Surrept (32 page)

The chopper pilot has no clearing to land and hovers above the site, reporting that he found the motor homes and the van. He also reports three bodies down: two men, one black and the other caucasian, and a caucasian woman with blonde hair. None is responding to his search light or his public address system.

***

In Denver Matt is still in the federal courthouse and is on the phone to Joe when he gets the news from Special Agent Davenport of what the Montana State Police helicopter has found. He drops the phone and pushes the table over; the young attorney falls into tears. The agent walks away and closes the door, knowing anything else she says is pointless.

***

An old pick-up truck winds through a back road several miles away. Adriana holds her shoulder as she drives west through the back roads in her father's truck. She learned all the ways to the coast during the summers at the family ranch.

She loved the beach, and all the boys were more than happy to take her there on road trips. She has wrapped her arm and shoulder with one of her blouses, and it is not bleeding badly, but she is losing blood.

She still cannot believe that Reggie and that blonde girl that she had seen the day before on the street by his body shop were there at the tunnel. She wonders to herself how they knew about the tunnel location, and why they were there. It did not make sense to her. She wonders if Reggie had followed her before, and whether that young woman is an FBI agent or some other kind of law enforcement official.

She survived, like always, and that is all that matters.

Adriana's thoughts are racing. She needs to get help with this wound and get to the west coast fast. She decides to drive until she cannot stay awake. She knows that she must leave the country, but she needs to make a few calls first. It is time that the man in Vancouver is dealt with her way, and that she gets what is coming to her.

She decides that if her money is not wired by tomorrow, as promised, she will call him, and blackmail his treacherous, twisted soul. She decides that she will demand that he wire her one hundred million to her offshore accounts for her silence, instead of the fifty he had promised her.

If he does not comply with her demands, she would bring the jewels of the desert and his whole world of fame and power crashing down around him. She smiles. He was just another man who allowed his dick to get in the way, and she once again has always held that fame and power.

Chapter Seventeen

The following day, the two FBI Agents are standing in a hospital room in Montana. The woman agent is trying to raise the patient, "Dana can you hear me? Dana, it is Agent Davenport. Dana, open your eyes if you can hear me."

Dana is disoriented. She remembers the wind and noise from a helicopter and people yelling to each other. Where is she? Who's talking to her?

Dana opens her eyes and the white room is blurry as she struggles to focus. She can see a face that scares her at first. It is that FBI woman, Agent Davenport, who had challenged her about David.

She sees the other FBI Agent, her partner, Agent Taylor, standing with another man. It is Matt, smiling.

Everything rushes back to her, and emotion overwhelms her as the image of Reggie, lifeless in her arms, plays in her head. Dana realizes she survived and is in a hospital. Tears fill her blue eyes as she blurts out, "We blew it." She looks at Matt Cohen. "Reggie is dead, and that bitch Adriana Pucci got away, and it's my fault, Matt."

Agent Taylor moves toward her. "Dana, Reggie is alive in ICU. They say he is in bad shape but he's going to make it."

Dana glares at him through her tears. "He was shot in the head. I saw him. I held him. You're lying!"

Davenport has been told that she was found lying with Reggie. She leans down to speak gently to her. "He was only grazed in the head. The wounds to his lung and spleen were much more serious, but he is going to make it. The doctors say he is real strong, and his vitals are stable after surgery."

Dana looks in her eyes, wondering if it could be true.

Matt pushes the agents aside as he hugs her. "It's true, Dana. Reggie's going to make it, and he's just a few rooms down the hall.

Dana looks at Matt. "I don't believe you. I want to see him."

Davenport interrupts, "We need to ask you some more questions about what happened out there. You have only given us bits and pieces?"

Dana looks hard at the FBI woman. She does not remember talking to them at all. "I need to see Reggie first, and then you get the story, and not a second sooner. So don't ask me anything else until I am looking at Reggie Haynes."

Davenport walks out of the room as Dana's monitors start beeping from her outburst. Two nurses rush in to see what is happening.

Taylor makes a request as they check her out. "I need to speak with her attending right away. Get him here stat please."

A nurse leaves the room to summon Dana's doctor.

A few minutes later Dana is rolled down the hall, still in her bed, with her head and upper body elevated. The FBI agents and Matt are in tow. The nurse and an orderly guide her, her IV stand and her monitors down the hall to the ICU room of Reginald Haynes.

She sees him hooked up to all of the crap that she is as they move furniture so that her bed will fit into the private room with him. There is a state trooper posted at the door.

***

In international air space, a private jet whisks through the thin night air at thirty-four thousand feet. The man from Vancouver draws on his cigar and sips cognac on the plane. He is sitting with his associate from the warehouse. "Where is Adriana? She did not make her call. Was she injured, or killed at the tunnel site?"

"We do not know. The rainmaker said there was small gunfire immediately after the fuel was ignited as they fled."

"Did you meet the rainmaker and his associate at the pier?"

He looks at his superior. "Yes sir. They decided to go fishing and became the bait as you requested. All of the details and loose ends have been handled, except for Adriana and seven of those who have been apprehended in the United States."

The man looks at him, showing his displeasure regarding the apprehensions, "Are you sure of that number?"

"Yes sir, according to the reported headcount at the tunnel, which I got from the rainmaker. In addition, what I have ascertained from the media, sir. Yes, I'm quite sure of the math."

The man swirls the liquor in his glass, "We must find her as soon as possible. We will be in Caracas in about eight hours. We will handle our business there and wait for her for five days, and then we will assess our next move. What do you think Marcus?"

His subordinate adjusts himself in the leather chair. "I never felt good about the leadership in Venezuela, and I believe they can't be trusted to follow through in cooperation with Tehran. Abu Dhabi does not like the Persians trying to build a relationship in South America. As far as Miss Pucci is concerned, I believe she is a tremendous liability. I believe that Adriana Pucci is a cunning viper that needs exterminating with extreme prejudice."

The man nods. "I concur with you on all counts, Marcus. Let us now find another interpreter whom we can trust when we land in Caracas. Then we find our viper Adriana, and eliminate her." He laughs. "And save a few dollars."

***

In Washington State, Adriana leaves an urgent care clinic with pain meds and ointments and several extra dressings in her bag. She walks down the street as she makes a call. This medical event has just cost her ten thousand in cash, and a session of oral sex in exchange for the physician's care and silence regarding her treatment.

She thinks to herself that she wishes she could have eliminated him, but that would have established a trail for the authorities to follow. A cab arrives and she has the driver load her baggage from her father's old truck parked down the street in a shopping center. She gets in, and the cab disappears into the night.

***

Across the country at the Homeland Security Headquarters in Virginia, the room is buzzing with activity.

All concerned parties are present in the secure main briefing room.

Homeland security head, Karen Satriano, speaks as the room quiets. "We have had a significant development, of which you all are aware, in Operation Pot Luck, in the State of Montana, near the Canadian border. Kevin Anderson will fill us all in. He has called this emergency meeting after briefing the president and the secretary of defense just hours ago. Kevin?"

Kevin begins speaking from his seat at the table. "The president has been briefed as to the following developments regarding the attacks on the United States' and United Kingdom's public transportation systems that took place a week ago today." He looks at Leo Matz, who is swiveling back and forth in his chair, as he speaks. "At approximately twelve hundred thirty hours yesterday our Denver office alerted us to development in an ongoing investigation, whereby two FBI field agents and an assistant U.S. attorney brought forth two informants represented by their private attorney. The informants' attorney turned over critical evidence discovered by his clients. They also surrendered seven point four pounds of pure Afghanistan heroin, via their attorney seeking immunity from prosecution."

"This negotiation was the result of an ongoing FBI investigation which was originated by the Denver field office. It included the release of a potential suspect, an American citizen, who was in our custody." He glares at Leo to signal his distaste for the methods used at Buckley Air Force base. "That suspect was detained, interviewed, and interrogated by our agents of the Denver office and special agents of the CIA at Buckley Air Force Base, Aurora, Colorado four days ago."

Kevin went on, "The suspect, David Bloomfield, a Colorado advertising executive, has no priors, no known associations and is deemed a civilian innocent as a result of that interrogation and the joint FBI and CIA's investigations, and was therefore ordered released by the attorney general, effective today at eighteen hundred hours central mountain time. However, it was that very investigation which yielded our newfound conclusions. The witnesses that provided that critical evidence were also granted immunity from prosecution by the attorney general in exchange for their cooperation and provisions of crucial evidence that we believe will lead to the originating sources and/or those responsible for the recent attacks in addition to a future scheduled biological agricultural attack plot."

"The lead informant and crucial witness are known as Dana Lynn Underwood, female, twenty-nine years old, a real estate broker and also a resident native of Colorado, and the fiancé of the aforementioned suspect David Bloomfield. She was originally detained by our agents in the Denver office for interrogation regarding Bloomfield's arrest four days ago."

He said, "Miss Underwood was instrumental in the acquisition of this evidence and was a principle in a private investigation of this terrorist organization. Her motive was to free her fiancé and clear his name. In addition, Miss Underwood's investigation resulted in a gun battle following a pursuit with the principle suspects who numbered seventy-six while they were in the process of fleeing to Canada via a drug trafficking tunnel. This border tunnel apparently is used for the entry and exit of narcotics and the currency generated in the operation, and the escape of the suspected principle terrorists in the recent attacks."

"Miss Underwood and her associate were critically wounded in the process of intervening and preventing the escape after wounding the principle suspect leader who is presently at large. In addition, Miss Underwood fatally wounded a high-level principle suspect we believe to be the planner and designer, as well as an actual participant in the attacks. The suspect now identified as Ahmed Jassim Ali Naseri, a male Iraqi, twenty-five years old, a foreign student here on a visa, attending Colorado University in Denver."

"Mr. Naseri's participation was validated by video taken from the Denver Metro commuter train authority. He is also a principle suspect in a double murder investigation of his two relatives who sponsored him, Omar and Kari Naseri, both of whom were naturalized citizens and Colorado residents and owners of a local market delicatessen, where the suspect Naseri worked. Their bodies were recovered in their home by local law enforcement in Englewood, Colorado after receiving a tip from neighbors."

"In addition, Miss Underwood's investigation has lead to the recovery of seventy-six bodies, all deemed to be suspects in the terrorist attacks. All the bodies were recovered from the smuggling tunnel just hours after an intended explosion that was detonated from outside. We suspect that this was a mass murder plot designed to eliminate the actual participants of the attacks, while they believed they were fleeing from the United States into Canada to escape and return to their native countries. Miss Underwood and an associate also included in the Department of Justice investigation and negotiation are directly responsible for the discovery of this conspiracy. This is an ongoing investigation being conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. We believe that those bodies were all foreign Muslims and the suspects that carried out the actual commuter attacks."

He continued, "Miss Underwood and her associate are now hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries and are expected to make a full recovery. Both have agreed to full cooperation and to provide testimony as needed. At no time was Miss Underwood or her associate coerced or prompted to her actions and is considered a civilian patriot of the United States in the eyes of the Department of Justice."