by Tom Lowe
“First, we bring Jason out alive.”
Robert Miller had just ordered his third Irish whiskey when his cell played the first few bars from Mozart’s Requiem. He lifted the phone from the bar, looked through his bifocals and saw that it was security calling from his condo. “Mr. Miller, this is John in security at-”
“Yes, what is it?”
“You’d asked me to call, sir, if anyone was inquiring about you.”
“Yes, what do you have?”
“Well, sir, two men were here. Said they worked for the government, but they didn’t show ID. Looked like FBI types. Told them you weren’t in, and they left”
“When?”
“About ten minutes ago.”
“Thank you.” Miller pressed the disconnect button and looked up at the bartender, a woman in her mid-thirties. He asked, “Do you have children?”
The bartender smiled. “Yes, a son. He’s seven.”
“What’s his name?”
“Andy.”
“As you raise him, give him confidence and humility. It’s often difficult to do. Many people can’t connect the two. But, together, they are powerful attributes.”
The bartender thought for a beat. “Yes sir, they sure are.”
“Can you make arrangements for me to stay here tonight? At my age, capacity for fine drink isn’t what it used to be. A nice sleep would make a world of difference.”
“Would you like a lower level room, or something near the penthouse?”
“Why go near the penthouse when you can go to the penthouse?”
“I agree.” The bartender smiled.
Miller slid a platinum America Express card toward her. “Put everything on there, and while you’re at it, give yourself a two-hundred dollar tip.”
“Yes sir! Thank you!”
“Oh, by the way,” Miller gestured toward the pool beyond the smoked glass windows of the bar. He looked at an older woman sitting alone at a table beneath an umbrella surrounded by royal palms in a lush tropical setting. She had long gray hair, which she wore in a braid over her shoulder. “The lady out there, the one about my age ….”
“Yes sir?”
“Do you know her?”
“Yes sir. That’s Mrs. Lewinski. She lives in one of the condos across the street. Comes over here sometimes. Husband used to come with her. But he died about three months ago. She always orders a mint julep. She likes a view of the beach. Nice lady.”
“I imagine she is,” Miller said, watching the woman under the umbrella. “Send her a dozen of the hotel’s finest red roses mixed with sprigs of mint. Put it on my card.”
“Yes sir.”
Miller entered the penthouse, the Atlantic wide and blue beyond the large veranda. He fixed a drink from the bar and opened the French doors to the veranda, the salty breeze from the ocean warm against his face. He set the drink on a glass table near fresh-cut flowers, and braced his hands on the railing. He glanced at his hands. They looked like old claws with age spots the size of dimes. The taste of diseased tissue rose from his lungs to his throat. The wind tossed his white hair as he stared out across the Atlantic. Heat lightning pulsed through a tumbling stretch of purple clouds over the horizon.
“You do give up your dead sometimes,” he mumbled. He looked down at the parking lot twenty-five floors beneath him. Robert Miller climbed on a chair and stepped up onto the ledge, felt the wind in his face, looked at the sea one final time before plunging off the balcony and free-falling like a fledgling bird toward the dark asphalt.
CHAPTER EIGHTY-FIVE
A glass of cold water splashed across Mike Gates’ face. His head pounded. Gates was groggy, his vision blurred as if he’d opened his eyes wearing a dive mask underwater, a surreal perspective around him. He was strapped in a metal folding chair, stripped to his underwear, his feet in metal buckets filled with water. Wires ran from his ankles and wrists. He shook his head. This wasn’t happening.
Standing in front of him was Boris Borshnik. Seven heavily armed men stood at the windows and doors. Two men sat at folding tables, three laptop computers on the tables, the canisters of HEU lined on the wooden floor, a small video camera trained on them. Twenty feet to Gates’ left, Jason Canfield was tied to a chair. The kid had dried blood around his mouth, one eye swollen shut.
Gates looked up at Borshnik and said, “We had a deal! We had an agreement!”
“So did my father with your FBI in 1951!” Borshnik roared.
“That had nothing to do with me.”
“Yes it did! Because the man who lied to my father trained you, and you lied to me about Robert Miller. You told me he died of cancer. Now I know otherwise. You denied me that retribution years ago.”
“I’m more valuable to you alive than dead.”
“You have no value. You made a mistake, said something that should only be said if the other side knows it. You understand the game, but in your haste, you told me you had been exposed. The only value you have to your government now is in making you an example. I shall save them the cost, most generous of me. Don’t you agree? Probably not, because for you, it has always been about the money.”
Borshnik pulled a roll of one hundred bills out of his pocket, shoved them between Gate’s teeth and tied the bills in his mouth using a small piece of rope like a bit and bridle for a horse. He nodded and one of his men plugged the wires into a 210 volt power outlet. The force of the electricity threw Gates back in the chair, his head slamming against the brick wall.
Gates screamed, his voice like frightened growls from a muzzled dog. His body convulsing and shaking as the electricity burned into his nervous system. Smoke coming from his wrists. His neck corded in veins and muscles. His heart pumped in erratic beats, his bladder collapsing and urine soaking his underwear.
Jason Canfield looked the other way, tears seeping from his swollen eyes.
CHAPTER EIGHTY-SIX
Andrei Keltzin stood by a dirty window on the north side of the room, looked out and saw Mohammed Sharif’s three vehicles turning into the parking lot. He said nothing as he watched Borshnik move away from Gate’s body and speak to one of the men sitting behind the bank of laptop computers.
Keltzin stepped back from the window. “Shall I dispose of the corpse?”
Borshnik looked at Gates burned body. “I wonder what they did with my father’s body. Probably fed it to American hogs. Yes, remove it.”
Keltzin nodded, began untwisting the wires from the charred flesh. “Could Zahkar help me?”
Borshnik said, “Be quick.”
On the ground floor, Keltzin said, “We can carry him to the end of the dock and let him go in the water. It is probably deep. The body should stay down for a while before it floats. You will be back in Russia by then.”
“And you return to New York to await further instructions?”
“Yes. Let us share a cigarette first. I have some very good ones made in Pakistan.” Keltzin reached inside his jacket and pulled a knife, the movement a half second blur. He sank the knife to the hilt directly into Sorokin’s heart. The man fell like a steer in a slaughterhouse.
Keltzin turned and waved toward Mohammed Sharif’s vehicles, directing him to park on the far side of the warehouse. Sharif got out of the car, nine men following him.
“We can go though the freight elevator entrance,” Keltzin said. “I just took out one of his men. That leaves seven including Borshnik. They are on the third floor, the northeast corner of the building. Go up the steps and turn right at the top. The room will be less than twenty meters down the hall.”
Sharif gestured with his head and one of his men handed Keltzin an oversized black attache case. Keltzin lowered it to the ground and opened it. The case was filled with stacks of hundred-dollar bills. Sharif said, “We do not have time for you to count it.”
Keltzin grinned. “I trust you.”
Sharif touched his cheek and said, “That will be your last big mistake.” One of his men raised a Beretta with a silenc
er and shot Keltzin through the back of the head, blood and brain matter scattering across the green of the money.
Sharif looked across the river. “Our boat is approaching. Proceed upstairs. You know what to do. Today, some of us will enter paradise. Inshallad.”
CHAPTER EIGHTY-SEVEN
Eric Hunter nodded his head, anxious for the caller to finish. “Thanks,” he said disconnecting.
O’Brien asked, “What do we have?”
“Cab dispatcher said his driver reported that he’d taken a customer to Pier 13 on Jacksonville’s northeast side, not far from JaxPort. It’s a warehouse area.”
O’Brien squealed the tires racing out of the parking lot, almost hitting a man unloading golf clubs from the back of a car. “Did the driver leave after he dropped off the man?” O’Brien asked.
“Dispatch doesn’t know. The driver isn’t answering his radio or his cell.”
“Which means we can’t get a description of his customer.”
“Yeah.”
“How far is this place?”
Hunter looked at the GPS. “About eight miles. Take Bay to 95, then to 105 and follow it to Hecksler. I’ll start calling for backup as soon as I get a satellite image of the area.” Hunter punched in the coordinates for the Pier 13 area and watched a satellite image appear on his hand-held screen. He zoomed in to about five-hundred feet above the buildings. “If they’re in a warehouse directly in front of the pier, we can have the snipers on the two buildings to the east and west. Maybe catch the hostiles in crossfire. Plenty of cover even for ground forces.”
O’Brien shook his head. “To catch them in crossfire is to wait for them to come out. They’ll be more cautious leaving. We don’t know if the winning bidder will come there to pick up the HEU, or if Borshnik’s men will leave it in storage for the buyers, especially if the winning bid is from overseas.”
“Could be from Mohammed Sharif’s camp. And they are somewhere in Florida.”
Hunter made a quick series of calls, creating a plan of attack with federal agents and local SWAT. “Remember, chief, there can be no sirens. Nothing but stealth, and we’re calling the shots.”
Mohammed Sharif used hand signals to direct his men as they came closer to the door. Each man carried a side weapon and held Berettas or modified AK-47 assault rifles. At the door, he reached down and carefully turned the handle. It was not locked. The Russians expected no one. Sharif pushed open the door. They stepped in, firing.
Two Russian guards died instantly. The rest returned fire. Bullets ripping through flesh, splattering blood across the gypsum walls of the old warehouse.
Jason looked in horror as a bullet hit one Russian in the throat, his body falling across Jason’s lap and tumbling to the floor, the sound of gurgling drowned by gunfire.
Two of Sharif’s men died within five seconds. But the Russians, caught off guard had nowhere to retreat. Bullets exploded the computers, ricocheting off the brick on one wall. Borshnik fired three bursts from his Makarov before a bullet caught him square in the chest, his body falling against the chair where Gates was electrocuted, water from the buckets splashing across the floor.
In less than a half minute it was over. Eight Russians lay dead. Three jihad members were dead. Sharif’s shoulder was bleeding. Heavy smoke and the smell of gunpowder, blood and death seemed trapped in the room.
Sharif looked at the HEU canisters. “Take them to the boat. We must be out of here in seven minutes.” Sharif stepped over to Jason. “Are you Canfield? Are you the son of the American hero who lost his life on the USS Cole?”
Jason looked up at the man through puffy, swollen eyelids. “Yes.”
Sharif’s dark eyes radiated hate. “Do you have a brother or sister?”
“No.”
Sharif pulled a knife out of his belt. “Infidel. When I cut your head off, it will be to remove your father’s seed and yours from the face of Earth.”
Jason’s hands trembled, his breathing rapid, bile rising in his throat.
Sharif touched the blade to the center of Jason’s throat. He smiled, his teeth wet with saliva. His men watched him for a moment, the only sound coming from a blowfly hovering and buzzing above Borshnik’s body.
He lowered the knife. “There will be a better time for your death,” he said, placing the knife in the sheath. “Perhaps you will be the young man who is there when the atomic bomb detonates in this country. It will be an explosion heard around the world. They will call you the ultimate suicide bomber. But I do not believe paradise will await you, Jason Canfield.” He turned to his men. “Take the infidel to the boat.”
In less than ten minutes, the ten U-235 canisters were loaded on the forty-five foot Sea Ray at the end of Pier 13. Sharif looked at two of his men standing on the dock and said, “Rayhan, you and Nasif take the SUV. Proceed to Savannah. We will contact you before we arrive at the docks. Meet with Hashmin and Yasir. They are holding the professor’s daughter in the house we rented. I will speak to the professor directly. I feel positive that he will be most cooperative.”
The men nodded and ran back to the Ford Navigator. Sharif boarded the boat with the rest of his men. “Cast off!” he yelled. They untied the stern and bow ropes. “Go! Go! Now!” Sharif ordered. The man behind the wheel gunned the big diesels and within a minute the Sea Ray was on plane, the pilot heading for the channel markers.
“Set a course to Savannah, Georgia. Up the river from there is a place-the Savannah River Site. It is America’s largest facility for the manufacture of nuclear bombs. And near there lives the man who will make ours.”
Sharif glanced at Jason, bound and lying on the salon floor. He said, “Your time is short Canfield. Admit and recant all of the atrocities your country does, on video, and perhaps you will live. Or you will die strapped to an atomic bomb.”
CHAPTER EIGHTY-EIGHT
O’Brien pulled onto a service road. The chain on the gate had been cut, the gate partially open. “Follow the yellow brick road,” he said.
“Don’t follow it too far,” Hunter said, reaching into the back seat for two assault rifles. He put one on his lap and the second between the seats. “Backup’s coming. We have two choppers in the air-”
“Tell them to stay back. Stay back far enough so Borshnik can’t hear them. All he needs is an excuse to slit Jason’s throat.”
Hunter hit numbers on his cell. “Keep the birds back … yes … at least half a mile, maybe more if they’re coming over the river.”
Three vans of federal agents and six SUVs filled with SWAT team members pulled up behind O’Brien. Hunter and O’Brien got out of the car and briefed the men. O’Brien said, “We’ll look for the most obvious point of entry in relation to wherever the hostiles have their vehicles. Cab driver is a non-hostile. A twenty-year-old male is being held hostage. His name is Jason Canfield. I will need four men to follow me. Hunter can use that many on the rear and sides of the warehouse we enter. The rest of you spread along the perimeter of the buildings.”
Hunter said, “We’ll leave the vehicles here. Follow the tree line down toward the water and then separate.”
O’Brien hid behind a tall growth of weeds next to a fence and looked at the scene less than one-hundred feet in front of him. He could see at least three bodies. Something in his gut told him there would be more.
Was Jason alive? His thoughts raced, trying to suppress the images of Lauren Miles dying on the floor. “I have a visual on what appears to be three dead hostiles,” O’Brien whispered into the small microphone.
“It’s time we paid our respect to the dead,” Hunter said in O’Brien’s earpiece. “Gents, cover Sean and me as we run for the cab on the east side of the warehouse.” From where Hunter lay in cover, behind a partially crumbled seawall, he watched as O’Brien used a hand signal for the two of them to move forward. Both men ran hard, heads down, zigzagging toward the parked cab.
Except for the slight sound of a chopper in the distance, silence. O’Brien rose to look in
the taxi window. “Head’s almost gone,” he said in a low voice.
“Look ….” Hunter mumbled, pointing toward two bodies. “Man, what the hell did they do to Gates?”
“Borshnik electrocuted him. Same fate his father got in 1951.”
“Eye for an eye. The second body, it’s one of Borshnik’s men. I recognize him from the Chapman’s Fish House camera. What the hell’s going on, Sean?”
O’Brien was silent for a few seconds. “Gates was killed in there, where there’s electricity … this guy was probably taking the body out for disposal … maybe to dump it in the river but never got that far. Somebody nailed him in the back of the head.”
“Maybe it’s Mohammed … or one of his guys.”
“Gates was a big man. Would have taken two of Borshnik’s men to carry him down to the river.”
“Which means-”
“Borshnik has a defector. Eric, tell your men we’re working our way around to the other side of the building. The main entrance.”
Hunter relayed the information, and requested four SWAT members for backup. He and O’Brien kept low, hugging the exterior wall. O’Brien peered around the edge of the building. “Another down. Looks dead.”
Hunter used a hand signal and four members of the SWAT team converged next to them in seconds. They approached the body.
“Even without a forehead,” Hunter said, “this guy looks like the second man in the Chapman’s video. Why is he here and Gates and the other Russian back there?”
O’Brien knelt down for less than five seconds. Then he rose and motioned for the men to come to the partially opened wooden door. He whispered, “Blood splatter was blocked by something with a corner side, like a box. Maybe a briefcase. Whatever it was, it’s gone. So are the guys who did it. I think he met someone here. Could have been a payoff. We might find a lot of blood in there.”
