Torching the Crimson Flag

by Conrad Brasso

  She flashed her uncle a shaka, the Hawaiian surfer wave with an extended thumb and pinky, then she adjusted her bag-straps on her shoulders and started walking east, along Ala Moana Park Drive. She came to a group of ocean-side tennis courts and slowed. This was the meeting place organized by an old friend who was now working at the Sheraton Waikiki as a front desk manager. She saw a lifted black ’96 Ford Bronco XLT parked on the makai side of the road. As she approached, a good-looking Hawaiian teenager hopped out of the vehicle.

  “You Boyd?”

  “In living color.”

  He chuckled. “Here, let me help you with those,” he said, reaching for her bags and then grunted in surprise as he took them. “You carrying gold bricks?”

  “Something like that,” she said grinning. “What’s your name?”

  “Holokai.”

  “Nice,” Boyd answered, knowing his name meant to travel the ocean. “From here?”

  “Kahuku.”

  “North side, huh?”

  “What about you?”

  “Big Island. Mostly Kona-side and Hamakua.”

  “Where’d you get your red hair?”

  She laughed. “I’m not sure!”

  He smiled. “My sister’s a redhead, too.”

  “There’s two of us in this state?”

  It didn’t take long for them to reach the hotel. Perched on the world-famous Waikiki Beach, the thirty-one-story hotel was built in 1971 and had some of the best direct-facing ocean views on the strip. More importantly for Boyd’s purposes, the Sheraton was right next to the Royal Hawaiian Resort, where Michi and Linda were currently having breakfast. Carter thanked the kid for his help, checked into her room, tucked the duffle bag full of gear under her bed, and opened the other one on her bed. She dug out some clothes and changed into something more appropriate for her role. Then she zippered the bag shut again. Whenever she traveled, Boyd always had her bags ready to go. She never placed anything in drawers or left toiletries lying around. She wondered how Michi was doing.

  “So, tell me more about your children,” Mrs. Wagner said, smiling sweetly.

  Agent Imada whipped out her phone, proudly, and pulled up the images Justin had sent her. “Ake is twelve, and Bono is eleven,” she said, passing her phone to the Punahou School Board member.

  “Oh my goodness! What handsome boys. I’m sure all the girls love them.”

  “Yes! It’s already happening,” Michi said, shaking her head. “They grow up way too quickly, don’t they?”

  “Yes!”

  “Ake is such a smart kid. Top of his class. He loves chess and baseball, plays the piano, and wants to go into bio robotics.”

  “Wow. That’s impressive.”

  “He’s won over thirty science and robotics awards in Japan. Very special.”

  Linda feigned excitement, but clearly, she was jealous. Despite all of her wealth and charm, her children were not at the top of their classes. Not even close. Truth be known, it had taken more than a little persuasion in the right directions to even get them into university.

  “Bono is my super energetic child. He lives life to the fullest,” Michi said, mastering the boast while appearing humble. “The more activity going on around him, the better. He’s into every sport you can name for his age and is in the top ten percent of his class. If they could turn math class into a sporting competition, he’d probably be number one.”

  The two ladies laughed, but Agent Imada knew it was time to crank it to the next level. From the research that Bora had done and sent to her while she was on the plane, Michi knew that not only did alcohol lower Linda Wagner’s perfect façade, but it would make her insecurities bubble up like heated milk. She smiled shyly at her host and then ordered another round of mimosas for the two of them.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  “You still have them marked?” Leonard asked Saara, walking up to her and seeing the answer to his question on the far left flat screen.

  “Yes, sir. They’re still in the river and passing Carraway Bay. We’ll be switching from satellite to drone in a few minutes. It should be a seamless transition, and then we should have a much better visual.”

  Meanwhile, on the ground, Trey and Tank were approaching Bruce carefully, but it looked like there were no more hostiles shooting at him.

  “Coast is clear. Go get the Beamer,” Agent Stone said to Lakota as they opened the door to the trailer. “I’ll secure any intel in here.” Then he tapped his comms. “Blue Team to LP.”

  “Loud and clear, Hemlock. Go ahead.”

  “I guess you saw what happened.”

  “Copy that. We’re still tracking the boat.”

  “Turning on headcam. You need to see this.”

  As the footage came up, Saara moved it from tablet-view to the flat screen on the far left. Leo squinted to get a better view.

  “Is that what I think it is?”

  “State-of-the-art extraction chair. This thing’s the real deal,” he commented, popping the camera off his helmet and holding it steady in his hand. “SL nodes,” he zoomed in. “You can see the S track follows the shape of the spine. The L track attacks the buttocks and glutes. Zero gravity mode to maximize blood flow. There’s a helmet attachment to measure brain activity. Live video feed capability. Stick a person in this thing, and they’ll be screaming memories from when they were six months old.”

  “Obviously, it’s powered down, or you’d be smashing the cameras.”

  “I don’t think it was used.”

  “How do you know?”

  “There’d be small pieces of fried flesh on the ends of these,” he said, pointing to the nodes. “For this thing to be maximized, each node has to attach directly to the skin.”

  Tank drove up in the BMW, got out, and climbed into the trailer. Bruce was still on watch.

  “Check the computers,” Stone said to him. “See if we can get any hard drives.”

  “On it.”

  “I’ve texted David,” Leonard said. “You’ve got six mikes to gather intel and return to where you extracted the bodies from the river.”

  “Copy that.”

  “Vegas okay? It looked like he took a round.”

  “He’s badly bruised, and his ego’s shattered. He’s just a shell of his former self.”

  “You know I can hear you, right?” Bruce’s voice came on.

  Leonard chuckled. “That was intense, Blue Team. I don’t know who all those hostiles were, but we don’t have time to examine them. The FBI’s on their way and can figure things out. You need to exfil and get in pursuit of our primary, ASAP.”

  “Copy that. Out,” Trey said.

  “Chopper’s airborne,” Justin reported to Dr. Stone back at LaunchPad. “It’s just Gary. David’s doing something in town.”

  “What?” Leo asked. “What’s he doing?”

  Park shrugged. “I’ve texted him for a sitrep.”

  Stone knew his friend well enough to trust his instincts, but he wished he’d been informed earlier. “Can we disable the boat?”

  “I’ll crunch some numbers for Trey. He might be able to shoot out the engines or steering.”

  “But then what?” asked Saara. “Are we sure they’ll keep Iris alive?”

  “They didn’t fry him in the chair. So, either he voluntarily gave up information, or they didn’t get time to work on him.”

  Justin pulled up a map of the area. “The water’s not deep enough for a sub. The boat would have to go past the Outer Banks and into the open ocean for that. Looks like they’re not doing that.”

  “There’s an airstrip on Ocracoke, right?” Leo asked.

  “I think there are a few airports in the region,” Park reported, pulling up some info on his tablet. “Yes. Ocracoke has a runway. Three thousand feet long. Sixty feet wide. There’s a helipad, too.

  “Saara, can you pull up a live feed of the airstrip?”

  Leonard Stone’s mind was spinning with all the possibilities, calculations, and probabilit
ies. Taking a small boat is not nearly as easy as people think, especially when you know that hostiles are willing to die or kill for the cause.

  “Switching to drone footage,” Saara announced. “I programmed it to focus on the boat. But we’ll get a look at the airport in a second.”

  “Where’s Bora?” Leo asked suddenly.

  “She’s in one of the interrogation rooms with Bao Zhen and Lin Lin Ma. They’re working on research and using the table in there. Should I call her?”

  “No, don’t disturb them.”

  “Blue Team is exfilled and oscar mike,” Justin informed everyone.

  The live footage on the right flat-screen suddenly went blank, flashed a few times, came up pixelated, and then became crystal clear.

  “Nice, Saara,” exclaimed Justin. “We can see the boat clearly.”

  The camera zoomed back and then zeroed in on the airport as it responded to the coordinates Saara fed into her computer. It was a modest operation. There was one building with an attached three-story tower and some simple communications capabilities. On the opposite side of the tower, there was a parking area and a Shell gas station. The entire runway area was fenced with barbed-topped lining.

  “Looks quiet,” Tuurig commented.

  “What do you think, boss?”

  Just as he was about to answer, Bao Zhen came out of the interrogation area of the warehouse, where there were two rooms that had been used for information extraction in the past. She jogged over.

  “Everything okay?” Park asked.

  “We just got off the phone with Jennifer Wu.”

  Everyone turned to listen to this new bit of information. “She went home, collected her things, and then called in sick at work. She’s with her contact there, now, continuing her investigations on a secure computer.”

  “Thanks for letting us know,” Leo said, gravely. “I get the feeling that we’re digging into the ground, not realizing that there’s an active volcano underneath. We’d better be very careful.” He turned to Saara. “Can anybody spy on the research that Bora and her team are doing?”

  “No, Dr. Stone. There is zero wifi signal coming in or leaving the building, our devices are linked to internal networks only, and I’ve cloaked all of our external landline communications behind multiple firewalls and VPNs. All incoming and outgoing data is fully encrypted. It would be impossible to spy on us. As long as we keep using the ear-comms system and the app that Justin created for our inter-team exchanges, we’re completely dark.”

  Trey’s wife went back to where she was working with her mom and Bora.

  Leonard’s phone rang. It was David. They spoke for a few moments and then hung up.

  “David secured a boat.”

  “Of course, he did,” Justin said, shaking his head. “Smart.”

  “He’s leaving right now from the Sheraton Marina in New Bern with the boat’s captain. It’s a 2002 Sunseeker Superhawk 50 with triple Yanmar 420 horsepower diesel engines.”

  “Sheesh. That’s a fast boat. Presuming our primary is headed to the airport, that means David could catch up to them here,” he said, pointing to a piece of land that stuck out into the ocean, just west of the Outer Banks called Point of Marsh. “I’m guessing the Doral our primary is in, will top out at 35MPH. This Superhawk will easily do 45 knots … about 50MPH.”

  “What’s that island to the east of it?”

  “Racoon Island? It looks uninhabited.”

  Leonard took a few minutes to take everything in. He knew it was time to make the call. It was moments like these that were the reason everyone in LaunchPad had such deep respect for him. Time and time again, he’d shown an ability to anticipate the moves of the enemy. His unique intuition had proven invaluable when he was coordinating allied responses for the U.S. Navy. Just like he’d known Boyd and Michi needed to be in Honolulu together, he knew that this boat was headed to the airport in Ocracoke.

  “It’s a good sniper location. Our primary will have to cruise right by it to either get to the airstrip or sail through the Wallace Channel into the Atlantic. But you’re right. Exfil becomes complicated.”

  “You want Bruce and Tank at the airport, right?”

  Leo nodded.

  “So have Gary drop them off first, and then land on Raccoon Island.” Justin pulled up a high-quality image of the location. “Trey can hide on the northern point. Gary can land on the opposite end of the island. There’s enough tree coverage on the southern point where the chopper won’t be visible as they sail by. It still won’t be an easy shot, but at least that way, Gary can get Trey out of there if he needs to.”

  “Okay. We know we want the chopper to go to the airport. Send them there now. And tell them to steer clear of the boat. We don’t want them to be spotted at all.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  While Justin contacted the chopper with directions, Leonard wanted Saara to zoom in as tight as she could on the boat.

  “I’m still a little concerned, Saara.”

  “About disabling the boat?”

  Dr. Stone nodded thoughtfully. “Can we get thermal on it?”

  “I think so. Let me try.”

  “Even if Trey shoots out the engines, then what?”

  “Then we most likely have a dangerous hostage situation,” Saara answered, working on her computer at the same time. “Thermal’s not working. Too much interference from the water temperatures.”

  “I think we forget about putting a sniper on the island. Blue Team stages at the airport and waits for our primary to arrive.”

  “And whoever is coming to get him.”

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Franco DiMartini was born in Galibiate, in the province of Lecco, of Swiss parents. His father was a professor of systematic theology at the seminary in Milan and had been well-loved by everyone who knew him. His mother was from Gruyere, the little town in the Swiss canton of Fribourg, famous for its cheese. When he was five, Franco’s little world was shaken. His dearly loved father had an early heart attack and died. It was a painful and difficult time. The only saving grace was a group of catholic nuns who helped encourage his devastated mother. Two years later, she found love again, and a year after her second marriage, she gave birth to another son, naming him Antonio. Franco was adopted by his new father and given a new family name: Sabini. He loved school and ended up being a student at the same seminary where his birth father had been a professor. Sailing through classes, he was ordained by Cardinal Giovanni Battista Montini, later Pope Paul VI, and worked his way to serving as the spiritual director at the College of Gorla Minore and then a vicar in the Milan Archdiocese.

  With success in ministry, Franco proceeded to move up the food chain of recognition, praise, and influence, so that when a problem arose in Southeast Asia, the church asked him to lead the Archdiocese of Manila. He did so brilliantly, and after a decade, he was brought back to the Vatican to become a senior ecclesiastical leader for the Holy See. When the pope reached out to Franco, inviting him to be part of the papal conclave, he couldn’t have been more pleased.

  And when Antonio-the-banker, called his brother-the-Cardinal, Franco didn’t think much of it, and answered his phone right away, anticipating deep congratulatory admiration.

  “Do I have to address you as Cardinal, now?”

  Franco smiled, “Yes, I think I’d like that.”

  “Cardinal Sabini, you have a big problem.”

  There was an uncomfortable silence as Franco realized Antonio wasn’t calling to propose a toast or surprise him with a party. “What are you talking about?”

  “For the last four years, you know, I’ve been keeping an eye on someone.”

  The Cardinal was stunned. The only thing that had happened four years and nine months ago was something he didn’t want to speak of and most certainly never wanted to become public.

  “What on earth for?”

  “Franco, did you think this would all just go away? It was just a matter of time before Matteo grew old en
ough to become curious about who his father might be. Don’t fool yourself. When the time comes that he investigates his DNA, today’s technology will trace it right back to you. That’s ‘what on earth for.’”

  “Nonsense. You were just waiting for an opportunity to bring this up when I was truly in a position of power so you could humiliate me.”

  “That’s such a ridiculous concept that I’ll just pretend you didn’t say it. You don’t think that a disgraced Cardinal would have a negative impact on his younger brother?”

  “Tony, I have bigger things to worry about than who you spend your money watching.”

  “Listen to me very carefully. You are in deep trouble over this. Matteo and his mother were just taken by a team of operators. It was messy. Bloody.” He paused, letting it sink in. “But they were professionals. They took out half a dozen of Manila’s most dangerous scum.”

  “What are you talking about? Who did this?!”

  “I’m going to find out. But I thought you should know. And congratulations on making the team that selects the next pope. That’s a big deal.”

  Antonio ended the call and looked down at his yellow legal pad. In his mind, there were only two organization-heads that had the power to extract Tala and her son in the way it had been done. One was inside the Vatican, and the other outside of it.

  Bruce kept sitting up, puffing out his chest, arching his back, and then slouching back down.