“Let’s see what’s going on with this,” Trace said. “We still have some daylight left before curfew. Let’s go back to the post office and ask some questions.”
They walked along Riverwalk, a wooden promenade parallel to the north bank of the New River, until the walkway came to an end near the Museum of Discovery and Science. Then they cut over toward Fort Lauderdale Hospital at Las Olas Boulevard and SW 16th Street.
Trace didn’t like what he saw downtown. He’d seen this same situation before, during OPERATION JUST CAUSE, when his SEAL team had gone into Panama to arrest Noriega. He expected the New Jersey National Guard — the Fort Lauderdale occupying force — to be more diligent and caring on U.S. turf. Clearly, he decided, he was being naive.
Everywhere Trace looked he saw debris. Garbage was piled up along the sidewalk and curbs. Trash cans overflowed. He recoiled from the stench.
Trace’s cell phone rang. He looked at the CallerID.
“I have to take this,” he said to Ibrahim, looking at the readout dial. “It’s my wife.”
He walked away a few paces, but this time did not turn his back to shield his conversation. He watched Ibrahim while he spoke softly to Isabella. When he finished, he walked back, shaking his head and, as he spoke, opened both his palms as if to say, What can I do? It’s out of my hands.
“Sorry to do this to you again,” he said, “but I’ve got to leave you. Isabella’s mother just died.”
The living room was dark, the blinds drawn. Bella was nowhere in sight. Trace walked into their bedroom, hoping to find her. She wasn’t there. He went to Nanna’s room. She was sitting in the dark staring at Nanna.
He walked over and put his arm around Isabella to hug her. Then he took one of her hands and slowly pulled her up from the chair. He led her to the living room, over to the sofa, where they sat together. He held her while she slumped onto his chest, her head on his shoulder. He kissed her head and neck and held her close to him.
After a few minutes, she pulled away and stood up.
“Trace, I don’t know what happened. I mean, Mamma was resting so peacefully. I went to get more ice chips, then when I came back she was gone. I don’t understand it.” She wiped her eyes.
“I don’t know what to tell you,” Trace said. “I’m so sorry. I loved Nanna.”
CHAPTER 66
Quarantine
Day 25
After Trace left Isabella, he and Ibrahim hooked-up again in front of the Palm Court Hotel. They skipped exchanging pleasantries.
Before they did anything else, Trace went into the hotel and convinced the hotel’s manager to allow him to leave Pete’s laptop, which he’d brought with him, in one of the large safe deposit boxes used by guests to store valuables. He had decided that leaving the computer at this hotel would be prudent because the authorities would be returning again to Nanna’s condo. He did not want the laptop confiscated by the authorities. He might need it sometime.
Trace paid the hotel’s manager one hundred dollars to ease the man’s decision. Then he and Ibrahim left for downtown.
Trace and Ibrahim walked for ten minutes when Ibrahim grabbed Trace’s arm to stop him. He pointed to a park bench off to their right, about forty feet away. A woman sat on the bench holding an infant in her arms. She cried as she rocked the baby.
Trace and Ibrahim looked at one another, then at the woman. They glanced around to make sure no soldiers were in sight.
Trace nodded to Ibrahim, who nodded back. They walked over, stopping about twenty feet away from the woman.
Trace said, speaking warmly, “Excuse me, can we help you?”
The woman looked up and pulled her baby in closer to her chest.
Trace said, still speaking softly, “We didn’t mean to frighten you. We just want to know if we can help you or your baby?”
The woman said nothing. She kept her eyes on them and clasped her infant close to her breast.
“Okay, then,” Trace said, “sorry to bother you.” He made a let’s go motion with his head, directed at Ibrahim, and said softly, “Let’s move on. We’re frightening her.” He turned away from the woman and started to walk.
Ibrahim followed, turning his head to look back at the woman as they stepped away.
“Please help me. My baby’s hungry and sick,” the woman said from behind them.
Trace and Ibrahim stopped walking and turned back, but didn’t approach the woman.
“May we come over to you?” Trace said. “Or we can talk from here. It’s up to you.”
The woman nodded. “Come over.”
Trace and Ibrahim listened as the woman described her uncertain existence with her infant. She told them her husband had become ill and died. She said she couldn’t find much food, and that she had no money to buy the little she did find. Her baby had been crying for days, she told them, because he’s hungry.
“Now he doesn’t cry hardly at all. He doesn’t do anything except stare. He barely sleeps. He doesn’t even mess his diapers anymore,” she said.
“Listen, Miss—” Trace started to say, when Ibrahim tugged at his arm.
Trace turned his head and looked at Ibrahim, who pointed up the street. Trace turned in the direction of Ibrahim’s pointing finger.
A HUMVEE was speeding directly toward them.
CHAPTER 67
Quarantine
Day 25
The HUMVEE bounced its front wheels up over the curb onto the sidewalk and stopped.
Two soldiers, dressed in MOP gear, jumped from the vehicle and lumbered over.
“Hand over your IDs,” one of the soldiers said, canting his head from Trace to Ibrahim, then to the young woman. He extended his hand to them.
Trace and Ibrahim pulled out their registration photoIDs. The woman looked at her baby, then let go with one hand and slipped her pocketbook’s strap off her shoulder. She handed the pocketbook to Trace.
“Mine’s in my wallet. Please get it out. I don’t want to put my baby down.”
Trace reached into the woman’s pocketbook looking for her wallet, but his mind was on General Vista’s warning to him that if he was again entered into ODMC’s database, he’d be arrested and possibly held indefinitely. He realized he had to buy time while he thought of some way to avoid having his ID logged in to the computer system.
“We weren’t doing anything wrong, Sir,” Trace said to the soldier who seemed to have the highest rank between the two.
“The two of us,” he said, pointing first to Ibrahim and then back at himself, “were walking into town when we saw this woman clutching her baby and crying. We stopped to help her. That’s all. We were with her less than a few minutes when you arrived.”
“You’re an unlawful gathering of three people,” the soldier said. “Four with the kid. There aren’t exceptions in the Field Order.”
“No, Sir,” Trace said, “not in the Field Order itself, but maybe in its interpretation or enforcement by you.” Time now for some serious social engineering, he thought. Trace took a deep breath.
“Please use your discretion, Sir. Let us go with a warning. We really were just trying to help this poor woman and her baby.”
“Got any priors?” the soldier said.
Trace’s shoulder and neck tightened. He didn’t answer.
“Yes, Sir, I have one prior,” Ibrahim said.
The soldier looked at the mother and baby. He paused. Then he said to the other soldier, “Take these IDs and run them.”
He reached out to hand the ID cards to the other soldier.
Trace’s SEALs’ training and his nine years of T’ai chi juan martial arts practice instinctively took hold. Time thickened and slowed down for him. Nothing extraneous registered in his consciousness. He was immersed entirely in the moment, suffused with present mind intent. All he saw, the only thing he was aware of, was the one soldier standing close to him — his present adversary — holding out the IDs to hand to the other soldier, who had placed his weapon by his side at parade
rest. Trace’s mind became independent of Ibrahim, the woman, her infant, the HUMVEE, and its crew.
Without taking his eyes from the nearest soldier, and without making any noticeable bodily movement, Trace emptied his left leg of its weight, pouring its energy, power and chi into his right leg. He rooted his full right leg and foot to the ground, and sank into his leg.
Trace’s left leg and foot now rested on the sidewalk, completely empty of all energy and power, weightless, but to all external appearances when viewed by anyone not well versed in Tai chi juan, unchanged.
Still maintaining eye contact with the soldier who was handing off their IDs, he tucked-in his coccyx and slightly bent his knees so that now he crouched, almost imperceptibly.
Without warning, he rotated his waist to the right, away from the soldier. In the same movement he pushed off with his right foot sending his coiled energy force, his chi, from his right leg into his empty left leg.
He whipped his left foot up and around, using the arch of his left foot to kick the soldier, who was holding the IDs, in the side of his kneecap. he aimed his kick through and beyond the soldier’s knee, continuing his motion, sweeping the man’s leg out from under him.
The soldier shrieked in pain and dropped to the ground. He grabbed his knee with both hands and rolled around on the pavement, yelling, “Jesus, Jesus. . . .”
Trace followed through by kicking the weapon that was resting at the side of the other soldier’s thigh up and away from him, leaving the standing soldier unarmed. Trace yelled at Ibrahim, “Come on, let’s go.”
Trace started to run, then stopped and turned back toward the fallen soldier. He wanted to find his photoID and scoop it up, hoping to avoid being identified. He saw it on the ground near the soldier he’d assaulted, but also saw two soldiers emerge from inside the HUMVEE.
The soldier he’d assaulted, now beyond his own shock at the attack, screamed for help and pointed at Trace. He turned toward Trace and Ibrahim, but had no weapon to raise against them.
Trace gave up the thought of retrieving his ID, and ran as fast as he could, heading across the street.
Ibrahim, as surprised by Trace’s attack as were the soldiers, looked first at Trace, then back at the soldiers. He hesitated, bent over the fallen soldier and picked up his ID, then ran toward Trace. He kept his head down and leaned forward, trying to turn himself into as small a target as possible.
One of the soldiers who emerged from the interior of the HUMVEE fired at Trace and Ibrahim. His rounds chipped the edge of the building bordering an alley as they fled into its depths.
Ibrahim followed Trace across the street, then around the corner and down another alley, then back up another street. His lungs burned from too little oxygen. He slowed his pace as his initial fear waned and his adrenalin rush ebbed.
When they’d covered four or five blocks, Ibrahim, panting hard and wheezing, said, “Trace, wait. I have to stop. Wait, I can’t breathe.”
Ibrahim stopped running.
Trace slowed, turned his head back toward Ibrahim, then looped around and jogged back to him.
Trace, too, breathed hard, short of breath. Damn cigarettes!
Without saying a word, Trace took Ibrahim by the arm and steered him behind an asparagus fern hedge, away from the street, hidden from the view of anyone at ground level looking for them.
They stood without speaking, each bending forward from his waist, each resting his hands on his knees with his head dropped forward, breathing fast, short, desperate gulps of air.
Ibrahim straightened up first. “Are you out of your mind,” he said. “Are you stone crazy? We’re dead meat now because of you.”
He started to pace in a small, tight circle, shaking his head from side to side as he walked.
“I don’t believe this is happening.”
Trace watched him, not saying anything.
“What possessed you to do that?” Ibrahim said. He shook his head, slowly, sadly. “Now what’ll we do?”
When Trace finally answered, he didn’t raise his voice. He issued an order to Ibrahim, using his best command tone and posture. He stood tall and looked directly into Ibrahim’s eyes as he spoke.
“Be quiet, Ibrahim,” he said gently, but firmly. “Get hold of yourself and be quiet. I don’t want to hear another word from you until you’ve gotten yourself under control.”
He stared at Ibrahim with an uncompromising glare. Then, when Ibrahim settled down, he again spoke to him, this time using inviting tones.
“I had no choice,” Trace said. “I’m in the ODMC’s system too many times. I was warned. If they had checked my ID I would’ve been arrested and detained until the quarantine ends. I had no other option. I’m sorry you had to be there for that, but that’s the way it is.”
He said no more, letting his words sink in.
Ibrahim relaxed his posture and looked at Trace, then looked away, then back again. He pulled himself together and stood erect. He walked away a few feet, stopped, seemed to be brooding over some thought, then turned back to Trace.
“I’m okay now. No, that’s not right, I’m not okay. I’m in control now, but I’m definitely not okay.” Ibrahim took a deep breath and slowly let it out.
“What’re we going to do? Where’ll we go?” he said. He wiped his forehead with the back of his hand.
“Slow down, Ibrahim,” Trace said. “Take it slow. We’ll be fine. Just pay attention to what I do and what I say.”
Trace waited a beat, then said, “That’s better. You’ll be all right.” He nodded at Ibrahim.
“First,” Trace said, “before we do anything else, we need to make brief phone calls to our ladies.”
CHAPTER 68
Quarantine
Day 25
“Isabella, it’s me. I can’t talk for long. There’s a problem. Just listen to me. I’m all right, but I can’t explain it right now and I can’t come back home yet. I’ll call you soon. I love you.”
He powered down, ending the call before Isabella could raise questions. He handed the phone to Ibrahim.
“Your turn,” he said to Ibrahim. “Make it quick. We have only two or three minutes of phone time before they can ping our location. Then give me back the phone. I’ll remove the battery and SIM card until we’re ready to use the cell again.”
It took Trace and Ibrahim forty-five minutes to walk to the hotel. They used all the evasive tradecraft Trace had learned as a SEAL, including executing a Surveillance Detection Route, called an SDR, crossing some streets and doubling back on others, to make sure that hadn’t been followed.
When they finally approached the hotel, they circled around it looking for soldiers or anyone else surveilling the structure. Before they entered the hotel, Ibrahim called Jenna again.
“Look around, Jenna,” he said. “Does anything seem unusual? Are there soldiers inside? Or anyone who doesn’t seem to belong?”
Jenna said all was as usual, “...if,” she added, “you want to consider the chaos at the hotel usual.”
Trace and Ibrahim hurried across the street, up the steps and over the patio. Trace entered the hotel with a mixed sense of relief and apprehension.
Once inside, Trace looked up and down the hallway as they walked from the large vestibule toward the lobby’s entrance. Nothing seemed out of place to him, at least no more so than the last time he was there stowing Pete’s laptop in the safe deposit box.
“There’s Jenna, waving from across the room,” Ibrahim said. He raised up on his toes and waved back at her.
Trace and Ibrahim threaded their way to the far corner of the room where Jenna stood waiting for them.
Ibrahim took Jenna in his arms and kissed her. “I missed you,” he said. “You won’t believe what happened to us. We’re in serious trouble.”
Ibrahim told Jenna about the close call he and Trace had experienced with the soldiers. She listened without comment or asking any questions.
Trace listened carefully, too, trying to gauge Ibr
ahim’s state of mind from his perception of the events as he related them to Jenna. Trace decided he couldn’t read Ibrahim yet or, for that matter, read Jenna either. He’d have to pay more attention to them.
When Ibrahim finished, Jenna looked at Trace, and said, her sarcasm palpable, “Nice going.”
She looked at Ibrahim again and raised her eyebrows. Then she turned back to Trace, and said, “Now what?”
“I don’t know,” Trace said. “I can’t go back to the condo, although my wife’s alone there.”
“Were you followed?” Jenna said.
“I doubt it. We were careful,” Trace said.
“You both wait here,” Jenna said. “I’ll go outside and light a cigarette. I’ll look around. When I come back in, if I take out this green bandana and wipe my forehead with it, there’s trouble. I won’t come over to you. If I don’t take it out, then we’re okay, and I’ll walk back over.”
Jenna stepped into the sunlight and walked across the patio, around the side of the building. She pulled out her cell phone, punched in a speed-dial number, and waited while it rang.
When she heard her call answered, she said, “It’s me. They’re back at the hotel in the lobby. I don’t know how long I can keep them here. Hurry.”
CHAPTER 69
Quarantine
Day 25
“You had three men with you, an armed HUMVEE, and the resources of this office, yet Austin still got away?”
“Yes, Sir.”
Vista stood up and walked around his desk until he was in front of the major.
“Put out an order to find Austin. I want him arrested. He’s not to be harmed. I want him alive to interrogate. I’ll get to the bottom of what he’s up to or he won’t leave here.”
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