Rendition Protocol

by Nathan Goodman

  70

  To Pursue a Madman

  Jana wove the dirt bike back and forth through the jungle, stopping every few minutes to listen. In the distance she could hear another motorcycle. She pursued but knew that since she did not have a gun, she would have to keep her distance.

  As she approached the winding, paved road, Jana glanced at a trail of mud the other bike had left in its wake and she followed it. She looked back toward the estate. A massive plume of smoke rose hundreds of feet into the air—the compound had been destroyed.

  As she crested a hillside, she saw the bike and telltale outline of Diego Rojas cruising ahead. He had slowed in an apparent attempt to blend in.

  She pursued, but the farther he went, the more shocked Jana became. With each turn his intended destination became clearer.

  “How would he know where our safe house was?” She thought further. “But if he knows where the safe house is, that means . . .” her thoughts played forward, “the equipment, the NSA computer, all that classified information. He’s going to try and find out what intelligence we’ve gathered against him.

  She throttled the bike into full acceleration.

  71

  Memories Long Forgotten

  Jana slowed the bike on the approach to the safe house and pulled off early. She did not want to alert Rojas. Once on foot, she made a quiet approach to the edge of the property.

  Jana heard yelling from inside. “Tell me!” Rojas screamed. “What does the United States know about my operation?”

  The questions were met with unintelligible answers but the voice was unmistakable. It was Pete Buck. Then, a single gunshot rang out.

  Jana darted through the thick vegetation along the left side of the yard, then moved down that side of the house. She hugged the wall and crouched low until she came to the first window. She pulled out her phone and opened the camera, then raised it just above the level of the window sill and watched the screen. She panned the camera left, then right until she spotted Buck. He was on the floor, clutching his leg. Jana could not see Rojas—her view was obstructed by a wall. But the sight of blood was all it took.

  She stayed low and moved toward the back of the house. When she came to her bedroom window, she flung it open and climbed in. She rolled onto the hardwood floor with a thud.

  ***

  The sound of her body crashing to the ground caused Rojas to duck. Momentarily startled, he regained his composure. “That fucking bitch,” he said. He took one glance at Buck, raised the handgun into the air, and pistol-whipped him across the face. Buck’s unconscious body splayed across the floor and blood pulsed from his leg without impunity.

  ***

  Jana lunged toward the chest of drawers on the far wall. She ripped at the Velcro and withdrew the Glock from its hiding place.

  Rojas burst into the room. It took him no longer than a millisecond to snap-fire his weapon at her. The bullet grazed the length her right forearm, tearing a gash across the flesh.

  Everything again went into slow motion and a voice reverberated in Jana’s mind. It was the voice of her shooting instructor from Quantico. Double-tab, center mass, then one to the head. Without thinking, she sidestepped and fired. The round struck Rojas in the right shoulder.

  Just before Jana fired again, she saw Rojas’s arm go limp as the gun fell from his hand. It bounced across the hardwood floor and landed at her feet. She kicked it underneath the bed and Rojas fell on his knees.

  With her finger still on the trigger, Jana took two strides toward Rojas and placed the muzzle against his temple. With it, she pushed his head into the door jam. Her jaw clenched, her eyes flared, her breathing accelerated, and her focus sharpened. Had anyone else been present, they would have described her face as that of a beast. She applied tension to the trigger.

  “No, no, wait,” Rojas said as pain wracked his face. “You need me. Think about it. You need me.”

  Jana’s right hand began to shake but in the heat of the moment, she could not tell whether it was from an impending PTSD episode or the unadulterated rage coursing through her system. She jammed the muzzle harder and spoke through gritted teeth, “You tortured those women, didn’t you? After you finished raping them?”

  Rojas began to laugh maniacally. “I taught them their place, that’s for sure,” he said as his body rocked into the laughter.

  “I need you? What I need is to see your brain matter sprayed all over the floor. Say goodnight, you prick.”

  He crushed his eyes closed, bracing for the gunshot, when a soft voice called out. “Jana? Sweet Pea?”

  Jana instinctively jerked the gun toward the voice and lined up on the silhouette of a man standing in the front door. She nearly pulled the trigger, but realized she recognized the form. Her mouth dropped open—it was Ames. She turned the muzzle back to Rojas’s skull.

  “Jana? It’s me. It’s your dad.”

  “But . . .” she said, “You were at the estate when that bomb hit.”

  “Please, baby, don’t do this thing. He’s unarmed.” His voice felt like a cold glass of milk on a hot summer day. Memories exploded into her mind—her as a two-year-old, first standing on the couch, laughing as her father threw snowballs against the outside of the window, then inside her fort, her special hiding place on her grandfather’s farm.

  But those images were replaced by the fury boiling inside. “He’s a monster,” she said as she glared at the top of Rojas’s skull. “Tortures people for information they do not have, rapes and murders women because he thinks it’s fun.”

  “I know, Sweet Pea. But—”

  “He enjoys power over women. He enjoys tying them up, making them beg for their lives, dominating them,” Jana said as the shaking in her right hand intensified.

  Though Rojas’s eyes were still shut, he said. “Fucking little whores learned their lesson, didn’t they?” He laughed until Jana jammed the gun into his head so hard that he winced.

  “Learned their lesson?” Jana growled. “Well let’s see if you can learn this lesson.”

  She straightened her arm into a shooting position and began to pull the trigger in earnest when her father said, “Bug? Buggie?”

  Jana stopped and her head turned. “What did you say?”

  “Bug,” her father replied. “That’s what I used to call you.”

  Jana searched her memory for something that would not come. It was a frantic effort to understand why hearing a simple name had tightened her throat.

  Her father continued. “When you were little, I always called you Jana-Bug. Don’t you remember?”

  Jana swallowed. “I was only two years old when they told me you were dead.” There was venom in her words. “They were just trying to protect me from the fact that you went to prison!”

  He walked toward her. “You used to love it when I would read The Very Hungry Caterpillar to you. It was your favorite story. You pronounced it calli-pider. Then we would read that other one. What was it? It was the one about the zookeeper.”

  Memories gushed forth. They flickered in bits and pieces—sitting in her father’s lap, the smell of his aftershave, the sound of coins jingling in his pocket, him tickling her before bedtime, and then there was something else, something she couldn’t quite place.

  “You pronounced it zip-eee-kur. Do you remember me from back then?” he whispered as he held his tightening voice in check. “You used to call me Pop-Pop.”

  “Pop-Pop?” she whispered as she placed her free hand over her mouth. “That was you reading to me?” A tear eased onto her cheekbone as her inner turmoil boiled over. She turned to Rojas and her grip tightened on the Glock once again.

  “Look at me, Bug.”

  Jana gripped the gun so tight she felt as though she might crush it.

  Her father said, “Don’t do this thing. Don’t do it, baby.”

  “He—deserves—it,” she managed to choke across clenched teeth and tears.

  “I know he does, but this is something you can’t undo.
This is something you can’t take back. And this is not you.”

  “I could have been one of those women,” she said. “I could have wound up in his torture chamber. He’s a monster.”

  Rojas laughed. “And we can’t have monsters wandering the quiet countryside, now can we, Agent Baker?”

  “Don’t listen to him, Bug,” Ames said. He waited a moment then added, “This isn’t something they taught you at Quantico.”

  Jana’s mind raced as images from her FBI training on the Marine Corps base at Quantico, Virginia, flashed before her eyes—running the obstacle course and its daunting final hill, the widowmaker; tackling a man playing the role of a bank-robbery suspect in Hogan’s Alley, a simulated town designed for training; driving at high speed around the Tactical and Emergency Vehicle Operations Center as simulated bullets slammed into the driver’s window, numerous flickers of classrooms, then back at the dormitories.

  Jana’s vision blurred and she shook her head. “Do you know what I see when I look at this piece of shit?” she said. “I see death. I see terror. I wake up at night and I’m screaming and all I can see is—”

  “Don’t you see what you’re doing, Bug? When you look at Rojas, you’re not really seeing him. You’re seeing Rafael, aren’t you?”

  Her head snapped at her father. “How do you know that name?”

  “Cade told me. He told me the ordeal you’d been through, that Rafael had knocked you out with gas, then kidnapped you and took you to that remote cabin.”

  Visions of herself in the terrifying scene in the cabin exploded in her vision—stripped down to her undergarments, her arms and feet lashed to the chair, Rafael laughing as the then-most-wanted terrorist in the world, Waseem Jarrah, pressed a blade to her throat. “Oh, yeah?” Jana said. “Did he tell you what Rafael planned to do to me? Rape me, then cut my skin off while I was still alive? Did he tell you that?” she yelled.

  “Bug, listen to me. No one knows the terrors you’ve been through. I don’t blame you for shooting Rafael that day.” He took a step closer. “But don’t do this thing. Rojas may be the same kind of monster, but if you shoot him now, it will be murder. And you can’t come back from that. The more things you do that aren’t really you, the farther you drift from who you really are. Believe me, I know. That’s exactly what happened to me. This will be something you’ll regret for the rest of your life.”

  “I have to,” she said. Yet the conflict within her flared again. Her mind flashed back to the FBIAcademy graduation ceremony. She was on stage receiving the prestigious Director’s Leadership Award from Director Stephen Latent, an honor bestowed on a single trainee per graduating class. She then returned to receive top honors in all three disciplines: academics, physical fitness, and firearms. She had clearly been the best trainee to complete the new agent training program in years.

  “You and me, Bug,” her dad said, “we’re the same. Can’t you see it?”

  “I’ve thought about it over and over. Ever since I found out you had committed treason. And I think back to shooting Rafael. I see how similar I am to you, a criminal! It’s in the DNA, isn’t it? When I joined the FBI, I didn’t think it was, but I was wrong.”

  “No, that’s where you are wrong,” he pleaded. “Look at me. It’s not in the DNA.”

  “What would you know about it?”

  “It’s not like father, like daughter. It doesn’t work like that. Listen to me and listen closely. You are not the sum total of your biological parts.”

  “Oh really?” Jana yelled. “How does it work then?”

  “You and I lost track of who we really are. The difference is, I’ve spent the last twenty-eight years trying to fight my way back, and you’re doing everything you can to run further from yourself. You murdered Rafael and you’ve been running from it ever since.” He paused a moment and his voice trembled. “I was in prison. But for you it’s different. You’re in a different kind of prison.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “You carry your prison with you.”

  “Got it all figured out, do you?”

  Ames went on unabated. “Your grandpa used to write me letters. He told me that the two of you would be on the farm and would hear the train whistle in the distance? There was that junction about a mile away and he said if you listened close enough, you could eventually tell if the train had taken the left fork or the right. He said you two used to make a bet as to which one it would take.”

  Jana’s mind drifted back. She could almost smell the salted ham. Her voice washed quiet, and she spoke the way a person might speak at a funeral. “The loser had to wash the dishes,” she said.

  “That’s us, Jana. That’s you and me. We’re on the same train, at different times in our lives. But if you do this thing now, you’ll be taking the wrong fork and you can’t get off.”

  “I’m doing what I know is right,” she said as she fought back tears.

  “There isn’t anything right about doing something you’ll regret for the rest of your life. Come on, baby. Put the gun down. Come back to the girl you knew growing up. Come back home.”

  She looked at the floor and began to sob, but a moment later raised again, readying to fire. “Oh, God!” she blubbered.

  Her father broke in once again. “Do you remember the fort?”

  Jana exhaled in a long shaky motion. How could he know about that? she thought. “The fort?”

  “On Grandpa’s farm. It was a cold fall morning. You and I were awake before anybody else. You were so little, but you used the word adventure. It was such a big word for someone so small. You wanted to go on an adventure.”

  The shaking in Jana’s hand intensified as tears streamed down her face.

  Ames started again. “I got you all bundled up, and we went outside and into the woods. We found this big stone,” he said as his hands formed the shape of the large granite outcropping, “and we put a bunch of logs across the top, then pulled a big thicket of vines in front to make a door.” He paused. “Don’t you remember?”

  It all flashed back, images of the logs, the feel of cold granite, rays of sun penetrating the canopy, then her and her father inside the newly constructed little hideout. “I remember,” she whispered. “I remember it all. That’s the last time I remember being happy.”

  For the first time, she realized it was her father that had built the fort with her in the first place. Her father was Pop-Pop. Her father was the one that had read books to her. Her father made pancakes for her. Her father had played with her. Her father loved her.

  “Buggie, if you kill this man right now, you’ll always regret it. Just like you regret killing Rafael.”

  She looked at him.

  “I know you regret it,” he said. “It sent you into a downward spiral. The same kind of downward spiral I was on. But for me, once I got started, things got out of control and I lost track of who I was. There were people that died because of the classified information I sold. And in the end, I went to prison. It doesn’t have to be that way for you. And you know something? Prison wasn’t the worst part. The worst part was that I’d lost you. You lost a father, and your mom was eventually murdered because of what I’d done.”

  “I’ve hated you my whole life,” she said looking at him.

  “And I deserved that. But this,” he said as he motioned to Rojas, “this is your time. This is your choice.” He walked to her and took the gun gently from her hand. “I’ve been waiting, Bug.”

  “Waiting for what?” she replied as her lower lip quivered.

  His voice tightened and he pulled her into a hug. “Waiting for this.”

  72

  A Knock at the Door

  Rojas tried to stand but Ames thumped him on the head with the pistol. “I have him,” he said as he pushed Rojas to the floor. “Go help Buck. Put pressure on that leg.”

  Jana rolled Buck over and leaned a stiff hand against the artery in his upper thigh.

  Ames gripped the pistol.


  Rojas said, “There is nowhere my organization cannot reach.” It was an unveiled threat.

  “Oh no?” Ames crashed his knee into the center of Rojas’s back. He then removed his belt and secured Rojas’s hands.

  Jana heard something outside and turned to look. She found a heavily armed man in the doorway. He was dressed in black fatigues and held his weapon forward.

  “DEA,” his steely voice called out. “Team two,” he said, “clear the building.” DEA agents poured in. A few disappeared into the back rooms while another cuffed Diego Rojas. “Are you Agent Baker?” the commander said.

  “I’m Jana Baker,” she replied.

  “Ma’am? You look like you need medical. Johnson? Martinez?” he yelled. “We’ve got two wounded here that need attention.” He knelt next to Buck. “And this one needs an evac.”

  Jana released her hold on Buck as one of the medic-trained agents took over. Just outside, she heard one of them call for a medivac helicopter. Her eyes took on a distant quality. “I don’t understand. Where did you guys come from?”

  “Point Udall, ma’am.”

  “But how—”

  “It was him,” the commander said as he nodded to a man standing just outside the doorway.

  Jana looked up. He was a short, round man with a massive beard. “Uncle Bill?” she said. She stood and hugged him. “What are you doing here? How did you know?”

  His voice was grandfatherly. “It was Knuckles,” he said as he pointed outside. The teenager stood in the stark sunlight, a flak jacket dwarfing his pencil-thin torso. “We couldn’t raise you on the comms, but that didn’t stop us from eavesdropping. We intercepted a lot of phone calls. Hacked every surveillance camera and computer on the island. We intercepted a lot of things, in fact. When I put two and two together, I finally knew what I think he knew.” Bill looked at Pete Buck. “That a CIA air strike was inbound, and you’d be going after Kyle.”