Unholy Code (A Lana Elkins Thriller)

by Thomas Waite

  She spotted Don outside talking to an FBI agent. The bureau would be reconstructing every step of this attack and studying it eventually at Quantico.

  Lana’s phone buzzed. She turned from watching Don and checked the screen.

  Galina.

  Lana took the call.

  “I got into Sufyan’s phone. Do you know Tahir hacked Emma’s last night?”

  “He got into hers?” Now that alarmed Lana: Tahir knowing his son had impregnated her daughter.

  “Yes, he got in.”

  “Then he knows.”

  “Yes, he knows,” Galina confirmed.

  You must think we’re quite the American family. Galina had already alerted Lana that she’d hacked into her private phone—and no doubt learned that her boss had certain gambling issues. Now Galina had found out Emma was pregnant. Lana couldn’t help feeling that she’d failed as a person and, more important, as a parent.

  “Has there been any communication from Sufyan to her? Or from Tahir to her, for that matter?” Is the boy’s uncle threatening Em?

  “Only from Sufyan. He wants to talk to her. He keeps texting. She has not responded.”

  “Any other content from him?”

  “He has told her four times that everything is going to be okay.”

  “Please keep monitoring him and Tahir. I need to know if either leaves Bethesda.”

  Or both, Lana thought after hanging up.

  • • •

  I’ve monitored Emma since about four this morning. I’m still doing it as I drive once more to SeaTac, this time for a flight to Baltimore. But all I’m seeing are Sufyan Hijazi’s texts. He’s so lost, all but pleading for Emma to tell him what she’s doing. He wants to know why she won’t respond to his earnest entreaties. And there she is, trying to end her pregnancy in Mobtown. A dying city. A dying baby. He must suspect that, too.

  But annihilating the innocent takes time. A day or two at least. The murderers at Planned Parenthood will insist that one of Emma’s parents at least acknowledge the dirty business their daughter is up to. And if I read Emma Elkins correctly, she’s going to resist those efforts. She’ll try to convince the staff that she’s very mature, perfectly capable of making a decision to kill her child. Why else would she have left Bethesda in the middle of the night all by her lonesome? That’s dangerous. Anything could happen to her. Terrible things.

  I must beat Sufyan to her. I’ve known many Muslim men. They can take it very personally when a woman refuses his family seed.

  What worries me even more, though, are Vinko’s efforts to hack into Emma’s phone. Minutes ago that was done by someone but it wasn’t him. I’ve set up alerts for any more exploits Vinko attempts to make on that device. He could use a back door into Emma’s world by hacking the hacker of her phone, or by accessing Sufyan’s. End runs abound in the cybersphere.

  Unfortunately, there’s a limit to how much I can do while driving to an airport. This is high-end security work, but it’s not as important as the relatively simple task of finally putting my hands on Emma Elkins. The weakness in her security has been apparent to me for some time. Talk about a vulnerability. She’s been keeping it close, depending on it daily.

  Get Emma and I’ll get Lana. Get them both and I’ll have all I need for a tremendous coup.

  I will simply trust that Emma will proceed toward the murder of her child. I will simply trust that she’ll need more than a day to make that happen. And I will simply trust that by day’s end, she’ll be in my hands at last.

  With those comforts now so close, I pull into the airport parking lot with ample time to board my plane. In fact, I can take my leisure in the airline’s private club, reserved for valued flyers like me.

  But as I enter I receive another alert on my phone. With a single glance I look up at the big screens on the wall. Each is split between video of Lana Elkins’s home in Bethesda, which looks like its face has been ripped off, and aerial shots of that offshore platform that ISIS took over. Jimmy McMasters and one of the oil workers are trying to shoot their way down the side of that rig. I can hear the gunfire.

  He’s such a nutbar, I can’t look away.

  CNN goes full screen for the bang-bang. It’s live, happening right now.

  And what a show it is.

  JIMMY HAD NEVER DRAWN a gun from his belt so fast. He didn’t now, either. That was all Cal’s doing. When the ISIS fighter looked down from the ledge, the oil worker Jimmy had just saved shot the bearded jihadist right between the eyes.

  “Nice aim,” Jimmy had said in open astonishment.

  “Top of my class, Southeast Shooting Regionals, High School Division.”

  Now they were descending the platform’s anchor chains. Cal was right below him.

  “They actually have that in schools here?” Jimmy asked.

  “Don’t know about here, but in my part of ’Bama they sure as hell do.”

  “We gotta move a little faster,” Jimmy told him.

  Trouble was, Cal’s skinless calf, which looked like one of those healthy chicken thighs Jimmy never much cared for, was dripping blood on the links below, making them slippery as seagull spatter.

  Jimmy tried to avoid both the human and avian splotches while keeping his AK-47 raised up so he could spray any gunmen appearing above them.

  Oh, shit. Here they come.

  He heard their footfalls on the metal catwalk up there. Could have done without seeing their bearded faces or weapons—but both appeared a second later. M-16s, if Jimmy glimpsed that right.

  Wasting no time, he sprayed the whole area, hoping the bullets wouldn’t catch him on the rebound. He got lucky, as you could with a barrage, splitting open the face of a man who peered over the catwalk’s rail.

  The rest nosed their barrels down at them, popping off single rounds, frugal with their firepower. Parceling out your ammo might be smart, Jimmy realized, because he had no idea how many rounds were left in the Kalashnikov’s magazine. And those pop-pop-pops were keeping him and Cal clinging to the links for cover, which made for a hellishly slow descent.

  “Keep moving,” Jimmy urged, unleashing another round while the whup-whup-whups formed a bizarre contrapuntal response to the pop-pop-pops.

  From the catwalk, one of the gunmen nailed Cal with a round that tore into his left triceps, leaving inches of flesh to dangle grotesquely. Looked like bait in the hands of a dolphin trainer.

  Now the young marksman, grimacing even more, was forced to wrap his arm around each link as if he held them in a series of headlocks. In that awkward manner, he kept sliding down to the loading area, which seemed a lot safer than remaining open targets on the chain, though there was no telling when someone might come out that door to the deck.

  Guess we’ll find out, thought Jimmy, as Cal’s feet touched down.

  He spilled aside to make room for the boat racer, who jumped from six feet up, landing as the door swung open with a blaze of bullets. The fusillade would have sliced both Cal and him in half if they hadn’t found themselves in the corner of the loading area, far to the left of the closest shooter, who couldn’t see them.

  Behind their precautionary fire, the two terrorists emerged from the doorway looking satisfied by what they’d found. Jimmy felt pretty good himself, spraying back in the next instant, catching the nearest one in the chest. He fell away nicely, clearing a path to the other’s back, which Jimmy quickly targeted.

  “Which boat is yours?’ Cal asked, pointing to the cabin cruiser and Sexy Streak.

  “The fast one,” Jimmy said. “But we’re blowing that oil line first.”

  “Yeah? Well, you can blow me,” Cal responded. “I’m getting the fuck out of here.”

  “No you’re not,” Jimmy said, running over to Sexy Streak for the bag of explosives and three bungee cords. “You strap them on that oil line and I’ll shoot the shit out of anyone trying to stop us.”

  Cal pointed Jimmy’s own pistol at him. “We’re leaving now!”

  Jimmy rued n
ot taking back his gun. “You got the keys to the boat? I don’t think so. And neither do I. I stashed them, and I’m not saying where till you get the fuck in the water and do the deed.”

  Cal fired. Not at Jimmy but over the boat racer’s shoulder, taking out the deck’s three security cameras in three shots.

  “Good man,” Jimmy said.

  “Fuck off.”

  Jimmy tossed Cal a life preserver and pulled a beer cooler from the boat. His lucky one; he hoped filling it with dynamite wouldn’t mess with the mojo. Then he told Jimmy to hand over the pistol. “You’re going to want me to cover you.”

  Cal swore again, but handed it over. Then he threw on the PFD and dropped into the water.

  “Goddamn that hurts,” he said as salt water soaked into the raw wounds on his leg and arm.

  Jimmy handed him the lucky beer cooler, top snug as a manhole cover. “The lighter’s in there, too. Fuse will give us five minutes, max. Keep that shit dry. Go!”

  Cal swore again and pushed off, trailing blood from his arm and leg, but keeping the cooler high and dry. He made fast time to the pipe that rose from the water between the giant pontoons that kept the rig afloat.

  A minute later he was stringing one of the bungee cords around the oil line. That was when Jimmy spotted a dorsal fin surfacing about ten feet behind Cal. Didn’t look like Flipper, either. Tail reached almost to the deck below Jimmy. A real moral dilemma for him: Should he tell Cal now or wait until he had that fuse burning? The greater good of the Gulf was at stake. Killing those ISIS madmen, too.

  Jimmy had no choice but to take the high moral ground: silence. But he did suggest to Cal that he hurry up.

  “I’m not exactly taking comp time out here,” Cal fired back.

  Damn dorsal was moving forward. Cal might see it.

  Oh, no. Swishing its tail back and forth, making Jimmy think about the way he’d rev Sexy Streak’s engines before shooting across the starting line of a race.

  Cal cinched the second cord.

  “I wouldn’t bother with the last one,” called Jimmy, trying to keep his voice even, which was a challenge because dorsal fin number two had just shown up. Another tail swisher, no less, but only about half the size.

  “I’d already planned to forget about that,” Cal snarled without looking back. Good. He might have seen something upsetting.

  But what the hell are you gonna do? Jimmy asked himself. He couldn’t just let Cal get munched up like a big ol’ chew toy.

  He came up with a plan. It was a little better than Let them eat him. But not by much.

  Cal slid the last of the dynamite under the bungees and reached for the lighter. Which necessitated looking at the cooler. The frightening fins lurked feet way.

  “You son-of-a-bitch. You never said shit about—”

  “I got your back.” Liar, liar. “Light that sucker.”

  Cal lit the fuse and started swimming toward the deck on the other side. The first shark, the monster, perhaps seeing lunch slipping away, started after him. A second later he bumped Cal from behind; a shark’s way, Jimmy figured, of testing the tenderness of his meal.

  Jimmy fired into its back and head, then the smaller shark’s tail. And just that fast he’d emptied the AK’s magazine. Four piddly rounds, no more effective than jabbing pushpins into elephants.

  Jimmy pulled out his pistol as he raced around the deck to where Cal was heading, wishing like hell he had the Southeast Regional shooting champ’s eye. But he didn’t need Cal’s expertise to pump three quick shots into junior’s back, which finally drew some serious blood as it surged up alongside Jaws. The big beast responded by taking a savage bite out of his smaller brethren, setting up a titanic thrashing as Cal virtually catapulted himself out of the water.

  “I want to kill you, Jimmy.”

  “Get in line, but you’re gonna have to be patient ’cause it’s a long one.”

  Beginning with Piccolo.

  Both guys raced to the boats amid the furious splashing from the sharks’ thrashing tails and heaving bodies. But the fuse was still sparking like the Fourth as it neared the dynamite.

  Jimmy started the engines. Then he swore aloud. He’d forgotten to save a stick of destruction for the boat ISIS had hijacked.

  He gave the pistol to Cal, yelling, “Shoot up the dashboard on that thing.” Pointing to the larger boat.

  And that might have worked but the door to the deck swung open again, sending Cal to Sexy Streak’s deck and Jimmy to the throttle.

  Cal rose to his knees and picked off one of the bearded men bursting onto the loading area, and a second who’d spotted the fiery fuse and started running in its direction. But killing those two used up the last of his bullets, leaving three other men free to sprint to the cabin cruiser. An instant later the big boat’s engine roared to life.

  Jimmy forced the throttle forward and raced out into the Gulf, adding up the ISIS body count. At least seven: six by gunshot, plus the skinner Jimmy had knifed in the back.

  Sexy Streak was up to 70 mph in a handful of pounding heartbeats. Five choppers now circled above them. The only thing blazing up there were camera lenses reflecting the sun.

  Didn’t matter. The salt spray had never felt finer to Jimmy. They were flying over the swells. He looked back and raised his fist in victory. That oil line would blow any moment, and they were well out of range.

  Putt-putt-putt.

  And out of gas.

  LANA NEEDED TO GET to Baltimore as soon as possible. She threw a change of clothes and her toiletries into an overnight bag and called downstairs for Don. “I need some help up here.”

  Damn crutches.

  She’d be driving north in her new Dodge Charger. Quite a change from her blown-up Prius—and a reflection of how sharply the world had changed since she’d walked into a Toyota showroom four years ago to buy a gentle, environmentally responsible vehicle. She needed speed and power, so she’d bought the Charger, the four-wheeled beast federal agents preferred.

  “Don, I’ve got to get moving.”

  He was getting questioned by the FBI about his killing of the two men who’d bombed their house and tried to kidnap her. He was cooperating, of course, taking them through the entire shooting step by step, but the agents had made it clear he wasn’t going to scurry off to Baltimore anytime soon. Lana thought it might be better to leave him on the home front, anyway, in case Emma returned; they didn’t want her coming back to an empty house, especially in its current condition.

  What am I forgetting? Lana wondered. It was always something. Then she spotted her hairbrush. Two swipes at her shiny black locks and it was in the bag, too. She zipped up the overnight as Don came through the bedroom door.

  “Can you grab that?” Lana asked.

  “Sure. Is she still at Planned Parenthood?”

  “It looks like it.”

  “Have you texted her?”

  “Too risky, Don. If she thinks we’re monitoring her, and really wants to avoid us, she could toss the phone. I want to know exactly where she is till I’m by her side. And I want to get there as soon as I can. She’s got no protection. There’d be a huge prize in taking her.”

  “Yeah, you. I wish to hell I could go. This business of going back over the shooting is taking forever.”

  “It always does. They’re dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s. They have to.”

  Don looked over at Cairo standing in the doorway, staring at them.

  “Take him.”

  “I don’t think I need—”

  “No, definitely take him. His primary job is to protect you. He can’t do that from here.”

  “Okay, Cairo, you’re coming.”

  The dog brightened at the sound of her voice. Maybe he knew from long experience it was the call of duty.

  Don grabbed Lana’s bag. She packed one more item—her Sig Sauer in the belt of her pants.

  • • •

  You’re so good about being in touch, Emma. I could almost take it as
an invitation to join your little escapade. Of course I will. I might be thirty thousand feet in the air but I could be right on the ground beside you for all you’d know. I’ll bet anything—no, I’ll bet everything—that very soon I’ll walk right up to you without your paying me any mind. Not that I needed your phone to track your larger movements, but it’s good to know how close up and personal I can be, hiding in your pocket. That’s where I imagine your phone is, in a nice warm place. A place so redolent of … Emma. I notice that you’ve turned off your sound. I’m so tempted to send you a message just to make you vibrate.

  Now look at that. Your locator is back on. Do I have you to thank for that, Em, or is your mother somewhere in cyberspace spying on you? How dare she encroach on my terrain? But whoever it is has my deepest gratitude.

  Oops, your locator has gone dark again. I’m guessing Mommy’s doing that, trying to protect you from the likes of me. I’ll bet you’re not even aware of her fiddling yet. You’re probably distracted by the care and treatment you’ve been getting at the hands of those abortionists. Interesting, isn’t it, that by making you wait for your “procedure,” they’re making it possible for me to kill you and your baby?

  I’ll keep an eye on your half of the screen, but for now I’m going to attend to the other half, where Jimmy McMasters can’t seem to stay out of the public eye. He’s been speeding away from the oil rig with one of the hostages, but he’s slowing down. That’s weird.

  Oh, my God.

  The oil line just blew up. But the flames are already dying. And I don’t see oil pumping into the Gulf. This is not BP’s Horizon, which I guess was the point. And Jimmy’s pumping his fist in the air, so he must have done it.

  Jimmy is the Energizer Bunny. Make that “was” because now his boat’s dead in the water. And he’s got a boat full of bearded men with big guns descending upon them.

  • • •

  Jimmy and Cal’s victory over ISIS lasted about as long as a sneeze. Yes, the blowout preventers worked, choking off the oil flow, but what they needed most right now, ironically enough, was a little fuel for the boat. They had no bullets, no dynamite, nothing but the most abject fear to keep them company as a full complement of heavily armed ISIS fighters raced toward them in the cabin cruiser.