Rendition Protocol

by Nathan Goodman

  Cade closed his eyes. “And found he was DEA. So now we know he’s alive.”

  “Bill,” Jana said, “You’ve got to authorize it. You’ve got to send a team in here to get him out.”

  “Tried that already,” Uncle Bill replied. “It’s more complicated than that.”

  “Dammit, Bill!” Jana said, “How complicated can it be? Kyle is being held by a drug lord and we’ve got to get him out.”

  “Jana,” Bill said, “I just got off a call with the national security advisor. I got stonewalled.”

  “Politics,” Stone said as he shook his head.

  Bill continued. “Jana, I believe you. But that isn’t enough. Something big is about to happen and I have no idea what it is. No one is going to upset the balance.”

  Jana’s face began to pale. “Bill, I’m not going to sit here and let Kyle die. I don’t give a shit what the political stakes are.” Her breathing accelerated.

  “You alright, Jana?” Cade said.

  She walked toward the monitor and leaned in. “I’m not leaving him, Bill. I’m not leaving him.”

  Cade took her by the shoulders and eased her into a chair.

  “I’m on your side, Jana,” Bill said. His voice was calm, reassuring. “I am. But there’s nothing I can do. My hands are tied.”

  There was a certain anger in her tone. “Don’t you do that, Bill,” she replied. “He’s one of us. This is Kyle we’re talking about.”

  Bill looked away. After a moment, he spoke. “I know who we’re talking about. Kyle is family to me.”

  Jana’s jaw muscles tightened. “I’ll do this alone if I have to,” she said. “But it won’t look like a surgical team went in and pulled him out carefully. It’ll look like a damn car bomb went off.”

  Bill squinted into the monitor. “Something happened, didn’t it? Something else happened when you went to see Rojas.”

  The woman at the estate screaming from behind plate glass flashed in Jana’s vision, but she said nothing.

  Stone said, “Bill, we’re going to have to access the teams regardless.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Jana’s been hired by Rojas to take out the head of Oficina de Envigado. She can’t go murder the guy. We have to activate an extreme rendition protocol. Jana will lure him somewhere private, and the team will sweep in and take him.”

  But, from behind Uncle Bill and Knuckles, a man in the NSACommandCenter walked forward. He wore a dark suit and tie. “There will be no rendition,” the man said as Uncle Bill turned to him.

  Jana squinted at the monitor. “Son of a bitch.”

  29

  CIA Spoilage

  “Who the hell is that guy?” Stone said, but Jana and Cade knew.

  “Nothing like another Virginia farm boy to brighten a girl’s day,” Jana said as she crossed her arms.

  The man’s hands remained in his suit pockets, as if he were talking to friends at a wedding reception. “There will be no rendition team. Nor will there be a team to extract Agent MacKerron.”

  Stone threw his arms into the air and yelled at the monitor. “Who the hell do you think you are?”

  “And you, Agent Baker,” the man said, “You will stand down. There will be no bombs going off inside the estate of Diego Rojas.”

  Uncle Bill removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “Stone, let me introduce you to Lawrence Wallace, the recently appointed CIA assistant deputy director, National Clandestine Service, CounterTerrorismCenter.”

  “This is a CIA agenda?” Jana barked. “You’re the one stonewalling this? What could be so important you’d leave a man behind? What is it this time? CIA wants to run coke for the Antiguan rebels? Sell arms to Al Qaeda so they can fight ISIS? Launder money for the—”

  “That’s enough, Jana,” Bill said.

  Lawrence Wallace’s smile was polite yet condescending. “I’ll not grace your comments with a reply, Agent Baker.”

  “I’m not an agent anymore. If you call me that one more time,” Jana said behind a pointed finger, “I’m going to fly back there and rip out your Adam’s apple and hand it to you.”

  Wallace smiled. “A pleasure to see you, as always.” He walked out of view of the monitor.

  Stone glanced at the others. “What the hell just happened?”

  Bill replied. “It’s like I said. There’s something else at play here, and I intend to find out what it is.”

  30

  Best Laid Plans

  NSA War Room, Fort Meade, Maryland.

  “Sir?” Knuckles said as he burst into the room. Uncle Bill stopped midsentence. He and a dozen other men, all military commanders seated around the long, oval table looked up. “Oh, sorry.”

  Bill exhaled. “Well that’s okay, son. It’s not as though this briefing is about national security matters. In fact, we were discussing knitting patterns.”

  Knuckles swallowed. “Yes, sir. There’s something you should see. Right now, sir.”

  Uncle Bill said, “Won’t you excuse me, gentlemen? Duty calls.”

  Bill kept pace as Knuckles speed-walked into the vast command center. “It’s here, sir, on monitor seven,” he said as he pointed to one of the myriad of oversized computer screen suspended from the high ceiling. “There, in the center of the screen.”

  “What am I looking at?”

  “Laura?” Knuckles said to a woman across the room. “Can you zoom that up a bit?”

  As the satellite view on the monitor zoomed closer, it revealed a small boat about seventy-five yards from a shoreline.

  “Nice Whaler,” Bill said, “I don’t suppose you called me out of a meeting with the joint chiefs to show me your vacation plans.”

  “No, sir,” Knuckles replied. “These images are coming from one of our spy sats, the NROL-55, codenamed Intruder. It’s in geosynchronous orbit with a cover mission of ELINT or ocean surveillance, but we repurposed it to—”

  “Knuckles!”

  “Yes, sir. We’re looking at Hawksbill Bay, Antigua.”

  “And?”

  “Laura? A little closer please.” The image on the monitor zoomed until it appeared to hover about fifty feet above the craft. The resolution was impeccable. The bright white of the boat’s deck shone back at them as it bobbed in the calm surf. The sole occupant, a male, raised a long set of binoculars to his face. “He’s doing surveillance, sir.”

  “Wait, Hawksbill Bay? Our safe house?”

  Knuckles said nothing but the inference was well understood.

  “Christ. Knuckles, get me a secure uplink to the safe house.”

  “That’s just it, sir. I’ve tried that already.”

  “No joy?”

  “It wouldn’t even go through. The comlink is offline.”

  “That’s impossible,” Uncle Bill said as he walked to a laptop station and sat.

  “Right here,” Knuckles said as he pointed to the computer monitor. “I tried the satellite three times, and then I ran this. Take a look at the diagnostics.”

  Bill studied the readout. “The satellite is there alright. And look, it’s operational.” Bill studied the information further. “All systems are online. And we were on a call with the safe house, what, an hour ago? What’s the problem?” But then Bill sat upright and slammed a fist onto the desk. “That son of a bitch.”

  “Sir?”

  Bill stood. “Those pricks have cut the uplink.”

  “Who? Who cut the uplink?”

  “No one outside the highest levels of our intelligence services have access to it.” He picked up a phone, dialed a number, and said to Knuckles, “They’ve cut the uplink and now we’ve got a rogue on our hands.” He spoke into the receiver. “Get me DEA Special Response Team at Point Udall, US Virgin Islands.” He waited a moment as his call was connected. “Commander? This is William Tarlton, NSA clearance code kilo alpha one one niner six zulu eight. I’ve got a priority target on Antigua. Put your assets in the air and expedite. You’ll receive routing and an assignment package in
flight. This is not a drill, Commander. Affirm?” He hung up the phone and looked at Knuckles.

  “I still don’t understand who cut the uplink.” But the moment the question left his lips Knuckles knew the answer. “Oh my God.”

  31

  A Rogue

  NSA Command Center.

  “CIA?” Knuckles said. “But why would CIA cut our comsat?”

  Bill was way ahead of him. “Knuckles, I need a flight plan for DEA and our estimated time to intercept.”

  “Sir, we’re really sending a team in? We’re going to need authorization from the president to invade Antigua, aren’t we?”

  “You let me worry about that. And it’s not an invasion, it’s one team.”

  “Try telling that to the Antiguan foreign ministry.” The kid banged away on his laptop. His keystrokes sounded like gunshots. “It’s two hundred and twenty nautical miles from the DEA station on the US Virgin Islands to Antigua,” Knuckles said as he began talking to himself. “Let’s see, DEA has a Gulfstream IV down there, so . . . max V-speed is 0.88 Mach, which is, what is that? About 488 knots, right? But I doubt they push it quite that hard, so, say 480 knots, give or take. That’s 552 miles per hour, which puts them at V. C. Bird International in Antigua about forty minutes after takeoff, depending on how fast they get to max. Plus we’d have to account for the time it takes them get to the plane in the first place—”

  “That’s way too much time,” Uncle Bill said. “If the rogue in that boat is a spotter, he could have already called whichever damned cartel he works for, and they could have people on the way. Call Cade’s cellphone.”

  “But, sir,” Knuckles said, “It’s not a secure line.”

  “I don’t give a damn. I want them out of that place right now.” Bill began to pace. “That asshole could be anybody.”

  “The other possibility—” Knuckles offered before again being cut off.

  “What if he’s working for Rojas?” Uncle Bill continued, oblivious to the boy. “That would mean Cade and Stone would be compromised, not to mention the fact that Jana’s cover would be blown for sure. You still got eyes on him?”

  “Of course we do, sir. But there’s one thing you’re not—”

  “If we have to do a hot extraction, there’s going to be hell to pay, but at this point, I really don’t give a shit.”

  “Sir!”

  “What is it, Knuckles. Dammit, son, spit it out.”

  “What if the DEA strike team grabs the guy in the boat, but it turns out he’s CIA?”

  32

  Unintended

  Safe house, Gray’s Farm Main Road, Hawksbill Bay.

  Stone pushed his shades onto the top of his head and flopped onto the couch. “This is a real hassle. Who is that prick?”

  Jana had had enough and disappeared into a back bedroom.

  Cade said, “Lawrence Wallace is a company man. I’ve had dealings with him in the past.”

  “Yeah?” Stone said. “Without a rendition team, how are we supposed to make Jana’s assignment, Carlos Gaviria, disappear? I mean, the three of us? It can’t be done.”

  “I thought you were a hotshot Army Delta Force operator, no less.”

  “I’m serious. You stopped and thought about what it takes to pull off something like this? With a rendition team, it wouldn’t be so bad. Jana could lure the guy into a private room where he thinks he’s going to get a little ooh-la-la with her. They’d pop in and jam a needle in his neck so fast, by the time he felt the sting, the drug would have him halfway to unconsciousness. Then the team would whisk him into a van and he’d be gone. Next stop, Guantanamo Bay. But this . . .” Stone shook his head.

  Cade shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s got to be something we can do ourselves.”

  “How long have you been sitting in that cubicle?”

  “Hey, Stone, screw you,” Cade said. “I’ve been in the field before.”

  “Good, because we’re going to need it. But you’re not thinking this through. Gaviria won’t be alone. He’s the Oficina de Envigado’s number one on the island. He’ll have protection. And by protection, I don’t mean he’ll be carrying a condom.”

  Jana stood in her bedroom doorway and said, “Two ex-boyfriends talking about condoms. Can this get any worse?”

  Stone stood. “Jana, you don’t look so good.”

  “Thanks a lot,” she replied. “Cade, I had to rush out of my bungalow. You have any Advil?”

  “Sure. My stuff’s in the other bedroom. Outside pocket of my bag.”

  She disappeared into Cade’s room.

  Stone walked closer and lowered his voice. “It’s getting worse.”

  “I know it is.”

  “No, man. I mean, I’ve been with her for close to a year and I’ve never seen it this bad.”

  “She didn’t show signs of PTSD before?”

  “Sure she did. It’s just that she had better control of it. But this, it’s like she’s going to blow at any second. You can see it in her eyes.”

  “You some kind of psychological expert?” Cade’s assertion was condescending.

  “Happens to a lot of guys. I’ve seen it. We’d come back from a long deployment. It’s a tough thing to cope with. The human being is not meant to handle a war zone. What happened to her, anyway?”

  Cade crossed his arms and squinted. “You were with her a year and she never told you? Doesn’t sound like you had much of a relationship.”

  “Kiss my ass. She left you, as I recall. And that had nothing to do with me. You know, I’m tired of your crap. When I met her, she was eager to learn. So I taught her. She would never quit, and that’s when I knew. She was driven by something she’d been through. Now what was it?”

  “If she didn’t tell you, I’m sure as hell not going to.”

  “I’m not the enemy, Cade. We’re on the same team, if you hadn’t noticed.”

  “I don’t have time for this,” Cade said. He looked at the laptop. “And why hasn’t NSA called in again?”

  Stone looked at his watch. “Maybe they’re busy.”

  “Uncle Bill is the best there is. He doesn’t get busy.” Cade sat at the laptop and clicked a few keys. He squinted at the monitor. “What the hell?”

  Stone leaned in. “What’s wrong?”

  “The satellite,” Cade said as he pointed to a tiny icon of a spinning globe in the upper-right corner of the screen. The globe was dark.

  “What about it?”

  “When the connection is hot, the globe is bright green. It’s like it’s not there. Shit, we’ve lost connection.”

  “Well,” Stone said, “if it’s anything like Wi-Fi—”

  “It’s nothing like Wi-Fi. A stable connection like that doesn’t just drop. It’s in geosynchronous orbit. The satellite stays in the same position at all times. And it’s not like we’re mobile, or there’s interference from a storm system. Let me run diagnostics.”

  “You bite my head off like that again, and you and me are going to have a problem. Geosynchronous orbit. I’ll show you geosynchronous orbit.”

  “Hey, Delta Force boy, you just stick to your side of the mission, I’ll stick to mine.” Cade then muttered something under his breath.

  “What was that?”

  “I said, you wouldn’t know your Wi-Fi from your Bluetooth from your BGAN from your VSAT.”

  “What a pencil neck. Think you know your shit, do you? Let me ask you a question. In an M84 flashbang, is the pyrotechnic charge a subsonic deflagration or a supersonic detonation? No? What’s the muzzle velocity and max range of the .338 Lapua Magnum when fired from an M24A3 Sniper Weapon System?” Stone waited but Cade just looked at him. “Yeah, you know jack shit.”

  Cade squared off in front of Stone, his jealousy and anger having gotten the best of him. Then from the back bedroom, Jana yelled, “What is this?” The men turned to find her standing in the doorway.

  Stone said, “Nothing, babe. Just a gentleman’s disagreement.”

  Her eyes w
ere locked on Cade. “I said, what is this?” In one hand she held a box of candy. In the other, a stack of standard-sized envelopes bound together with rubber bands. The bundle was about four inches thick.

  Cade’s mouth dropped open.

  Jana marched up to him and shoved him into the chair.

  “Speak.”

  “Uh, those?” he said. “I was going to tell you about those.”

  “When?” she barked. “This isn’t just a box of candy. This is marzipan. You know I love these. You know I used to get them when I was a kid. What did you think? That because you brought me marzipan, it was going to bring up all those memories, and we were going to be a couple again?”

  He sat stunned.

  “And these?” She held out the stack of letters. “These are letters from my father! When were you going to tell me about these?” She tore into the stack. “And look at them. From the postmark, he’s been writing me letters for the last nine months. And I’m just now finding out about these?”

  Cade stuttered but then his voice turned. “You were gone. You disappeared, remember? You left. Stopped paying rent on your apartment, no notice of where you were going or when you might come back. What did you think would happen to your mail?”

  “I didn’t give a shit what might happen to my mail or the lease on the apartment or any of it.”

  “Then stop screaming at me about a stack of letters from your father. You never told me you were in touch with him in the first place.”

  Stone said, “Wait, why wouldn’t she be in touch with her father?”

  A salty silence permeated the space.

  Cade finally replied, “Because he’s been in the federal pen her whole life.”