by JT Sawyer
When the stewardess came by, Jessica asked for a drink of vodka and a pillow. Forty minutes later, after more small talk, she fell asleep, leaning on Bob’s shoulder for much of the remaining flight. Not that he minded. Her lovely fragrance, which covered him like a velvety blanket, along with her vivacious personality made him forget briefly about the nature of his overseas visit to London. Schueller’s work as a professor of microbiology at Cornell University kept him confined to his lab for much of the year. Only a few family vacations allowed him to escape the demands of his work along with the bi-annual trip to England to discuss his scientific research in virology with a think-tank comprised of U.S. and European scientists. The only difference between Schueller and his colleagues was that he was a consultant to the CIA in their bioweapons division, though his work with them had diminished considerably in the past three years due to budget cuts. His employment with the agency was never anything illustrious or mysterious as he’d hoped in the beginning. Instead it usually involved a call a few times a year inquiring about the trade name for a new vaccine or asking what he knew about recent developments in pathogens that were being tested out by Asian researchers who had become, next to Russia, the top threat against the U.S. military.
Schueller left his laptop tucked away and just ran through his mental notes while feeling Jessica’s head bob on his shoulder with each air pocket. He found himself dozing off a few times and was surprised to hear the overhead speakers announce their upcoming arrival at Heathrow.
The stewardess came by to ask them to move their seats and trays upright and Jessica awoke with a startled expression. “Oh, heavens, please tell me I didn’t fall asleep on you and drool on your shoulder.”
“You were fine, my dear. It wasn’t a problem.”
She gathered up the small shoulder bag under the seat and checked her makeup in her cosmetic mirror, glancing over at Bob in between passes of her lipstick. “The company limo is picking me up at the airport and then I’m off to see my boyfriend.”
After the plane came to a halt on the runway, Jessica stood up and touched him on the shoulder again. “Well, thanks for putting up with all my yapping and then my snoozing on your arm. It’s been a pleasure, Bob.”
Schueller nodded and followed her out. “You take care and enjoy your down time.”
As they walked off the plane towards the arrival area and made their way through the lengthy customs line, Schueller found himself getting hungry. He didn’t want to battle for a taxi to his hotel so he made his way to the Café Rouge. The vintage Parisian-themed restaurant wasn’t crowded and he was quickly seated at a side table near a floor-to-ceiling glass partition that separated diners from the pedestrian walkway.
Thirty minutes later, after finishing a cognac and a filet mignon, he settled back in his chair to watch the human river beside the glass divider. To his right, he noticed Jessica standing near a newsstand. She was talking frantically on her phone, her hands gesticulating in the air and her face very taut. A few minutes later, she thrust the phone in her coat pocket and lowered her head, swiping her index finger by the corner of her moist eye.
Poor girl—hope everything is alright.
He watched her drag her luggage, her shoulders slumped forward as she made her way towards the entrance of the café. Schueller saw her talking to the maître d’ and being escorted in the opposite direction to a corner table. He stood up and called her name, waving his hand. Jessica’s forlorn look brightened slightly as she made her way towards him.
“Would you like to join me?”
She wrinkled her nose and smiled slightly. “Yes, that would be wonderful. I’d rather not be alone right now.”
They made their way back to his table, Schueller ushering her into the chair and motioning to the waiter to bring another glass of cognac after seeing the young woman take notice of his drink.
“My dear, you seem upset. Is everything alright?” He felt his paternal feelings pushing to the surface.
“Apparently my boyfriend can’t make it tonight after all. Even though he swore to me yesterday that we’d go to dinner as soon as I returned. He said something came up at work again but I’m sure he’s having an affair with one of his co-workers. This brunette bitch I saw him flirting with at a work party last month.”
“I’m so sorry, Jessica. That’s no way to be treated. Can I help in some way?”
“I’ll be fine, thank you.” She slowly raised her head up, reaching for the cognac the waiter had just brought. “You’re very kind and a good listener—I wish more men were like you.” She paused and glanced at the thin silver watch adorning her pale wrist. “My company’s limo should be here by now, in the parking garage below. If you’d like I can give you a ride to your hotel.”
“It’s OK. I wouldn’t want to put you in an awkward place with your employers.”
“It won’t be a problem—you’ve just been so thoughtful. But I’ll understand if you don’t accept. You probably think I’m a foolish little girl rattling off about herself the entire time you’ve known me.”
“Not in the least. We all get hit with a flurry of nastiness every now and then. You just seem to have been struck particularly hard. Life will lighten up.” He stood up and grabbed his luggage and briefcase. “I’d be happy to escort you to the parking garage.” Schueller pulled his shoulders back, feeling his chivalrous side emerging.
Jessica dabbed a napkin around the base of her moist eyes then finished her drink before walking out with him. The crowds in the terminal had grown thin in between arrivals as they made their way to the elevators in a side hallway and proceeded to step inside the first one on the left.
A minute later, the doors opened in the parking garage. A few feet away was a black limo with dark tinted windows, the engine idling. As he stepped out, Schueller saw two dark-skinned Asian men move in from either side of the elevator entrance, the one to the left punching him hard in the stomach with a nearly invisible motion of his hand. Schueller folded forward while he gasped uncontrollably for air, the cognac surging up into his throat. Amidst the impending nausea, he felt Jessica’s grip on his arm but it seemed much stronger than he remembered, as if she could snap his humerus in half.
They dragged him to the back seat of the vehicle while Jessica handed one of the men the professor’s briefcase. Schueller saw her turn and talk to an approaching police officer. As the red-haired man came closer to Jessica, there was a blinding motion from her left arm followed by a glint of silver. The officer staggered sideways, clutching his neck while blood gurgled out from the cavernous opening in his trachea. She flung a soiled blade on the ground and pivoted towards the limo.
Schueller’s heart was punching through his chest. God, who is this woman? How could I have misread her?
He felt his stomach coiling in knots. Schueller tried to get out but his arms felt limp. Then he saw Jessica’s face as she closed the door behind her and sat next to him. She still had those same almond-colored eyes but now they resembled a deep whirlpool that he was being swallowed up within. Her voice had changed from being so airy to something that resembled a wraithlike growl. She shoved him back into the seat, his entire body still reeling from the sucker punch to the solar plexus that seemed to rattle his entire being.
“What were your words?” she said. “Getting hit by a flurry of nastiness. I’m afraid that’s your predicament, Professor, and unless you want me to filet you like that officer back there, you’ll sit there and be quiet.”
He sunk back and blinked hard at the dimpled leather ceiling, wondering if he was suffering from some kind of post-flight delusion as the vehicle sped along the parking structure and exited into the sea of traffic.
Chapter 2
Israel, Carmel Mountain National Park
The sun was just cresting a ridge of thick cedar trees above a thousand-foot cliff of granite. The ocean breeze was carrying with it the sweet smell of blossoms from an orchard a few miles distant. Carmel Mountain was a nature reserve south of th
e city of Haifa off the Mediterranean Sea and the mountain was the highest point in the region at 546 meters. If a person climbed high enough, the border of Lebanon was visible. The park’s proximity to the sea provided ample precipitation to make the region lush with trees compared to the arid nature embracing the rest of the country.
Mitch had arrived in Israel a month ago as a civilian contractor to head up the new combat tracker program for the Israeli military. Now, he was on the run from men whose grip on the region, on his whereabouts, was closing.
He knelt down and examined the half-moon shape of a boot’s heel print on the dusty soil. It was hardly discernible amidst the duff-like material of spent cedar sprigs littering the forest floor. The size of the print along with the waffle-shaped tread pattern and direction of travel confirmed that this track was connected with the soldiers he had been eluding. He had fled downtown Haifa the previous evening and made his way into the forests surrounding Mount Carmel, hoping to lose his pursuers.
Mitch took off his tan ball cap that had an Arizona Diamondbacks logo on it and scratched his sweaty scalp. He looked up and saw the looming image of Mount Carmel, which resembled a huge granite fist standing in defiance of the heavens. In another mile, he’d be at its base but not before he tried to turn the tables on his pursuers.
His knees were sore from sleeping in a squatting position all night amidst a tangle of boulders. Adding to his discomfort was the rumbling of his stomach from not having breakfast which made him feel like he was a monk fasting in the wilds. The tantalizing memory of the grilled lamb and hummus dinner still clung to his taste buds and he recalled the adrenaline-soaked moment he saw the men coming for him in the outdoor restaurant in Haifa. He and Dev were enjoying a quiet dinner when he abruptly excused himself and fled inside, making his way to the rear exit and out into the tangle of streets. After an hour of evasive moves through the city, he’d managed to creep into the forests surrounding Mount Carmel and hide for the night. He was wondering what Dev was thinking and how he’d explain his actions when he saw her again. He was also questioning whether it would matter since she had been so aloof the past week.
The lure of teaching combat tracking wasn’t the only draw for Mitch in coming to Israel. Since meeting Dev in Arizona last fall and their harrowing experience together, he had grown quite taken with her. Her stunning beauty coupled with her considerable fighting prowess awoken feelings he hadn’t felt before for another woman. They had seen each other a few times since he arrived but her insane work schedule had prevented much of their relationship from developing. With some time off coming soon from his current teaching assignment, he was looking forward to getting to know her better. That is, if she could ever pencil him in. He was patient but knew that living in such a heavily populated region was grating on his nerves. He despised large cities and didn’t know if his mantracking contract would be enough to sustain him if Dev wasn’t interested in or capable of pursuing their relationship.
His mind raced back to the present when he heard a twig snap twenty meters below him. Mitch strained his eyes in the post-dawn shadows and he saw five soldiers skulking along the narrow trail that wound past the ridge where he squatted. Come to daddy, boys. The predators are about to become the prey.
The men were dressed in civilian clothing so they wouldn’t draw attention from the tourists that frequented the park but Mitch easily recognized the faces and gait patterns of the men he had been training for the past six weeks. We’ll see just how well you’ve learned your lessons, fellas, he thought to himself while scanning the route below where he had placed some small-scale foot snares under the pine needles. He’d made sure to walk on rocks and logs to obscure his passing. Route selection was the key in evading mantrackers. The notion of stepping back on your tracks or brushing them out with a handful of grass only worked in the fabricated reality of the movies.
The problem with setting trail deterrents and mantraps is that it took precious time that the evader often didn’t have in abundance. Mitch always advocated gaining time and distance when being pursued by hostile forces and he knew he had violated his own training philosophy by trying to employ some Hollywood methods of slowing the trackers. However, he needed to see how good these guys were, especially if he was to sign off on their certification after this final culmination exercise. The entire drill had been revealed to his students only 72 hours before when he informed them in the classroom that they would be trying to capture a nefarious criminal in Haifa. They would receive the location and time of his arrival the day before but would have to practice their surveillance skills in the morning and then apprehend the subject that evening at a place of their choosing. What they didn’t know was that it would be their instructor and what Mitch hadn’t expected was that they would make a brazen attempt on him during dinner at an outdoor venue with plenty of people, one of whom was Dev, who he’d kept in the dark about the exercise. Damn, I wish I could’ve finished that fine meal of lamb, he thought, resting his hand over his growling stomach.
He saw the lead man below, a stout figure with a hatchet-like nose, give the hand signal to halt. Then the soldier pointed to the ground where the snares were buried and instructed his men to walk around. Sneaky bastard—he was always the one with the best eye out of the group. Looks like those simulated traps weren’t worth my time.
Getting up to stretch his legs, he saw a sand wasp dragging a paralyzed spider to a dime-sized hole in the ground. He had witnessed similar ghastly endings like this happen in Arizona between tarantulas and hummingbird-sized wasps that sting the spider and drag it into a burro where they lay their eggs in the stunned figure. The larvae feed off the live tissue for three weeks, eventually hatching as winged wasps to repeat the macabre cycle all over again. He put his boot over the wasp-spider duo but then paused, instead squatting down to ponder the scene. If I kill you the spider dies anyway and if I put you out of your misery, then the wasp will just continue on another hunt. He twirled a twig in the sand, making a figure-eight while chewing on his lower lip. “The whole thing sucks—nature is a cruel master sometimes.” Walking away would be easy—the timeless struggle would go on. He wasn’t needed to right the big picture of how things worked. He flung the stick down and stood erect, crunching his boot over both creatures. “Sorry, amigo,” he said, looking down at the flattened spider.
He glanced down at his watch. Only an hour left to completion of this scenario. Better get to the base of Mount Carmel where we all have to meet. Mitch wound his way down the hill, walking parallel to the group, careful to keep a low profile in the brush. He kept his head covered with a multicam scarf to break up the outline of his head, which was usually the most obvious feature that gave away a concealed person’s location.
An hour later, he came up the rear of the group and congratulated the team on their well-planned mission and counter-tracking moves. He did a half-hour after-action review with them and then they headed down the trail together to the vehicle rendezvous site near the highway. Mitch’s cellphone vibrated in his pocket and he pulled it out to scan the text that he figured was most likely from Dev. Instead, he stopped in his tracks and glanced over the troubled message from the wife of an old friend.
Bob’s missing. I need your help—can you call me. Margo.
Chapter 3
Sweden, Island of Faro in the Baltic Sea
A faint trickle of sunlight was stabbing past the white curtains in the forested cabin where Kyle Redstrom was resting, his eyelids partly fluttering from the nightmare unfolding in his mind. The past thirteen hours of work had been unrelenting and he had allowed himself this brief rest before the coming events, hoping that the haunting images from three years earlier would stay submerged.
Howling, screaming, clawing sounds echoed off the walls of his tortured mind as he slept. The same pictures unspooled in his mind: his lovely wife, Mae-Lin, sitting by the window with her velvety black hair blowing in the gentle summer breeze. Then her smile turning to a pained grimace as the
door of their Beijing apartment burst into tiny splinters and armed men in black assault vests streamed through the opening like hungry eels. Within seconds, she was being dragged away while Kyle’s ears rang out with her piercing shrieks. As he struggled to regain his equilibrium from the blast, he was slammed to the ground and felt a knee compressing his trachea. His hands clutched at the two men on top of him until he felt the sting of a rifle butt slamming into his forehead. In his half-conscious state, he heard the muffled voices of the men around him speaking in Cantonese; they radioed in that they had retrieved the spy and were en route to the safe house—the woman would also be interrogated. He could hear the faint voice of his wife several flights below then the slamming of a van’s sliding door which silenced her. It was the last time he would hear from Mae-Lin, who was doomed to a hasty interrogation and then summarily executed.
Kyle had been undercover CIA agent for four years in Beijing, his assignment to gather data on a suspected Chinese bioweapons program that was operating out of the lower levels of a hospital. His background as a former army combat medic coupled with his fluency in Cantonese that he had acquired at the agency made him a prime candidate for the job with the recommendation of his mentor, Darren Crenna. Kyle’s job was to observe and track the whereabouts of a Chinese scientist, Sau, who was believed to be the lead suspect in the bioweapons division. Posing as a pharmaceutical rep, Kyle was able to attend many of the same international conferences as Sau along with weekly monitoring of his whereabouts around the city. Three other agents from Crenna’s team were assigned to Kyle with their sole job of running counter-surveillance measures so he could perform his duties without drawing suspicion from the Chinese government.
After twenty-eight months of work, Kyle observed an exchange of goods between Sau and a Chinese spy who was high on the U.S. watch list. Kyle surmised it was a sample of a deadly pathogen that Crenna believed Sau had finally perfected. The green light was given to intercept the package and eliminate the spy after Sau had left.