Patriot

by A S Bond

  They shook their heads.

  “Right. A Security Response Team is on its way, but until it arrives, we need to stay here. Which means you guys just have to stay put for a while.” He gave them a brief smile, then left.

  At that moment, his radio crackled, and Brooke watched through the door, which was open just a crack. Pearson stopped and listened, frowning.

  “On whose orders?” he snapped. Then the door swung shut with a clang as the cutter tipped in the swell.

  “You okay?” Dex leaned over to her and took her hand. “You doing all right there?”

  Brooke nodded, wondering why she suddenly felt like crying. A tear slipped down her face, and Dex put his arms around her.

  Through the single porthole, Brooke could see an occasional flash of light, but then the low rumble of the cutter’s engines developed a new dimension; a deeper note that grew until it swelled and rolled around their little room, making Brooke’s head feel like there was a hammer inside it. She threw off the blanket and ran to the porthole.

  “What the hell is that?” she said. Behind them, the corridors echoed to the sound of running feet and shouted commands. Standing on her toes, Brooke could just see out, and at first there was nothing but darkness, then bright lights, then darkness again. A searchlight raked the side of the cutter, then the silent Marie Louise. The rumbling got louder.

  The sound of heavy artillery firing dropped Brooke and Dex to the floor, their hands over their ears. A huge boom followed, rocking their little cabin and throwing Brooke across the floor and into the wall. Dex scrambled over to her and wedged them both into the corner. The night sky just visible through the porthole turned orange with flame as a massive explosion rocked the Coast Guard vessel. Brooke looked at Dex.

  “That can’t be the Marie Louise firing back, can it?”

  “No! They only had small arms and the weapon - and if they’d set that off, we’d know about it!”

  The endless gun-metal gray of a battleship filled the little window. Brooke’s eyes widened.

  “I think it’s the Goddam Navy out there.”

  An explosion followed the second boom, then another. Brooke heard distant screams. The Coast Guard vessel began to reverse, the engine sound rising as it churned backwards through the water.

  Dex ran to the door and tried the handle, but it was locked. He was heading back to the porthole when they were both knocked off their feet by another explosion, and that one sent their ship yawing crazily from side to side. The night outside turned from black to white, and then to orange.

  Dex said, “I think they’re blowing the Marie Louise out of the water!”

  Brooke thought, That makes no sense; they’re destroying evidence.

  They sat together, their backs to the wall, listening to the battle. It was over quickly; one largely unarmed yacht was no challenge to a fully armed naval frigate.

  A few minutes later, the door opened and a man entered the cabin. He was about forty, with thinning hair and a moustache that threatened to engulf his entire mouth. But his suit was immaculate, as were his shoes. Brooke pulled away from Dex and stared, but he barely glanced at them as he read from some kind of handheld device.

  “Brooke Kinley and Dexter Adams?” No preliminaries, then.

  “Who are you?” asked Dex. Brooke could tell from his tone that he also had taken a dislike to the man’s manner. “You’re from the Security Response Team?”

  The man looked up.

  “Can you confirm your names?” They both admitted who they were.

  “You need to come with me,” he said, and he opened the door to reveal two other anonymous men in suits. He stood aside to let them pass. Brooke didn’t move.

  “Does First Officer Pearson know about this?” she asked.

  “The captain has been informed.” At that moment, Brooke saw Pearson behind the two men in the passageway.

  “Mr. Pearson, who are these men?” she asked.

  Pearson hung back.

  “They’re from National Security,” he muttered. “They’ve come to take you to Washington and debrief you.” His eyes flickered over the unnamed man nearest to him. “This is a matter of extreme importance, as you know. It is necessary that we learn everything we can as soon as possible.”

  With that, he turned and walked away, leaving Brooke and Dex with the men. Resigned, she pulled her blanket tighter and followed Dex out the door, the automaton following close behind them.

  A small motor boat waited at the ramp of the cutter, and Brooke stumbled down into it. The seats were open to the sky, and the chilly night air revived her a little. Dex sat next to her and took her hand under the blanket, squeezing it once. She gave him a small smile.

  They roared away from the Coast Guard cutter. As they swung around, the place where the Marie Louise had been was empty, save for patches of burning oil and debris. Beyond, the massive bulk of a U.S. Navy frigate blocked out the night sky, making the Coast Guard ship seem tiny.

  “They sank her,” Brooke whispered to Dex. He said nothing, glancing meaningfully at their keepers.

  They didn’t turn upriver as Brooke had assumed, but headed instead towards the nearest land, where a point of light quickly resolved itself into a pair of headlights on a waiting car. With a formal politeness that left little doubt about their choices, or lack thereof, the men guided Brooke and Dex to the vehicle, where they slid onto the rear seat. Brooke could smell the leather. New. The man who had spoken to them onboard the cutter sat in the passenger seat.

  “Where are we going?” Dex asked, his voice suddenly too loud in the night.

  “To Washington, for debriefing.”

  Brooke and Dex looked at each other. What other option did they have?

  Chapter 33

  “Sir, we have a top level terror line coming in from the US.”

  David, who had been standing at his fifth-floor window watching the early morning boat traffic on the Thames, spun around and tapped at his computer without bothering to sit. He scanned the information rolling across his screen.

  “Put it into the ops room, and raise the terror alert to maximum. Get the notification out to all ports immediately. Briefing in ten.”

  “Sir.”

  “And get me Menwith.”

  David turned on the television hanging on the far wall of his office. With one eye on it and the other on the computer, he flicked through the global news channels. Nothing yet. But it wouldn’t be long. The phone rang; it was the UK’s listening station for Five Eyes at Menwith Hill, in Yorkshire.

  “Bob, do we know anything more than the Americans are telling us?”

  “Not very much at this stage, sir.” The voice at the other end of the line was clipped, military.

  “We know the US Navy has been on the scene as well as the Coast Guard, but that is to be expected, given the location of the hi-jacked vessel.”

  David kept one eye on the messages appearing on his terminal as he spoke.

  “Any names on the watch lists?”

  “No , sir.”

  “Are we sure it is the missing British vessel?”

  “Yes, sir, but no mention of any British personnel on board.”

  “That’s something, at least.”

  “It seems there were two American civilians, though. No names that we have, but almost certainly a man and a woman. We think she’s a journalist. It’s being kept quiet; Homeland Security has got them.”

  David jerked upright. “That all we have?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Thank you.”

  It was evening in Washington when David called Scott on his private number. Scott was on the way home in the government car, and when his phone vibrated, he made sure the partition was tightly closed before he answered.

  David thought Scott sounded as if he’d been wakened from a deep sleep.

  “Scott, are you in on this?”

  “What?” Scott’s voice was distant, confused. David tried to reign in his irritation.
<
br />   “Don’t tell me you’re asleep in the middle of all this!”

  “I’m not. How do you know about Mike?”

  “What?”

  “Mike. They got him. Novichok.”

  There was a beat. David spoke again. Tense. “Is he dead? “

  “Not quite. The doctors are running toxicology for confirmation, but we know what it is.” Scott was getting angry now that the shock was receding. “He went down like he’d been shot. What the fu - “

  “Scott!”

  “It’s too much of a coincidence. He took the Iran/Maynard connection to the top at Langley first thing this morning and now he’s lying in a hospital quarantine ward? There’s someone on the inside, David, and when I find that bastard - “

  “Scott! “

  “What?” Scott, focused on his own tragedy, barely heard him.

  “You’ve got bigger problems in D.C. right now. Someone just tried to take out the entire city.”

  The line crackled in the silence. Scott didn’t seem to be taking any of it in. David’s TV screen showed a red band across the images. Newsflash.

  “It seems it was another 9/11 style attack, designed to bring the whole of Washington to a halt. They think it was some kind of electro-magnetic weapon, loaded onto a ship. Your Coast Guard found it in Chesapeake Bay, minutes from detonation.” David cut the mute to hear how much the press had gotten hold of. “Put your TV on, Scott.”

  “I can’t right now. Tell me what’s happening.” Scott al last sounded awake. On the screen in David’s office, an excited newscaster read off her teleprompter, stumbling a little as images flashed up of planes being grounded, and the National Guard being mobilized. Fighter planes roamed the darkened skies above Washington.

  “You need to get on this, Scott. I think we may be looking at Phase Two.”

  “Christ.”

  “I have to go right now; I’ve got a briefing with the Minister and the Joint Intelligence Committee. But Scott, I called you because if this is Phase Two, and if - if - you are right about there being a traitor inside the Administration, not only are you in really hot water - “

  “You don’t need to tell me that.”

  “ - but your American journalist friend could be in really big trouble.”

  “Brooke? Why?”

  “We’ve picked up a signal intercept from your guys on the ground; the press don’t know, but there was a female American on board that hi-jacked ship.”

  “What?”

  “A journalist. I think it might have been Brooke, and if you’re right about all this, she’s in a whole world of trouble. Find her, Scott, or whoever took out Mike will get there first.”

  Chapter 34

  The darkness of the countryside around the bay quickly gave way to the acid orange of empty parking lots and strip malls of Washington’s outer suburbs. Brooke watched the streets scroll past the rear window and felt Dex squeeze her hand under the blanket she still clutched over her damp clothes. She was bone-tired. The two men in suits sat in the front, not speaking.

  Gradually though, a warning note broke through the blur of exhaustion as Brooke’s mind caught up with what her eyes were seeing. They hadn’t taken the bridge, and the streets were getting smaller and shabbier, when they ought to be close to downtown by now.

  “I thought we were going to Homeland Security?” Brooke sat forward and put her hand on the shoulder of the man in the passenger seat. “This isn’t the way; we’re still in Virginia. What’s going on?”

  “That’s just the central offices. We like to debrief somewhere a little more - private.” The suit barely turned his head, but his dark eyes swivelled towards her.

  “Where are you taking us?”

  “Sit back, please Ma’am.” he said. The driver didn’t even glance in her direction.

  “But - “

  “Ma’am.”

  Brooke leaned back, shooting Dex a worried look. What the hell was going on? Dex shrugged, a heavy frown settling on his face. He held Brooke’s hand tightly and she didn’t pull away.

  The car pulled up in a small lot behind an anonymous concrete office building in what looked like an industrial park. The driver cut the engine, then get out and walked around to open her door. Brooke climbed stiffly out of the car. This definitely wasn’t the D.C. of chauffer-driven cars and five-dollar lattes.

  The suits ushered her and Dex through a windowless metal door into a hallway, and the building seemed empty at first. A single bulb illuminated a threadbare brown carpet and grubby walls. Then a door at the far end opened to reveal a small, neat woman in her early fifties, wearing a pencil skirt and fussy blouse. She indicated that they should enter, and she followed them as they walked through two more rooms full of cheap desks and filing cabinets.

  Brooke thought the place looked like the office of some ambulance-chasing lawyer.

  Without warning, Brooke swung around and confronted the woman, forcing her to stop too closely. For moment, neither woman said anything. Then Brooke said, with as much authority in her voice as she could gather,

  “I assume that Scott Jensen has been informed? “The woman took a step back.

  “He’s on his way.” One of the men spoke from the doorway, where they had paused.

  “Really? I’m surprised you would drag the Deputy Head of Network Warfare Ops out here in the middle of the night,” Brooke said. “Why don’t you let me use your phone, and I’ll give him a call?”

  “That won’t be necessary, Ma’am.” The second man, their driver, now spoke for the first time.

  “I don’t care what you think is necessary. I demand that I be allowed to call him. Now.” Brooke tried to choke back the strident note in her voice. “We are witnesses, after all. Not suspects.”

  “Hell, we just saved your Goddam necks,” Dex added, stepping in front of Brooke. He strode through the office the way they had come, forcing the woman to back up against a desk as he passed. The two men stayed in the doorway, only turning to block his exit at the last moment.

  “What the fuck?”

  Before the situation could turn ugly, the outer door opened and another man entered.

  “Thank you, Lopez, Cartwright.” The two drivers nodded and stepped aside for the man who was clearly their superior. Probably no more than 55 years of age, and graying only slightly at the temples, he was a heavy man, bordering on fat, but he carried the weight well in his large frame. He wore an expensive overcoat, and a gold watch flashed discreetly as he reached out to shake Dex’s hand.

  “I must apologize for those two. They’re not authorized to do anything but - look after you.”

  “And you are?”

  “Call me Martin.”

  “That doesn’t answer the question.” Dex looked at the outstretched hand and back at Martin, without moving. “I don’t think we want to stay here any longer. Unless you take us downtown and call Scott Jensen right now, you can forget any cooperation from us.”

  “I really don’t think you are in any position to bargain.” The warmth left Martin’s voice. “Taken from a hijacked ship, weapons found, known terrorists killed....you’re lucky you’re not being charged. Yet.”

  There was a pause as all three stared at each other. Then,

  “Why don’t we have some coffee, get this debriefing out of the way, and we can take you home. You looked pretty whacked.” The bonhomie was back. “Marcie, put the coffee over on that table, thanks.”

  Brooke spun round to see that the woman had produced some instant coffee from somewhere while their backs were turned and was setting out steaming mugs on a desk, with sugar, cream and a plate of pastries. The scent of it made her instantly hungry; it had been a long time since she’d eaten.

  Reluctantly, she moved toward the table, with Dex behind her. She picked out a pastry, and sat down with it and a mug of coffee. The pastry wasn’t bad, and she was very hungry. Sipping at the scalding coffee, she glanced up to see Martin watching her.

  Dex was already on his second
apple turnover, so Brooke drank some more coffee and considered getting another pastry. The whole thing felt surreal, sitting in an office somewhere, drinking instant coffee, after everything that had happened over the past week. She felt disconnected from everything.

  Suddenly, she felt her bravado slip, and tiredness crept across her like a rising tide. Brooke put the Danish she’d been sampling back on her plate and yawned.

  “This should be waking me up, not -”

  A cup smashed as Dex slumped forward, the turnover slipping from his hand and landing on the concrete floor with a wet slap. He was asleep.

  “What the -?” Brooke pushed away her cup, but it felt like she was moving under water. She shook her head, trying to dispel the fuzziness .

  “Why don’t you have a little nap too?” Martin said, with a smile.

  Brooke blinked and shook her head again, slowly. Alarm bells went off in her head, but she couldn’t force herself to concentrate. Martin’s smile danced and taunted her, an arm’s length away.

  “Do finish your coffee.” The smile was menacing now, more teeth. Oh God, she thought, I’m losing it. Brooke tried to stand. At least, her brain gave the command to stand. Something clattered behind. Her chair? She needed to get out. Lopez and Cartwright had disappeared and the door stood open. Brooke swayed a moment, then lunged for it, her fingers finding the smooth handle. All she had to do was turn...

  Strong hands gripped her upper arms, pinning them to her sides. She heard a scream, which she assumed was her own.

  “You should have drunk all your coffee like a good girl,” Martin said in her ear. But adrenaline was beginning to win the battle against the drugs now, and she stamped down hard on the bridge of Martin’s foot. She heard a sharp intake of breath and his grip loosened for a split second, allowing Brooke to wrench her shoulder free. She rammed her elbow into his face, and blood spurted on her sleeve, but Martin grabbed her again and he threw her against the door.

  The scent of gardenias confused Brooke for a moment. Was it just her muddled brain? No, Marcie was beside her now, her fragrant neatness and demure manner somehow more menacing than Martin’s violence. What was that in her hand? Brooke recognised the flash of silver as a hypodermic needle the moment before it pierced the skin on her neck. She screamed again, and kicked back with as much force as she could manage, but the tide had finally reached her eyelids.