by Glen Robins
“Do you think something’s wrong, Henry?”
“I don’t know what to think. It’s just unusual, isn’t it, for him to bring her into the conversation when we never mentioned anything about her to him or anyone at the FBI as far as I can remember.”
Sarah thought for a moment. “No, I think you’re right. I don’t remember ever saying anything to him or McCoy about Emily.”
They rode in silence for several long minutes until they reached the onramp to the 405 Freeway and began heading south. “How would they know about her?” asked Sarah.
Henry shrugged. “It’s the government. They get paid to know all about us and when there’s an investigation, especially with suspicions of terrorism, there’s no end to their justifications for invading our privacy.” Though spoken softly and evenly, this was an unusual editorial comment for Henry. He rarely spoke ill of anyone, let alone his own government. To Sarah, it signaled Henry’s deepening concern for their son’s perilous predicament and for her health, especially for him to bring up a sensitive subject when she was so frail.
“What are you saying, Henry?”
The creases in his forehead tightened. One of his large hands rubbed across his mouth and chin as he let out a long breath. “They know Collin is alive and they’re still after him. That’s the only reason he would call and fish for information like that. If they really believed he had drowned in the Caribbean during the storm, they wouldn’t care about Emily and they would leave us alone to grieve.”
“And they think Emily can help them somehow,” Sarah interjected. “I wonder if she’s had contact with Collin since the storm. I hope so. It would be so nice to hear some news from him.”
“They’re still after him, hunting him like an animal. I wish there was something I could do.” Henry’s voice had grown indignant, but it trailed off. He stopped short, then turned to her and smiled a tight-lipped smile. There were more thoughts in that wonderfully brilliant mind of his than he would share. She knew he didn’t want to worry her, so the rest of his concerns he would mute for her sake. “I trust Collin will find his way through this mess, eventually. He’s a bright kid and has proven to be very resourceful. I just wish I could help.”
Henry thumped the steering wheel with his thumb, then gripped it tightly. He turned to Sarah with a forced smile and added, “Everything’s going to work out, dear. Don’t you worry about it. Everything’s going to be alright.” He reached over and squeezed her hand. Sarah squeezed back and tried a smile of her own.
A normal conversation was out of the question now. Plus, her strength was fading, so Sarah leaned her seat back and closed her eyes for the rest of the hour-long trip.
Chapter Four
Western Caribbean Sea, 76 miles south of Grand Cayman Island
June 14, 10:31 a.m. Caribbean Time
The humor of fresh vomit dripping down a $400 silk Tommy Bahama shirt worn by an angry assailant cursing Collin in his native Asian language was mostly lost in the situation, but Collin couldn’t help himself. As irate shouts echoed like drums inside his throbbing head, a smile turned his swollen and bloodied mouth upward, even in his semi-conscious state. The smile disappeared and his cognizance clicked into gear when something sharp nicked the soft tissue under his chin. A warm trickle ran its course down his neck to his chest. The draft swirling through the cabin became especially noticeable on the torn flesh.
“Ah, you think this is funny? A game, perhaps?” the angry man growled.
Through his puffed-up and tender eyelids, Collin could make out a face, an Asian face, directly in front of him. So, close, all he could see were the eyes―enraged to the point where he thought they might catch fire―and the nose, flattened but flaring erratically. Collin became aware that his handler, sitting at his left, simultaneously gripped his throat and pulled a wad of the hair atop his head so tightly he thought it might detach from his scalp. So many synapses were firing he couldn’t possibly process all of the pain at once. Each new stimulus took a protracted length of time to register. Even then, there was a distance between his body and the pain.
“This is no game, Mr. Cook. This is serious business. You have our money. Lots of it. We want it back. It’s ours, not yours. Do you understand me?”
Collin surveyed the cramped quarters below deck. While he was out cold, the place had been ransacked. Nothing was in its rightful place. Everything had been overturned, ripped apart, slashed, or broken. The few articles of clothing he carried, two sets of false teeth, three boxes of assorted hair dye, contact lens cases, and sundry toiletries had been pulled out from his backpack and spread across the wooden floor. Even the door to the microwave lay cracked near his feet. These were angry men, he concluded. His eyes closed involuntarily, and he felt himself slumping down until a stiff whack to his back and a tug of his hair straightened him up again.
Collin wished he could disappear. In that moment, more than at any time before, he wanted his boring old life back. He wanted to be home with Amy and his kids, destitute but happy. He wanted to go to work each morning and labor at the job he used to hate until it was time to come home and play with his kids and watch Amy’s favorite sitcoms while snuggling on the couch. He’d give anything at this point to have that dull but fulfilling life again.
All this violence and terror and pain―he just wanted it to go away. He thrashed with his elbows; twisting fiercely he connected once with his captor. His captor’s reaction reminded him of the desperate reality he faced: his destiny was no longer his own. The man wrenched him backward by the hair while the one with the vomit on his shirt slapped his face viciously as he cursed at Collin.
Collin sat teetering on the edge of the bed as the boat pitched up and down through the rolling sea. His mind attempted to carry him somewhere else to escape, but these angry men continued to batter his aching body. With his eyes still closed, he sensed someone drawing near, very near, but try as he might, Collin could not force his eyelids open.
The pungent smell of puke wafted to his nose, carried the short distance from the flowered shirt by a breeze entering through the stairwell a few paces to his right. A fresh wave of nausea gurgled from his belly. This time, the man heeded the warning signs and deftly backed away as Collin heaved the last of his stomach’s contents onto his own lap. The stench itself caused him to gag and choke repeatedly.
Before he could recover, a new assault began. A backhand across the cheek followed by a kick in the chest followed by spit hurled in his face. The ribs he had cracked last week when he fell asleep at the wheel and crashed during his escape from Chicago hadn’t yet healed. He groaned as a fresh wave of searing pain spread through his torso and doubled him over. Without warning, the man at his side pulled him up, wrenching all the air out of his lungs. Collin couldn’t breathe, but neither of these men seemed too concerned about that.
“Tell me now where it is and this will all stop.” The words were spoken slowly as the stinky man with the vomit shirt tried to pronounce the words properly.
Collin was slow to process the question and utter a reply. While he waited for the pain to subside enough to inhale, another backhand slapped his bruised cheek and mouth. More blood ran down his chin, meeting up with the previous streamlet. “I don’t know. What are you talking about?” Another slap.
“Where are the codes, the account numbers?”
Collin stared blankly. “For what?”
“For your secret bank accounts. Remember? Where you hid our money? You have $30 million of our money. You give it back, or your friends will die.”
Collin, still slow on the uptake, struggled to formulate an appropriate reply. His mind went first to Rob Howell, his best friend and next-door neighbor since first grade. Next, the image of Emily, his former high school sweetheart, flashed behind his eyes. Then he thought of Lukas, the one who was dead as far as the rest of the world knew. Things started to click, somewhat. “What friends?” he mumbled. “My friends think I’m dead.”
“These friends,”
said Stinky, waving a hand toward the deck above.
It took him a moment to comprehend and formulate a response while the man glared at him. “The Captain and crew?”
“Yes, of course. These are your friends, no?”
Collin remained silent for another long moment while his mind began to churn and come to life, despite the urgency of his inquisitor. He guessed these soldiers of Penh’s knew nothing about sailing and needed the crew to get anywhere. “You want to hurt them?” asked Collin. He paused as he stitched more thoughts together. “You going to pilot this boat while your buddies, Larry, Moe, and Curly here, run the lines and riggings, hoist the sails, and tack at your expert command? You know how to navigate? Read the instruments? Set a bearing? When and how to jib or gybe? Do your guys even know the difference between the bow and the stern? Starboard and port?”
Another slap across his face, harder than before. The blood flowed faster from the corner of his mouth and down his neck.
“Silence!” Stinky, in all his flowered-shirt glory, smelling like barf, panted like a tiger ready to pounce. He used the long-bladed knife, the one with Collin’s blood dripping off it, like a pointer aimed first at Collin’s right eyeball, just inches away. This was especially unnerving due to the rocking of the boat and the man’s lack of “sea legs.” Then he waved the knife and directed the man holding Collin’s hair toward the hatch and up to the deck. Collin’s body slumped, but he forced himself to remain upright. A moment later, a new man, one he hadn’t seen before, returned with Tog and Miguel at gunpoint, their hands behind their heads.
Tog and Miguel wore steely, defiant looks on their faces as the Asian man with the gun pushed them forward into the cabin.
As the procession rolled in, Collin sized up his captors. If he was right, these guys were nothing more than hired help Penh had thus proved the length of his reach and the depth of his resolve. These goons were mercenaries, not sailors. Thugs with guns, not masterminds with plans. They had one mission and one mission only. Until he could think his way out of this predicament, Collin knew he had to play along and wait for his opportunity. It would come, but he had to be patient.
Stinky leaned in close again. “I ask you one last time. Where are the codes?” The man with the gun lifted the muzzle and aimed it at Tog’s temple. Tog, a short, but wiry man, was quiet but proud; tough, uncompromising, and unafraid. He made eye contact with Collin and gave an almost imperceptible headshake. Collin understood him. Tog didn’t want to budge an inch. Not for this guy; not for anyone.
“What? You think I’m smart enough to memorize them? Sorry, but I’m not that smart. They’re on my laptop, but I’m not stupid enough to keep that with me.” Collin spat the words out as convincingly as he could. He moved his head and eyes in a circular fashion toward the littered floor of the cabin. “Looks like you already tried to find my computer but couldn’t. That’s because I don’t have it.”
Stinky glared at him, jowls quivering, nostrils flaring like a bull. Two more punches, a right-left combo that sent Collin backward against the bulkhead. The hollow bulkhead into which he had crammed his five foot ten-inch body to hide from the Coast Guard a month ago. The same bulkhead where his laptop was now hidden. He wished he, too, was hiding in there now, even with his claustrophobia, where this brute couldn’t touch him.
Stinky sprang forward, grabbed the front of Collin’s faded T-shirt, tearing it as he yanked him forward to an upright position.
Everything was spinning, but he had to answer. Forcing back another wave of sickness, Collin came up with a plausible tale. “I left the computer in Chicago. In a safe deposit box downtown. It has all the codes.”
“You lie!”
Collin straightened himself as best he could, forced his bruised eyes open as far as they would go, set his jaw, and angrily protested. “Why would I lie to you? What have I got to gain? These are my friends. The only friends I have left in the world. Why would I put them in danger?” His emotions were true, even if the part about the location of the computer was not. He pushed aside the thought that the computer was stowed in the hidden compartment two feet behind him.
Stinky, still glaring, held up a hand and mumbled something to the other guard. The man with the green shirt lowered the muzzle of the Uzi and pulled a handgun from his waistband. Taking a step back, the man pointed at Tog’s head. Stinky looked at Collin and said, “This man’s life depends on you.”
But there was something else going on. Collin noticed it before, but it hadn’t dawned on him until now. His abuser was beginning to look pale. He staggered slightly with the constant movement of the boat as it bounced through the waves. His eyes were swimming and less focused. Stinky was getting seasick.
The boat continued to rock and sway. Stinky’s balance continued to diminish. Collin hoped to prolong the standoff long enough to formulate some sort of rescue plan.
“What will it be, Mr. Cook? The codes or your friend’s life?”
Collin assessed Stinky’s resolve and said, “We need him. We all need him to sail this ship.”
“Do you want him to live, Mr. Cook?”
“Yes. We all need him to live. He’s an important part of the ship’s crew,” said Collin, his voice straining under the pressure of the escalating situation.
“Then give me the codes.”
“I told you, I can’t. I don’t have them.”
“Very well, Mr. Cook. You leave me no other choice.”
Stinky’s seasickness did not reduce his meanness. The hand he held up dropped to the outstretched position and his fingers formed the shape of a gun. When his thumb came to rest atop his forefinger, a loud bang shattered the air inside the cabin.
****
La Jolla, California
June 14, 7:33 a.m. Pacific Time
Emily checked her watch again. She was behind schedule, but this did not seem to bother Agents Crabtree and McCoy. They sat on her ultra-modern stainless-steel-legged black leather couch, taking notes. She sat across from them, an odd-shaped glass coffee table between them. The interrogation seemed to spin in circles and Emily was growing agitated.
“Dr. Burns,” Crabtree said, tapping his pen on his notepad. “Tell us again how you knew this Genevieve person would meet you in Chicago and escort you here to San Diego.”
“I told you. He called me,” she replied, checking her watch again. “He told me exactly what to do and how he had planned for my escape. He said he would do his best to protect me from the people that were after him, even if he couldn’t be there to do it himself.”
“Dr. Burns, don’t you think we checked your phone records before we came here? Do you think we would drive through the night from San Francisco to ask you questions that we knew the answers to?”
“I’m still trying to figure out why any of this matters, Agent Crabtree, when no one has officially admitted Collin’s alive, nor provided any proof to confirm it. It seems we’re wasting our time talking about someone who is presumed dead.”
“It matters to our national security, that’s why,” said Crabtree. “Whether Collin is alive or dead is beside the point. We need to establish a trail, a timeline. We have to establish his connection to this Asian syndicate and map out where he went and who he might have met with. It seems he had some sort of meeting with these guys either in Chicago or after he left there. It’s important to piece together all of the clues in order to complete the puzzle and locate the bad guys so we can bring them to justice before they bring the whole US economy to a grinding halt.”
Spinner McCoy took up the questioning. “Ms. Burns, we’ve researched every number on your call log while you were in Chicago. We’ve identified every caller and the origin of every text you received in that time period.”
“Now that’s just creepy,” huffed Emily. “That’s an invasion of my privacy.”
“It’s a necessary intrusion, as deemed by the Patriot Act authorized by Congress, being as how it involves the security of the United State of America, Ms. Bu
rns,” said McCoy matter-of-factly. “Now explain to us how you knew about this Genevieve person.”
“I’ve already told you, Collin texted me.”
“We don’t see a record of an incoming text that mentions anything about Genevieve, Ms. Burns.”
“I deleted all his texts.” She knew this wouldn’t stand up to scrutiny, but she had to stick to her story.
Reggie Crabtree gestured to his partner and resumed control of the conversation. “Dr. Burns, don’t make us talk to Mike Zimmerman. We will if we have to, but we realize what an uncomfortable situation that could present for both of you.”
Emily shifted in her seat and squeezed the fingers of her left hand. She spoke quickly, which she often did when she was nervous. She thought about Mike Zimmerman, her boss, and wondered how the socially awkward, mildly autistic genius would perform under the pressure of an interrogation about something completely new and foreign to him. Surely he would then ask her to divulge the entire story. It would most certainly rattle him. Being put in such an uncomfortable situation, Mike would undoubtedly come to her for an explanation. No matter the outcome, she feared the whole thing had the potential to shatter his confidence in her and create an awkward distance between them. It could harm her career, and possibly his. He didn’t need this kind of stress and she couldn’t work out all of the negative ramifications of the FBI interrogating Mike Zimmerman.
Emily decided it was best to protect Mike and her working relationship with him. “Collin slipped a cheap little phone in my purse at some point during the few minutes we had together in Chicago without me knowing. My guess is that he did it while we were walking through the convention center. He texted me later and told me it was so we could communicate. He said it was to be our little secret.”
“What sorts of secrets have you two been sharing, Ms. Burns?” asked Crabtree.
“You want to see these secret texts? Fine. I’ll show them to you. Excuse me one minute while I get the phone out of my purse.” Emily disappeared around the corner and returned with the cheap little flip phone in her hand. “Here. Take a look. You’ll see that he is quite concerned about his parents, especially his mother. Nothing too exciting.”