by J. B. Turner
“I noticed all right. I’m not stupid, you know.”
“Never said you were.”
“We’re in the middle of nowhere and I feel like I can’t breathe. We’re so isolated. I don’t like isolation. Never have.”
“Not as isolated as you think.”
“What do you mean?”
“Think about it. Fredericks. Kayakers. Wildlife students. All hanging around. It’s not the raw wilderness it was a thousand years ago.”
Beatrice heated up some canned beans and spaghetti, which they ate from the pot. “I feel like I’ve been out here for a lifetime.”
Stone smiled. “You’re killing me with your whining, do you know that?”
“Don’t even joke about killing.” It was her turn to smile.
“Feeling better?” Stone said.
“Marginally,” she said.
Stone could see she was once again putting on a brave face. It didn’t take a genius to recognize that she was scared witless after Fredericks attacked her, more aware than ever that she was out in the wild with a strange man.
Stone fixed his gaze on her. Tears streaked her dirty face. Blood from mosquito bites dotted her arms and neck. “If it means anything,” he said, “I’m sorry for dragging you all the way out here. I’m sorry for all the shit that’s happened.”
Beatrice closed her eyes and began to cry. “I need to get out of here. I’m truly losing any grip I once had on my sanity.”
Stone picked up Fredericks’s map of Florida Bay and began to examine it. He used a compass to gauge their position and which direction they needed to head. He flattened out the map across the fronds and pointed to their location. “We’re here. Cluett Key.”
“Okay, what are our options?”
“I’m guessing from this map—and it’s very rough—that we’ve traveled just over ten miles.”
“Is that all?”
“Most of that was paddling. But Fredericks’s boat has a motor. There’s a rudimentary GPS on board, but it works. That’s good. We have a map and compass. That’s also good.”
She looked at the map. “We’re going to die. Or if not, they’re going to kill us.”
“Not necessarily. We need to focus. And not freak out. You got that?”
Beatrice hugged herself tight. “I don’t know.”
“What do you mean, you don’t know?”
“I mean, I feel sick, I’m scared, I’m lonely, and I’m totally not dealing with this.”
“Well, you better. And quick.”
Beatrice nodded. “Easier said than done.”
“Here’s how I see it. We could either go due east, and we reach Tavernier.”
“Where’s that?”
“Close to Key Largo, Upper Florida Keys. I know a guy who runs crab boats out of there. But that means going through all this mangrove, seagrass bullshit. We could easily run aground in this boat. It’s different from a kayak or a canoe.”
“Due east is the closest to civilization?”
“That’s correct. Unless we head back the way we came, and that’s not an option. So, while going east to Tavernier is an option, the quickest way would be due south to Layton.”
“So Layton it is?”
“No, that’s not my favorite option.”
“It isn’t? Fuck, why don’t you ever make things easy? To me, we head due south and we’re home and dry.”
“That’s what they’ll be thinking too.”
“Who?”
“The people who want to kill us.”
Beatrice blew out a frustrated breath. “So, what do you propose?”
Stone pointed toward Cudjoe Key on the map. “I know this place. I know a guy who lives near there.”
“And?”
“And he’ll help us. He’ll pick us up.”
“That’s assuming we get there.”
Stone nodded. “You’re right. It’s not a slam dunk. And it’s a long, long way from here.”
“How far?”
“I estimate . . . it won’t be much short of sixty miles.”
“Are you fucking kidding me? In that airboat? A fucking airboat!”
“Yes.”
“This is getting crazier and crazier.”
“By heading to Cudjoe, we will, I believe, stay clear of not only the people who are trying to kill us but also the coast guard. That route gives us the best chance.”
Beatrice bowed her head and began to sob again. “Sixty fucking miles. I just want to go home. I don’t care if the coast guard finds me. I want them to.”
“Well, I don’t. So we stick to my plan. There are two main coast guard stations in the Keys. Islamorada and Key West. So, we need to be south of Islamorada.”
“I don’t know. I just want to get out of here.”
“You’re not fucking listening. We need to focus. Are you alive right now?”
Beatrice closed her eyes and nodded. “Barely.”
“You’re alive. But we need to think strategically. We need to avoid two groups of people. Those fuckers who want to kill us, and the government forces who are up and down these waters all the time. What is so difficult to understand about that?”
Beatrice said nothing as she swatted some bugs from her face.
“Once we’re on the Keys, we’ll be fine. But until then, you need to trust me.”
Beatrice sighed long and hard. “So when do you envision us heading out of here? I’m exhausted.”
“So am I. We both need to be alert. So, I think the best course of action is to rest until dark.”
“We wait for night?”
Stone nodded. “The boat has GPS, so we’re good to travel at night. Fredericks knew his stuff, sick bastard. We head off and stick to a steady thirty, we should be there in a couple hours.”
“Tonight?”
“Yeah, that’s the plan. We’ve got a full moon. With no cloud cover, we’ll be fine.”
“I don’t know,” she said.
“What don’t you know?”
Beatrice shook her head. “I just have this vision of us getting hit by a coast guard boat, some bigger boats, you know.”
“It’s a risk.”
“Why don’t we just leave now?”
“Why? Well, if we pull up on Cudjoe Key in broad daylight, there’s a very good chance we’ll be spotted.”
“Spotted by who?”
“Anyone. I want to get ashore without anyone seeing us. So my friend can pick us up and get us to safety. Besides, there’s a sheriff and a deputy or two on Cudjoe. So night would be best to arrive. Think about it.”
“Think about what? I just want to get the fuck out of here!”
“So do I. But there are ways of doing things. If we get picked up by the cops, they’ll start asking us questions. They’ll want to know if we stole the boat. Is the airboat ours? If so, where’s proof? You see where I’m going with that? There will be ramifications.”
Beatrice got quiet.
“What are we going to say? Yeah, we stole it off some survivalist nut, and then we killed the fucker?”
“Are you kidding me? We didn’t kill the fucker. You did.”
“He was trying to rape you.”
“I didn’t kill him. Listen, I want to go now. Right fucking now!”
“Does that sound like the plan? I don’t think so. It sounds like a surefire way to get arrested.”
“I want to go now!”
“Not an option.”
Beatrice glared at him, arms folded. “So, I’m a prisoner?”
“You’re getting emotional.”
“Why, because I’m a woman?”
Stone shook his head. “Don’t twist my words. I just meant you’re not thinking logically. And yes, you’re getting emotional.”
“You’re damn right I’m getting emotional. Why the fuck shouldn’t I be getting emotional? Yes, I am emotional. Tired. Exhausted. Close to the end of my rope. Do you understand, you crazy fuck?”
Stone sat and said nothing.
> “No, I don’t suppose you do understand this.”
“I want us both to get back to civilization in one piece, and that means not getting arrested and not letting some local take video of us stepping off the airboat and upload the footage to YouTube. In my line of work, that wouldn’t be good.”
“Your line of work? You don’t have a line of work. You’re a fucking assassin. You maniac.”
“Look, you just need to be a little more patient.”
“Patient? For what? So some fucking snakes or crocs can eat us? I am fucking dying here!” Beatrice lay down on top of the palm fronds, curled up in a fetal position, and began to sob.
Beatrice cried her heart out. Eventually, her crying subsided and she fell into a deep sleep. Once he was sure she wouldn’t wake up frightened to find herself alone, Stone left to cut down more fronds to block the shafts of hot sunlight burning down onto the sleeping actress. He put out the fire with some sand, then headed through the mangroves to the muddy beach. He used a stripped piece of bark to check how much gas was in the airboat tank. It was low. He filled it up from a rusting metal canister Fredericks kept on the boat.
Then he pulled the boat farther up the beach and covered it with palm fronds until it was concealed from scrutiny.
Stone headed through the mangroves fringing the island and back to the clearing. He looked inside the makeshift shelter. Beatrice was still sound asleep. The noise of gulls punctuated the susurration of the waves lapping onto the key. The smell of burning black mangrove still hung in the salty air.
He watched her for a few minutes. She looked peaceful. Serene even. She was showing greater resilience than he had expected. Sure, she was griping. Moaning. Bitching. But she was hanging in there. He admired that.
Stone’s mind flashed to the South Beach bar. He remembered her face that night. There had been something slightly mysterious about her independent of her resemblance to his sister. She’d seemed strangely confident. It could have been that she’d popped a couple of Xanax and drunk a couple of shots before she walked into the bar. Picturing the scene made him think about the others in the bar.
Had the Commission been watching him for a while? A day or two perhaps?
It wasn’t a stretch to think that they’d caught him visiting his sister, despite the pains he’d taken to slip into the facility unseen. But he could also imagine that facial recognition software had pulled up his new face. The whole of South Beach was awash in surveillance cameras for businesses, bars, public buildings, you name it. Maybe the cops in Miami Beach had spotted him. Was the cop who’d been hanging around the Deuce every night feeding the Commission information?
The more he thought about it, the more he wondered if that was how it had happened. He would probably never get to the bottom of how they’d found him. The chain of events.
Stone gave himself a shake. He’d been standing there with his eyes closed. He needed sleep. Badly. He crawled into the shelter and lay down on the fronds, his back to Beatrice, as exhaustion overcame him.
Twenty-Six
The office of William Black, the Director of the CIA’s National Clandestine Service, was on the seventh floor of the George Bush Center for Intelligence. Catherine Hudson was escorted from a security checkpoint in the lobby up to his office. He stood staring out of the window, cell phone pressed to his ear. He turned around and motioned for her to take a seat.
Hudson sat as the door quietly shut behind her. She looked around the office; this was the first time she’d been there. On the wall hung two black-and-white pictures taken in the wake of 9/11. The one on the left showed the smoldering ruins of the Twin Towers; the other showed the terrible damage to the Pentagon.
She shifted in her seat.
Two phones occupied Black’s desk. One provided an internal secure line to any CIA station in the world.
“I want it in forty-eight hours, son—those figures are crucial before we green-light this.”
Black ended the call and sat behind his desk. “Catherine, do you ever sleep?”
Hudson forced a smile. “That bad, huh?”
“No, I don’t mean that. I mean you work like I used to work ten years ago. And it takes its toll, let me tell you.”
“I’m okay, really.”
Black nodded as he leaned back in his leather seat. “Haven’t seen you around for a while.”
“You know how it is, sir. No need to be here.”
“How are you finding working out of that satellite office? Does it suit you?”
“It suits me fine. It’s just that . . .”
“Home life?”
Hudson forced a smile. “Yeah, home life. How did you guess?”
“Everyone who works at the Agency has home life issues. Believe me, I know. I was the same. It puts a strain on things. But . . . we go on.”
Hudson took a few moments to compose herself. She would have preferred to talk about the Commission. But Black had an innate ability to know when one of his charges was having issues.
She looked at him. Ice-blue eyes, perfect knot in his tie, starched white shirt, navy single-breasted suit. His gaze often unnerved people, almost like he was trying to figure out what was ailing them. As if he had to know what mental shape they were in.
Hudson knew a lot of CIA operators who felt uneasy in his presence. She had never felt like that. Not even once. She had worked for Black since he was the station chief in Kabul. She’d watched the way he negotiated the byzantine relationships with visiting State Department dignitaries, tribal leaders, Pentagon wonks, politicians wanting a photo opportunity. He was impeccably polite, cordial; he exuded warmth. But Hudson knew that he was old-school. He was tough as teak. He would not allow insubordination. He didn’t mind a frank exchange of views, but once the course or direction had been set, it was a foolish man or woman who tried to change his mind.
Black looked at her long and hard. “Catherine, we’ve known each other a long time, right? I know it can’t be easy having to keep up appearances over the years. I’m talking about your official cover as a management consultant.”
Hudson nodded. She wondered how he knew or sensed that things weren’t good at home.
“I know better than anyone the tensions in a relationship because of the hours.”
“Sir, I’m not here to talk about my private life. My private life is just that. Private. And I’d appreciate if we didn’t focus on that area. I’m here to talk about the project. My project.”
Black sighed. “Lot to talk about.”
Hudson nodded.
“So, what are we going to do about it?”
Hudson had been thinking of nothing else since Stone had gone on the run. “When the Commission was set up, you said I was responsible.”
“Go on.”
“And that the only person I should speak about it with was you.”
“That’s correct.”
“You also said that you wanted to be kept abreast of progress or otherwise. If things were going wrong.”
Black leaned back in his seat. “I asked you a question. What are you going to do about it?”
“You need to know—and I’m not going to sugarcoat it, sir, you know how I operate—that I believe the Commission has gone off the rails.”
“Its implementation has not been without setbacks, I grant you.”
“Sir, I am seriously concerned. What started off as a carefully modulated, unacknowledged special-access program has become a living nightmare.”
Black said nothing.
“That’s how I see it.”
“I’m not disagreeing.”
“I believe some of its objectives were realized, but the potential fallout is catastrophic.”
Black’s eyes fixed on her. “Have you ever wondered why I gave the go-ahead for the Commission?”
The defense of America. The defense of the West. The defense of our values. And Black had always stressed that the fight must not be in America’s own backyard but thousands of miles away from hom
e. He was a reactionary. A realist.
“I think I remember, sir—correct me if I’m wrong—that you said that it would be an invaluable way to achieve American objectives by proxy.”
Black nodded. “Without risking direct responsibility.”
“I believe this element now means that my vision for the organization has run its course.”
“Catherine, I know your family well.”
“Indeed, sir.”
“Your grandfather, Henry Hudson, was my mentor.”
Hudson shifted in her seat. “I didn’t know that, sir.”
“A long time ago. You know what his legacy is?”
Hudson said nothing.
“You’ve probably heard of the Safari Club.”
Hudson nodded.
“Your grandfather was, as you know, a great man and a brilliant patriot. He was one of those who worked with our overseas intelligence partners to set up the program.”
Hudson cleared her throat. She knew all about the Safari Club. But she didn’t want to say any more than she had to.
“He had a great way of looking at things from a fresh angle. Some would say from out of left field. I would describe it as resourceful. Innovative. A bit like yourself.”
Hudson shifted in her seat.
“He was ahead of his time. Always was. But the Agency was on the defensive in the midseventies after Watergate and all that bullshit. You know how he found a way around the new restrictions?”
Hudson smiled.
“Way back in 1976, the intelligence agencies of Egypt, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and France began an informal arrangement—which we were party to, although we didn’t admit it at the time—to share information in a bid to thwart the spread of communism and Soviet influence. The reason this was set up was because—”
“We were hamstrung after the Church Committee report, I believe.”
Black grinned. “That’s exactly right. But your grandfather, he had the foresight to realize that America couldn’t just allow the Russians to shape the world. We had to be in there fighting our corner for our friends and allies.”
“What’s your point, sir?”
“My point is, the Safari Club was a brilliant idea whose time had come. The Commission is another.”
“Sir, the Commission, after recent events, might very well result in blowback for the Agency and potentially even the country. We’ve contained the wild-card threat Stone represented until now. But I believe the time has come for the Commission to be wound up.”