve been exceedingly helpful in helping clear Jagger’s name to have been able to get into their system.”
Emily grinned. “I didn’t say I couldn’t get into their system. I merely said my passwords were revoked.”
Laura leaned forward. “Do tell.”
“I happen to know my boss’s passwords and those of about half my coworkers.”
Jagger and Laura exchanged pregnant glances. He muttered, “They could use the break-in to track where you live.”
“And they could run into the blind firewall my server throws up against traces,” Laura retorted confidently.
Jagger shrugged. “Your call. I’m all over any help you can give us, but you’re in no way obligated to endanger yourself or your son.”
“Actually, I am obligated. It’s what I do.”
“Come again?”
Emily was glad Jagger asked the question. She was definitely lost now.
“I help people. Particularly moms. Single moms. It’s how I pass the time. I’d go crazy rattling around this big house by myself without having projects to work on. Apparently, you folks are my latest project.”
Emily liked the sound of that. Their hostess seemed remarkably connected to influential people and seemed to have no shortage of other resources to draw on.
After breakfast, Laura and Jagger disappeared into a sumptuous library on the ground floor to map out a strategy of what they were going to do when they broke into AbaCo’s computers. Once they had it all worked out, then they would call her in to sign on to the company’s database.
She spent most of the morning playing with Adam and Michelle. The little boy was bright and charming, much like his mother. There was one brief scare when what turned out to be a deer tripped some sort of motion detector on the grounds of the estate. She didn’t think she’d ever get used to seeing Jagger whip out a gun and race around like some sort of trained killer.
Although to hear him and Laura talking casually about defense plans for the mansion, it sounded as though that was what both of them were. A few weeks ago, that concept would have scared her silly. But now…now she was thrilled that he was every bit as violently trained as he was. It was a relief to have him on her and Michelle’s side.
It was nearly lunchtime when Jagger called her into the office. “Okay, darlin’. If you can get us into the cargo database, we’ll take it from there.”
She sat down in front of the state-of-the-art computer system and its twin plasma screens. “Do you want into the regular cargo tracking system or the special one?”
Jagger and Laura stared at her. He spoke first. “You can still get us into the special one?”
“Sure.”
A slow grin spread across his face. “By all means, then. Hack away.”
She typed rapidly, bringing up the hidden sign-on screen. Dieter Uling, the guy who did her job on the Rock when she was rotated off the island, never changed his passwords, and he hadn’t in the past week, either, it turned out. She signed on in his name and then stood up. “Have fun, yo
u two.”
Jagger was already seated at the desk, typing rapidly. A scrolling list of outstanding shipments rolled down the screen. “Do you know how to get this to print?”
Emily snorted. “Of course. Move over.” She leaned over him, typed in a set of commands and the printer beside her began to hum.
“Is there any way to tell what’s in each of these shipments?” Laura asked.
Emily shook her head regretfully. “No. The actual contents of these special containers are only kept in hard copy. The ship’s captain gets a set, and the customer retains a set. We destroy all other records as soon as the cargo’s delivered.”
“Which, in and of itself, is pretty incriminating,” Jagger murmured.
“We maintain a list of the weight of each shipment, and in some cases, we record a hazardous materials status.”
“But for the most part, you could be moving absolutely anything in those boxes and nobody would know.”
Emily nodded. “I can show you how AbaCo runs phantom weight and balance measurements for the ships to account for the invisible containers. Here’s one, right now, in fact.” She pointed at the screen and a complicated set of entries beside a cargo shipment. “This is a normal shipment, but it’s been linked to a phantom container. This set of numbers is the load plan corrections for the second container.”
Jagger muttered, “This is a gold mine.”
Laura added, “Print all you can now. We may have to back out of the system fast once they realize we’re not signed on from an AbaCo office.”
Emily hit the Print All command, and she’d no sooner hit the enter key than the second computer screen lit up with all kinds of security warnings.
Laura announced, “That’s our cue, folks. Shut ’er down.”
Jagger hit the escape button and the screen went blank.
The computer continued to spit out paper for several minutes; however, the data had successfully been batched over to the printer’s internal memory before AbaCo spotted the break-in and cut off the database.
Jagger eagerly removed a thick sheaf of papers from the printer. “Let’s take a look at this stuff and see if we can spot anything to take to the feds and clear our names.”
Emily said, “What can I do to help? There must be something. I want to stop these guys once and for all.”
Jagger snorted. “You and me both.” Then he suggested, “Perhaps you could translate some of these numbers into plain English for us.”
She spent several minutes going over the entries with him and Laura, explaining what the abbreviations meant until the pair had the hang of reading the information.
Jagger reached across the table to squeeze her hand gratefully. His touch was casual, intimate. As if he was perfectly at ease with claiming her as his in front of someone else.
Her face heated up as he murmured, “I think with this information, you may have just saved our future together. It looks at a first pass through this stuff like we’ll be able to nail AbaCo with it.”
Emily stared. To heck with AbaCo. He was talking about “their future together”? Was Jagger seriously contemplating sticking around, then? She’d hoped…but she’d dared not believe. Her heart leaped in her chest at the thought of him in her and Michelle’s life for the long term. Of holidays and birthday parties and first dates experienced as a family. But she still couldn’t let herself think the word forever. Even Danger Girl knew better than to reach that high with her dreams.
A need to be alone, to process the idea of Jagger as a fully involved father, overcame her. She murmured an excuse and rose to leave. “If you guys need anything from me, just give a shout.”
He grinned. “You’ve already been more help than you can imagine.”
Emily wandered in several times over the next few hours and answered various questions about notations and company procedures as Jagger and Laura sorted through the documents. She wished there were more she could do. Jagger assured her that most intelligence work was like this—a few moments of terror punctuated by hours and hours of tedium, or worse, sifting through piles of boring data.
Laura had sent the nanny out for the weekend with a flimsy excuse about the woman working far too hard. But Emily suspected it had more to do with not exposing her to possible danger. Besides, Doris was having a ball with the kids and had them well in hand.
Emily and her mother fed the kids lunch and carried plates in to Jagger and Laura a little after noon. That was when Laura suggested casually that if Emily would like to check her e-mail she should feel free to jump online. It dawned on Emily belatedly that it had been a while since she’d checked her messages. In fact, the last e-mail she’d received had been that cryptic message that led her to Jagger.
She sat down at the computer cautiously. “And you guys are sure AbaCo isn’t tracking my e-mail and won’t find me if I sign on?”
Jagger laughed. “Not on this system, they won’t find you. It’s locked up tighter than Fort Knox.”
Laura added laughingly, “Actually, the system will route AbaCo to an address in a slum in Mumbai. I’d love to see their guys running around there in hundred-degree heat and humidity trying to track you down. You can’t believe the stench of the place in the summer.”
Grinning at the notion, Emily signed online. She deleted a pile of junk mail, and then spied an e-mail address that made her pulse pound. MysteryMom. The source of that cryptic message had sent her another post. And the time-date group on it was barely an hour old.
In trepidation, she opened the message.
Veronique. 3L6H2D.
“What’s wrong, Em?” Jagger asked immediately.
“I got another message. Just like the one that led me to you.”
“What does it say?”
She read the message aloud.
“What does it mean?” Jagger asked.
“The Veronique is one of AbaCo’s ships. And I assume the numbers and letters are another set of coordinates that will lead to a specific container.”
“Can you access information on the Veronique online?” Laura asked innocently.
Emily shrugged. “I suppose so. I’d better use someone else’s security code, though. I imagine ol’ Dieter’s having a pretty bad day right about now.”
She signed in to the general AbaCo database, this time using the code of a fellow clerk from her stint in Denver.
“The Veronique is due in to Norfolk tomorrow night. The container at that cargo position is another reefer unit like the one I found you in, Jagger.”
“Reefer?”
“Refrigerated unit. It has a self-contained generator that holds its contents at a constant temperature.”
Jagger swore under his breath. “Do you suppose they’ve got another poor schmuck stashed in the back of the thing?”
Emily stared at him. “You think MysteryMom has found out where they’re holding another prisoner and wants us to find him or her?”
He shrugged. “It makes sense. The whole reason I was sent in to infiltrate AbaCo in the first place was that we’d lost two operatives to them in under a year. They just disappeared. No trace. Just…gone.”
Emily added grimly, “And you made three. How many more since then has Uncle Sam lost?”
Jagger shrugged. “Hopefully, they quit trying with me. I’d hate to think someone came in to rescue me and got captured, too.”
Into the heavy silence that followed, Laura commented quietly, “If we were able to recover another prisoner and document the conditions of his captivity, it would go a long way toward corroborating your story. This time, pictures should be taken, maybe some video shot, during the rescue.”
“AbaCo’s got to be edgy after my escape. I highly doubt we’d be able to stroll aboard and just turn the guy loose like Emily did with me.”
Laura shrugged. “So, we’ll prepare more carefully, knowing that we have to plan for opposition to our extraction. No biggie.”
Emily exclaimed, “Are you two nuts? AbaCo’s trying to kill us
and the FBI’s trying to catch us, and you want to just waltz onto a giant ship in the middle of a busy port, which by the way will be crawling with government officials, and break into a container?”
Jagger commented tightly, “AbaCo’s a big company. They can’t watch everywhere at once. And of course we’ll set up a diversion.”
“Of course,” Emily repeated drily.
The strain in his voice was palpable as he ground out, “Honey, if there’s even the slightest chance that some other guy is stuck in a box wasting away and not another living soul knows he’s there, I have to do something about it.”
“But you have no idea if there’s even anyone in this container,” she protested.
“We’ll figure out a way to tell. Can you look at the corrected weight on the load plan and see if this container actually weighs what it’s supposed to for a load of—” he glanced down at the papers in front of him on the desk “—live orchid plants?”
Emily frowned. “I suppose I could check it out.” She moved over to the desk. “Plants are a low-density cargo, but orchids need a humidifier system in the container, which adds a couple hundred pounds of motors and water.” She pulled out a pen and paper. “What does the open manifest say the weight of that reefer is?”
Jagger rattled the number off and she jotted it down.
Then she asked, “Laura, can you find a load correction to any of the containers immediately surrounding that box?”
It took a minute, but the other woman exclaimed in satisfaction, “Here it is. Negative eighty-two hundred pounds and negative rolling moment of .023 degrees.”
Emily ran through the calculations. Her stomach sank at the end result. Reluctantly, she announced, “That weight reduction would account for approximately one-third of the plants in the container. Which means the odds are excellent that there’s a relatively large open area in that reefer, similar in volume to the one you were held in, Jagger. Or else they’re smuggling air.”
Jagger’s jaw rippled grimly. “I can’t turn my back on this lead. I’ve got to rescue whoever’s in that box.”
Emily’s gut clenched in denial. She’d just found him! She couldn’t risk losing him again so soon. And not this way. Not shot up or worse by the very people who’d captured him and torn the two of them apart in the first place. Both of them had already lost far too much to AbaCo. “Please, Jagger, call the police.”
