by J. M. LeDuc
Brent huffed. “Who?”
He sat waiting for an answer. His answer came in the sound of Scarlet’s voice.
“It’s good to see you, Colonel,” Scarlet said.
“You, I can live with,” Brent answered. “Joan did explain the ramifications of keeping this all very secret, didn’t she?”
“Yes, sir.”
Brent shrugged his shoulders, “Well,” he said, “say something, you didn’t call this meeting so Scarlet could say hi.”
Brent’s abrupt manner had Joan a little freaked out. She hesitated before saying, “There is one more person who knows that we are in contact. I hope you aren’t mad and what I really hope is that you are happy.”
“Joan, just spill it.” He was about to say something else when he heard a familiar voice.
“I never left Palm Cove. I have decided to stay and help Seven in your absence.”
Brent was surprised, anxious and a little excited at the sound of the voice. He was at a loss for words.
“I hope you don’t mind. Seven asked for my help with the squad until you return and—I fell in love with your daughter when I first laid eyes on her. I couldn’t leave that precious angel.”
“Please, don’t be mad, Brent, it is all my fault,” Joan said.
Brent remained stiff and guarded. “I’m fine with Alana being there. I’m not mad.”
His mind shifted gears. “Joan, this is all interesting information, but nothing that couldn’t have waited until our next video conference, what aren’t you telling me?”
Joan cleared her throat. “President Dupree plans on going on an unannounced strip to Iraq and Afghanistan. He doesn’t want a social circus so it is all hush-hush.”
“What is Seven’s take in this?”
“He doesn’t like it, but he spoke to the president and got him to agree to have SIA agents accompany him to the different bases.”
Brent tossed up his arms. “I still don’t get the reason for breaking protocol. It seems everything is under control.”
“The next two things I am about to tell you will change all that,” Joan said. “He plans on making his last stop Alpha Camp deep inside terrorist territory and . . .” Joan hesitated, “there is a mole in the Pentagon. We are afraid he or she is feeding information to the Brotherhood.”
Brent tentatively stood and moved about the room. His body still bruised and sore from his fight.
The girls noticed his tentative movements.
“Are you hurt?” Joan asked. “And what’s with the hood? I can’t even see your eyes.”
Brent ignored her comments and continued to pace. “I need you to contact Sam at the Pentagon,” he said, “and have him check all the outgoing transmissions, both encrypted or not. If it is encrypted, I’m counting on you to decipher it.” As Brent looked straight in the camera, his demeanor changed from a wounded animal to a hardened soldier. He pointed a finger directly at the screen. “When you find the mole, do not break his cover, just get his name to me. Understood?”
“Yes, sir,” Joan answered.
“One more thing before I hang up.” He addressed his next comment to Alana and pointed in the direction her voice had come from, “For what it’s worth, I appreciate your flying to Palm Cove to help. I’m sorry I missed you, but I am very happy for the connection that you and Faith have developed. Thank you.” As he finished speaking, he lifted his head toward the monitor causing his hood to fall off the back of his head exposing his eyes.
He quickly disconnected the satellite hookup.
Brent reached over and squeezed Tag’s shoulder. “It’s time we start to train as monks.”
Tag gripped Brent’s forearm. “That’s what I’ve been waiting to hear, Colonel.”
CHAPTER 41
A single tear streamed down Alana’s cheek.
“Why the tears?” Scarlet asked.
Joan logged out of her computer, but her attention was on Alana.
“Did you see his eyes?” Alana asked.
Joan looked at Scarlet who shrugged.
“He looked tired,” Joan said, “but . . .”
“He’s not tired,” Alana said, “He’s blind!”
Joan’s instincts kicked into overdrive. She knew there was something wrong with the way Brent acted, but until now, she couldn’t peg it. “Are you sure?”
Alana swallowed hard. “Positive, I’ve seen the look before.”
The girls stared into space, each trying to comprehend what they just learned. Faith’s cry from the other room brought them back to the present.
Alana stood. “I will go see to her.”
“Wait,” Joan said. “What are we going to do with this information?”
“Exactly what Brent asked us to do.”
Joan and Scarlet looked confused.
“Which was?” Joan said.
“Nothing,” Alana answered.
“She’s right,” Scarlet said. “If Brent wanted us to know, he would have told us. We need to do what he ordered us to do and nothing more.”
Joan shook her head. “Damn him. Sometimes I just want to rip his hair out.”
Her words made the girls smile.
“A shared feeling,” Alana said. “Now, let’s do what needs to be done.”
Joan stood and took her laptop into the other room. “It looks like I have a lot of work to do,” she said, “so if you will excuse me, I better get to it.”
“How will you contact the Pentagon without Maddie and Seven knowing?” asked Scarlet.
“I don’t need to keep it a secret that I’m using my Pentagon contact to help find the mole.” Joan smiled. “The interesting part will be tapping into their software undetected, so I can find him myself. If Sam finds him, he will have to break it to his supervisors and then it will climb the chain of command. If I find him first, I can block anyone else from doing so, and get the information to Brent.”
The next day, Seven began to discuss what procedures and security measures he wanted implemented for President Dupree’s trip.
Normally dressed in jeans and a tee-shirt, Seven stood in front of the squad in full black uniform, including side-arms. “This mission starts now,” he said. “We have twenty-two days before we depart for Afghanistan. In order to ensure the president’s safety, we will be working on every possible scenario including . . .” His eyes circled the room and settled on Scarlet, “illness, injury by insurgent bombing, possible camp infiltration and death.” He watched as Scarlet closed her eyes momentarily, before reopening them. “If any of you have a problem with dealing with any of those possibilities, speak now.”
No one spoke. Scarlet set her jaw and blocked out any personal ramifications.
Seven packed his lip with tobacco and grinned.
“Good,” he said. “I want everyone dressed in uniform and in the armory in twenty minutes. The first half of the day will be spent on refining our silent attack weapons. The second half of the day will be spent in the simulator.”
Everyone nodded.
“Dismissed.”
Maddie intently watched Joan as she tried to trace Brent’s whereabouts.
Joan huffed. “You’re not helping by stalking me.”
“I’m not stalking, I’m learning,” Maddie replied.
In reality, she was stalking. She knew Joan was holding something back, but couldn’t figure out what it was. She thought if she shadowed her moves, Joan might slip up.
Maddie had been intermittently rubbing Joan’s neck while in actuality she had been taking her carotid pulse looking for an increased heart rate, a sign of deception. What she found was . . . nothing.
“Well,” Maddie said, “I have a lot of logistics to get to as well as a call to make to the head of the Secret Service. If you find anything, let me know.”
“I will,” Joan replied
.
As soon as Maddie was out of her office, Joan clicked a button and brought up the Pentagon’s internal security software. With all of the employees and contract workers, it was going to take some time to narrow down the list of suspects. She sat back and stared at the long, ever-growing list of names that was being generated on the screen. She tapped her pen on her desk, wondering how best to narrow it down.
Her eyes dilated as she quickly typed another address onto the computer. Numbers filled the screen so fast that she couldn’t keep up. When they stopped, she used the Pentagon’s encryption software to decipher the code. When it finished, she stared at the names and the corresponding code names of all of the U.S. government’s foreign agents.
“Something’s not right,” Joan mumbled.
She pulled up another screen, this one had a list of all outgoing messages from the Pentagon to the agents. Her eyes scanned the screen looking for any anomaly.
Two hours later, she found what she had been looking for, one code-name without a corresponding agent. A name she was familiar with, a name that sent chills down her spine.
She needed to talk to Brent.
CHAPTER 42
Brent and Tag had spent their day in hard training. Beaten and exhausted, they made their way back to their small room after evening prayer.
Tag flopped himself onto the paper-thin mattress. “Even this rock under me feels good,” he moaned.
Brent sat straight up on his bed staring at the Tag’s bed. “Our day has just begun,” he said.
Tag raised an eyebrow, “What are you talking about?”
“I need you to teach me the Cree shadowing trick.”
“Now?”
Brent nodded.
Tag slowly sat up. “I don’t mean to sound disrespectful, but it’s the middle of the night.”
Brent brought his hand to his watch. He had removed the glass from it earlier so he could feel the hands and tell time. “It’s seventeen hundred hours, five p.m. for you civilians. Not exactly the middle of the night.”
“Damn, is that all it is. My body tells me it’s at least midnight, zero hour for you tight ass officers.”
Brent smiled. Tag’s words brought thoughts of Seven. He reached forward and slapped Tag’s knee. “Sorry about your luck.”
“Why now? Why not wait until morning?”
“Our daily activities are up to Gregory’s discretion. We have to do this at night.”
Tag huffed.
“Stop whining and gear up. We are about the same size so you can borrow some of my stuff. We will gear up in squad uniforms and head outside as soon as the sun sets. That gives us forty-five minutes to shower and get ready.”
Tag stood and shook his head. “I stand by my previous assumption, you are insane.”
Brent stood and smiled. “I will meet you at the entrance to the monastery.”
“Why? Where are you going?”
“To let Brother Gregory know of our plans.”
Forty-five minutes later, the two stood at the entrance to the monastery. They heard footsteps behind them.
Brent listened to the footfalls. “It’s Brother Gregory.”
The brother entered the small room where they had first entered days before. He placed a staff in each of their hands. “Whatever you need to do, do it with the staff. When you leave here, it will be your first and last line of defense. You must learn to do everything with it.”
They nodded and took what Gregory had to offer.
Tag turned to climb the steps into the modern-day church. Brent stopped him and handed him a piece of black cloth.
“What is that?” Tag asked.
“Your hood. It’s the same one you saw Q wearing when he picked us up. Even though it’s doubtful at this time of night, I want to be sure that we are not spotted by a bystander. The hoods will hide our identity.”
Tag inspected the hood. “There are no eye holes.”
Brent smiled. “Exactly.”
“Wow,” Tag said when he put on the hood, “It’s amazing how well I can see through the material.”
Outside, Tag took four pieces of rope from his back pocket. “To learn to shadow, we must be tied together.”
Brent nodded.
“I’m going to tie our ankles together and then our wrists. The first thing we must learn is how to move as one.”
“When I was a kid,” Tag said as he tied their ankles, “I used to watch the young braves as they learned the art of shadowing. It reminded me of a type of dance.” Standing he took the other pieces of rope and tied his and Brent’s wrists together. He again spoke while he tied. “I asked my grandfather if I could learn. My grandfather, the chief, was proud that his grandson wanted to be a Cree brave and learn the traditional battle secret of his people.”
“Why was it used?” Brent asked.
“To hide their numbers. It allowed the braves to appear to be few, and then they would splinter off at just the right moment and overpower their enemies.”
Brent smiled at the explanation.
Once Tag had finished tying himself to Brent, he huffed. “We have three things working against us. Shadowing is learned with the aid of sight, this terrain is not flat, and you are not Cree.”
“Amuse me,” Brent said.
For the next four hours, Tag taught Brent how to match his movements. They spent most of the first two hours on the ground or trying to stand up in unison. The staffs made it harder for them to move, but easier for them to get off the ground. The final two hours were a bit better. Brent began to feel Tag’s movements before he made them. He was able to shadow his arms and feet as they walked and jogged along the hillside.
“You’ve come a long way since we began,” Tag said. “I think this would be a good time to stop, we can pick back up tomorrow.”
Brent agreed.
Tag untied the ropes and began walking back to the Monastery. Brent shadowed his movements.
Tag shook his head. “Amazing.”
CHAPTER 43
Brent’s emergency signal from Joan beeped at o-three hundred hours. He and Tag sat in front of the monitor and listened intently.
“I did what you said and hacked into the Pentagon’s security system.”
“I don’t remember asking you to ‘hack’ into their system.”
“Six of one, a half dozen of another,” Joan said. “That’s not what’s important, what’s important is what I found.”
“Which is?”
“I found out that the mole is sending encrypted messages to someone who is near Gaza.”
Brent leaned into the monitor, “Gaza?”
Joan nodded, “Gaza, and that’s not all. The mole is sending them to someone calling himself Phoenix.”
“What!” Brent’s emotions were so stirred that he threw off his hood. “That was Seven’s code name. Who the hell would know his code name? Not even the Pentagon knew him by that name.”
It was Joan’s turn to lean in to her computer. “I don’t know. That’s for you to figure out. And what the hell is going on with your eyes?”
Brent was quick to put his hood back on. “Don’t worry about my damn eyes. Find the mole.” He disconnected the transmission.
CHAPTER 44
Three weeks later, Omar and the man known as Falcon sat in a makeshift command post deep inside the anthills bordering Pakistan and Afghanistan.
“So, do you think we are ready?” Omar asked.
“I do. I’m surprised at the number of Americans you have inside the Brotherhood.”
“The truth is important to all people,” Omar responded.
“Whatever,” the American answered. “We leave tonight for Alpha Camp.”
“One more time, I want you to go over your plan,” Omar said.
“Pff, for what?” Falcon said. Indignation oo
zed from his words. “Is it too much to get into that brain of yours?”
Omar had enough of the American’s flippant attitude. He picked up a knife off his desk and lunged toward him. The American went to sidestep, but Omar’s guards grabbed and held him in place.
Omar stopped with the tip of the blade pushing against the man’s cheek. “I’ve had enough of your rudeness. You can either treat me with the respect I deserve, or I can kill you and complete this mission without you.”
Falcon gave a slight head nod in response. It was enough for Omar to lower his blade.
The corners of Falcon’s lips curved upward and his eyes gleamed as he spoke. “You need me as much as I need you. We don’t have to like each other, we just need to live with each other for a little while longer.”
Omar again asked the American to go over the attack plan.
“Your men will be my prisoners,” Falcon said. “I plan on marching them straight into Alpha Camp.”
Omar paced. “It is risky?”
“That’s why it will work. Alpha has been in a state of flux since their attack. Leadership has changed hands three times and the soldiers are demoralized. A straightforward approach is the only way we will get in unnoticed.”
“You better be right.”
“I’m always right.”
“Hmm. So what have you heard from your informant at the Pentagon?”
“Dupree leaves in three days for the Mid-East. He will be at Alpha in five days. We need to be set up and ready for his arrival in four. We move out in an hour.”
Omar stood nose-to-nose with the American. “If you are wrong, I will personally kill you.”
“If I’m wrong, you won’t have to. I will already be dead.”
Omar began pacing.
“If we’re finished, I’m going to go prep the men. We have no time to waste.”
Omar waved him away. Falcon started to leave and turned back toward Omar.
“The entire Brotherhood was supposed to be here. So far, all I’ve seen are the men who are going to Alpha. Where are the rest?”