by Roland Smith
But to her, there had always been something a little off about Boone. He made her suspicious. At Kitty Hawk she had demanded he make sure Angela and Q were kept safe and he’d delivered. But since then there had been so many strange things.
In Texas, Miss Ruby—Number Three in the ghost cell—had put her in a guesthouse next to the landing strip on her ranch. She was to await her plane to Chicago there. She had been frantic at being ordered away from Angela. But she couldn’t break her cover. When she came out of the guesthouse bathroom, there sat Boone and his weird old dog, Croc, in the small living room. They had crossed several hundred yards of wide-open space, passed by Miss Ruby’s constantly patrolling security teams (not to mention her electronic surveillance), and waltzed into the place like it was no big deal.
He claimed his tech man, X-Ray, had given him a device to distort electronic surveillance. All right. Maybe he had. But the guesthouse was in the middle of a wide-open ranch. How could a man and a dog, especially a man Boone’s age, have crossed that distance unseen? At the time, not thinking clearly, she’d let it go.
But the events in the safe house in Chicago had ratcheted up her distrust. Someone had gotten into the house several times, eluding even the ever-watchful eyes of Ziv. They came in and left a package with a cell phone. And for a time she was certain they were there in the house when she was. Right in the next room. But as she cleared the house, room by room, no one was ever there. Then she would hear the back door click shut. She was certain someone was toying with her.
Once, before leaving the house, she sprinkled a fine coating of baby powder on the floor right in front of the door. When she returned she found footprints. She had not been crazy. Someone had visited while she was out. The footprints had been made by cowboy boots. Boone wore cowboy boots. He was the only one who knew where she was besides Ziv, Eben, and Callaghan. It had to be him.
Then Buddy had stormed off and turned out to be involved in the plot. She found it all too convenient. Boone had known Buddy for years. They appeared to dislike each other a great deal. But what if it was all an act?
So many things about Boone didn’t add up. And she intended to get answers.
“You don’t understand,” she said.
“Understand what? You have questions about Boone? Fine. Ask your questions. But not at the point of a gun.”
“He . . . there’s something . . .”
“Daughter,” Ziv sighed. “You are tired. You are also brave and fearless. No one should or could have to sacrifice as much as you have for the duty you have undertaken. But you have been undercover a long time. Perhaps too long. I have seen it happen to many before you. You are the Leopard but you are not invulnerable. Your paranoia and suspicion have kept you alive. But in the last few days, so has Tyrone Boone.”
“I just want answers,” she said.
“As do I. I agree with you, Boone is mysterious. But he has kept his word. Angela is alive and safe. All of us are alive and safe. And we are close to ending this. You cannot go charging in demanding answers. Wait. Be patient. I do not claim to understand everything that is going on here. But I do know this. Boone is not the one you seek.”
“How do you know?”
“The Monkey knows.”
Malak could not help it—it made her chuckle. She returned the pistol to its holster.
“All right, Ziv,” she said. “We’ll play it your way. Boone gets a pass.”
Ziv nodded.
“For now,” Malak said.
Reunion
Boone and Croc strolled into the hangar to find the SOS crew readying the vehicles for surveillance. The team didn’t know it, but he and Croc had been in San Francisco for four days. Right after everything that happened in Chicago. They didn’t need to wait for J.R. to lift the flight restrictions. Of course he couldn’t let the team know that. Once here, he’d begun looking everywhere he could for any lead on Buddy or where he might be or where he might be headed. He and Croc had been watching train and bus stations, car rental agencies, staking out the house Buddy lived in before they’d left on tour. But there had been no sign of him.
By now, “blinking” had taken a lot out of him. The last day he’d taken time to rest, but he was still not back up to speed. He was glad to have his team here with him.
The back door of the intellimobile was open and X-Ray was tapping away at a keyboard. Vanessa had her wooden board set up in a corner and was tossing knives at it. Uly was loading a cooler of bottled water into the Range Rover and Felix was doing a weapons check. Eben was pacing.
“Boone!” Eben said. “You’re here? Where have you been? You weren’t on our flight. How did you arrive in San Francisco so quickly? The commercial flights just started up again—”
“POTUS put us on a fighter jet,” Boone interrupted.
“A fighter—excuse me?” Eben said, confused. “With your dog?”
“Yes. Croc wasn’t crazy about the helmet,” Boone said.
“You must . . . are . . . is he joking?” Eben asked Felix and Uly, both of whom only shrugged.
“Croc is what you’d call a nervous flyer; his stomach gets a little upset.”
Everyone had gathered around Boone and Croc when they arrived. Now they instinctively took a step back. Croc stretched out on the hangar floor. His stomach made a rumbling sound. Everyone took another step back.
“X-Ray, what have you got?” Boone said, getting right to business. X-Ray stopped typing and swiveled around to face the open back of the van. A printer whirred and spat out several sheets of paper.
“Buddy T. is careful. And tricky. And smart. And careful,” X-Ray said.
“You already said careful,” Uly pointed out.
“Yeah. Well. You have no idea how long this took. Nothing is registered under his name, except at Bank of America where he has checking, savings, and IRA accounts like a normal citizen. Buddy has done well for himself money-wise. But I figured if he’s at or near the top of the cell, he’s got to have access to some of its money. What they do—the resources they have—it requires huge amounts of cash.”
X-Ray handed out the sheets of paper, so everyone had a copy.
“Buddy was—or is—based in San Francisco. I started with local banks. Long story short, I started looking for money going from banks here to the obvious offshore places. Switzerland, the Cayman Islands. Finally found it in the Cook Islands,” he said.
“Where the heck is that?” Felix asked.
“Near New Zealand,” Boone said. “Has some of the most stringent banking privacy laws in the world and people seldom think to look there because it’s so hard to reach. You can hop a flight to the Caymans from the States with a briefcase full of cash and stash it in a bank within a few hours. But it takes a lot of time and effort to get to the Cook Islands, so law enforcement seldom thinks to look there. If you’re a crook or a terrorist, you’ve obviously got to be careful moving money online. There’s always a chance you’ll slip up. Then somebody like X-Ray finds you. Given how careful the ghost cell is, the Cook Islands makes perfect sense.”
“Anyway,” X-Ray continued. “I looked for money moving back and forth and found more than a dozen banks in the area sending and receiving wire transfers to and from banks in the Cook Islands. When I locked onto the account numbers, I was able to get into the banks’ records on this end. It’s a lot easier to get banks to open their records when they believe you work for the Department of Homeland Security,” he said proudly.
“So, once I discovered the particular set of accounts, I checked the names on the accounts, and guess who the account holder was in every case?” X-Ray asked.
“I’ll bet it starts with Buddy and ends with T.” Vanessa said.
“Yep. Under fake names of course, but you always have to show photo ID. Buddy tried to change his appearance in a couple of cases. You can dye your hair, wear glasses and a fake mustache, but you can’t fool photo recognition software these days. And there’s something else,” he said.
&
nbsp; “Safe-deposit boxes,” Boone said quietly.
“How did you guess?” X-Ray said, impressed.
“It only makes sense. He’d want some liquid assets handy. Cash, maybe uncut diamonds, bearer bonds. Stuff you could take with you easily if you had to run. We know Buddy T. is in this up to his ears. Now he’s headed for his stash. Or stashes,” Boone said.
“Well, the good news is, as far as I can tell he hasn’t shown up anywhere to do or take anything yet,” X-Ray said.
“What about the van they found outside Chicago—any word on identification of the body?” Felix asked.
The van Buddy and his terrorist pals had used to deliver the chemical weapon to the John Hancock Center was discovered in a deserted lot near O’Hare International Airport. It had been set on fire, and the FBI had recovered a single body, burned beyond recognition but still wearing recognizable yellow high-top tennis shoes and a melted Rolex watch on its wrist. Buddy had last been seen wearing those same shoes and watch.
“No ID yet, but it’s not going to be Buddy. It was one of his stooges. I’m betting he shot him, then torched the van,” Boone said. “He’ll show up here soon. And when he does, we’ll be waiting.”
X-Ray rubbed his hands through his white hair. He had a three-day growth of beard, and it looked like it had been at least that long since he’d slept. “That’s the thing, there’s more banks than we have people. Even if we have only one person watching each bank, we’re still going to be short. I can watch the security feeds from the banks’ cameras for some of them and call out if he shows up. But if he goes someplace where we don’t have someone on site, he could be gone before we can get there,” X-Ray explained.
“Then it is a good thing we are here to help,” a voice said from the doorway.
The team looked around to see Ziv and Malak strolling through the hangar door.
“I was wondering when you guys would show up,” Boone said.
“I’m sure you were,” Malak said. Boone gave her a curious look. She held his gaze until he looked away.
“As soon as Callaghan gets here with Q and Angela, we’ll get to work.”
Croc curled up on the floor of the hangar at Boone’s feet and went to sleep.
Tension
We must have arrived just seconds after Malak and Ziv. I heard Malak say something, then Angela screamed, “Mom!” and ran to her, drowning out her words. Malak turned around just in time to catch Angela, and they almost tumbled to the ground, they were hugging each other so tightly. I have to say it did lift my mood a little.
Everyone was quiet while Angela and Malak held each other. Out of the corner of my eye, I’m pretty sure I saw Felix wipe away a tear. Malak broke the embrace, taking Angela’s hands in her own. She looked her up and down and smiled and hugged her again.
“Mom, are you okay?” Angela asked.
“I’m fine, sweetheart. I’m fine,” Malak said.
“How did you get through security to the terminal?” Callaghan asked.
“Did you not know, Agent Callaghan, that I am a member of your Homeland Security Agency?” Ziv replied.
Callaghan chuckled. “No, I didn’t know that.”
Everyone let Malak and Angela enjoy the reunion for a short while longer before Boone got back to business.
“I believe you were saying something about surveillance?” Ziv asked.
“Um. Yes,” Boone said. “Here is the list of banks again; I’ve divided them up. I know we’re short on people, but I don’t want to send anyone out alone. X has divided the city up into zones based on the location of each bank. Each team will go to the most central location in each zone for onsite surveillance. X-Ray will cover the rest by hacking their security camera feeds. If Buddy hits a bank where we don’t have someone, he’ll send the closest team and the rest of us will come running. I’ve asked J.R. and he’s promised us more bodies as soon as he can spare them. But with the attacks . . . for now it’s just us.”
Croc was now sitting on his haunches; his stomach rumbled and growled. A few seconds later, the rankest odor I’d ever smelled in my life wafted through the air. In another few seconds, everyone was scurrying for a vehicle.
“Me and Uly got the Rover,” Felix yelled.
“I’ll take X-Ray in the intellimobile,” Vanessa said. X-Ray rolled his chair backward into the van and slammed the rear doors. Vanessa hustled into the driver’s seat. We heard the doors lock as the engine roared to life.
Felix and Uly peeled out of the hangar in the Range Rover, followed closely by the intellimobile.
“Huh,” Boone said. “I guess the rest of us will have to take the coach.”
“Not me,” Callaghan said. “Rented a car. I need to have Angela and Q with me in case their parents call. Come on, guys,” he said, waving his hand in front of his face, trying to disperse the odor that was now rolling through the hangar like fog.
“Okay, then,” Boone said. “That leaves the rest of us in the coach. Ziv, Malak, I’d like you to come with us. We can fill you in on what we know. We’ll split up into our two-man teams after you’ve been briefed.”
Ziv looked down at Croc. “If we must,” he said.
“Great,” Boone said. “Let’s get to it.”
He and Croc climbed aboard the coach with Ziv, Malak, and Eben following along reluctantly. Malak stopped to give Angela a hug. I’m not sure what they said. Being apart from her mom was killing her. But Angela knew she and I had to stay with Callaghan for the time being, at least.
“Wonderful,” Eben complained as he climbed aboard. He muttered something in Hebrew. I had no idea what it was, but it wouldn’t have surprised me if it was “Blast Boone and his stinky dog.”
Sometimes Surveillance Is Just Showing Up
We had been assigned a bank in the Mission District of San Francisco. Agent Callaghan seemed to know the city pretty well. I would imagine Secret Service agents had to have a pretty good knowledge of most major cities. Presidents tended to travel a lot.
On our way, Callaghan stopped at a convenience store to buy stakeout supplies. But not before giving us a “don’t mess with me, I’m a Secret Service agent and if you try sneaking away or anything remotely funny I will find you” speech. While we waited in the backseat I fidgeted, and Angela stared at her phone. Like totally absorbed stared.
“What are you looking at?” I asked.
“This last photo of the statue that P.K. sent us. We know it’s Boone and P.K. said it was on the estate of an Italian nobleman.”
“Yeah? So?”
“I think it’s more than that. Look at the statue. He’s wearing chain mail and holding a sword. I think he was a knight.”
“You mean like a King Arthur Round Table–type knight?”
“No, Q, King Arthur was probably historically real, but the Round Table part is most likely fiction. I mean a real knight. Most of the nobility in the Middle Ages had one or more of their sons knighted.”
“How do you know all this stuff?” I was genuinely curious.
“It’s called books, Q. Remember when we first met Boone and he said everything you need to know can be found in books?”
“Sort of. Meeting Boone seems like it happened years ago.”
“Well, Boone was right. Wouldn’t kill you to read a book once in a while.”
“I read. Ask me anything about Harry Houdini. And I just started From Russia, With Love by Ian Fleming.”
“Yeah. Whatever. Still. Say Boone was a knight. P.K. says he hasn’t found anything on Boone beyond the date of this statue. And with the crumbling foundation, some of the letters are missing. It’s like a word jumble, except in Latin.”
“Huh. Boone was a knight. Maybe that explains why he’s been in so many wars and stuff.”
“Maybe. But if we can figure out what it says . . . we might get closer to figuring out who Boone is.”
“Put P.K. on it,” I said. “Kid loves a puzzle. He’s probably got access to some big supercomputer or something.”
/> P.K. was short for President’s Kid. We had met him in the White House at the beginning of the tour. He was quite possibly the smartest ten-year-old I’d ever met. Malak had managed to keep P.K. and us from getting kidnapped by a couple of deep-cover ghost cell agents who had infiltrated the White House.
“Way ahead of you. He is working on it. But P.K. can’t do everything. He has school. The Secret Service is watching him. He’ll let us know if he finds anything.”
“You sure there was no actual round table for King Arthur’s knights to sit around?” I said.
“Yes, Q. It’s called a myth. Each knight of the Round Table represented a virtue like courage, honesty—”
I interrupted her. “Yeah, I saw the movie. But what I mean is, didn’t knights belong to groups? Like the Knights of the Round Table? The Knights of the Cheese Wheel? Knights of the Glorious Something or Other? I remember reading about it in social studies. Maybe there was a group of knights that existed around that time. Maybe the words name the group he belongs to or something. Knights of the Poof! Or something. It’s at least a place to start.”
Angela looked up at me, her mouth open. “Q, that’s actually a really good idea.”
“I have them on occasion,” I said.
“Have what on occasion?” Agent Callaghan opened the door just in time to hear me.
“Ideas,” I said.
“Great. Have any ideas on where Buddy is going to show up?” he said.
“Uh. No . . . Not right now,” I said. So lame. But Agent Callaghan had interrupted us right in the middle of a Boone conversation, and I couldn’t think of anything intelligent to say.
“Well, if anything comes to either of you, speak up. You’re both pretty smart. Ideas are welcome,” he said. He reached into the bag of stuff he’d brought and handed us both a bottled water and—a Kit Kat bar.
I stared at him, mouth open. Couldn’t be sure if he was making a joke or not.