by Fiona Quinn
“That one worries me. You told me in the car that they had targeted the Levinski kids in relationship with their grandfather. What if the bad guys believe she really was a plant? They’d think this house was part of her cover story. They might just try to find out how the CIA knew to put an operative in place. They’d try to break her. And since she has no information to feed them, she wouldn’t be able to give them anything. But they’d perceive that as a highly-trained skill level – expert level with SERE training and a stint at torture school. They’d peel back her psyche, trying to find information that doesn’t exist.”
Lynx’s face was serious. “Yeah, it’s crossed my mind.”
“The alternative is she’s went on vacation to see a waterfall. Which is at this moment what I wish more than anything. Even if it were with a guy named Samuel Jones. And even if that Dearest Jack letter with the engagement ring meant that she’d finally had enough. I just want her safe and happy. Gone to see a waterfall. . .is that what you think’s happening here?”
“I’m leaving the doors on my hypotheses open. Things are rarely what they seem on the surface. This could all be a set up, so it looks like Suz wanted a vacation. It does look like she was breaking up with you to be with this other guy. Would Suz do that? It’s not the Suz I know. But people do weird things under stress. The dogs. That’s my sticking point. So, to answer your question, what I think is that we should take the computer to Iniquus and get Nutsbe involved. If the bag was at Reagan, maybe we can find some CCTV footage. According to the ticket’s itinerary, she had to have landed in and taken off out of Miami. If she were in trouble, there would have been plenty of opportunities for her to get help. I mean, they process you individually through security. All she needed to do was say, ‘help me.’ Right? Surely there’s a simple explanation.”
Jack’s face hardened. “You don’t believe that for a second.”
Lynx let out a long exhale. “No. I don’t.” She turned her gaze on Jack and the concern he read there was a sucker punch.
He had worked hundreds of operations where innocent people dangled on the other end of a bad guy’s line. Happy endings were actually pretty damned rare. Pulling someone out of a hell-hole didn’t mean they were put together the same way anymore – mentally or physically.
“Iniquus computers have Suz’s biologics. The computers will be able to pick her right out of the data bases. Then we can see if she was there and the body language between her and this Samuel Jones person. We can do a background check on the guy. Standing here isn’t getting us closer to an answer.” Lynx held up a card. “Suz’s ISO contact card was in the trash. I’m going to give him a call and have him take charge of the dogs and secure the house, ask him what he saw when he had contact.”
Jack nodded, his face grim. He maneuvered to the bathroom, and reached for a fever reducer. He stared into Suz’s medicine chest. “That’s damned odd.”
“What’s that?” Lynx moved to see what Jack saw. “Her medicine cabinet is empty?”
“Looks like she cleared it out.”
“What does she normally keep there?”
“The usual OTC meds, thermometer . . . tampons, Q-tips. Medicine cabinet stuff.”
“We’ll add that to the list of odd things to consider.”
As they moved toward Lynx’s car, Jack knew in his bones that Suz was with the bag, and she was headed to Brazil. He knew that she went against her will or her dogs would be in someone’s care not shivering and howling pressed up against the house for warmth on a sub-freezing night. Who had her? What was their plan? How was he going to get her back?
11
Lynx
00:03 Hours, Wednesday, February 16th
Panther Force War Room, Iniquus Headquarters, Washington DC
“Give it a minute to think.” Nutsbe pushed his rolling chair back from the computer and meandered over to the coffee station.
“I appreciate you doing this for us.” Lynx said. “I know it’s not a direct line to the Levinski kids, but this is Ari’s teacher who’s acting one-eighty to her normal character.”
“And you think this might give us a direction?” he asked, tipping the sugar until a broad stream poured into his cup, turning the black coffee into liquid candy.
That’ll give his overtaxed system a jolt. Lynx reached for a container of coconut water. She’d been drinking so much coffee that she could feel her hair shift. “When it comes to those kids, I’m out of bread crumbs. They haven’t been able to pry anything out of the Zoric clan. The whole family lawyered up. None of them has any interest in turning State’s evidence. I think they’re more afraid of internal forces than external ones at this point.”
Lynx glanced around at Jack. When they arrived at Headquarters, his skin had been bright pink and slick with oily sweat. He had wobbled on his crutches even as he had rushed down the corridor with her scuttling behind him. There was no way in this world that Lynx could catch someone his size if he were to suddenly keel over. She had threatened that she wasn’t going to do another damned thing to help him if he didn’t lie down while she worked. Jack refused to go back to the barracks but did allow an Iniquus medic to bring over a rolling gurney and an IV. They had dimmed the lights, so Jack could get some rest. Lynx suspected the medic put something for pain and sleep into the antibiotic cocktail, because Jack’s mouth hung open and his rhythmic snores filled the room.
Mr. Spencer, one of the owners, had already sent his PA down to get a copy of Jack’s hospital release. Lynx wondered why they were here and working at midnight, and how Spencer had become aware that Jack was in the building so quickly. Neither here nor there, it wasn’t getting them any answers. She was just happy that that nurse at Suburban was willing to bend the rules to help Jack since nothing would have held him back. But now Lynx was worried about the repercussions for Jack’s well-being. Jack had been running a fever since his surgery and that could be very dangerous.
The computer dinged.
Nutsbe sat in front of the screen and rubbed his hands together, lacing them, and turning his palms inside out like a pianist, stretching his fingers, getting ready to play. “First up, Samuel Jones. He is travelling on an American passport. It was newly issued a month ago, no previous passports, no overseas travel. . . Samuel Jones is thirty-two. Self-employed, non-specified consultant. US Tax records for the last two years only. He has a Northern Virginia address. He rents. No car. A Suntrust bank account . . . seven thousand dollars in savings. Sixteen hundred in checking. Bank issued Visa – no balance. Yup, this is looking like a false identity. No fingerprints on record. You may be on to something here, Lynx.”
Lynx sent a glance back over to Jack. He hadn’t moved.
“This is his passport photo.”
“Can you put it up on the board?” When Samuel Jones’s picture showed up on the screen, Lynx walked over to stare at it. She had gone through all of the Zoric files and had committed their faces to memory, this one she didn’t recognize. “Can you put the picture through the system and see if this guy’s on anyone’s watch list?”
Lynx continued to stare at Jones’s face as Nutsbe ratatat-tatted the keys. When quiet filled the room, she turned back to him. “Do we have anyone in Brasília? A contact? Someone who could get eyes on? Actually, her end destination is Foz do Iguaçu.”
Nutsbe’s eyes widened. “No shit?”
“Why ‘no shit’?” Lynx felt the cold flush of adrenaline hit her system. The way Nutsbe had said that, it certainly didn’t bode well.
“It’s one tough region. Bad things happen down there.”
“Bad things happen everywhere,” Lynx countered.
Nutsbe slowly swung his head back and forth. “Not like this it doesn’t.”
The computer pinged, drawing their attention back to the screen.
“Here we go. . .There she is. . .”
Lynx roused Jack, she hated to do it, but she had sworn on all that was holy that she would wake him when they had footage at the airport.<
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His eyes sprang open, and he wore a sheen of guilt under the sweat. “I fell asleep,” he mumbled, the medication still working hard in his system. Jack rubbed the heels of his palms into his eyes. “I’m up. I’ve got this.” His eyes were blood shot and glassy. He definitely didn’t have this.
Lynx shoved his crutches under his arms and went around back to act like a flying buttress to counter balance him as he hopped a step.
Nutsbe looked up, “Hey, man, lay your ass back down. There’s no need for you coming over here.” He pushed a button lowering one of the screens.
Jack lay back down, and Lynx swiveled the gurney, and popped up the back rest so Jack could see clearly. A grainy CCTV image was frozen in place with Suz front and center.
12
Jack
00:57 Hours, Wed., Feb 16th
Panther Force War Room,
Iniquus Headquarters, Washington DC
“This is Reagan International’s front entrance.” Nutsbe explained.
Suz had changed her clothes out of the yoga pants and hoody that Joe, her ISO had said she had been wearing with the black ballet slippers she had on during her great escape from St. Basil’s. In this picture, Jack saw her taking her zombie bag from the taxi driver’s hands and thanking him. She had put on a pair of the BDUs stored in the bag along with a t-shirt, an all-weather jacket, and her hiking boots. New. Never broken in. Clothing he could never imagine her actually wearing. While he had packed the bag in all seriousness, he had given it to her as a joke. Her taste ran toward the romantic and feminine. She preferred long flowing dresses. That she had been dressed in all black on Valentine’s day – with no makeup, pants and turtle neck instead of the pretty pink dress she had modeled for him before he left. . . what did that say? Something. It looked like she was in mourning.
She pulled the zombie bag up and fumbled with the straps that buckled around her waist and sternum. The way she held her posture, Jack could tell she hadn’t adjusted the lengths correctly, and the bag sat too high on her hips, making her lean forward to counterbalance the weight.
She was alone. In one hand she had a piece of paper. In the other she had a black object.
“Cell phone in her right hand?” Nutsbe asked.
“Looks that way,” Lynx responded. “Must be someone else’s. We have her phone.”
“Could be a burner phone to give her instructions,” Nutsbe said, his fingers flying over the key board. He tapped enter and the screen shot, while pixilated showed the screen of a phone and text messages.
“Any way to read that screen?” Jack asked.
“Sorry, man, that’s as tight as I can get.”
Lynx moved over to a board. She noted:
Not visibly constrained
No visible handler
Has phone access
Dressed for the outdoors
The view switched back to Suz as she hiked to the ticket counter to check her bag in. She had nothing but the paper and the phone in her hand as she moved to the security desk.
“The check in lady was pretty blasé. It didn’t look like Suz passed her any kind of ‘help-me’ message when she was showing the woman her ticket,” Lynx said.
Suz now entered the security section. There was a collective holding of breath. This was the spot to get help, with the phone on the conveyor belt, her boots and jacket in a bin, and no possible way that it wouldn’t be detected if she were wearing a wire as she raised her arms for the x-rays. Come on, Suz. This was the time to explain that something weird was happening as she stood in a protected machine where she spoke one on one with an armed guard. There’s no better time than this. . . take this chance, Suz. . . tell them you need help. Jack pushed his thoughts out there though he knew full well that this was hours and hours ago and whatever had happened was a done deal.
Suz moved on through like everyone else moved through. She gathered her things, checked her paper, checked the phone, went to the bathroom, went to the shop and bought a large bottle of water with money that was in the cargo pocket on her thigh. So many opportunities to get help. She took none of them, and Jack knew that this was all being noted by Nutsbe and Lynx.
After Suz paid for her water, she went to the gate that said Miami. Time passed with Suz sitting alone, staring straight ahead. Nutsbe sped up the video feed.
“They called seating,” he said, shifting it to natural speed, again. “She must have a first-class ticket because she’s in with the first ones loading.”
“Suz can’t afford first class tickets. Did this go on her credit card?”
“Yup. On the Travelocity site. But you’re right, the tickets she bought were first class where her flight to St. Martens was commuter class,” Lynx responded walking to the board.
Sat alone at gate
First class seats
Boarded alone
No purse
“All righty then, ready to see what happened in Miami?” Nutsbe focused down on his keys.
“Wait,” Lynx said. “Can we watch the other passengers board? She bought two tickets.”
They watched the black and white images of the slow process of boarding. A few of the men had hats on their heads. From what they could see, no one who looked like Jones was in the line. But not everyone turned in the direction of the security camera.
Jack turned to Nutsbe, “Do you have any descriptors on the guy? Weight, height, hair color?”
“According to the passport, he’s five-eleven, hundred and sixty pounds, brown hair, blue eyes, no distinguishing tattoos or scars. His name and facial biological markers are churning through the system. Hopefully, we’ll get a ping and some identification beyond the Samuel Jones name soon. I sent a request up to IT to see if they couldn’t get hold of the passenger lists and see if he checked in. I’m not a good enough hacker to do that here. I have the CCTV because we already have their security link on file.”
Lynx leaned down and quietly caught Jack up on what he had missed while he was asleep.
“Do we have someone down in Brazil who can get eyes on? We still have a few hours until they land.”
“Lynx already asked that, I sent out an inquiry. This isn’t a contract case so its low priority. Logistics hasn’t gotten back to me yet, and I doubt they will until after zero eight hundred hours. They’re running a skeleton crew at night unless they had a heads up and Command called them in for emergency action. It’s our new protocol while we get our feet back under us from the Hydra attacks. Once their crew clock-in, though, you know how they are — they’ve got fingers in pots all over the world, US agencies and foreign. I’m betting they can pull something out of their hat.”
“Along that line, let me see,” Lynx pulled Suz’s computer over and typed to pull up a screen with the itinerary for Brazil, “Suz has another stop – it’s not a straight shot.”
7:30 am – 9:05 am
Brasilia Intl Airport (BSB) – Guarulhos Intl Airport (GRU)
Flight 3578
TAM · Airbus A320
Layover GRU Guarulhos Intl Airport1h 30m
9:40 am – 11:10 am
Guarulhos Intl Airport (GRU) – Cataratas Airport (IGU)
Flight 3559
TAM · Airbus A320
“11:10 hours their time. They’re an hour ahead of Washington, so 10:10 hours our time, and that’s the point where we lose track. That’s our time frame for making contact.” Jack said. “Lynx, did she schedule a hotel from the Travelocity site? Is there any clue about what she’s doing once she hits the airport?”
“Here we go,” Nutsbe clicked away at the keyboard and a new CCTV stream showed up on the screen. “She’s getting off her flight and walking to her new gate.” The image jumped as he used the feed of one camera and then another as he followed her to the TAM gate. Her walk slowed to almost a crawl. She stopped completely and gazed around her. Her shoulders sagged, and she moved to the seats, choosing a chair next to a tall man in a dark colored coat with wide apple cheeks showing under his Homburg
-style hat.
“He looks very European businessman-like.” Lynx said. “Did you see that? Go back a couple frames, try to get the image down to her face, please, Nutsbe.”
The image spun down to take in Suz and the guy beside her. “This is as close as I can get it and still keep things recognizable,” Nutsbe said.
“A little farther back. Take it to where she moved to that seat and sat down,” Lynx stood up and walked to the screen, so she could point. “That’s it. Now slow-mo. Okay, good. Suz walks in and sees the guy, recognizes him, walks over toward the only open seat which happens to be next to him, but she’s determined not to look at him. See? Her eyes are everywhere except on the man. She sits down and crosses her legs away from the guy, swivels her hips to turn her belly button toward the exit – the belly button is a body language indicator of where a person would like to go. In this case, she wants to go back to where she had walked from. She lifts her right shoulder, that’s a protection gesture – a block. He’s typing something into his phone. . . Her phone buzzes. . . she looks down. She hates what she reads. Did you see that her eyes squint and her head sways back? That’s a momentary short circuit of the nervous system. It happens when someone gets bad news. No way to see that message?”
“None,” Nutsbe responded. “That guy was on the first leg of the Suz’s flight. He was one of the first off. She was one of the last off.”
“Same guy as in the passport photo?” Jack asked.
Lynx got up and walked toward the screens her focus moving back and forth between the two images. “Bottom of the face seems to match, but it’s hard to tell with the hat on.” She came back to sit next to Jack.
“I’m being fed another piece of information,” Nutsbe said. “The DOD has a satellite in the area. It hasn’t got a long window. It’ll be in range until 14:11 hours her time. Then we go black.”