Torching the Crimson Flag Page 34

  Boyd lay down in the prone position. From there, she could see the gas tanks of the big trucks. She reached into her bag while Michi kept shooting. Pulling the pin with her teeth, she tossed a grenade. It was a good throw. The little canister got right where she wanted it to, and a second later, the explosion rocked the entire region. Part of the warehouse was destroyed, and she was just about to stand up when the two guards who had been on the far corners of the building, came onto the scene. Boyd shot the one on the left, and Michi took out the one on the right.

  “Michi! The busses!!” screamed Carter.

  Agent Imada sprinted off from her position as Boyd moved towards the warehouse. Unless there was added security inside, there were only two guys left.

  Michiko ran towards the gates and up to the security booth. As she approached it, she saw the side doors were open. The guy inside wasn’t armed. He looked like he had just graduated high school and was given a badge. And he started yelling before she even reached him.

  “Ma’am, you cannot come in here!”

  “These busses can’t come out.”

  “They can and they will,” he answered, depressing a button that initiated the opening of the gates.

  She got right up to him now. “So you’re on the payroll, too?”

  The guy was busted. Michi reached into his booth, pulled him out, and kneed him in the gut. He doubled over, and she kicked him in the face so hard that it knocked him off his feet. The busses started rolling forward, and Michi lept in front of the opening gate. Reloading her weapon, she started firing into the ground in front of the lead bus. The driver had no intention of stopping. Noticing the big vehicle was a puller and not a pusher, she fired into the grill, tearing the engines to shreds. It sputtered and stopped, and the lead bus came to a shuddering halt.

  In the distance, she could hear sirens. The cops were on her way. Suddenly she saw flashing lights on the water, racing towards the container ship. The DOGS were coming! The busses were trapped. So making a split-second decision, Michi turned and raced towards the warehouse. Just as she arrived, the front door opened. Linda and Helmut Wagner, Seiko Chiu, Keahi Kahananui-Jones, and Mayor Landow all came out with their hands up. Boyd followed them. Her face was bloody.

  “Boyd!”

  “It’s okay. It’s not my blood.”

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  “Hell no, Mr. President!” Leonard said emphatically. “There is no way that’s going to happen.”

  The LaunchPad team had just gotten off comms with Michi and Boyd, relieved to hear they were okay when Leonard’s phone had rung. It was President Webb demanding that they release Sasha. Dr. Stone had put him on speakerphone.

  “Stone? I am the President of the United States of America. And I’m telling you that you will let her go.”

  “I’m not under your command, Webb.”

  “Are we alone?”

  “Of course.”

  “Can I tell you what’s going on?”

  “Certainly.”

  “The Vatican has called.”

  “That’s a city, Mr. President.”

  “The Supreme Pontiff, himself.”

  “He called you? Asking for Sasha’s release?”

  “He did.”

  “Why?”

  “He wouldn’t say.”

  Leonard looked around the conference room. Everybody was just as surprised as he was.

  “Alright. Look. We get a crack at her, first.”

  “No. You let her go right away. Now. Is David back yet?”

  “Not yet.”

  “When he gets back, you tell him to load her up and drop her off at the same place he delivered Harris. We’ll take it from there.”

  Leonard was about to respond when he realized President Webb had hung up. “I didn’t know that whiny guy had it in him. He actually told me what to do. The pope must’ve really tightened some screws.”

  “Do we let her go?” asked Trey.

  “The main players are in Coast Guard custody. Boyd and Michi were smart enough to line them up on the pier so they’d be in their jurisdiction. Iris has been rescued. Who knew that by pursuing the White House translator, we’d uncover yet another child trafficking ring?”

  “You didn’t answer me, Dad.”

  “How important is she to us? Is she more important than LaunchPad’s good relationship with the White House and a sea of three-lettered agencies? I say, no. We can’t jeopardize our standing in this country so we let her go. And we turn the Russians over to the FBI. It’s not what I want to do, but you’re all exhausted, we’ve done our work, and it’s the smart political move for our future.”

  Everyone agreed. They didn’t like it. But he was right.

  The knock at her door was urgent and made her jump. Matteo was sleeping soundly to the rocking of the boat, and she wondered what could possibly be going on. That’s when she realized there was no peep-hole in the door. No way of knowing what was on the other side. She slowly pulled the safety bolt back into its barrel and cracked the door open. It was the team leader.

  “Tala?” he asked. “I hope I didn’t wake you.”

  “No. Matteo is sleeping, but I was awake.”

  “Follow me, please.”

  She quickly put on a pair of slippers, and then put the gown in the bathroom over her pajamas, trying to quell the rising fear in her heart. Something told her that this was the moment she had been dreading since her rescue. The man led her through the ship, past the dark-stained Cyprus wood walls, filled with original art and magnificent gold-accented crown molding. They ended up on the main foredeck, and the team leader sat down in a custom-made PlumeBlanche salon chair.

  Heather was standing a polite distance away. “Can I get anything for you, Miss Cruz?”

  “No thank you. I’m fine.”

  “Sir?”

  “Yes, tea, please. Tala, have some tea, too.”

  Cruz nodded. “Okay. Chamomile, please.”

  Heather gave a nod and left.

  “Tala, my name is Jason Moretti.”

  She was taken aback. “You’re Italian?”

  “I’m actually born in Brooklyn and raised in upstate New York. But, yeah. My dad was Italian.”

  “Matteo is … he’s … his father was Italian.”

  Jason nodded, “He’s a good-looking kid.”

  She smiled.

  “I’m just going to tell you what’s been going on. Then you have a decision to make.”

  “Okay.”

  “My boss sent us to retrieve you so that she could use you and your son. She needed leverage against Matteo’s father. Fortunately for you, he caved and gave her what she wanted. So, she doesn’t need you anymore.”

  “She knows who Matteo’s father is? How?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What does that mean? That she doesn’t need us anymore.”

  Moretti answered reached down into a leather satchel that she’d not noticed was already sitting beside his chair. He pulled out a piece of paper and handed it to her. “This is a document she’d like you to sign. It promises that you’ll never try to find Matteo’s father. Ever.”

  “Why would I sign that?”

  This time, the operator pulled the whole bag onto his lap. He reached inside and pulled out six passports. “Canada, Australia, or South Africa?”

  Tala stared at the passports. “I can choose?”

  Jason cracked open the cover of the first one. “All of them are prepared for you. One for your son. One for you.”

  “Canada.”

  He checked them and then handed them to her. “Congratulations. You’re a Canadian.” Then he gave her a debit card and a checkbook. “Do you know how to write a check?”

  She smiled. “No, but I’ve cashed a few.”

  “We’ll teach you. The account has $500,000 USD in it. That should be enough to get you started. Tomorrow, we’ll adjust course and head for Vancouver. Over the next few days, we’re going to coach you in financial management a
nd help you find a place to live,” he paused. “If you sign.”

  “If I don’t?”

  “We’ll take you back to the Philippines and drop you off.”

  “Do you have a pen?”

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  It had been four weeks since the rescue of Iris, and the LaunchPad team was celebrating the fact that they’d survived dozens of interviews with the Secret Service, completed an obscene amount of paperwork, and had somehow managed to come out from everything relatively unscathed. The government of the U.S. had insisted they stay in D.C. until everything was completed, so on this night, they were excited to be back at their base. Fox’s contribution was relatively minimal, so after a few days of sharing his story, he’d be offered rehab at the John Hopkins Medical Center for Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation in Baltimore. Known as being one of the best in the world, the good people there had him well on his way to a complete recovery in three weeks.

  Bao Zhen and Lin Lin had cooked up a storm, creating one of their favorite Chinese meals. They started by serving a cucumber salad and a steamed egg custard with shrimp. The next course was a radish and tofu soup followed by pork, steak, shrimp, and veggie dumplings. For the main course, they had prepared wild Greenland halibut steak and steamed white basa fillet. And for dessert, they served dragon's beard candy and pumpkin pancakes.

  While everyone was reclining around the dining table and a few other folding tables that Bruce and Trey had set up, Dr. Stone stood up to say a few words. “First of all, thank you for that incredible meal. I think that we might have to open a restaurant! Trey’s mother-in-law and his wife bowed politely, smiling. “This entire operation was unique. And I’m sorry that several of you had to cut your vacation short or your honeymoons,” he said, looking at Bora and Justin. “But all of you were just tremendous. The President sends his thanks, and most of all, Nathan Harris has communicated his gratitude to me. He’s asked that I pass it on to all of you. He’ll be retiring, effective in a few months after he’s trained his replacement.”

  Everyone helped to clean up, but when it was all done, a few members gathered in the conference room for what was becoming a post-operation tradition. David had provided cigars for anyone that wanted to be there.

  Fox joined the group as the tobacco sticks were being lit.

  “I don’t know if you’ve heard, but Sasha Volkov was found dead a few days ago,” Bruce informed everyone.

  “Really?” asked Trey

  “She’d been shot.”

  “Where?”

  “In the head, I think.”

  “No. I mean, where, geographically.”

  “Oh. In New York City. There aren’t any leads, from what I understand.”

  David chuckled. “Did you hear about the trucker’s conference in North Carolina?”

  Nobody had.

  “It wasn’t one. It turns out a group of hackers set the whole thing up. They organized an easy registration process and promised any trucker who came, all kinds of goodies that nobody ever saw.”

  “The whole thing was a façade?”

  “Yup.”

  “To cover the kidnappers, you think?”

  “Apparently.”

  “Speaking of hackers,” Leonard said. “Sasha was a Stingray.”

  “What?” Trey asked, shocked. The Stingrays were some of the most lethal hackers on the planet. From stealing Pentagon files to crashing trains in the New York Subway, the group could pretty much do anything they wanted and had the U.S. government deeply concerned.

  “I got off the phone with the Vice President this morning. The FBI discovered that she created the whole thing.”

  “Are you kidding?” Boyd asked as she drew from her cigar and blew out a circle of smoke. “The biometric key?”

  “Her invention.”

  “I’ve been thinking about this. I figured the computerized voice that attacked Jennifer must have been designed by a hacker of some sort.”

  “Probably her,” Leonard agreed. “They also informed me that they found another body in North Carolina. Some guy identified as Chen Yi. They were able to connect him to the murders of the Russians in that rental house.”

  “Wow,” Tank stated. “I don’t want to have to do that again.” He warmed up his cigar with his lighter and then started to light it. “All I could think about when I was in the water under the pier, was a story I read about North Carolina’s water moccasin problem.”

  Everyone laughed.

  “So, I had a surprise the other day,” David shared when things quieted back down. “I stopped by my bar in Philly, just to check on how things were going. And a man was sitting at a table. My staff tells me he’s been coming in every day for a week, waiting for me.”

  “Really?” Bruce asked. “Who?”

  Hirsch let the tension hang in the air for a bit. “Alexei Sokolov.”

  “What??”

  “He decided to flip off the Russians and settle in America.”

  “Wow!”

  “We talked for over five hours.”

  “David, that’s amazing,” Trey commented, shaking his head. “What was he talking about?”

  “A lot of things, but one thing he told me was that the Russians involved in all of this are part of Viktor Goncharov’s attempt to overthrow the current president.”

  “You believe him?” asked Fox.

  “He’s going to send me evidence.”

  Everyone puffed on their cigars. Then Leonard spoke. “The artificial intelligence that Sasha built was pretty impressive. And the scary part was the idea of biometric keying and triggers. Your fingerprint and your voice on your own cell phone, for instance, could trigger a preprogrammed response anywhere in the world.”

  “It’s a scary thought, dad,” Trey agreed. “Especially when you realize that the Stingrays are not just hackers. Sasha proved that they facilitate trade, shipping, and financial transactions for major corporations – including the Vatican.”

  “Do you think the Chinese will continue to run their prison labor, even after it got a splash on the news the other day?” Fox asked.

  “Most definitely. It would take a lot more than a little negative press to bring down that whole system. They know that the American public’s attention span is shorter than a goldfish’s.”

  Justin slipped into the conference room. “The Justice Department is filing charges against the kingpins of Red Flag,” he informed everyone. “I just got a text message from a friend.”

  There were a few moments of satisfaction that resonated in the cigar-filled room.

  “Thanks to Bora and her team. And Jennifer.” He paused, “I hope they don’t get suicided,” Leonard said.

  Trey gave his dad a long stare, “Yeah … wouldn’t that be something.”

  About the Author

  Conrad Brasso is an emerging author of CIA thriller novels. This is Conrad’s third book.

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