Thomas Prescott Superpack (98 page)

“You were saying,” I said.

He was having trouble talking, so I took over.

“So, you kill her old man, he’s gone and you are sitting on this secret. You decide to take a different approach so you start researching this village and you stumbled on the name Baruti Quaroni. You know that he is an anti-apartheid activist, so I doubt you even mention moving his village, his hometown, elsewhere. He is living in exile and I don’t know how you find him, but you do. You get word to him anonymously. You don’t for one instant mention oil, instead you play the AIDS card. He has watched so many of his family members die from this disease, and from his past you aren’t surprised when he thinks that your plan to kill a shitload of sick Africans is righteous. But how are you going to accomplish this? Death costs money. And killing a quarter of million people is no easy task. So, you come up with a plan. Ransom. As National Security Advisor I’m sure you tapped into a couple of favors and had some people do some off the books work for you. I’m not sure how you stumbled on Track Bowe. Maybe you were looking for a cruise ship and when you stumbled on the
Afrikaans
, you learned the principal owner was Track. Or maybe it was vice versa. Maybe you were looking at the richest men in the world and Track popped up, and from there you found the
Afrikaans
. Doesn’t matter. It was perfect. A small luxury cruise liner. Small enough that it could be boarded by pirates and in a safe enough body of water that piracy isn’t too much of a threat. How Rikki comes into play I don’t have the wildest idea. You have access to basically any and all databases, and when you are doing research on Track, you discover he has an illegitimate daughter. You do your research on Rikki, entice her with an amazing African cruise via Facebook or whatever and she bites. And when she books the cruise, you know that all the pieces are falling into place. How am I doing so far?”

He nodded. He was impressed. Who wouldn’t be? I’m amazing.

“From here, you pretty much give Quaroni free reign. He brings in his own team, does things his way. All you care about is that he gets the money. You’ve probably already set up the purchase with the Russians for the Thermobaric Missile of increased whatthefuck and are just waiting for the go ahead. As for the bomb on the ship, I’m guessing that you used some back channels to get this or steal this and before it made its way into the hands of Quaroni, I’m sure you had a remote detonation switch added that only you could control. Once the ship is taken over, it is pretty much out of your hands, and then all you have to do is play your part, trying to neutralize the threat, but not actually neutralizing it.”

“Did Paul know?” asked Gina.

“No.” You could see the pain on the man’s face at the idea of his son knowing what he’d done.

Before we’d come, Gina had made me promise that none of this would ever get out. That Roger Garret would never be connected to the
Afrikaans
or her father’s death. It was evident she cared deeply for Roger’s son, even though he was married and had a family, but she wanted him to be happy. And knowing about his father would ruin him. It had taken me three days, but I had finally agreed to her terms.

“You texted him to call me,” she said. “I don’t know what you told this Quaroni, but you got him to add the rescue of three African children from the village to his demands. You didn’t tell him why and he probably didn’t care. You knew there was a chance that the letter from the
missionary had been hidden amongst my father’s effects. You probably searched for them, but you couldn’t find them, and assumed they’d been sent to Bolivia. Which they had. But then I’d sent them back and Vicky was keeping them in storage.”

Roger looked up. I’m sure he’d checked countless places and had somehow neglected her best friend’s storage.

“You wouldn’t have known about it, the storage unit is under her step-brother’s name.”

Roger nodded lightly.

“So you had Paul ask me to go on this mission, a mission that I was never to come back from. You almost got your wish. I was attacked by a band of kids and nearly killed, then trapped it a Zulu prison with whomever you hired to kill me.”

“Just a contact. Sent him your picture. Told him to go to the village. He was supposed to plant the beacon and to—”

“— kill me?”

Roger nodded.

“Well, he got there alright. But he did something to upset the villagers and they beat him to within an inch of his life. I’m sure he would have killed me if he’d had the strength.”

“You saw him?”

“Yes, the guards put me in the village prison. He was there.”

Roger nodded along.

“But it didn’t matter that he didn’t kill me because you knew that I would still be in the village when it was destroyed. You knew that I would stay there until I found the three kids. Three kids that didn’t exist.”

“You were always very persistent. I always admired that about you.”

I quick flash of approval flickered over Gina’s features, then vanished.

I took over again. “Everything goes according to plan, you get the money, wire the Russians, get the missile all set up. You made some calls and you knew a team of SEALs were on their way to board the ship and you probably knew within a ten minute window of when they boarded the
Afrikaans
. And then in the single touch of a button, or a single phone call, you blew up the ship. You thought you were killing everyone, every hostage, every pirate, every SEAL. But to your dismay, you find out that almost all the passengers survived. But the passengers are the least of your worries.”

I gave him a noogie. “At least you thought.”

I continued. “I always thought it was odd that when we were taken aboard the South African Navy warship, no one would listen to our story. I’m guessing that you made some calls and you were the reason we were sequestered in that room on base. You didn’t much care if our story came out, but just when. As long as the village was destroyed, then it wouldn’t matter what we had to say. And we wouldn’t be here right now.”

I never would have been able to connect the dots from oil to the National Security Advisor if it hadn’t been for Gina’s letter. And if we hadn’t made it to the village, Gina would have been part of the mass cremation.

“But as you know, the village wasn’t destroyed.”

“Yes, how did that happen?”

There were only a handful of people that actually knew what happened in that village. And it would forever stay that way. Both the South African Navy, and it seemed like the entire U.S. government had been trying to get in touch with us for the past two weeks. Lacy, Rikki, and I were the only passengers who hadn’t been debriefed. I’m quite certain we would be presumed dead if not for the manifest on that warship. There were a couple close calls at the hospital and there were some news vans around our motel the first couple nights snooping around, but by the fourth day the story was old news and the U.S. was more concerned with the latest school shooting than something that happened a world away.

I recounted what happened, Garret even giving a snort of laughter we he learned his plan had been foiled by a seven-year-old.

“So what would you be doing right now, if your plan had worked?” I asked.

He took a deep breath and said, “Well, I’d probably be at this anti-piracy conference all the same, but I’d also be silently making calls to prospective drillers. I had enough contacts and favors stored up in the South African government to ensure whichever driller I chose would be on that site. As for drillers, it would look too obvious if it was an American company, we already get a large portion of our oil from Canada, and the South Africans have a bad history with the English. Best case would be a Mexican company. In about six months, after the red tape was cleared, they’d start drilling, hit the jackpot. The South African government would get billions in royalties and within a year, the U.S. wouldn’t have to get a single barrel of oil from the Middle East. Without a dependence on Middle Eastern oil we no longer need a presence or an influence in the Middle East, which if you ask any of these countries, is the biggest aggressor and liability toward U.S. National security.”

“So you are saying that if all those people would have died the United States would be safer?”

“Without a doubt.”

“That’s horseshit,” I said. “That means that you value American life more than anybody else’s.”

“I do. That’s what I am paid to do.”

I couldn’t argue with that. And I had about enough of this guy. I’d said my peace. I looked at Gina and said, “You about done here?”

She gazed at me. Then she reared back and punched him in the nose a third time. Then she opened the door. I opened mine.

“That’s it,” he snorted. “That’s it. You are just going to let me go.”

I looked over the cab and Gina. “Your call,” I said.

“Let him go,” she said.

I closed my door. The cabbie took off with a backward wave. There was a small tattoo on the inside of his wrist. A saxophone.

≈

Torrey Royal looked in the rear view mirror at the man in the backseat. His face was covered in blood. As was the cab. But Royal didn’t care. He’d stolen the cab two days earlier, changed the plates, and in five minutes he would never see the cab again. “Are you okay,” he said over his shoulder.

Roger Garret nodded and said, “Just take me to my hotel.”

After a couple miles, Roger Garret said, “Are you sure this is the right way? I think it was back there.”

“I’m sure.”

He was just as sure as when he’d looked down at the bomb in the Computer Center and seen the pink bricks of LDX. The same pink bricks he and his fellow SEALs had recovered from the lab in North Korea six months earlier. It was then that he’d known that someone in the United States Government, someone
high
in the United States government, was conspiring with the pirates. Conspiring to kill a lot of people.

The only reason he was alive was because he’d been staring at the bomb when the numbers on the iPhone had disappeared and the phone had started beeping. Two seconds later, he was at the door leading to the outside deck, shouting into his headset, “Code Black.” Save yourself.

He catapulted himself over the railing and dove fifty feet to the ocean. He hit the water and kicked, diving as deep as possible. And then it was as if a U-boat had dropped a concussion grenade five feet from him. His body was thrown violently, the wind knocked from his lungs as he was shot forward. The underwater explosion had ripped the radio from his ear, torn his dive knife from his thigh, and burst his left eardrum. When he finally surfaced, thirty seconds later, he knew all his brothers were dead.

He treaded water for twenty minutes and watched what was left of the ship burn, then sink to the bottom of the ocean. A South African Navy warship transferred all the passengers from the lifeboats and Royal swam to the ship and snuck aboard. When they were a mile from shore, he
jumped off the boat and swam.

Luckily he had his GTS—Gone to Shit—pouch, which had plenty of cash, a fake passport, and other necessities. He stole some clothes off a clothes-line, then walked seven miles to downtown Durban. The city was flooded with news media, but he was somehow able to get one of the last available hotel rooms. He was so emotionally drained from the mission, he slept for sixteen hours. When he awoke, his eardrum was on fire. He bought some clothes, then made a quick stop by the hospital. It was risky, because he would have to show his fake passport, but he had a second passport in his GTS that the U.S. Government was unaware of. Trent Montgomery was seen by a doctor, and given some ear drops, painkillers, and antibiotics.

Starving, Royal stopped by the hospital cafeteria. It was there that he overhead a small group talking. As he ate his sandwich and Sprite, he eavesdropped with his good ear. The group had all been passengers on the
Afrikaans
. And some of them had even been to the Zulu village.

Royal followed them back to a motel room across the street. The next day, he knocked on their door. He told them his side of the story. And they told him theirs.

“Now I know this isn’t the way,” Roger Garret blurted.

“Shortcut,” Royal said.

He took a right turn into a large park.

“What the hell?”

Royal ignored him.

Royal parked on the street and cut the ignition. He locked the doors. Garret said, “What the hell are you doing?”

Royal turned around.

He watched as recognition swept over the man’s face.

Royal placed the tip of the silencer against the seat and pulled the trigger. Eight times. Once for each of his brothers. He tossed the gun in the backseat, opened the door, and walked back to the street.

3 MONTHS LATER

VENICE

11:49 a.m.

Lacy’s voice came through the door, “Is everything okay?”

I had been on the toilet for the last hour. And no, everything was
not
okay. “Just a little pre-game jitters.” Combined with the 40 raw oysters I had eaten at the rehearsal dinner.