The Fourteenth Protocol_A Thriller

by Nathan Goodman

  "I thought you said he died on that mountain in Afghanistan," said Kyle, almost yelling over the sounds of gunfire.

  "I thought he did. Hell, we all thought he did. That's because that's what he wanted us to think. You see, that tough old son of a bitch knew there was no way the rest of us could make it out of there alive if we had to drag him along with us. And, he knew we'd never leave him. So, he faked his death. He made us believe he had died so we would leave him and save ourselves. Damnedest act of bravery I ever saw. Even the Taliban thought he was dead. Somehow though, he crawled out. Found a local villager to help patch him up and hide him for a while until they could get the word to us to come get him."

  As Kyle regained consciousness in the stairwell, he knew his friends would never leave him. He also knew thousands of American lives were at stake if they couldn't get the data that Kyle and Jana had stolen out of the building. He knew what he had to do.

  "Take this," he said, as he handed the automatic weapon to Jana then pulled off the Velcro pack, which contained extra clips of ammunition. She started to refuse, but knew Kyle wasn't going to make it. Her duty had to supersede her emotions. She grabbed the MP5 assault rifle and pack then assumed a cover position below, aiming down the stairwell from where gunfire was still coming.

  "Damn, I'm cold."

  "Kyle, no!" pleaded Cade.

  Kyle's eyes went slack then fixated on a spot just above Cade's shoulder. His eyes closed as he feigned drifting in and out of consciousness.

  "Cade, take this," he said, handing Cade a nine millimeter handgun.

  "No. What? No, man. No," said Cade, incredulous to what he was seeing.

  With his remaining strength, Kyle grabbed Cade's shirt with both bloody hands.

  Cade shook his head. "No. No. No, man. No. Don't you do it. Don't you leave me."

  "Take it, damn you. Take the gun," said Kyle.

  "Cool Mac! Don't leave," said Cade. "I can't do this. I'm not a federal agent."

  Kyle paused then blinked one time.

  "You are today," he said. With that, his gaze floated away and his eyes closed. To Cade, it was like watching the sun slowly disappear over the ocean's horizon as the burnt orange glow faded to darkness. And Cade knew. He just knew. Kyle was gone and he and Jana had to get out of the building with the stolen data at all costs.

  106

  Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, Intensive Care Unit. Bethesda, Maryland. June 10th.

  "CLEAR!" yelled the physician as she applied the paddles to Jana's chest.

  Jana's body rocketed upward. Everyone held their breath and looked over at the heart monitor.

  "She's in B-tac!" yelled a nurse.

  The heart monitor beeped in rapid succession, then painted a jagged set of lines indicating the existence of 'T' and 'S' waves.

  "Okay," exhaled the doctor, "she's back. We've got her back. Damn, this girl's a fighter."

  Cade's breathing became erratic and the first signs of hyperventilation reared its ugly head.

  "Cade, let's have a seat over here," said Director Latent, still clutching the young man around the shoulders. "Doctor. I think I need some help here." Latent cradled his arms underneath Cade just as he collapsed. The doctor and a nurse helped get Cade into a seat at the nurses station.

  "Grab a paper bag," said the doctor. "He'll be fine, he's just hyperventilating. The paleness in his face should go away in a moment."

  Latent looked at the doctor. "Thank you. I mean, thank you for saving Jana just then. And you're right, she's a fighter. One hell of a fighter. There's a bunch of people, sixteen thousand of them, including me, that owe their lives to her."

  A team of nurses hovered over Jana, monitoring her condition closely.

  The doctor leaned in to Latent's ear. "Can I tell you something? I've seen a lot of patients who didn't make it out of this ICU, but I've seen a lot that did. Do you know who makes it out?"

  "Tell me."

  "It's the fighters."

  107

  Several hours after the press conference, Director Latent returned from the FBI's mobile command unit just outside the hospital. He had wanted to remain on site to be with Jana, one of his youngest agents, who was still fighting for her life. Two weeks earlier Agent Jana Baker narrowly prevented terrorist Shakhar (Shakey) Kunde from detonating a nuclear weapon in Kentucky. He sat next to Cade. "Come on, son. Let's go get something to eat. She's stabilized. You need a break from this."

  Cade looked up. The whites of his eyes were bloodshot.

  "Come on," said Latent. "I'm buying."

  Down in the hospital's cafeteria the two talked as Cade ate. Latent tried to distract him, if only for a brief time. What he had to tell Cade next, or more importantly, what he had to show him, would take a toll of its own.

  "So, what do you think about the Braves chances this year?"

  Cade ignored the question. "Let me recap my recent life in a nutshell for you. I had a great job at Thoughtstorm but it turns out there were assholes all over my workplace who were actually undercover CIA agents involved in the biggest conspiracy in U.S. history. I become a material witness against the CIA in the middle of what then turns out to be the largest terrorism case since 9/11. My best friend, Kyle, dies in my arms in a stairwell at the Thoughtstorm building during that god-awful attempt to 'quietly' steal the CIA data. Next, my father dies from cancer. And Jana here, who I'm head over heels in love with...ah, don't tell her I said that, alright?—flat-lines right in front of me. Let's see, did I miss anything? Oh yeah, I'm now out of a job. But other than that, my life's just fine."

  "You saw more shit over that few days than I saw in Nam," said Latent.

  "I don't mean to make my problems sound like all that. But, dammit. I'm just a server guy. I work on computer servers. I'm not built for this."

  "You sound like you're coming to grips with a lot of this."

  "Is that what it sounds like? My insides hurt, I feel like I'm going to puke most of the time. And you think I sound like I'm coming to grips with all this? I'm a basket case."

  "Okay, okay. Maybe I'm just saying that to make myself feel better because of what I've put you though in the last few weeks. But you have to understand. You were a material witness. You were our only chance to stop the terrorists. The FBI needed your help. I needed your help. Hell, son, the American people needed your help. And, I'm telling you this because of what I need to show you right now."

  "What you need to show me?" Cade said. "Are you kidding me? There's more? Ah, man. I don't think I can take it. What now? I can't wait for this one."

  The two men stood. Nothing was said as they walked through the hospital, got on the elevator, exited on the seventh floor, then walked down a long hallway. At the far end, men in business suits stood just outside of a room—more FBI agents.

  "Why are we here?" Cade said.

  "You'll see," replied the director. As they stopped outside of a patient room, four FBI agents shrouding the door stepped aside.

  "Cade, before we go in, there's some things you should know."

  "Why are we going in here? This has something to do with what you wouldn't tell me a few hours ago in Jana's room, doesn't it?"

  "You have to understand, son. We didn't know who to trust. The paranoia went out of control. And I'm speaking about myself here. I've been so paranoid, especially at the height of the Thoughtstorm case with the CIA, under the president's authorization, going so out of control. I just decided to trust no one. Well, no one other than Uncle Bill, that is."

  "You didn't trust me? And Jana?"

  "I did, but every man has his breaking point. Mine was the night of the raid on the Thoughtstorm building. I thought for sure the president would have my job. I knew he was involved."

  "Fortunately," said Cade, "with all the evidence you presented to that congressional subcommittee, they indicted him, then when the supreme court got involved, he resigned before they could take him out of office."

  "Anyway," Latent continue
d, "that night, the night of the Thoughtstorm raid, as you know, we had several FBI Hostage Rescue Teams on site there. What you didn't know, hell, what I didn't know at the time, was that one of the military units I had requested earlier was actually on the scene as well."

  Cade began to watch him with intent, hanging on his every word.

  "Now Cade, the media isn't aware of this, so this stays between you and me, understood? Anyway, the military unit was a team from Army Delta Force. We had requested assistance from special ops units from the Army, and a handful of Navy SEAL units, to work with us as this terrorism case exploded. The team from Delta Force was on standby at HartsfieldJacksonInternationalAirport. They were waiting for orders from us. But as the Thoughtstorm raid started, and they heard all the radio chatter, especially the chatter about that Apache helicopter gunship tearing its way through Buckhead, headed right towards our agents, well, they took matters into their own hands. The Delta Force team commander later told me they first saw the Apache on radar when it took off from Dobbins Air Force base and wondered why they hadn't heard any tower chatter before or after the helicopter took off. It seemed to them as though the Apache flight was unauthorized. Anyway, when the thing flew so low, trying to stay below radar, and headed straight for Buckhead and our raid on the Thoughtstorm building, Delta Force put two and two together. They knew the gunship wasn't authorized and was headed right for our teams."

  Cade glanced at the hospital room door, still wondering what Director Latent was getting at.

  "The Delta operators landed on the roof of the Thoughtstorm building. Son, we need to go inside this room now," said Latent.

  "Okay, but why? What's this got to do with an Army unit? Whose room is this anyway?" said Cade.

  Latent didn't speak.

  As they walked into the room, Cade saw a patient lying on a hospital bed. The face was completely enshrouded in thick layers of gauze bandages. Medical equipment of all types lined the far wall. A breathing tube disappeared into the patient's mouth, and the patient's left arm was in a cast, immobilized.

  "He's in a medically induced coma," said Latent. "The team here at Bethesda felt he'd have a better chance at recovery that way. There's a lot of swelling in the brain. He's still in very critical condition."

  "Okay," said Cade. "But why are we here? Who is it? Is this one of the Delta Force guys?"

  The director's eyes became glassy. "The Delta Force operators landed on the roof of the Thoughtstorm building with the firefight raging inside. They heard the radio chatter from inside. They heard Agent Baker call for backup when you three were pinned down in the stairwell. She was calling for a medical evac for Kyle. They breached the roof door and killed several CIA security officers on their way to you. They were going to extract the three of you out from the roof."

  Cade's scowl and look of confusion deepened.

  "But when they got to your reported location in the stairwell, you and Jana were gone. They didn't find you, but they did find him." Latent pointed to the hospital bed. The breathing tube arced upwards as air pumped through it. "It's Kyle. Agent Kyle MacKerron. He's alive, Cade. He's alive."

  108

  Cade stood over Kyle MacKerron's hospital bed and stared down at him. He was looking right at him, his closest friend in the world, but didn't really see anything. His mind swirled back to that night in the Thoughtstorm building two weeks earlier when all hell had broken loose. He and Jana had come so close to stealing the data from Rupert Johnston's computer without being detected when Johnston himself had caught them red handed.

  No one knew how volatile the situation actually was. The CIA, operating a covert operation to infiltrate a US-based terror network had contracted Thoughtstorm, Inc. to engage in encrypted email communications with the terror cell in order to help the CIA climb higher into the terrorist's lair; an effort to break the terror cell in one swift stroke. The end result was that, in their efforts to arrest them, the CIA had funded the terrorists. Those funds had been used to kill hundred of Americans. It was a conspiracy that went all the way to the top. It made the Richard Nixon Watergate scandal look like a night at the Ice Capades. Cade had been a hinge in a huge door that slammed shut on the CIA's operation and on the president of the United States, who had been removed from office due to his involvement.

  The latest revelation that an Army Delta Force unit had landed on the roof and blown their way into the building no longer came as much surprise to Cade. The whole night was such a blur. Cade had tried so hard to block it out. He thought Kyle died right in front of him, but apparently he'd been scooped up by the Delta team and evac'd off the rooftop and taken to a trauma center. Now, Kyle was lying on a bed in a coma fighting for his life. Two of the closest people in Cade's world were here at the BethesdaMedicalCenter in critical condition. If either of them didn't make it, Cade might go apoplectic himself.

  109

  In the days and weeks that followed, the media swirled at the size and scope of the scandal. A sitting US president had been arrested for crimes against the American people. As the vice president was sworn in, the White House tried to deflect questions but the effort was futile.

  Cade continued his vigil at the hospital. He was rarely not sitting at the bedside of either Jana or Kyle, and he never left the hospital itself. Both patients were improving. Jana was first to become conscious but it was a few days before doctors decreased her pain medication enough to allow her to be lucid.

  Kyle improved steadily as well, but it was another week before doctors decided it was safe enough to slowly bring him out of the coma they had medically induced. He was transferred to a physical therapy unit for rehabilitation and worked eight hours a day alongside injured war veterans on his recovery.

  The media held a vigil of their own. Every news network and affiliate wanted to be the ones to get the exclusive interview with the agent that had stopped a nuclear weapon from detonating. News trucks covered every open space on the street around the hospital’s entrance in hopes of catching glimpse of Jana as she was discharged. But Cade knew, Jana had no interest in being a national fascination.

  In the end, he arranged with Director Latent for her to be secretly whisked out a side door in the middle of the night surrounded by FBI agents. Latent had authorized use of the Bureau’s Gulfstream jet to take her anywhere she wanted to go, and met the entourage at the airport.

  As Jana was helped onto the plane, the pilot looked over at Latent. “Destination, sir?”

  “She wants to recover back on her family’s farm in Tennessee.” He handed the man a piece of paper. “She wants to go home.”

  The Special Agent Jana Baker Spy-Thriller Series, by Nathan Goodman

  Protocol One

  The Fourteenth Protocol

  Protocol 15

  Breach of Protocol

  Rendition Protocol

  An excerpt from the next book in the series, Protocol 15:

  1

  I AM BECOME DEATH

  Somewhere in Pakistan. June 3.

  The coal-black of Waseem Jarrah’s hair was distinguishable only by a chiseled patch of white that tore through one side. Jarrah, the most wanted terrorist in the world, put his hands on the trembling nineteen-year-old’s shoulders.

  “Khalid Kunde, your time is near,” he said. “You are a soldier of Allah, and Allah’s rewards will be grand. Remember, what you go to do now is but the first step.”

  A tear welled in the young man’s eye, yet did not fall.

  “I will not fail you,” the apprentice replied.

  “You are the younger brother of Shakey Kunde. His name is legend. His efforts to detonate a nuclear device on American soil were valiant, his sacrifice noble. But he failed in his ultimate mission. Nevertheless, he sits at the right hand of Allah, as will you. Do you know the words?”

  The young man knew Jarrah wanted him to quote the words of Robert Oppenheimer, the original inventor of the atomic bomb.

  Khaild nodded his head in affirmation, stared at the floor
, then choked out, “The words are, I am become death.”

  Jarrah’s eyes widened as he basked in the glow of his new apprentice. He replied, “The destroyer of worlds.”

  2

  A SLEEPING ISLAND

  NATO Listening Post, Kosrae Island, Micronesia. The SolomonSea, 1379 nautical miles north-northeast of Papau New Guinea. June 19, 11:33 p.m. local time (8:33 a.m. EST)