by David Perry
Beck always chuckled at the term intensive interrogation. He preferred to call it what it was: torture. And it was very effective at extracting information.
Beck and his task force had been watching, listening to, and monitoring Usher for eighteen months, waiting for Usher to make a false move or contact that would confirm their suspicions. He had received an email several days ago, then disappeared. The codebreakers were still trying to determine if the email was a coded message. At present, he had eluded their surveillance and was “off the grid,” causing Beck two sleepless nights.
The deputy director ignored Beck’s sarcasm. “This flash drive and file belonged to him. These were dropped off at my desk last evening.”
“What the hell does this have to do with the Red Onion?”
“This confirms he’s the guy we’ve been looking for.”
Beck flipped through the file. “Summarize.”
“He left this note.” The DD handed Beck a single, handwritten missive. Beck scanned it. “It says that he was meeting with Delilah Hussein yesterday. The note is dated three days ago. He left instructions to have the drive and the file delivered to us by courier if he did not return by 3 pm yesterday. It arrived at 4:30 pm. I spent last night and this morning studying and verifying it. It contain details of the assassination attempts, spreadsheets, financials in offshore accounts, the whole nine yards.”
“And he hasn’t returned?”
The DD shook his head.
“Is he dead?”
“Don’t know. I have agents combing his home, office, and personal accounts. We’ll have a preliminary report in a few hours.”
“What was Usher meeting with Hussein about? Getting out of the country?”
“We don’t know … neither did he. She requested the meeting.”
“Where did they meet?”
“Usher carried with him a GPS transmitter, giving us a trail of his movements?
“Where did he go?”
“He went to Bonaire.”
“Where the hell is Bonaire?”
“It’s an island in the southern part of the Caribbean Sea, just north of Venezuela in South America.”
“Okay, then what?”
“The electronic trace disappeared there.”
“What do you mean ‘disappeared’?”
“Just that. The electronic transmission being sent to his laptop simply stopped.”
“Let’s get some satellite pictures of the island.”
“I’ve already arranged it. The NRO’s KH-12 Kennan satellite, part of the Keyhole program, has a bird on close orbit over the south Atlantic right now. Sign this.” The deputy director slid a memo to Beck.
“What’s this?”
“Your permission to retask the satellite. I will send it through the proper channels and have the NRO reposition it over Bonaire.”
Beck scribbled his name on the document.
“Good work.”
The DD smiled. He was used to Beck’s belittling comments. He had learned long ago to ignore them. He had just been given the most lavish compliment he’d ever heard Beck utter.
“There’s one more thing, John.”
Beck peered at him like an impatient father waiting for more bad news from a troublesome child.
The DD continued. “A few hours after the scheduled meeting Usher had with Hussein, we intercepted a communication from our agent in Syria, the double agent in ISIS. He was contacted by someone representing Hussein asking to place a CO at a prison in the U.S.”
“No shit! The Red Onion?”
“Didn’t say.”
“Did you contact the Virginia Department of Corrections?”
“Yesterday. Discreetly. At about four in the afternoon a man named Dalton Griffin met with the deputy warden, Jeremiah Travis. His first shift began this morning.”
Beck nodded, acknowledging the obvious. The DD nodded along with his boss.
“How and why did they replace him?”
“According to the Greek Monitor’s email, Josh Baker, Cyclops’ CO, died along with his family. An apparent murder-suicide. He was replaced by a CO named Dalton Griffin. Dalton is not employed by the Agency.”
“How did that happen?”
“We’re still looking into that.”
“We have more moles?”
“Could be.”
Beck pushed out a long sigh and rubbed his temples. “The director and the president are going to have my balls for breakfast. Go on.”
“Within twenty-four hours of taking over Baker’s duties for Sharif al-Faisal, aka Cyclops, inmate Steven Cooper was dead. They found an implant inside his ear. We believe it contained a touch poison that was passed to him by the Cyclops. We’re reviewing the video from the prison now.”
The director had been forwarded ultra-secret daily reports from the Greek Monitor unit inside the Red Onion. She transmitted secure emails two to three times a week from a secure server at her home near the prison to an equally secure server offshore. Through several relays, the email arrived in the deputy director’s inbox, was decoded by the DD himself, and hand delivered to Beck for review. Until this moment, her communications had been devoid of any controversial information.
“Do you want me to have Griffin relieved and interrogated?”
“Is there any indication that an attempt to free al-Faisal is in the works?”
“Not at this time.”
Beck shook his head. “I don’t like it. Tell the Greek Monitor to keep her ear to the tracks. Get me George McNamara. I want an extraction team on standby, ready to go. If we get word of any more unusual activity at the Onion, any sign they are trying to get al-Faisal out, we move! Is that clear?”
“Absolutely. Move to do what? Stop the escape?”
“Delilah Hussein wants her son back. We know that. We haven’t pinned down her location yet. The electronic trail is varied and inconsistent. Broadhurst is sure she will make an attempt. We are going to use this to our advantage.”
“I’ll have the Greek Monitor report every eight hours.”
“Excellent,” Beck said. “Hopefully, retasking the satellite will give us a better idea where she might be.”
“I’ll contact the FBI director myself, so you can make your request.”
The director nodded. “Make it happen.”
They crouched, scanning the terrain. Michael and Chrissie had stayed out of sight in the shadow of trees on the property.
Michael pointed to the area where Pierre had taken him to relieve himself and where he had hit him in the face with the small boulder.
“This way. Quick,” Christine said.
They peered around the corner. Seconds later, a phalanx of men appeared. The leader pointed in the direction of the wine cellar. The squad of men fanned out, dispersing. Two ran toward their former cell.
“We need to get away from here,” Christine whispered. “Follow me.”
She checked the expanse of ground behind the wine cellar and led Michael toward the rear corner of the compound and a tall, green, chain-link fence. She pointed toward a narrow cave of darkness created by a copse of trees. They ran, crossing the exposed distance.
When they reached the shadows, they stopped and dropped to the sandy earth inside the chain-link barrier.
They lay beside each other on their stomachs, chests heaving.
“Who are these people?” Michael asked in a whisper.
Christine recalled the image of Oliver standing over Pierre, his form backlit by the morning sun.
Despite the various traumas she had survived in the last two days and the warm breeze, the sight of Oliver sent an Arctic shiver through her. Her mind quickly registered Michael’s hands desperately clutching her arm.
She repressed the image. “You don’t want to know,” she replied.
A second wheelchaired man rolled himself into the spacious room behind Broadhurst. Unlike Broadhurst, his legs were not covered by a blanket. In fact, Jason immediately noticed that this man had
no legs.
“And,” Doyle continued, “this is Special Agent Tom Johnson. Agent Johnson served with your brother in the marine corps.”
“Hello,” Jason replied, remembering hearing the name. “This reunion is a very nice and all. But I need to find my son and Christine.”
“We are … I am working on that,” Broadhurst croaked. His voice sounded like a dying electric toy. The high pitch trailed off as air seeped from his lungs. “Jason, we can help each other.”
The director interrupted. “Mr. Rodgers, what Clay is trying to say is that if you help us, we may be able to help you.”
Jason had recognized his plight moments before. But something deep inside him caused him to continue to object. As if that might cause them to be more careful when it came to getting Michael and Chrissie back. “So the lives of two people I love very much depend on my helping the Secret Service? These are American citizens that have been kidnapped by a terror organization. And you’re using them as pawns.”
“The sooner you get used to that fact, the sooner we can move toward getting them back,” the director shot back.
Jason frowned and shook his head slowly
“We need to know what Hussein has asked of you. What is she forcing you to do?”
“I told you I don’t know”
“Tell us everything that has happened. It may hold a clue as to what she is attempting. I promise we will do everything we can to get your son and your girlfriend back.”
Jason’s shoulders sagged. He had depleted his stores of resistance. Delilah Hussein had manipulated him. Michael and Chrissie were not coming back unless he worked with these asses.
“Okay … okay,” he relented. “But I swear if you don’t live up to your promise, I will scream everything I know from the mountaintop. I’ll tell everything that happened with the attempted assassinations and what is going on now. Are we clear?”
Director Doyle nodded. “You have my word.”
Chapter 45
Dalton Griffin had checked three of the five cells on the cell block. He worked backward from number six. He worked conscientiously, but he served more than one master: The Virginia Department of Corrections and the organization that was paying to help extract the prisoner known as Cyclops.
The other four correction officers were employees of the state prison system, but they also worked for the Company, the CIA. Only a few people in the state system knew the true nature of their double service—the chief warden, who oversaw the Red Onion; his supervisor, the chief of corrections operations; and the director of the Virginia DOC himself. Griffin knew that the director of VADOC could have anyone placed anywhere in the state prison system.
The rub was that Griffin did not work for the CIA. He was employed by a shadow organization ensconced in the government apparatus with ties to an outfit external to the Feds. He didn’t know how he had been placed in a CIA black site posing as a CIA agent. The how and the why of how he’d arrived at the Red Onion did not matter. He had a job to do. A job he was being paid very well to accomplish. One he was about to perform.
The prisoners segregated here were five of the most dangerous persons in the world and had tried in one way or another to terrorize the United States of America. They were political prisoners, none of whom had been tried or convicted in an American court room. Their crimes or suspected crimes had been so dangerous and insidious that they had been whisked away without a trial or access to legal aid. Not even the guards knew what their treasons were.
Except, of course, Dalton Griffin.
In fact, Griffin knew one inmate’s story quite well, that of Sharif al-Faisal, aka the Cyclops. Of course, Griffin had come by this information through unofficial channels.
He had checked his accounts hours before leaving for the Red Onion.
His official accounts, checking, savings, and 401k held about a hundred thousand. The corrections officer collected his pay from the Department of Corrections and lived in a modest home on the outskirts of Big Stone Gap in the southeast corner of Virginia. His neighbors knew him as a tough but quiet state employee.
Griffin had been on the payroll of the Simoon for the past eight months. The money they offered was substantial. All they asked was that he be ready when the time came to provide his services. They had deposited $15,000 each month for the last eight in a third account in the National Bank of Abu Dhabi.
Griffin studied the monitor on the desk before him. Each CO had his own private computer terminal through which he could monitor his charge. Cyclops was resting on his back on his cot, with his hands behind his head. His eyes were closed. Griffin couldn’t tell if he was asleep or just meditating.
He glanced at his fellow officers. They had spoken little to him in his first twenty four hours on the unit. He was an outsider. If he had been placed as a guard at the Red Onion, Griffin knew that someone up the chain was also working with his Middle Eastern compatriots.
America is infected with traitors, he thought.
He had received the call forty-eight hours ago, been briefed in a two-hour video conference, and instructed as to what his mission was. He had been tasked with delivering the small package inside the breakfast tray. And to be ready when the time came hours later.
The unit had been shaken to its core by the breach. When they’d found Steven Cooper in his cell, his body cold and blue, they tried CPR and took him to the infirmary. But it had been a futile effort.
An urgent, encrypted communication had been fired off using a secure cell phone to the overseer of the program at Langley informing him of the death. Orders were issued to keep close tabs on all the other prisoners.
He watched now as Cyclops stood up and turned his back to the camera. Griffin watched the prisoner lift a hand to his head. The head moved as if he’d placed something in his mouth. The guard looked around the unit.
Suddenly, Cyclops dropped to the floor. Griffin checked his watch. Prayer time wasn’t for another hour. Confused, Griffin stood and walked to Cyclops’ cell. He peered through the thick glass embedded with chicken-wire window.
“Code Red, cell five!” he shouted into his shoulder mike. He rapped on the window. By the position of the body, he knew they were about to record their second death in the last six hours.
“That’s everything,” Jason said as he collapsed onto the sofa. Over fifteen minutes, he’d poured out the details of the last two days. The retelling exhausted him almost as much as the actual events.
He had begun with the kidnappings, finding the business cards with the microprinting on them, followed by digging up the mini coffins. He capped it off with the request to get the keys from William Luther and then the struggle in the 65th Street home, followed by Luther’s killing, and the escape from the jail with the assistance of The Watcher. Jason recounted the car chase to retrieve the box truck with the refrigerated cargo hold from an old man in the Red Sox jacket at a gas station, the locked rear doors with a key waiting somewhere at whatever destination lay before them, and instructions to drive up the Eastern Shore. He told them about leaving the truck and Peter, and jumping into Sheryl Penney’s car to use her unmonitored phone.
“Where is this Watcher?” Doyle asked.
Jason shrugged. “Is he one of ours?”
Doyle paused as if thinking about whether or not to divulge that information. “No,” he finally said.
“Who is he?”
“Dunno. What’s in the truck?” Doyle asked, changing the subject.
Jason shrugged. “Don’t know. The cargo area is locked. We were given specific instructions not to open it.”
“We dispatched a team to Turkey Run Road. Nothing was found except an old house and we scared the shit out of a family in a mobile home. The woman there confirmed a truck stopped there. The driver went into the old house and came back out five minutes later.”
“So he made it there?”
Doyle nodded. “Can you contact Peter?”
“I would if I could, but our phones were con
fiscated. The man at the gas station took everything before we got into the truck.”
“Will your brother try to contact the authorities?”
“Pete was a topnotch marine …”
“I can vouch for that,” Agent Johnson chimed in.
“He’ll do whatever it takes. But he won’t jeopardize Michael or Chrissie.”
“Let’s hope,” Doyle continued, “we hear something soon.”
One hundred and fifty miles northeast, inside the Dawson Pharmaceuticals manufacturing plant, Angelo Sheppard rapped three times on the door. The word Security was stenciled on the frosted glass embedded in the thick oak. Without knocking or warning, he pushed it open.
“Hey, Gus.”
“Hello, Mr. Sheppard. Pretty quiet tonight. What’s up?”
“I’m sorry to ruin your night. But we have a gaggle of kids on the grounds. Northeast corner near the road.”
The uniformed guard sat before a computer monitor with eight boxes arrayed across its screen. Each block contained a video image from feeds around the grounds. At the bottom of each block, shortened, condensed words indicated which camera was providing the image. Every few seconds, some of the images flickered, changing to a view from another camera.
Gus pressed several keys. The eight blocks disappeared, changing to one large view of the well-manicured lawn in front of the building. The guard manipulated a joystick and panned the camera, zooming it in and out at various points.
“I don’t see anything sir.”
“They were there a minute ago. Can you check it out?”
“I’m not supposed to leave the control room. Kevin is at lunch. He went down the road and took the security vehicle.”
Sheppard nodded. He already knew this and had timed his visit to coincide with the other guard’s absence. The guards were not supposed to leave the premises. But they had been doing so for about six months. “I understand. But these guys looked like thugs. I’d hate for you to have to explain to one of the VPs why they damaged something or hurt someone on your watch. I’d feel better if you went out there. After all, you’re the one with the gun. And I won’t tell anyone that Kevin left the grounds.”