Final Finesse

by Karna Small Bodman

  “Guess you’re right. Nobody has ever sent me overseas for anything, so I never thought about it. But still, what are you going to tell Greg? You know he can’t operate without you.”

  “Well, he’s going to have to, but just for a few days. Besides, tomorrow’s Christmas, and we all should be able to take a few days off anyway. Greg is going to some family reunion for a couple of days. So he won’t miss me.”

  “Not until he comes back and gets asked to go on MSNBC or some other station and he can’t figure out how to put two sentences together without your talking points,” Angela said derisively. “By the way, I saw him the other morning on The Today Show, and he looked kinda rattled. Rather unusual for Mr. Photogenic, I thought. Did you see that?”

  “No. I see so much of him at the office, I don’t feel like I need to tune in to all of his performances. Anyway, if he contacts me before I can get back, well, I’ve got some excuses I think I can use. For now, I’ve got things all lined up.”

  “Okay. So what’s lined up?”

  “I’ve got my ticket to Caracas on the overnight flight tomorrow. It’s the same fight that Tripp took before. It leaves at 11:30 p.m. Then once I get there, I have a meeting with Victor Aguilar at GeoGlobal.”

  “Wait a minute. I’m not following this. You said you were going to meet Joe Campiello.”

  “I am. But first I have to finalize the fee with Victor. Here’s the deal. I told GeoGlobal that I’ve got Greyfield lined up to try and mount a rescue operation. Since it will cost a lot less than paying a fifteen-million-dollar ransom, they’re willing to back the idea.”

  Angela eyed her friend suspiciously. “So they’re playing with Tripp’s life for the difference of a few million dollars?”

  “No, that’s not the whole deal. When I explained who Joe is and how Greyfield operates, they decided that Joe’s team would probably have a better chance of getting Tripp out alive than relying on the good will of the kidnappers after the money is deposited in the Caymans.”

  “Did you tell GeoGlobal that you were acting on behalf of the White House?”

  “Uh, not precisely,”

  “But you left that impression? That’s why they’re cooperating, right?”

  “Well, I sort of had to finesse that one.”

  “Oh, man. You’ve really done it this time, kiddo. And what, precisely, are you going to tell Greg when he comes looking for you?”

  “I can always send him a text saying I had to take a few days off because of a family emergency.”

  “Speaking about family, what about your own family. I thought they wanted you to come to Houston for Christmas.”

  “They did. Well, my dad did. He’s been calling saying that my brother, his wife, and the kids are going to be there and they’d like me to come if I can get away. I wanted to be with them. Of course, I did. But when this whole thing came together, I told them I just couldn’t leave. I blamed it on the pipeline attacks. And dad understood that.”

  “What about the pipelines? Shouldn’t you be working on that right now?”

  “I’ve got my inter-agency group on it. All the agencies are on it. We’re also trying to get satellites on it. There’s been a delay getting the right permissions, if you can believe that. More bureaucracy. But I hope they can get it through sometime this week. There’s not much more I can do right now. Besides, when I think about Tripp being held by these … these … thugs or whoever they are … I just panic sometimes. But now I think I’ve really got a plan.”

  “And you think nobody at the White House will wonder where you are or what you’re doing? Not your inter-agency team? Not your friend over at the agency? By the way, does he know what you’re up to?”

  “No, not yet. I want to see if we can make this work just using a private contractor. If the government gets involved, they could mess it up. I figure we just need one person in charge right now.”

  “And that would be you?”

  “Well, not me exactly. I mean Joe Campiello would be in charge of the operation. I’m just … well … a facilitator.”

  “That’s a new title,” Angela said getting up from her father’s leather chair. “Okay, before you go jetting off like Robert Redford in ‘Spy Game’ … I loved that old movie, by the way, let’s get a glass of wine. Mom’s thrilled that you could come for Christmas Eve dinner. This is big in our house. We always celebrate on Christmas Eve. Aunt Evelyn is going to be playing Christmas carols after dinner if you can stay awhile.”

  Samantha got up and headed for the kitchen door as Angela called over her shoulder, “Besides, it might be your last meal.”

  “God rest ye merry gentlemen, let nothing you dismay.”

  Samantha was dismayed all right. Dismayed because she was getting so little help from all of her government contacts. While surrounded every single day by the supposedly best and brightest, she often wondered how anything really important ever got done by a government agency.

  “Remember Christ our Savior was born on Christmas Day …

  “To save us all from Satan’s power when we were gone astray.”

  Things had gone astray, that’s for sure. And poor Tripp must be under some sort of Satan’s power. Just thinking of him rotting in some South American jungle killed any sort of Christmas spirit she was supposed to be feeling right now.

  Aunt Evelyn finished the song, everyone clapped and asked for another one. Samantha stole a glance at her watch. The Marconi’s had been so nice to her, inviting her to their Christmas Eve dinner which was quite a feast. The turkey and dressing, mashed potatoes and gravy, had all been delicious, but she couldn’t eat much. She was feeling so nervous, so distracted, even distraught every time she thought about Tripp and the kind of Christmas Eve he was enduring, she had only picked at her food but hoped Mrs. Marconi hadn’t noticed.

  “We three kings of Orient are … bearing gifts we travel afar.”

  She wasn’t a king, but she’d sure be traveling afar. She did a mental checklist of things she should pack tomorrow—passport, comfortable shoes, casual clothes. She wanted to look like a simple tourist, not a White House aide or even a business type. She wouldn’t take any jewelry. She just remembered that there was a 24-hour CVS pharmacy on her way home. She could stop in there and buy a cheap Timex watch and leave her good one at home.

  “Field and fountain, moor and mountain, Following yonder star.”

  Was he being held in a field or on a mountain? How in the world would the Greyfield team ever find him? Joe had said they had more tools than Black and Decker. But did they really? She’d have to wait another forty-eight hours to find out.

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  ALABAMA–CHRISTMAS MORNING

  “Mommy, mommy, Santa came. He really did!” The four-year-old girl shouted, pointing to her stocking filled with candy and a Barbie doll in a wedding dress peaking over the top. “And look, he ate all the cookies and the milk we put out last night.”

  “And look at all the Yu-gee-o cards,” her brother exclaimed. “And the Lego Speed Racer. This is so cool.”

  “I bet my stuff is cooler than your stuff.”

  “No it isn’t,” he replied.

  “Now children, children. Merry Christmas,” the widow said, smiling from the stairway, clad in a flimsy blue terrycloth bathrobe. “Let’s see what else we have here.”

  The three of them gathered around the Christmas tree. The little girl reached way under it, pulled out a small box wrapped in tinfoil and handed it to her mother.

  “Why, what’s this, honey?”

  “Open it and you’ll see,” the girl said, her eyes wide in anticipation. The widow pulled the foil away and opened the box. Inside she saw a necklace made of plastic multi-colored beads. “I made it in kindergarten, just for you, mommy. Do you like it?”

  “Oh, honey. It’s the most beautiful necklace I’ve ever seen,” her mother said, putting it around her neck. “It’s got every color in the rainbow, and it’ll match anything I decide to wear.” She
pulled the child onto her lap and hugged her. “Thank you, sweetie. I love it. Love you too.”

  The boy was about to hand his mother his own gift when the house was suddenly rocked by an explosion. The windows rattled, several china plates that had been displayed on a rack on the dining room wall crashed to the floor and the cocker spaniel let out a huge yelp then began to bark furiously as it scampered to the window. The woman grabbed the children and cried out, “What was that?”

  The boy wriggled free and ran to follow the dog. When he peered outside, he shouted, “Mom. Come look. There’s a big smoky fire out there. It’s big, mom … really really huge. There’s flames, and they’re going higher and higher.”

  She rushed to the window and put her hand over her heart. “Lord in heaven, that’s the gas works over there. I have to call the police.” She raced to the phone and dialed a number. Busy. She tried the fire department. It was busy too. “People must be callin’ it in from all over town.”

  The boy’s gaze was fixated on the fire as his little sister craned her neck to see how high the flames were going. “Mommy, do you think it could come over here?”

  “I don’t know. But you children run upstairs and get your clothes on. We’re not going to stay in this house another minute.”

  The boy ran up the stairs to his room while the little girl stopped to survey the scene by the Christmas tree. “Will our house be okay, mommy?”

  “I hope so honey. Come on now. We’ve got to hurry.”

  “Okay, the girl said. Just let me take Barbie.”

  As the widow followed the children and dashed up the stairs to get some of her own clothes, she grabbed a framed photo from the mantel. It was picture of a young Army recruit, smiling from beneath his helmet. Her husband had been killed in Afghanistan. Now all she had left were the children. She had to save them. She pulled on a running suit and some sneakers, hustled the kids down the stairs and out the doorway. As they raced to the car, another explosion rocked the countryside.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  DULLES AIRPORT–CHRISTMAS NIGHT

  Samantha pulled her carry-on over to the Arrivals and Departures Board and checked her gate. The cavernous airport wasn’t very crowded. Why would it be? Nobody in their right mind would want to travel on Christmas night. Nobody except somebody desperately in love with a man being held captive by a bunch of crazies in a foreign country. Or maybe people who didn’t believe in Christmas. She glanced around the area and saw a group of bearded men in caftans. I wonder.

  She pulled out her boarding pass along with the old passport and got into the security line. As it snaked toward the TSA employees, she figured that these Transportation Security folks probably weren’t too happy to be on duty tonight either.

  She reached into her shoulder bag and took out the plastic bag containing her moisturizer, small tube of toothpaste, travel size hair spray and lip gloss and put it on top of her purse in the bin. She wasn’t planning on wearing much make up on this trip, just enough to look decent for her meeting at GeoGlobal.

  After all, she was merely posing as a simple tourist, a lowly working girl with a few days off to see some exotic sites, although with the troubles, the demonstrations, shortages of everything from food to toilet paper in that Socialist disaster of a country, she figured there wouldn’t be many tourists going there, especially over the holidays. She’d just have to hope that the passport control people would welcome an American who was coming to spend a few bucks.

  Moving along the line, she then added her carry-on, took off her loafers and walked through security without setting off any alarms. She was wearing a pair of light weight khaki slacks and a green sweater. She had a trench coat with her, though she doubted she would need it in the warm summer climate in Venezuela right now. She had another, more business like outfit she planned to wear to her meeting, but the rest of the clothes jammed into her carry-on were things she used to wear when she went hiking out west, slacks, shorts, T-shirts and comfortable walking shoes.

  She had not brought her computer. The cell in her shoulder bag would have to do. As she was waved through, she glanced over and saw one of the security staff running a wand over a grey-haired lady who had to be in her late 80’s while the men she had seen earlier with beards and a surly look walked through with no problem. What is our government doing anyway? She hoped that those particular men wouldn’t be on her flight.

  She stopped in the Ladies Room and saw that all of the handicap stalls were occupied. It was practically impossible to drag a carry-on into a regular stall, turn around, and lock the door. Someone who only checks his luggage must have designed these cubicles.

  She meandered over to the People Movers, which were actually special shuttle buses that took passengers out to another terminal. When she got there, she found her gate and sat down to wait. She glanced up at the TV hanging from the ceiling and saw video of flames reaching skyward. The volume was low and she could barely hear the voice-over, but she recognized the report as one she’d seen earlier that evening.

  It was all about the two attacks on pipelines in Alabama. One had been set very close to a commercial gas works building. The whole thing had gone up in flames. Some men who had been on holiday duty had been killed. She couldn’t imagine the heartbreak of families learning that their husbands or fathers had died. And on Christmas morning. Hundreds of people from the surrounding area had fled the scene causing a traffic jam on the single road out of town.

  She was amazed that there were two attacks in the same general area almost at the same time. Whoever was sabotaging the lines really knew what they were doing. They must have located two different pig insertion stations and timed their explosives to go off on two different but nearby lines. There were so many gas lines that converged in Alabama and Louisiana, it would be pretty easy to find some to hit.

  She wondered how many terrorists were working together. It had to be at least two, probably more. She speculated about their motives in a last-minute conference call with her inter-agency task force. Key staffers in all the relevant agencies had been trying to figure out that one. Now they were mobilizing more analysts, more agents, more specialists to find and stop the attacks.

  There had been no demands. No contacts. No claims of credit for all the chaos. It certainly wasn’t the modus operandi of ISIS or even EPR or any of the other groups they had been trying to track. But the effects were similar to what had happened in previous attacks. People are killed, the economy takes a dive, panic spreads, and in this case, the price of gas and oil was especially vulnerable and had gone up a ton. Just like those flames she was watching. Who in the world would plan such attacks? What would be the point? Who would benefit? Unless ….

  Her train of thought was interrupted when her flight was called. She had bought a tourist class ticket since she paid for it out of her own pocket. She knew her seat was toward the back. When she finally got on board, she could barely stuff her carry-on into the overhead compartment. She had to roll up her trench coat and put it under the seat in front of her along with her shoulder bag. Not much leg room here. How in the world are we supposed to sleep tonight?

  She had reserved the last available seat. It turned out to be next to a window. She wished she was on the aisle seat because she still couldn’t bear to look down from most any type of height. Not from a window. Not from a hotel. Not from anywhere. Her visions of Dexter’s fall out in the Tetons had faded a bit, but she still got nervous whenever she was higher than the third or fourth floor of anything.

  It was dark outside, but she pulled the window shade down and decided to leave it that way for the duration of the flight. She tried to fasten her seat belt but had to extend it. She hated having to do that. Some skinnier person must have been on the previous flight.

  She had a paperback book in her bag, but she fished in the seat pocket in front of her to see what magazines might have been left there. In addition to the usual airline propaganda, the only other one she could find was “Skatebo
arding.” She leaned back and tried to relax.

  A large man who looked like he once played linebacker for the Patriots and was still chowing down at the training table wedged himself into the seat next to her. She immediately jammed down the arm rest between them, trying to secure what little space she could manage. He was talking on his cell phone. Even though she knew he’d have to turn it off eventually, she wished she had one of those electronic gizmos she had heard about. It was a pretty clever device. You just pressed a button and any cell phones nearby would automatically be cut-off. She made a mental note to try and buy one when she got back home. She wondered when that would be. She hadn’t bought a return ticket because she had no clue when or if this crazy mission would be successful.

  Was it crazy? Was Angela right to say that she was insane? Probably. Would Greg come looking for her as soon as he got back and had to face the fact that there had been two more explosions that morning? Most definitely. When he tried to call her cell or send a text, would he blithely accept her excuse of a family emergency of some kind? No way. He’d order her to come back ASAP, citing all sorts of national security concerns. Concerns that she just couldn’t deal with right now. Her task force would be on it. She had the security of just one man on her mind. Tripp Adams. And it was going to stay that way for the next few days. She had to stay focused, had to convince GeoGlobal’s South American president that hiring Greyfield was the smart thing to do and get them to process the funds so Joe Campiello could try and pull off a miracle.

  Did miracles happen? And on Christmas? Only in “It’s a Wonderful Life,” which happened to be one of the movies being offered on the video list that night. She had seen it several times and decided she wasn’t in the mood for that one, although she could certainly use her own guardian angel right about now.

  After takeoff, the flight attendants came around taking drink orders. Samantha didn’t order a drink. Not even a glass of wine. Just a bottle of water. She wanted to try and get some sleep and then be absolutely clearheaded when she arrived in Caracas. She was going to check into her hotel first and then head to a meeting at GeoGlobal.