Pseudo (12 page)

“Yes sir, we’re onto this,” replied Tommy.

Mr. Madison had underestimated the efficiency that Elizabeth and Dmitry had; did not think they would have taken separate planes nor left at separate times. He was already two hours behind Dmitry and now an hour behind Elizabeth.

“Okay, man we need to get our contact in the immigration office if there were any departures of either Elizabeth Duarte or Sophia Hayward. We should also check on Dmitry since he probably fled as well,” Tommy said to SJ.

“Where should we operate from?”

“We need to already be on our way to the airport so all the checking of things has to be done on the fly.” 

“Alright, then let’s get out of here!”

Tommy and SJ found out that Elizabeth had already departed the country. “Great. What the fuck are we supposed to do now?” exclaimed Tommy rhetorically to SJ.

“Well, Cuba – there is the US Naval Base and our unit there. We will just have to have their planes stopped right when they hit the ground.”

“Yeah, well, the base is in Gitmo and they are flying into Havana – if the flight registries are correct. I’m going to have to call Mr. Madison and see what he says about this.”

“Sir, this is Tommy.”

“Yes, I know it is you – I do have a phone from this century.”

“I just figured I might not have been in –"

“Get to the point! What news do you have?”

“Sir, we found out that both Duarte and Dmitry are on planes – separate planes – headed for Havana, Cuba. Duarte left about an hour ago and the guy about two hours ago now. He should be landing in about another hour.”

“Jesus Christ! How did Duarte get so out of control?”

“With due respect, we do not yet know if Duarte is with this guy or if she is following him to take him down,” replied Tommy.

“Look, there is a chance, a very small chance that she could simply be following him and just trying to complete the job. However, it is unlikely. Duarte went out of touch with all of us. She is off the grid. She has never done that. Ever.”

“I see your point sir and agree.”

“Okay agent, get your whole team back to the Embassy and organize the transport of the two you have in holding here to Langley. Once you have it planned out, call me before moving forward. I will take over everything related to Duarte at this point. If I need you for anything, I will let you know. Also, you let me know if you hear anything from or regarding Duarte. Clear?”

“Yes Sir, we are on the way to the Embassy now.”

“Good.”

CHAPTER THIRTY

Now that Mr. Madison knew where Elizabeth and Dmitry were headed, he also knew he had to put together a crisis management team and get them into operation. He needed to report the situation to his superior who in turn would need to inform certain members of Congress that were aware of and ensured funding and support for many operations that he had either conducted in the past or had currently on-going.

Mr. Madison’s superior happened to be the Director of the CIA – a position Madison aspired to rise to. Failure to take Elizabeth and Dmitry in would be a failure that would set him back years in being in line to have that position. He was willing to do anything to stop that from happening.

Knowing he could not put off notifying the Director any further, Mr. Madison placed the call.  Being that it was in the middle of the night, he expected that he might be catching him at home and waking him up. Luckily for Mr. Madison, the Director was in his office, he had been up all night reviewing planning for an operation that was submitted to him and was related to the war in the Middles East. “Sir, I am sorry to disturb you but I have a situation I need to inform you of and get your clearance to set up a crisis management team,” Madison said.

“Hi James, Don’t worry. I’m still in my office. Been up all night working on something,” the Director said lightly.

Mr. Madison was surprised to find him in such a good mood for someone that had been up nearly all night by now and did not sound like he would be getting some sleep any time soon. “I have a situation with one of my operations and I need to set up a crisis management team.”

“Really James? That is not common for you. In fact, I don’t recall the last time you had to do that. Must have been over two years ago.”

“Yeah, that is right sir. It was the Pakistan ordeal.”

“Oh yeah. Shitty end of the stick was given to you on that one,” replied the Director.

“Certainly was not one of the best hands I was dealt.”

“Okay, so what’s come up?”

“I was running an operation to take out an international mafia group of sorts: ‘El Diablo’. They rob national banks by hacking into their systems and transferring funds into some private and inaccessible bank.”

“Yeah, I remember reading a short summary about that a week ago.”

“Okay. So, I had agent Elizabeth Duarte as the lead agent on the operation and sent her down to Mexico City. There are many details concerning the planning and what happened on the ground that I will provide you in a report but I need your approval to get the team together first.”

“James, we go back many years. I trust your judgment that you need to put this team together but I do need some details. You know that I have to know what every crisis management team is for and that I am ultimately held responsible for the results.”

The Director and Mr. Madison had graduated Harvard the same year, signed up with the CIA that year and had worked together many times. Mr. Madison knew he always had the advantage of being “Harvard Boys” but also knew that everyone in the Agency had an agenda and would screw one over if one got in the way of it. He therefore had hesitancy on revealing details until he had the situation under control but there was no choice; if he wanted to put together the backup team to handle this, he had to tell the Director the basics of what had gone down and what he needed to do.

“Sir, in the middle of the operation we found out one of the members of El Diablo was Juan Duarte. He is agent Duarte’s husband. I did some background checking on Juan in Colombia because he is a naturalized US citizen. It turned out that he was a major drug lord in the Colombian cartels. The Colombians let him cut ties with the cartels and move to the US without letting us know anything – they considered it was an advantage for them to be rid of him and have other, less successful drug lords running things. Juan lives in the States, is apparently clean for a while, hooks up at one point with Dmitry Sidorov and becomes part of their group –very well hidden. Now, while we were in the middle of taking out El Diablo, agent Duarte goes off the radar. She had set it up that her team was to go in on Juan and the other guy and she was to take out Dmitry.  Up to the time when she had her men go in on Juan, we were not aware of his being part of it. Once the men on the ground found out, they contacted me directly.”

“Before alerting agent Duarte?”

“Yes sir.  I then instructed that agent to head over to Duarte’s location while having the other men transport the targets to the holding facility at our Embassy there. They were clearly instructed not to contact Duarte whatsoever. When they got to her hotel they found both she and Dmitry were gone. I had them check all manner of departures they could have made, starting with airports. We found out they took separate planes to Havana. Dmitry lands in about one hour and Duarte in about two. I need to have my team together and have liaison with our agents in Gitmo so that these two do not leave Cuba.”

“Wow. You have quite a situation there James.”

“I know sir.”

“Look, I will issue your approval for the crisis management team. But there is one condition, if things go wrong on this – i.e., you fail to get it under control, you failed to inform me of the correct and full facts of the matter and it’s on your head. I had nothing to do with it. Do you understand?”

“Yes, I understand.”

“Good, I will issue the approval memo to you and those concerned – on email as I am sure you want to get going on this right away.”

“Thank you very much sir.”

Mr. Madison was aware that he was shooting himself in the foot in one sense by agreeing to the Director’s stipulation but he knew there was no other way to get his team and progress – either way he could lose but at least he was going to try.

After the phone call, Mr. Madison left his office and found an empty situation room, quickly checked over the computers, screens and other equipment to ensure all was in working order. As he was leaving the room a few minutes later, he got the email with the Director's approval and went back to his office to make the necessary phone calls to get his team put together.

After many rapid phone calls, he had his crisis management team organized and setting up shop in the situation room. Mr. Madison looked at his watch and saw he only had about twenty minutes before Dmitry’s plane was scheduled to land in Havana. “Shit, I’ve got to work out how to stop him from de-boarding that plane when he lands,” he thought.  There was insufficient time for him to get a team up from Gitmo – he would have that when Duarte landed but now he had to use any resources on the ground.

“Okay people, listen up. We have a situation here. Read the memo in front of all of your working stations. That gives you the details of the situation without my having to tell you all. We have work to do and you can get to reading it if you do not have an assignment. Otherwise read it in between what I tell you and let’s get to work!”

“You two need to locate any Agency resources we might have on the ground in Havana. We have a private charter plane with our secondary target landing in about seventeen minutes. He needs to be stopped from getting off that plane but minimally from leaving the airport. We certainly have people in Gitmo but they do not have enough time to get to Havana before the plane lands,” Mr. Madison said indicating towards two personnel in the right side of the room.  The team he had procured was composed of the top crisis management personnel they had – they had been working on lower urgency level operations when he pulled them together for this situation.

While Mr. Madison was working out how to stop him, Dmitry had been thinking about what he was going to do if there were to be an attempt to apprehend him when he landed. Yet another point of under estimating on Mr. Madison’s part was the high connections that Dmitry had in Havana. Dmitry was confident he would be able to override anything the CIA or any other agency might attempt.

Dmitry had bought off the lead air marshal in Havana. He also was very good friends with several generals and the head of the national police force. But most importantly, he had dined and became friends with Castro and his brother. They were not the closest of friends but the Castro brothers knew they could go to Dmitry if they ever needed funding that they did not have or could not get in a legitimate loan. Due to this, they had an outstanding debt to him of roughly one billion dollars – a fact Dmitry reflected on while thinking about his apprehension avoidance plan.

“Good morning Carlos, I am sorry to be disturbing you but I am going to land in Havana in less than fifteen minutes. I have encountered a few problems with some Americans and they may use any resources they have in Havana to stop me so I need your cooperation to render ineffective anything they may do to stop me,” Dmitry said as he woke up the lead air marshal.

“Dmitry! It’s good to hear from you! I will certainly help you out. Do you think they are going to try to access your plane on the airfield?”

“I would expect that much.”

“Okay, Okay. How much time do you need on the ground?”

“Enough to refuel and receive another passenger from a plane landing about one hour after mine.”

“Okay, I’m sure we can handle that. I will throw out some red tape to greet whatever American forces arrive at the airport,” the air marshal said as he was getting dressed.

“I knew I could count on you Carlos,” replied Dmitry now wondering exactly what would be waiting for him upon arrival in Havana.