Twenty-four Days

by Jacqui Murray

  Paloma’s face had a green cast. "Do you use taxis in New York?"

  "Of course. Why drive when you can’t park once you get there?" Why was she giggling? He better explain. "New York is nothing like San Diego. Here, the streets are tree-lined. There's space between buildings. People smile at each other. Everyone should live here."

  Paloma wiped tears from her eyes and stifled the last of her laughter. "It’s all fake, Eitan. A couple of weeks and you'll yearn for the honest anger and contempt of New York."

  Sun swerved into the curb and with a brilliant smile announced, "We're here." He jumped out and flung his arms over his head, and then spun a circle. Somewhere, a siren whined. Overhead, a jet screamed on its way to the Marine Corps Air Station.

  Paloma turned to the building, then back to Sun, confused. "Eitan, this is Anchor’s building. Why are we here?"

  Eitan checked his phone for the address. Although he had an eidetic memory, Kali suggested he pretend to forget things when with a woman he cared about so she felt less mentally inferior. Right now, he wanted this woman to like him because of the feeling he got in his stomach that had disappeared with his wife. "I'll check."

  He grinned, started bouncing, and forced himself to stop. "Excuse me while I make a quick call… Zeke! Anchor lives in the same building as Sean. ... I'm thinking the same. ... What? Al-Zahrawi’s alive? … Bye.”

  He fidgeted.

  “Bad news?”

  Sun opened his mouth to explain why a live al-Zahrawi was such bad news, but why worry her? "I wish Zeke was here. He’s the intel guy. I'm tech." He tried to think what to do. "Will the manager be here this late?"

  "I called ahead and told him to wait."

  "He agreed?"

  "When I told him we were Navy and FBI."

  She was amazing. "Well, let's go inside."

  The lobby was big and open and looked modern on the surface, but underneath, worn with frayed chairs and dinged tables.

  "Go to the Rental Office,” Paloma directed, “and I’ll check the mailboxes.”

  She walked purposefully across the room and he approached the reception desk. A young man grinned at Sun.

  "It's a beautiful sunny day in Southern California. My name is Philip. Can I help you find an apartment?"

  Philip was short and thin and his voice whined when he spoke. He wore a long-sleeved striped dress shirt with a matching knit tie, maroon corduroy pants and Top-Siders without socks. Sun pasted an official frown on his face. "Your manager, please?"

  "Uh, yes," and he fled through a door behind his chair. Two minutes later, they were greeted by a chunky, square-faced man with short, curly hair and a bald spot at the crown of his head. He wore off-white linen pants, a polo shirt, and a touch of mayo on his cheek. He rubbed his hands down his pants, face beaming as though Sun’s visit was the highlight of his day.

  “My name is Dr. Eitan Sun with the FBI. I’m here with my colleague,” he pointed across the room, “LT Chacone with the US Navy.”

  "My name's Joe. Call me Joe.” He tittered at his joke as stuck his hand out. Sun shook it and wished he hadn’t. It felt gritty. He forced himself not to think why. “Sorry to hear about Sean. He did—does—he’s going to be OK, right?”

  "Joe," Sun tried the name out, "What happened the day Sean was attacked?"

  Paloma appeared at Sun’s side which made the manager nervous. "I stop in every morning to see what he found overnight, to save him from walking through the public areas. He's," Joe paused and then settled on, "You know gearheads." Sun bounced and Joe blinked. “I knocked, but no one answered so I called the police. You know the rest.”

  She smiled. "What do you know about Ankour Mohammed?"

  "Ah. Very clean. Friendly. Did he have something to do with this?" Without waiting, he continued, "He joined our family a few weeks ago. I can give you a copy of his application." He snapped his fingers and Philip scuttled into the back room. "He paid six months in advance."

  "May we see both apartments?" Sun hardened his voice, trying to make his question a demand. Joe nodded enthusiastically.

  “Of course! You have permission, I'm sure. Between the Navy and the FBI, I'm seriously outgunned.” He shot them with both index fingers, chuckled as he speed-walked to the elevator and pulled a key ring from his pocket.

  Philip hurried up. "The rental app, Sir."

  Joe passed the sheet to Eitan and turned to Philip. "Back to work. Rentals are money and money is your job."

  As they ascended, he gave what must be the sales pitch. Sun breathed a sigh of relief when they reached the third floor.

  "Here you are. Sean is one floor up and south." He pointed north. "Lock the door when you’re done," and he scurried away.

  Paloma stared after him through narrowed eyes. "Nervous guy, huh?"

  Sun smiled. He liked Paloma. So calm, sure of herself. He liked how her hips swayed when she walked and bits of hair escaped the chignon. He liked her fragrance—musk and soap. In fact, he liked everything.

  Mohammed’s apartment was a three-hundred square foot bachelor unit with a single bed on the left and a closet to the right. Against the far wall stood a desk, a hardback chair, and a cheap slider with no drapes. As Sun expected, Mohammed had nothing personal. He uploaded photos to Zeke and they went to Sean's apartment.

  The layout matched Mohammed’s, but there the likeness ended. Scattered across the floor were broken CPU's, monitors, recorders, cameras, camcorders, and electronic circuit boards, most of which Sun had paid for. Sean backed everything up online so the intruders hadn’t destroyed anything except hardware.

  Paloma stood, mouth open. "He said he was some sort of surveillance expert.” She scrunched her face. “What's with the fish?"

  A massive aquarium covered the end wall. Inside, a beautiful eel swam lazily back and forth. It thrust out of the water, mouth gaping, lidless eye on Paloma, the message clear. She found some brown flakes that might be tasty to an eel and sprinkled them into the water.

  "Look at this." She held up a wire running from the fish to an iPod. "I think his iPod runs off the eel’s electricity. Hunh."

  Sun cataloged that and moved on. He pulled his iPhone out and checked the time of the last backup to Sean’s DropBox account. 2:30 pm. Today. It took a moment and then he had it.

  "We need to get on the roof, Paloma."

  "I'll get the key from the manager," and she disappeared. Sun made a mental list of the other offsite locations. He needed to visit them.

  Paloma returned, waggling the key. "The manager happened to be outside on a resident call. He says he knows nothing about anything on the roof."

  They walked down the hall, up four flights and a roof access ladder. Paloma led, her pace more trot than walk. Sun puffed to keep up, though he tried to hide it. Once on the roof, a panoramic view of San Diego spread before them, from the towering downtown skyscrapers to the great naval warships of America's fleet. Sun saw the curve of the Coronado Bridge, the stout old downtown buildings and the spikes of the big hotels by the water. There, to the south was the busy muscle of the naval installations that gave the city vigor.

  He found a camcorder on each corner of the building with dishes to collect audio.

  "I'll pack these tomorrow." He knew a CEO who owned a G550 and owed Eitan a favor. "Let's get to the ship before it's too late."

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Day Twelve, Friday, August 18th, early evening

  USS Bunker Hill

  "I've never been on a cruiser!"

  Eitan knew he had only twelve days to stop the terrorists, but still felt like a kid on the set of Star Trek. He stared at Bunker Hill’s superstructure, the aft- and fore-mounted guns, sailors hurrying here and there in crisp white uniforms all tan and muscular.

  Paloma returned the salutes of watchstanders. Once inside the ship, she chatted with crewmembers, asked about their jobs and shared a few one-liners. Eitan huffed as they moved along. He lived at his computer since his wife's demise and vowed to chang
e that. Everyone Paloma introduced him to focused on his oversized head. Usually, he giggled, saying it came from exercising his brain, but today he wished he wore a cap.

  "I'll show you what Anchor wanted to see during the Tiger Cruise."

  He tried to reply, but didn’t have enough breath. Thankfully, she seemed oblivious to his struggles.

  They went to the enlisted mess deck, the foreword engine room—Main Engine Room One—and five other locations Eitan recognized from Sean’s list. They climbed stairs, hurried down pways, leaped over kneeknockers, and scooted around sailors hurrying to watches. Every time his lungs began to burn, she paused to explain how this or that worked or chat with sailors. Eitan liked meeting the crew, seeing how at ease they were with Paloma the Officer.

  As they finished the last spot, a heavyset officer stopped in the pway, blocking the passage. Paloma stiffened and her step stuttered as the man grinned at her in between noisy slurps from a can of soda.

  "Hello, Sir. This is Dr. Eitan Sun, an FBI consultant. Dr. Sun, this is Commander Taggert, our XO."

  The XO raised his eyebrows in mock surprise, eyes traveling from Eitan's thick dark-rimmed glasses to the wisps of thinning hair to the slogan on his t-shirt.

  "A nerd! Let me get my copy of 'How to Talk to a Geek'. Tell me Eitan, can you teach FCO to use computers?” Without waiting, he turned to Paloma. "How's the boyfriend?"

  Taggert’s face flushed. He knew something.

  Eitan responded for her. "He's missing. Do you know where he is?"

  "Know where he is?" Too fast, and Taggert’s gaze slid away. "How would I know?" His voice rose a pitch and his hand tightened around the soda can.

  Eitan stood still, the entirety of his formidable attention focused on Taggert. "The 'how' is a mystery, but clearly you know something."

  Eitan said not another word. Irrational anger spread through his body for this insecure man, no doubt a traditional bully who got his way by force so never learned the power of words. His average intelligence would be intimidated by anyone with a brain. How he rose to the command position of XO amazed Eitan. The Navy deserved better.

  While Taggert fumbled for a response, Eitan studied his clothing. Tailored, the ribbons professionally attached. His shoes were the kind James wore, so a thousand dollars, and the watch a real Rolex rather than the knockoff he probably claimed it was.

  "All I know is FCO here fell for an… Air Force guy." Taggert rubbed the side of his nose with his forefinger, oblivious to his body’s autonomic and blaring reaction to lying.

  Eitan cocked his head. "I wonder why we make you nervous. Is it something to do with your visceral need to impress people? Ah, your eyes dilated. Not impress people—person. The author you're consulting with—Googling her found nothing. I know because I Googled her too, and then I checked social security, DMV, tax rolls, and six other lists legitimate people appear on and she didn’t. You brushed it off because the money kept coming. You should have trusted your instincts. They are still there despite years of disuse."

  Taggert looked as though he’d been slapped.

  "You polished your shoes this morning which means you still have pride in your job despite whatever is going on. These people you’re involved with have slain thousands. What you know will save lives, maybe your own." Eitan softened his voice as Zeke would, trying to sound non-threatening, even friendly. "How long were you on subs?"

  Taggert squinted and his fingers clutched his soda can so tightly, the sides crumpled. Eitan never took his soft gaze off the rotting man in front of him.

  Finally, Taggert tossed his soda into the trash and scuttled off.

  Muted applause came from behind them. Eitan blushed and discreetly stuffed the discarded can into his pocket. Paloma broke into a grin. "So you dislike my XO—something else we have in common. I’ll make sure I’m never on the wrong side of that remarkable brain."

  With that, she led the way back through the endless winding pways to the gangplank. Eitan listened to her chatter while running Taggert’s name through INSCOM—U.S. Army Intelligence and Security Command—then ONI, USCGI, and the Marine Corps version though he doubted Taggert could survive the Corps. They beat the whine out of you or tossed you out.

  When he found nothing, he copied Taggert’s fingerprint from the can into a mobile print device—part of the digital jewelry around his neck—and sent it to AFIS. It came back as Kevin Taggert, XO Bunker Hill, no arrests but a few warnings in his Navy file. Interesting.

  Next, he tried NCIC and the Real-Time Collaborative Criminal Investigation and Analysis solution. Those came up empty so he checked the National Counterterrorism Center and TIDE. Still nothing. No surprise. The man wasn't smart enough to survive in that world. He moved to international agencies like the Joint Terrorism Task Force and the Interpol Terrorism Watch List. That came up with too many hits so he added 'Kevin’ and ‘USN’, and then programmed a bot to find tie-ins to this Taggert’s profile.

  As they made their way back to Eitan's car, he wracked his brain for a conversational tidbit but small talk was as foreign to Eitan as which fork to use at a dinner party.

  Paloma broke the silence. "Taggert changed when he hooked up with the author. He used to be friendly. We even shared dating horror stories. He knows my uniform turns guys off and I’m opinionated. Men want malleable, needy women, which I've never been." Her head dipped as they walked.

  "I don't."

  Paloma's pace stuttered, but she gave no other sign she heard him. He shouldn't have said that. Why would she like him? Sad. Sad.

  They reached the car. "My vehicle’s at my apartment. Would you drive me home?"

  "My pleasure," and Eitan meant it.

  As he put the car in gear, Paloma snugged her seatbelt and gripped the door handle.

  Eitan searched for a neutral comment. "What kind of car did Anchor drive?"

  "A Volvo, I think. We walked places or arrived separately."

  "Do you remember the license plate?"

  "Well, no, but he had a USAFA Alumni tag. He shared Doolie-year stories. That’s like my Plebe year and freshman year in civilian colleges. It made me trust him—which apparently was his goal." She picked at a hangnail. “How stupid.”

  Eitan swerved around a truck and Paloma gasped. It was the first time. Good. "He lied, Paloma.”

  “Sean said so, too, the night before the Tiger Cruise.”

  “He graduated from NYU Abu Dhabi, one of ten students selected as much for their cultured bearing as their intelligence. Did he ever mention a mentor?"

  Paloma shook her head. "Can we change the subject?"

  "Oh! Yes. Of course. I'm sorry!" This spy stuff was harder than Zeke let on.

  He parked in an Office Depot next to Paloma's building. They took the elevator in silence and walked down a winding featureless hallway until Paloma turned into a tiny alcove.

  "Surface warfare officers deploy all the time, so everything here is second-hand."

  They stood in a roomy living room with a postage-stamp-sized but spotless kitchen to the front. Two doors—probably bedrooms—split off to either side at the back. A small patio with a sliding glass door filled the space between the bedrooms. The living room was decorated tastefully with a cloth couch and matching chair, a boxy wood laminated coffee table, three Pier 1 faux walnut bar stools, and a squat table holding a too-small TV. He walked out onto the patio. It overlooked an internal quad and butted up to the neighbor’s unit. There, a man barbecued hamburgers while refereeing two children arguing over which TV show to watch.

  Eitan's stomach rumbled. Wow. When did he last eat?

  "Are you hungry?" Paloma asked.

  "I thought you might have orange juice,” he commented while riffling through her cupboards. "These will do,” and he swallowed a handful of Cheetos.

  As he ate, he walked around humming, touching her books and knick-knacks. It calmed him.

  "The USS Wampanoag, the nation's first cruiser, steam-driven, one-time flagship for the North Ame
rican fleet. It’s arguably the most famous cruiser in American history." He stuffed a massive handful of Cheetos into his mouth and chewed, making sure to close his mouth.

  "I drew it in high school. My great-great—I don't know how many greats—granddad, Percy Lafoil, served on it." She moved to Eitan's side, her shoulder touching his. "Despite its 4,200 tons, it clocked seventeen knots which made it the fastest warship in the Civil War. No ship beat that in Navy Sea Trials for twenty-one years." The pride came through in her voice. "The British designed an entire class of ships around the Wampanoag.

  "They say she 'worked technically and failed socially', a trait I can relate to."

  Paloma stared at him for a moment and broke into laughter. It could be birdsong in the morning. Eitan chewed through another handful of Cheetos and peeked into both bedrooms.

  "You and your roommate don't get along, do you? She's shallow and you're too honest not to say something."

  When Paloma said nothing, Eitan thought he blew it again. Darn! He started to make an excuse to leave when she grabbed his face and planted a kiss on his mouth.

  "Where have you been my whole life, Dr. Eitan Sun?"

  Eitan was so shocked, he froze, eyes closed, mouth puckered, ready if she did it again, then tried to think of something—anything—to say, but this was uncharted territory. The line that worked on his wife at the Twelfth Conference on Calculus Variations in Vienna—'I wish I was a derivative so I could lay tangent to your curves'—seemed wrong tonight. Paloma finally looked away and latched onto one of her books.

  "My dad's favorite naval battle was Manila Bay in the Spanish-American War. The flagship cruiser Olympia engineered the American victory."

  "Unh huh."

  "You remember the quote, Fire when ready, Gridley, 1 May 1898, Commander Dewey said to his executive officer."

  "I wish to have no connection with any ship that does not sail fast for I intend to go in harm's way. Captain John Paul Jones, 16 November 1778."

  "I can go one better. A good Navy is not a provocation to war. It is the surest guaranty of peace. President Theodore Roosevelt, 2 December 1902."