The Medina Device

by T. J. Champitto

  It was a simple tactic. Cam knew that if he or Michael had been identified by the CIA, the agency would send a team to monitor James—standard operating procedure.

  So, Cam was essentially using James as bait—a dangerous attempt to lure any potential CIA teams out into the open, and, more importantly, to lay eyes on the men who’d murdered his friend. It was a pre-emptive strategy that Cam had carefully plotted. In the two hours since he pulled into town, nothing had caught his attention. But he was aware that his counter-surveillance skills couldn’t match the CIA’s best field agents. His only advantage would come in the form of operational combat tactics. And he was poised to use them.

  Chapter Thirty

  Carson was finally getting some sleep at a nearby safe house when his phone rang. In a pre-programmed, robot-like response, he sat up from the bed.

  “Yeah.”

  “We’ve got a hit on Cameron Lyle, sir.” It was Kevin from the ops center.

  “Where?”

  “The team we put on the older brother in Hockessin just checked in.”

  “Cameron’s with the older brother?” He’s dumber than we gave him credit for, thought Carson.

  “Not exactly. Our recon team actually identified him in a perimeter sweep. Cameron Lyle is apparently staked out in a black, late-model Honda.”

  “What do you mean ‘staked out?’”

  “For some reason, he’s monitoring James.”

  Carson was slightly perplexed. “Keep our guys back, but don’t lose sight of him.”

  “You don’t want to pick him up?”

  “Not yet. Our target is the ossuary, not the Lyles. Figure out what the hell Cameron’s up to, and nobody move until either Michael pops his head out, or we have a visual on the target.”

  “Copy that.”

  . . .

  Hours later, after following James back to his residence from campus, Cam pulled the black Honda out of the neighborhood and onto a backroad that took him to a Super 8 Motel in nearby New Castle. He had kept a safe distance between himself and James during the drive home and didn’t notice any suspicious followers. It seemed strange. Surely there was a CIA team somewhere out there.

  It was only a matter of time, he thought.

  . . .

  Meanwhile, the sun was setting on the west coast. Rand returned to his hotel with a bottle of whiskey. It had been a long day of hits and misses at the San Francisco field office.

  Settled in his room, the agent pulled the bottle from a brown paper bag and lifted it to his lips. Before he could get a taste, his moment of relaxation was interrupted by a phone call.

  “Hello?”

  “Rand, it’s Agent Reynolds.”

  “Hey, what’s up?”

  “We got something here.”

  “You’re not at the office still, are you?”

  “Yeah, we were getting a few surveillance teams in place,” Reynolds explained. “I wanted to wait until everyone checked in. Get this shit—I just heard from the team assigned to James Lyle in Delaware. And guess what they picked up?”

  “What?”

  “There’s another surveillance team on him.”

  “Another team?” Rand set the bottle of whiskey on the nightstand and paced over to the window. “What other team?”

  “Definitely not ours. NSA or CIA, maybe.”

  “And they’re tailing James Lyle?” Rand echoed.

  “That’s the funny thing,” replied Reynolds. “Our guys had only been on him for an hour before they noticed the tail. But whoever the hell they are, they were following James back to his house, then peeled off.”

  “Peeled off? So where are they now?”

  “They’re staked out at a jewelry store parking lot across from a motel in New Castle.”

  “So, you think they were tailing James Lyle, but now they’re in New Castle? Reynolds, please don’t tell me our team has pulled off their target just to chase some random assholes who might be tailing our guy,” dared Rand.

  “Listen, I completely understand,” Reynolds agreed. “But our guys had to make a split-second decision. They’re keeping tabs on everything. I promise.”

  “Fine. I’m on the next flight out. Have a car ready for me in Philly.”

  “You got it, man. Have a safe trip,” Reynolds offered before hanging up.

  Rand placed the phone on the dresser and began packing. He hadn’t checked in with Brodsky in over forty-eight hours and made a mental note to do so when he got to the airport. The Special Agent in Charge would surely be upset with a cross-country manhunt, but Rand was confident all the pieces were falling into place.

  Then it hit him—if the Lyles had indeed stolen a CIA asset from a cargo ship in the Pacific, the tail on James was most certainly theirs. And it wasn’t a surveillance detail—it was a hit team. He scrambled for his phone and scrolled through his contacts until he found Melissa Dagan, then made the call.

  “Hello?”

  “Melissa, this is Rand.” He tried his best to sound calm.

  “Hey, stranger! Great to hear your voice. You in town?”

  “No, I’m in San Fran, believe it or not.”

  “Oh okay. Well, I’m about to leave the office, what’s up?” Melissa asked.

  “That heist at sea you were telling me about—”

  “Listen, Rand. That’s all off-the-record, I’m not sure—”

  “No, I get it. I do,” pleaded Kershaw. “And this is going to sound crazy, but I think I have your pirates wrapped up in my case. And we just made one of your surveillance details on a next of kin.”

  “Really?” Melissa’s interest level shot up. “What’s the name?”

  “James Lyle. His brother, Cameron, is our suspect.”

  Rand could hear her working a keyboard.

  “I got nothing,” she replied. “None of our current surveillance ops are assigned to a James Lyle.”

  “Black ops maybe?”

  “We’re not going there, my friend.”

  “Fine.” Rand was losing patience. “You know what I think? I think those are your guys out there, and the second my suspect shows up they’re going to put a bullet in his head and effectively ruin my career.” He took a deep breath. “You gotta help me out, Melissa. Please.”

  “Look, I really don’t have anything earth shattering for you. I’ve got the report pulled up from the freighter heist, but most of this stuff is redacted. There’s one file here, and a bunch more that are classified. I don’t have that kind of clearance.”

  “What’s in the unclassified file?”

  “Um, it’s just that field report our San Diego team filed from the cargo ship, Maersk Burgundy. Agent’s name is blacked out. Not a lot here except what I’ve already told you—three male suspects posing as Coast Guard personnel. They pretended to run a routine check of the ship, then stole the asset.”

  “That’s it?”

  “Well, wait a minute. There’s one more report attached to it.” Melissa waited for the file to download. “Okay…this is weird.”

  “What is it?”

  “It’s a Pentagon document dated April 17, 1962.” Melissa spoke slowly, paraphrasing the report as she read it. “USS Oklahoma City, on her way back from training exercises off Japan, picks up four castaways from an unknown island in the middle of the Pacific. Says they carried with them a ‘strange device of some kind.’ The castaways were brought aboard the Oklahoma City and taken to Pearl Harbor for eventual transport back to the mainland.”

  “Anything else?” Rand asked, clearly
perplexed.

  “That’s it. Make heads or tails of it, but that’s all I can give you. The rest is above my pay grade.”

  “Wait a sec—” Rand fumbled. “What strange device are they talking about?”

  “I have no idea.”

  He took a moment to let it all sink in. “I can’t thank you enough, Melissa. I promise I won’t bug you with this again.”

  “My pleasure. But listen closely, Rand,” she was whispering now, “if we get your boy in our sights and he’s the one from the Burgundy, he won’t last long. You want these guys? Better take your chance as soon as you get it.”

  “Understood.”

  Chapter Thirty-One

  New Castle, Delaware

  It was shortly after four in the morning when a Chevy Tahoe pulled off the exit ramp. His local team had already confirmed that the presumed CIA spooks were still camped out across from the Super 8. Rand Kershaw struggled to keep his eyes open as he navigated his way through a matrix of one-way streets and finicky traffic lights.

  He needed to get eyes on the situation and somehow course-correct the mission. Soon, the town would awaken, and a new game of cat-and-mouse would commence.

  The dark blue Tahoe pulled into a convenience store where two agents sat idly in a black sedan next to a dumpster. Rand parked in a space out front and exited the vehicle. He walked to the front entrance and briefly locked eyes with his agents sitting in the sedan. With a nod, contact was established.

  He spent no more than a minute inside the small, run-down store before returning to the Tahoe, where he then placed a small microphone into his right ear. Rand pulled out of the space and exited the small lot. The black sedan followed.

  “Talk to me,” Rand said, checking his rearview.

  “Special Agent Kershaw, this is Briggs and Vacano. Thanks for joining us.”

  “My pleasure, gentlemen. Do we know if our mystery boys have a second-layer perimeter in place, or are they alone?”

  “Can’t confirm that, sir. We were a little light on resources, but haven’t caught any additional teams in our net. Just two guys in an old Mercury.”

  “Are you both absolutely certain these men were on James Lyle, or are we about to crash another agency’s investigation over a coincidence?”

  “Yes sir, they were definitely tracking James Lyle back to his house last night. All of their movements were classic tradecraft.”

  “Copy that. I’m circling around to the west, gonna try and sneak in a little closer.”

  “Sounds good. Keep your head down,” Briggs warned from the sedan.

  Rand pushed several blocks north before hanging a left at a major intersection and wrapping around to the opposite side of the jewelry store. He inched the Tahoe one more block and into one of the many motels lining the street. It gave him a safe vantage point of both the jewelry store and the Super 8.

  After a prolonged scan of the area, he made them. It was the early model Ford Mercury with a faded dark green finish. A real piece of shit, Rand thought. Perfect cover for the neighborhood.

  He jumped out of the SUV and slung his messenger bag over his shoulder, then marched to the motel entrance where a young Indian man rested behind the counter.

  “FBI,” Rand sharply announced, as he flashed his federal badge. “I need a room facing the street. This is a federal investigation so don’t bother typing anything into the computer. Just a key. Now.”

  The kid fumbled for a room key and handed it over the counter. Rand exited the rear of the motel and hustled up a flight of stairs to the second-floor walkway, where he checked his room key and broke right down the catwalk. Barging into room 6C, he pulled a set of binoculars from his messenger bag. He now had eyes on the two men sitting in the Ford Mercury.

  “What the hell are you guys up to?” Rand whispered to himself.

  He patiently sat on the bed, raising and lowering his binoculars every few minutes until the sun began cresting over the skyline to the east. Once the sun rose above New Castle, he moved to the floor, countering any reflection from his binoculars.

  Ten minutes later, as he crouched in front of a full-length sliding glass door, he noticed some movement inside the Ford.

  Rand again pulled the binoculars to his eyes. Two hundred yards away, in the green car, a man peered intently over the steering wheel while another rustled with something in the passenger seat—it looked like a camera. The men were suddenly fixated on the front of the Super 8 across the street.

  Rand swept his binoculars to the right. He squinted deeply into the lenses and adjusted the focus. A man emerged from a first-floor room and began walking to a nearby car. As everything came into focus, he saw it.

  It was Cameron Lyle. Rand held his breath in disbelief. In a hushed tone, he spoke into the earpiece. “We’ve got eyes on Cameron Lyle. Repeat, I’ve got Cameron Lyle.”

  “Copy that,” Briggs confirmed from several blocks away.

  . . .

  Cam reached for the door of his car when he first felt it—the eyes watching. His finely tuned instincts assured him. He opened the door and sat in the car for a moment before moving a muscle. His mind raced, but he had been trained for this type of scenario. At the very least, he knew his cover was blown. His next move would determine his fate.

  He put the car in reverse and glanced into the rearview mirror. There they are, he thought when he spotted an older green car; he could make out the silhouette of two adult males inside. He jerked the Accord back into drive and hastily pulled out of the parking lot. Surely, the spooks would follow. He decided to continue as planned and headed straight for Hockessin to pick up James’ tail again. Any variance from his previous behaviors would tip off his new CIA friends. He needed to appear completely oblivious to their presence.

  Cam drove several miles and checked the rearview again. The green car was nowhere to be seen, but that’s exactly how it was supposed to be. He made his way to James’ Hockessin neighborhood, where he saw his brother leaving for work. Right on schedule, he thought.

  Cam followed from a distance. It was now time to make his move.

  His plan was to lure the CIA team to a place that gave him a strategic advantage—a bridge underpass, an empty building, anywhere he could hunker down and win a gunfight.

  Meanwhile, Rand had hustled from the room to his vehicle in pursuit of his ghost. He now crept the SUV along a side street to keep up, all while trying to remain undetected by the CIA agents lurking in the area. Cam’s black Honda Accord had just u-turned a half-mile from Rand’s position and was about to cross in front of him as the agent rested at an intersection. Seconds later, the Accord passed by.

  “He’s headed north on Burlings. All units stay back. I repeat, stay back. There’s too much commotion as it is, I don’t want to give ourselves away just yet.”

  Rand hit his blinker and carefully pulled out behind his target and stayed several cars away. The mystery men were still nowhere to be found. He knew for certain they were CIA—who else would be chasing Cameron Lyle? And according to Melissa Dagan, his target wasn’t going to last long. He needed to get Cameron off the street as quickly and quietly as possible.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  James Lyle parked his car and walked through the brisk morning air to campus hall. Wilmington University was quieter than usual. It was a Friday and Spring Break was only a week away.

  As the professor disappeared from sight, Cam pulled away from the campus and kept his attention in the rearview mirror. They were out there—somewhere.

  On his drive into town the day before, he’d taken note of a small abandoned service station off a quiet street. The building’s longer-than-usual driveway an
d overall position fit perfectly into his new strategy.

  Several blocks from campus, he hung a right and went straight for the service station. Cam pulled the Honda Accord up its long driveway. The building had been abandoned long ago; its faded white brick exterior relayed a long history of forgone mechanics, customers, drug dealers and loiterers. Several of the window panes were smashed and tags had been spray-painted onto the walls by local gang members. It was a perfect hunting ground.

  He parked the car around the back, leaving it just noticeable enough to be seen by anyone passing by—anyone who happened to be looking for it. Cam dug through his backpack and quickly found a knife, which he clipped to his belt. He checked his 9mm pistol and tucked it into his waistline.

  The former SEAL slipped into the building through a broken window and took up position. Knelt behind a row of old metal stock shelves, he had the perfect vantage point down the long driveway leading up to the service station. Now, he waited.

  Thirty minutes went by before any movement stirred outside. Just as he’d hoped, the old Ford Mercury slowly turned in and crept its way up the gravel drive toward his position. The trap was set.

  With a few preparatory breaths, Cam trained his 9mm on the front door as the sedan came to a stop just outside. Suddenly, from the shadows behind him, he heard the unmistakable click of a pistol. He’d been out-flanked—they’d gotten the jump on him. Cameron braced for a quick death.

  “Drop your weapon,” the voice demanded in a low, soft tone.

  Why isn’t he screaming at me? Why am I not dead?

  Cam calmly surrendered his 9mm to the air and was very careful to avoid any sudden movements. He glanced at the CIA agents standing outside observing their surroundings, seemingly unaware of what was happening inside.