by A. J Tata
What he knew about this part of Brunswick County was that from south to north there was a nuclear power plant, a manufacturing location for a giant food conglomerate, and Military Ocean Terminal Sunny Point (MOTSU), which was an ammunition storage area. And now a Cuban manufacturer of automated cars. What could go wrong? he asked himself.
The Army ammunition supply depot provided most of the munitions for the current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The military stored everything from machine gun ammunition to bunker buster bombs. It was an old facility with poor maintenance, judging by the looks of the facility’s fence adjacent to the new and high-grade Cefiro fence. He looked toward the river and saw that there were full deepwater harbor facilities at MOTSU to load containers onto the ships that carried the ammunition to the wars.
It struck him as odd that a car-manufacturing site was evidently more secure than a major ammunition depot, but to be fair, he hadn’t walked the perimeter of MOTSU. He could see rail lines going in and out of its western side, just as there were for the auto manufacturer. He presumed those rail lines carted the bombs and ammunition from manufacturing plants around the country to this depot for transshipment overseas.
Just as Mahegan was about to inspect the grave-like mounds inside the research and development facility, he saw an SUV in the distance. It was moving fast in his direction, paralleling the fence and keeping to the warning track. Coming from the riverside from north to south was a black SUV, just like the one he had taken from the heliport to the main assembly building in the other part of the compound.
Still four hundred yards away from the R & D building, he turned from the vehicle and stared at the massive structure. At each of the corners on the rooftop was an observation post. He saw movement and caught the glint of a scope, either binoculars or a sniper scope.
The vehicle came to an abrupt stop next to him, tires kicking up dust and pebbles, which smacked against the back of his pants. Rhames stepped out of the passenger side of the vehicle.
“Miss De La Cruz requests your presence immediately,” he said.
“I was just enjoying the walk, Rhames. Can you give me another thirty minutes?” Mahegan figured if he was two miles away, he could make it back in twenty minutes, giving him ten minutes to check out the mounds between the western fence and the R & D building.
“She said immediately. If you don’t come back with me, your card gets deactivated. Right now.”
“Which means what? I have to fight my way out of here?”
Rhames smiled. It was just the two of them. There was no driver. It was the Cefiro SUV model that had driven Rhames. Mahegan imagined that Rhames would be a tough fight. They were equally sized men. Rhames had probably been a paratrooper in the 82nd Airborne Division, as indicated by the DEATH FROM ABOVE tattoo on his neck.
“You don’t want to find out,” Rhames said. “We’re serious about our security here, Mahegan. I know you served in the Army. I did my time in the paratroops. Let’s not get into a pissing contest here, okay?”
“Hadn’t planned on it. What are those mounds over there?” Mahegan pointed at the distinctive humps some three hundred yards away.
“No idea,” he said. “Now, you coming or not?” The back door opened.
Mahegan paused, looked at the mounds, then stepped inside the SUV. The car turned around and followed the path he had taken along the riverfront. They didn’t speak. Mahegan thought about the mounds, which looked exactly like the blast-proof bunkers used to store ammunition, except smaller, like mini Quonset huts buried under the ground.
As they rode, he watched the roof of the R & D building and saw the glint of a sniper’s scope follow them until they were through the gate leading to the main compound. They picked up De La Cruz, made a brief stop in front of the tall glass doors to her factory, and quickly headed toward the tilt-rotor aircraft, its blades spinning. Once they were inside, with headsets on, De La Cruz pressed her transmit button.
“Two more merchant ships sank. These two were the largest in the world. One is now on top of the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel, which connects Norfolk to Hampton. The ship cracked in half, spilling containers everywhere. The other is on the tunnel that goes up to Baltimore. Similar result.”
“That effectively blocks the U.S. Navy in its base at Norfolk, plus the eighth largest container terminal in the country,” Mahegan said.
“You’re missing my point,” she barked.
“No I’m not. Your point is that they skipped the ports of Wilmington and Morehead City, here in North Carolina.” De La Cruz was all about her bottom line. He was sure she had an exclusive shipping deal with the Port of Wilmington that enhanced her cash flow. Tax breaks, incentives, and reduced port costs would have all been in the package to lure a company like Cefiro to North Carolina.
“Maybe these ports don’t do enough business to factor into the equation to disrupt the economy,” she said.
He didn’t think that was the reason but said nothing.
As they were lifting away from the helipad, Mahegan saw hundreds of birds flying in a giant formation, like insects under a floodlight at night in the South. He thought of Misha. Then he thought of the R & D facility Rhames had pried him away from.
“Do you know what goes on in your research and development facility?” he asked.
“Of course. We’re working on the next generation of the autonomous car and other systems, such as airplanes and boats.”
“Who runs your R & D program?”
De La Cruz tilted her head, indicating that she was surprised at his question.
“His name is Francisco Franco. He is my right-hand man.”
“Like the Spanish dictator?”
She smiled and said, “Cute, but no. He’s Cuban, not Spanish. And he didn’t die thirty years ago.”
Mahegan said nothing.
“So do we have a deal?” De La Cruz asked him, referencing her offer of a security job. He had no interest in the job but had a buzz running through his veins that the R & D building was something he wanted to see.
“We do, but I need to get inside your R & D facility.”
“That’s not going to happen, Mahegan. Francisco doesn’t even like me coming in there.”
“Then we don’t have a deal,” he said. As much as Mahegan wanted free access to the compound to do his own research on what had happened to Misha, there was no way he was going to make half a deal.
De La Cruz stared at him for the rest of the flight, her almond eyes locked onto his, studying him. As the aircraft settled onto the roof of the Cefiro office building in downtown Wilmington, she said, “Okay, have it your way. I will get you access one time. We have company secrets in there that not even our consortium of donors knows about. One walk-through and that’s it.”
“Okay, then we have a deal,” he said. “I’ll head over later this afternoon.”
Two facsimiles of Rhames escorted Mahegan out of the building, and only when he was free from the front doors did the security detail release him from their shadow. Even then he knew he wasn’t clear. Mahegan walked to the garage, cranked his Jeep, and drove to Wrightsville Beach’s south end. He parked, stripped off his jeans and boots, tugged on a pair of board shorts, placed De La Cruz’ swipe card in his key pocket, and dove into Masonboro Inlet. He swam parallel to the jetty until he reached one of the channel markers on the north side of the inlet. Bobbing in the water, he held on to the rusty orange buoy. Water slapped him in the face, with the east wind kicking up the chop. He tasted salt and smelled the musty aroma of spawning fish. He removed Ximena De La Cruz’s swipe card and placed it inside a compartment atop the base of the buoy. Used for securing replacement batteries and tools, the metal box was secured with a hasp. There was no lock on the hasp, and the empty compartment was the size of a small tackle box. He swam around the jetty and came to shore from the north side. He looked like any triathlete training for an upcoming event. There were a few surfers out, but they weren’t making many waves. Mahegan saw that th
e winds had picked up today from a different weather system than the hurricane tracking in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.
Back in his car, he made one stop and then drove straight to the hospital. As soon as he pulled up, he saw Casey Livingstone standing just outside the emergency room door where she had initially checked his scalp yesterday. She was talking on a cell phone. She saw him, hung up, and came running toward him.
“It’s Promise,” she said, out of breath.
CHAPTER 8
HE CAUGHT HIS BREATH, FEARING THE WORST. HE COULD FEEL THE flywheel in his mind begin to tighten again, almost to the breaking point.
Casey Livingstone put her hand on his chest. He was sure she could feel his heart beating like a war drum.
“Okay,” he said, steeling himself. “Tell me.”
“She opened her eyes again today, looked around, and asked for you. I was coming out here to call you when I realized I didn’t have your number.”
On the way to the hospital he’d stopped at the drugstore to buy an untraceable cell phone. He gave Casey the number and said, “Let’s go see her.”
“That’s just it. She went back under. The doctors say it’s a good sign that twice she has come out of the coma. Her brain is still swollen, so obviously, she needs more recovery time.”
“Have the police or FBI tried to speak with her?”
“Not yet.”
“They’re in there, though?”
“Of course, but I can get you in the back way, like we left yesterday. They want to know why you’re listed as her next of kin.”
Casey lifted her eyebrows at him. He had been unaware that he was. That was a personal document that Promise must have filled out. Knowing that she wanted him there if she were ever hospitalized, as she obviously now was, resonated with something deep in his core. He genuinely cared about Promise, and perhaps he realized he loved her also.
“News to me. Thought you said I wasn’t?”
“I thought so, too. But the document just showed up this morning.”
“Okay. Then let’s do it,” he said.
Casey grabbed his bicep, as if he were escorting her to a fancy dinner. She guided him through the back entry labyrinth that led to Promise’s portion of the intensive care unit. He checked her chart. They were tracking her on the Glasgow Coma Scale, a measurement to determine the severity of a coma. She had a four on the eye response, meaning she opened her eyes spontaneously, but she had a one on both the verbal and motor responses, meaning she was unresponsive.
“How can she be a one if she’s said a few words?” he asked Casey.
“She’s unresponsive when we talk to her. The few words she has said are unintelligible or gibberish, so the doctor rates her still as a one.”
“What has she said?”
Casey picked up a chart and read from it.
“‘Jake.’ ‘Say food,’ or ‘Thai food.’ And again ‘Jake.’ Does she have something for Thai food?”
“Not that I’m aware of,” he said. He logged away in his mind the multiple interpretations of “say food,” or “Thai food,” and asked, “Who heard her?”
“Nancy Cathcart. She’s a nurse from the morning shift. She should still be here, though.”
Casey left to find her colleague, knowing Mahegan wanted to talk to Nancy Cathcart. He moved over to Promise, whose face was passive, as if she were sleeping. The respirator was doing its thing, pumping in and pulling out, making sure her lungs were getting oxygen. He clasped her limp hand in his own, which was twice the size of hers. His heart ached for Promise and everyone who loved her. He thought about her father and the dozens of missions they had conducted together in Afghanistan and Iraq. Mahegan owed him his life on more than one occasion. Mahegan determined that he owed Thurgood “Judge” White his daughter’s life fully restored. While there had never been a doubt about his mission, everything came into clearer focus for him as he watched a machine keep Promise alive. He realized at that moment that he loved Promise in a deep and personal way.
He heard two sets of footsteps and assumed it was Casey and the other nurse. He walked around the curtain, and Casey was showing the clipboard to a woman about her age, dark-skinned and dressed in scrubs.
“This is Promise’s friend, Jake,” Casey said.
“Hi, Nancy,” Mahegan said. “Thanks for coming.”
“You’re who she called for, I guess,” Nancy said.
“I’m pretty sure of that. My question, though, is can you better describe the phonics of what you heard with the middle words? Say food, or Thai food?”
“That’s what it sounded like. The respirator muffled everything, like she was talking into a tin can. ‘Jake’ was clear enough. The other words, which she said twice, could have been anything from ‘Thai food’ to ‘say food.’ Is this important?”
Nancy had large brown eyes that projected sincerity and concern. He could see she was an excellent nurse, conscientious and thorough.
“I’ve known Promise for a long time,” he said. “She’s a smart woman. If her brain is doing what I think it is, recovering but also wanting to help, then she’s trying to give me clues to something. So those two words are important. For example, are you sure you heard the d at the end of food? Or the f at the beginning?”
“Definitely the f, but not positive about the d. I may have assumed that because it sounded so much like ‘food.’ ”
“What about the first part of the word or the first word, however you think you heard it?” he asked. “Was it two words or one?”
“I definitely heard ‘say.’ It might have been ‘see,’ but I don’t think so. I’m confident in that part. ‘Jake,’ pause, ‘say foo,’ pause, ‘Jake.’ That’s what I’m ninety percent confident I heard.”
“Thanks, Nancy. You’ve been a big help.”
“You’re welcome.” Nancy stepped around the curtain and stared at Promise for a second; then she stepped out and looked at him. “We’re all pulling for her. And the word is out about what you did for those children. You’re a hero.”
“Not a hero,” he said. “We’re still missing Misha, and Promise is in here.”
“We’ll get Promise back to where she needs to be,” Nancy said. “You go work on the other.” With that, she turned and exited the ICU.
“I’ve got to make a phone call,” he said to Casey. “You’ve got my number now. Please call me if anything comes up.”
“See you tonight?” Casey asked.
“Hopefully. I might be pursuing some leads. But you’ll hear from me.”
She paused, looked around, then leaned forward and kissed him on the lips. It was brief and was probably recorded on some camera somewhere, but he didn’t care. She was reaching out to him, and they both needed it. He was still trying to process Promise’s condition and his revelation of deep emotions for her, while Casey, he was sure, was still trying to process Carver’s death in combat.
As Casey held him, he suddenly felt as though he was somehow not being faithful to Promise. He and Promise had never shared a romantic moment, ever. That was not to say that as she became a woman and graduated from college, there had not been a few moments filled with sexual tension. Her graduation. The hug that had lasted longer than either of them had anticipated. Her lips had brushed against his neck, perhaps accidentally. Perhaps not.
And Casey Livingstone was captivating. As she pulled away, his mind took a snapshot of her reddish-brown hair, her mild freckles, and green eyes. This image, though, was something he could tuck away in his brain, the same way he had carried a photo of a girl in his helmet during combat.
“Be safe, Mahegan,” she said.
With that, he was out of the hospital and back in his Jeep. He immediately called Patch, who answered on the first ring.
“Update?” Mahegan asked.
“We’re getting some weird stuff back from the first few ships that sank. The reports of ‘birds’ flying into the ships and exploding is not far off. Like anything, there were a few dud
s, and some divers found two intact ‘birds.’ An airplane is flying them back to Fort Bragg as we speak. Initial assessment is that the explosive compound is hexolite. In the pictures we’ve got of these two things, they are essentially like doves or sparrows, frozen, with their wings out. The beak is long and copper, for penetration, like an RPG. Inside, we’re guessing, is the guidance system. These things fly around like a flock of birds and then descend on the target. Explains the chatter we picked up about Sparrows from the Dark Web. Pretty scary.”
“Roger. Need you to run the words ‘say-foo’ and ‘Thai-foo’ through your system there and see if you get any correlation to anything we’ve got going on here. Promise woke up and said one of those words, along with my name, and then slipped back into a coma.”
“Good sign she woke up, brother.”
“Not good enough yet, but I agree,” Mahegan said.
“Okay, I’ve got it. I’ll keep you up to date. What are you doing next?”
“I know of only one place that makes autonomous anything, so I figure that’s a good place to start.”
“Roger that,” Patch said.
He clicked off with Patch and then saw the Cefiro car staring at him across the parking lot. Its lights flashed at him, as if it were blinking its eyes. It was cherry red, sleek, and powerful. He wondered if De La Cruz was inside, but he had a clear sight line into the front seats. No passenger or driver was evident. As he began to drive out of the hospital parking lot, the Cefiro car also began to move. Every turn Mahegan made, his tail made roughly fifty yards behind him. Mahegan found an off-road trail near the local college, pulled off the main road, placed his Jeep in four-wheel drive, and began to bounce through rough terrain.
In his rearview mirror, Mahegan saw the Cefiro car stop at the first large mud puddle. He saw the glint of a lens move in each direction, perhaps a camera looking for a way around. The lights flashed, and then the car backed up and drove away.
Mahegan arrived at U.S. Route 17, half expecting the Cefiro car to have figured out his path and to greet him at the exit, but if it had done so, he didn’t see it. He continued driving toward Carolina Beach and parked his Jeep at a veterans’ park. The sun was low on the horizon, and he needed to wait an hour before he took a swim. He passed the time by going over his notes in his head, thinking through the events as they had occurred. He kept coming back to the autonomous angle as some type of common denominator. The sparrows or doves that attacked the ships. The cars that attacked the school. The ambulance, maybe, that stole away with Misha. The Cefiro car that seemed to be stalking him like a leopard.