by By Jon Land
“No.”
“Well, if you did, you tell it you want to get from Point A to Point B and it plots the most direct course. Warns you if you miss a turn or something like that.”
“That much I understand.”
“But computers, and that’s what these navigation systems basically are, have their own language, their own code. You plug in a street in a city, the computer immediately converts that to a specific locale expressed in global positioning satellite terms. You never necessarily see the code, but it’s there. It’s how the system makes sense of stuff.”
“So you’re telling me what we’ve got here is fifty different hard locations.”
“That’s what I’m telling you.”
“How accurate are they?”
“Very. Down to a specific address, or a city block in certain cases.”
“Fifty targets,” Fisher realized, “not just one.”
“Yeah, that was my reaction, too.”
“So to figure out where the terrorists are going to strike, all we have to do is match up the places with these designations.”
“We?”
Fisher nodded. “Get to work, kid. You’re on a roll.”
* * * *
Chapter 84
B
en and Danielle were placed in a room considerably smaller than the one in which they had interrogated Moussan. There was no glass wall, only a single smaller table, accompanied by the same bolts and slots to fasten the shackles that had been attached to their ankles and wrists. A guard remained in the room with them at all times.
“This is crazy,” Ben whispered. “Didn’t anyone check the cameras, the video? Arguayo was alive when we left him.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Danielle said, surprisingly calm. “The people behind Arguayo need us out of the way. They sacrificed him to make sure that happened.”
“This charge won’t hold up long.”
“It doesn’t have to, Ben. Just forty-eight hours. That’s all they need. We’re the only ones who can stop Prometheus. With us out of the way. . .”
Danielle let her voice trail off as the heavy steel door rattled open and Captain Anderson entered the room.
“You’re going to be returned to your plane and flown to New York,” he announced matter-of-factly.
“I’m an Israeli citizen, Captain,” Danielle said staunchly, “and Inspector Kamal is an American. We have rights.”
Anderson looked at them emotionlessly. “Not here.”
They were driven across the Tarmac to the Gulfstream in the center of an armed, three-vehicle convoy. Four of the soldiers escorted Ben and Danielle onto the plane. Then, under Anderson’s direction, they affixed manacle holds into a pair of seats and snapped Ben’s and Danielle’s wrists into place.
“Myself and three of my men will accompany you to New York, Inspectors, where you will be turned over to United Nations custody,” Anderson explained. “I suggest you make yourselves as comfortable as you can. It’s going to be a long flight.”
The gulfstream rose through the air, still climbing toward its cruising altitude when the lights of Havana flashed below. Ben and Danielle had been seated three rows apart from each other, rendering even eye contact between them impossible. Ben noticed that the soldiers who had accompanied them on board were paying far more attention to her than him. Obviously they’d been warned of her prowess and, by connection, his lack thereof. He thought this might provide some sort of opportunity for him. If they let their guard down ... if they began to ignore him totally . . .
What would I do? What could I do?
Danielle was familiar with these kinds of situations, not him. Their lives might not be in any real danger, but what prominent official at the United Nations in New York could they possibly get to listen to them under the circumstances? By the time they landed, the plot Alexis Arguayo had called Prometheus would be barely thirty-six hours from activation.
Ben gazed out the window, studying the lights of Havana which were dwindling as the Gulfstream climbed from the city. He had the odd sensation that one of those lights was actually rising toward the jet, an illusion, he thought, until something slammed into the Gulfstream’s fuselage just behind the left wing, causing a violent shudder.
An alarm began to scream. The jet shook and then pitched downward, nose first. The three marines, who had not been seated, went flying in all directions, slamming into walls and bulkheads. Anderson, who was seated, had left his seat belt unbuckled and was thrown against the cabin wall. He bounced off and somehow landed back in his chair, bloodied but alive.
Smoke filled the cabin and Ben could feel the heat of nearby flames as he thrashed against his manacled wrists.
“Danielle!” he called out, as the Gulfstream continued its deadly descent.
The whine of the free fall grew to an ear-wrenching din, and then an oxygen mask dropped down from the console over his head. Instinctively, Ben tried to reach for it before remembering that his hands were shackled onto the hand rests. His teeth ached from the impact of gravity. He could feel his eyes bulging.
Outside the window, the lights of Havana began to burn bigger and brighter.
“Danielle!” Ben called again.
“I’m here,” she said over the deafening roar that was shaking the cabin apart. “Almost got myself . . . free.”
Suddenly the plane seemed to level off slightly, righting itself. In that moment, Ben believed there was a chance they were going to make it.
Until the ground came up fast and tore the consciousness from him.
* * * *
Chapter 85
B
en, can you hear me? Ben, you’ve got to wake up. Come on, wake up!”
Ben forced his eyes open to find Danielle kneeling over him.
“Thank God,” Danielle muttered.
He turned enough to see the smoking wreckage of the plane twenty yards away. “The soldiers,” he managed.
“Two died, along with the copilot. The other marine, Captain Anderson, and the pilot, I managed to tie them up.” She heard sirens, stiffening as she gazed about. “We’ve got to get moving before the rescue crews arrive.”
Ben propped himself up on his elbows, wincing in pain. One of his shoulders was stiff and felt swollen. The shirtsleeve on that side was torn, and one of his pant legs had balled up toward the knee, revealing a nasty gash down the side of his ankle. “Maybe, if we—”
“Listen to me, Ben,” Danielle interrupted. Her face was scraped and bloodied and there was a welt across her forehead. But otherwise she had emerged from the crash unscathed. “The jet was hit by some sort of missile, maybe a Stinger. They tried to kill us and they’ll try again as soon as they realize they failed. We’ve got to move.”
“Where?” Ben managed, trying to wet his lips with his tongue.
A plane banked into a descent, heading for Havana Airport.
“There,” Danielle told him.
Using the keys she had found in Captain Anderson’s pocket, she had managed to remove their shackles. Ben imagined her executing that feat in a smoke-filled plane on the verge of exploding. The thought made him realize his lungs still burned and his chest ached every time he took a breath. So he tried to breathe slowly, as they looped around to the front of the airport.
“We have no passports,” Ben reminded Danielle. “No visas. Not even any wallets,” he added, recalling that Anderson had confiscated those as well.
“We’ll think of something once we’re inside. A charter flight maybe. Something where we can blend in, lose ourselves.”
More sirens screamed in the background, flashing lights now illuminating the crash area they had fled. They clung to the perimeter of the barbed wire-topped fence that enclosed the airport’s entire expanse. The front of the airport, even at night, was an ugly appendage of chipped, fading concrete fronted by a series of parking garages made of the same crumbling façade. But there were people about here, anyway, eager and willing travelers filling the airport wit
h luggage and dreams in advance of their destination.
Peering through the entry doors they bypassed, Ben and Danielle could see short lines frozen in motion at all open ticket counters. Cuban troops wearing green uniforms with submachine guns slung from their shoulders patrolled the airport’s interior, posted every twenty-five feet or so it seemed. More soldiers than potential passengers.
Ben and Danielle were moving toward one of the entrances when an ancient Lincoln limousine, dating back to the fifties, passed them and halted fifty feet ahead among the tiny Fiats and Ladas. Ben watched the driver lunge out and throw open the rear door. A pair of men wearing sunglasses even though it was night emerged first, followed by a third man wearing a taupe-colored Italian suit. The man gazed about, as if to reassure himself no threats were present; his eyes passed briefly over Ben.
“I know that man,” Ben realized. “I know him.”
Ben began to jog ahead.
“Ben!” Danielle called, too late for him to stop.
He drew closer to the man wearing the Italian suit, as the man’s bodyguards lifted suitcases from the limousine’s trunk. Ben only stopped when he reached the curb alongside the limousine and saw the bodyguards had whipped out their guns and steadied them straight on him.
Ben raised his hands into the air, still eyeing the man in the Italian suit. “Do you remember me, Señor Salgado?”
It was only a week ago, a lifetime it seemed, that Ben had rescued Salgado’s son from terrorists who had seized an elementary school in a Colombian village. He remembered the incredible look of unspoken gratitude on the man’s face in the moment before Salgado lifted a single hand to salute Ben’s success.
Now Salgado studied him again, looking past his bruises and shredded clothes. His eyes widened and surprise dawned over his features. Then he nodded slightly in recognition.
“You,” he said, as if not believing his eyes. “You saved my son’s life.”
“I need your help, Señor Salgado. I need it badly.”
“Anything,” Pablo Salgado told him, not hesitating for even a moment.
Ben took Danielle’s hand as she moved to his side. “This is Inspector Danielle Barnea, also with the U.N.’s Safety and Security Service. We need to get out of Cuba.”
Salgado smiled broadly. “Then you’ve come to the right place.”
* * * *
Chapter 86
I
’m heading for my private jet now.”
“We don’t have any papers, passports, money . . .”
“The two of you will accompany me to the diplomatic terminal as my guests. I assure you that you won’t be questioned or detained.”
“This airport doesn’t have a diplomatic terminal,” Danielle remarked.
Salgado winked at her. “My point exactly.”
On board Pablo Salgado’s private jet, at least twice the size of the lost United Nations Gulfstream, Ben and Danielle were both able to shower and then have their pick of clothes from a pair of closets, one women’s and one men’s. When they emerged, the drug lord was sitting in a leather chair before a wide-screen television.
“Satellite TV at thirty thousand feet,” he told them, holding out the sophisticated remote. “Two hundred channels at five hundred miles per hour. It’s a wonderful world we live in.”
“Not everywhere,” Ben said.
“So long as you are my guests, we’ll see if we can change that.” Salgado turned his eyes to Danielle, letting his eyes linger. “I must say you’re looking much better, Inspector.”
“Thanks for the ride, Señor Salgado.”
“Pablo, please. We are friends now, yes? In my country the opportunity to repay a favor is the greatest currency of all. It is my pleasure to assist you.”
“We need to get back to the United States,” Ben told him.
“I’d fly you there now but we have filed no flight plan and Americans are very restrictive about their airspace these days. I can get you there first thing tomorrow morning. Will that do?”
“Just fine,” Ben said. “How’s your son?”
“Very well, thanks to you. Attending a different school now.” Salgado aimed the remote control at the wide-screen television and clicked it off. “Sources forwarded me your file after the regrettable incident that brought us together. I’m sorry for the loss of your family, señor.”
“It was a long time ago.”
“I’ve lost my share of loved ones to violence. I understand that the grief never goes away. That’s why I am so thankful for your rescue of my son. I pledged to myself that things would be different for him, that I would keep him insulated from my chosen life.”
“But you couldn’t.”
“No more than you could protect your family a decade ago, Inspector. We are both prisoners of the kind of men we are, for better or worse.” Salgado turned his attention back to Danielle. “I imagine you have a similar story to tell, señorita.”
“Very much so.”
“You look at me and you don’t judge. That is good, heartening.”
“What a man does doesn’t define what he is.”
“Well said, señorita. I would like to think that applies very much to my case. For me, it is a matter of survival. Something else I’m sure the two of you can relate to.” He rose from his chair, still looking at Danielle. “A nice fit. The clothes I mean, on both of you. Now besides clothes and passage to the United States, what can I offer you?”
“Secure communications,” Danielle told him. “We’ll need to make some calls as soon as we land.”
“You can make them from up here if you wish. Perhaps save yourselves some time. I have already alerted my medical personnel. They will be waiting at my home to give you both a full examination.”
“We’re fine,” Ben assured him.
“Then the spa and massage therapist might be more to your liking. Since you are only going to be in Colombia for one night, you might as well make the most of it.”
“Thank you,” Danielle said.
“This is my pleasure, señorita. There is no reason to thank me.”
“I meant for not asking any questions.”
“Why bother when the answers are irrelevant? It is a gift from God to be able to repay a debt. I am grateful just for the opportunity.” Salgado pressed his hands together before him. “Now what else do you need?”
“An army might be nice,” Ben frowned.
Salgado flashed his already familiar smile. “I think we can arrange even that.”
* * * *
* * * *
Chapter 87
S
o what happens now?” Jake Fleming asked Delbert Fisher, looking up from his chocolate-frosted doughnut.
“We get you back home as soon as possible.”
“How long have I been here?”
“Going on a week.”
“A week without smoking ganja. You know the last time I went that long?”
“No.”
“Neither do I. Eighth grade, maybe.”
“Anyone ever tell you it was illegal?”
“So arrest me.”
“Tell me again about those fifty target sites and I’ll let it go.”
Jake went back to his doughnut. “I did a reverse search on Mapquest.com. Their software wasn’t up to it at first but I’m good at tinkering. Man, this is fucked up. The Statue of Liberty, the Hoover Dam, an oil refinery in Alaska, Los Angeles International Airport—targets like those make sense. But what’s with those schools, nightclubs, restaurants? First, I figured I must have the designations wrong.”
“They want to shut the country down, Jake. Scare everyone to death,” Fisher said, seeing no reason to hold back. “Every part of the country.”
“Fucking blows your mind, doesn’t it? Makes you want to smoke up big time.”
“You’ve earned it.”
“You drop me off, we could smoke a bowl together.”
Fisher shook his head. “Maybe some other time.”
“Hey, you take care of my grades like you promised?”
“Straight As. Won’t be official until the end of the semester.”
