by Brad Taylor
The cleric answered and Malik began relaying his status, only to be interrupted.
“The mission has changed. We no longer want to attack. The United States is aware of the virus and our role in it.”
Malik squeezed his eyes shut, hearing the very last thing he wanted. “How do you know? We are too close to stop because someone is getting skittish.”
“Malik, they named you, along with your position in the Pasdaran Quds. They know the carrier is a woman. They know the alias name you’re using. And those are just the things they told us. They don’t suspect, they know, and that was the one thing we couldn’t have. We couldn’t give them any reason to retaliate.”
They know my name? Then they know I flew to Venezuela. The mission was going to be very, very close. He would need to erase the crew members and the bomb maker.
“We can still go ahead. They won’t attack us and risk losing the vaccine. We should continue, and when they rattle their sabers, feign innocence and offer them the vaccine. We will accomplish much even if they manage to stop the pandemic.”
Malik knew he was grasping, but it was all he could think to say.
“No. We will not. They have threatened to destroy the Islamic republic, and we don’t believe they are bluffing. They were more overt than we have ever seen. No hidden meanings. We want you to meet the Black Widow as you intended, but instead of giving her the explosives, draw some blood from her. Bring that home. At the least, we can use the virus as a future deterrent.”
Malik knew he would never convince the cleric and gave up. “What do you want me to do with the Widow?”
“Kill her on the ocean. Make sure she cannot contaminate anyone.”
The comment sank in, and Malik knew the cleric had lost his way. Perhaps the regime as well. Fear of repercussions alone ruled their response. It was not what the revolution was founded upon, when a small band of students overcame a tyrant and thereby set about altering the course of the Islamic world. He remembered his friends tortured to death by the shah’s SAVAK, wondering if the cleric knew of such sacrifice. Men who willingly embraced the repercussions of the revolution.
The Black Widow had volunteered for this mission, much like Malik had in 1979, fully willing to give her life for a greater cause, and Malik would not simply toss her in the ocean so that the cowardly people in charge would have a “deterrent.” She was better than all of them and deserved to achieve the martyrdom she had striven for.
He closed his eyes and went back to those days, remembering the heady success of the revolution. When everything had been clear-cut, before the Islamic republic began straying from the pure path and fighting among themselves. Politics had superseded the revolution, with President Ahmadinejad spending his final months in power fighting the clerics over petty things. It sickened him.
Malik said, “I understand. I will be home in less than four days.”
He hung up to find the bomb maker standing in the galley. “Bad news?”
“Only if one chooses to listen to it. Tell the captain to cast off.”
69
Jennifer said, “This has got to be a mistake. We’re missing something.”
Driving down the spit of land known as Cocoa Beach, I was with her, absolutely confused as to why the iPad trace had landed here. There was nothing but third-tier vacation rentals and cheap surf shops. Certainly nothing that would be worthy of releasing the virus.
Why would you drive out of Manhattan, one of the most densely populated cities in the United States, to come here?
It had to be a way station. Something picked because of an ease of use to segue into something else.
But what?
Yeah, Cape Canaveral was here, along with the Kennedy Space Center, but why on earth would that be a target? Was Iran’s intel so pathetic they thought attack planning against them happened here? In some secret basement? Maybe. You never could predict what the other guy believed. Trust me, I’d seen enough bad intelligence over the years to know even the greatest superpower on earth sometimes ends up chasing a rabbit down the hole.
I said, “Let’s get to the hotel and check it out. At least we can eliminate it as a location. Somebody will either recognize your sketch or not.”
We’d called Kurt within minutes of getting out of the Ghostbusters Hotel, and, luckily, he’d proven to be on our side. Unlike the other jackasses at the Oversight Council, he’d coordinated to get us to a professional law enforcement sketch artist. I don’t know how he did it, but it was the first bit of common sense that I’d heard in days. Well, other than Knuckles and his team getting us out. Now we had a sketch of the woman, which, along with her accent, would help neck things down.
Getting a start point to even show the sketch had taken more time than I would have liked. Turns out, you can track an individual iPad, but only if the owner signs up for an account called iCloud, thereby registering something called a MAC address. The MAC, or Media Access Control, was a numerical identification for the magic widget in the iPad that communicated with a Wi-Fi hotspot, which left us with two problems. One, the carrier had never initiated an iCloud account, and two, we had no idea of the MAC address. But we did know where her iPad had been bought.
After some wheedling with Kurt, he’d agreed to authorize the penetration of the Apple store in Hong Kong through the hacking cell. I had the date, time, and location of the purchase; all they needed to do was get the serial number of the iPad. From there, further exploration would give us the specifications of that particular iPad, to include the MAC address.
I had no idea how he accomplished it, since he’d officially resigned. Well, actually, I did. He was a commander that people followed because of his personality, not his rank. He’d probably just walked into the building and started issuing orders. Nobody there would have questioned him, including LTC Alexander.
We got the MAC, only to run into the iCloud problem. Now I was not only asking for the penetration of Apple computing but also the manipulation of its systems, because we needed to create a fake iCloud account and feed it the MAC address, tricking the software into thinking the “find me” feature was active in the iPad. Something that was way, way outside of our mandate—even in normal times, when Kurt was officially in charge. Now it was impossible. Kurt had shut me down. For one night, anyway.
Yesterday, I’d woken up to my phone ringing. Kurt had apparently been contacted by the president, and the world was decidedly different from just eight hours before. Nothing was off the table, and he had the trace of the iPad. I didn’t ask any questions.
Now I wasn’t sure if we were too late. The trace was two days old, and we had no idea if the carrier was still here. Two days of wasted time.
We pulled into the Marriott and parked in back, away from the entrance. I left Jennifer in the car and took her sketch into the hotel. I didn’t want to risk her bumping into the carrier if she happened to be getting coffee in the lobby, so Jennifer would stay outside in the heat, sweating.
I asked for a manager and stated I was conducting an investigation, using a phony badge provided by the Taskforce. In fine print it said something stupid like “Investigator of the Paranormal.” Well, not that bad, but it wouldn’t stand up to any scrutiny.
Luckily, the badge did its job. I got the staff into a room and passed the sketch around, giving a story about trying to find a runaway.
Nobody recognized the drawing. I said, “She would have checked in during the last week. We know she was here two days ago.”
The manager said, “This sketch isn’t that great. We see hundreds of people a day. Do you have a name?”
“No. Believe me, I wish I did, but I don’t. I have no idea what name she’s using. She has an accent, though. Sounds like an Eastern European.”
He laughed. “Do you know how many foreigners come through here? We make our money on cruise ship stopovers. We get more foreigne
rs here than Washington, DC.” My face went sour, and he said, “Hey, you can hang around for another twenty minutes. The other shift will come on and maybe they’ll have seen her, but I wouldn’t hold my breath.”
I left the hotel and found Jennifer on the phone. I said, “Who are you talking to?”
She held up a finger, saying, “Yes, alpha, six, alpha. That’s right.”
I patiently waited, and she started writing in the air. I looked at her like she’d lost her mind and she hissed, “Get me a something to write with!”
Ripping through the seat cushions of our rental, I found a broken pencil and handed it to her, along with a napkin from our last stop. She scribbled something down and hung up.
“What was that all about?”
“I got sick of waiting around in the car, so I trolled the parking lot. I found five cars with New York license plates. One is from a rental car company at JFK driven by a woman from Latvia. Named Elina Maskhadov.”
When I didn’t respond, Jennifer said, “You trying to catch flies with that open mouth? It wasn’t rocket science. The car in question is hidden by a Dumpster.”
I snapped my mouth closed, then said, “Holy shit, you are the heat! That’s the smartest thing I’ve seen in years! So we know she’s still here, and we have a name.”
Her eyes widened at my accolades, completely oblivious that what she had done was outside the box and something very few would have thought of. But only for a second. She grinned and said, “Don’t get worked up. Me being the heat doesn’t get you any closer to the flame. You want to go back in and see if this helps?”
I felt an irrational pull to lean in and kiss her. I didn’t. Maybe, given what was coming, it would have helped, but at that moment I was sure it was the wrong time and wrong place. I was never a good judge of that.
I snatched the name out of her hand and said, “Get a beacon out of our kit and put it on the car. If this doesn’t pan out, we might get something from tracking its movements.”
I jogged back into the hotel lobby, getting the manager. He had already passed my sketch to the oncoming crew, who were now talking among themselves. The manager ran the name, and sure enough, it came up; she had checked out two days ago.
I said, “But her car is still here. Why would that be?”
Before the manager could answer, one woman on the new shift said, “I think I know who this is. She had a strong accent, but she didn’t spend any time walking around. Stayed in her room for most of her stay. She didn’t really use the bar or pool.”
“You’re sure that’s the girl?”
“No. I can’t be sure. The eyes are right, and she did have an accent, but the woman I’m thinking of always wore a mask. You know, like a doctor’s mask?”
Bingo.
“You remember her checking out?”
“Yeah, sure. She left with everyone else on the cruise.”
70
Elina was shocked at the number of people trying to leave the ship, all at the same time. She was on the eighth deck, and each of the six elevators had shown up full, packed with kids and parents moving to the lobby.
She patiently waited, then crammed into the small elevator with six other people, wanting to hold her breath. Since boarding, she’d spent just about every waking moment inside her cubicle, living on room service and only traveling out during darkness, when the decks were much less crowded. She steered clear of any of the onboard entertainment, such as the casino, because she’d taken to not wearing the hospital mask.
Initially after boarding, walking to her berth, she’d been questioned by a crew member who happened to work in the infirmary, and the encounter had not been pleasant. Apparently, sickness on board was something they continually fought, and they didn’t want anyone contagious mingling with the other passengers. It had almost come to her ordering Elina to the infirmary for tests.
Eventually the woman had relented, but Elina had left the mask behind after that. Now, crammed together with a thousand other people all waiting to exit the massive ship, she struggled to avoid personal contact.
Not that she was sure it mattered. Today was the meeting with Malik, which surely meant an endgame. If somebody got infected now it would just mean they were ahead of the curve by hours.
She shuffled forward, watching the procedures for leaving the ship. Apparently, it only consisted of showing the identification card she’d been issued upon boarding. The crew member slid it through a magnetic reader and handed it back.
She saw signs saying all bags would be searched upon reentry and listing the proscriptions against bringing unauthorized alcohol on board. With gallows humor, she reflected that it didn’t say anything about explosives. She had no bag to be searched and was wearing a loose-fitting sundress/shawl combination that would camouflage the vest.
Ahead of her, someone shouted, “Hey! Hey you!” Several people turned to see who was yelling, including Elina. She instantly wished she hadn’t.
It was the obese man from the hotel bar, and he was waving at her.
“Where you been? I haven’t seen you the entire cruise.”
She smiled weakly but said nothing. He reached the crew member taking IDs and said, “I’ll wait for you outside.”
He disappeared through the gangway, and she began looking for some other exit. Some way to get off the boat without going by him. She saw it was futile. There was only one line and one gangway.
Now what? I can’t have him follow me.
She passed through the portal and saw him standing on the dock wearing a pair of board shorts that ended just above the knees and a T-shirt from the Atlantis resort in the Bahamas, the first place the cruise had stopped.
She reached him and he said, “What are you doing this morning? My buddies are going on a snorkeling trip to the French side of the island later this afternoon, but right now they’re sleeping off a hangover.”
She said, “Look, I’m just doing some souvenir shopping. I don’t have any plans.”
“Hey, me too! I’m killing time until those deadbeats wake up. We have to meet our snorkeling boat right here at eleven. Want some company?”
Despite herself, she found him charming in a bumbling sort of way and didn’t want to hurt him. “No. I really don’t. I took this cruise to get away, not to socialize. I’m sorry.”
His face fell, and he said, “Okay. I get it.”
He turned to walk away, and for reasons she couldn’t explain, she said, “Maybe we can have lunch or dinner. What’s your room number? I’ll call you.”
He brightened and said, “Twenty-three sixty-three. In the bowels of the ship. What’s yours?”
She smiled and said, “I’ll call you, not the other way around.”
He nodded over and over, like a puppy, and she walked away, wondering why she had done that. She tried to convince herself that she needed someone knowledgeable about the ship. Someone who could tell her where it was most crowded and at what time, so she could infect the greatest number possible. But she knew it wasn’t true.
She simply wanted a touch of human companionship before she blew herself apart. One last chance to talk to another person who wasn’t out to kill her or directing her to kill others.
She walked through the small customs facility, showing her cruise identification and getting waved past. Immediately assaulted by taxi drivers, she ignored them and continued walking out of the cruise terminal, replete with a plethora of souvenir shops, until she reached the road fronting the port.
As instructed, she traveled north on the narrow, cracked sidewalk until she passed a marina called Dock Maarten.
First checkpoint.
Relieved to see the sign, now confident, she picked up her pace. She passed a restaurant called Chesterfields and turned left, heading toward the bay and the sailboats anchored there. She walked past an empty customs house and ont
o the docks, searching for her signal.
She saw it two docks over. A Chechen-separatist flag, green with red and white stripes, floating in the breeze aboard what looked like a sportfishing boat.
She went to it, unsure how to proceed. She settled on saying, “Hello?”
A man she didn’t know poked his head out, then disappeared just as quickly. She waited, then heard a voice she recognized.
“Come in, Widow, come in.”
Malik.
She went down the steps into the galley and saw him sitting on a makeshift bed, his back against the bulkhead. And he looked awful. For a horrible moment, she thought he’d contracted the virus.
“What happened to you?”
He barked a short laugh devoid of humor and said, “It appears the ocean and I don’t get along. Nothing to worry about. Have a seat.”
While she did, he brought out a box.
“Open it.”
Inside was her method of destruction. A vest laced with explosives. She looked closer and saw it was different from the other vests she’d trained with. For one, there was much less explosive. For another, the charges seemed to spiral down the vest, like a Slinky, with what looked like a sleeve of sausage hanging off the bottom.
Malik said, “It fits just under your chest and goes to just above your pelvis. That last piece goes between your legs and fastens in the back. The explosive charge is designed to cut.”
She looked him in the eye and said, “You mean cut me. Slice me into pieces and fling me out.”
She spat it as a statement, not a question. Malik, originally proud of the construction, realized the callousness of what he had said.
“Yes. I’m sorry. I just wanted to ensure you wore it correctly. I didn’t mean to belittle your sacrifice.”
She said nothing.
He continued. “You’ll need to wear it to get back on the boat, but you shouldn’t have any trouble. Sint Maarten is your last stop, yes? You head back to the United States tonight?”