Last words, p.10
ZEROED TARGET: AGAINST THE CLOCK action thriller series Book 5, page 10
“Ben…”
“Marry me now. Here. Now. Say yes.”
“Ben… I have to tell you something. At the fort. After the attack. When they told you I was in a coma, it was true. When I woke up… I found out that you, Rollan, everyone, believed I had died. I was shown photos of my funeral. I saw you there. I cried. For days. For weeks. I was given a new name, moved from safe house to safe house. Jordan and Marcus explained to me, over and over, convinced me it was the best for everyone. The world thought I was dead. You were safe.” She stopped, squeezed his hand, stared into his eyes. “Our daughter was safe.”
14:25:52
Marcus Smith stared at the screen. “That’s the best image you can get?”
Private Olsen toggled the controls of the camera focus. “That’s it.”
Marcus leaned in over the Private and studied the screen. The blurred shape of a round life raft took up most of the screen. In the middle of it, was the distinct glint and glare of a reflective thermal blanket. “How can you be sure it’s her?”
The Private looked up at him, “I can’t.”
Marcus frowned. “ETA on intercept?”
“Umm..” Olsen pointed the monitor on his right. “Eight minutes at current speed.”
Marcus stood tall. “So that gives you seven minutes to identify if this is a rescue mission, or a hostile incursion.” He turned, stepped toward the door, then stopped.
14:27:06
“Our Daughter?”
Shirin nodded. “Our daughter.” She searched his eyes, hoping, praying, begging for him to understand, for him to be okay.
“We have a daughter?”
She nodded.
“I have a daughter. We have a daughter. Is she okay? Where is she?”
Shirin smiled. “She’s safe. She’s with your sister and Trent.”
“Robyn…”
“Ben, at the Fort, Jordan came to me to offer me a job at the facility, as an instructor. She knew I was pregnant. She wanted us to have a life, as a family. I wanted it as well. More than I could ever have known.”
“You knew then that you were pregnant? But you didn’t tell me.”
“I was scared Ben. Scared that I wouldn’t, couldn’t, be a good mother, couldn’t be… what you deserved, what she deserved.” Shirin stared at him, pleading for him to understand, to forgive her. “I’m sorry Ben. I’m so sorry we didn’t have the chance to…”
“But you did have a chance. You knew you were pregnant. You had a chance. You had lots of chances.”
Shirin felt the crushing weight on her chest. “Yes.”
“So, what was the plan? You would start a new life? With our daughter?”
“No!” Shirin pulled his hand back to her. “No. That was not the plan! I only agreed to go along with it because I knew that while the world thought I was dead, you were safe. Our daughter was safe. And if I came back, I was too weak to fight for us. To protect you. I needed to heal. Needed to understand who we could trust.” She squeezed his hand, wanted him to squeeze back. He didn’t. “The plan, was for Marcus and Jordan to identify the breach to our security, to find out who had betrayed us, who had orchestrated the attack. While I healed from my injuries. And then, they organized for me to have plastic surgery, to change my appearance, to have a new identity, a solid back story, and for us to be reintroduced. For you to have the choice, to be with me, with us. And if you chose us, it would look like you’d moved on… we could have lived a normal life. Together.”
“It didn’t work out that way.”
She shook her head. “No. Before I was moved to have my surgery, the safe house was attacked. We lost, good agents, that day.”
“The Clock?”
She nodded. “Somehow, Daniel discovered a file, the Cypher Protocol. It was the plan to fake my death, to create my new identify, to re-unite us. It also identified that we had a child, a daughter.”
“I heard he was abducted. His husband murdered.”
“Yes… we’re not sure how he came across the file, but if he found it, it wasn’t through official channels, which means someone else had it, someone who shouldn’t have.”
“And you think that’s why he was taken?”
She nodded, rubbed from her eyes the images of what she imagined they had done to him, were doing to him, if he were still alive. “While searching for the people that took Daniel, Rollan found out about the file, realized what it meant, that you were in danger. We tried to get to you, but you were already aboard the plane, mission bound.”
“And that’s why that soldier drugged me. Why he was going to drop me from the plane. Why those guys were waiting in the boat below…”
“To get you, to get to me.”
She watched Ben absorbing the chain of events. Understanding what it meant.
“Robyn? Emily?”
She nodded. “When Rollan realized what the file meant, realized I was still alive, he warned Barrett to get Robyn and Emily to the Unit. The primary mission would have been to leverage the man I love. Next, they would have gone after the sister and niece of the man I love. It’s no secret that Robyn and I have a special relationship. They went after her, but Barrett took out the team and got Robyn and Emily to the unit.”
“Oh, my god. What do they want you so badly for, Shirin? Why?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know.”
“So that’s where Robyn and Emily are now? At the unit?”
“No.” She paused, gathered her thoughts, and continued. “The unit was breached…”
“Breached?! But how? It’s like a fortress. I’ve been there. I’ve seen it.”
“Cassie. The Clock. They took her son. Forced her to let them in.”
“Oh, my god! Max?”
“He’s okay. I think.”
“What do you mean? You think? You didn’t find out?”
Shirin held her hand out to calm him down. “In the breach… it got… it was bad, Ben. We found the traitor in the unit. I killed Ulrich Atler… Robyn, Emily, our daughter were safe, but, the next thing I remember is waking up in an ambulance. I went from there, straight to the plane. Straight to you.”
Shirin caught her breath as Ben leaned forward and hugged her tightly. She melted into his arms. “Our daughter was safe. All I cared about was getting to you. If they took you… I couldn’t…” she cried openly into shoulder and let go of all the pain, of all the loss, that tortured her. She leaned into him.
“Shirin, our daughter… what’s she like?”
Shirin smiled, laughed, wiped the tears from her face and sat back, “She’s incredible. So incredible! When she looks at you, with her big eyes, it’s like she’s reading your mind, interrogating your thoughts, and then,” she chuckled, “then, she smiles, this cute, guilty little smile, like she’s unlocked your biggest secrets and she knows exactly what she’s going to do with them…” Shirin brushed strands of hair away from her face, looked past Ben, remembering, then looked back at Ben, “I know it sounds silly. She’s just… amazing.”
Ben smiled, his eyes welled, “I can’t wait to meet her.”
Shirin stared at him and reached for his hand. She couldn’t find the words she wanted to say, but squeezed his hand.
He squeezed back. “She sounds like her mother. What’s her name?”
Shirin looked at him, questioning.
He gestured to her, “You gave her a name? What’s her name?”
“I… couldn’t… couldn’t choose a name for her without you.”
14:39:12
Sam Berg manipulated the controls of the F43 Rigor helicopter, watched the waves whipping past below them, and kept vigilant eyes on the rhythm and height of the swell below. The mist of a breaking wave sprayed across lower glass panel of the cockpit. She resisted the urge to check her instrumental panel. She spoke into the flight headset. “Radar threshold?”
Her co-pilot, Riley, responded instantly, “12 feet clearance. You have space. Target trajectory 12 O’clock. We’re on the line. Dead ahead.”
“Copy that. Assault team?” She sensed her copilot turning in his seat while she focused on the widening distance between the peak of each swell. She adjusted the altitude and pushed forward faster.
“Assault team prepped and ready to deploy on your left.”
“Copy that.”
14:39:28
Shirin turned her head to the side. She heard something. She stopped Ben from talking with a quick movement of her hand. The sound. Gone. She heard it again. Louder. She looked at Ben. “Helicopter.”
“A rescue team?”
“Maybe.” She whipped the thermal blanket to the side, shielded her eyes from sun, steadied herself and stood. “Get dressed. Fast.”
14:39:37
Berg flew the helicopter past a capsized boat. She noted the size, shape, colors. “Signal strength?”
“Signal strength true. Maintain trajectory. One click. Thirty seconds.”
“Copy that.” Berg adjusted her grip on the controller stick and prepared herself for contact.
Her copilot moved beside her, “switching to hard vis.”
“Copy that. Approach on your advice.” Berg rehearsed the scenarios in her mind as her copilot lifted large binoculars and scanned the horizon ahead of them.
14:39:53
Shirin slipped the vest over her bare skin and reached for her pants. “Ben! Friendly or not, we need that chopper.”
He looked at her and nodded.
“Grab the life jacket.” She turned, shielded her eyes from the glare, and saw the dark shape speeding toward them.
“Why’s it flying so low?”
“This far offshore, staying below radar…”
“But how could they find us?”
“Emergency beacon. Auto activated when I inflated the life jacket. Another in the raft.” She stared at the helicopter coming closer. Against the bright blue sky, she couldn’t identify it.
“But a lifeguard chopper wouldn’t worry about being identified on Radar.”
Shirin didn’t answer. She glanced at him, then back to the approaching helicopter.
Ben moved closer to her. “It’s fast. Is that normal?”
Shirin continued to stare at the chopper. “No. It’s not normal.”
14:40:22
Co-pilot Riley shifted in his seat, reached for the radio controller, and adjusted to the predetermined frequency. “Bellbird calling nest. Come in.”
He held the overhead handle to steady himself as the helicopter banked sharply on its side and circled the life raft below.
“This is nest. We have eyes on you, Bellbird. Image poor. Report.”
Riley turned and watched one of the tactical team in the rear cabin slide the side door open and lean out pulling his safety clips and straps taught. He looked past his pilot. “We have target over-site. Prepped for contact.”
“Visual?”
“Two individuals. Male. Female.”
“Can you confirm from facial rec?”
“Negative. Targets are moving too much. Can’t get a clear capture.”
“What are they doing?”
“They’re getting dressed, Sir.”
14:40:40
Shirin pulled the zipper on her tactical pants up, clipped the belt, and shielded her face from the spray of water coming at them like a blizzard from below the helicopter circling them.
She saw the gunman perched at the belly of the chopper, his rifle rested against his chest. He had a clear line of sight… the chopper kept circling… she called out to Ben, “They’re trying to identify us. Keep your face down!”
The chopper stopped circling, leveled, then moved directly above them. Shirin looked up. The gunman twisted out of sight, then leaned back over the landing struts. She couldn’t see his face through the flight helmet and visor, but noticed his rifle was still clasped with one hand, strapped to his chest. He held his arm out. Inside his hand, she saw a bulky device.
Through the whipping spray, she couldn’t make it out. He dropped it.
She watched it fall the twenty feet. Bounce on the base of the life raft. Roll. Sit still toward the side wall.
The helicopter lifted, banked sharply to the side, and backed away. She stared at the device. Bomb! She lunged toward it!
14:40:56
“Package deployed.” Riley clicked off the transmission and waited.
14:40:59
Shirin landed shoulder first into the side wall of the raft, scooped the device in her hand and swung up and out to launch the bomb out to the water. She clutched it, got a good look at it, and stopped as her arm reached full swing. It was a waterproof encased satellite phone. She stared at it, looked back at the helicopter, and then it rang.
Shirin looked at the display. Blocked call, no caller ID. She stared at the phone, glanced at the helicopter, and answered, “Yes?”
The line crackled to life. “Shirin?”
“Marcus?”
14:41:08
Marcus pumped the air with his fist and leaned into the workstation. “Shirin. Good to hear your voice.”
“Yours too.”
“How the hell you’re alive is a mystery to me!” Marcus turned to Private Olsen beside him, clicked his fingers, and pulled up the satellite images. “Shirin, the team in that chopper are with me. Be nice.”
“Good to know.”
“You’ll need to double time it. There’s an approaching unidentified boat. Moving fast. I don’t want my bird engaged.”
“Understood.”
“It’s time to come home.”
CHAPTER FOUR
“Why break the rules, when you can change them at your will?”
THE BOOK OF SEEKAY
FOUR HOURS LATER
18:44:32
“Sue, you sound tired.” His voice crackled over the re-routed, encrypted line, but the warmth behind his words reached across the distance between them and touched her.
Executive Director Jordan rubbed at her eyes and pushed the thoughts of breaking down and crying from her mind. Marcus was right. She felt tired. More than that. She felt beaten, bruised, out maneuvered and overwhelmed.
She blinked at the gray wall ahead of her and indulged in the weakness, the helplessness, the hopelessness that sank into her soul. Was this how it felt to stand before a firing squad? To see them lined in front of you, to hear their breathing, hear their weapons being raised, to know, what was coming, to understand its finality and be completely powerless to stop it?
“Yes… tired.” She almost laughed at the understatement.
“All things considered, that’s to be expected.”
“Maybe.”
“How can I help?”
Jordan stared at the mind-map she’d drawn on her tablet. The spiderweb of thoughts, loose ends, and closed strings of inquiry. It helped her to put things in perspective. To free her mind of the willpower and energy to repeat events over and over in her mind, and allowed her mind the perspective to see the events removed of the emotions that came with knowing that there were people linked and effected by each item, each line, each intersection of information.
She glared at the mind-map, her thoughts zeroed in on the connections of events, of the people that created the landscape, the battleground, that she found herself ensconced within. The fatigue that had clouded over her shifted to the outside edges of her consciousness.
“Sue?”
She pinched and dragged her fingers across the tablet screen, then zoomed out. “I’ve been summoned to a crisis Subcommittee for Covert Operations meeting.” She glanced at the document delivered an hour earlier by her head of security.
“When?”
“Tomorrow, morning.” She continued to stare at the document. “In person.”
She heard Marcus thinking over the silence. She continued, “I’m to speak to recent events at the Fed-services Building, and specifically, actions of the team, my team.”
“Clearance level?”
Jordan paused, “Seven.”
“But the committee wouldn’t be read into that level clearance.”
“No.”
“So, they’re going to be read into it, or…”
“The committee members that may attend, will be those with a Level Seven clearance or higher.”
“Lauder’s the Chair.”
“Yes.”
“I didn’t think he was a senior enough to have a Level Seven clearance.”
Jordan looked away from the letter. “He isn’t.”
“But as the Chair… he’ll need to be read into it… Shit! He’s smarter than I gave him credit for…”
“More dangerous than either of us gave him credit for, I’m afraid. It means he’ll be given all resources, data, files, associated with the events in question.”
“Shit.”
Jordan imagined the scale of damage Lauder could do with the information he would be granted. She shook her head and rubbed at her eyes again. The nightmare for her and her team, for the intelligence community, would be unfathomable.
Marcus broke the silence. “Sue. I know you don’t want to hear this, but you need to sanitize compromising files. Now!”
“I can’t.”
“You have to!”
“The moment the Subcommittee for Covert Operations authorized the crisis hearing and summoned me, my access was modified.”
“Oh, shit…”
She didn’t respond, but she understood the sentiment.
“How bad?”
“I can Read, and Add, but not edit or delete, anything. Regardless of Level.” She interrupted Marcus before he could respond. “Before you try to make me feel better that at least I’m not locked out completely… the authority to modify my access could only have been endorsed by the Director of Clandestine Service, Kevin Trévoux, my boss. He would have been bound by policy, but he didn’t call me. Didn’t give me a heads up. I received a system auto-text of my change in access.”
