Torching the Crimson Flag Read online

  Now, every Wednesday, she’d head to a resort bar at the Port of Batangas. It was a fifty-minute taxi ride from her normal beat, but Wednesdays were the nights that new container ships would arrive. There was always a half-drunk sailor who was desperate for female company and would pay double what she normally charged. Although she disliked the area and knew it was full of scum who were involved in the seediest underbelly of the shipping industry, they were usually stacked with dollars or euros. She crossed the street, ignoring some catcalls from local men.

  This region of the Philippines was undoubtedly more rural than the big cities. Just a fifteen-minute walk from the resorts were fish plants, rice farms, and sugarcane fields. Tala had discovered a much-older second cousin in the region, and when she escaped from Angeles City, she’d reached out to her. It turns out that her cousin was widowed and no longer had the energy or desire to keep farming. She’d rented her fields out to a sugar conglomerate and was happy to have Tala and Matteo living in a simple apartment in the loft of her barn. The best part was that Matteo was enrolled in a tiny preschool that was a feeder into Bagalangit Elementary School. The young sex worker-turned mother knew that it was her best chance of getting her son some education before she’d make the long pilgrimage to a better place, maybe Canada or Australia.

  With the food in hand, she knocked on the window of a taxi, waking up the driver.

  David walked into the conference room at LaunchPad and sat down. Bruce, Tank, and Leonard were already there but hadn’t started any serious conversations, waiting for Hirsch to join them.

  Dr. Stone took the lead. “We don’t have any more details. Iris was taken by a group of professionals; there’s no doubt about that. The kidnapping was almost eight hours ago at 6:46 AM Eastern Standard Time.” He checked his watch and then his notes. “It’s 2:45 PM, now. I’ve sent the crime scene pictures from the local PD to your tablets. In addition, there’s some video footage from a few houses away. It’s where the twenty-four-hour surveillance was located. Secret Service.”

  The four men took some time to watch the footage and look at the photos.

  “They wanted everybody dead, that’s for sure,” Bruce stated. “And obviously, they knew his schedule and security protocols.”

  “Right,” Tank agreed.

  David spoke up. “That doesn’t mean it’s an inside job. Once anyone knew where he lived, they could watch his morning routine. It was the same every day. A little too predictable, actually.”

  “Are we seriously talking about searching the Russian Embassy?”

  Leonard shook his head, “Not without their permission. That could start a war.” He turned to his old friend. “David? Did you find anything out?

  “They used QBZ-95s. That doesn’t necessarily mean they were Chinese, but it slightly boosts the probabilities. The President asked me to open some back-channels, so I did. Remember Alexei Sokolov, Leo?”

  Trey’s dad nodded. “Reliable. We’ve used him before.”

  “And he’s used us. According to him, Iris is not in the building, on their property, or in their possession. He also reported that top embassy brass is very nervous. The translator knows everything about U.S./Russia relationships going back decades.”

  “Can I ask an obvious question?” Bruce queried.

  “Sure.”

  “Why did the U.S. have all their eggs in one basket? Wouldn’t a better idea be multiple translators?”

  David shook his head. “Too many people, too many possibilities of leaks or miscommunication. One genius person does it all and just needs to be totally protected.”

  “On top of that, the translator builds rapport and trust with POTUS as well as foreign dignitaries,” Leo added. “That confidence becomes valuable when talks get frayed and are about to break down.”

  “Okay,” Bruce said, leaning back in his chair. “We need Saara here, don’t we?”

  Leonard nodded. “Her software connects traffic cams, but she’s the only one who can access it, never mind know how it works.”

  “Right. We’ve traced the van to the Russian Embassy, and they’re saying he’s not there. We’ve been assuming that they were lying, but what if they were telling the truth?”

  “I’ve looked at the footage,” David stated. “That van has not left their property.”

  “What about other vehicles?”

  “I counted fourteen that left after the van arrived. I’ve got someone working on them. She’s not Saara, but she’s good.”

  “Dusti?”

  “You remember her, huh?”

  Bruce nodded. “She helped us when Trey’s family was taken. Hopefully, she can help us again.”

  “I think Tank and I should drive to the Russian Embassy. It’s only an hour from here.”

  Leonard nodded. “That’s a good idea. David, I think you should go with them.”

  “Yeah, I think so, too,” his friend said, agreeing. “Might need to open some of those backchannels we were talking about earlier.”

  “Tell Sokolov we want to see the van. That’s it. We believe him about the translator—that he’s not in their embassy—but right now, we need hard evidence.”

  The Stone family had packed their belongings into the rental Jeep, checked out of the Banff Park Lodge and were driving out of Banff National Park towards the Calgary International Airport.

  Saara Tuurig and Michiko Imada had boarded their United Airlines flight and were in the air for the short trip from Boston to Baltimore.

  Fox and Ashley were driving up from Norfolk, Virginia. For a while, they had chatted about the wedding, then it was like a switch flipped, and the pretty surgeon was fast asleep. Fox had driven for over an hour when he knew he needed her awake.

  Fox reached over and shook her gently. “Ashley!” he said urgently.

  “Are we there?” she answered groggily.

  “Ashley. Wake up!”

  “Now?”

  “Wake up,” he said firmly.

  She sat up and rubbed her eyes. “What, Fox? Where are we?”

  “We’re being followed.”

  Ashley wasn’t sure how to respond.

  Fox glanced in his rearview mirror. “The same white Ford Escort has been behind us for over an hour now. I’ve tried changing speeds, and I’ve taken a few alternate routes. It’s definitely a tail.”

  “Sorry. I think I fell asleep as soon as we started driving.”

  “I think we’d just agreed on square plates instead of the round ones.”

  “I just dreamt about that.”

  “That’s alright. I felt bad waking you up just now.”

  “Where are we?”

  “Thirty minutes from LaunchPad. This guy has been on us since before D.C.”

  “Obviously, we can’t lead him to the team.”

  “No. Can you get on your phone and find a place we could pull over, be safe, and force a conversation?”

  “You don’t want to just lose him?”

  “No.”

  Fox’s fiancée started thumb-scrolling through options on her smartphone. It didn’t take her long. “Fort McHenry is coming up.”

  “Where the Star-Spangled Banner comes from?”

  “Yup. That’s the place. I think I remember reading that it originated in a poem first. Something like, ‘A Defense of Fort M’Henry.’ Or is it ‘Defense of the Fort M’Henry?’ I don’t know. Anyway, it’s twenty minutes from LaunchPad.” She thought for a moment. “I’m not sure how many tourists might be there.”

  “There’s nothing closer to LP?”

  “Holly Hill Memorial Gardens?”

  “I like that. The cemetery, right?”

  Ashley nodded. “It’s less than ten minutes away. There’s a lot of open space, but we could drive to the end by the columbarium.”

  Fox glanced down at where she was pointing on her phone. “That would make a good place for an interception, and unless a funeral is happening right now, it’ll probably be empty.”

  “How do you know
it’s a guy?”

  “I don’t. It could be a woman. It could be a car full of people.” Fox shrugged. “I haven’t been able to tell, and if I slow down, he immediately slows down.”

  “Or she.”

  “I got your point, Ashley,” the big agent growled, slightly frustrated. “Can you get the black duffle bag off the floor in the back and pull out my pistol?”

  The brunette nodded and recognized that this situation was more serious than she’d initially thought.

  Chapter Eight

  Nathan Harris had finally fallen asleep, exhausted from replaying the moment of his kidnapping in his mind like a horrible tune on repeat, over-thinking why he might have been taken, and fear. His body had slumped against the Jeep door to his right, and his chin was on his chest, stretching his neck in a way that would be sore later. He dreamt a chaotic nonsensical dream. Running through a jungle only to find he was living on his grandmother’s birthday cake on a deserted island. Countless planes flew over, but nobody could understand the Cyrillic script he’d etched in the icing asking for help, so they chose to ignore him.

  The vehicle came to a stop, and when his door was jerked open, he almost fell out. One of his kidnappers caught him while the other two yelled about being more careful. Harris was fully awake now, shocked into reality. When the door to the Jeep closed, the translator noticed an echoey sound. They were indoors. He rolled his head around, trying to stretch his neck while being escorted somewhere, and the shift of his head bag allowed air to rise to his nostrils. He almost vomited. The stench of old pig feces was obvious.

  “Sit down.”

  The White House translator felt a chair being pushed behind his knees and sat. He was grateful his hands and ankles still hadn’t been bound, even after the transfer to the Chinese. The Russian’s “Don’t be stupid,” speech had been very effective.

  “Chen, take that thing off his head.”

  Harris felt the heavy cloth bag lift off of his head and for the first time in almost six hours, he could breathe uninhibited air, as putrid as it smelled.

  There were three men. All Chinese. Dressed in t-shirts and jeans. The one to his right must have been Chen. He was holding the bag that had covered his head. They were in a large empty warehouse that had once been a farrowing barn for a pig farm. The room had high concrete walls, slotted rectangular windows that were fifteen feet up from the concrete floor, and a ceiling that looked to be made from a composite material of some sort. Most of the farrowing units and their plastic slotted floors had been removed and Harris was sitting on a heavy metal chair in the middle of the concrete floor. Next to him was a wooden table with a few other chairs around it.

  “If you give us a reason to hog-tie you, we will,” Chen stated matter-of-factly. “You need the bathroom?”

  Nathan nodded.

  “Follow me.

  Tossing the heavy head covering onto the table, Chen walked towards a side-door of the giant structure. When he got to it, he jerked his head in the door’s direction. “In here. You have five minutes. Wash your face, too. It will revive you.”

  The bathroom was simple but clean. Concrete floor, pedestal sink, toilet bowl with a roll of toilet paper sitting on top of the ceramic tank cover. No towels or even paper towels. Dr. Harris did as he was told and stepped back into the main room.

  Chen escorted him back to the table and motioned for the translator to resume his seat on the metal chair. “Okay, boss. We’re all set.”

  The older of the remaining men turned to face Harris. “We will speak English because Chen’s Mandarin is no good. He was born in Miami and grew up in Chicago. My name is Bing.”

  Nathan wasn’t sure how to answer. These guys acted as if they were just meeting at a coffee bar, not in some God-forsaken pigsty. He was just about to answer when a door burst open at the far end of the warehouse. A man walked in carrying a pink duffle bag, followed by a woman who was being escorted in by another man, slightly larger than the first. She had a hood over her head, like the one that Nathan had had. Harris was shocked. He wasn’t the only one who had been kidnapped.

  Fox checked his rearview mirror. “Ashley, there is another packed mag in my bag. Can you get it out for me?”

  She found it and handed it to him.

  “There’s also a smaller backpack inside the duffle bag.”

  “I see it. Throw the mags into the main pocket and then hand me the backpack.”

  He glanced over and saw that Ashley was getting it all done. When she finished, he said, “I need you to drive.”

  “You want to switch now?”

  “Yes, I’ll put your car into neutral and move over. You slide over on top of me. I’ll slide over and hold the steering wheel until you’re in position. Don’t hit the brakes. Now!”

  The two traded places, and Ashley settled into her seat, grasped the steering wheel, and shifted into “drive.”

  “Is the plan still to engage them by the crematorium?”

  “I’ve been thinking about it. I think a better plan is for you to turn into the cemetery, and I’m going to roll out of the car. Turn left and take the long loop all the way around and back to the entrance. Exit the property and wait for me on the side of the road with the car running. You know what to do. I’m going to cut off their exit and find out who these people are and why they’re following us.”

  “Maybe David or Leo sent them.”

  “I texted LaunchPad while you were sleeping. They don’t know who it is.”

  “Are they sending Bruce or Tank?”

  “David is taking them to the Russian Embassy in D.C.”

  “What? Really?”

  “I know. Something big is going down.”

  “You’re making me nervous, Fox.”

  “We have a solid plan, Sweetie. I know what I’m doing. We just need to be alert.” Fox reached into the back seat and fished his five-inch Carbon Steel Sawback Blade from the Ontario Knife Company out from his black duffle bag. He slipped it into an ankle holster that he always wore. “If anything happens to me, Ashley, you flee. Go straight to LaunchPad if these guys are not on your tail. If they still are, race to the nearest police station.”

  They were now driving alongside an eight-foot brick wall that fronted the cemetery and led to the two-lane entrance. Ashley slowed as she turned into the cemetery, and Fox opened his door and dove under a leafy American Elm tree. He adjusted into the prone position, pressing his body against the base of the wall with his eyes on the entrance drive.

  Ashely swerved, causing the passenger side door to slam shut and then turned left following the asphalt around a traffic circle centered with a white cross. She took the first exit to drive along the left side of the cemetery. As she drove towards the crematorium and the high granite walled cremation units at the end of the cemetery, the white car turned into Holly Hills Memorial Cemetery. It was a Nissan Altima. He counted three men inside. Fox froze in place.

  After the car turned to the left to follow his fiancée, Fox snuck out his phone, snapped some pictures of the car, and sent them to Leonard. The vehicle disappeared for a few seconds, hidden by distant trees, so he sprinted across the driveway and inserted himself under a tree that was exactly opposite of where he’d been. He carefully placed his phone at its base, pointed the camera towards where the cars would be coming back through, and started video recording.

  For a few minutes, Ashely and the white Altima were at the far end of the expansive burial grounds, hidden from his view. Fox checked his weapon. Its six-inch slide was impressive to look at, but he was less concerned with the impression the custom-designed Fusion Tactical made than the extra weight up front – it stabilized his accuracy in the palm of his giant hand.

  A few birds were chirping in the trees, but other than that, it was quiet. No other cars were going by, and he hadn’t seen any visitors to the place. Minutes seemed to take an hour while he waited, but eventually, he saw Ashley’s Moonlight Blue Audi A5. She appeared to be driving normally. Fox made s
ure he was well hidden and waited.

  The light gray smoke from the smoldering cigarette butt in her ashtray on her desk slithered through the air unnoticed. She was lost in deep thought. Not even a year had gone by since the death of her brother and her sister-in-law. Ti Chiu owned a group of computer hackers that posed as a software development company. Their other brother had died shortly after he married Ye-jin Yoon, but she leveraged the sympathies of the nation towards a successful political career in Korea. Both of them had been in New Delhi working on an important trade deal with India on behalf of South Korea and the United States when they were killed by a vicious terrorist attack, at least those were the carefully sculpted media talking points. In reality, her powerful political family had been negotiating with the Chaudhuri crime syndicate in India.

  Now she was alone. Her two siblings had died, and it was her responsibility to direct and manage the family’s fortune on her own.

  Seiko had done her job well; named by their Japanese mother, she lived up to her name’s meaning: successful. She’d set up dozens of shell companies, to distance herself from some of the things her sister and brother had been involved in, navigated all the media scrutiny, laid low for several months, and was now putting things in motion again from her vacation home on the north side of Jeju Island. Located directly south of Gwangju, it was often referred to as the “Hawaii of South Korea.” It made a perfect location for discreet activity because her Chinese clients didn’t need a visa as they did in the rest of the country. And because it was a highly sought-after tourist destination, locals thought nothing of Caucasian foreigners walking around, either. But most importantly, the volcanic island is the only self-governing province in South Korea, run by local natives instead of politicians from the mainland. And those local natives were easier to bribe than the politicians in Seoul.