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While tarpon fishing in the backcountry of the Florida Keys, Mac Travis discovers a plot to drill for oil in the pristine waters.
After his life is threatened he teams up with his long time friend and mentor, Wood, to uncover a plot that leads to the top echelons of power in Washington DC. An action packed short story featuring underwater and boating scenes
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Steven Becker
All Rights Reserved
Copyright 2016 © White Marlin Press
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously . Any resemblance to any persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
[email protected]
http://stevenbeckerauthor.com
CHAPTER 1
Mako leaned against the bar, carefully surveying the crowd, one hand on his pint, the other mindlessly caressing the smooth mahogany. He should have been watching the street, but he was distracted and chose to admire the women instead. Exchanging glances with several, he smiled and met their eyes, challenging those with escorts, inviting those without. One woman in particular caught his attention, her large blue eyes meeting his over the shoulder of her boyfriend. Her body language gave a clear signal that she would prefer his company. A flash of chrome forced his eyes away, and with an effort he moved his gaze to the street. Smiling at his luck, he grabbed his phone from the bar. Pulling up at Harrods, he typed and drained the beer.
“This is our chance,” Alicia’s voice said in his ear.
“On my way,” he whispered into the flesh-colored bone induction mike and walked out the door. Fingering the GPS chip in his pocket, he scanned the street looking for the metallic cherry red “G” class Mercedes. The large city block that was Harrods department store came into view, and he saw the extended-cab SUV illegally parked at the corner. “Got it.”
Not knowing if the vehicle was driven by the owner, a high-level Iranian diplomat, or his chauffeur, Mako slowed as he approached, trying to blend in with the other tourists who gawked at the unique vehicle or took pictures of it with their phones. He moved toward the SUV, trying to find the angle from which the sun would allow him to see inside the heavily-tinted windows. It was empty. He breathed deeply and closed the gap. With the chip in one hand, he withdrew a small ball of putty from his pocket and started working it with the fingers of his other hand. The materials combined, and when he felt the heat caused by the chemical reaction, he used his thumb to attach it to the chip. A group of teenagers were hanging around the SUV, using it as a backdrop for a picture, when he moved to the curb and ducked by the rear wheel. They struck a provocative pose, and he used the distraction to lean over and stick the chip to the inside of the wheel well.
Minutes later, he was back in the pub with another pint in front of him, his attention now entirely on the crowd. The woman he had made eye contact with before stood, and he thought for a second about following, but the voice was back in his head.
“It’s good. I have a signal,” Alicia said.
“Of course,” he muttered back.
“Really, you’re back in the pub? We have work to do.”
He really wished she had a sexier voice, but as far as partners went, she was first-class. Instead of replying, he texted her. Just let me know when he is at the target. With a practiced movement, he removed the earwig and placed it discreetly in his pocket, hoping he could take care of this bit of business and have a few days to enjoy the London scene. The woman’s seat was still empty, and he decided to take a chance. Leaving his half-finished pint on the bar, he made his way through the crowd, finding himself in the vestibule by the bathrooms. Disappointed she was not there, he made a move to the men’s room, when a hand reached out and pulled him close. Without a word, he felt her lips brush against his face and her tongue enter his mouth.
She broke off the kiss. “Your phone,” she said with a smile. Without waiting, she brushed her hand against his pants pockets and pulled out the phone.
He leaned in close as she started to enter her phone number in a new text window. Suddenly the phone vibrated and she stopped, two digits short.
“Looks like you have something more important,” she said and handed it back to him.
Still looking at her, he glanced down at the new message. Find something better than me? He’s on the move and heading in the right direction.
“Sorry, love,” Mako said and brought his face toward her, but she expertly slid under his arm and was gone. Although she might have been intriguing, he let her go and slid between the bodies layered two deep at the bar, making his way to the exit. On his way out the door, he cast a look back at her table and saw her purposefully reach for her boyfriend and kiss him. She sensed him watching and he caught her eye with a wink.
Brompton Road was wall to wall with tourists and traffic, so he cut over a block to Basil Street. Increasing his pace, he evaded the tourists exiting the Knightsbridge tube station and started walking down the escalator. A couple taking up the entire width stopped him, and he was forced to wait for the mechanized stairs to descend. His phone buzzed with another text. I know I’m not in your head—can you fix that? He realized he had not replaced the earwig and dug in his pockets for the small device. When it was not in the right front, he panicked, thinking that the woman had taken it, but he patted his left pocket and felt the small lump. With the earpiece back in his ear, he adjusted the induction microphone and pressed the standby button.
“Sorry about that,” he said under his breath, knowing the small microphone under his jaw would pick up the vibrations.
“Piccadilly line to Holborn Station, then change to the Central line.”
Her response was terse, and he tried to break the tension. “It’s a bit disturbing knowing you know where I am and where I am going before I do.” There was no response. He knew he could turn off his phone, which would disable the GPS locator, but without her, he was lost. The escalator ended abruptly and he moved to the turnstiles, where he pulled his Oyster card from his back pocket. The reader accepted the payment, but he was not fast enough to see the charge and wondered how much credit was left on it. But like every other detail, he knew Alicia would take care of it. Aside from having to listen to her, she was very efficient.
The train arrived and Mako slid through the door, taking a seat when he probably should have displayed some chivalry and offered it to the harried woman dragging two kids behind her. Instead, he reached in his pocket for his phone and pulled up the Tube app. He studied the route and then opened the map app to get walking directions from Bank Station—something he should have done on an earlier scouting trip, but he had spent that time surveying the secretaries instead of the street signs.
Ten minutes later, he was shaken awake by the train stopping, and the recorded voice with a mediocre British accent reminded him to watch his step. Mako crossed to the Central line, leaned against a tiled wall and waited for the next train. Although the “G wagon” was now parked at Lloyd’s of London, he was relaxed. It was not the SUV he was worried about, but rather the data its occupant was in the process of delivering. He would make his move when the transfer was done, preferably later that afternoon, when there would be little activity in the historic insurer’s offices.
“Bank Station,” Alicia said in his ear.
“As if I forgot,” he muttered back and thought about turning her off. The hiss of the train’s brakes announced its arrival before he saw it. It was Saturday and the train was quiet. He took an open seat for the five-minute ride. The train stopped and he exited at Bank, where he took the escalator two steps at a tim
e, arriving quickly on the quiet street. With time to kill, he took Cornhill to Bishopsgate and turned into the Leadenhall Market, hoping to find an open pub.
The covered street was deserted, the Victorian-themed stores and bars closed for the weekend, and with regret he increased his pace and found himself staring at the “Death Star.” The Lloyd’s building, although not as well known as an architectural oddity like the “Shard,” “Walkie-Talkie,” “Cheese Grater,” or “Gherkin,” it deserved a nickname. The entire infrastructure was visible on the outside of the building—from glass-enclosed elevators to ductwork and plumbing pipes.
“Where is he?” he asked Alicia.
“Just pulled away. You should be clear now.”
The connection had degraded. “What’s up with the audio? We can’t afford this now.”
“Afford would be the critical word. We’re out on a charter off West End in the Bahamas. Filling the tanks between dives.”
He knew their financial situation was dire. Without this contract, he wasn’t exactly sure what he would do. It wasn’t like there was a heading for “spies wanted” in the classifieds.
“See what you can do. I really need you now.” He was all business, and with all his senses alert, he entered through the front door. The back door would be saved for his exit, once he had downloaded the data. Mako removed the fake ID card from his jacket pocket and placed the lanyard around his neck. With his head down, mimicking the posture of a defeated desk jockey forced to work on the weekend, he entered the building and presented the laminated card to an equally depressed security guard. They exchanged a look of brotherhood and he was waved in.
Where the building had its guts on display outside, the interior was sleek and modern. Mako went to the elevators and pressed the up button. The street grew smaller as he looked down through the glass enclosure, turning when the bell chimed indicating his floor. He exited and quickly moved to the perimeter of the mass of cubicles spread out in front of him. His six-foot frame was a detriment here, and he slouched as he moved to the back row. The doors around the perimeter leading to the managers’ offices were closed, and he found a remote spot where he pushed the chair aside and kneeled down to conceal his head from view.
“Ready.”
Alicia started to rattle off instructions, which he pecked onto the keyboard.
“Got it,” she said.
He watched the screen as she had him enter seemingly meaningless lines of code.
“Put the drive in the USB port,” she ordered.
“In,” he said. The screen immediately changed to a status bar, and he watched as the files transferred. She had told him it was an encryption code. Lloyd’s was always looking for new and innovative ways to stay in the spotlight of an otherwise mundane business. Over the years they had insured everything from Bruce Springsteen’s voice to David Beckham’s legs. Now they were moving to the world of data, hiring the best hackers to protect their systems. The status bar’s progress slowed to a crawl at eighty percent. “This is really slow.”
“That’s why we have to do the transfer to the thumb drive. It has to be done on the property. Otherwise I could have done it myself.”
Mako caught the barb, but ignored it. Alicia also had ties to the CIA. Once an employee, she was now working on a contract basis, as many of their old agents were. The new world of spying was now based entirely on speculation—fulfill the terms of the contract or no pay.
The elevator chimed and he glanced again at the status bar, now up to ninety-five percent. He lifted himself enough to peer over the top of the cubicle and saw several security guards exit the elevator, one going in each direction. Behind them was a dark-skinned man in a very expensive suit.
“I gotta go. They’re on to us!” He forgot the bone mike and said the words out loud. One of the men’s heads turned, and they started to weave through the aisle in his direction. “Now!”
“Two percent more,” Alicia said calmly.
He willed the bar to one hundred percent and pulled the drive from the port. “Get me out of here.”
CHAPTER 2
“Cody,” Alicia called down to the deck of the fifty-two-foot sportfisher. She instructed Mako to stand by, took the headset off and handed it to Cody, her boyfriend, partner and captain, who had climbed the ladder to the flybridge. “He’s all yours,” she said calmly. It was not what she felt, but she trusted Cody’s abilities to guide Mako out of the building, and she had to work on getting him out of the country. It would take both of them to salvage the operation. “GPS and autopilot are set.” She grabbed her tablet and climbed down the stainless steel ladder to the gleaming white deck.
“Where’s our first dive?” one of the men asked.
She thought for a minute. “Let’s get you guys on the Altar. Nice coral heads and a ton of lobster.”
The man glanced at his dive watch. “How deep for how long?” he asked.
Alicia was getting impatient. It wasn’t the question—divers had been asking that since the birth of scuba. Their niche in a crowded market, although popular, was time-consuming, and time was one thing she didn’t have right now. They had differentiated themselves from other charters by making aspects of technical diving available to the recreational diver on a live-aboard. This brought with it complicated machinery to fill the tanks as well as extra time supervising the divers. Enriched-air diving had gained in popularity, but was seldom offered on multi-day trips. The difficulty of mixing gases with the boat-mounted compressor had been overcome with Cody’s mechanical skill and the computer interface she had designed to safely mix in the additional oxygen while mitigating the risks of explosion. They had developed their own system for overcoming the limiting factor in mixed-gas diving—depth. The standard mixes of thirty-two and thirty-six percent oxygen offered by dive shops limited divers to one hundred twelve and ninety-five feet respectively. With her algorithm, they custom-blended the gas for each dive. This allowed for deeper dives with maximum bottom time, but required expertise in mixing the gases.
“Everyone get suited up. We’ll be on site in ten minutes.” She had the group’s attention now. “The Altar is in eighty-five feet of water, so we’ll use a thirty-two percent mix. That should give you plenty of bottom time. Buddy up.” The six charter customers went to their gear and started to prepare for the first dive of the day.
One of the women looked at her. “You’re not going?”
“It’s time to fly on your own. Stay with your buddies.” Typically they waited until the final day of the charter before allowing an unsupervised dive, but this group had caught on quickly, and the dive was shallow enough to make the decompression stops minimal. She finished the briefing and watched while they checked the oxygen percentage in their tanks using the portable analyzer. She waited until they were in the water and each gave the OK sign before heading to the cabin, where she reached for the second headset. Cody, a master gamer, was in his element, guiding Mako to an air-conditioning vent to make his escape. Although Mako’s life and their next boat payment were tied to the success of the operation, it was still a video game to Cody.
***
“Come on, Cody, there’s no lock.” Mako closed the door to the maintenance room and waited for his next instructions. He heard Cody humming in the background and looked around. A mop bucket and cleaning supplies were the only things present, and he doubted they would be any help. He was getting nervous, but had no choice but to trust the man on the other end.
“Look up. There should be a large vent cover. You’ll need to open it and get inside,” Cody said.
Hearing activity outside, he looked up as a last resort and saw the grille over his head. Without a choice, he grabbed the mop and smashed the handle into the grille. It didn’t move. There were several voices outside now. He aimed for what he expected was a weak spot in the corner of the grate and with all his power pushed the handle through the gap. With a jerk, he pried the grille from the ceiling, ducking as it fell.
The door
opened and he jumped. With the skill of a gymnast performing a muscle-up, he pulled himself through the opening, panicking for a second in the transition from the pull to the dip. A second later he was inside the duct, his arms trembling. The men were below him now, waiting as one talked into a microphone. His lanky frame and athletic ability had allowed him to enter the duct, and looking down on the guards, he risked a brief smile for they had neither the height or ability. They would need a ladder to follow. The Iranian came into the room, barked an order and left with one of the guards.
“You’ve got to climb the first ten feet. Then it’ll level out and we can get you out of the building,” Cody said.
Mako remembered the pipes running outside the tower and realized what Cody was up to. There was nothing to grab onto, so with his back to the duct, he pushed against the far side with his feet and inched upward. The bend that Cody told him about was visible a foot overhead, but just as he was about to enter the horizontal duct, he heard a rumble and was assaulted by a stream of air. It wasn’t the pressure of the forced air but the dust it carried which caused him to sneeze and squint into the already-dark hole.
“Can you turn the damned thing off?” he asked Cody.
“Take too long. Gotta suck it up and get to level two.”
Mako got the game reference and realized that things were not going to get any easier if he delayed. He lifted his body into the transition and crawled along the pipe. Suddenly the sound and vibration stopped and the air died, leaving his breath the only sound he could hear as it echoed off the steel duct. The pipe had transitioned from square to round, and he knew he was on the outside of the structure.
“What now?” he asked.
“Level five, dude. There’ll be a service panel, but you’ll have to slide down twenty feet. It gets easier after that. Once you’re outside I’ll send the elevator for you.”
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