by Steve Richer
Hingle couldn’t believe what he was hearing. The feeling was almost as atrocious as when he’d heard Bonga had been killed.
“Is there a backup plan?”
“I’ve been making calls all afternoon, but you have to understand it’s not like selling vacuum cleaners. We have to find somebody we can trust and someone who has the money.”
“Try governments. This kind of technology? They won’t think twice about where it came from.”
“Yes, but governments work slower. It could take a few months.”
Morales couldn’t wait either, he had a revolution to launch. And it had to be launched before the weekend.
“Do we have a goddamn choice? Make it happen. But with a government, don’t ask for $300 million. Let’s round it out to half a billion. They’ll pay.”
Hingle hung up. He briefly thought about going to persuade Zaillian personally, but he could be under surveillance. Also, it took the man’s consent to transfer the funds. It was like putting a gun to an artist’s head and pressuring him to create a masterpiece. Not a good approach. No, he would have to wait for a new buyer.
Until then, he had to make sure the cops couldn’t arrest him, at least not be able to convict him. He couldn’t hide forever. He had a plan, but he was still mad. If he knew for certain the noise wouldn’t alert the neighbors, he would smash everything in sight. He settled for breaking a celery stick in half.
Chapter 59
There was no way Jeff could leave North Carolina without seeing Chasey. They had been apart less than twelve hours and yet it felt like eternity.
He rented a car in Charlotte and drove the three hours east to Emmetts Run. They were just finishing the Chinese food Jeff had brought along when he thought about his job again.
“Where are you?” she asked, noticing that he was lost in thought.
“Do you have the Internet here?”
“Yeah, why?”
“I’m missing my daily dose of animated GIFs.”
He winked at her and went to the laptop in the living room. It was a small apartment located above a photo shop, basically an unglamorous loft. He booted up the machine and made sure it was hooked to the phone line. She came over to enter her password. She then brought two beers and settled on the couch.
“What are you looking for?”
The answer came in the form of a URL. Jeff was visiting the official website of Caribbean Wayfarers Cruise Lines.
“Are you gonna do anything with Zaillian?” Jeff asked while clicking left, right, and center, trying to find exactly what he was looking for.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean the story. Are you gonna write it?”
“You’re allowing me to?”
“This isn’t the Soviet Union, there’s this whole free press thing going, I don’t know if you’ve heard of it.”
“I thought it was top secret.”
“Thanks for considering that. But you can break the story, write about how the entire company is phony, how the SEC is investigating them for fraud. I’m sure it will at least make the front page of The Wall Street Journal. Nothing about the prototype though, I have to insist on that.”
She smiled. “Okay, great. Thank you.”
Jeff landed on the page he was looking for, a description of the ships and their passenger capacity. The Ocean Zoom and her sister ship Ocean Queen caught his attention.
“Morales purchased the blueprints for one of these boats. If I can figure out what he wants with it, well, maybe I can save the world,” he said with a grin.
And get the girl, he wanted to add.
He clicked on each ship’s link and studied its features. Then he looked into their itineraries. The Ocean Queen was finishing up a Seafarer cruise and was on her way to Fort Lauderdale from the Bahamas. The Ocean Zoom however was just beginning her Voyager cruise; it had left Florida two days ago. The next two ports of call drained the blood from Jeff’s face.
Willemstad, Curaçao and La Guaira, Venezuela.
“You think it means something?” She knew it was a dumb question, but saying nothing made her feel stupid.
“Has to.”
He left the couch and took Chasey’s cellphone which was lying on an armchair. He didn’t want to log off the Internet in case he still needed to look up something. He asked permission with his chin and she nodded.
He called Bellamy to let him know what he had discovered. The G Group Deputy Director said he would study the situation and see if he could get a passengers list from the cruise line. He urged Jeff to stay put until he called back.
“What did he say?”
Jeff sat back down. “He told me I had to make out with you until he figured out in what way I would be more helpful.”
She giggled. “You a sly dog, ain’t you?”
“If I was any slyer, they’d have a university research program on me. So, are you gonna let me obey my boss or am I gonna have to get fired?”
Her giggle turned into a bona fide laugh. Yes, she liked him more and more. She moved closer to him and brought her face to his. They locked lips and closed their eyes.
She felt his hands brush her hair back behind her ears and caress her face. Their tongues danced playfully. Neither Jeff nor Chasey knew exactly in which mouth their tongues were. It was as if their bodies were merging into one entity. Chasey backed off, but Jeff held on to her hand.
“Do you remember what you said to me the last time we spoke?”
“You mean just before you attacked me with your feral tongue?”
“I mean before you hung up on me this afternoon. You remember?”
“I think I said something to the effect that I loved you. But you have to put it in context,” Jeff added hastily, as if he felt the need to explain himself. “You had just given me important information that could possibly award me a couple of medals.” He wasn’t exactly sure why he was downplaying it. He had come too far too simply desist. “No, that’s not why I said it. I do love you. I know I’ve only known you for less than a week, but I guess a heart is like a Geiger meter, when it finds a harmonized spirit it beeps like a bastard. I think we fit.”
“You don’t have to spell out the science behind it. I love you too, Jeff Riley.”
They kissed again. Jeff could sense she was unbuttoning his shirt. He did the same with hers and prayed to God her bra was fastened in the front since he’d never mastered the gift of the one-handed blind release. He opened his eyes and saw he was screwed. He kissed his way down her neck and focused his attention on her chest.
He slid the straps off her shoulders and pushed the undergarment down to her waist. He would remove it from her body when he would pull her pants down. He cupped her breasts as if he was molding them, sculpting them, making her moan softly.
He nuzzled her nipples until she shivered against him. He returned to her lips, the quintessence of cloud nine. He took her in his arms and carried her to the bed.
They had just moved on from the foreplay to more serious matters when the phone rang. His mind really not being into it, he let it ring out. After four times, the voicemail took over. Only the caller was persistent. It began to ring again moments later.
“You’d better get it, I’m sure it’s important.”
“It’s your phone,” he explained, kissing the inside of her thigh.
She shuddered with excitement. “You know it’s for you.”
“You’re more important.”
“Don’t you want to save the world?”
“Only if I can get the girl,” he replied, no longer afraid to tell her so.
“You already got the girl. Now get the phone.”
Jeff reluctantly pulled himself away from her and answered the phone. “International House of Love, may I take your order?”
“I hope the reason you didn’t answer the first time was that you were taking a shit,” Bellamy said.
“Something like that. What can I do you for?”
“We’ve been having meetings and confer
ence calls here at CSE, and a decision has been made. I hope you have your pants on because you’re going on another trip.”
“Where to this time?”
“You have to get to Bridgetown, Barbados before midnight tonight. Charter a plane if you have to. Buy yourself fresh clothes at the airport. Call me when you get there.”
Chasey noticed the disappointed expression on his face as he hung up. “You have to go, don’t you?”
“If you wait for me to proceed,” he indicated her naked body, “I promise to make it up to you. Twice. I’ll show you my special technique when I come back. You’ll be one of the lucky few to have experienced it.”
“The only thing I want you to promise me is to come back to me alive.”
“Consider it done.”
He wished he wasn’t lying to her.
Chapter 60
The French were ready. The last report was filed in and it was all it took to finally get the ball rolling.
The Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure was mobilizing now that the decisions had been made. Colonel Jacquier had been in charge of the Ledoux case since the first allegations of ministerial corruption had surfaced.
He had studied the surveillance material the Canadians had gotten for him and everyone above his head was of the same opinion. French bureaucracy was in a league of its own, but they had at long last gone through it all.
The Secretary of State for Industry’s bank records has been examined and there was definitely something fishy about this man. They had called the FBI and they were conducting a similar investigation on McDonald Mining Consolidated. Now they were down to the arrest phase of the operation.
Ledoux had bought one-way tickets for him and his family to the Bahamas. The house hadn’t been sold and the accounts hadn’t been cleaned which meant there was a possibility the disappearance wasn’t permanent. But they couldn’t take that chance. The plane was set to leave Friday and they would nab him before then.
Jeff told his Bridgeport cab driver to stop when he spotted a phone booth. He wanted to have a driver waiting for him in case he had to depart again quickly.
“Why do I have to go to the port?”
“I want you in Curaçao tomorrow,” Bellamy replied.
“Have you heard of airplanes? It’s a machine that allows you to fly to your destination. I hear it’s very fast.”
The Deputy Director ignored him. “You know the cruise ship? The Venezuelan president’s son is onboard. It’s our belief that he is to be the target of an attack of some sort. The consensus is kidnapping. The analysts here tell me that it could be related to the FARC, the most active terrorist group in Venezuela. Could very well explain why Morales needs so much money.”
“Okay, then why am I going there?”
“The RCMP guy in Caracas is back on the job, I’ve had him keep an eye on Morales for the last couple of days. He tells me he’s out of town, went somewhere without taking a plane. I want you there so you can ID him.”
“What about the picture? I sent you his picture.”
“The picture is shitty. You know what he looks like, how he behaves, you can spot him.”
“And then what? Am I supposed to blow my shiny whistle and wait for the cops to jump him?”
There was no way he could expect him to single-handedly stop this abduction, right? He was starting to believe that his boss was overestimating his capabilities.
“Something like that.”
“I beg your fucking pardon?”
“Look, we have to stop this guy.”
“Just call the Venezuelan government, let them take care of it.”
Bellamy couldn’t tell him how it would put them in Canada’s debt if they quietly resolved the situation for them. Venezuela’s national carrier was set to buy new airplanes and a Canadian company was competing for the contract. One covert operation could very well create more than a thousand jobs.
“It’s over your head, Jeff. The decision has been made. Your mission is to go to the port. When you get there, ask to be taken to HMCS Windsor. They’re expecting you. Good luck out there.”
Jeff was wobbly when he hung up and followed the instructions, going to the designated pier. He had expected to climb aboard a frigate or a destroyer, but it was a submarine that was waiting for him.
HMCS Windsor was one of the Victoria class submarines the Canadian Navy had purchased from the United Kingdom. It was a diesel boat, but it was a drastic improvement over the old Oberon fleet. It had been called away to Barbados from a joint naval exercise with the Mexican Navy and the US Navy. A petty officer escorted Jeff in and the XO took him to the officers’ ward.
When he saw an Army captain in camouflage, he understood. Jeff was to be the point man of this infiltration.
“JTF2?” he asked, already knowing the answer.
Captain Iddon was in his early thirties, but seemed aged by battle. He looked serene as he chewed on a maple leaf cookie. “Don’t tell anyone.”
Joint Task Force 2 was the Canadian military’s answer to special operations units. Founded in the early ‘90s when it had taken over the counterterrorism role from the RCMP, it had since evolved into a full-blown special ops force. They operated covertly abroad in the fields of intelligence and counter-insurgency.
While not publicly acknowledged, their more famous acts included planning of the Japanese Embassy rescue in Peru, and the training of rebels in Kosovo during the Milosevic purge. Their secretiveness was the key to their efficiency.
“How are we supposed to do this exactly?”
“Besides me, there are seven members of my team on board. We’ll divide into two bricks.”
“What’s a brick?”
“An assault team,” Iddon replied. “One brick is going to board the ship and stay close to our principle. Caribbean Wayfarers has issued us passes and typed us into their computer. The other brick, which includes you, is gonna roam the pier to try to intercept the terrorists. Your job is to ID that Morales man.”
“Don’t worry, I won’t snatch your burger. You think the terrorists will strike when the boat is in port?”
“Yes, it’s what I think. The Ocean Zoom is set to get to Curaçao at eight o’clock in the morning and leave at 10pm. It is my estimate that it will happen under cover of darkness, just before the ship sets sail. Either they will have someone meet them with a boat or they’ll escape with a lifeboat. All you have to do is spend a day at the beach.”
“Okay, but if your antics get me killed, you’ll have the entire video store clerks’ union on your back. They won’t appreciate the business they’ll lose.”
Iddon chuckled. At least he wouldn’t be working with an uptight federal government jerk.
“Come on, I’ll show you to your bunk. It’s gonna be a long day tomorrow.”
AUGUST 15
THURSDAY
Chapter 61
Julian Farris had never used a Cobra before, but he couldn’t believe how easy it was to manipulate. The device Jeff had left at Hingle’s house was turning against its master.
He was taking a chance by going to Jeff’s apartment, but it was the first move in their counterstrike. They had invested too much and the stake was too high to simply let it go. They had to get out on top and smelling like expensive French perfume. He knew that Riley wasn’t home, but he didn’t care. They had a plan and no one could interfere with it.
He could have searched the apartment and taken whatever he wanted. However, he was here for a very specific mission. He took the envelope from his pocket and spilled the contents over the kitchen table. It was where people left notes to each other, wasn’t it? His note was succinct, consisting of less than thirty words.
Much more eloquent were the two Polaroids. He propped them up to make sure Riley wouldn’t miss them.
It was a message that Riley wouldn’t be able to ignore.
The sun was going down when the Windsor reached Curaçao. It surfaced one mile west of Willemstad.
&
nbsp; The soldiers were dressed in civilian clothes and were careful not to dirty themselves when they dragged their equipment up the diver lock. Jeff stayed out of their way as they brought the two collapsible zodiacs and the engines up.
As soon as they reached the top, the boats were inflated and the engines mounted. They climbed aboard and zipped away from the submarine. Holding on tightly, Jeff saw the Windsor swiftly submerge again behind them.
Each boat had a bag and the soldiers dipped in to retrieve weapons. They were MP5K PDWs, short submachine guns with impressive firepower. Each man slipped on the nylon carrying rig around their shoulders and concealed it by putting on a sports jacket.
The only thing that made them stand out was their boots. They were wearing the tan combat boots usually reserved for desert operations. They needed the reliability of comfort. Jeff wasn’t armed and was glad no one had offered him a weapon. For once, his mission wouldn’t place him in danger.
Maybe he’d be able to take it easy for once. After all, he was in a tropical paradise.
Curaçao was Dutch. It was part of the Netherlands Antilles, which in turn was part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, in the South Caribbean. It was located a mere thirty-five miles off the coast of Venezuela.
It had once made money from slavery, but it was now in the business of oil refinery. Once the hub of the Caribbean slave trafficking, it was surprising how the Dutch settlers had treated the natives. They’d sought black women, minchis, to breastfeed their newborn children believing that the blacker she was, the better the milk was. The island had conserved its colonial look, often being referred to as a little Amsterdam.
It took a few minutes, but they finally reached the Sea Aquarium Beach. They landed on the far west of the beach where there wasn’t anyone to spot them. They dragged the boats on the sand and concealed them under mangroves and palm trees. They found taxis on the street and rode to the port.
The Ocean Zoom was an impressive vessel. Jeff had read brochures during the undersea voyage and he almost regretted not being on the security detail aboard.