by David DeLee
“A sentiment we can all share,” Williamson said.
“But not their methods,” Diaz added.
Kayla continued. “They’re reportedly responsible for seizing a number of cargo vessels and holding them for ransom in the Caribbean Sea. More often than not, the large corporations will pay the demands rather than involve law enforcement.”
“Especially in that part of the world,” Diaz added.
“Sounds like kidnapping for ransom is in their wheelhouse,” Williamson said.
“But small-scale,” Tara said. “Those attacks, while brutal, all lack the sophistication needed to pull off an operation like this. This is way out of their league.”
“Their ambition may outreach their capacity,” Williamson said.
“That might be something in our favor,” Diaz said.
Tara had her doubts. There was a lot—too much—that they didn’t know yet.
A silence fell among them. Tara’s thoughts went to Tiamat Bluff. To Brice and Grayson, to the others. What they were up again. The horrific acts these terrorists were capable of.
“Do you have anything else for us, Deputy Director?” Kayla asked.
“Not at the moment,” Diaz said. “We’ll leave you two to it. I want hourly updates through the usual secured communications.”
“Yes, sir,” Kayla said. She closed down the connection, powered down the computer, and closed the laptop even though the screen had gone blank. She looked at Tara.
“We’re not talking to them again,” Tara said, making more drinks. “Insiders were involved in this. I don’t know that we can trust them, or anyone. Not until we know more.”
“Agreed.”
With a fresh drink in hand, and tapping keys with one hand, Kayla said, “The RRA reportedly has at most fifty to a hundred members. How’d they pull something like this off?”
“They’ve partnered with someone with much deeper pockets. Maybe they’ve rejoined with the NPRA,” Tara suggested. She knew from experience how these alliances formed and fell apart and reformed again, based on the constantly changing geopolitical landscapes. Today’s friend was tomorrow’s enemy. “Someone willing to put up the funds, resources, manpower, to make this happen.”
“If that’s the case,” Kayla said. “Why make the demand for more money?”
“Waging war is expensive,” Tara said. “Can a revolution ever have enough capital? What’s interesting to me is the demand for military aid and support going forward. How do you make the U.S. do that once you’ve let the hostages go?”
Kayla stared at her. Tara read her expression. She didn’t know the answer but feared hearing it.
“Hold the hostages indefinitely,” Tara said.
“Christ.”
“Or,” Tara said, thinking out loud. “It’s all a ploy.”
“For what?” Kayla said.
“Distraction. Misdirection,” Tara said.
“For what purpose?”
Tara shrugged. They had too little information. “Keep us busy with their demands, scrambling to do whatever we can to save the President while someone, somewhere else, is doing something worse.”
“Worse than holding the President for ransom and killing upward of a dozen people?” Kayla asked.
It was a terrible thought, but Tara was used to terrible people doing terrible things.
“There’s a twisted logic to it for sure,” Kayla said, considering it. “But then, what’s the end goal?”
“That is the question,” Tara said not even close to having an answer.
A knock at the Keel Haul’s door interrupted them.
Kayla started to get up, but Tara waved her down. “I’ve got it.”
She pushed open the heavy oak door, surprised to find Reginald Singleton on the other side. “Chief. Come on in.”
“What’re you guys doing closed in the middle of the day?”
“We’ll tell you all about it over a beer,” Tara said, relocking the door and returning to the bar.
“If I said that’s not the best damn offer I’ve had all day, I’d be lying.”
Tara dug out an ice-cold Nut Brown Ale and slid it to the cop as he took off his coat and shook fresh snow from it. He wore a brown baseball cap that read chief in gold stitching. He left it on, letting the snow melt into the bill.
“You heard about what’s happened to the President?” he said.
They nodded. Kayla said, “Brice is down there with them. He’s one of the hostages.”
“What? Damn, if you people aren’t always in the thick of it. How’d that…” he held up a hand. “You probably can’t say. Where’s Skyjack? He was here…earlier.”
“He’s gone to help,” Tara said.
Singleton arched an eyebrow while giving her a sideways glance. His unspoken question; why the hell aren’t you there, too?
“We’re doing what we can…here,” Kayla said, sparring Tara from having to explain.
“Is there something we can do for you, Chief?” Tara asked, nimbly changing the subject.
“Um, no. I mean, I just dropped by to let Skyjack know I might’ve tracked down his rabid hydrofoil driver. At least, I think. There’s a wrinkle.” He stood up and took a long swallow of beer. “But you’ve got your hands full with…what you need to do.”
“What’d you find out, Chief?” Tara asked. She glanced at Kayla who had her head down and was tapping at keys and scanning information that sped across her laptop screens. “I’m not much help at the moment.”
Singleton settled back onto his barstool. He sipped his beer. “I’ve got a name. The joker that crashed into Skyjack. His name’s Chase Edwards. I think. Maybe.”
“No offense, Chief, but you’re waffling,” Tara said.
“I know,” he admitted without being defensive.
“Start at the beginning. How’d you come up with that name?” Kayla asked without looking up.
“Dumb luck mostly.” His voice contained an undercurrent of pride. “I had one of my guys dust the interior of the hydrofoil. To tell you the truth I figured it to be a waste of time, what with the water and salty air and all. And, I’d noticed how most of the drivers wore gloves.”
“Neoprene,” Kayla offered helpfully.
“Textured,” Tara said. “Helps with gripping the steering wheel.”
“Like racecar drivers,” Kayla said.
“Well, whatever.” Singleton waved all that away. “I did it mainly to give my guys some practice dusting a scene more than thinking we’d come up with anything useful. But, lo and behold, at some point this yo-yo took his gloves off—or didn’t wear any—we pulled two serviceable prints from the steering wheel and one from the dash.”
“Not to rain on your parade, Chief,” Tara said. “But those prints could’ve been left by anybody. A salesperson, a mechanic. Someone who worked on manufacturing it.”
“Or my perp,” Singleton said, not willing to be deterred. “I’m trying to stay positive here. But yeah, I thought the same thing, too, not getting my hopes up. Until my guys sent everything up to the Staties crime lab, again, you know, for practice. And we got a hit.” He pulled a paper out from his coat pocket, unfolded it and smooth it out before handing it over to Tara. “I give you, Chase Edwards. US Army veteran.”
The paper was a photocopy of an Army intake file with a description and photograph of a nineteen-year-old recruit named Chase Edwards. The enlistment papers were dated nineteen eighty-five.
“Hard to say,” Tara said. “Brice and Skyjack described a man in his late fifties, early sixties.” She passed the paper to Kayla.
Singleton settled back on his stool. “Which fits. This being back in eighty-five. But either way, fingerprints are fingerprints.”
“That may or may not be the pilot’s fingerprints,” Tara insisted.
“Here’s another problem, Chief,” Kayla said, pausing her computer work to look up. “I just looked up Chase Edwards’ service record.”
Singleton raised a hand. “I know. I kn
ow. I had an old buddy of mine I worked with in the four-six back in the day—he’s in the Intelligence Unit now—get me Edward’s record on the QT.”
Kayla said, gently, “They say he was killed in action in Iraq sixteen years ago.”
“Sure. I saw that too.” Singleton nodded knowingly. “So, explain to me how his fingerprints are all over the cockpit of a hydrofoil built and manufactured less than two years ago?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Bannon remained with the other in the two rows of seats facing the bandshell stage. They’d been forced to sit for so long, his hind-end ached. But he’d used the time to his advantage. He’d made up his mind there were two things he needed to do. First, he had to find a way to communicate with the surface. Get word to the Putnam, warn them about the drone minefield. No more innocent lives would be lost if he could help it.
His second priority was to get the President to safety. Once POTUS was out of harm’s way, then the Putnam would be free to act. Bannon, too.
He glanced at Little’s body. Then thought of the lives lost in the two submersibles Sucre destroyed. Who knows how many others had been killed since the RRA General’s arrival at Tiamat Bluff? Sucre needed to be held accountable. He needed to pay for the innocent lives he took.
Bannon twisted around in his seat. In the row behind him, Robin Larson sat next to Leary, the cameraman. She sat at an angle in her seat, keeping her backs to Jerry Little’s body still on the floor.
“You okay?” he asked, catching Larson’s attention.
She forced a smile and nodded though she was on the brink of tears. “I’ve never been through anything like this. You see it on the news all the time, the brutality. The utter contempt for human life. But until you experience it first-hand…”
He patted her hands folded one over the other on her knee. They were as cold as death. “I’m going to get us out of here. All of us.” He squeezed her hands. “It’s going to be okay.”
Bannon glanced around the park. Enclosed by a circular wall covered with a mural of blue sky, rolling grass, and tree-filled landscape blended it into the actual greenspace, expanding the perceived size of the park beyond its actual ten-acre footprint. The wall extended twenty feet high.
Above it, the transparent dome rose overhead. Its triangular latticework of brushed aluminum gleamed in the artificial sunlight that warmed the park, creating a simulated sunny, summer afternoon.
From his position, Bannon could see four sliding doors—part of the overall mural—identifiable by black seam and a square, black locking pad. Two of Sucre’s people posted at each one.
Sucre remained on the stage, talking with one of his men. There were two additional armed men at either end of the stage.
“How many ways into the park?” Bannon asked Larson.
“The four sliding doors. That’s it.” She glanced over her shoulder at the four entrances visible from their side of the bandshell.
“And the locking pad?”
“Biometrically activated, but with low-priority security.”
“What does that mean?” Bannon asked.
“Access to areas around the Bluff are designated low, medium, and high-security. Public areas like Kanaloa Park are accessible by anyone. A simple palm print opens or secures the door, anyone can operate them. Guest quarters, vendor or business owned spaces, like restaurants, entertainment venues, are designated medium secure areas. Access is restricted to specific operators with a single-tier protocol.”
“Only pre-assigned operators can activate the palm reader.”
“Exactly.” Larson went on. “Tiamat Bluff operations are accessed by a two-step process; palm reader and ten-digit access code.”
A man in blue Tiamat Bluff coveralls emerged from the backside of the stage. Impossible to tell if he was one of Sucre’s people or an employee pressed into service by force. He carried a case of bottled water. Coming off the stage, he tore open the plastic and began to distribute the drinks among the prisoners.
The President refused.
Grayson urged him to take it.
“I won’t accept anything from them,” Kingsley said. “Not a thing.”
“We don’t know how long we’ll be kept here.”
“Drink it, Mr. President,” Bannon said. “When we make a move, I can’t have you passing out on me from dehydration.”
Bannon accepted an offered bottle and drank it down. The water was warm but tasted good all the same.
“What if it’s poisoned?” Larson asked.
“If they wanted us dead,” Bannon said. “They’d have killed us already.”
She nodded at the logic of that while recoiling at the brutality of the statement. She cracked open the plastic bottle and drank. As did the President and the others. Bannon watched the gunmen. Each was armed with the Steyr machine pistols and Taurus 9mm semiautomatic handguns and seemed comfortable with them. Each had an Aqua Lung titanium-tipped dive knife strapped to their leg.
On the plus side, Bannon smiled wickedly. Plenty of available firepower, if he could get his hands on them.
They appeared well-trained, alert. They didn’t slouch or get distracted, despite the hours of standing around. Definitely military-trained, well-disciplined. But, if they were Latin American rebels, he was Santa Claus.
He leaned over to Larson. “Give me a quick tutorial of what’s where.”
“What do you mean?”
“The facility’s layout. Outside of the park. How do I get to Ops from here?”
She looked around. “After you get past the armed goons at the doors?”
“Yes.”
“Ops is one level below us, level two. In the north section of the facility.” She described the various ways in which he could get there from the park, including elevators, emergency stairwells, and even maintenance corridors built behind the corridor bulkheads. “Once you’re in the corridors, you’ll find touchscreen directories every hundred feet or so. It’s impossible to get lost in Tiamat Bluff.”
As she spoke, he continued to watch the guards, looking for patterns, routines, habits he might be able to exploit later. Doing so, he noticed a man emerge from behind the stage. Someone he’d not seen before. He wore the light blue Polo shirt, dark blue slacks, and the dark baseball cap of the facility’s security staff.
The bill of the man’s cap was pulled low, covering his eyes and shadowing the lower half of his face. Bannon hadn’t noticed him enter the park through the sliding doors, and he’d been watching them. Something else about the man-made the hairs on the back of Bannon’s neck stand up.
“Is there access to the rest of the facility from the stage?” Bannon asked.
Larson nodded. “Of course. I’m sorry, I wasn’t thinking. Sure. There’s a suite of rooms in the level below. Dressing rooms, a rehearsal hall, kitchenette, green rooms for the performers, and storage space for props and costumes,” Larson said. “Oh, and there’s a full woodworking and carpentry workshop down there for building sets, too. A section in the stage floor drops down, too. It operates on hydraulics.”
“Like a scissor lift.”
“Yes. Exactly.”
“And from the lower complex, one could access the rest of the facility?”
“Of course. It’s the central hub on level two.”
Level two would put him that much closer to Ops.
Bannon kept his eye on the newcomer.
The man spoke with Sucre. Their conversation had rapidly devolved into a heated argument. The man kept his back to Bannon and the others. As if he didn’t want any of them to see him. The pair was too far away, their voices too low, for Bannon to hear what they were arguing over, but it was clear Sucre didn’t have the iron grasp over his people that he’d presented earlier. At least not over this individual.
An interesting development, Bannon noted with a grim smile continuing to study the man.
Caucasian. What hair was visible under the ball cap was gray and cut razor short. Though the clothes didn’t fi
t him well, a size too large and baggy on his frame, by the way, the man held himself, moved, Bannon could tell he was fit. He demonstrated an air of quiet confidence. A man accustomed to being in charge.
Again, Bannon thought military.
As his argument with Sucre reached its conclusion, he stormed across the stage, returning to the backstage where presumably access led to the complex of rooms below.
Bannon caught a fleeting look at the man’s face in profile. And it stunned him.
He leaned over and whispered into Grayson’s ear. “That man. The one leaving the stage...”
She glanced toward the stage. “What about him?”
“That’s the man in the hydrofoil, from yesterday’s race. The one who almost killed Skyjack.”
“Are you certain?”
“I’d stake my life on it,” Bannon said. There was definitely more going on here than what they knew so far. And it was time he got answers. He jumped to his feet and shouted, “Hey, you! Yeah. You!”
The man in the ballcap stopped at the far end of the stage. He turned toward Bannon and quickly turned back. Like a man caught on the street, not wanting to be seen. He tugged the bill of his cap lower and hurried off the stage. He stepped around behind a partition and was gone.
It was enough for Bannon to get a good look. To confirm he was the pilot of the Barracuda hydrofoil. The man who tried to kill McMurphy. But it was Grayson’s reaction that caught Bannon’s attention.
She’d sucked in a breath upon seeing the man’s face.
“What is it?” Bannon asked.
“That man,” she said. “I know who he is. But it can’t be him.”
“Who is he?”
She shook her head. “It can’t be who I think it is. It just can’t be.”
The President twisted in his seat. “Why not, Liz?”
“Because he’s dead,” Grayson said. “Because I killed him.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Skyjack McMurphy stood on the outer edge of the flight deck. Beside him were Tolliver and Haddad. He’d donned a Coast Guard foul weather parka Tolliver secured for him from the ship’s stores. He wore his dark aviator sunglasses, despite the fact that the late afternoon sky had turned gray and angry. A storm was coming up the coast from the Carolinas but the full brunt of it wasn’t expected to reach them for at least another twenty-four hours.
