Jack Be Nimble: Tyro Book 2

by Ben English

  Jack was already plunging ahead.

  “Steve, you’ve been monitoring the media. What’s our exposure in London?”

  Steve cleared his throat. It was clear that he hadn’t spent much time that day talking to other humans. “Minimal. Aside from some low-res camera phone video of Al and me parachuting into the crowd, we’re clear. D-11 is keeping wraps on details about Brad and Solomon.” He checked his computer. “Forensic exposure is unknown, but the top several floors of the Illuminatus Tower are ash over the city. Several women at a wedding shower gave police descriptions of a short, surly clown.”

  Alonzo drummed his fingers on the table. “I think we’re ready to move along, Jack. Don’t you have to run for a connecting flight?”

  After experiencing firsthand the blazing fast travel in the QSST, Alonzo didn’t envy his friend having to limp back across the U.S. in a mere commuter jet.

  Jack cut to the chase. “Alright. We know the mission: find and burn Raines. We have to assume he’s got operations already running in Cuba, maybe tied in to all the reconstruction work going on. Secondary mission: keep Espinosa alive.

  “Here’s how we’re going to do it and who’s going to work the different angles.

  “Ian, you follow the money. Find out where Raines does his banking and how invested he is in Cuba. I’ll have a breakdown of all his shell corporations and structure to you by the end of the day.

  “We need hourly threat breakdowns against Espinosa: Al, that’s you.

  “Steve, you work on the tech side. Mitchell Fenn and Roger Switzer are happy to be walking around in the land of the living; you should use them. Figure out the end application of all the technology Raines has been hoarding lately.

  “Our files on Raines right now only consist of the FBI’s case files. It’s a good start, but by the time I’m in Havana this afternoon I want a complete psych profile worked up on the guy. Nicole, can you take this? Ian can assist.”

  “Already started on it,” she said.

  “Good. Put the Tanners on procurement. They have access to all our equipment anyway.”

  “Jack,” said Alonzo. “The Tanners are still training up the locals. You want them pulled back to the crow’s nest?”

  “Ah, right. No, have them stay in place with the locals, in case they’re being observed. They should be ready to move fast in case we need them on the front line. We might need close contacts with the military, especially if things go completely south.”

  And Alonzo mentally added, for when the president is assassinated, the civilian government collapses, and even more hell breaks loose. That made him think of something else. “What about looking directly into the Espinosa connection?”

  Jack mulled that over. “You know, those answers might very well develop through some of these other leads. Give it some thought.

  “You mentioned intel on a drug factory. Is there any other hard evidence that Lopez himself is operating in Cuba again?”

  “Not sure, Jack,” replied Ian.

  “One of our loose ends,” added Alonzo.

  “Give that one to Pete,” Jack said. “He’ll be in town tomorrow night.”

  After Jack hung up, Nicole looked at Alonzo, eyes twinkling. “So what kind of a clown are you?” she asked. Then, only her lips moved. The kind that’s crying on the inside?

  Alonzo smiled right back, ignoring her. “Major, it looks like you’re with us for the duration,” he said, still facing Nicole. Pick me up after the main briefing.

  Major Griffin nodded and returned to the screen. “Right then. Where can I start?” she asked.

  You look really, really good, he mouthed towards Nicole, but she already had her head down over her computer. “Great. Have you been boots-on-the-ground in Havana before?”

  “First time,” replied the major.

  “You’ll like it. Good weather, great drinks, low crime.”

  Ian (who had his own coffee mug, Alonzo noticed) was in a good mood. “Thought you were going to the “intelligence community’s” big group hug this morning.” He still looked too shiny without the beard.

  “You should be going, not me. You’re better at reading the body language.”

  The FBI man shook his head. “Quantico’s advance team has been here for almost a week. I’m not even supposed to be here until the Vice President gets into town tonight.” He lifted his mug and spoke from the rim. “Besides, I hate those things. Too many meathead mercenary groups with nothing to do since the Middle East stabilized. You’re a better man for the job. We’re lucky to have someone who fits in as well as you.”

  Alonzo looked at him hard, but Ian was really, really enjoying the dregs of his coffee.

  Steve was oblivious to them all. He’d run a cable from his computer to the smaller machine they’d taken from Raines, and Alonzo suspected he’d have the security cracked by noon.

  Major Griffin began to rearrange the digital real estate of the wall screen. “I’m to understand your team is responsible for the lack of drug activity?”

  She was learning the team’s history. Good. “That was a few years ago, and really, we just got the ball rolling. The locals are carrying that fight.”

  Nicole spoke up. “We didn’t really design the team for long-term police activities.”

  “You wouldn’t believe how much Havana’s changed,” said Ian. “This time around, what with the inauguration and the Games, criminal activity is practically snuffed. Nobody’s moving. There are enough personal bodyguards on the street to field a private army. The US Navy even has a ship in port this week.”

  Steve cleared his throat. “The Maine?”

  Nicole jumped a little. No one laughed. Alonzo was willing to bet the Major didn’t get the reference.

  “And what’s our cover, then?” she asked. “Security guard detail? Media?”

  “Multiple covers,” Alonzo replied. “The intelligence community knows us as tactical consultants—we’ve had two men here training up their military for some time—and we’ll assist with troubleshooting and testing the security measures for the major events. We’ll be fairly autonomous, but I’ll arrange it so we have plenty of time to focus on the real mission.”

  The major nodded. “Locating Raines.”

  “He’s not going to be here,” Alonzo said. “His company has subsidiaries in Cuba, and he’ll have operators on the ground, but Raines won’t expose himself again so quickly. Whatever he’s got planned for the inauguration or the Games, it’s going to be remote. Ian’s been tasked with building out the profiles on Raines’ front-line operators and coordinating with the local police. Steve is working on the technical aspects of the attack. If Raines has built a weapon here like he did in London, we’ll find it.”

  Major Griffin thought about that for a moment. “You mentioned multiple covers.”

  “Right. The team has access to all the security measures during the Games, so we’ll be moving around the city as common laborers of one kind or another. Jack’s the odd man out during the day, due to the heavy presence of the media.”

  Ian spoke without looking up from his screen. “So Jack will be pulling a Bruce Wayne.”

  “I’m sorry?” Major Griffin frowned.

  “This is a high profile week; plenty of high-level hobnobbery to be attended to. Most of the time, Jack is here as himself.”

  “How can I help?”

  Alonzo smiled pleasantly. As pleasantly as he could given the dangerously deficient coffee-to-blood ratio in his circulatory system. “How do you feel about having two breakfasts with me this morning? Just you, me, and the CIA for starters.”

  Nicole walked them out. “The fitness reports on everyone look good. I had to judge by the after-action reports from London, but the team hasn’t slipped as much as I expected.”

  “That’s a relief.” Nicole knew her job as well as any of them. As chief head doctor and training boss, she had the best handle on the group’s ability to function, and how to keep them all sharp.

  �
�I’ve scheduled the firing range for later this afternoon, during siesta. Pistol skills are the most perishable.”

  The hotel café loomed before them. Al felt better already. “Reinstate the whole training program, but watch the time. Mack and Vern are exercising the Cuban fighters, right?”

  “Both the Tanners are where they need to be, mission-ready,” she replied. “Are you sleeping?”

  “When Jack’s not on the phone. The guy’s been on adrenaline since London. I doubt he’s slept.” Alonzo ordered a café cubano. Ten minutes until the first meeting, but he couldn’t wait. They had barely enough time to walk the distance, and he sure wasn’t going to attempt that stroll uncaffeinated.

  The Major ignored an English newspaper, instead watching the crowd. She really likes it here, Alonzo thought.

  “Have you read Jack’s report from California?”

  “Yes. No. Skimmed it.” He paid for the coffee and sipped at it as they moved. Damn it, too hot. And too sweet. “He ran into some of Raines’ men. Two-man hit teams, going after anybody who worked on any piece of the weapon tech. Got their asses handed to them, sounded like. Made huge progress on figuring out Raines’ tech—“

  “Mercedes Adams.”

  The cup slipped sideways in his grasp. There wasn’t a name for his expression at that moment. And Nicole had his full attention.

  “You need to read his whole report. The first team he stopped was in her house, presumably collecting the white papers Jack went there to get. There’s more. You really need to read his report.”

  “Mercedes.” What in holy hell was going on? “Okay, okay. Alright.” The coffee spread across the floor at his feet, the cup a total loss. He’d end up chewing on raw beans fairly soon. “Here it is, Nic: make Jack sleep. He needs to rest. You’ve got your hand in everybody’s head, so you know this as well as I do. If that brain’s not vibrating at the right pitch, we’re done. Pick me up after the second breakfast and we’ll go over this, but if you can find him, make him sleep.”

  “What if he refuses?”

  There was already a line again at the cafe. Maybe Cuba had grown a Starbucks he’d find en route. What were the odds?

  “Trank him. No, if he won’t sleep, make him swim. That generally has the same effect.”

  Recruitment

  At least she found something with air-conditioning, Alonzo thought as Nicole pulled up to the curb in an Isuzu Trooper. He found a safe place for the packet of security briefings and almost didn’t make the effort to click into his seat belt.

  She held the steering wheel at precisely ten and two o’clock.

  Nicole’s pace through the crowded city streets could easily be considered sedate. Anesthetized might be a better word. They’d all graduated from the same offensive driving school in southern California, but come to think of it, no one had ever seen Nicole’s certificate. She actually stopped for yellow lights and yielded right-of-way to pedestrians, of which there were many.

  He found himself checking the time.

  “So,” he said. “You want me to get out, run up ahead, check for speed-limit signs?”

  “The way you keep looking at your watch, I wonder if you’ve got a date or a wedding lined up for later.”

  He looked at her, aghast. “You mean there are other women on this planet besides yourself?”

  She gestured at a passing beach, already full of varying shades of pink and brown-skinned tourists. “What do you call those?”

  “All this time, I thought those were lumpy men. Honestly.”

  Now she smiled. “Don’t play with my head, Alonzo.”

  “Then please drive a bit faster, dear. If we’re late, the others are going to think we stopped off somewhere private.”

  It never paid to psychoanalize the team’s head doctor, but Alonzo suspected her unconscious reverence for the speed limit stemmed from an overly controlling father who also happened to be a well-known US military fixture.

  The youngest child of Admiral Davidson Farragut Bonneville, Nicole had practically entered the world wearing Navy blue. She learned to salute before she learned to talk. Her father’s strategic abilities and innovative tactical management style kept him in high demand in places where the military was weakest, and after a long career overseas, he took a post at the U.S. Naval Academy. This assignment coincided with his daughter’s seventeenth birthday, and marked the first time she’d set foot on the United States mainland. It also roughly corresponded with Alonzo’s admission to the Academy, and as he found in her a surprisingly fluent Russian tutor, she found in him a willing tour guide to all things American. She was also the only person he’d ever met, before or since, who could perfectly explain both the psychological and physiological strategies for surviving Hell Week in Annapolis.

  For a young man from the high country of the American Northwest, she was the most interesting thing about Maryland—but the young woman was changing fast as well, coming up to speed with the world around both of them, and Alonzo hadn’t gotten to know her as well as he’d liked before she borrowed his car and headed west. A short stint as a waitress at a Cajun pit barbeque in Ohio was followed by a summer driving a mechanized thresher in Minnesota and a year as a teacher’s assistant in Farmington, New Mexico, working on the Navajo reservation. Nicole tried her hand at being a flight attendant, but picked three failing airlines in rapid succession. She ended up in Oregon eventually, and found that while she was too short to drive a log truck she was tall enough to fight forest fires for the Bureau of Land Management. Frustration with management got her fired quickly, and she was singing backup in a karaoke bar/strip club just south of Portland when Jack found her. Walked right up to her between sets and asked, in that offhand, careless way of his, if she happened to know the signs of approaching psychotic breakdown in a submarine captain. And if she ever felt as though she was meant to do something extraordinary.

  That was the first time she’d ever left the club with a customer, and she walked out without removing the fake eyelashes or collecting her last check. Alonzo wondered if she kept the sequined cocktail dress.

  “You really should have come to the party this morning,” he said.

  “Nothing respectable to wear,” she replied, eyes on the traffic. “Everyone pleased with themselves?”

  He sniffed. “I left when they started patting themselves on the back. The actual briefing lasted fifteen minutes. Everyone was too busy congratulating each other on what a great job they’ve done setting up security for the inauguration and the Games.”

  “What do you think?”

  The countryside was interesting. Very flat immediately outside the city, but they were fast approaching a series of limestone ridges. Not a terribly defendable territory. “You’ve been here for weeks, you’ve seen it. It’s a cockup. There are soft and hard holes in the security grid; no overlap between teams, too much space for error. The city is vulnerable to insertion by air; they rely too much on their early-warning systems and tech. Human intel is still in its infancy, despite all the holdovers from Castro’s regime.

  “Truth be told, Espinosa is highly exposed, and we can’t cover everything. I’d feel this naked even if they moved everything onto Gitmo and replanted all the old land mines on the perimeter.”

  “Where’s the major?” Nicole asked,

  “She wanted to get an eyeful. The reception’s still going on. They even had a band. At nine in the morning, a band. Nice Desi Arnaz lookalike.”

  “And you left her in there alone?”

  Alonzo shook his head, watching the scenery. “We entered separately, and I saw everything I needed to. She’s with the rest of the UK mission team, scoping the crowd. It’ll be good for her to get to know the locals.”

  “Who won’t associate her with us.”

  “That’s the idea.” Alonzo thought for a moment, unsure of how Nicole would react to his next question. “So, what do you think about the major as a candidate for the team?”

  Nicole watched the road. “I’m
working on it. Haven’t had time yet to build up a solid profile on her, but Ian’s lending a hand. She seems capable enough, but I wonder about her loyalties. After what you went through together in London, the usual recruitment process might not make sense.”

  Nicole paused while she negotiated around an ox-driven cart. “The pipeline’s pretty full as it is.”

  That was news. “What do you mean? The team hasn’t been operating for months. You’re still pursuing recruits? I thought you and the Tanner brothers were busy here, working the rebuild of the Cuban military.”

  Nicole shook her head. “When Toria died, and Jack went off the job for all those months – well, I didn’t. The recruiting system we set up is still operating, and the pipeline process still works. Some of the potentials I found are no longer available, but in most cases they never knew how close they were.”

  “Did you ask anyone the Golden Questions?”

  She shook her head. “You know our agreement. I don’t run the team. I veto candidates while they’re in the process, but the go-ahead for me to actually recruit has to come from you or Jack.”

  Alonzo had the feeling Nicole was going to be very busy over the next few weeks.

  “How’s this guy today? The one we’re going to see?” Alonzo knew the potential was male. New team members weren’t always men, of course, but there were currently no female soldiers in the Cuban military.

  She didn’t even have to look at her notes. “Decent shot; the Tanners both like him. Bit of a loner; his sergeant tipped him as a misfit and tried to drum him out of the program early.”

  Sounded like he fit the profile. “Current assignment?”

  “Air traffic control. His name—”

  “Don’t want to know it. Not yet. If he makes it through today, then you can tell me.”