by David DeLee
“Ms. Haddad?”
“Why the hell not,” she said with a sigh, accepting a mug. He filled up a third for himself.
“Okay, catch me up,” McMurphy said, his broad shoulders almost as wide as the room itself.
Like players in a ping pong match, Haddad and Tolliver went back and forth telling him everything they knew.
When they were done, Haddad said, “I need to caution you. We believe someone in the White House, maybe someone in the President’s cabinet itself may have been compromised.”
“An inside job. Almost goes without saying,” McMurphy said. “An operation like this took months of planning. And resources. And would require inside knowledge, information.”
“This wasn’t a highly publicized event,” Haddad said. “The President wanted it to be a big reveal.” She waved her hands like she was revealing a movie marquee. “Tiamat Bluff and his re-election campaign. It was closely controlled.”
“Still, multiple agencies, including civilian organizations, had to have had ‘inside information’ regarding the event,” McMurphy guessed.
“Of course,” Haddad said.
“You’re saying the mole or moles could be anyone?” Tolliver said.
“Anyone with prior or inside knowledge about the trip.” He did his best to not gaze at Haddad.
“I didn’t know where we were assigned to go until my orders came in this morning,” Tolliver said. “Meaning you and I are in the clear.”
McMurphy nodded.
“But not me,” Haddad said.
McMurphy tried to sound apologetic. “Until we can vet you, yes. Your access to what we do, what we plan will be limited.”
“Skyjack,” Tolliver said. “She’s the President’s Chief of State for God’s sake.”
“No, Captain. He’s right.”
“We’ll clear you as soon as we can, ma’am.”
“Great. How the hell do we do that?” Tolliver asked. “And who’s to say whoever we get to do the vetting can be trusted?”
“It’s already being taken care of,” McMurphy said. “Two of the three people I trust most in the entire world are working on that even as we speak. What they give us will be solid.” To dissuade any further objection, he added, “Neither one of them were involved in this to begin with.”
He turned to Tolliver. “Tell me what we know about how they destroyed the submersibles?”
“We don’t.” Tolliver shook his head. “Secret Service swears they checked them thoroughly before they went down, so we don’t suspect planted explosives.” He glanced at Haddad. “But considering what you’ve just said…that could be crap and one of their agents could be involved.”
“Is Tiamat Bluff weaponized?” McMurphy said. “Armaments of any kind that could’ve destroyed those vessels?”
“Of course not,” Haddad said. “It’s a facility for science, peaceful research, and ultimately a community for families to live and work in.”
“Just asking.” Again, McMurphy addressed Tolliver. “Torpedoes? From a sub.”
“We thought about that but came up empty on radar and sonar scans. No sign of any sub activity at all. Prior to the visit, we cleared the area of all surface vessels.”
“NORAD reported no airborne anomalies,” Haddad offered.
“The priority is to come up with a rescue plan.”
“Preferably one where everyone comes out alive,” Tolliver said.
“Goes without say. What assets do we have?” McMurphy asked.
“DoD is flying a SEAL team up from Virginia,” Haddad said. “With them is an FBI hostage negotiator from Quantico. They should be here within the hour.”
“Does the Vice-President seriously think we can talk this Sucre guy out of there?” Tolliver asked.
“Probably not,” Haddad admitted. She handed her mug to Toliver. “More coffee, if you don’t mind, Captain.”
As he poured the coffee, and the Jim Beam, Haddad gave them a quick rundown on the concept and background of the Hostage Recovery Fusion Cell.
“Too many cooks,” McMurphy grumbled.
She accepted the refilled mug from Tolliver.
“But a negotiator might be useful in keeping Sucre distracted,” McMurphy said, thinking out loud. “What do you know about the SEAL team?”
“This specific team? Nothing,” Haddad said. “But the SEALs are the best of the best.”
McMurphy shrugged at that. Not a point he felt like arguing at the moment. “What about you, Bob?” he asked. “Any special talent on board?”
He was hoped for a Maritime Security Response Team. They were the offshoot of the decommissioned Deployable Operations Group. When the DOG program was disbanded a number of years back, the MSRT program was born.
Still, despite being a water-down version, in McMurphy’s opinion, they had some damn fine men and women among their ranks. Highly-trained, competent spitfires. Teams he and Bannon had had the pleasure of working with in the past with great success.
Tolliver knew what he was getting at but shook his head. “Just your run of the mill Coasties I’m afraid. But they’re ready to step up and do whatever needs doing.”
“I’m sure they are, Bob. And we’ll keep that in mind,” McMurphy said. He paced the five-foot span in the room, trying to figure out what to do next. “When did you say this SEAL team of yours was getting here?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Bannon bit back his anger.
It had been several hours since Sucre publicly executed Jerry Little. Since that time, he’d left the blood-spattered TV personality’s body lying on the ground in front of the bandshell stage. A pool of blood, dark and shiny, had formed around his head. His eyes remained open, staring at the hostages forced to sit and look back at him. The shock the newsman had felt in those final seconds of life remained present in his expression in death.
While filming, Leary had jumped back and dropped his camera to the ground. Bannon had rushed forward, trying to seize the opportunity, but two of Sucre’s people grabbed his arms from behind, arresting his charge forward. His reward was a punch in his solar plexus from Sucre.
Now they all sat staring at the dead man. Quiet with their own thoughts. Unable or unwilling to look away.
Sucre had left for a while, leaving the group under the watchful—and Bannon had to reluctantly admit professional—eye of the RRA terrorists stationed around the park and the concert seating area.
When the general returned, Kingsley rose to his feet.
“Sucre,” Kingsley said. “Please, in the name of all that’s decent, remove the body. Have some respect for the dead.”
“No,” Sucre said. “He’s there to serve as a reminder to you all of what we are capable of, what we will do if you step out of line.”
“Proof of what an insane sociopath you are,” Bannon offered.
“Careful, Commander Bannon or you might find yourself with a similar hole in your head,” Sucre warned.
Interesting, Bannon thought. As far as he could recall, no one had mentioned his name or who he was. And certainly, no one had referred to him by rank. Yet Sucre knew him. How?
“Now sit down,” Sucre ordered Kingsley.
Grayson put a hand on Kingsley’s arm. “David, please sit.”
He let her gently pull him a step back and then down into the seat next to her.
Bannon sat beside Grayson on her other side. In the row behind them, Leary stared ahead with a vacant look in his eyes. It seemed he was a young man who up until that moment had not experienced violence on that scale before. Most people hadn’t, Bannon reminded himself. Seated beside the cameraman, Robin Larson sat, holding Leary’s hands in hers. She attempted to console him, while clearly struggling to maintain her own composure. Dr. Nomura’s shocking death must still have been fresh on her mind, along with countless others she’d spent the last few years working side-by-side that were now in jeopardy or dead.
Holloway sat on Kingsley’s left, opposite Grayson, remaining ever vigilant.
Bannon leaned toward his bosses. He lowered his voice, though Holloway was still in earshot, no one else was. “Something’s not right here,” he said.
“I didn’t know you had a talent for understatement, Commander,” Kingsley said.
“What I mean is Sucre, his story,” Bannon said. “He claims he’s with the RRA, yet half his men are Caucasian. Look around. They’re blacks, Hispanics, a few Asians. And women. Not exactly the Latin American hit squad you’d expect.”
“Fringe recruits, sympathizers of the cause,” Grayson suggested. “The way Americans signed up to fight for al Qaeda and ISIL.”
“Perhaps, but his demands don’t make sense either,” Bannon said. Something was off and he couldn’t put his fingers on. “A demand for money I get. That’s basic hostage-taking 101. It’s the demand for military aid and support that I can’t figure out. He’s got to know that’s unobtainable.”
“Of course it’s unobtainable,” Kingsley hissed under his breath. “Everyone knows the United States doesn’t negotiate with hostages.”
“That’s an argument for another time, Mr. President,” Bannon said. “My point is this. Here’s an underfunded rebel terror group, fighting against a brutal, but tiny regime. Yet they have dozens of Steyr machine pistols. They’re Austrian made full-automatic weapons, with thirty round box magazines. 9mm Taurus PT92 semiautomatic pistol with seventeen round magazines. They’re not junk. They don’t come cheap on the black market.”
“What are you getting at, Brice?” Grayson asked.
Bannon went on as if he hadn’t heard her question. “They’d need a submarine of some kind, maybe more than one, to get down here. Scuba equipment and training. And a drone minefield. Programmable, explosive drone mines. That level of technology, the sophistication…we’re not talking fertilizer and propane tank bombs.”
“What’s your point, Commander?” Kingsley asked, cutting to the chase.
“If they have access to those kinds of resources, why the demand for money? To do that takes a hefty bankroll.”
“So does waging a war.”
“Fair enough, but here’s what’s really bothering me. His demand for a law or executive order to continue supporting their war efforts. Hostage takers make finite demands. Money and a getaway car or whatever. The bad guys get them or they don’t, and the situation is over, successfully or otherwise. But continual military aid and support,” Bannon continued. “That’s ongoing. Unless they plan on holding us hostage until the crisis in their country is resolved…”
“Something that could take months or years to achieve,” Grayson said, understanding what Bannon was getting at. “If ever.”
“It’s an unattainable goal in this situation, even if the U.S. wanted to comply. This very act would make that impossible.”
“They’re idiots,” Kingsley concluded, increasingly agitated. “Clueless, murdering, savage idiots.”
“I disagree, sir. Everything about this operation has been methodically planned and professionally carried out.
Kingsley doubled down. “Only an idiot would think Congress wouldn’t reverse the law they wrote—”
“If they could be talked into writing one in the first place,” Grayson said, agreeing.
“Or that you wouldn’t strike down the executive order you wrote after your release,” Bannon said, agreeing. “The juxtaposition is downright glaring.”
“What do you think is going on, Brice?” Grayson asked.
Bannon considered the question. “I don’t have it all worked out yet, but funding the RRA and overthrowing Cabrillo isn’t the endgame. I’m certain of it.”
“What is?” Kingsley asked.
Sadly, Bannon had to admit, “I don’t know. Yet.” He glanced over at Little’s body. “What I do know is we need to devise a plan to get out of here without getting anyone else killed.”
“No argument there,” Kingsley said. “I’m hoping you have something in mind.”
“Working on it,” Bannon said. “But that brings up another concern I have, sir.”
At his hesitance, Kingsley said, “Spit it out, man.”
When he had Grayson, Kingsley, and Holloway’s full attention, Bannon said, “Someone helped pull this off. Someone with inside information. An insider.”
“Are you accusing someone on my staff of being a…what-do-you-call-them, a mole?” He shook his head. “I categorically reject that theory.”
“No, sir,” Holloway said, leaning in closer. “The Commander’s right.” She looked around at the men and women positioned at the exits, posted at the seating area, then at the stage. Sucre was in deep conversation with one of them. “Intimate details about your trip was leaked, sir. There’s no question about it. No other way.”
“By whom?” he demanded.
“I don’t know,” Holloway admitted. There was a lot of that going around.
“We have to consider the possibility, David,” Grayson said as gently as she could. “Someone in our government; the Secret Service, DoD, the White House, your Cabinet, sir. Someone provided the information, paved the way, to make this happen.”
“Maybe Tiamat Bluff staff.”
“Probable them, too, sir,” Bannon said. “But I think we’re dealing with someone with a lot more clearance and information than that. Maybe multiple someones.”
Kingsley visibly stewed. Like a man chewing on a hated vegetable but forced to choke it down. “Say it’s true. What’s it matter?” he asked. “While we’re down here?”
“Because at some point,” Bannon said. “We’ll reestablish contact with our people on the surface. When we do, we damn well better know who we can trust. And who we can’t. Otherwise, any efforts to escape will be for naught.”
“And how the hell do you expect to do that?” Kingsley asked. “Figure out who to trust?”
Bannon glanced around and lowered his voice further. “I’m confident that’s already being taken care of, sir.” He knew as soon as the video announcing the President’s capture, and Jerry Little’s televised execution hit the airwaves, McMurphy, Tara, and Kayla would be working on a rescue effort and digging into what had happened, how it had happened, who was behind it, and how to execute a rescue plan that wouldn’t get everyone killed.
“Bottom line, we need to figure out how to get out of here,” Grayson said.
“Agreed.” Bannon's expression turned grim.
“Any ideas?” she asked.
His attention was on Sucre. “A few.”
“Care to share, Commander?” Kingsley asked.
“It’s best I don’t, sir.” He looked around without elaborating. Loose lips and sunk ships and all that.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Tara paced behind the bar of the Keel Haul feeling like a caged tigress. It had been hours since McMurphy had left. She’d received a single text from him telling her he’d arrived on the Putnam, and he was preparing to meet with an arriving SEAL team to discuss possible rescue scenarios.
Kayla sat on her barstool, tapping on the keyboard of her laptop like crazy without saying much. Her second gin and tonic sat on a paper napkin. The glass sweating. She’d set up a second laptop at the end of the bar where McMurphy usually sat, this screen angled so both she and Tara could see it.
The more Tara listened to Kayla’s incessant tapping, the more she wanted to rip the laptop away from her and smash it on the ground and then stomp it to pieces. She should’ve gone with Skyjack, she told herself. Then she took a deep breath. Instead of indulging her violent fantasy against Kayla or the terrorist thugs at Tiamat Bluff, she decided; better to have a third drink.
She grabbed the gin bottle, about to pour the drink when the computer facing her beeped, the fan whirled, and the screen lit-up. The established video-conference linkup caught her with the bottle of gin in her hand. On the laptop’s split-screen appeared images of Deputy Director Richard Diaz and his and Grayson’s shared Chief of Staff James Williamson.
“You sure this is the bes
t time for a drink, Ms. Sardana?” Diaz asked.
Tara considered telling him where she wanted to shove the bottle but refrained. She put the bottle down and tossed the ice out of her glass. Her glare at her interim boss indicated her displeasure.
James Williamson cleared his throat and jumped right in. “We’ve received a bit of good news we wanted to pass along. It appears Amal Haddad wasn’t on her way down to Tiamat Bluff in one of the doomed submersibles like we first thought. She’s safe onboard the Putnam.”
“How’d that happened?” Tara did nothing to mask her suspicion while looking at Kayla who clearly shared her concern.
“A call from the White House,” Diaz told them. “A last-minute emergency requiring her immediate attention.”
“Huh.” Tara exchanged a glance with Kayla who shrugged.
Diaz continued, “Jimmy and I are in constant contact with Captain Tolliver and Ms. Haddad and will stay on top of rescue operations going on there. A SEAL team and FBI negotiator have been dispatched.”
Tara knew all this. “Skyjack?” she asked.
“He’s involved top to bottom,” Diaz assured her. “The Vice-President insisted on it.”
“Great.” That all sounded good to Tara except for one thing. She was sitting in the Keel Haul twiddling her thumbs. “What do we do?”
Diaz answered with a question of his own. “This Revolutionary Republic Army. What do we know about them?”
“I queried a friend of mine at State,” Kayla said. “They’re a relatively new group, borne from the violent struggle that separated Boca Las Casas from Venezuela. A more extreme, more violent, offshoot of the South American National People’s Republican Army. Smaller. But what they lack in numbers they more than make up for in brutality. Several years ago, they stormed a police station, kidnapped, and later killed a police sergeant and his family after ransom demands were not paid. More recently they set off a car bomb in a shopping plaza that killed twenty-one and injured sixty-seven more in protest of their government’s leadership, General Juan Cabrillo.”
