Trident's First Gleaming: A Special Operations Group Thriller (16 page)

_______

O
ver nine hours later, the sun brightened the horizon as the trio docked a stolen boat at Larnaca Marina in Cyprus, where they were fortunate enough to find an open berth at a crowded dock. After tying up their vessel, they passed through customs and immigration. Although they wouldn’t be able to use their passports in the US because American authorities were looking for them, their passports were still good overseas. Even if the US contacted Interpol to be on the lookout for the three, it would take time before other countries received the information—and then not all of them would enter the data into their system and not all would check.

They caught a taxi that took them down a palm-tree-lined promenade that marked the beginning of a fifteen-minute trip to Larnaca International Airport. They’d ditched their weapons in the ocean rather than try to smuggle them, and Chris was keenly aware that they were unarmed.

“Well, we made it this far,” Hannah said after they passed through security.

“You two need passports with new aliases for the US,” Sonny said, “and I should probably get a new one, too. Know anyone who can help us out in that department?”

“We’ll have better luck in Italy,” Chris said. “Lots of US travelers we can pickpocket.”

Sonny flashed a mischievous grin. “That’s what I’m talkin’ about.”

They boarded a Cyprus Airways flight and touched down at Italy’s Leonardo da Vinci International Airport in the afternoon. Inside, Chris examined an airport map. “We’ll find easier marks in the bars,” he said. “These two bars in terminal one are close together.”

Hannah put her jacket over her right hand to conceal it. She’d use the right hand to pickpocket with while the left hand served as a distraction. Then she walked over to the trash and fished out a newspaper. On their way to terminal one, Hannah shifted into high gear, as if she was moving in on a possible doppelganger. She homed in on a shorter woman with blonde hair, instead of black. The blonde walked timidly. Hannah didn’t seem concerned about the differences. She gave her luggage to Chris and moved in for the hit.

The woman’s passport visibly stuck out of the side pocket of her purse. As Hannah walked past the woman, she pretended to read the newspaper in her left hand while using it to help cover the movement of her right hand as it swept over the woman’s purse. In the next moment, the passport was gone, hidden by Hannah’s jacket over her right hand, and the woman had no idea she’d just been ripped off. Chris had only pickpocketed in training, but it seemed Hannah had real-world experience. She made it look so easy, putting the pressure on Chris and Sonny not to screw up. After the blonde’s path diverged from theirs, Hannah took a look at the passport. Then she nodded with a wry smile.

Sweet.

They moved through the terminal, trying to find potential marks for Chris and Sonny. At the Culto Café Chocolato, they didn’t spot anyone who looked like Chris or Sonny, but the place was rather full of people, so they went in, ordered drinks, and sat down at a table where they had a panoramic view of the restaurant and the terminal outside the front door. They paid for their drinks in advance so they could leave at a moment’s notice.

Chris had an orange juice and Sonny and Hannah drank local Moretti beers. “Why don’t you drink?” Sonny asked before taking a swig from his glass.

“Not interested,” Chris answered.

“Just a sip.”

“No, thanks,” Chris said.

“Why, is it a religious thing?” Sonny persisted.

“Well, I’m a minister. Even if I wasn’t, my grandfather was an alcoholic. I loved him, and we were alike in pushing things to the limit, and I was always concerned I could become an alcoholic, too.”

“You steal cars and boats and kill people, but you won’t have a sip of alcohol. You’re a strange bird.”

Chris shrugged. Since he normally only emptied the pockets of people he’d captured or killed, he strategized with Hannah about the best way for him to pickpocket an unknowing living mark. As part of their strategy, Hannah readied some change.

“When I drop the change, the man will bend over to help me pick it up. That’s when you lift his passport.”

Chris nodded.

Then his doppelganger passed outside the front of the bar with something in his back left pocket the shape of a passport with its blue edge sticking out. Chris’s heart pulsated as he and Hannah left their seats and followed. Hannah passed the man and dropped her change. Chris’s heart beat faster and faster. When the man bent over to help her, Chris brushed against him from behind, removed the passport, put it in his pocket, and kept walking.

Minutes later, Chris and Hannah reunited with Sonny in the café. Chris drew the passport out of his pocket and looked at it. “Croatia,” he said. “Damn. This is no good. I can’t use this to get into the US without a visa. Croatia?”

Sonny and Hannah frowned.

“We’ll just have to find someone else,” she said. “Let’s try a new bar.”

They switched over to the other bar and poked their heads in. Inside, a John Malkovich lookalike sporting a moustache and wearing a suit jacket sat alone at a table drinking. Sonny smiled. His turn.

“I’ve got this one,” Hannah whispered. “Trust me. You guys can take another table and watch.”

While Hannah talked up Malkovich and bought him more drinks, Chris and Sonny sat at the table and scanned the area inside the bar and out for Chris’s double. Soon Hannah was laughing with Malkovich and touching his chest. Then she said she was going to be late for her flight, jumped up, paid her tab and rushed out. Chris and Sonny took their cue and departed the bar, too. When they were well out of sight of the bar, Hannah handed Sonny his passport—United States. An hour later, they lifted a passport for Chris.

Chris quickly dropped off the Croatian passport at the information desk. “Somebody lost this.” As Chris walked away, the desk attendant called the Croatian man’s name over a loudspeaker.

They found a secluded corner without surveillance cameras and sat down. Hannah put on makeup, making her eyes look bigger, similar to her passport photo. Then she applied makeup to Chris, to make his nose seem thinner, closer to his lookalike. She offered to help Sonny, but he balked: “Get that crap off me. I ain’t no faggot.” She tried to explain, but he refused.

“Are you prejudiced?” Hannah asked.

“Call it what you want,” he said. “I hate krauts, micks, niggers, limeys, honkies, spics, wops, pollacks, frogs, injuns, sweaties, cheese heads, mountain monkeys, camel jockeys, rutabagas, commies, kikes, nips, chinks, dinks, flips, and curry munchers, too—I hate them all.”

Chris felt like Hannah looked—as if someone had tossed a flashbang in the room.

“What?” Sonny asked. “Did I leave someone out?”

Hannah shook off his comment and checked her cell phone for ticket information. “Today Air France has the most flights of any airline to Washington Dulles International Airport, but all their planes left this morning. We can fly the next Brussels Airlines out of here if we hurry and get a connecting flight to DC.”

Chris and Sonny nodded.

The three of them rushed to the counter, purchased their tickets in seats away from each other, checked in their bags, passed security, and caught their plane. Chris tapped his finger on his armrest while he studied his passport and the immigration stamps inside.
Know your identity.

_______

A
t 1500 hours, they touched down at Washington Dulles International Airport. The clock was ticking down to when Mordet would attack the US, but Chris didn’t know how much time remained on that clock. They still had no idea what, specifically, he was plotting.

Once deplaned and inside the airport, they approached immigration separately. Chris went first.
Focus
.
Believe your identity.
He put on the tired, bored look he wore in so many countries, the one that helped him blend with his surroundings.

“Welcome home,” an immigration officer with studious eyes greeted him. They chatted minimally, and Chris walked through without incident, stopping just outside immigration. He pretended to search for something in his bag while he surveyed his teammates.

The same officer examined Hannah’s passport. Then he studied her. He seemed to focus on her hair. Again, he looked at her picture. He spoke, but Chris couldn’t hear what he said.

A broad smile lit Hannah’s face as she replied and proudly flipped her hair. The officer frowned, but Hannah glowed as she spoke again. He waved her through.

A little while later, Sonny came through a different line. The immigration officer, a woman with an angry face, questioned him.

Sonny returned her angry face with the same, and his lips said,
No
.

The grumpy lines in her forehead sank, as she appeared to ask more questions.

Sonny’s face upped the grumpiness. His voice became louder, but Chris still couldn’t hear his words.

Her eyes moved from Sonny’s face to his photo then back to his face.
The moustache.

Their voices became audible to Chris, and people from the other lines stared at them. Sonny gave her an irritated look, and his voice blared: “It’s this neat invention they call a razor! You ought to try one sometime! Your upper lip ain’t looking so smooth!”

“Are you getting smart with me?” she snapped.

“No, ma’am! I thought we were exchanging beauty tips!”

She smacked his passport closed and stabbed him with it. “Next!”

Chris tried not to chuckle as he picked up his carry-on and headed toward baggage claim. Chris, Hannah and Sonny each picked up their bags and passed through customs independently, reuniting outside the airport at the nearest taxi stop.

“How much money you guys got?” Hannah asked.

“I’m down to twenty dollars and some change,” Chris said.

“Well, I
had
a donkey,” Sonny said.

Chris smiled.

Hannah handed each of them a wad of money. “We’ll have to buy fake IDs, weapons, and some other essentials.”

“Where do you get all this money?” Chris asked.

“I’ve got a Visa under a fake identity that I keep for such emergencies,” she said. “The Agency doesn’t know about it, but after we clear our names, I’ll tell them to reimburse me. I just made a cash withdrawal from the airport ATM.”

Chris and Sonny thanked her.

They caught a cab. Chris didn’t call Young—preferring to surprise him rather than becoming the surprisee. They travelled thirty minutes east to Annandale, Virginia, just south of Langley. Chris told the driver to circle Young’s neighborhood. They couldn’t spot any surveillance, so Chris had the driver drop them off.

Chris knocked on the door and noted it was made of wood and equipped with a deadbolt lock—average for security. A faint light emitted through the peephole. He pressed the button next to the door and heard a bell. The faint light disappeared. Someone was watching him—Chris hoped it was Young. Although they kept in touch, he hadn’t actually seen him since the rescue. The door opened and Young answered. Chris’s eyes were drawn to his prosthetic ears—they looked so real. His hand and lower arm were lifelike, too. Chris remembered Mordet, and his resolve steeled.

“Dude, I was worried about you,” Young said. “People are freaking out about you all. Come inside.”

After they entered, Young locked the doorknob, deadbolt, and chain. Chris introduced Sonny and brought Young up to speed on what was happening.

Then it was Young’s turn. “Right now, there’s a battle going on about Hannah—Jim Bob’s cronies and protégés are out to get her, but others in the Agency are on her side. No one knows you guys are back in the States now, though.”

“And no one
can
know,” Chris said.

“Sure.” Young led them farther into the house. They passed the dining room, where instead of a dining table, there was a pool table. Chris remembered playing pairs those years ago, Little Doc and him versus Hannah and Young. A small smile crept onto his lips and then faded fast. There wasn’t time to reminisce.

Young led them into his living room, and they sat down on a sofa and overstuffed chairs. The trio handed over the laptops, flash drive and other intel, filling up the coffee table.

“This is what we took from Jim Bob, Victor, Mordet, and his man Little Kale. We think Mordet is here in the States to launch an attack, so we need you to help us figure out how to stop him before he does.”

“And then there’s this.” Hannah handed him the meat jerky in the Ziploc.

“What’s this?” Young asked.

“Who’s this?” Hannah corrected him. “One of Mordet’s leftovers. Can you get this analyzed, so we can find out who Mordet has been munching on?”

Young stared at the bag. “Son of a bitch.” He shook his head and put the offending object on the coffee table with the other items.

“I’m going to ask my assistants to help me on what you’re giving me. It’s too much for me to work on alone.”

Hannah nodded in approval. “As long as it stays—”

“Confidential,” he finished for her. “Of course.”

“Do you have any firearms we could borrow?” Chris asked.

Young shook his head. “Sorry, I don’t carry anything,” Young said. He rummaged through a drawer before pulling out a pamphlet. “But you all must be starving.” Young held it out. “Here’s a delivery menu for a pizza place nearby if you want.”

Hannah took it. “That sounds good.”

Young moved the computer equipment to his office, which took up one wall and a quarter of the living room. Then he started up Jim Bob’s, Little Kale’s, and Professor Mordet’s laptops.

Twenty minutes later, a knock came at the door—two sets of two knocks, actually. Although it sounded like a coded knock and Young didn’t seem alarmed, Chris’s muscles tensed. Being unarmed didn’t help, so he looked for weapons of opportunity—a chair seemed the most likely candidate. It’d be bulky to wield but would make a solid hit on whoever it struck.

Young went to the door, looked through the peephole, then returned to his table and retrieved the bag of jerky. The knock came again before Young unlocked the door and opened it. He passed the bag outside. Then he closed the door and locked it.

“Your assistant?” Chris asked.

Young returned to his desktop computer. “One of them. Right now, the others are logged into Jim Bob’s, Professor Mordet’s, and Little Kale’s laptops by remote.”

Chris looked on anxiously. “Does it look like you’ll crack them?”

“Little Kale’s is the easiest. Simple password.”

The pizza arrived minutes later, and Hannah opened the boxes on the kitchen table. The saucy fragrance was the holy grail of food. Chris offered Young a slice.

Young used one hand to type. “No, thanks. I already ate.”

The trio downed pizza slices almost as fast as they could lift them to their mouths.

“Looks like Little Kale tried to delete documents,” Young said, “but my assistant is reconstructing the data from the laptop’s disk sectors.”

Chris swallowed a bite. “What about websites he visited?”

“We’re finding those in the history cache of his browser while we reconstruct deleted emails.”

One by one the pizzas disappeared.

“This is interesting,” Young said.

Chris, Hannah, and Sonny stopped chewing, and their ears perked up.

“On Little Kale’s computer, a location and date keep popping up,” Young said. “Washington, DC in four days. Could be a target and the date of attack.”

Chris wiped his mouth. “That doesn’t give us much time.”

“What about Professor Mordet’s laptop?” Hannah asked. “Have those things appeared there, too?”

Young continued tapping on the keyboard. “His laptop appears clean, but we’re still searching it.”

“And Jim Bob’s?” Chris asked.

“Jim Bob used standard Agency tradecraft to hide his work, but we’re familiar with that and found a UBS bank account.”

“I don’t know whether to be surprised at how much the Chinese actually forked over,” Chris said, looking over Young’s shoulder at the account details, “or surprised at how little the Switchblade Whisper was worth to Jim Bob.”

“Did Jim Bob spend any of it?” Hannah asked.

Young’s mouse clicked a few times. “Doesn’t look like it.”

“Probably wasn’t in much of a condition to make a withdrawal after Chris shot him in the face,” Sonny said with a chuckle.

“We better do our old buddy a favor and take care of his money for him,” Hannah said, a grin spreading across her lips.

“How much?” Young asked.

“All of it,” Chris and Hannah said in unison.

“Where should I send it?” Young asked.

“Open a new bank account just for that money,” Hannah said. “If we send it to an Agency account, a charity, or anywhere else, Jim Bob will try to negotiate for the money’s return. We need to keep it out of his hands.”

“While we’re at it, we should contact the FBI,” Chris suggested. “They’ll be jazzed to take him down.”

“I have a good friend in the FBI,” Hannah said.

Sonny clapped his hands. “Jim Bob is in for a stonking huge surprise.”

Victor’s phone vibrated on Young’s desk. Everyone looked at it. Chris grabbed a piece of paper and a pen and copied the number from the caller ID. He placed it on the desk next to Young’s keyboard. “If you get a chance, see if you can find out about this phone number. And any other numbers that call Victor’s phone.”

Young nodded.

Chris sat back in his seat, his energy sagging. The long mission, jet lag, and a belly full of pizza were bound to take their toll. Hannah and Sonny seemed to move in slow motion, too. In contrast, Young typed furiously as if he could keep at it forever. The three made a watch schedule, and Chris stood the first watch while Hannah and Sonny slept. Young refused to rest and worked through the night.