Xposed

by Lynda Filler

  Lorena stood up to make more coffee. She could see that this conversation was getting way too intense.

  Luci shivered. She wondered if Zach was here to take her in. But that made no sense. They could have killed her or drowned her in the Pacific Ocean, and no one would have known.

  “So, what’s up Zach? What do you want with me?”

  “I think it’s better if I show you.”

  19

  “FIRST LET ME tell you what I’ve been able to find out. When you gave birth to Alice, Mossad wanted to take her from you. It seems it was a play by Mossad to keep you working for them. Now, while you were giving birth, you were fitted with a chip, as was Alice.”

  Luci cursed in Hebrew. “So that’s how the cartel has been able to track me. And of course, we know they have very powerful friends in the CIA. But wait a minute. What have the Chinese got to do with me?”

  “Luci, first you interfered in what you thought a South American cartel operation: the drugs and a rogue CIA group. But there was more to it. A businesswoman named Sying Li Ma in Shanghai is now one of the richest women in the world. She runs a multi-billion-dollar investment firm, has holdings in many high-tech groups and we suspect the person behind the drugs the CIA was smuggling.”

  “And?”

  “She knows about you and Alice. She blames you for her losses.”

  “Oh, my God.” Luci looked over at her sleeping child. Her mind went over her arsenal of skills, martial arts, knives, and physical training. She was only one person, no Mossad or MI6 to cover her. She’d burned those bridges when she used inside intel to pull off the heist. She had no choice. She would have to kill this woman.

  “Don’t worry about Alice. While you were in the mini-sub, you were protected. We have new technology that enabled us to shut down and destroy Alice’s chip and yours. You’re unplugged. No longer exposed. As far as Sying can tell, you no longer exist.”

  Luci remained silent.

  “I know you’re holding out on me Samaar. What’s going on?” Zach suspected Luci had something she was holding back. But why?

  “Remember Edward Snowden, the Security Agency contractor?”

  “Yes. Here’s what I’ve uncovered. Snowden was sent to Russia to give them information by subversives in the US Government.”

  Zach was intrigued.

  “How did you figure that out?”

  Luci smiled. “I may be out of the business and on the run, but I’m well trained and know how to hack into a system or two myself. Maybe the average Joe or politician can’t see past the Government propaganda machine, but I can.”

  Zach nodded. “So, here’s something you don’t know. The Chinese have hacked into the personnel files of fourteen million government employees…including contractors, both military and civilian. And retired special forces and SEALs.”

  Luci was immediately alert. She went over some of the joint ops she’d done with the US, Mossad, RAW in India, and MI6.

  “We have to advise some of our deep-cover assets in foreign intelligence branches.” Luci went over a short but extremely critical list.

  “And it gets worse. We think Chinese have the names, personal family information, and photos of all military personnel including the Navy SEALs and all Special Operations groups. And anyone who’s worked with us. Like you.”

  “What do you need me to do?”

  “We have a plan. We need your computer expertise and your physical skills. It’s a matter of life or death, literally.”

  “Zach, who is ‘we’?”

  “The Raven Group.”

  “Luke Raven?”

  A ton of memories flooded into Samaar’s thoughts. She attempted to hide her blush. Her efforts were wasted.

  Zach had his suspicions confirmed. There was something between Luke and Samaar. He was crushed, but not really surprised. “Yes.”

  20

  LILY AND AMY would have loved this place. Time stood still on the Cascade Mountain Range where Luke had built his private sanctuary.

  He glanced out the bulletproof bedroom window. Stubborn patches of snow glistened in the moonlight. Snowboarding on Horstman Glacier would probably continue into August. Amy had wanted to be a competitive snowboarder. She was his daughter; she would have made the Olympic team if she’d lived.

  Luke reminisced about the first time he brought Lily to the top of Whistler Mountain. They were so different, and yet the same. Her intensely compassionate love of life and all living beings centered him. And his critical thinking launched hundreds of ways to help her raise funds for her foundation. Lily wanted to save humanity, and Luke couldn’t even protect the woman and daughter he loved. The guilt would live with him forever.

  Back in his War Room, Luke blasted The Rolling Stones.

  “Vietnam war music seems appropriate for real-time war games. Let’s toy with North Korea. A little click of my joystick and the NK military boys will be scrambling against ghosts.”

  Luke sang along with Gimme Shelter by the Stones:

  “Oh, a storm is threatening

  My very life today

  If I don't get some shelter

  Oh yeah, I'm gonna fade away

  War, children, it's just a shot away

  It's just a shot away

  War, children, it's just a shot away

  It's just a shot away

  Ooh, see the fire is sweepin'

  Our very street today

  Burns like a red coal carpet

  Mad bull lost its way

  War, children, it's just a shot away

  It's just a shot away

  War, children, it's just a shot away

  It's just a shot away

  Rape, murder!

  It's just a shot away

  It's just a shot away

  Rape, murder!

  It's just a shot away

  It's just a shot away.”

  It was no good.

  This song always made him sad, made him remember them. And today was their wedding anniversary. Four years ago, his wife Lily, and Amy his seven-year-old died in a diving accident in the Bahamas. He’d been teaching at Caltech when they decided to take a vacation over the Christmas holidays. They were both skilled divers, and the dive was rather shallow only forty-five feet.

  The day started with sunshine and laps in the pool. Luke’s private villa was loaned to him by one of the tech companies he was working with at the time. At the last minute, he had to take an urgent conference call from Washington. Lily and Amy went ahead to the dive location. Luke said he would join them in less than half an hour.

  They’d checked the equipment thoroughly the night before.

  A freak accident the Bahamian police said. Lily and Amy both died of decompression sickness. The police said probably a shark scared them and they tried to come to the surface too quickly.

  They couldn’t be revived.

  That’s when he made the most crucial decision of his life. He disappeared into the wilderness for four months and when he came back, he became Raven.

  When he got in one of his moods, he needed to punch someone or something.

  Luke locked down his computers. Set his security on five different levels. This room had only one entry point. It also helped that it was built into the backside of an out-of-bounds, part of the Cascade Mountain Range. Impossible to breach.

  He had two rotating ex-Special Ops guys, and sometimes Zach, on call 24/7 to play security and travel with him worldwide. They had retired from the US Military early due to a windfall from a billionaire named Luke Raven. And of course, Maggs who routinely pushed his boundaries at Krav Maga but who had a unique advantage over the team because she was a Michelin trained chef; and RB whose computer skills were almost as good as Luke’s.

  They were all part of a top-secret International Security team funded by Raven. When you’re a billionaire, you get to have gym partners at any hour of the day or night. Even at midnight.

  “Come on George, let’s play.” RB watched from his
computer monitors. Play was not a word you used when testing Krav Magna skills.

  It was the world’s most active and dangerous martial art. The boys should know. They fine-tuned it while training with the IDF at Mossad headquarters in Tel Aviv. Krav Maga doesn’t concern itself with the opponent’s wellbeing. In fact, it generally assumes that your opponent intends to kill you.

  The Navy SEALs were proficient in Krav Maga. For this reason, the brutal techniques of this fighting modality have been developed with the sole intention of inflicting as much pain as quickly and efficiently as possible. And that very often includes deliberately ending the life of your adversary.

  When Raven trained hard, his focus was on death.

  21

  FLEEING FOR THEIR lives, the chase, and the rescue left Samaar tense and filled with energy. Instead of sleeping, she borrowed khaki shorts and a black Lycra top from Lorena. She stretched on the weather-worn pier, then took off on the run through the jungle trails. She felt safe in Zach’s paradise, but still, she remained vigilant.

  She followed the sounds she’d heard when she first arrived, and in twenty minutes she located the waterfall. An ordinary person might stop to admire the sun sparkling on the water cascading into a peaceful lagoon. Not Samaar. She set out to conquer the wall.

  Steep inclines were no challenge to her. She found footholds in places no one else would think to look. She used palms and bushes to maneuver her way up the edge of the falls. Almost straight up. Seven minutes, still not good enough. She could do better.

  Samaar continued her run through the jungle, bushes brushed her legs, spiky cactus scratched her ankles. She pushed forward. Her mind wandered to the conversation with Zach. She’d been out for almost two years. But always watching. Then Columbia, and Uruguay. Distracted and wiping sweat from her brow, she missed the roots that grabbed her left foot. She landed on her knees. Scraped, bleeding, elbows sore from breaking her fall, but her ankle was not twisted.

  “Focus!”

  She stayed down on the ground and allowed herself to feel regret. She had no home, no man since Alice’s father was murdered, and she had no family. She brushed the dirt, sand, and grit off her sore knees.

  Suddenly she went very still.

  She could hear voices speaking Spanish, then intense low conversation. She grasped her knife from where she’d placed it in a pouch around her waist. She approached with stealth. She stilled her breathing. She cursed herself for going out without her gun. Would she ever feel safe again?

  She cautiously moved the branches aside and realized she was watching two young teenagers smoking pot.

  “Get a grip girl. You were young once.”

  Luci silently retreated, re-tracing the way she’d come.

  She shimmied down the side of the waterfall, this time moving from vine to vine, exhausted but happy with her workout. Through the trees to her right, she noticed a small very private secondary pool, a hidden underwater connection to the main waterfall. Samaar stripped down leaving her clothes on a warming rock by the edge of the crystal-clear water. It was only about five-feet-deep, but it was perfect.

  Zach, machete in hand, stood off to the side of the trail. He’d come for her. And what he witnessed burned in his mind.

  His body wanted Samaar in all the ways that a man could want a woman. In all the ways he had never experienced in this lifetime and could only imagine. He had dedicated his life to protecting his country. And there was no room for a woman and a child in that life.

  Yet, he watched her play in the water. He’d bet Luci never played. When she dove under, and her perfect tan body in all its natural glory broke the surface, Zach was aroused and had to force himself to turn away.

  He walked back to the village, his heart troubled. Then he re-focused and turned his mind to China and the safety of his beloved adopted country.

  22

  SYING PLAYED CHOPIN on her speakers. It reminded her of her favorite City in the world, Paris. Soon she would be there. She would visit Chopin’s grave and leave the white roses he so adored.

  The great pianist and composer was a fervent Polish nationalist who lived in France during the Russian occupation of his country. He expressed his revolutionary feelings in his music. He died in Paris, and his corpse was buried in Père Lachaise; but according to his wishes, his heart was removed, preserved in brandy, and sealed up in a pillar in Holy Cross Church in Warsaw, Poland.

  Of course, what the world didn’t know was that she, Sying Li Ma, was in possession of Chopin’s heart. Right here, in Shanghai, on a pedestal, in a sealed urn, surrounded by white roses.

  Strains of Chopin piano concerto in the background, Sying turned to her various emails from several countries around the world. Clicking on one she smiled. Yes, of course, they were interested. Russia, ISIS, North Korea. They all wanted the information. She still hadn’t decided exactly what she would sell.

  Clicking into a secure interoffice video, she called up Sam Woo.

  “Have you separated the files yet?”

  “Still working on it.” Sam looked off to his right.

  “The active military and spy network are the most important parts. Especially the SEAL Teams working the Middle East. And also, the Spy network in South and North Korea. Kim is most anxious.”

  “Yes, Sying. We will have the military in three more days.”

  “And one more thing, I’m looking for a man with security clearance at the highest level, Luke Raven. He’s a scientist. Worked on US sensitive information. I need to know exactly where he is right now.”

  “Yes, Ma’am. I will search that one right now and send you co-ordinates ASAP.”

  She closed down the computer window.

  “This will change the world. Exactly as I planned.”

  “I will send out encrypted invitations. Let the interested parties think they are bidding against each other for this invaluable information on the US Government and its current and retired employees. And for a bonus, I will destroy Luke Raven like I should have done years ago.”

  23

  SAMAAR AND ALICE quickly fell in love with Yelapa and Lorena. After three days Samaar knew they could live here forever.

  “Lorena, has anyone ever told you what an amazing cook you are?”

  Alice sat on Lorena’s lap nibbling on tortilla chips. Leftover chicken fajitas lay in a black cast iron pan. Pico de Gallo salsa and Picante guacamole congealed on their plates. Lorena smiled, wiping food off Alice’s tiny fingers.

  Samaar sighed. She inhaled the briny ocean air and embraced the heat. Content. Relaxed. Zach had missed lunch busy with work, he said.

  “Let me help with cleaning up. Alice seems to have taken to you, Lorena. You are speaking to her in Spanish as her nanny did in Columbia.” Lorena smiled.

  “Yes. Alice remembers and feels safe here, I think. But then she is only four; all this must be a normal way of life with her mother.”

  The women sat in silence both thinking about a what a normal life looked like. Lorena had neither a husband nor children, but that was a sad place she didn’t want to visit. Not with this lovely creature cuddling on her lap.

  “Has Zach told you much Lorena?”

  “Some.”

  “I think I must leave. Zach has asked for my help. And if Alice and I are ever going to have a chance at normal, I must help stop this Chinese woman.”

  “Yes.”

  “I have a favor, a huge favor to ask.”

  “Yes. I will.”

  “But” Samaar stopped. “You will?” Tears formed in her eyes and rolled down her cheeks.

  “Of course. I will protect Alice as if she is my own.”

  “And if something should happen to me?”

  “Don’t cry, Mommy.” Alice wiggled out of Lorena’s embrace and reached up for her mother’s arms. She wiped the tears from her mommy’s face.

  “Yes, I will take care of her. She’s so easy to love.”

  In silence, they each thanked a God they seldom believed
in for the friendship and the family they had found in each other.

  24

  ZACH AND SAMAAR relaxed in worn wicker chairs on the brick terrazzo terrace. She sipped Sangria, Zach a Margarita. Lorena could be heard reading a story to Alice in Spanish.

  They watched the sky blazing orange and purple as the sun moved downwards towards the horizon. The fireball sizzled then disappeared into the sea.

  “You've been pushing your training hard these past few days. I wish we could be more creative with our artillery, but guns are illegal here in Mexico unless licensed, and we can’t bring attention to ourselves or risk what we’ve been able to do here. Everything is well secured in a vault built into the stone cliffs behind the house. Are you ready?”

  “You know me, Zach, I’m always ready, but not always willing.”

  “Lorena told me about your conversation.

  “Yes.”

  “Whenever a Navy SEAL prepares to deploy, he writes a will and a letter to his loved ones. I lost track of how many times I’ve done that. But I have no family left, my adoptive parents in Coronado are both dead. I always leave everything to my brothers.”

  “But I thought you were an orphan Zach.”

  “I am. My brothers, my SEAL team, are my family. We have to take our family where we find them. One of my buddies, George, lost his wife when his two girls were young. Today both girls are in University in San Diego. They are safer there than with George. He’s up in Canada. So, they are my daughters too. All I have is theirs. And the orphans.

  “What orphans?”

  “Ah, well the kids are my love you know. I was an orphan once, and it could very well have been me in orphanages in South Sudan, or Guatemala, or Columbia. I have seventeen orphanages that I visit and support financially. And at Christmas, my brothers go with me to Ensenada where I have another orphanage. We deliver clothes, shoes, and food. And play soccer with the kids. They hold my heart. Last year when I retired from the SEAL group, I volunteered my time in South Sudan. I needed a break before joining Raven and spent time at Samaritan’s Purse. I was adopted.”