He pushed the cart up to the lonely checker. She started scanning and dumping items into plastic bags. The final tab came to a little over a hundred dollars. One of the items in the kit the president had provided for him was a bundle of cash. The operation was off the grid. Credit card transactions were traceable. He paid, wheeled the cart to the entrance, but stopped before going out into the rain. As he rummaged through the bags, he glanced out at the cars in the parking lot. The Tahoe was gone, but that didn’t mean they weren’t watching him. He found the carton of cigarettes, pulled a pack out, unwrapped it, and lit one.
Nasty.
But necessary. The cigarette might just save his life. A guy from a trailer desperate for a cigarette would definitely light up before braving the weather with his groceries. If the terrorists suspected he wasn’t who he said he was, they would kill him as he crossed the dark parking lot. He crushed the cigarette out, put on his stocking cap, then pushed the cart through the sliding glass doors hoping there wasn’t a sniper bullet waiting for him as he crossed the parking lot.
Dog Years
I was manipulating cards in the front seat, keeping an eye out for the red crab truck while I listened to Angela giving us a running travelogue about the Outer Banks, which she was cobbling together from the web. I’m not sure why she was doing this. There was better than a fifty-fifty chance that the crab truck was rolling down I-95 and we’d be turning around. I guess the travelogue was her version of manipulating cards. She was nervous. Busy lips.
“Virginia Dare was the first child born in America to English parents. August 18, 1587. She was born in the Roanoke Colony on Roanoke Island near the present-day city of Manteo …”
Boone stared through the windshield with a look of concern. We hadn’t heard from John Masters since he took the exit forty minutes ago.
“OBX is a two-hundred-mile-long string of barrier islands that runs the entire length of North Carolina. It’s sometimes called the Graveyard of the Atlantic …”
I hoped it didn’t turn out to be our graveyard, or Malak’s, or Bethany’s, or John’s.
“Ocracoke Island was home base for the pirate Edward Teach, also known as Blackbeard. He was killed on the island by Lieutenant Robert Maynard in 1718. Maynard cut Blackbeard’s head off and put it on the bowsprit of his sloop so the bounty could be collected …”
I was kind of interested in this factoid, although I have to say that my taste for blood and gory death had changed over the past week or so.
“Orville and Wilbur Wright made history on a windy beach at Kill Devil Hills near the town of Kitty Hawk in North Carolina on December 17, 1903, when they piloted the first plane ever to fly with an engine.”
Croc began to growl. We had come up behind a semitruck.
Boone dropped back and tapped his Bluetooth.
“Felix?”
“Yeah.”
“Turn around. We have the truck. Stop at the hospital and pick up the coach.”
◊ ◊ ◊
John Masters had never felt more vulnerable in his life as he pushed the shopping cart across the dark parking lot. He kept his head down. If they were out there, they were watching through night scopes. Trailer Guy would not be scanning the lot for active threats. He’d be hunkered down making a beeline for his trailer, completely unaware that his stocking cap might be in the crosshairs of a sniper scope. The closer he got to the cluster of RVs, the better he felt. If they were going to take a shot, they’d do it in the open. But he still didn’t let his guard down. He pushed the cart between two motor coaches and stopped at the beat-up trailer parked behind them. The next part of the ruse could prove to be a little tricky. He grabbed two bags and banged on the trailer door.
Lights came on. He banged again. A few seconds later the door opened, revealing the real trailer guy, who was big, bald, and annoyed in his T-shirt and underpants.
“What the—”
“You won!” John said, handing him two of the grocery bags.
He had never seen this fail. If you smile and hand someone something, they take it. It could be a live grenade and they’d take it. And with their hands full, they couldn’t take a swing at you.
“Who are—”
“Proud Wal-Mart employee. And you’re our four-bag winner!”
“At four o’clock in the—”
“Four at Four we call it. Rain or shine every morning we pick one of our parking lot guests and give them four bags of groceries. I’ll grab the other two bags. I’m getting kind of wet out here. All I have to do is get some information from you so you can get back to sleep.”
All I have to do is get inside your trailer so the terrorists think I live here and they don’t try to kill me.
“I guess that’d be okay.”
John grabbed the two remaining bags and jumped into the trailer before Trailer Guy woke up enough to change his mind. He closed the door behind him and set the bags on the kitchen table.
“Be with you in a second,” the real trailer guy said as he disappeared into a room in the back.
The trailer was a lot better looking on the inside than it was on the outside. It was clean and well organized. All John had to do now was to stay inside long enough to convince the terrorists that he belonged there.
The man came back out wearing a pair of jeans. “Is this for real?”
“Absolutely,” John said. “Usually we don’t wake people up. We just leave the groceries outside with a note, but because of the rain my boss thought it would be best to knock.”
“I’m not sure it was a good idea or not, but thanks … I guess. Kind of weird you picking the groceries out for someone you don’t know.”
John grinned. “I hear you. The receipt’s in one of the bags. You’re welcome to exchange what’s in there for anything you want. It’s over a hundred bucks worth of stuff. The only thing I have to do is …” He started checking his pockets. “Dang I left the form back at the store.”
“What form?”
“It’s just your name, address, and phone number. I’ll run over and get it and come back.”
“No offense, but how about if I write the information down on a piece of paper so I can go back to sleep.”
“Sure. That’ll work.”
The man scratched the information down and handed it to him. John looked the information over. If terrorists were watching, he’d been inside plenty of time to convince them he wasn’t a threat.
“You’re a lifesaver, Mr. Timmons,” he said, and stepped outside into the rain.
He followed the same path he had taken to the store, scooping up his kit on the way. Before getting into his SUV, he checked it for tampering. It was clean. He booted up the computer and turned on the tracking software. The Tahoe was 1.6 miles away, traveling east on 64, which meant they’d been watching him when he left Wal-Mart and they had made a mistake. They had neglected to check their vehicle for tampering.
Now I’m watching you.
◊ ◊ ◊
Croc had stopped growling. He was sitting up in the backseat, staring through the windshield at the taillights of the semitruck we were following, like they were juicy rabbits. Angela had stopped her OBX travelogue and had her head poked between the front seats again.
“What if it’s not the right truck?” she asked.
It was a good question. There were no markings on the back of the truck and we hadn’t seen the side.
“It’s the right truck,” Boone said.
I wasn’t feeling the itch, and Angela definitely wasn’t feeling it. I doubted she had ever felt itchy.
“How old is Croc?” she asked out of the blue.
What did this have to do with anything?
“In dog years?” Boone asked.
“There is no such thing as dog years,” Angela said. “They’re just years. Dogs simply don’t live as long as people. Someone didn’t like the idea of dogs dying after a few short years so they came up with the one human year equals seven dog years. Dogs have a median age of
twelve point eight years.”
Only Angela would know something like this. But why was she bringing the subject up?
“Croc is older than twelve point eight years,” Boone said. “How much older I can’t say.”
“Can’t or won’t?” Angela asked.
There was an edge of frustration to her question, and I was beginning to see where she was coming from. When it came to personal questions (not that “how old is your dog” is a personal question), Boone was usually annoyingly obtuse. At least I think that’s the word. He either answered with some kind of riddle, or chose not to answer at all. This time he decided not to answer at all. He stared through the windshield as if he hadn’t heard the question.
My mom and Speed were both surprised that Boone was still alive. He was an old guy when they were young. Mom had also been surprised that Croc was still with him. She thought he must be Croc version 2.0 or 3.0, because the original Croc could not possibly still be alive in human or dog years.
“How old are you?” I asked.
Boone tried to grin the questions off. “Two against one?”
“How old is Croc?” Angela repeated. No grin.
“We’re both older than we look.” Grin.
“That’s not exactly an answer,” I said. No grin.
“It might be the best you’re going to get right now.” Grin.
Two frowns.
Boone’s grin disappeared. He stared through the windshield. We waited.
“I don’t know how old I am,” he finally said. “I don’t know how old Croc is. But I can tell you this. We are older than anyone you have ever met, or ever will meet. When you’re gone, we’ll still be here like we’ve always been here.”
I looked at Angela. Her mouth was hanging open and I’m sure mine was too. Boone was not talking about dog years here. He was talking about something entirely different. Something impossible.
“Are you saying you’re a vampire?” I asked.
“No,” Boone answered. “We killed the last vampire a hundred years ago.”
We? I had been joking, but I don’t think he was.
“I know it’s hard to wrap your mind around the idea,” Boone continued. “When this is all over, I’ll try to explain it in more detail.”
More detail? He hadn’t given us any detail at all. If anyone but Boone had told me he and his dog were eternal, immortal, or whatever he was saying, I would have thought he was kidding, lying, or crazy. But this was Tyrone Boone. The guy who always seemed to show up in the right place at the right time. The guy who appeared to live on nothing but water and never seemed to sleep. The guy who the president of the United States was trusting with the life of his daughter. The guy who everyone was surprised was still alive.
“Ageless,” Angela said quietly.
I was surprised she seemed to be buying into this so easily. She was usually more skeptical than me.
“Something like that,” Boone said. “And there’s something else you need to know.”
“As if what you just told us isn’t enough for us to know,” I said.
Angela cracked a smile.
Boone actually laughed, then said, “Here’s the deal. By this time in a mission, Croc and I are usually pretty much on our own, meaning that we separate from the SOS team and operate out of their view.”
“Why?” Angela asked.
“Let’s just say that the team doesn’t know about some of my special talents. It would freak them out, just like it will freak you out if you happen to see something …” He hesitated. “Impossible I guess you’d call it. I didn’t expect to have you with me. My plan was to pass you off to one of the other team members, but since I’m …” He hesitated again.
“Stuck with us,” I said.
“I wouldn’t put it like that. But I’ll admit having you with me could be a little awkward. If down the road I do something a little unusual, I need your word that you won’t tell anyone about it, including the other members of the SOS team.”
“What do you mean by unusual?” I asked.
“Kind of like magic,” Boone said.
I looked at Croc. He was sitting up and appeared to be listening to everything we said, and I had a feeling he understood what we were saying. It creeped me out and made me feel bad. I’d said some things to him over the past week that weren’t exactly kind. I probably wouldn’t have said them if I thought he understood what I was saying. And then there were his startling appearances, like when he was on the other side of the overpass and a second later he was at my side.
“Croc seems to move pretty fast at times,” I said.
Boone gave me a curious look, then nodded. “He’s pretty spry for his age … at times.”
“What are you talking about?” Angela asked.
Apparently she hadn’t seen him do this. I hadn’t actually seen him do it either. He didn’t move from one place to another. He simply appeared.
“He moves fast,” I said, which was lame, but I didn’t know how else to explain it. One thing I did know. I was going to pay a lot more attention to Croc from now on. I was going to keep a closer eye on Boone as well.
“I’m not saying with certainty that you’re going to see anything,” Boone said. “But if you do, I need your word that you’ll keep it to yourself. We’ve been over this before, but I have to ask: Will you trust me?”
I looked at Angela. “The president does. Malak does.”
After a pause, she said, “Fine. I trust you and I won’t say anything.”
Boone glanced over at me. “And you?”
“My lips are sealed, but I do have one more question.” Actually I had a thousand questions, but I didn’t think he’d answer them because they had to do with magic. Magicians never reveal the secrets to their tricks.
“You want to know how old the SOS crew is,” Boone said.
“That wasn’t what I was going to ask, but now that you mention it.”
“X-Ray and Vanessa are the oldest of the bunch. They’re in their mid-seventies.”
“But you’re older,” Angela said.
“That’s right.”
“And Croc is older too,” I added.
“Much older.”
Boone’s cell chimed. It was John Masters.
“Saved by the bell,” I said.
Boone smiled.
Memorial
John told us about his Wal-Mart terrorist encounter.
“No doubt about it,” he ended. “They’re pros. Taking them out is not going to be easy.”
“The woman you saw is definitely not Malak Tucker,” Boone said. “And just to clarify, our primary mission is not to take them out. If we eliminated them, four more would pop up. We’re after the guy moving the pawns and his lieutenants. No player, no game.”
“Understood,” John said.
“I’m going to bring everyone into the conversation. X-Ray will link the Tahoe you’re tracking to our computers. He’ll hack into the Wal-Mart surveillance tapes and try to get some intel on the four bad guys. If they’re pros, they’re bound to be in a database somewhere. Hang on while I patch them in.”
A moment later X-Ray came on the line, complaining how boring it was following a bomb.
“Until it goes off,” Uly added.
“They’re heading south now,” Vanessa said.
Boone ignored the banter and told them what was happening on our end. Within seconds X-Ray had the Tahoe John was following on Angela’s computer and added Felix’s cell signal so we could track him as well.
“We’re only a half a mile behind John,” Angela said. “John’s a quarter of a mile behind the Tahoe. Felix is just about at the hospital.”
“I have a feeling we’re all headed to the same place,” Boone said. “The Wal-Mart stop wasn’t just a supply stop. They were waiting for the truck to catch up.”
Ziv checked in, saying their Tahoe had reached its destination.
“Where?”
“The U.S.S. Cole Memorial.”
“What’s that?” I asked.
Of course Know-It-All knew the answer. “In October 2000, terrorists detonated a boat filled with explosives next to the U.S.S. Cole, which was refueling in a Yemeni port. Seventeen sailors were killed and thirty-nine were wounded.”
“Is there a bomb in the car?” Boone asked.
“Yes,” Ziv said. “The wires run from the engine to the back of the vehicle. Beneath the carpet is enough plastic explosives to blow up another ship.”
“What’s around the memorial?”
“Water. A parking lot. A jogging path. Essentially nothing. They parked next to the memorial, then got into an empty car waiting for them in the parking lot. Eben dropped me off here and followed them. They checked into a hotel. He checked their new car. No explosives.”
“Are you there, Eben?” Boone asked.
“In the Rover watching the hotel,” Eben said.
“Let them go. They aren’t important. X-Ray? See if there is anything scheduled for the Cole Memorial today.”
X-Ray came on a minute later. “Nothing that I can find.”
“Then it’s symbolic,” Boone said. “As long as we can do it without any collateral damage, we’ll let the Tahoe explode. They can erect another memorial. Felix blew the first bomb prematurely. We’ll do this one early too. Hopefully they’ll conclude it was faulty timers, not outside interference. X-Ray will walk you through the procedure for resetting the timer.”
“Go ahead, Ziv,” Eben said. “I’ll pick you up after you have it done.”
“Very humorous,” Ziv said.
Several people laughed. Boone didn’t.
“After the Tahoe goes up,” he said, “get down here as soon as you can. He hasn’t said it, but I don’t think it will be too long before J.R. sends the troops in to get his daughter back. I can’t blame him. If he does, and Malak doesn’t have the head ghost in hand, this will all be for nothing. The ghost cell will go dark. We need options. If the head ghost isn’t at the other end, we need a way to keep Malak in the game. We may need to bring back our rogue Mossad agent.”