by Oliver North
Five years earlier, Rachel started a second study group—called “God, Women, and Government.” The class—composed of professional women, most of them single, convenes on Thursday evenings at seven in a Sunday school classroom. After this week’s lesson, one of her students asked Rachel for a private appointment at her earliest convenience. They agreed to meet in the old sanctuary at twelve thirty the following day.
* * * *
Rachel arrived at the church a half hour early—driving quickly without traffic from Narnia, east on Virginia Route 7 to the Greenway at Leesburg, and exiting at Route 606 for the church. She spent a few minutes talking to Lucy, told her about the appointment, and went to wait. She sat in her favorite spot—the pew where she first encountered Lucy and Jesus in 1995.
Uncertain of the purpose of the meeting, Rachel prayed for wisdom. She had just finished reading Solomon’s advice on the matter—in Proverbs 9—when the door opened behind her.
The young woman, silhouetted in the doorway, peered cautiously into the dimly lit auditorium, seemingly hesitant until Rachel waved and said, “Over here, dear.”
Frances James entered, and when Rachel motioned to the space beside her in the pew, she sat beside the older woman and said, “Thank you for agreeing to meet with me on such short notice, Mrs. Newman.”
Smiling, she replied, “Please, Frances, call me Rachel. I’m glad it worked out. How can I help you?”
Without preamble, the younger woman began. “Rachel, I am a Secret Service agent at the White House. I very badly need some good advice from someone who knows the Lord, a person I can trust, one who will not divulge what I am about to say, and a person who can help me discern the right thing to do.”
“Well, Frances, I certainly meet the first requirement. Hopefully, I have the remaining qualities. Before you begin, let me ask you a few questions. Is that okay?”
“Certainly.”
“How old are you, Frances?”
“Thirty-three.”
“How long have you known Jesus as your Lord?”
“Since April 2029, my second week coming here to church. I attended General Newman’s Sunday school class. He was explaining the plan of salvation. It changed my life.”
“It’s evident from your participation in our class that you prepare. Do you read the Word regularly?”
“Yes. Sometimes it’s the only way I could get through the day. I would be at your class more often but my duty shift changes every month. And now with the campaign, we do a lot more traveling.”
“What is it that brought you here today?”
“The lesson you gave us for this week was the first chapter of Paul’s letter to the church in Rome. When I read verse twenty-five—‘They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshipped and served something created instead of the Creator, who is blessed forever’—I finally realized, I’m surrounded by people like that every day I go to work.”
Rachel was surprised at the young woman’s vehemence and was concerned about whether she might even be unstable. Trying to assess the origin of the young Secret Service agent’s anger, she said, “You know, Frances, Paul didn’t write that as a political statement.”
“Oh, I understand that. But I’m not talking about politics. I’m talking about right versus wrong—good versus evil. Where I work there is very little good, a great deal of evil, and I do not know whom—if anyone—I can trust. I’m not supposed to share any of what I see or hear on the job with anyone but my Supervisory Special Agent. And worst of all, some of what I have heard in the last few days affects your family.”
Rachel looked intently at the younger woman for what seemed an eternity. Then, making up her mind, she said, very quietly, “Tell me what you have heard.”
* * * *
It took nearly an hour for Secret Service Agent Frances James to tell Rachel Newman everything: about White House meetings in which the president, her chief of staff, National Security Advisor, and lawyer plotted whom to blame for the 9-11-32 attacks in Houston; about secret “no-terror-now” deals with the Caliph; about phony FBI reports and doctored intelligence; and about plots to ensure Dr. Martin Cohen did not materialize before the election.
The young Secret Service agent delivered the information in a straightforward, businesslike manner, chronologically, in the sequence in which she heard it over the course of the last week. She did it without referring to her PID or any notes. Through most of it, Rachel simply nodded and uttered an occasional “uh huh.”
But when Frances described the progression of false charges against her son James, Rachel probed for more information. “Did you hear any of them say the name of anyone in Canada who thinks James had anything to do with the death of Dr. Long?”
“No.”
“You said they talked about James and evidence being presented to a grand jury. Did they say when they might indict him?”
“This afternoon.”
“When you heard the chief of staff yelling at the Acting FBI Director this morning, did you hear the name of the senator they want to wiretap?”
“Yes. His name is Caperton. Senator Mackintosh Caperton.”
“Did you hear when they were going to start intercepting his communications?”
“I think it may have already started.”
When Rachel ran out of questions, she said, “Frances, I am grateful you shared this information with me. I don’t know what advice to give you right now other than to pray. That may sound very glib—maybe even inadequate right now—but it works for me. And I have been in some pretty tough spots more than once.”
“I understand, Mrs. Newman. I didn’t expect you to tell me exactly what to do today. I can’t go to the FBI. I don’t really trust my supervisor. I will have to decide what to do before the fifteenth of October, when I have my quarterly polygraph. One of the questions they always ask is ‘Have you talked to anyone outside the Secret Service about what you have seen or heard on duty?’”
“Well, I certainly understand now why you are alarmed. If you don’t mind, I will talk to my husband about this. I won’t tell anyone else. And I feel led to suggest you shouldn’t either, until we see each other again. Will you be here for our Bible study next Thursday?”
Frances nodded and said, “Unless something happens and they change the duty roster, I’ll be here. I won’t talk to anyone else about this until we see each other again. And I would appreciate you telling me then what General Newman thinks as well. But I am concerned he might think I’m a nut case or perhaps even a provocation from the people who are out to do harm to your family. I’m not.”
“I don’t think you’re nuts—nor do I believe you are in league with those who have apparently forgotten their oath of office.”
“Well, I just want you to know I’m here because I really do care about you and what happens to your family. You see, I knew you before I ever met you.”
Confused, Rachel asked, “What do you mean?”
“Full disclosure here, Rachel. You see, ‘James’ isn’t my maiden name. My husband, Bill James, was a Navy SEAL. He was killed four years ago in Yemen. My maiden name was Vecchio. My father, Mitch, was a TWA pilot. He was apparently a pretty good pilot but not much of a dad and certainly no model husband. But he carried a picture of you until the day he died—drunk, as it turns out.”
Rachel was stunned, but tried hard not to show it. She hoped the dim lights would not reveal the color rising in her cheeks. After a moment of silence Rachel said, “Your father carried a picture of me?”
“Yes. It was you, my father, another pilot, and two other TWA flight attendants in an airport somewhere. I found it in his wallet, years after he walked out on my mother. I was spending one of those ‘parent exchange weekends’ the kids of divorced parents have to endure.”
Rachel shook her head and asked, “Why would he do that?”
“Carry your picture? I actually asked him once—when he came to see me while I was in college. He got drunk at a frat party and I had to
take him to a motel off campus. The next day I asked him why he had the picture and he rambled on at length about you being the most wonderful woman he ever met.”
“I have to admit, Frances, I’m astounded.”
“Well, I’m not. Since starting your Bible study here, I’ve spent a lot more time with you than I did with him. You are an amazing person, Rachel. Everyone in this church who knows you says the same thing. My father didn’t elaborate about your relationship, but I gathered from the way he said it that there was more between you two than just time in an airplane. He was married three times that I know of and he never spoke of his wives—not even my mother—the way he talked about you.”
“Did he come to know the Lord before he died?”
“I don’t know, because at the time, I didn’t either, and it never occurred to me to ask. But I do have a question for you.”
“Go ahead.”
“If this is none of my business, just say so, but I would like to know how you and General Newman handled the business of my father in your lives.”
Rachel thought for a moment, then said, “Your father wasn’t really part of my husband’s life. He was part of my old life. And as Paul wrote to the church in Corinth two thousand years ago, ‘ . . . if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation; old things have passed away, and look, new things have come.’ Those of us who are new creations have no need to bring up old things.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
QUEST FOR FREEDOM . . .
4 MILES EAST OF DZILAM DE BRAVO
YUCATAN STATE, MEXICO
FRIDAY, 17 SEPTEMBER 2032
1330 HOURS, LOCAL
His first sensation was acute pain. It radiated from the back of his head, down his neck, into his shoulders. He briefly opened his eyes but they would not focus, and light intensified the severe ache pulsing in his skull—so he closed them. In minutes he was asleep once more.
When he awoke the next time, the throbbing he felt earlier was less intense, so he opened his eyes again. This time he could see nothing and for a moment he thought he might be blind. Then he realized it was completely dark.
Deprived of sight, the old admiral checked his other senses like a ship’s captain running down a checklist before setting out to sea. He could hear wind and heavy rain beating on a metal roof—but didn’t feel it hitting him, so he assumed his hearing was unimpaired and he was inside a structure. He recognized his own body odor—and the scent of others—apparently nearby, though he couldn’t see or hear anyone. His tongue, dry as sandpaper, denied him any taste—but reminded him of his intense thirst.
He could tell he was on his back, loosely tied to a mattress or a bed, his hands bound to his sides. From the dampness of his clothing and the smell, he knew he had lost control of his bladder while unconscious. When he tried to raise his legs, he realized they too were tethered by fetters he could not see and barely feel except when he moved. To shoo away flies lighting on his face, he shook his head from side to side and experienced vertigo and mild nausea—and concluded he had sustained a head injury, perhaps a concussion.
After conducting his own corporeal diagnosis, he tried to determine how he came to be in this situation. Though it aggravated the dull headache, he forced himself to recall details of how he was kidnapped in Houston, events aboard the Ileana Rosario, abandoning the sinking vessel in the midst of a hurricane—and being cast ashore by the storm on what he assumed was the north coast of the Yucatan Peninsula.
Cohen remembered fleeing his captors on the beach and the long trek through howling wind and rain to an apparently abandoned farmhouse. He had no awareness of what transpired after he arrived on the porch of the dwelling. Nor did he know where he was now, how long he had been unconscious, or who had tied him down.
Feeling somewhat encouraged by his physical and mental assessment, he decided it was time to discover who else was here with him. He cleared his throat and called out a raspy “¡Hola!”
Almost immediately, a voice he recognized bellowed in English, “Silence, Jew, or I will cut off your head.”
In the dark, despite being thirsty, hungry, dirty, and unable to move more than a few inches in any direction, Marty Cohen smiled. His head throbbed from an injury he hoped wasn’t a fractured skull. Yet he was strangely comforted by the voice of his “captor-in-chief.”
“Ahmad,” the old admiral shouted hoarsely above the noise of rain pelting on the metal roof and the howling wind outside, “you are proof the devil I know is better than the one I don’t! I need a drink of water.”
“Too bad, you filthy Jew. You tried to escape. You will have to wait until morning. Shut up or I will kill you now.”
The exertion of shouting over the raging maelstrom aggravated the pain in his head and for several moments Cohen heard nothing but the noise of the storm. Suddenly he felt, rather than saw or heard, the presence of someone very near. A hand touched his face and he instinctively flinched as adrenaline raced in his abdomen. Then a voice very close to his ear whispered, “Agua, para usted.”
“¿Quién es?” he croaked, barely audible. Who is it?
The whisperer replied, “Beba esto.” Here, drink.
Cohen felt something round, smooth, and hard being pressed lightly to his lips and realized it was the top of a bottle. As it was tipped up, water flowed over his parched lips and he swallowed until the container was empty. His thirst quelled if not quenched, the old man muttered “Mil gracias” to his unknown benefactor. In a matter of minutes he was asleep once more.
* * * *
The sound of Ahmad’s voice awakened him. Dim, gray daylight illuminated his surroundings but for several moments Cohen was disoriented and did not grasp he was hearing voices from another room. Rain was still falling steadily on the metal roof, but the wind had died and it was apparent the hurricane was finally blowing itself out.
Immobilized, except for his head, Cohen surveyed his surroundings. He realized he was tied to a low, narrow cot in a small, ten-by-ten-foot room with sand-colored, stucco walls unadorned by paint or decoration. Above him, there were rough-hewn beams and rafters and a corrugated sheet metal roof. Though he did not recall any signs of an electric line running to the house, there was a bare light fixture with a pull-cord attached to a beam over the center of the room. Behind him, a window provided the only source of illumination. To his left was an interior door, through which he could hear two, perhaps three male voices—one of them Ahmad’s—speaking what sounded to the old man like Farsi.
He arched his neck, striving to see out the window behind him, and instantly felt a spasm of pain from a large lump on the back of his head. As he stopped straining, a quiet voice from that direction whispered, “¿Quiéres mas agua, señor?” Do you want more water?
“Sí,” Cohen replied, and without another sound, a young boy holding a beer bottle appeared beside him. The youth knelt beside the cot, held the bottle to the old man’s lips, and gently tipped it up, pouring the liquid into the admiral’s mouth.
When the bottle was drained, the admiral whispered, “Gracias. ¿Cuál es su nombre?”
He was surprised when the boy answered in a low voice with a strangely British accent, “My name is Felipe. What is your name, señor?”
“My name is Martin.”
“You speak English, Señor Martin?”
“Yes, Felipe, I do. Thank you for the water.”
“You are welcome, Señor Martin.”
“Was it you who gave me water before?”
“Yes. Last night.”
“That was very kind of you, Felipe. I was very thirsty.”
“I was afraid you were going to die, like Jorge. You slept for many hours after the man hit you with the club. I am glad you did not die, Señor Martin.”
“So am I, Felipe. Tell me, what are you doing here?”
“I live here.”
“Alone? How old are you?”
“I am eleven. My father and mother and my two younger sisters went to Merida two days ago to c
elebrate Independence Day with my cousins. My sixteen-year-old brother Jorge and I stayed here to protect our finca from the cartelistos who burn places that are not occupied.” Tears suddenly welled up in the boy’s big brown eyes and his lower lip trembled as he continued. “We did not do a very good job.”
“Where is your brother?”
At this the tears overflowed and ran down Felipe’s face. “Yesterday morning when the storm was very fierce, we went to the barn to make sure our two cows were safe. The wind blew part of the roof down on Jorge and killed him.”
“Dear God. Are you sure he is dead?”
“Yes. I could not move the heavy wood that was on top of him. I was running to Señor Macklin’s to get help when the four men who hit you caught me. I took them to where Jorge was under the barn but he had no breath. They made me come into the house with them and then you came and they hit you and they tied you up and put us together in this room.”
“Is that door,” Cohen asked, gesturing with his head, “the only way out of here?”
“Yes. The windows all have bars. And I heard them put a chain on the door. I tried to open it, but I cannot.”
“You said there are four of them. What do they look like?”
“Two of them have very black beards. They look like cartelistos or pirates. The old one and the one who is el jefe do not have beards.”
Cohen thought back to the terrorists he assigned to lifeboats on the Ileana Rosario. Ebi matched the “old one” description. Ahmad was certainly el jefe. And the two he recalled having black beards were Massoud and Rostam. He asked, “Do they have weapons?”
“They found the trapdoor beneath the kitchen floor where my father keeps his guns.”
“What kind of guns?”
“Two AK rifles and a pistol. My father taught Jorge and me how to shoot them.”
Cohen chose not to inquire why a poor farmer might need two military rifles in his house but asked instead, “Where did you learn to speak English so well, Felipe?”