Jana gripped his arm, “Kyle, Stone! Where are they?”
He steadied her. “Fine, they’re fine. One of the Blackhawks is with them. Stone’s wounds are being tended to. Kyle looks to be in bad shape, but they’ll get him into a hospital, then a rehab program. It will take a long time to break that drug addiction, but he’ll be okay.”
The medic-trained agent inserted an IV into Buck’s arm and looked up. “He’s lost a lot of blood. Chopper is inbound. Looks to have a concussion as well.”
“Is he going to be okay?”
“We’ll fix him up, ma’am.”
“And the woman?”
Bill smiled. “Thanks to you.”
“Bill?” Jana said. “Were we right? Al Qaeda is laundering money through the cartels?” She squinted at a tiny dot on the horizon—an approaching aircraft.
Bill said, “Since we shut down so many terrorist banking connections, it’s no wonder they’ve turned elsewhere to move their money.”
“But how do you know Al Qaeda isn’t just getting into the drug business?”
Uncle Bill shook his head. “I have a feeling he’s going to tell us,” he said as he pointed to Pete Buck. “Anyway, somehow these terrorist scumbags find it perfectly okay to decapitate someone, or set off a bomb that kills innocent children, but to them, drugs are against the will of Allah. This has been a money-laundering operation from the outset.”
The sound of a helicopter approaching turned both Bill’s and Jana’s attention.
Bill said, “Sikorsky SH-60 Seahawk, here for Buck.”
The US Navy twin-turboshaft hovered just above the road near the house. A rescue hoist leaned over the edge. The T700 engines roared and dust flew in all directions. The aluminum-framed stretcher was lowered to the ground.
Two DEA agents detached the stretcher and ran it inside where they loaded Buck. Jana and Bill stood aside and watched as he was then hoisted aboard. The helicopter banked away and headed to sea.
“Where will they take him?” Jana said.
“The George H. W. Bush. Got a great hospital aboard.”
“There’s an aircraft carrier out there?”
Bill nodded. “That’s where the CIA air strike originated. The president wasn’t too happy when he found out. But,” Bill shuffled his feet, “if truth be told, he wasn’t all that upset either.”
“Bill,” Jana started, “they sent Kyle in there. They were going to leave him.”
“It’s called a throwaway, Jana. When a mission is deemed as having a high strategic value, certain sacrifices are made.”
“Certain sacrifices? Kyle’s a human being. And the president is okay with that?”
“Yes, he is. I hate to say it, but we’re all expendable, kid. Nonetheless, when he found out it wasn’t just some faceless CIA operative, and that you were involved, it kind of pissed him off.”
“Me? The president knows who I am?”
“Same old Jana. You’ve got a particular penchant for underestimating your worth.”
Jana smiled, then hugged him. She plucked a tiny orange crumb out of his beard. “Same old Bill. I thought Mrs. Uncle Bill wouldn’t let you eat orange crackers anymore.”
“Don’t tell her, okay?”
Jana laughed. “Think we can catch a ride out to the carrier? I have a feeling Buck can fill in some blanks for us.”
73
Here It Comes
Carrier George H. W. Bush, seventy-seven nautical miles north-northwest of Antigua.
When Jana and Uncle Bill walked into the surgical recovery room, Pete Buck nodded at them. As they drew chairs around his hospital bed, he started speaking. His throat was dry and raspy. “I know how this all started. You’ve got to understand the background. Otherwise, you’re not going to believe a word I say.”
“This should be fun,” Bill said.
“It’s beginning to look like the days of Pablo Escobar down there again, right?”
“You mean in Colombia?” Jana asked. “And you don’t have to whisper, Buck. I kind of doubt the place is bugged.”
“Very funny. They had a tube down my throat,” he said. Buck shifted his position. “It started last year when a suicide bomber walked into a closed session of congress in the Capitolio Nacional building in central Bogotá. He had two pounds of C4 strapped to his chest. He detonated. It wasn’t front-page news in the Western world because the meeting only consisted of four members of the Colombian government. Three senators and one other person. I guess the body count wasn’t high enough for it to end up on WBS News.”
Uncle Bill said, “I remember that. But refresh my memory. Who were these four Colombians and what were they planning to do?”
“You get right to the point, don’t you?” Buck said as he grinned at Bill. “They were meeting to discuss the renewed drug trade. The Los Rastrojos cartel stood to benefit most from the death of one of those officials in particular.”
“Now I remember. Juan Guillermo,” Bill said. “Chief of the new drug police.”
“That’s right,” Buck replied. “The assassination sent a message. With the support of the senators, Guillermo had cracked down on the new cartels. Broke up their truck transport system. Apparently, Los Rastrojos got a little pissed off about it.”
Jana said, “Since when does CIA covertly track drug runners?”
Buck said, “When it’s not just money laundering.”
“Here it comes,” Bill said.
Buck said, “The money was to flow to a new terror cell.”
Jana thought about the implications. “A new terror cell? Where?”
The look on Buck’s face spoke volumes and Jana knew, the new cell was forming in the US. “But what was the connection?” She paused a moment. “Let me guess, the suicide bomber in Bogotá was of Middle Eastern descent?”
Buck said nothing.
“With ties to known terror organizations?” Jana shook her head.
“You have a gift for this line of work, Jana. It’s something you were born to do,” Buck said.
“If I have to remind you one more time that I’m not going back to the Bureau, you’ll end up with a fat lip. So you did a thorough background on the jihadist. Which terror organization was he tied to?”
“Al Qaeda.”
“So CIA found out the suicide bomber was linked to Al Qaeda, and now the full-court press on the drug cartels.”
“Yes, we’ve got to stop the flow of funding.”
Jana stood and leaned on the chair. “There’s one thing that doesn’t add up.”
“Just one thing?” Uncle Bill joked.
“Why would the cartels need the services of Al Qaeda? Why couldn’t they just do the assassination themselves?”
“A gift, Jana,” Buck said. “You’ve just forgotten who you really are.” She moved on him as if to strike, but he knew it was a bluff. “That’s just it,” he said. “Los Rastrojos had tried and failed. When the cartel was unable to carry out the assassination themselves, they turned to Al Qaeda, who had already initiated an interest in partnership. Apparently, the key was to get all the players into a room at the same time. Before the suicide bomber walked in, these Colombian lawmakers believed they were going to greet a member of the Saudi consulate, for diplomatic purposes. It turns out he was a jihadist with explosives strapped underneath his business suit. It was the first time they had all agreed to be in the same place at the same time.”
“Alright, fine,” she said. “What about the other side of it? Was Al Qaeda’s partnership interest simply them looking for a new source of funding?”
“Not so much that as a new way to launder their existing funds. Interpol had recently locked down several of their financial pipelines, so the terrorists had been scrambling for a new way to launder and move cash.”
Jana said, “So Al Qaeda was looking for a financial partner, someone to launder money, and in return, offered assistance to assassinate the police chief and politicians. How very convenient. One of the organizations can move money,
and the other can supply an endless stream of suicide jihadists who will do anything that is asked of them.”
“And that’s where we come in. For CIA, it’s about the money trail. A good bit of this funding would flow right back to the terror cells. Particularly the sleeper cell Al Qaeda is planting inside the United States. God knows what havoc they could wreak on American soil.”
Jana scowled. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“We need you, Jana,” Buck said.
“I’m never going back, so drop it. But getting back to the point, you’re telling me CIA’s response to the new terror cell is to obliterate the estate of Diego Rojas? Kill them all? Is that it?” When Buck didn’t respond, she continued. “And what about Kyle? You were going to kill him too?”
“Not me, Jana,” Buck said. “Kyle was going to be taken off the island.”
She blurted, “What do you mean?”
“Kyle was icing on the cake. The cartel was going to make a money laundering deal with Al Qaeda, and Al Qaeda was going to get Kyle. He’d either be tortured for information or used as a bargaining chip. Or both.”
“Are we too late?” Jana asked. “Has funding already made its way to the new terror cell building in the US?”
Uncle Bill glanced at her hand and said, “Don’t you worry about that right now.”
Jana glared at Buck as he sat up. “Yes and no. There was a trial run that apparently executed last month. We just found out about it. Sort of a test before moving forward with a full partnership.”
“How much money slipped through?” Bill said.
“About two million dollars. That’s paltry compared to what was about to happen, before we stopped it, that is.” Buck looked over his shoulder. “You should go now.” He shook their hands. “This conversation never happened.”
74
Admission
Safe house.
“You’ve always been like a grandfather to me, Bill,” Jana said as they walked back inside. “And I know you still think of me as that kid, that green rookie agent. But I’m not a little girl anymore. You don’t have to protect me.”
Bill followed her movements.
“Two million dollars is a lot of money,” she added.
Bill’s voice was choppy. “Yes, it is. To a small terror cell, it’s a lifeline.”
“Tell me the truth. Karim Zahir wasn’t killed in the blast, was he?”
“DEA is combing the debris at the Rojas estate, looking for him.”
She rubbed her temples. “I can’t handle tracking down another terrorist.”
Bill looked at her from out of the corner of his eye. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”
“Bill,” Jana said as she gazed out into the bay. “All of this is over now. My life here, I mean.”
“You look . . . different.”
“I feel lost. Where do I go? What do I do?”
“Do you remember what I told you the last time you asked me that?”
“You said, I go on.”
He nodded.
“I don’t think I know how.”
“Sure you do.”
A tear formed in Jana’s eye and held. “I’ve lost track of who I am.”
“Yes,” Uncle Bill whispered. “But there’s something in the way, blocking you from getting back. Am I right?”
“You do remind me of my grandfather.”
“And what would he tell you right now?”
Jana thought back to her childhood. The farm, the wide porch, all the times her grandfather had given her advice. “I have to admit to myself I was wrong about shooting Rafael, don’t I?”
“Were you wrong?”
Jana’s gut swirled. It was as if she somehow knew her answer would determine the future course of everything she stood for.
She caught glimpse of Ames. He was down by the water’s edge. Her lower lip quivered and her scar began to sting, but she was unabated. Her voice came out in a whisper. “I killed him, Bill. I killed Rafael in cold blood.” She crushed a hand over her mouth. Uncle Bill put his arms around her. “I knew he was helpless. I knew what I was doing.” She sobbed quietly as the emotional tumult spilled forth. Through the blur in her vision, she looked at Ames. “I even knew that my actions would be excused under the law, after the horror I’d been through. I knew what I was doing.”
“Shhh,” Uncle Bill said. He held her. “I’ve known you a long time. What happened in the past stays in the past.” He turned and looked at Ames. “But sometimes we have to face the past to move forward. Telling me what you just told me? That’s the bravest thing you’ve ever done. And it stays with me. I’ll never speak of this to anyone.”
Jana stood taller. The stinging in her scar abated and she took a breath. “And then there’s him,” she said. “My own father.”
“Yes,” Uncle Bill replied. He waited a moment. “He went through a lot of trouble to find you.”
“I know he did. And he risked his life for me. I still don’t understand how he didn’t die in that explosion.”
“I asked him about that. It was because of you. Once he knew you were clear, he headed into the woods after you. Apparently there were a few more motorcycles in that tunnel. He took out a few of Rojas’s people who were coming after you.”
“I know what you’re going to say, Bill.”
He grinned, though underneath his massive beard, it was hard to tell.
Jana said, “You’re going to tell me to not do something I’m going to regret for the rest of my life. You’re going to tell me I need to give my father a chance.”
“Did I say anything?” he smirked.
She rubbed her scars. “You know, these have always bothered me. Every time I would look in the mirror, I’d see them and they would remind me. It’s been like having a horrifying past I couldn’t escape from. I kept wanting to go to a plastic surgeon to have them removed.”
“And now?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “Maybe the idea of removing them was just my way of running away.”
“You’ve been carrying that baggage for a long time,” Uncle Bill said.
The edges of a smile emerged on her face. “These scars are a part of me. Maybe now they’ll remind me of something else.”
“And what’s that?” Bill said as he grinned.
“They’ll remind me of me.”
75
A Future of Certainty
FBI Headquarters, J. Edgar Hoover Building, Washington, DC. Six weeks later.
Jana got out of the Uber car and stared up at the building. Somehow, it looked smaller than she’d remembered. The morning sun had crested and there was a bright reflection on the glass. Traffic was heavy and, in the crisp air, people moved with purpose on the sidewalk, some entering the building.
She smoothed the jacket of her new business suit and felt a little flutter in her stomach. Her fingers made their way just inside the top button of her white button-down until they found the trio of scars. She swallowed.
But then she heard a voice behind her—a voice from her past. “Are you sure you want to do this?” the voice said.
She turned. Without saying a word, she put her arms around him. “Hello, Chuck.” It was Agent Chuck Stone, the father of John Stone, and the man that had started her on this path several years prior. Their embrace only lasted a moment. She smiled. “I can’t believe you’re here.”
“I couldn’t not be here. I got you into this.”
“I may have been just an intern when you recruited me, but I made my own decision.”
“I know you did.”
Jana grinned. “You look old.”
Chuck smiled. “Thanks a lot. But being retired from the Bureau has been good to me.”
“How’s Stone doing? I mean, how’s John doing?”
“He’s great. Healed up nicely from his injuries on Antigua. I can’t believe you and my son met each other, much less were dating.”
“He turned three sheets of white when I fin
ally figured out he was your son.”
Chuck’s face stiffened. “That’s your father over there, isn’t it?”
“Yes. He shows up everywhere. He’s really trying. He just wants to let me know he’s close by, if I ever want to talk.”
“I guess he figures he owes you that much. Do you talk to him?”
“Sometimes. I’m trying. There’s still a lot of anger in there. But . . .”
Chuck nodded at the building. “Are you sure you want to do this?”
Jana looked at it again. “I’m sure. I feel good again. I’m scared, but I feel something I haven’t felt in a long time.”
“And what’s that?”
She smiled. “Purpose.”
“I’ve always known you belonged here,” Chuck said. “Ever since I met you, back on the Petrolsoft case, I could see agent written all over you. Want me to walk you in?”
Jana looked into the reflection of sunlight on the glass. “No, this is something I have to do for myself.”
**********
Nathan Goodman lives in the United States with his wife and two daughters. Read interviews or get notified of new releases at NathanAGoodman.com.
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