The Courier: A Ryan Kealey Thriller

by Andrew Britton

  “Allison? I’ve got Ryan on the other line. He wants to talk to his uncle. Is he there?”

  “Just a minute,” she said, not hiding her relief that they found him. “How is Ryan?”

  “Pretty good,” was all Clarke could tell her. “I’ve got to make this quick. Ryan, you there?”

  “Here,” he said. “Uncle Largo? Allison?”

  “We’re here,” Allison said.

  “Hi, Allison. Can you bring a map of D.C. up on your phone?”

  “Okay—”

  “Uncle Largo, I am out of country and at odds with everyone from the President down over a very crucial matter.”

  Allison said nothing as she went to MapQuest, only thought, What else is new?

  “I believe your device is on a private aircraft belonging to an international VIP, probably headed to Washington—”

  The general interrupted, “Possibly via the harbor, if they stick to their flight plan.”

  “Allison, you have the map?” Keely asked

  “Right here.” She put the iPhone in front of Largo; he held it back a little to see.

  “Assuming it remains on the aircraft, where on that map does the device get used?” Kealey asked.

  “Not before they cross the border from Maryland into D.C.,” Largo said.

  “Agreed,” Kealey said. “There’s a lot more publicity value actually being inside D.C., even if it’s just a few feet across the border.”

  “Why would you assume they don’t offload it?” Clarke asked.

  “Simple equation, risk versus reward,” Kealey said. “Customs is going to have a look at the aircraft before it enters the harbor proper. You can check their records, see where they’ve done it before. The terrorists can’t afford to risk eyes on their point man, who has been drawn into something he wasn’t expecting, hasn’t been trained for, and has just had a few hours to contemplate. Either he’s frightened or euphoric. Either way, he stands out.”

  “If we’re talking old school, the enemy lets the agent aboard, keeps him there, and hauls ass for D.C.,” Largo said.

  “Where the Harbor Patrol is waiting with heavy artillery to stop the pilot and choppers to take out the plane,” Clarke said.

  “After the President is convinced, finally, that the plane is a danger,” Kealey said. “If we’re off by seconds, we’re too late.”

  “And we don’t know how they may have this thing rigged,” Largo said.

  “I was just getting to that,” Kealey said. “How’s your gut? Your sixth sense?”

  “Haven’t had to use it for a while.”

  “It’s like riding a bicycle,” Allison said.

  “Exactly,” Kealey said. “I don’t think the terrorists have had the time or resources to swap out the device or its inner workings. An X-ray apron was stolen, but that wouldn’t have bought them any kind of help. Someone died after being exposed to it. On top of which, the thing hasn’t sat still long enough and I don’t think it’s the kind of thing they’d monkey with on an airplane. Or it may have been too fragile to rewire. For all anyone knows, it may not even work.”

  “In which case they still have the core,” Largo said. “That’s potent.”

  “Especially if it’s riding the cloud of an IED meant to trigger the device,” Kealey said. “But we don’t know anything except that it is probably in the original lead container, which, as far as our readings tell us from the time it was sealed till now, is intact.”

  “So you need me to be a customs agent and eyeball it,” Largo said.

  “I need someone to get onboard and assess the situation,” Kealey said. “I doubt it will just be sitting in the luggage rack, but you can profile, you can sniff around, you’ll know if something is off.”

  Largo didn’t breathe. It wasn’t that he couldn’t; he simply forgot to. This was madness. But what, in war, is not?

  “And if he thinks there’s a problem?” Clarke asked.

  “He puts the guy at ease, signals us that everything is A-OK—which it won’t be, of course—and that encourages the enemy to get closer to shore, buys us a few more minutes. We pull everything back to make sure they buy it—including Uncle Largo—and sharpshoot the terrorist before he can make his move.”

  There was a short silence broken by Largo saying, “I can do that.”

  “Your gut,” Kealey said. “This part is personal. I really need to know this.”

  “Nephew, if that thing is onboard, I think I’ll know it.”

  Clarke made a huffing sound. “No disrespect intended, gentlemen, but we are betting an ugly international incident at the very least, a city at the most, if you’re wrong about any part of this.”

  “I know a rat when I see one,” Largo said, “and I followed that thing across a big chunk of continent. I had nightmares about it when I wasn’t on my feet. I killed to make sure it didn’t leave my sight. You’re talking to Captain Ahab here.”

  Both Kealey and Allison laughed. Clarke did not.

  “You remember how that story ended,” Clarke said.

  “Yeah. The guy we called Ishmael lived to whale another day.”

  “General, I’d rather be wrong than face the alternative,” Kealey told him. “Look, if Uncle Largo says the plane is clean I’ll agree that we can stand down. But we need eyes-on. You know that.”

  “Right,” Clarke said. “Weapons?” he asked Largo.

  “Wouldn’t want one,” he said. “You walk differently. Stronger.”

  “Isn’t that what we want?” Clarke asked. “You scare the terrorist into doing something suspicious?”

  “Like detonating a bomb?” Largo said. “No. If he’s got something, if he’s armed, I’ll know what to do.”

  Clarke sighed. “Allison?”

  She looked at the man sitting across the table. She didn’t know exactly what the device was they were talking about, but she had gleaned from the conversation that it was potent enough to destroy the nation’s capital. This was bigger than making Largo Kealey feel good about himself, and useful, or revisiting his White Whale.

  His hands were as steady as his gaze. He wasn’t asking for a chance. He wasn’t interested in doing his nephew a favor, any more than his nephew was off on a personal crusade to prove himself right and everyone else wrong. Again. What she had just heard was about country, about others.

  “Sounds like a perfect fit,” she said.

  Largo’s forehead dropped slightly as he acknowledged the evaluation he had just witnessed—witnessed carefully. The psychologist felt a tingle in her own gut, the thrill of seeing an old man’s instincts renew the man in whom they resided. For all her schooling, despite the abundance of theory, there was nothing like witnessing the right stimulus causing a perfect rebirth.

  “I’ll talk to Carlson, find out who they’re using when they land,” Clarke said. “Allison, I suggest you two get over to the harbor—wait for my call.”

  “If it doesn’t come, just knock the agent out and take his place,” Kealey said.

  Largo replied, “As if you had to tell me.”

  Clarke said, “Don’t. I’ll get the okay.”

  Kealey told Clarke that the two embassy agents had a chopper waiting to take them to Rabat. He would be in touch again from a secure location, within the hour. Largo rose. He was still stooped, his shoulders rolled forward, his legs a little bowed. But his fingers were not drumming his thigh and his mouth was set, and he seemed younger than he had when they’d entered the room.

  The terrorists would probably buy him as a seventy-something who was on the cusp of retirement. They would never see him for what he truly was: the kind of invaluable resource that had once helped save a nation and a world.

  And could do so again.

  CHAPTER 24

  NATIONAL HARBOR, MARYLAND

  By law, an American port of entry is any access point to a nation at which a Customs and Border Protection agent is authorized to inspect cargo and collect the appropriate duties. Ports of entry are monitored excl
usively by the CBP, which is one of the most important divisions of the Department of Homeland Security.

  Shippers who frequent international ports work with bonded brokers who expedite the process of clearing cargo. In the case of the Murghen, the operators typically filed a standard customs declaration form that was checked by the broker, who took responsibility for the validity of the claim.

  SeaLions was located in a glass building on the corner of Fleet Street and Mariner Passage. The firm built the three-story structure, with its modern warehouse facility and inventory system, after swallowing several smaller brokers ruined at the onset of the Great Recession. SeaLions was a mix of veterans from the older companies and newcomers brought on for the new enterprise.

  One of the veterans was Joe Cuthbert. He was in his early seventies, and it had been suggested several times that he retire. But he had been the owner of Docktors, one of the companies purchased by SeaLions, and he had a great many friends and supporters at CBP. He needed the income, he liked to work, so he was allowed to stay.

  Today, however, he was told he’d be getting the remainder of the afternoon off.

  “Who says?” he asked as he stepped from the lavatory, still wiping his face with a paper towel, and was met by the office manager.

  Gerr Brown, the office manager—a young, balding man with a pie face and dark currant eyes—handed him his cell phone.

  “Max Carlson, the head of Homeland Security,” Brown said. “He’s also going to need your uniform.”

  Largo was looking out the window at the Potomac. “If I walked across the river, someone would say, ‘LBJ can’t swim!’ ”

  “Did the President really say that, Largo?” Allison asked.

  “I’m paraphrasing, but it was something to that effect,” Largo said.

  “That’s Washington,” she said.

  “It’s a shame,” Largo went on. “Think of all the miracles that have originated along the banks of this river. Raising the capital from a swamp. Delivering an entire race of people from bondage. Passing legislation about human rights—all of that against awesome odds with results that inspired the world. Miracles are almost commonplace here, Allison. With the help of God, we just have to do one more.”

  Allison wasn’t religious but she still said a quiet “amen.” She had her doubts about this one, not because of Largo—he seemed a new man—but because she always heard about these efforts after the fact. It was something else to be part of one, to watch it unfold in terrifying real time.

  An hour before, driving by rote, her brain defiantly locked on what could be a countdown to the end of her life, Allison had gotten off the Capital Beltway and was heading south on National Harbor Boulevard. They had pulled up to the sliding gate at SeaLions, where a sentry checked Allison’s license against the data he’d been given on the phone and told them where to park.

  “Did you give them your license number before we left?” Largo asked.

  “I never spoke with anyone here,” Allison said. “Homeland Security must have it. I guess it’s efficient.”

  “That doesn’t bother me the way it would the ACLU,” Largo said. “What gets me is that with all those eyes and intel, a bad guy still slipped through and poisoned the system. I’m with my nephew. The technology is helpful, of course. But you’ve got to feel danger to know it’s out there.”

  SeaLions manager Gerr Brown had been informed that the visitor was going to do an onboard stakeout for Homeland Security. Just routine, he was told, more a drill for onshore personnel to keep tabs on Largo. Since that was not why Largo was here, and he wouldn’t be on duty for very long, it didn’t matter greatly if the information leaked. That was called a limited need-to-know or a flash-burn, an operation that was so quick local civilians became partial deputies in the process. The term had particular irony here. If Kealey was right and Largo failed, there wouldn’t be any people to leak anything.

  Now Largo was dressed in the powder-blue uniform they had just borrowed from Joe Cuthbert. They could have gotten one that was freshly laundered but Largo wanted something that looked worn, had a trace of body odor on it—not just under the arms but behind the knees and below the waist. People saw when things were off, of course, but they also smelled when things were not right. The impact of familiar scent-types was to put people at ease. The opposite was true with unfamiliar scents. Largo had learned that lesson in France when personal gas from eating new rations was sufficient to tip him off to the location of an entire German unit. He circled wide around them instead of walking right into them.

  An electronic tablet sat in Largo’s lap. He hadn’t been expecting to pick up a new skill set on this mission, but Joe Cuthbert had insisted he take it.

  “If you’re doing a stakeout and someone sees you, they’re going to expect you to have it,” Cuthbert had said.

  He was right, of course. So while Allison waited for a photo ID to be produced by the two-person human resources department, Largo learned how to work the device. His spy-brain immediately went into overdrive. Can I use this to call the cell phone and block the signal? Will the electronics shut down the aircraft like they warned about when I flew down here? Will the signal accidentally trigger the nuke?

  The river loomed big and alien as they neared. It was no longer scenery; it was a field of operations. It wasn’t just a surface; it was depth, it was flow, it was a multitude of boats. Largo filtered out most of it. All that mattered was the single target that was on the way.

  The seaplane was, in fact, headed here. It was a little more than an hour from touchdown. Allison had remained in contact directly with General Clarke, who told them that the pilots had signaled the tower at Reagan National of their intent to set down on their previous route, which had dropped Saudi oil executives off for meetings. While the execs were gone, the seaplane went to the maritime refueling station at Reagan, which was across the river from Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling. Even Carlson, who disputed Kealey’s analysis, agreed that the 905-acre base, which supported 17,000 military and civilian employees, would be an ideal ground zero for a theorized attack. Clarke had gone to JBAB by chopper to organize a small assault team with Joint Base Vice Commander Mary Coppersmith. It was a small unit consisting of Air Force divers armed with magnetic mines and various flotation devices, and a quartet of sharpshooters, two on each side of the river. Four sleek speedboats were idling on the river waiting to take them to the seaplane if need be. Clarke was of the opinion that only a surgical strike could take out a nuclear weapon. Admiral Breen had concurred and the President had authorized what was an uncommon plan, even in the modern world: a military defense of American soil.

  Allison dropped Largo off at the pier that serviced the customs brokers clustered along the river. He made his way to the SeaLions motorboat. As soon as he changed, Brown himself was going to meet Largo there and take him out.

  “It’s what I did when I started out here as an intern,” he said proudly.

  This seemed, to Brown, like the most exciting thing that had ever happened. As Allison said to Largo, everyone in D.C. wanted to be an insider. This was Brown’s turn on the carousel.

  Allison waited until Brown arrived on a bicycle. He chained it to the rack and Largo popped the door.

  “Good luck,” Allison said.

  He seemed surprised by her presence. He was already in mission mode.

  Largo turned and smiled. His face had previously had avuncular moments or looks of longing, of disappointment, of distress. This was the first time he seemed fully engaged.

  “Thanks,” he said.

  “You have the cell phone?”

  “I have the cell phone. And the general’s number,” Largo assured her.

  “You can wait in the car, you know.”

  “I’d rather get the feel of the field,” he said. “It’s an elusive thing but important.” He put his hand on hers. “What I was saying before, about ‘feeling’ versus ‘knowing’—When you asked me down here, which was that?”

 
; “A feeling,” she said.

  He nodded. “Don’t ever forget that, Allison.”

  He squeezed her hand and, tucking the tablet under his arm, stepped onto the landing.

  The American coast.

  For Mohammed, it was like seeing the shores of jahannam —hell itself. He felt anger boil up in his throat. He wanted to hurt these aggressors, the oppressors of his faith, the heart of Judeo-Christian arrogance. In a few minutes, he would.

  He shut his eyes and sat back and prayed silently for God to guide and assist and then welcome him. He felt the plane descending. The propellers seemed louder, the speed faster. He opened his eyes and was surprised at how near the ground was. He saw the countryside, green and hilly, packed with structures of all kinds, ribboned with roads, stuffed with vehicles—all of them running on the sweat of the backs of his people. His stomach burned and he wanted to give voice to that rage; but he sat silently, watching, waiting. He felt the wonderful fullness of his inside jacket pockets. That was where he had placed the telephones along with the passport Yousef had made for him. The heavier phone, over his heart, was the one with the explosives. That was for the device. The other was to call the number, which he remembered as well as his own name.

  Mohammed was told to put on his seatbelt. The aircraft was now moving so fast that the terrain that had seemed so dull and slow was whipping by. The plane slashed the water with such force that he would have been thrown from his seat were he not fastened to it. The hull cut deep in the water, sending spray up and out; then it rose as if the river were a springboard heaving it up. Still racing forward, the plane settled on the surface, bobbing left and right as it steadied on the pontoon under each wing. It continued to push ahead, the wide waters narrowing as it entered the river. The plane slowed swiftly, the throaty roar of the propellers increasing as the speed decreased.

  Mohammed was breathing heavily, his heart slamming against his chin. The seatbelt suddenly felt tight, and he undid it. He patted his jacket pockets again, looked at the trunk across the cabin. It sat still and proud and unmoved by the multiple jolts of the landing. The aircraft slowed quickly, but Mohammed’s nerves remained electrified. He wished he could go to the trunk now, open it, take out the container. But the pilot had said to wait until after they had passed through the quick customs check and then moved the plane over to D.C. for refueling.