by David Perry
The second battle was louder and more virulent. Again, Jason managed to withdraw without revealing the truth. He had to retreat back into the living room to get away a second time. Chrissie left him, slamming her bedroom door only to reappear fifteen minutes later. They were now embroiled in their third skirmish in front of a muted television flashing scenes of The Matrix.
“How do you expect me to marry you if you can’t be honest? What’s her name?”
Jason shook his head. “Who?”
“The woman at the strip club. You make me sick. You know that!”
Jason struggled to cast a halting glance in her direction. “Chrissie, it’s hard to explain.”
She wrinkled her lips into a smirk. “No, it’s not. You just tell the truth. How long has it been going on?”
He refused to speak, averting his eyes for the tenth time.
“I need a drink,” she said.
Chrissie moved to the small portable bar in her living room. She poured herself a large shot of tequila. “What happened to the man I knew?” She lifted the glass to her lips and threw her head back. Jason watched her face contort as the harsh liquid slipped down her throat. “The Jason I knew a decade ago would never have done this. The Jason I met two years ago loved me. At least, that’s what I thought.”
Jason moved to her. Chrissie poured another two fingers of the liquid and was holding it. “Chrissie, I love you very much.”
She shook her head. A pained snicker consumed her features. “Fuck you!”
Chrissie tipped the shot glass, hurling its contents at Jason. The tequila splashed into his eyes. He staggered backward. He felt her fist smash into his face. Tumbling toward the floor, he tripped over the coffee table. Jason landed on his back between the sofa and the table.
His hands went to his face and eyes. The stabbing of a million white hot needles obliterated his sight. On the periphery of his consciousness, he heard Chrissie stomp out of the room. A minute later, the slam of a door reverberated throughout the house.
Thimble Shoals Light bobbed unseen in the darkness. Oleg Gundersen had ordered all running lights extinguished. He wanted as little illumination as possible on the activities of the next few minutes. The crescent moon found a crack in the clouds, sending what felt like a spotlight onto the ship and the silent waters.
Forsiktig! The American Kraken is out there!
When the lunar sickle ducked behind another bank of cumulus cover, Gundersen lifted his arm and moved his index finger in a circular motion. He watched as the forward derrick operator of the Thor pushed a lever and the crane swung into place over one of the Zodiacs. The only sounds were the gentle lapping of Chesapeake Bay against the hull, the thrumming of the crane’s hydraulic motor, and the occasional creaking of the aging ship.
A harness had been placed under and around each water craft. As the large iron hook dangled a few feet over the first Zodiac, one of the paramilitary types, standing in the raft, brought the four ends of the harness together and hung them on the hook. He motioned for the crane operator to take up the slack.
The rest of the five-man team climbed aboard. Two short whistles preceded the whining of the motor. The craft was hoisted out of the hold, swung over the deck, and lowered to the black waters of Chesapeake Bay.
Thirty seconds later, the rubber boat was free and motoring into the darkness.
The tension in Gundersen’s chest eased, if only for a moment. He removed his kommander’s cap and ran his cracked hands through his mangy hair. Removing a cell phone from his pocket, he punched in a text addressed to the number he had been given. The first delivery was made a few hours ago. The second craft was now off his vessel.
Second delivery made! Moving to final destination!
Hussein ambled into the converted bedroom two doors down the hall from her own massive master suite. Sitting at a desk in a high-backed leather chair before two massive, high-definition monitors was the drone’s pilot, wearing a creased pair of khakis and a black cotton polo. Hussein’s eyes followed the young man’s left arm from his shoulder to his wrist. A large-faced Gucci watch adorned it. Her eyes continued past the small, squiggly tattoo on his forearm to the hand. The third finger sported a college ring from École Polytechnique.
“Bonsoir, Michel. As-tu l’information?” she asked. Good evening, Michel. Do you have the information?
“Oui, Madame. C’est ici.” It’s here, the young man replied, pointing to one of the monitors.
Hussein had recruited him a year ago. A true follower, the young man had demonstrated his value in computer programming and communications. The removable communications hard drive taken from the drone was being downloaded in another bedroom.
“Excellent. Download the data to my phone, s’il vous plaît.”
A moment later, Hussein’s cell phone beeped, the familiar chirp letting her know she had a message. The messages from the drone had been uploaded.
“Merci beaucoup,” she said. “Le drone will be ready for its next flight in about an hour.”
“As you wish.”
“And the social media accounts?”
“Monitored every day, Madame. There have been no inappropriate posts or tweets.”
“Excellent!” Hussein smiled. Each one of her thirty men on the compound had been issued his own cell phone, provided by The Simoon. All phones were preprogrammed to block the use of social media and were collected and stored while her soldats were on the premises. Only she and Oliver were allowed to possess cell phones or any other electronic device inside the compound. The only other person associated with their cause who was allowed the use of an electronic device was The Watcher. And they communicated by encrypted text messaging and used the communications drone to play hide-and-seek with the signals.
Otherwise, her charges were all single men with no family ties who had been sequestered for this mission. Some had committed criminal acts in the past with no lapses to date and had demonstrated a strong allegiance to their cause. The troops were given as many nonelectronic distractions as possible to enjoy when not on duty: movies, magazines, board games, and television. But she also knew that people would always try to find a way circumvent the rules.
Her French computer expert monitored the social media platforms, making sure that no posts originated from any of the devices on her compound. Each man was allowed twenty-four hours off the compound each week. They were searched and body scanned with a wand upon their return to make sure no contraband of any kind made its way onto the grounds.
She had left Oliver to supervise the preparation of the next flight. She smiled at the ingenuity of the drone’s utility. The American intelligence community had the best, most comprehensive networks available to intercept and decode communications. By accessing cell towers, servers, and databases legally and illegally, the CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the FBI, the National Security Agency, Homeland Security’s Office of Intelligence and Analysis and the National Reconnaissance Office, among others, could ferret out threats with amazing speed and accuracy.
Hussein had tried to bypass this technical ability during the assassination attempts twenty-four months ago. Electronic communications were forbidden. Communications took place through Cold War methods, dead-drops, and human transfers. The Americans had gotten away from these techniques, preferring to rely on drones and electronics to collect intelligence. The old ways had worked, for the most part, until Thomas Pettigrew had stumbled upon her plan.
Out of necessity, he had been disposed of. So had her reliance on outdated spy craft.
Jason Rodgers had inserted himself into the mix, trying to find out how and why Pettigrew died. Hussein shook her head, recalling her mistake. She had tried to involve the pharmacist in her pharmacy operation, an operation that was a cover for her ultimate pursuit—the assassination of two presidents. She had misjudged Rodgers. And he had brought down the plan and saved the two American criminals.
She had allowed him to get too close!
Hussein was not finishe
d with Jason Rodgers. She owed him. This time Rodgers himself would deliver her weapon of destruction to America’s doorstep. She owed him the agony he had caused her. And Delilah Hussein always paid her debts.
With financing from their allies in the Middle East and beyond, she had overseen the installation of modern, high-tech equipment that would allow her to complete this mission, the most important example of which now sat on the landing pad in the southern quadrant of the island compound.
The octagonal-shaped communications drone equipped with folding antennae and transponders had an operational range of eight hundred miles. It flew to within this distance in an arc from the east coast of Florida to a location north of Bermuda, returning to Hussein’s compound after each sortie. Flight was powered by four fifteen-foot helicopter-like blades mounted on rotating stanchions that could tilt along a three-dimensional axis, allowing it to steer and fly in any direction. The engines and removable computer hard drives were powered by four rechargeable lithium batteries, each the size of a suitcase. The hard drive was removed from the craft after each sortie and its information—mainly, messages from The Watcher—downloaded. Communications with her compatriots in Syria were transmitted by secure satellite phone.
When Reprisal One reached a preprogrammed location, it dispatched any messages from its cache and received incoming messages by polling the various devices, secure phone, and computers that were programmed into its software.
When all the information was gathered, the computers were turned off and disconnected from their battery source. This prevented any signals from being intercepted by the Americans as the craft followed a different preprogrammed route each time. The $10 million aircraft had performed flawlessly.
The data from the latest flight had just been received on her phone. Hussein opened the first message. It was from the captain aboard the Thor:
First package delivered. En route to second.
The second was from The Watcher:
The first package is wrapped and ready. The second is also home now. Await my signal before moving in.
She was interrupted by a knock at the bedroom-cum-communications-room door. Oliver, her tall, athletic manservant and concubine, poked his head inside.
“Madame, your guest has arrived on the other island,” he declared.
Hussein smiled. She had made several attempts to entice her American guest to visit her. Reluctantly, he had agreed. He possessed information she needed. Information that would make what remained of her family whole again. And she was going to extract it from him.
“Excellent. Have the boat made ready,” she instructed. “Tell them that I will be there within two hours.”
She wanted to look her former ally in the eye. She smiled once more. It was all coming together!
He had been flown to another island on which sat a second isolated but smaller compound. It was a risky move to bring this man so close to her operation. But a necessary one. Then she would fulfill a promise she had made to The Watcher.
Hussein turned her mind back to Jason Rodgers. She had vowed revenge. And she would have it. She—and her allies in Syria—had planned, financed, and implemented the current mission. They would strike again at the Americans. And in a fitting twist, Hussein would make the pharmacist experience the same kind of devastating agony he had caused her. The need to see the pharmacist’s face fill with terror was unbearable. It was a need she would see satisfied.
Chapter 6
Jason pressed the cold wet towel to his face, concentrating the pressure on his eyes. Both were on fire. The cool dampness helped. He sat on the floor, his back against the vanity. He had tried to flush the tequila by splashing cold water into them. It was ineffective. After five minutes, he could still not open his eyes.
He summoned the strength to lift himself off the floor. Crawling to the tub and shower, Jason climbed in fully-clothed. The fire in his eyes intensified when he removed the wet towel.
Fumbling for the handles, he managed to turn on the cold water through the tub spigot. He lay on his back with his face under the cold blast of water, drenching his face, eyes, and upper body.
He managed to pull open each eye with a hand, allowing the water to flush his corneas. After a minute, he exited the tub.
Jason stood dripping on the tile when he heard footfalls at the door. He turned his face in the direction of the sound. “Is that you?”
After a long moment of silence, Chrissie replied with a whisper. “Yeah.”
Jason wiped his hair and face with the towel. “Give me a minute.”
“No, I don’t have a minute,” she retorted.
Jason felt her grab his wrist and lift his arm. “This is yours.”
Chrissie turned Jason’s palm upward. She placed the small velvet box in his and closed his fingers around it.
Jason pried his eyes open with extreme difficulty, trying to look at Chrissie. He caught a Dali-like image of her through the tears and water. With the pain too great, he squeezed them shut again.
“Jason, I want you out of the house by tomorrow afternoon. You can sleep in the guest room tonight.”
Jason paused, summoning will. With his eyes still closed, he spoke in her general direction. “Don’t worry, I’ll be gone in thirty minutes.”
He heard the bedroom door close. Jason slammed the wet towel to the tiled floor. He cursed out loud, hollering at himself and the world.
His anger and frustration mounted in seconds. He needed to get away from here, from Chrissie. He was pissed at her—and at himself. Right now, he was pissed at the world.
Now in the bathroom with his eyes closed and burning, his anger flared, erupting like a massive solar flare. His past still haunted him. It was time to exorcise that demon.
That deviant emotion needed to be satisfied.
He wanted it now. He needed to hurt something … no … not something … someone.
The leader of Team Mohammed kept the GPS device under a small tarp to keep the screen’s green glow out of sight of passing boats or aircraft. His satellite cell phone bleeped.
The leader read the message from his handler. He did not know his name or location. If they were captured, they could not divulge information they did not possess.
Your package is tucked in. Mission is a go!
“Where to now skipper?” his lieutenant asked. Though they had trained hard in the last weeks for this mission, his men still did not know the location of the target.
“We’ll approach from the beach in two hours. We’ll stay offshore until then. The houses are crammed close on the waterfront. The target is northwest of this location. It’s a little more than four and a half miles from here. It’s a neighborhood called the Salt Ponds.” He pointed at the helmsman. “Make our course three-two-zero. You all know your jobs. Now stay low and out of sight.”
Jason rubbed his left flank above the belt line with one hand as he rested his hand on the Colt on the passenger seat with the other. Pain from the healed-over stab wound kicked up whenever he sat too long or felt stress. Tonight, the throbbing was caused by both, Jason thought.
His target was a regular at this strip joint, showing up every Friday night to ogle his favorite dancers and down a pitcher of suds. Headlights catered to the enlisted of Joint Base Langley-Eustis in northern Newport News, where the urban sprawl morphed into more rural environs.
Jason checked the Tissot. He squinted, rubbing his eyes to focus on the glowing hands. When they came into relief, he read the time: one thirty in the morning. Friday had turned into Saturday.
His eyes still burned. But at least he could keep them open.
After Chrissie had returned the ring, she stormed out. He couldn’t see her but he thought he heard her crying. Her slow, laborious utterances were laden with sadness. It had taken thirty minutes to get his eyes functional again. He’d placed the ring in a drawer in the guest room. He’d tried to get Chrissie to come out of their bedroom, knocking for five full minutes. But she refused to answer or
make a sound.
Finally, he gave up and hastily pulled on a pair of jeans and a shirt retrieved from a pile of dirty clothes in the laundry room. He had already removed the gun from the gun safe in Chrissie’s night stand and put it in the glove box of the Mustang. His own weapons were locked away in his gun case in Yorktown.
He had no idea that Chrissie had been following him. He smirked in disgust.
You sure wouldn’t make a very good spy, he thought. How much does she know?
It could not be too much, he reasoned. He had not done anything except sit in the Mustang and watch the place, tracking and monitoring his quarry’s movements. Chrissie had surmised that he was waiting for a woman, an exotic dancer, because the place was a strip joint. Of course, there was no other woman. Chrissie was the one woman he loved with all his heart.
Jason had not corrected her when she’d tossed out her accusation of infidelity. He allowed her to think that was his secret. He hated lying, especially to her, but it was easier this way. In a kind of twisted stroke of good fortune, Chrissie had handed him the perfect alibi.
Jason was interested in someone inside Headlights. That someone was a man. A man he wanted to kill. A man who had tried to have him killed. In the past, Jason had killed out of necessity, in the heat of battle. Kill or be killed.
But would he take a life in cold blood?
Jason lifted the dog-eared composition notebook from the seat beside the Colt and leafed through the rumpled pages. His mark was nothing if not habitual. Jason had been observing him for almost three months. He showed up at Headlights faithfully every Friday night and closed the place down. Jason had ventured inside on two occasions to see what he did in there. Both times, he’d parked his ass at the elevated runway and craned his neck at the pasty and panty-clad dancers.
He shook his head.
They should be calling friends and announcing their engagement, then making passionate love and falling asleep in each other’s arms. He should not be sitting here like some private eye in a cheap detective story.