Torching the Crimson Flag Read online

  “Mama, who’d want to kidnap someone like him?” Trey asked, tapping into her decades of experience as a high-level translator for the U.N.

  “Someone who wants a clear strategic advantage over the United States and her allies. It’s a bold move and one that must have included meticulous planning, beginning with finding out where he lived. I can’t believe that was public knowledge.”

  Agent Stone shook his head. “I’m sure it wasn’t.”

  “I would suggest that you make a list of the meetings he’s worked this past year. Write down who he was translating for; the subjects of discussion, in broad strokes; and then ask yourself who would gain the most from those conversations.”

  “That’s if I want to get involved.”

  “Don’t you?” Bao Zhen asked.

  Agent Stone shrugged his shoulders. He didn’t know the answer. In the past, Trey would’ve jumped at an opportunity to help the White House. Not because there was something about being close to the epicenter of power that was addictive, but because he had a deep sense of using his talents for what is true and right. Trey had always been able to serve his country without being corrupted by authority. But after the abduction of his family a year ago and then a recent harrowing experience in the Middle East with his daughter, he wasn’t so quick to jump at the opportunity.

  He got up and went over to the suite’s safe, punched in the combination, and watched it pop open. “Thirteen messages,” he mumbled, pulling his phone out of a Faraday bag and watching it power up and populate. He listened to each one. They were all from President Baker except for the last four. They were from his dad. He just stared at the list of missed calls for a few minutes, weighing the pros and cons of finding out what happened. Then he decided to touch the screen button that activated a return call to Leonard Stone.

  People don’t reach the position occupied by Nathan Harris without having an exceptional memory. At first, he tried to memorize the turns of the vehicle, the distances between them, and the feel of the roads, but as time wore on, he gave up. The ability to discern noises outside the vehicle was impossible because his captors were playing Russian music loud enough to mask any external sounds. The melodies were sickly sweet with traditional lyrics and reminded him of the American boy-bands from the nineties. Their blended voices, calculated choruses, and upbeat verses articulated a love-lost-never-to-return type of storyline. This particular song was ready-made for repeated play on radio stations and probably inspired thousands of voices in Asian karaoke bars.

  Time slipped into oblivion as they traveled. It seemed like they’d been driving for a few hours, but he had no idea. Inside the darkness of his heavy hood, he didn’t even know if they were driving north or south. Even the natural instinct to stay alert was wearing down and as his body came down off that high, he began to feel drowsy even. His wrist was hurting where the transponder had been dug out of his flesh. All he wanted now was to reach their destination, wherever and whatever it was.

  He heard the click of a Zippo, the sound of a window cracking open, and then smelled the articulated aroma of cigarette smoke. “You need bathroom?”

  The question caught him off guard. It wasn’t asked ominously, just matter-of-factly. The Russian accent of the man next to him was strong. He’d moved to the United States within the last five years, Nathan guessed. They probably don’t want me to soil the back seat.

  “No, I’m fine as long as we’re not going much further.” Harris wondered if they’d pick up on his subtle attempt to ask, Are we there yet?

  “Okay. If you need bathroom. We stop.”

  Nathan was hoping he’d say how much further they had to go, but his hope wasn’t satisfied.

  For what seemed like another hour, the SUV continued, then, after a few turns, it hit a gravel road. Dr. Harris tried to stop deleterious thoughts from racing through his talented brain. I’m not in danger, am I? After all, a lot of people might want information from me, but they can’t get that from me if I’m dead. They could torture me, I guess. Chills ran up and down his body as he realized he was about to find out how far his captors would go to extract the intelligence they wanted. He began to think of his interactions with Russians throughout his career. Most recently, there’d been some pretty serious discussions between the president of the United States and the leader of Russia regarding policies and “counter-terrorist operations” in Chechnya. But certainly, the people in those meetings could’ve found out what was said without taking the drastic measures of kidnapping him. Right??

  Michiko Imada had been educated in the same school as Trey Stone. It was a little known institution secretively located in Japan and existed under only slight scrutiny and highly classified knowledge. Trey spent his time there becoming a CIA master at special operations with a particular focus on Single Unit Target Elimination. Michi, as she was known among colleagues and friends, was training to be an exceptional master of disguises while developing an administrative skill that was incredibly useful. While she was several years his junior, Trey often referred to her as one of the most naturally gracious and hospitable people he’d ever met. She was well-trained in handling firearms, talented with throwing knives, and could take on almost anyone in hand-to-hand combat. Before joining the team at LaunchPad, Michi had been placed by the CIA in the Japan Jet Charter Company. She had not only overseen logistics but often functioned as a flight attendant on one of their private planes. It gave her the ability to keep a very close eye on the CEO of a major Chinese firm that started funding weapons-manufacturing in North Korea and privately stashing his funds through shell companies in Shinjuku, Japan.

  But Michi wasn’t thinking about any of that right now. She was still glowing in the aftermath of hearing her favorite band of all time in person for the first time in her life. The concert had been over for more than twenty-four hours, they’d dropped their car off at Hertz, and now had gone through the TSA full-body millimeter-wave security scanners at Boston Logan International Airport.

  “It was so amazing to hear, In the Name of Love!” Michi recalled, happily, putting her tablet back into her knapsack and slipping into her shoes that she’d been required to remove.

  Saara Tuurig, a tall blonde Finn who worked with the LaunchPad team, smiled at her. “It was pretty incredible. I couldn’t believe they played for as long as they did.”

  “So many people were singing along on almost every song.”

  “Yes. That was amazing. The crowd was like a choir.”

  “I’m glad we went.”

  “Me too. Thanks for inviting me.”

  The two were repacked after the security check and walking through the concourse to their gate when Saara felt her phone buzz in her jeans pocket with an incoming text message. She pulled it out, and her face pinched as she read the content.

  Hope you had a great time. Did they play “Red Hill Mining Town?” I love their “Under a Blood Red Sky” album, too.

  “What’s the problem?” Michi asked.

  “Red is always red, right?”

  “Yes. In any message and any context.”

  Saara handed her phone to Michi so she could read the message she’d just gotten from Leonard Stone. “Something is going down. We’re needed back at the office.”

  Agent Imada read the text twice as she started walking. Dr. Stone must’ve researched U2 songs and albums with the word red in them because he was as likely to listen to the Irish band as cats are to go for a morning swim. “Well, we can’t fly back any faster. I think he just wants us to be mentally prepared.”

  The two ladies arrived at their gate and saw that they had twenty minutes before their Boston-to-Baltimore United Airlines flight boarded, so they found two available seats and sat down. Michi handed the phone back to Saara.

  “I’ll text him back that our ETA is three hours.”

  “That’s about right – with a thirty-minute cushion for traffic or delays.”

  Visually, the two couldn’t have been more opposite. Saara Tuur
i was just over six feet tall, with deep blue eyes, and long blonde hair that was swept up into a top knot bun. She had a sharply-defined Scandinavian jaw-line and spoke with a Finnish-influenced musical accent to her English. Very comfortable with her height, Saara wasn’t afraid to wear biker-chic black boots with her low-rise slim bootcut blue-jeans, and a newly-purchased black long-sleeved tee with U2 in giant lettering on the front and back. Most people guessed her to be in her early forties, but she’d just hit fifty.

  Officially, Tuuri had been with the CIA for just over ten years. She was a genius with satellite imaging, data flow, information management, and drone operations. During her fourth year with the Company, the United States had shot a Chinese spy satellite out of the air. Saara was the one who discovered it and oversaw its destruction. But, in addition to her technological talents, she was also a medical doctor. For many years she had worked undercover in a hospital that treated terrorists, gleaning information that proved very accurate and unofficially, but intentionally, helpful to the Company’s needs.

  Michiko Imada, on the other hand, had her raven-black hair pulled into a high ponytail and was almost a foot shorter than Saara. She wore a casual gray tunic over a pair of black yoga pants and pale pink Vans.

  A few passengers, eager to snatch the overhead bin space for their carry-ons, began to cue up in their zone-specific lines.

  “I wonder if everyone at LaunchPad is getting this message or just us?” Saara mused.

  Michi nodded; the thought had crossed her mind, too.

  Chapter Six

  Fox watched his approach-shot sail satisfyingly into the air. The little white ball climbed into the blue sky, curved, and dropped onto the far end of the green.

  “Beautiful!” he exclaimed proudly, looking at his fiancée triumphantly.

  Ashley just stared straight ahead. Fox followed her gaze. His ball had landed on the back edge by the flag but then began to spin backward, picking up speed as it rolled.

  “What on earth?”

  “I told you. You have to bounce onto the green from the right side.”

  The big agent watched his ball continue to accelerate and vigorously jump as it hit the front fringe and then dribble down into a sand trap. He shook his head in frustration before shrugging his shoulders and saying, “You have to admit, it was a pretty shot.”

  “It was … high,” Ashley acknowledged, trying not to burst into laughter.

  “Beautifully high.”

  “And it had a lot of … backspin.”

  The two started to giggle and then laugh as they climbed back into the cart.

  They drove up the center of the fairway and turned a gentle right to park on the path between two grassy mounds guarding the right side of the green. They got out, walked to the back of the cart, and stood in front of their respective bags. Fox pulled out his sand wedge and grabbed his putter in faith that he’d need it after his shot. Ashley drew her putter and walked with him towards the sand trap. They had all the time in the world. Nobody was behind them, and the group in front of them was still island-time slow.

  “Nice.”

  Fox looked into the trap. His ball looked like a sunny-side-up fried egg. Half of it was showing, and half was embedded in a hole that had been formed previously.

  “I hate it when people don’t rake the trap.”

  His fiancée smirked and stayed silent. Just as he was about to step into the sand, a loud, buzzing noise interrupted the mood. He fished his phone out of his back pocket and looked at the face. “David.”

  “Kurt Middleton-Fox, you’ll do anything to get out of a sand shot!” Ashley exclaimed playfully.

  Fox grinned as he answered the phone, but his face hardened as he listened. He hung up, not having said a word.

  “What is it?”

  “Red.”

  Ashley felt a chill run through her body. The team from LaunchPad was going straight into danger.

  “David didn’t give details over the phone, but someone’s disappeared.”

  Although Fox’s fiancée was a surgeon, she’d been raised by David Hirsch. She knew enough about the backroom deals at his cigar bar or the nights he’d disappear, to know he was involved with espionage at a very high level. One time, when she was a junior in high school, David was gone for four days. He had told her he’d be gone, but not for how long. A few days later, the United States had succeeded in negotiating the freedom of four Americans kidnapped in the Gaza strip. Ashley never talked to Hirsch about it, but she knew he’d been involved.

  “We need to leave, but I’m going to show you how to hit a shot out of the trap before we do.”

  “Good luck,” Ashley responded, wearing a smile, but trying to shake a feeling of dread and fear that was moving from her heart to her throat.

  After about an hour of sitting and waiting, Nathan Harris was allowed to pee. He wasn’t sure whether everyone was watching him or not. He had to keep his hood on the whole time. Afterward, he resumed his seat in the SUV for almost another hour when a voice from the front seat spoke. “Here they come.”

  Another Russian. The driver.

  “Okay,” the man sitting next to Harris said. “Don’t be stupid.”

  “Got it,” the translator responded.

  “We get out of this SUV. Then we hand you off. They take you.”

  “Who takes me?”

  “It looks like you will be in four-door Jeep.”

  “What do they need me for?”

  Nathan felt a tug on his sleeve and realized he wasn’t going to get an answer. He still wore the heavy hood, and his face was drenched in sweat from its stifling proximity. He diligently stepped out of the vehicle and, guided by the hand of the man who had been sitting next to him, he shuffled along. Their feet crunched the gravel as they walked, and he noticed that between the two of them, his slight frame made a lot less noise. The Jeep door opened, and he felt a pair of hands push-guiding him into the vehicle, and his wrist brushed against plush leather seats. The air conditioning was blasting, and he shivered with the change in temperature. Custom made interior in the Jeep. The sweet smell of vanilla from a cheap air freshener made him want to hurl. Just before his door re-shut, he heard the words, “Xie xie.”

  Thank you? Harris thought. First, the Russians. Now the Chinese.

  Three doors opened, and his new set of captors got into the Jeep. Nobody was speaking a word to him. He felt the jerk of moving from park to drive and heard the roar of the engine and the gravel spitting from the tires as they surged forward. The driver drove like greased lightning and obviously had no care for what was happening to the shock absorbers, springs, struts, or alignment as they tore down the gravel road.

  Harris thought about meetings he’d translated for that involved the Russians and the Chinese. There was the conference on worldwide climate change about six years back. It used to be about global warming, the long-term rise in the average temperature of the Earth's climate system, but since the Earth wasn’t warming up anymore, they retitled their tri-annual conference to use the words climate change. There wasn’t anything he could think of that would inspire the nations to kidnap the translator, though.

  Maybe my captors want me to translate for them. He thought about it but quickly dismissed the thought. It didn’t make sense. Certainly, the Chinese had access to very competent translators and didn’t need his expertise.

  Nathan wasn’t just stereotyping his captors with broad nation-labels. He figured that there had to be government or corporate impetus behind his kidnapping.

  They continued to race along the gravel road, and then suddenly, he heard the tires chirp as rubber met asphalt, and they bounced onto a paved road. The driver accelerated.

  Chapter Seven

  Tala Cruz stood in the darkness and hatefully stared at the man who had hired her. His flabby naked body was sprawled out on the hotel bed, covered only by a sheet twisted around his right thigh. The dank room reeked of cheap bourbon and cigarettes. She quietly bent down and resc
ued her black party dress from under his sweaty shirt and jeans, and as she did, her knee cracked loudly. For a moment, she thought he’d woken up, but it was just a long pause between snoring that sounded like a person trying to choke themselves. She pulled the dress over her body and picked up her high heels. He’d paid her well, and it obviously wasn’t his first rodeo. He’d gotten the cash from his pocket, and that was all he’d had on him besides a Zippo and a pack of Camels. No wallet to steal. No passport. No identification at all. Not even a phone. Apparently, he was French, if she believed him.

  As Tala stole out of the hotel, she wondered about her son and hoped he was sleeping well. He was four years old and the joy of her life. His father, or at least the sperm that helped create him, was from Italy. She never found out the man’s name but knew her son was his. He was the only one of her clients who had refused to wear a condom that month. He’d been nice. Gentler than the fat pig she’d just left at the hotel. She smiled, remembering how she’d googled Italian boy names and decided on Matteo, the Italian version of Matthew. It meant “Gift from God.” The night darkness was starting to lighten, and she quickened her steps, wanting to stop by a corner night store and pick up some milk and pandesal before flagging down a taxi.

  Tala Cruz had made a bold move after finding out she was pregnant and to this day, was glad she’d run away from her pimp. The soothing ocean air from Balayan Bay was therapeutic and always reminded her that somewhere across the water was a safe place for her and Matteo. She knew she was surrounded by poverty, but somehow, when looking at the consistent ocean waves, she felt rich. She just needed to save up for another six months. Of course, the market was different here. Tala attracted most of her clients through social media. People would add her as a “friend,” and then she would lure them into a very expensive visit. It wasn’t as busy as Angeles City, where she used to work, or even just up the coast in Olongapo City or Subic Bay; she didn’t have the regular group of girls that she used to hang out with, but she could keep everything she earned, and that was worth going a night or two without business. Truth be told, the girls were all forced friends. Their pimp wouldn’t let them outside of the club. Even though they serviced very high-end clients, they were an in-service operation only—no escorting and no meeting the clients outside of the building. Every week, they were allowed to go into the markets to buy things they might need, but it was only under the supervision of her pimp’s thugs that he called security. She’d worked for him for nine years, and when she escaped, during one of those market outings, her life went from black and white to color.