DARC Ops: The Complete Series

by Jamie Garrett

  “Excuse me?” one of the guards said.

  “This floor is closed,” said the other.

  “We came up to see Mr. Awadi,” said Jackson.

  “Names?”

  “Just tell him it’s DARC Ops.”

  Their faces suddenly softened. One of them said, “Jackson?”

  They were evidently glad to meet Jackson, the fabled leader of DARC Ops, hero and celebrity to security outfits everywhere. One of the guards walked back to a room down the hall while the other, still beaming, shook hands with the men.

  “How do you know it’s really me?” asked Jackson, grimacing.

  “Easy. No one would dare impersonate you.”

  After all the flattery and the almost infantile comradeship, Jasper and Jackson were shown into the penthouse suite, a lavish setup that looked more like someone’s full-time apartment than a hotel room. There were such useless extravagances as a gushing water fountain, a baby grand piano in the marble-laden foyer, and in the main room, a fully stocked bar that should have been useless for any self-respecting Saudi.

  “Come in, come in,” said a smiling, elderly man in a white gown and thick sunglasses. He walked with a stiff hunch in his back, and his feet seemed to move in small, toddler-like increments. Little baby steps all the way out of the hallway and into the brilliantly lit living room.

  “Don’t worry about that shit,” he told Jackson when the DARC Ops leader tried on his Saudi greeting. “We’re in America. Right?”

  “That’s right,” said Jackson. “North Carolina.”

  They must really have wanted Jasper involved in the case to fly out to meet him near the base.

  “So what do they do in North Carolina?” he asked, his accent stumbling over the state’s name.

  “I don’t know,” said Jackson. “We’re not from here, either.”

  “Is this the guy?” the Saudi asked, looking hard at Jasper.

  Jasper nodded before Jackson could say anything. Indeed, he was the guy. He’d been “the guy” many times in the past and for various reasons. It was a suitable, safe name.

  “Call me Rick,” said Jasper. Rick had always been the guy’s name.

  “Okay, Rick. Call me Mr. Awadi.”

  Sure. Real original.

  “So like I said, Mr. Awadi’s boss needs our help.”

  “That’s right. He doesn’t trust anyone except for Mr. Jackson.”

  “We bonded after I saved his ass from an assassination attempt.” Jackson said it as if it were just some minor little memoir, on par with fixing his flat tire or going fishing in Wisconsin. Jasper caught his eye, raising an eyebrow, but Jackson left it at that. No need to waste anyone’s time with further elaboration on how or from whom, of course. Just another day at DARC Ops.

  “He’s a good man,” said Awadi, smiling.

  “So, tell us about our boss,” said Jackson.

  Awadi looked past them, around the room. “He’s not my boss. He’s the prince.” He kept looking for something.

  “What’s wrong?” asked Jackson.

  “I forgot to check something,” he said. And then he called out a name in Arabic. A young, extremely skinny man appeared a few seconds later. This time when he spoke, Jasper could pick up the words. Something about the room. An uncertainty. A definite displeasure.

  He turned to Jackson and said, “Good thing you’re here.”

  “Why?”

  “Because Salmha is incompetent. I told him to check for bugs and he’s having trouble. Could you do me the pleasure?”

  It seemed odd the way he said it. As if it was a test.

  “You want me to check the room for bugs?” asked Jackson.

  “Anything,” said Awadi. “Anything that can listen.”

  “I wish you would’ve told me earlier. I could’ve brought—”

  “Do what you can,” said Awadi. “Please.”

  The young man returned with a briefcase, opening it up on the coffee table and then stepping back out of the limelight. He seemed happy to do so, to leave off the responsibility to the experts.

  “This is your specialty,” said Awadi. “Is it not?”

  Jackson barely looked at the contents of the briefcase before saying, “I can’t use this equipment.”

  “No? Why not?”

  Jackson took another look before shaking his head and closing the lid.

  “Is there a problem?” asked Awadi.

  “I can get better results with a phone,” said Jackson, fishing one out of his pocket. “Don’t you just hate that?”

  “Well, I don’t know, but I hate being listened to. Do you understand me?”

  “Forget bugs,” said Jackson. “Your phone is your bug.”

  “My phone?”

  “So the question is, can someone tap into it?” Jackson started working his phone. “What I can check right now is if there are any devices nearby that can grab your signal. That’s the easiest thing to check.”

  He was looking for an IMSI catcher, a device that could capture your phone’s activity. Anyone could buy one for a few thousand dollars.

  “Meta data,” said Jackson. “It’s like your fingerprints.”

  “I know meta data,” said Awadi.

  “You do?” Jackson had leaned over to show Jasper his screen, a framework map of the neighborhood showing all the devices. An IMSI catcher would show up as a red circle. There was none.

  “Well, I know the metadata,” said Awadi. “But I dont know . . .”

  “An IMSI catcher intercepts your phone’s metadata remotely,” said Jackson. “With that they can tell when you left your house, the license plate on the car you’re in, where you went, who you sat with.”

  “Yes, I know all that,” said Awadi. “So is there one of those, uh . . .”

  “IMSI catchers?”

  “Did you find one?”

  “No,” Jackson said, putting the phone away. “You’re clear.”

  “You hear that, Salmha?” he called to his servant out of the room. “He said we’re clear.” He waited a minute, smiling. And then he called again, “You hear that, Salmha?” He started drumming his fingers on his knee impatiently. The whole situation was becoming awkward.

  “Maybe he’s in the bathroom?” said Jackson.

  “Salmha!” yelled Awadi before launching into an angry tirade of Arabic. It was too fast and too hostile for translation.

  “I’m sorry,” he finally said, getting up. “I don’t know what’s happened to Salmha.” He started shuffling away while calling his servant’s name again for the twentieth time.

  “Should we . . .” Jasper started to say. But Jackson just shook his head. Best to let them deal with whatever it was.

  After a minute, Awadi returned with a grave look on his face, like he’d just stumbled upon a dead body. “Jackson, can you have your doctor come over here please?”

  “His name is Rick,” said Jackson.

  “Rick, can you please come?” He sounded very serious, quiet. Scared, almost.

  Jasper joined him in the luxurious bathroom, where they found Salmha on the stone tile floor and hunched in the fetal position. He was breathing, conscious, but in great discomfort. Jasper immediately checked for any signs of blood or vomit, or even drool. But there was nothing.

  Awadi said something to him. But there was hardly a response. He then turned to Jasper, saying, “He’s my food tester. Something must be wrong with the food.”

  Most of these guys from Saudi come over with their own food testers, to make sure they weren’t about to be poisoned. Who would poison him was apparently beside the point. Awadi was traveling outside the safe confines of Riyadh, and therefore vulnerable.

  It could be hoped that Salmha was just sensitive to a little American cooking, and nothing more.

  “Salmha, can you hear me?” Jasper said in Arabic.

  Yes, he could hear, he mumbled in reply.

  “Do you know where you are?”

  Yes, he knew that he was in the bathroom in a
hotel suite on the twentieth floor. Raleigh, North Carolina. It was all good news, that he was at least conscious and coherent. But what the hell was wrong with him?

  “Where does it hurt?” asked Jasper.

  The man was clutching his stomach, so that as much was obvious.

  “Where does it hurt, Salmha?” asked Awadi.

  Jasper had already gotten him to sit up, his back pushed up against the wall. He was holding his chest right below his ribs, but Jasper moved his hands away so he could press onto his abdomen, examining his organs.

  Jackson had left the room, returning within a few seconds. “Jasper, the food’s in the other room. Do you want to see it?”

  “Yes, do you want to check out the food?” asked Awadi, sounding like he was already interviewing for another food tester.

  “There’s no need to check it,” said Jasper, looking at the man’s eyes now. Looking at his tongue. And then looking at his hands. “The food’s fine.”

  “Food’s fine?” asked Awadi.

  “Probably too fine,” said Jasper as he finished up his exam got back to his feet. “He ate it too fast.”

  “What?” Awadi looked confused, looked down at his man.

  “Gas pain,” said Jasper, trying not to laugh.

  “He’ll be okay,” said Jasper. “Let’s get him up and lay him in bed.”

  Jasper and Jackson helped the man off the bathroom floor and walked him into the bedroom. He was apologizing in Arabic, saying that he felt okay, and sorry for all the bother.

  “So,” said Jackson, helping the man into one of the suite’s many king-size beds. “Do you think we can talk about the prince, or . . . ?” He was starting to sound annoyed with all the little delays.

  “Prince Saif,” said Awadi. “Yes, of course.” They walked back, slowly, to the main room while he began the briefing. “He has many enemies, as you could guess.”

  “Why don’t you explain that,” said Jackson. “His enemies. Who are they?”

  “Anyone in the business of selling oil, who profits when we keep production down,” said Awadi. “Look at your own country. Your shale oil and fracking wouldn’t be profitable if gas were below thirty-two a barrel. You understand what I mean, right? Our royal family has been flooding the market for over a year now, and not many people are happy. You understand?”

  Jasper didn’t want to admit how well he understood. It was called “break-even economics.” And right now, if you weren’t a Saudi, you weren’t breaking even.

  “There were threats made,” said Awadi. “Big threats made. Assassination attempts. Two this year already.”

  “In the Kingdom?” asked Jackson incredulously.

  “Yes. Attempts in the Kingdom.”

  “At least your track record’s better here in the US,” said Jasper with a hesitant smile.

  “Yes,” said Awadi. “But right now it doesn’t matter where he is. The threat can come from anywhere. The hacking.”

  “When is the prince due for surgery?” asked Jackson.

  “Surgery for what?” Jasper interrupted.

  “His heart,” said Awadi. “He’s getting a new pacemaker.”

  Jackson turned to his medic. “They’re worried about the potential for it to be hacked, among other things—like it’s malfunctioning. Badly.”

  “Yes, of course, the pacemaker,” said Awadi, his eyes wide. “We have no other choice but to have surgery on his heart. But what if they could stop the pacemaker entirely?”

  “They can stop it,” said Jackson. “They can hack into it and compromise its functions.”

  “Yes, certainly,” Awadi’s eyes were still wide with concern. “They can hack.”

  “So, our mission,” said Jackson, looking like he was trying to resist rolling his eyes, “is to not let them hack it. We’ll be monitoring it from the outside. And your mission, Rick, is to see to it that the prince has a nice, uneventful stay at the hospital. You know your way around a hospital setting, right?”

  “Sure,” said Jasper. He’d been to far too many hospitals, as a caregiver and recipient. In fact, part of his training when he was active duty had him working in the regular rotation at a hospital near Fort Bragg. And part of that rotation was spent with one irresistibly attractive nursing assistant, when they’d learned much more about each other’s bodies than those of their subjects. Several weeks and a pregnancy scare later, it was decided that they’d learned enough. Jasper had to deploy, and the relationship fizzled away.

  “So?” said Jackson. “You on board, Rick?”

  “Of course.” Jasper tried to get his mind off his night’s turn, tried not to wonder too much about where it’d ended up. “Yeah,” he said. “Count me in.”

  6

  Fiona

  Marva was still alive. That was one bit of good news, at least. She hadn’t died from some mistake of Fiona’s, some screwup like overdosing her insulin and putting the nice old lady into diabetic shock. She hadn’t screwed up the medication dosage last night. And this morning—thank God—while helping Marva into a more comfortable position, she somehow hadn’t held a pillow over her face until the struggle ended.

  So it had been a pretty good day so far. No deaths. No blood splatter—from a blood bag or otherwise. There were no morning discoveries of forgotten catheter clamps. She should be well on her way to a commendation, perhaps even a raise. Or at least no more drug tests. She’d be happy with that.

  “How was your sleep, Marva?”

  The elderly woman smiled groggily, stretching her arms under the sheets. “Just as long as I wake up, it was a good one.”

  Fiona smiled with her, envying the woman’s simple, geriatric contentment.

  “And how was yours?” Marva asked. It was a question Fiona rarely heard.

  “Oh, fine,” she lied.

  “That’s good, Dear. You deserve it. You work so hard here every day.”

  Fiona looked around at a few new additions to the décor. Mainly, several bouquets of standard hospital-lobby flowers. A gold frame around an old black-and-white family photograph. Newer photos without frames, but leaning up here and there, wherever they could.

  “I see you’ve had some visitors,” said Fiona as she prepared the glucose monitor. It would be the Marva’s first stab of the day.

  “Oh, yes, thank Jesus. They finally came for little old me.”

  “Your flowers smell wonderful, Marva.”

  “Oh, yes. They were so sweet, coming to see me, and bringing gifts and such.”

  Fiona checked her patient ID number off the chart, and then checked her ID bracelet. Everything by the book. “You’ll have to thank them for me,” Fiona said, carefully reading her bracelet.

  “I already have, profusely.”

  “I mean, thank them for my gift.”

  “Oh?” Marva looked as confused as ever. “I’m sorry? What was your gift, Dear?”

  “I had a nice little chat with your family yesterday.”

  Marva’s eyes widened. “What?”

  “They came up to me, to say hi,” said Fiona, putting down the glucose monitor. The pain could wait a minute. “They gave me a little box of chocolates.”

  “Oh they did?”

  “Yes, they’re very nice.”

  “Well, Dear, I told them about you.” Her smile had broadened. And she’d started nodding, almost like she was in a trance. “I told them you’re the one keeping me alive here. And not just that, but sane. You and Jesus.”

  Fiona laughed.

  “Do they know how valuable you are here?”

  She wanted to say yes, but . . .

  “No,” she said. “No, they don't.”

  Fuck it. They don’t know at all how valuable she was.

  “Well, they will know,” said Marva. “I’ll be sure of it. By God I will.”

  Fiona laughed again. She picked up the glucose monitor while enjoying the mental image of Marva setting the wrath of God against the unbelievers of Fiona’s competency. “You might not like me after thi
s,” Fiona said, waving the pointy end of the detector.

  “Oh, Jesus. That thing again.” She made a face, like a grimace, and then pulled her arm away. “But what about that other thing we talked about? Where I don’t have to get all these needles all the time?”

  “Oh, right, the insulin pump.” Fiona had completely forgotten to inquire about it. She was too busy with interrogations and peeing into cups.

  “Am I allowed to get one of them things?” asked Marva.

  “We’re working on it.”

  “Oh, I need it bad.”

  “I know, Marva. But I’m afraid this time we’ll have to do it the old-fashioned way.”

  Marva hesitantly offered her hand.

  “I know,” said Fiona, aiming with the device “I’m sorry.” She really was.

  “I could sure use that thing.”

  “Hold still?”

  Marva held still.

  “Three . . . Two . . . One . . .”

  Sitting at a table in the break room, Fiona pushed aside the thick hardcover she was attempting to care about. Chick-lit about some soccer mom with an addiction to Ambien. Needing to counteract the sedation, she slid a slice of blueberry pie in front of her. It came in a clear plastic box and the lid opened with a loud snap. She hunched over her drug, her upper, a stale dose of hospital dessert. It was the one indulgence she allowed herself, unless the hospital administrators were screening for sweets as well as the harder stuff. What would they ask for next? A blood sample? They could borrow Marva’s glucose monitor for the deed. Better yet, they could have Marva, herself, extract the sample from Fiona. Get some revenge against her torturer.

  She took a bite, and was finally satisfied with her break. It finally lived up to its promise of a break away from the hell. The shortest, most bittersweet sliver of a break.

  “Hey, Fiona,” said Wendy, pulling out a chair and sitting across from her. “How much longer do you have?”

  “Umm . . .” Fiona had to wait for her pie hole to be devoid of pie.

  In the meantime, Wendy slid the book over to her side, glancing at the front cover with mild amusement. “Oh, that’s so funny,” she said, flipping the book over.

  What was so funny about that?