by J. B. Turner
“These are minor inconveniences. Annoying. Learn to roll with it.”
“It’s dark, I’m in a boat with some crazy guy who just shot someone—a guy who is holding me at gunpoint in the middle of the Everglades—and you tell me to learn to roll with it? Are you serious?”
Stone didn’t answer. In the moon’s glow he saw the eyes of an alligator that was resting on a small islet twenty yards away. Nathan steered away from land and out into the water. Ibises, egrets, and herons swooped low as the boat went past.
His mind was racing as he considered the options in front of him. There were no great options, that was the truth. It was just a matter of gambling on the least worst one. He knew that at first light things could change. They might very well find the motorbike, the dead guy, and the car, then head down the trail.
Stone had to assume that his pursuers would redouble their efforts. He had a head start. But it wouldn’t last. The Commission wasn’t done with him. Not by a long shot. They hadn’t even gotten started.
Ten
Just before dawn, Catherine Hudson was pacing the deserted office in downtown Arlington, occasionally glancing at the real-time video feeds of the operatives in a Sarasota meeting room, sound turned down. She couldn’t believe this was turning into such a debacle. When her cell phone rang, she expected it to be her irate boss. Instead the caller ID said it was her husband.
“Honey,” he said, “you said you’d be home by two. It’s now past four. What the hell happened?”
Hudson’s heart sank. She took a moment to compose herself. “John, I’m sorry.”
“Sorry?”
“I know it’s not ideal.”
“Do you know what time it is?”
“I told you, the client is super-demanding, and I’m having to rework our figures.”
“What?”
“There are three other consulting firms pitching them. And I have to make sure that we win this account.”
“It’s four in the goddamn morning! Are you nuts? Honey, I have to be up in one and a half hours, but I’m worrying about where you are. Kirsty was crying earlier.”
Hudson closed her eyes. She knew her eight-year-old daughter missed her and struggled to sleep when she wasn’t in the house. “Please don’t throw that guilt trip on me, John. That’s so unfair.”
“It’s always about you, isn’t it?”
“Kirsty will be fine. I know what she’s like.”
“Do you?”
“Oh come on, John, give me a break.”
“We need to talk about this, Catherine. The nanny is out sick, and I can’t take any more time off work. My job is vital to this family.”
“As is mine! John, you’re not the only one up to your neck in work. I’m busting my butt to get these figures ready, I’m working around the clock, and I need you to be more supportive.”
He sighed. “I’m worried for you, Catherine. I’m worried for us. This can’t go on.”
“John, I’m really busy.”
“Are you kidding me? At four in the morning? Do you take me for an idiot?”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“I don’t believe you have to work at this time of night. It’s ridiculous.”
“John, I need to go. I’ve got a report to finish.”
“Go to hell.”
The line went dead.
Hudson felt a sadness wash over her. She was deflated. She sensed she was losing her husband. A man she truly loved. A good man. A hardworking family man. A clever man who was no fool.
She sat down behind her desk, trying to push her domestic woes to one side. She felt bad about the web of lies she had to use to conceal what she was really doing. No one in her family knew what she did. That was not an option.
Her family believed she was a management consultant who advised companies on restructurings and cost savings. They believed that she traveled around the world, visiting clients, advising them on how to better manage their companies. It was a cover story she had put in place when she left Colby College top of her class, majoring in economics. She had been recruited by the CIA before she even graduated.
She loved her family, but they didn’t need to know what she did. Her trips overseas were invariably to Afghanistan, Iraq, or Turkey. But her narrative was that she was visiting clients in the Middle East. Sometimes the Far East.
The last five years, Hudson had worked predominantly in and around DC. Mostly satellite offices in McLean and Arlington. She liked to move around. But only she knew exactly what was happening with the shadowy organization she had assembled—the Commission.
Hudson’s strategy was one she’d pitched to her boss deep in the bowels of CIA HQ. He had listened to the rationale that the Agency outsourcing the assassinations of troublesome politicians and individuals would enable plausible deniability. The Commission was set up to be self-contained. She didn’t have any day-to-day control over or communication with the group. They pursued carefully agreed-upon goals, and they were free to implement strategic “accidents” of influential politicians, businesspeople, and journalists as they saw fit. She was responsible, but she wasn’t pulling the strings.
But recently Hudson had begun to worry about the future of the organization. She was increasingly concerned that the “ghost” operative, Nathan Stone, had still not been taken out, as had been agreed. And it followed two earlier examples of Stone going rogue, nearly bringing down the entire Commission.
She had become concerned that their financial backer, John Fisk Jr., a billionaire recluse, had made a terrible error by trying to rebuild the Commission by putting the organization’s ex-CIA psychologist in charge. So far it had backfired spectacularly.
She needed to get a grip on the situation before it got any more out of hand. But that was easier said than done, especially as she’d ceded day-to-day control of the Commission.
Boxed in by her own rules, she had endured numerous sleepless nights and sent countless emails to her boss requesting that the protocols governing the operations of the Commission be updated.
She wondered why she hadn’t heard back.
The main sticking point might be Fisk and how he would react to being ousted. Was that a consideration? A powerful billionaire with friends across the intelligence community and the world of politics wasn’t the type to be trifled with. What if Fisk didn’t go quietly? What then? Then there was the rather delicate matter of her family connections to Fisk. A man she had known since she was a little girl.
The more she thought of it, the more she realized that taking back control from the Commission was not going to be without some bad feelings. She understood that any reorganization would have to be dealt with very carefully. But despite everything that had transpired, Hudson was still in the dark as to the future of the Commission.
Hudson stared at the real-time feed from the car containing the four operatives, including the new operations director, Kevin de Boer, a highly capable operative she had known for years, having used the former special forces soldier and his team in covert operations in Lesotho and Zimbabwe.
But the news that Nathan Stone, of all people, had evaded their honey trap and was now on the run in South Florida, with a member of the public, an actress, meant she couldn’t ignore the fallout any longer. She knew she was breaking the cardinal rule she had instituted from the outset. She had vowed never to be in direct contact with members of the Commission while it was “live.”
Hudson’s cell phone rang, snapping her out of her thoughts. She expected it to be her husband again, wondering if she was on her way home yet. But she didn’t recognize the number on the caller ID.
“Catherine, is this line secure?” It was her boss, Director of the National Clandestine Service William Black.
“Yes, sir.”
“I just got your message that you wanted to talk. At this time of night?”
“I’m sorry, sir, but we’ve got a problem.”
“Couldn’t it have waited till morning?�
��
“Sorry, sir, no, it couldn’t.”
A long sigh. “Give me a few moments. I’m going to transfer the call to my study. Hang on.”
Hudson listened to Bach playing quietly as she hung on the line. Her stomach began to tighten with the tension.
“There, that’s better,” Black said. “Okay, I’m now out of earshot. So what’s the goddamn urgency?”
Hudson leaned back in her seat as she stared at the feed coming out of Florida. She quickly outlined for Black the botched attempt to snare Stone and his escape with the actress.
“Are you fucking kidding me, Hudson?”
“Sir, I know this is bad, but we’ve got a new operations director on this. De Boer.”
“I don’t give a shit who’s in charge of this now. You’ve got a problem.”
“I know, sir. To be fair, I have been sending you emails highlighting my concerns.”
“Forget that for a moment. So the question is, How do we clean house?”
“I’d like to talk about that, sir. As you know, I haven’t been happy with the fallout from the first two operations Stone was involved in. And this should have been a relatively straightforward takedown.”
“Stone is not a relatively straightforward individual. You know that, I know that, everyone knows that.”
“This is more than Stone, sir. I think we need to talk about the man in charge. Berenger.”
A silence opened up down the line.
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying that what’s happened is not acceptable. And we need to find a solution. Nathan Stone has not just gone rogue. Twice. But he also knows where the bodies are buried. He must be eliminated.”
“We can’t get directly involved, Hudson.”
“I disagree, sir. Besides, things have changed. Doing nothing is no longer an option.”
Black sighed. “This is not good.”
“We have to get involved. This is rapidly getting out of control. It’s like a contagion.”
“How do you propose to address these concerns?”
“Better to discuss it in person.”
“When?”
“As soon as possible.”
“I have a lot going on, Catherine. I can’t just drop everything for this program.”
“I’m not asking you to drop anything, sir. I just want to meet with you. And outline my plan.”
“The plan has gone to fuck. I’ll get back to you about a time to meet and discuss the Commission’s charter. But in the meantime I want you to fix this mess.”
The line went dead.
Eleven
Stone paddled the boat hard as he negotiated the tall wooden markers that kept boats from venturing into too-shallow water. Up ahead through the murky dawn was Buoy Key and its water-monitoring station.
“Do you even know where you’re going?” Beatrice shouted.
“I got this. You calmed down a bit?”
“Yeah, out in a boat in the fucking Everglades in the darkness. Yeah, that’ll calm me down. Why the hell are we out here?”
“We would have been sitting ducks if we’d stayed in Miami, trust me. Or stayed on the highway.”
“Surely it’s better to hide in a city, with all those people.”
“It’s very easy to find someone in a city. Surveillance cameras everywhere. Highways. Restaurants. Offices.”
Stone pushed on. The waters here were shallow. And underneath was thick, deep mud. Easy to get stuck in if you weren’t paying attention.
Then he saw a familiar marker downwind. He headed due east through a narrow channel.
The wind began to whip up the water. Stone paddled on as the small boat rocked back and forth in the choppy waters.
“I feel sick!” Beatrice said, holding her stomach.
“Be sick if you have to. Probably for the best. Get all the booze out too.”
A few moments later the woman threw up over the side of the boat. “Shit,” she said. “Sorry.”
“Nothing to be sorry about. If you have to puke, then you have to puke.”
“I must’ve lost my mind. When will this be over?”
“I’m working on it.”
Stone checked his watch. On the far horizon the first pink tinges showed the new day. It would soon be dawn. He stopped paddling and rested for a minute.
Beatrice put her head over the side of the boat and was violently sick again. “Goddamn,” she said.
“Better?”
She nodded and hunched forward, head in her hands.
“We need to get away from this channel before it gets light,” he said.
Stone paddled a few hundred yards to the nearest key. He reached out for Beatrice, who was sitting hunched in the boat. “You need to get out.”
“Here?”
“This is where we set up camp today.”
Beatrice shook her head. “I don’t want to go anywhere.”
“Now!”
She gave him a wounded look, stepped off the boat barefoot, holding her shoes, and promptly sank ankle-deep in mud. “Oh fuck.”
Stone jumped out and pulled the boat high up the muddy shoreline between the short, spiky mangrove trees that covered the small key. He left her to follow him.
Stone walked a few yards and pushed through the twisted mangrove trees until the greenery morphed into broad-leaved oak hammocks. It was a sign they were on slightly higher, sandy ground in the center of the tiny island.
Beatrice slumped down in the sand and curled into a ball.
Stone got busy. He took out his car keys, which had a Swiss Army knife attached.
“What are you doing?” she asked. “I can see the knife.”
“Relax. We need shelter. For camouflage during the daytime but also to protect us from the sun. Agreed?”
“Sure.”
“So, do you want to get with the program?”
“Do I have to?”
“This is to give us a chance. It’s a matter of survival.”
Beatrice got to her feet. “You want me to help?”
Stone nodded as he began to hack away at the branches with the knife. He wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. A cotton-candy dawn washed over the Everglades as they set up their makeshift camp. Nathan cut down countless branches. He took two of them and cut them into spears. He handed one to Beatrice. “You could try and kill me with that if you want.”
“Please don’t joke about things like that.”
“Listen, use it for protection. If you see a gator or something like that.”
“Thanks for raising my spirits.”
“It’s mostly crocodiles in the Keys anyway. A few gators drawn by the freshwater tributaries. But they’ll mostly ignore you as long as you stay away.”
Beatrice wiped the sweat beading her brow. “Crocs and gators. Gee, thanks for reminding me that I must be out of my fucking mind.”
Stone began to build a platform using branches. He showed Beatrice how to place palm fronds for bedding. Then he stuck sharpened branches into the earth and erected a primitive tent, using palm fronds again for cover.
“High ground, very important,” he said.
Beatrice nodded.
“We need to be aware of our surroundings.”
Beatrice lay down on the fronds, still holding the spear. “I feel ill. I’m scared. What the hell is happening?”
Stone didn’t answer. He got to work starting a fire. He gathered bracken and some fibrous dry leaves from higher up on the trees. And some moss. Then he covered it all with dry sticks he cut into small strips.
His shirt was sticking to his back. He surrounded the fire with stones to stop it from spreading across the rest of the key.
He pulled out his Zippo lighter and blew into the dry moss until the flame caught. Then he added more twigs and branches.
“We’re going to make it if we’re smart,” he said.
“I hope so. I want to get back to my goddamn family.”
�
��You will.” Stone looked at the fire. “This is only a start. But it’s something.”
Beatrice began to cry.
Twelve
Just after sunrise, Kevin de Boer was shielding his eyes from the harsh morning sun as he stood beside the SUV. They had pulled over onto a shoulder off the isolated road where his brother’s GPS signal had last been located. They had been scouring the road back and forth for an hour. And he was worried sick that his brother hadn’t been in touch.
De Boer felt a sense of foreboding wash over him. He couldn’t bear to lose his brother. That would be too much for him.
A car sped past.
De Boer began to pace up and down. He took out his cell phone and called the secret operations room in the basement of a warehouse complex near Sarasota. Around the huge hangar-like space, dozens of intelligence operatives, military strategists, and computer experts would be working to figure out where Nathan Stone and the girl were. But his brother dropping off the radar had only added to his problems.
A young woman, a former staffer at the National Security Council who had just joined the team, answered the call. “Kevin, any luck on the ground?”
“Negative. Listen to me. Nathan Stone and my brother can’t have just disappeared off the face of the earth,” de Boer said. “We haven’t had a visual on Stone for nearly five hours. It can’t happen in this day and age. I’m not buying it.”
“Sir, Florida is a big place.”
“My brother said he was near Homestead. We are on the Main Park Road, which leads out of there. We’ve been up and down it. Nothing. There must be surveillance cameras even down here.”
“There really aren’t. They’re mostly in cities and towns. Miami. Fort Lauderdale. Highways.”
De Boer shielded his eyes as the sun beat down. He felt the sweat plastering his shirt to his back. “Where’s the new cyberguy? Has he arrived?”
“I’ll put him on, sir.”
A beat. A tentative voice came down the line. “Morning, sir.”
“When did you arrive?”
“Twenty minutes ago. Just flew in from Seattle. Been hooking up our cloud systems.”
“Right. You know the brief?”
“Find Nathan Stone. Find the girl. Right?”
