“A red sequin dress, and your hair was pulled up in a bun.”
Shields rolled her window down all the way. “Wow, Joe. It’s so nice to see you again. You look like you’ve finally pulled it together.”
Dunn chuckled and looked down. “Had to quit drinking. It’s changed my life. Well, that and landing a job with an uber wealthy businessman from Seattle.”
“How’d that happen?” Shields asked.
“You know, if you hang out in Seattle long enough, you’re bound to run into a self-made tech billionaire. And if you’re lucky, you buy an unsuspecting one a drink. And if you’re really lucky, he offers you a job.”
“So, what are you doing for this businessman?”
“A little bit of everything. But right now, I’m recruiting.”
“Recruiting? For what?”
“I’m recruiting you,” he said as he fished a business card out of his pocket. He handed the card to her and pointed to his name. “I’m the Director of Operational Excellence.”
“I hate to disappoint you, Joe, but I’ve already got a job.”
“I know,” he said. “And that’s exactly why I’m here.”
“Wait a minute,” she said, eyeing him closely. “So, you just didn’t run into me tonight here in the Al Volo parking lot? You were stalking me?”
“Technically, I was just tracking you down, nothing that sinister.”
She glared at him. “Joe, what’s this all about?”
“My client wants you to help him with something.”
“What is your client’s name?” she said as she glanced down at the card. “I’ve never heard of The Cunningham Group?”
He sighed and looked off in the distance. “We’re a political action firm, but I can’t divulge just yet who my client is.”
“And what exactly does this anonymous boss of yours need help with?”
“There are some things on the internet that we need to have—I don’t know—scrubbed.”
Shields shook her head. “So, you want me to make your scumbag boss look better than he is?”
“It’s not like that. He had some bad press that always comes up first when you search for his name. And all of those articles are full of lies.”
“I’ll take a pass. I’m sure you’ll be able to find some other internet wizard who can help you with all that.”
“Well, there might be some other things you could also help him with.”
She closed her eyes and massaged her temples before responding. “I’m really getting uncomfortable with all this, Joe. I’m gonna leave now.”
He slipped his business card through the window opening. “In case you change your mind.”
She tossed his information onto the seat with all her food. “Nice seeing you again, Joe.”
Shields put the car in reverse and backed out of the parking space. Punching the gas, she headed straight home.
After she parked, she hustled inside and left her food for the moment, deciding to first check in on Black. He hadn’t said a peep over the coms, but that wasn’t entirely unusual when he was in the middle of an operation. But it had been a while since she’d heard anything, too long for her liking.
She opened her computer and zoomed in on his previous position to see if she could find him. Still no sign of him.
Shields was officially worried.
CHAPTER 3
Somewhere in the Indian Ocean
BLACK AWOKE IN a small room with his hands zip tied to the metal bed frame above his head. He jerked against his bindings before realizing he wasn’t going anywhere. Across the room, a window was propped open with a piece of wood, which allowed the noxious fumes from a sputtering engine to waft inside.
As Black attempted to get his bearings, the whole room pitched and rolled. He took a deep breath, inhaling a mixture of diesel and fresh salt water air.
“I’m on a boat,” he said aloud. “Just great.”
He examined all the items in the room and pondered how he might weaponize them. A rickety, wooden chair tucked beneath a desk built into the wall. A lamp. A coat hanger on the back of the door. He had plenty of options. But first, he needed to get free.
The only apparatus keeping his legs in place was a belt strapped around his knees. However, it wasn’t very effective and only took Black a few seconds to slip from underneath. He pushed up with his right knee and pressed down on the mattress with his left, creating just enough space to wriggle free. Then he easily maneuvered his right leg out. Next was the more difficult part.
Despite having been in the CIA and captured on several occasions, he’d never actually had the opportunity to utilize a trick he’d learned in training. One of his instructors demonstrated how friction from a shoelace could weaken a plastic tie and allow a prisoner to break it. The demonstration was fascinating, though Black had never felt the urge to practice it for himself.
I hope that wasn’t some cheap parlor trick.
He rolled backward, hoisting his feet above his head. With his right hand, he tugged at his shoelaces until they became untied. He then unthreaded the laces before tying them off through one hole in his shoe. Then he guided the other end through the plastic tie around his right wrist. Once that was secured, he tied the other end of the shoelace to his other shoe.
Working in a saw-like motion, he created enough friction to heat up the plastic tie and make it weak enough for him to snap it. Once his right hand was freed, he worked quickly to duplicate the action on his left.
After he’d managed to escape, he repositioned the broken ties around his wrist as well as the belt. And he waited.
Around ten minutes later, he closed his eyes as footsteps thundered down the hall toward him. On the other side of the door, keys jangled until they connected with a lock and then sprang it open.
Two armed guards wearing raggedy tank tops and camouflage pants hustled inside.
“Who are you?” Black asked, remaining in place as he feigned fear. “And what are you doing with me?”
One of the men smiled wryly. “Someone wants to speak with you.”
As the man moved toward Black, he surprised the hostage taker, overwhelming him with a direct punch to his throat. Black hopped to his feet and darted behind the other guard before breaking his neck. The stunned guard staggered to his feet only to be met by a vicious blow to the face. Locking the door, Black traded clothes with an unconscious guard closest in size. Black redressed the man, securing him to the frame with rope he found in the closet and then sliding the body of the dead guard beneath the bed.
Black slung one the guns over his back and the other around his neck. He crept into the hallway, staggering to keep his balance as the boat lurched over a wave. After easing down the corridor, he knelt just outside a cracked door leading to the main deck. He waited for a minute, counting all the men who went back and forth. This trawler was clearly used for fishing, but at the moment, it didn’t appear that way. All the men carried weapons and paced back and forth, stopping only to grab the railing when the boat rocked with a swell of water.
Without a watch to tell the time, Black looked skyward. The sun wasn’t that high above the horizon, signaling that he hadn’t been out too long.
Who are these guys? And what do they want with me?
Black was curious and wanted some answers, but not bad enough to stick around to find out.
Sneaking inside, he found the stairs to the pilothouse and tried to assess how many hostiles he had to deal with. He peeked up and heard only two distinct voices. Then Black did the math.
One chained to the bed, three on the deck, two in the pilothouse. I can handle six.
Black coveted the high ground and went after the two men above him first. He didn’t make a sound when he caught them by surprise other than firing his weapon twice, killing both men immediately with head shots.
The gunshots arrested the attention of the other three men on the deck. Black picked off two of them before another one escaped around the corner.
/>
Black raced down the steps and entered the fresh air, his gun trained in front of him. He peered around the corner of the starboard side to see if he could catch the other guard running away, but he was gone. Then Black shuffled to the port side of the deck and peeked to see if he could see the guard.
Still nothing.
Black hustled below deck and heard clattering in a room at the end of the passageway. He went room-by-room, quietly and carefully clearing them all except for the last two. On the left were the quarters he’d come from. On the right, a room he’d yet to enter.
Black weighed his options before he heard a slight creak from the right. He knelt and slowly turned the handle before thrusting open the door.
Bullets peppered the corridor wall. Black waited for a few seconds before leading first with his gun and providing cover. He blindly hit the man once before finishing him off with two more shots, one to the head, the other to his chest.
Across the hall, Black heard shrieks from the man tied to the bed.
Black pocketed his latest victim’s weapon and then made a final sweep of the vessel before returning to his prisoner.
“We need to talk,” Black said. “And we also need to do so with the full disclosure that you’re the only person I’ve allowed to live. So, unless you want to join your former shipmates, I need you to listen closely.”
Black eyed the Maldivian islander as he nodded.
“So, you understand me?”
“Yes.”
“Good,” Black said. “Let’s start with these two questions. Who are you? And where were you planning on taking me?”
“We help provide security for our atoll, moving from island to island,” the man said. “We were just following orders.”
“And—where were you taking me?”
“The man overseeing the observation center hired us. He told us that if we ever caught any Americans, he wanted us to bring them to him right away. He promised to reward us handsomely.”
“How about I give you a new deal,” Black said as he saddled across the chair.
“I’m listening.”
“What is your name?”
“Ahsan.”
“Ahsan, I promise not to kill you if you take me back to the island where we were and tell your Chinese friend that someone from Al-Jaladun did this. How does that sound?”
“I can do that.”
“That’s what I like to hear. Now, let’s get me home.”
* * *
BY EARLY AFTERNOON, Black was in Sri Lanka, preparing to take a flight back to the United States. He figured Shields would be worried about him, but he didn’t want to wake her up too early since she’d been moaning about how tired she was.
At 4:00 p.m., he dialed her number.
“Hello,” she said, groggily.
“Morning, sunshine,” Black said. “Were you worried about me?”
“Black!” she exclaimed. “Are you all right?”
“You didn’t answer my question.”
She sighed. “Of course I was worried about you. I’ve seen you shoot. If your life depends on your gun range skills, I’m always fearful.”
“Glad you woke up with your sarcasm filter on one hundred percent.”
“Oh, that wasn’t sarcasm.”
Black watched as a train of airport vehicles lumbered past the private hangar. “You know, one of these days we’re going to settle this once and for all.”
“Embarrassing men at the range is equally satisfying and painful. Watching you retreat to your caves with your fragile ego shattered is both comical and sad.”
“Maybe I’ll shoot blindfolded to give you a fighting chance.”
She chuckled. “There’s my macho man.”
“I’m regretting having made this call already.”
“You just had to know if I was worried about you.”
Black laughed. “I was on a mission—and I was cut off from contact.”
“Happens all the time.”
“And I was taken captive by six gunmen and placed on a boat in the middle of the Indian Ocean.”
“Apparently, you made it out alive, so the suspense isn’t killing me any longer.”
“In that case, I’ll just write it up in a report and email it to you from the plane.”
“That’d be more fun than listening to you recount your heroic acts of bravery.”
Black bit his lip. Shields was extra punchy today. Perhaps her lack of sleep was wearing on her. Or she was more concerned than she was willing to admit. After a brief pause, he continued.
“Maybe we can talk again after you’ve gotten some sleep,” he said.
“Sorry, I’m a little on edge right now.”
“So, you were worried about me?”
“Yeah, but that’s not the only thing on my mind.”
“What else is eating at you?”
“I got a message about a half-hour ago from one of my contacts at the CIA. You know that undercover operator who gave us all that great information about Al-Jaladun buying weapons from the Chinese?”
“Of course. Randy McPherson, right?”
“That’s the one.”
“What about him?”
“They found him dead yesterday floating in the Bani Khalid River.”
CHAPTER 4
Washington, D.C.
J.D. BLUNT LEANED on his cane as he hobbled up the steps near the Lincoln Memorial. He didn’t really need the help since his knee had healed years ago, but he liked to use the prop in public places. Nobody would suspect an aging old man as a real threat. But Blunt could still run if required, a discipline he practiced every morning before breakfast when he was at home.
He took a seat on the steps and dug into his sack lunch as he watched the tourists drift by. After devouring a couple bites of the sub he’d purchased on his way to the office, he checked his watch. Moments later, Bobby Besserman joined him.
“Don’t you just love autumn in Washington?” the CIA’s deputy director asked as he settled next to Blunt.
“I prefer the spring,” Blunt said.
“Ah, the cherry blossoms. They’re so overrated.”
“I’d trade it for a Capitol Building full of honest representatives if I had the choice.”
Besserman leaned back and chuckled. “J.D., always the comedian.”
“Sadly, it’s not a laughing matter.”
“And unfortunately, there’s not much we can do about that either. However, what we can do is tackle this issue we have brewing in the Middle East with Al-Jaladun.”
“The Executioners?” Blunt said with an exaggerated eye roll. “Don’t we—”
Besserman held his index finger to his lips before fishing out a small device from his pocket. He pressed a button, and a small red light came on.
“We good?” Blunt asked.
“You’re free to speak now without fear of anyone recording our conversation.”
Blunt looked around once more before leaning in and continuing in a hushed tone. “Don’t we know where Al-Jaladun is hiding? We could snap our fingers and take care of them with a quick drone strike.”
“Drone strikes aren’t as effective as we thought they once were, remember? We need to handle these people with a rifle, not a bomb.”
“Without Alsheri, they’d have no access to funds. That ragtag bunch of zealots would disappear from the face of the earth, and no one would shed a tear.”
“And Oman isn’t about to let us do that. It’s the precise reason why Alsheri selected that country for his base of operations.”
“I suppose you have a proposal for how to deal with them.”
Besserman nodded. “You have to speak the only language these people will understand: force. If we strike back, it’ll send a message that we’re not screwing around.”
“And you think that’ll make him back off? Fat chance of that happening. Alsheri is growing his organization daily. He’s also becoming more emboldened by the minute.”
“We’re de
veloping a long-term strategy for how to deal with him, but in the interim, we must prevent Al-Jaladun from obtaining any weapons that could devastate a major metropolitan area.”
Blunt nodded. “They didn’t get any from China yesterday.”
“That we know of. Who knows what went on when Agent Black was captured. My point is we need to be more vigilant. Al-Jaladun is a small player right now, but under Alsheri’s leadership, it has great potential.”
“You think they might become the next ISIS?”
Besserman shrugged. “Maybe. They’ve got funding and cover—and a damn good publicity machine running at the moment.”
Blunt sighed and took another bite out of his sandwich. “So, is this an inside job?”
“We’re still investigating, but it doesn’t appear that way.”
“You mean to tell me one of your agents working under deep cover turns up dead in a river in Oman and it’s just coincidence?”
“I don’t know, J.D. None of this makes sense . Agent McPherson was a pro. He’d been trying to penetrate the Al-Jaladun leadership circle for three years. He would’ve never made the kind of mistake that resulted in his death.”
“Then how else do you explain him getting a bullet in the back of his head? That was definitely a statement killing.”
“I don’t have the answers to that right now. My team is looking into it.”
Blunt took another bite from his sandwich before continuing. “Was your agent getting sloppy?”
“He was the best we had. It’s why he was over there, so I highly doubt that.”
“What about your servers? Were they breached?”
“That was first thing I looked into,” Besserman said. “We’ve had plenty of attacks recently, but no breaches to our firewall in years.”
“Well, I guess that narrows it down.”
Besserman grunted. “To what?”
“An inside job. You’ve got a mole.”
“That’s what I’m most afraid of, but I can’t see that happening either. The handler managing McPherson is one of our most isolated team members. Nobody really knows what he does except for me, the director, and McPherson’s supervisor. And McPherson’s information is fed to the rest of the team as intelligence gathered by outside sources, not one of our own.”
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