by Todd Moss
33.
FOREIGN SERVICE INSTITUTE, ARLINGTON, VIRGINIA
THURSDAY, 7:28 P.M.
Ruben Sandoval punched in the code as he had been trained to do earlier that day. The airlock to the Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility gave way with a satisfying Tsssssss! He pulled on the heavy steel door and flipped on the light.
The SCIF was a drab room that looked just like any standard government office. The difference was that a SCIF was a room within a room, separated by a vacuum that prevented listening devices, bugging, or any other way that communications could be intercepted.
“How do they do this?” he had asked the instructor that afternoon. “How do they suspend a room within a room?”
“I’m sorry, sir, that’s classified.”
“Okay. But what about the phone lines? How are those secured?”
“Also classified, sir. But I can tell you that all communications into or out of any SCIF are hardwired and we utilize the latest encryption technology. No radio or cell phone signals here. Just a scrambled landline using exponential bit technology. It’s unbreakable, sir.”
Unbreakable. Ruben liked the sound of that.
He picked up the handset on the telephone and was relieved to hear a dial tone. He pulled a small piece of paper out of his pocket, unfolded it, and read the number he had scrawled in pencil. He punched in the number.
“Who the hell is this?” answered a gruff voice on the other end.
“It’s me. It’s Ruben.”
“Why are you calling my emergency line? And what the fuck are you doing using your name on an open line? Are you fucking crazy? I’m hanging up now.”
“Don’t hang up! I’m on a secure phone.”
“What?”
“I’m in a SCIF. I’m calling you from a secure line inside a SCIF.”
“How are you in a SCIF? How’s that possible?”
“I can’t say.” Ruben smiled smugly to himself.
“Where are you?”
“I’m sorry. It’s need-to-know,” Ruben said.
“Ha!” the man barked. “You hear that shit from some movie? You think you’re James fucking Bond now?”
Ruben didn’t answer.
“So what’s the big emergency?” asked the man on the other end.
“I saw the news. How’d they get caught?” Ruben asked.
“Don’t worry about it,” the voice said.
“They were essential to the plan and now they’re in prison. What do you mean don’t worry?”
“They don’t know anything. The Cubans can pull their fingernails out and they can’t tell them anything.”
“But what about Triggerfish?”
“Operation Triggerfish is a go.”
“It’s a go? They’re in jail. In Havana! What do we do now?”
“Shit happens. Good operations have contingency plans. We’re using their capture to our advantage.”
“How?”
“You should know better than to even ask me that. All you need to know is that Operation Triggerfish is on. We’re proceeding to phase two.”
“Now?” Ruben asked.
“Yes. Now,” the Deputy Director of the CIA insisted. “Contact your brother. Tell him to get ready. He flies tomorrow.”
34.
LAS OLAS, FLORIDA
THURSDAY, 8:14 P.M.
Jessica raced down the river, the rumble of the Cobalt’s engine filling her ears. Her dress clung tightly to her body and the warm wind rushed through her hair.
The sun had long set and the Intracoastal was now quieter. Most of the boat traffic was gone, just a few monstrous cabin cruisers returning from the Atlantic. Lights of extravagant homes along both banks pierced the blackness, casting spotlights on the waterway.
Jessica held the boat’s wheel with one hand, her eyes darting across the water, searching ahead. Off the main river were narrower side channels, lined with more homes and moored luxury boats. Where are you, Ricky Green?
She pulled back on the throttle, easing off the gas just in front of a sign warning MANATEE ZONE / NO WAKE. The motor gurgled and spat in low gear. Should she stop and search the side canals or continue ahead? So many places to hide. If Ricky didn’t know he was being followed, he’d probably continued downriver, toward Port Everglades, she decided. She stole one last glance down a channel and then nudged the accelerator stick with the base of her palm and the bow of the boat rose up into the air, the engine whirring back to life.
As Jessica veered around a bend in the river at full speed, the waterway widened dramatically. She could see open water ahead, the Christmas lights of gigantic cruise ships and the colossal merchant vessels of Port Everglades stacked high with steel containers.
She yanked the throttle backward, killing the engine, and the boat leveled off and sunk low into the water. Jessica cursed herself for losing him.
She found a pair of binoculars underneath the cockpit seat and searched across the open bay to the south. Plenty of boats puttering around, but nothing that resembled Ricky’s flashy cigarette boat. Then she spun and checked north, back up the river. Nothing behind her either, just a large New Orleans–style paddleboat lit up like a carnival and heading straight for her position.
She turned eastward, squinting through the binoculars into the darkness, hunting for any signs of movement along the mangroves on the banks or down a slender residential canal that ran perpendicular to the river. The sounds of the crowded tourist boat, a mix of dance music and drunken hollering, got louder.
Jessica dropped the binoculars into the seat and restarted the engine. She carefully maneuvered the bowrider westward, heading toward the last of the residential channels she had yet to search. If Ricky wasn’t north, south, or east, then he had to be down that last canal to the west.
As she came around behind the stern of The Jungle Queen, the sounds of the party were punctured by a loud crack. Jessica instinctively ducked low in the cockpit. Fireworks? Or a gunshot? She unconsciously reached for her inner thigh, but no holster was there tonight. Unarmed and cursing herself for the second time in the past few minutes, she peered cautiously over the side of the boat. Another three shots—crack-crack-crack—and she felt the rush of a bullet near her ear. Someone is shooting at me! Then her ears filled with a new sound, the deafening thunder of the cigarette emerging from behind the paddleboat.
Ricky Green was gripping the wheel of the racing boat with one hand and a handgun with the other. As he steadied his arm for another shot, Jessica stayed low and punched the boat’s throttle forward.
The Cobalt popped up out of the water. She circled the paddleboat, using it to block Ricky’s sight line and give herself a head start. Jessica then pointed her boat straight toward a marina about five hundred yards to the west, between two thick stands of mangroves. Jessica crouched down, pushing the accelerator stick as far forward as possible, blindly racing toward the marina.
Come on! Come on! she urged the engines. Behind her, she could hear screams from the tourist boat and the growls of the cigarette’s motor.
She peered forward—marina dead ahead, now three hundred yards. Behind her, Ricky, in the bigger and faster cigarette boat, was gaining ground. More shots—crack-crack-crack . . . whizz-whizz-whizz!
She just needed to make it into the lights of the marina, now two hundred yards away. The bow of her boat slammed the water at full speed in a steady pounding rhythm.
She heard more crack-crack-crack then a sickening bink-bink-bink of the shots penetrating the Cobalt’s engine. She spun the wheel to serpentine her route, but the rudder didn’t respond. The boat raced straight ahead toward the concrete docks of the marina, now fifty yards away. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a bright orange light behind her. Her engine was on fire!
Could she make it to the marina before the engine blew? She was still
speeding ahead, unable to turn. Ricky was gaining. She took one last glance at the dock ahead, then at the cigarette, then counted . . . one, two, three . . . and dove headfirst into the water . . . four, five—Ka-boom!—the Deputy Director’s boat exploding in a ball of flames.
35.
U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT HEADQUARTERS, WASHINGTON, D.C.
THURSDAY, 8:22 P.M.
Where the hell is Jessica?” Judd shouted to his empty office. He slammed down the phone.
He hadn’t wanted help from his wife. But he hadn’t seen any option, so he’d reluctantly asked Jessica to go to the fund-raiser for Brenda Adelman-Zamora and see what she could find out. He was hoping she would discover a link to Ruben Sandoval. Or at least a clue as to the political activities of the Cuban exile community in Florida. Something. Anything.
But she hadn’t called him back. Jessica also hadn’t replied to his text messages and now she wasn’t answering her phone. It was going straight to voicemail as if her phone were turned off. Or lost. That wasn’t like her.
Judd tried to concentrate on his work, on figuring out the connections between Sandoval, Richard Green, the captured Americans, the White House, and the U.S. Congress. Judd knew he was missing something, probably something big. And he was now reliant, yet again, on Jessica to find the lost piece of the puzzle.
Where they hell was she? Assist was rule one. This was why Judd and Jessica had promised to help each other when they could. They wouldn’t become entangled in each other’s missions, but they were supposed to be a team. So where was she?
Maybe asking his wife to go to a party at a fancy house in South Florida was a mistake? Party . . . Judd thought. I’m stuck here in the stale air of a State Department office while Jessica is probably sipping champagne?
36.
PORT EVERGLADES, FLORIDA
THURSDAY, 8:24 P.M.
The reverberation of the blast rocked Jessica’s skull, but she retained consciousness.
She watched the orange fireball plume from just below the water’s surface. Jessica then held her breath and waited a few more seconds, just as she had been trained, pausing to allow the smoking debris from the destroyed Cobalt to slam back to earth and fizzle. She swam underwater a few yards closer to shore, searching for a safe place to resurface. The gnarled knuckles of mangrove roots provided the perfect camouflage.
Jessica, hidden among the mangroves, grabbed a quick breath and then stealthily lowered her body again so just her eyes were above the water. Like an alligator stalking prey, she floated motionlessly, watching Ricky Green pilot the cigarette boat in circles, searching for her body, in the black water amid the smoldering flotsam. She could taste the brackish, salty water on her lips. Ricky then shut down the engine and pulled out a heavy-duty Maglite, sweeping a bright beam across the marina.
After finding nothing, he cursed loudly. An old man in a security guard uniform suddenly appeared on the marina dock. “Hey, buddy, you see that?” he shouted, cupping both hands around his mouth.
“No! I didn’t see what happened,” Ricky replied, shrugging. “Grab my line!” Ricky tossed the man a bowline and they tied up the cigarette. Small specks of burning embers floated where Jessica’s boat had been.
“Holy moley,” the old man’s voice quavered. “I just saw a ball of fire. Golly, anybody on that boat?”
“I’ll keep looking,” Ricky said, holding up his flashlight. “You go call nine-one-one!”
Jessica watched the guard limp off as Ricky hustled across the marina to the parking lot. He checked over both shoulders, then the lights of a bright yellow Hummer flashed and she could hear the chirp-chirp as the doors unlocked. Ricky slid into the Hummer’s driver’s seat and drove out toward the gate.
Jessica swam over to the dock and scampered up a ladder. The old man emerged from a small shed, holding a cell phone, his eyes wide as he suddenly noticed the beautiful woman in a soaked cocktail dress. “Hey, lady, you all right?” he shouted.
“Call the police!” she shouted.
“I’m on the line right now!” he said, holding up his phone to show her.
“Give me the phone,” she ordered. “You get a spotlight and start searching the shoreline.”
“Where’d that other guy go?” he asked, tossing her the phone.
“I think I saw a body over there,” she said, pointing toward the darkest part of the mangrove stand. “A dead body. Go now!”
As the man disappeared back into the marina office, Jessica kicked off her shoes and sprinted down the parking lot after the Hummer.
Onlookers started to emerge from other parts of the marina. Another security guard, driving a golf cart, appeared from around a corner. Jessica hysterically pointed back toward the docks. “They need help! That way!” The golf cart sped off.
A carbon-black and cherry-red Kawasaki Ninja suddenly veered toward her. A crotch rocket, she thought. Perfect. Jessica waved both her arms and the motorcycle came to a violent stop right in front of her.
“There’s been an accident! They need help!” she cried, pointing behind her. The rider yanked off his helmet. His blond buzz cut, muscular build, and thick neck told Jessica immediately that he was an athlete or ex-military. “What, lady?” he squinted at her. “What are you saying? Are you okay?”
“There!” she shrieked. “Give me your helmet. They need you there!” She kept pointing behind her.
The man thrust his helmet into her grasp and ran in the direction of the dock. Jessica took a deep breath, composed herself, then slid the helmet on her own head. She carefully tightened the chin strap, mounted the Ninja, and slipped the old man’s cell phone into her bra. Jessica twisted the throttle grip twice, feeling the vibrations of the racing engine surge through her body. Then she kicked down on the gearshift and zoomed off.
Once she cleared the marina gate, Jessica leaned into a tight turn toward the main road. She righted the bike and assessed her options. Where’d you go in such a hurry, Ricky? Then she saw a sign for the highway, I-595 West. That’s it.
Jessica rocketed up the highway on-ramp. She weaved carefully through traffic, keeping her eyes far ahead. After a few minutes, she spotted the school-bus-yellow Hummer cruising in the far left lane. Jessica eased the Ninja behind a black SUV in the same lane a few vehicles back.
She tailed Ricky at a safe distance for fifteen miles until he followed the highway onto the Everglades Parkway. He was taking Alligator Alley, the flat road that cuts across the vast swamps of southern Florida. Where the hell are you going, Ricky Green?
Jessica dropped farther back as the traffic lightened, just enough to keep Ricky’s taillights in view. Soon, they were deep into the Everglades, an endless horizon of pitch-black nothingness on both sides.
The hypnosis-inducing road left her alone with her thoughts . . . On the orders of the Deputy Director of Operations, Jessica had gone to Marathon in the Florida Keys to figure out what happened to The Big Pig and the four American fishermen. She had traced Ricky Green and the seized fishing boat back to Ruben Sandoval, but then . . . nothing. She hit a dead end. She had Sunday back at Langley still digging. Then, out of the blue, her husband called to ask her to go to the fund-raiser for Brenda Adelman-Zamora to look for any clues linking the congresswoman to Sandoval. And, of all people, Ricky Green turns up at the party! Did that make sense? Was Ricky the connection between Adelman-Zamora and Sandoval?
She should call Judd and tell him what she knew. But Jessica also knew she couldn’t tell her husband what had just happened—that she had almost gotten killed while doing his favor, that she had wrecked a powerboat, that she was now on a racing motorcycle, chasing a man who’d shot at her, into the deepest swamps of South Florida while a total stranger was watching their children. No, she couldn’t tell Judd anything until she knew more. Until she knew where this was all headed. What was she really dealing with? Who was Ricky Green? And what the hell w
as 2506?
37.
CIA HEADQUARTERS, LANGLEY, VIRGINIA
THURSDAY, 8:46 P.M.
Sunday set down his phone and checked the clock on his classified computer screen. His assessment of potential links between Iran and underground Somali banking networks was due by midnight if a summary was going to make it to the Director of National Intelligence’s morning briefing. He had promised his boss that he’d have something for the DNI on time. He had never missed a deadline.
Sunday had been nearly finished and starting to dream about finally climbing into bed when his phone had rung. It was a number he didn’t recognize, but the 305 South Florida area code was enough of a coincidence that he answered. It was Jessica Ryker with an urgent request.
Sunday had listened carefully to the Purple Cell leader. When she was done speaking, he set aside his DNI project, forgot about sleep, and opened a new window on his computer. Figuring out if “2506” meant anything relevant should have been easy. A search of the CIA databases should have turned up the answer in a few minutes. But today . . . nothing. He rubbed his eyes. It was almost as if he were being deliberately blocked from the Agency’s archives. Or were the records stripped?
Sunday logged off of the CIA network and on to a Department of Defense database of covert operations. Again, nothing of use.
“Hey, you still chasing the Ayatollah’s Somali pirates?” boomed a voice from above Sunday’s head.
“Go away, Glen,” Sunday said, shaking his head at his colleague, who was leaning over the cubicle wall.
“Aw, don’t be like that, S-man. If you’re still here digging, that means you haven’t finished your assessment.” Glen waddled around the wall and peered over Sunday’s shoulders at the computer screen. “You need some help?”
