by Bill King
Cortez reached for the black sack covering Calderón’s head and yanked it off, taking a handful of hair with it.
“And I’m not the same kid you knew in Caracas twenty years ago, Pelícano. You’re about to get to know a different Pete Cortez, a man who has spent the past fifteen years living in the dark and ugly shadows of war. Up close and personal, not from the comfort and safety of a university café in Caracas. My hunch is that you’re not going to like this person.”
◆◆◆
“There’s nobody here, Graciela,” said the grizzled old man, a veteran of decades working the violent and dangerous streets of Monterrey.
He was speaking over a satellite telephone because the cell service along this stretch of the Rio Grande was virtually nonexistent.
“The SUV is on its side with dozens of large caliber bullet holes ripped through it,” he said in a calm, matter-of-fact voice, as if he was discussing the weather. “Rafael and Marco are dead, both lying beside the vehicle. There’s no sign of either Fósforo or the girl.”
The old man had been sent up to the Rancho by El Indio a week earlier to provide Graciela with a little extra firepower. Just in case, Tio Memo had said at the time. Based on events that night at the barn, and now at the impromptu river crossing site, she would probably need to put the help wanted sign out for dozens more just like him.
She was gaining some firsthand experience on just how dangerous this business can be.
“Look around some more and see if you can locate their bodies,” she said, trying to remain calm despite the circumstances. “I need confirmation, one way or the other. If you can’t find their bodies, we’ll have to assume that they’re both alive.”
The old man, flashlight in hand, spent the next ten minutes scouring the area without success. Finally, he removed his satellite phone from his front pocket and punched the redial button.
“It’s me,” he said. “There’s no sign of either of them.”
“That means whoever ambushed them probably has them now,” said Graciela. “Come on back to the Rancho.”
◆◆◆
Cortez ripped back the Velcro flap that covered the luminous dial on his wristwatch. It was just past one o’clock. He had just finished talking with Gonçalves on one of the compound’s secure telephones and time was not on their side.
The Dallas JTTF had still not been able to locate the nuclear device. They were operating under the assumption the bomb would be located near the Dallas Federal Reserve Bank and were working outwardly from there, like the ripples a rock makes when thrown into a pond.
Gonçalves had told him that Rhonda Shaughnessy—unbeknownst to her lawyer, who had already retired for the evening in anticipation of a seven o’clock interview the following morning—was already being spirited out of the Laredo FBI building as they spoke. She would be flown directly to the same off-the-books compound Cortez and Calderón were now at.
Calderón was being interviewed by a professional interrogator who knew and respected the rules. Cortez remained on the other side of the one-way mirror, listening intently while getting madder and madder by the minute. The Venezuelan was refusing to tell them anything useful.
Instead, he lectured the interrogator on the Marxist dialectic and the inevitability of a worldwide people’s revolution.
“Give me a sixty-second slot, no camera, no audio,” said Cortez to the technician sitting next to him, behind the one-way glass window. “You can cover it with a short bathroom break.”
“Check,” said the woman, a veteran of hundreds of these types of interviews. She knew exactly what to do and, given the stakes, had not the slightest compunction about doing what she knew had to be done. She flipped a switch next to her, which lit a blue light signaling the interviewer to set up a bathroom break.
The interrogator, noticing the blue light, glanced down at his wristwatch and said, “It is now one-fifteen on Sunday morning. We will take a short restroom break and will resume immediately thereafter.”
The interrogator rose from his chair and began walking toward the exit door. As he did so, the tech cut off the audio and video recording. Calderón remained seated, not sure what he was supposed to do. That’s when he noticed Cortez walking into the room.
Pete walked around and stopped right behind Calderón. He calmly jammed his thumb into the Venezuelan’s neck, just below his jaw, causing him to scream in pain. Mateo’s face was red with rage as he sputtered angry invective. The FBI agent grabbed the back of his chair and violently jerked it around to where they were now facing each other.
Calderón was midway through saying something unflattering about his mother when Cortez punched him in the Adam’s apple. Angry words were immediately replaced with desperate gasping for air.
“Listen closely, Firefly, or whatever scary name you have your starry-eyed followers call you these days. In the next twenty or so minutes, your new friend, Rhonda Shaughnessy, will be joining us here at our little hideout. Where we’re located is not important because we won’t be here for much longer.”
Calderón was grasping his neck with both hands, slumped down in his chair and still desperately gasping for air. Cortez reached over and grabbed him by the chin, his thumb digging hard underneath the chin bone.
“Are you listening to me, Mateo? I need you to concentrate on what I’m saying because this next part is really important. Are you listening?”
The Venezuelan was still unable to speak, so he nodded his head.
“Good. So, when Rhonda gets here, the three of us are going to fly up to Dallas.”
Calderón’s eyes grew wide.
“Yes, I know, you just left there and probably aren’t too excited about going back. Well, I gotta tell you, old buddy, I’m not too keen on it myself, especially since I know you left a big surprise for the good people of Dallas.”
Calderón still said nothing. Although he was no longer coughing, he was still desperately gasping for air. His throat would hurt for days, assuming he lived that long, and it felt like Cortez’s iron grip on his chin would eventually rip it off.
“So, here’s the deal, Firefly,” said Cortez, finally letting go of his chin bone. “We’re all going to die—you, me, Rhonda and probably a million or so other people—unless you tell me where it is and when it’s timed to go off.”
Calderón was still massaging his throat when he replied, in a weak, raspy voice, “Besa me culo, Pete.”
◆◆◆
Rhonda Shaughnessy was completely bewildered when Cortez removed the black bag from over her head. She rubbed her eyes as she tried to adjust to the glare from the room’s bright lights, causing her to squint and blink until her eyes finally adjusted.
“Where am I?”
Even in her confusion, she recognized Cortez from the videos intercepted from the CPB feed. Cortez noticed the momentary glint of recognition in her eyes. He pulled up a metal chair and sat down, facing her, not two feet away.
“Good. I see you know who I am, Rhonda.”
“I have no idea …”
He raised his hand up, palm outward.
“Please, Rhonda, let’s not waste our time. It’s not really important but, sometimes, my vanity gets the best of me. Anyway, I felt I’ve been a rude host and I just wanted to let you know that we’re fixing to fly to Dallas in a couple of minutes.”
Again, the eyes. Just for a flicker of time, but it was there. Fear.
“Oh, and we’ve arranged a special treat for you,” he said, a broad smile breaking out across his face. Still, his eyes remained locked on hers. “We’ve arranged for your younger sister—Rebecca, I believe her name is—to meet us in Dallas. By the way, she’s really excited about seeing you. She and your mother are scheduled to arrive at Love Field at seven this morning.”
Again, her eyes betrayed her. She looked genuinely stunned, but the split second it took her to regain her composure confirmed Cortez’s worst suspicions. Zero hour was imminent …. and almost certainly sometime that very d
ay.
He glanced at his wristwatch. “Good Lord, would you look at the time? It’s almost three o’clock. We’d better get a move on.”
Cortez stood up and walked toward the door. That should give her something to think about on the flight up there, he thought to himself, remarkably calm for a man who might also be living his last day on earth.
“Oh, and you’ll have company on the flight up to Dallas. This one I think you’ll recognize. Tall guy, about six-six, speaks English with a Venezuelan accent. We’ve already told him that you’re cooperating with us, so I have to tell you, he’s pretty mad at you.”
◆◆◆
Chapter 39
THE FLIGHT NORTH TO Dallas took a little over two hours, during which time neither Calderón nor Rhonda was permitted to speak to the other. The Venezuelan wore a black hood over his head throughout the entire flight, while they removed Rhonda’s a short time after they were airborne.
She was without question the weak link of the two, the one most likely to break, and they wanted her to experience with all her senses the imminent danger she was in.
They had left the helicopter doors open for part of the ride to enhance the terrifying effect on her. The noise inside the Black Hawk was deafening, but they allowed her to wear ear protectors, which reduced the sound to a mere dull roar. Because of the black hood covering his head, she could not be positive that the man seated on the opposite side of the helicopter was, indeed, Calderón, but he definitely had the same height and body style.
By the time the Black Hawk finally touched down in a remote corner of Love Field, it was already six in the morning and the sun was beginning to peek out over the eastern skyline of metropolitan Dallas. Since it was a Sunday, the traffic was still extremely light, almost nonexistent.
It was the calm before the storm, thought Rhonda. In three hours, this tranquil setting will be transformed into a pile of radioactive rubble. She couldn’t help but think about her little sister. She didn’t mind so much dying herself, but the thought of her ten-year-old sister dying was something else entirely.
Calderón, still wearing a hood over his head, was forcibly dragged from the helicopter first and escorted by two armed FBI agents to a black SUV with dark tinted windows. As soon as he was placed inside, the vehicle took off in the direction of the airport’s air control tower.
“Your friend Fósforo is being taken to a very private place for an equally private conversation,” said Cortez to Rhonda, who had removed her ear protectors now that the helicopter’s engine had been shut down. They were alone now, the two pilots having left moments earlier, headed for flight operations. “As for you and me, we’ve got an hour or so before mom and baby sister arrive, so why don’t we get better acquainted?”
Rhonda said nothing in response, but he could tell by the concerned look on her face that she was thinking. Good, he thought to himself. She looks worried. Still, worried may not be good enough to loosen her tongue. He needed fear. Panic.
“I tell you what, Rhonda. Why don’t the two of us just head downtown right now? I’ll have one of the U.S. Marshalls bring your mom and Rebecca out to meet us just as soon as they arrive. Heck, it’s only about six miles, as the crow flies, from here to there.”
He could tell from her expression that she didn’t like what she had just heard and was furiously weighing her options.
“Look, Rhonda, you and I both know we’re running out of time. If that bomb goes off, the two of us will both be killed and, almost certainly, so will your mother and little sister, Rebecca. Is that something you want to spend eternity knowing? That you could have saved them both, but chose not to?”
For the first time, she spoke. “If I tell you where it is, will you divert their airplane away from here?”
“Just telling me where it’s located won’t be good enough. You’ll have to help us disarm it first. I’m not researching a book here. I’m trying to save lives. A lot of lives.”
For the next ten seconds, neither spoke a word. Cortez waited patiently.
“It’s supposed to go off at nine o’clock this morning,” she said finally, in a halting voice. “That doesn’t give us much time.”
He looked at his watch. It was already six-thirty.
“Where is it, Rhonda?”
“Do you promise my mom and sister will be okay?”
“That’s entirely up to you, Rhonda. If we disarm the device in time, they’ll be fine, just like the other six or seven million people here in the Metroplex. If not …” He left the thought hanging.
After what seemed like an eternity, but was actually only about ten seconds, she finally spoke, her voice cracking.
“It’s in an old abandoned restaurant in the Arts District, less than a mile from the Federal Reserve Bank building. I think the name is The Old Oak Barrel…something like that. It’s on Pearl Street.”
“I hope you understand that, if you’re playing me, this won’t end well for any of us,” he said, his right hand lifting up her chin to look him square in the eye. “Is that really where the device is located?”
Without blinking, she replied, “Yes, I swear it is.”
He removed his cell phone from his shirt pocket and tapped a preset number.
“Hey, it’s me. The device is located at an old abandoned restaurant on Pearl Street that was called The Old Oak Barrel. It’s set to go off at nine this morning.”
He put his phone back in his pocket and motioned to Rhonda.
“Let’s go.”
◆◆◆
The Nuclear Emergency Support Team arrived at the restaurant a couple of minutes before Cortez and Rhonda. The NEST operation had gotten into Dallas on Friday evening and was being staged out of Love Field. This particular four-person response team happened to already be working the downtown area searching for the device when the call came in to meet Cortez at a vacant restaurant on Pearl Street.
Dallas Police were in the process of cordoning off the streets surrounding the empty building when Cortez and Rhonda arrived on scene. The head of the NEST team, a distinguished, scholarly-looking man in his fifties, was waiting outside to greet Cortez. The nametag secured to his windbreaker read CORRIGAN.
“Agent Cortez, I’m Dr. Leonard Corrigan,” the man said. He was dressed in khaki trousers and was wearing a navy-blue polo shirt with an embroidered logo over his heart that read NATIONAL NUCLEAR SECURITY ADMINISTRATION. “We’ve confirmed that the device is indeed inside this building. The digital timer indicates that there are only twenty-five minutes remaining before it detonates.”
“So, what’s the plan?” asked Cortez. “What do you need from me?”
“Well, protocol usually dictates that we would evacuate the device to the staging area at Love Field, but there’s clearly not enough time for that,” said Dr. Corrigan.
“Can you disarm it onsite?”
“God, I sure hope so. I’ve got two of my best engineers in there right now. I just hope they can figure it out in time. The problem is that I’m sure it’s been boobytrapped, so that it can only be disarmed by someone who knows the precise code and sequence.”
Just then, a U.S. Marshal, who looked as if he had not slept in two days—which he probably hadn’t—came through the front door and stepped outside the building. His eyes surveyed the street for a few moments before he headed straight over to where Cortez and the NEST chief were standing.
“Dr. Corrigan, they need you inside,” the marshal said, giving Cortez the once-over.
“Marshal, this is Special Agent Cortez. He’s the FBI agent who tipped us off to the location of the bomb.” Corrigan looked over at Rhonda, who was standing silently beside Cortez. “Am I to assume that this is the person who built the device?”
“Yeah, Doc,” Cortez said simply, forgoing formal introductions.
Cortez glanced down at his wristwatch. It was now eight-forty. Only twenty minutes remaining. He removed the cell phone from his pocket and tapped a preset number.
“It’s me
. Bring Mrs. Shaughnessy and her daughter over here to the restaurant.”
He put the phone back in his pocket and looked at Rhonda.
“Deactivate the device, Rhonda,” he said calmly. “If you were counting on them maybe being safer over at Love Field, you’d better think again. I’ll handcuff the three of you to that damn thing if I have to.”
“I don’t believe you, Agent Cortez. I don’t believe you brought my baby sister to Dallas.”
Cortez removed his phone and tapped the same preset button.
“Put her on the phone,” he said simply, before putting it on speaker so that everyone could hear. Five seconds later, a sobbing voice said, “Rhonda, please don’t do it. Don’t kill all those people.”
“Rebecca, is that really you?”
“Yes, mom and I are on our way,” said the young girl, her voice struggling to regain its composure. “The GPS says we should be there in the next three minutes.”
Rhonda wasn’t positive that the voice on the other end of the phone was, in fact, her sister, so she decided to ask things that only the two of them would know.
“I’m going to ask you a few questions to make sure it’s you,” said Rhonda. “Who is Harry?”
“He was my pet hamster,” replied Rebecca without hesitation. “He died about a year ago.”
That was an easy one, thought Rhonda. Better to try something a little bit harder.
“What movie did you and I go out to see on your tenth birthday?”
“Inside Out,” the young girl replied instantly. “I remember you were surprised that you actually enjoyed it, too.”
The stakes were sky high and Rhonda was almost certain that the familiar voice on the other end of the phone was her little sister. Still, she decided to ask one more question, just to be absolutely positive.
“What was the color of the hairbrush I gave you as a present the last time I was home?”
“It wasn’t a hairbrush. It was a comb and it was yellow,” Rebecca replied, now sobbing uncontrollably. “Please, Rhonda, I don’t want you and mom to die. Please.”