by Patton, Dirk
“Sir! What’s going on? Whose voice is that?”
“Chief, it’s best if you don’t know. This is bad.”
Jessica stared at him a long moment, formulating her thoughts.
“Sir, if it’s that bad, then we need to take it to someone who can deal with it. I’m only a Chief Petty Officer and, no disrespect, but you’re just a Marine Captain. Between the two of us we could scare a junior enlisted, but that’s about it.”
Black turned and focused on her, absorbing her words.
“Chief… I don’t know who to trust.”
A soft sound from across the room caused him to briefly look away, then he did a double take before rushing to the side of the bed. Admiral Packard’s eyes were open and he was weakly gesturing with his hand.
“Chief, get the nurse! He’s awake!”
Jessica leapt to her feet, ignoring the order and rushing to the Admiral’s side to take his hand.
“Chief!” Black barked.
She hesitated briefly, then rushed from the room. Black stood over the bed, looking down into the Admiral’s eyes. Surprisingly, they were clear and focused.
“You’ve been listening, haven’t you sir?”
Packard blinked, unable to speak due to the intubation tube still in his throat.
“You knew, didn’t you?”
A slight movement of his shoulders was the response.
“Suspected?”
A blink.
“Can I trust Captain West?”
An immediate blink. Black nodded, exhaling a slow sigh of relief.
“You’re going to be okay, sir,” he said, emotion causing him to croak out the words.
Another slight movement of the shoulders, then Jessica hustled into the room leading two nurses. She hurried to the far side of the bed, Packard’s eyes tracking her.
“Hi, sir,” she said, smiling as a tear rolled down her cheek.
He blinked slowly and seemed to be trying to smile, then the Admiral’s doctor and two more nurses swept in and ordered her and Captain Black out of the room. Jessica grabbed her laptop on the way and they moved into the hall.
“He’s awake,” she said, grinning ear to ear.
Black returned her smile, optimism washing over him despite the warning they’d received from the doctor about the Admiral’s cancer.
“I’ve got to make a call, Chief,” Black said, reaching into his pocket and handing her a slip of paper. “This is the car the Russian agent was driving. Probably a dead end, but can you run the plate?”
“Easy, sir. I’ve got a back door into the state police system.”
Black paused, smiling despite himself.
“Might not want to tell anyone else about that,” he said. “See what you can find out.”
Jessica moved to a chair and set to work as he stepped away and dialed a cell phone. The conversation was short, then he returned to where she was hunched over the laptop.
“Captain West is on the way,” he said in a low voice.
She looked up in surprise.
“I thought you didn’t know who to trust,” she said just as quietly.
“Admiral says I can trust Captain West. That’s good enough for me.”
“The Admiral? How did he…”
“I asked, he blinked,” Black said with a shrug. “While you were getting the nurse.”
“You going to tell me who that voice belongs to?”
“What did you find out about the plate?” he asked, deftly avoiding the question.
“Reported stolen thirty minutes ago. Registered to a Kim Tanaka who lives here in Honolulu.”
“That woman was definitely not a Tanaka,” Black said. “So, she boosted the car just to meet me and had probably already dumped it before the owner even knew it was missing.”
“What I’m thinking, sir. But maybe she’s not as smart as she thinks she is.”
“What do you have up your sleeve, Chief?”
“Cameras. They never blink. Give me a little while and I’ll see what I can do. I know where she stole the car from. That was in the report. And I know where she was when she met you. Maybe I can track her and see where she went.” She started to type on the laptop then paused and looked at the closed door to the Admiral’s room. “What do you think they’re doing in there?”
“Don’t know, Chief. Focus on what we can do. I’m sure they’ll tell us as soon as they know something.”
Jessica didn’t like the answer, but knew he was right. There was nothing they could do to help, so it only made sense for them to be productive while they were waiting. Lowering her head, she attacked the keyboard.
While she worked, Captain Black paced the hall. He checked his watch repeatedly, tamping down his impatience for information on what was happening with Packard. He whirled when the door opened and the doctor stepped into the hall.
“He’s awake,” Black blurted.
Jessica, laptop in hand, came to stand next to him.
“He is,” the doctor said. “And surprisingly alert considering what’s happened to him. Frankly, I didn’t expect him to regain consciousness.”
“Don’t count him out,” Jessica said before being silenced by a look from Black.
“We’ve got to run some tests, but the prognosis is the same. The fact that he’s regained consciousness doesn’t change anything.”
Black nodded, not liking what he was hearing but recognizing it was the truth.
“What about the tube? Can it come out?” he asked.
“We need to monitor him for a few hours and try reducing the assistance he’s receiving from the ventilator before I make that decision,” the doctor said. “We don’t want to remove it if his body isn’t strong enough and have to put it back in. He’s uncomfortable with it, but that’s all.”
“I need to talk to him,” Black said, staring into the doctor’s eyes. “It’s important and it can’t wait.”
“It will have to,” the doctor said, shaking his head and frowning. “I will not compromise the patient’s health!”
Captain Black almost pressed the issue. For a moment, he was ready to do just that, then thought better of it. The Chief had nailed the issue on the head when she’d reminded him that he was only a lowly Marine Captain playing in the world of Admirals and Generals. If he pressed too hard, the doctor was likely to start calling senior officers at Pearl and lodging complaints. That would draw unwanted attention.
“I understand. Thank you, Doctor,” he said, looking away.
The doctor seemed satisfied with the response and nodded as he turned to leave. After a couple of steps, he paused and turned back.
“Look,” he said. “As soon as I can, if I can, I’ll remove the tube.”
Black nodded without saying anything and after an awkward moment the doctor turned and disappeared around a corner.
“Back to work, Chief,” he said, tipping his head toward her laptop. “Let’s have some intel for Captain West when he arrives.”
12
Captain West thought about everything Captain Black had told him. He’d listened to the audio file several times and was in complete agreement with the Marine’s assessment of who the voice belonged to. Looking around the hospital room he met Admiral Packard’s eyes, an understanding passing between the two men.
“What else is in those files, Chief?” West finally asked.
“Mostly voice intercepts, sir. Navy issue as well as personal cells. Some landline phones as well as prepaid burner phones. There’s a handful of text messages that are so cryptic as to be useless at this point. The words could mean anything, and we’ll never figure it out without the proper context for the conversation.”
“Are we sure these are genuine? Haven’t been altered in any way?”
“I’m still working on that, sir, but so far I’ve found nothing to indicate they’ve been tampered with in any way. There’s still more work to do before I can say they’re one hundred percent authentic.”
“Keep at it, Chie
f.”
“Actually, the computer is working on it, sir. I’m tracing the mystery woman that met with Captain Black.”
“You found her?” Black and West asked in unison.
Jessica smiled and nodded.
“Yes, sirs. I did! Want to see?”
The two officers quickly moved behind and to either side of her chair, peering over her shoulders at the laptop screen. A grainy image of the woman standing next to the car was frozen. It lacked detail, having been taken from a great distance.
“That’s her,” Black said.
“This is when she stole the car. I worked backward from here.”
“Backward?” West asked, not understanding her reasoning.
“We know where she went after she stole it, sir. I thought it would be good to find out where she came from.”
“Good idea, Chief. Proceed,” West said, nodding even though she couldn’t see him standing behind her.
Jessica started playback of footage she’d cobbled together. In the top right, a time stamp ran, counting in reverse.
“This is footage from traffic cameras, security systems, bank ATMs… pretty much any and everything I could find out there. We had a satellite overhead at the time, but the part of the city she was in is predominantly mid to high rise buildings. Without a perfect angle from the orbiting camera, we can’t see all the way down to street level.”
The file continued to run, some of the imagery from video, but Jessica had filled in with still photos when she could find them.
“There’s where she came from,” Jessica said proudly when the playback stopped with the woman frozen as she emerged from the doors of a luxury high-rise condominium building in downtown Honolulu.
“How do we know she wasn’t visiting someone?” Black asked.
Jessica clicked her mouse a couple of times and the video file was replaced with a screenshot of a Hawaii driver’s license, several other documents appearing behind it. The woman was smiling brightly for her DMV photo which was the best image they had of her.
“Morgan Taylor,” Jessica said. “The address on her license is this building. She’s leasing a condo on the twenty-seventh floor. Been there for three years, beginning right after the license was issued.”
She clicked through some of the documents in the background, bringing up a copy of the dated lease, then continued to some of the others.
“She drives a Mercedes E Class sedan. A licensed real estate firm called Island Dreams pays the bills for both the condo and the car.”
“An illegal,” West said.
“Sir?” Jessica asked, unfamiliar with the term.
“A foreign agent, trained to pose as an American citizen. She has a job that won’t draw attention and a driver’s license, and I’d be surprised if she didn’t have a US passport, too. Her paperwork and background info will be impeccable. Yet she just walked up to a Marine officer and revealed herself.”
“We need to bring her in, sir,” Black said, staring at the DMV photo of the woman who called herself Morgan. “Find out exactly what she was talking about.”
“Negative, Captain.” West shook his head. “She may be of more value right where she is. She was able to obtain the files and pass them on, and from her comments she appears to not be on board with whatever it is Barinov is doing. We bring her in, we lose her access into the network Russia has set up here in Hawaii.”
“Then, what do we do? Nothing?”
“I didn’t say that.” West shook his head again. “We need to talk to her, but it needs to be a quiet, private chat. Find out if there’s more she can or will give us. We’ve got a traitor dead to rights, as long as the Chief can validate the files. And we have to be damn careful with this one. If he finds out we’re on to him, he’ll just have us swept up and locked away on some false charges.”
He moved out from behind Jessica’s chair so both her and Black could see him as he spoke.
“What we know cannot leave this room. No one other than the three of us. Four of us,” he said, glancing over his shoulder at Admiral Packard who was attentively listening. “Our very lives and the survival of the remainder of America depends on us handling this discreetly. Do you understand?”
“Yes, sir,” they both replied.
Jessica’s eyes were wide as the import of what Captain West had said began to sink in. Captain Black simply looked pissed off and ready to strangle someone.
“Chief, keep working on her. Find out what you can. Where she goes, what she does and who she does it with. Ideally, I want a public place that’s part of her routine where Captain Black can approach her. Bar, gym, restaurant… whatever, as long as it won’t appear planned.”
“You think she’s being watched by her own people?” Black asked in surprise.
“It’s possible. It’s also possible the CIA is aware of her and is keeping tabs on her activity. We don’t want them to know that we know what she is.”
The door opened, all of their heads snapping around. A nurse carrying a small tray paused in mid-stride when she saw their reaction.
“Sorry, ma’am,” Captain West said. “Is everything okay?”
He tipped his head in the Admiral’s direction. She glanced at the bed then came the rest of the way into the room and moved to check the equipment.
“He’s doing fine with no assistance from the ventilator, so the doctor has ordered it removed. Would normally be our respiratory therapist, but he had an emergency. His pigs got out.”
“Excuse me? His pigs?” Captain West asked with a frown.
“Damn fool thinks he’s a farmer,” she said with a chuckle, spreading some supplies out on the Admiral’s bedside table. “Got pigs and chickens and a garden. Gotta say, though, he’s eatin’ well and he shares all he can spare.”
She peered at a couple of monitors before turning to look down at Admiral Packard.
“Ready to get that out?” she asked with a smile as she pulled on a pair of gloves.
Packard blinked once and raised a hand with the thumb pointing straight up.
The tube came out easily, the Admiral coughing deeply. Helping him sit up, the nurse held a small cup of water to his lips and he took a long sip before lying back with a sigh. She shut the machine off that had been connected to him and quickly checked his vitals.
“You’re good, sweetie,” she said, patting him on the arm.
She cleaned up and swept out of the room as Jessica, Black and West gathered around the Admiral’s bed.
“How are you feeling, sir?” West asked.
“No mercy, Captain,” Packard croaked, his voice like gravel from the tube having been in his throat. “You verify the data you’ve got and then find anyone else who’s betrayed us. If you can use them against the Russians, do it, but otherwise you make them disappear. Understand me?”
He looked each of them in the eye, glaring intently from beneath his overly aggressive brows and not moving on until he received a nod of understanding.
13
Smyth threw his body against the door, slamming it closed an instant before a swarm of bats would have followed me through into the house. He kept his back pressed tightly against it as he fumbled the deadbolt into place. I lay there for a beat, then remembered the condition Lucas was in. Rolling over and scrambling to my feet, I looked up as Ziggy screamed her husband’s name and dropped to her knees at his side. Within seconds the children were wailing, then Rachel pushed through to lean over him.
She hesitated with her hands out, wanting to touch him, but there were no spots that weren’t either saturated with blood or where the flesh hadn’t been nearly stripped from the bone.
“Get him on the kitchen table!”
Rachel snapped at Smyth who leapt forward along with Lucas’s two other men. They lifted him as gently as they could, nearly stumbling over his crying kids. I was on my feet, shrugging out of the flamethrower and spotted Mavis standing back, watching.
“Mavis, get the kids in the other room,” I called.
She looked at me and nodded, quickly rounding up the younger children and herding them away. Natalie had already swooped in to hold Ziggy, who was frantic. She wouldn’t stop begging Rachel to help her husband, trying to reach out and grab her arm. I caught Smyth’s eye, looked pointedly at Ziggy and tilted my head toward the living room. He got my meaning and working together, he and Natalie gently led her away.
I moved forward, watching as Rachel carefully cut Lucas’s clothes away from his body with a pair of kitchen shears. The damage the bats had done was horrific. At best, if he survived and healed, he’d be terribly scarred for life. If he survived. Blood was already dripping off the table to pool on the kitchen floor.
“What can I do?” I asked softly.
“Find everything you can that will help. A sewing kit. Antibiotics. Bandages. Alcohol. Bring liquor if you can’t find rubbing alcohol.”
I watched her work for a bit as she cataloged my friend’s injuries, identifying the ones that needed immediate treatment.
“The bats?” she asked looking me over.
“Yeah. He never made a sound. Didn’t know he was in trouble until he suddenly wasn’t there.”
“And they didn’t touch you?”
“Not a scratch,” I said, feeling guilty even though it wasn’t my fault.
“Go! Find what I need,” she said.
Rather than race around the house trying to find things, I went to the living room. Ziggy was seated on the couch between Natalie and Smyth, her face swollen and red from crying.
“Is he…” she cried, jumping to her feet the instant she saw me.
“Rachel’s working on him,” I said, then told her what I needed.
She took off like a shot, racing across the room and yanking a door open. It was the basement stairs and she flew down them.
“Bad?” Smyth asked in a low voice.
Lucas’s kids were huddled together with Mavis and Dog, sitting on the floor at the end of the couch. I turned away, not wanting them to hear.
“I’m not a doc, but they chewed him up pretty bad.”