Malak pointed to the door on the far right of the lower level. “Take her in there,” she said. “Lay the stretcher on the bed.”
She gave me another second to video the interior of the house, then she pushed us toward an open doorway on the left side of the house. As soon as we were inside, she slammed the door behind us.
Croc was stretched out on the king-sized bed with his brown eye open and his blue eye closed.
Even though I had predicted he was going to get to the island before us, I was shocked to see him.
Angela looked shocked too, but she stayed on task. “The video,” she said.
“Right.”
There wasn’t time to see if what I’d shot was any good. I attached the file to an e-mail to John and hit the send button. Within a second the e-mail was gone.
“That was fast,” I said.
“Where do you think Boone is?” Angela asked.
“Close by.”
I checked out the walk-in closet, then went into the attached bathroom. I didn’t expect to find Boone that close by, but I had to look. The bathroom window was open. I looked out. It was at least a fifteen-foot drop to the ground in back. If Croc had come through the window, he would have had to have flown. There were bushes and trees in back of the house. A lot of places for Navy SEALs to sneak up on terrorists without being seen. One of the terrorists came around the corner and took up a position behind a tree. He wasn’t paying any attention to the house, so I shot a short video of him and sent it to John with a note telling him where I had taken it.
When I came back out, Angela was sitting on the edge of the bed scratching Croc’s ears. She was crying. I sat down next to her, wondering if I should give her a hug, or take her hand, or put my arm around her. I wasn’t clear on what new stepbrothers should do in a situation like this. I ran back into the bathroom and grabbed the box of tissues. I handed it to her. She gave me a little smile, pulled a tissue out, and wiped her eyes.
“Thanks, Q.”
“Sure. I know this thing with your mom is really hard.”
“I’ll be okay. It’s just that I thought it was going to be over today.”
“I did too.”
She went into the bathroom. I could hear the faucet come on.
I walked over to the window. I wanted to see if the terrorist was in the same spot. He was. And that’s when I saw Boone. He appeared right behind the guy, held up three fingers to the window, then he was gone. The guy turned his head, but of course there was nothing for him to see.
Angela came out of the bathroom.
“I just saw Boone.”
“Where?”
“Out back. We have three minutes.”
Three Minutes
Malak watched out the front window as Ariel settled into her position at the front of the house. Four sides to a house. Four positions. It was a logical configuration and one that Boone’s team would have no problem anticipating. She went into Bethany’s bedroom, leaned close to her ear, and whispered, “This will be over soon. Do not move.”
“How is she doing?” a deep voice asked behind her.
She had expected him, but had not heard him approach. He moves like a ghost. He had waited for Ariel to show up out front before coming out of hiding. She turned to face him.
He was standing in the doorway. He was shorter than she thought he would be. Five foot eight. He had black hair graying at the temples. He was wearing pressed jeans, a gray sweatshirt, and deck shoes without socks. He was lean, but not thin. He was fit for a man in his mid-fifties. But the most important thing she noticed about him was that he was not armed. He did not look like a terrorist, but people in the ghost cell rarely did. He looked like what he was supposed to be. A successful businessman spending the weekend at his extravagant man lodge in Kitty Hawk Bay.
“She will be fine,” Malak said. “I think she’ll be awake in two or three hours.”
“Excellent.” He stepped into the room. “That will give us time to talk, but before we do, please remove the hood. I want to see her face, and she will probably be able to breath easier with it off.”
Malak knew the man was not interested in Bethany’s comfort. He wanted proof that it was the president’s daughter lying on the bed. She gently removed the hood, hoping Bethany could continue her yoga breathing under this kind of scrutiny.
The man walked over to the bed and stared down at her for several seconds. Bethany’s breathing was deep and regular, making Malak wonder if she actually was asleep or unconscious.
“She is a beautiful young woman,” the man finally said. “We will let her sleep. Let’s go talk. I’m sure you have many questions for me.”
She followed him into the big room, closing Bethany’s door behind her with a huge sense of relief.
So far so good.
“Can I get you anything?” the man asked. “I can make coffee or tea. You must be hungry after your uncomfortable journey, but I’m afraid there isn’t much to eat in the kitchen. Did you bring supplies?”
“In the boat,” Malak said. “I’ll go down to get them in a moment.”
The man smiled. “Talk before eating. Of course. Please sit down.”
She sat facing the window trying to anticipate how the raid would go down, wondering how soon it would happen. She needed to be in position. She needed to be close to the man regardless of when it happened. He sat down in a chair directly across from her, not four feet away.
“Interesting house,” she said.
“A hunter’s house. He is currently in Alaska fishing, according to the caretaker, who is one of ours.”
“The caretaker is here?”
“Of course not. He is actually driving to Texas in one of the SUVs you saw at the rest area. The owner of the house is not due back for several days. We have someone watching his house on the mainland in case he returns early, which I doubt. And according to our person in Alaska, the owner is having a wonderful time. The fish are biting. But I’m being rude. I haven’t introduced myself. My name is Paul Smailes.”
“Glad to meet you face-to-face,” Malak said.
“Ah yes, our meeting in Virginia. A necessary threat, I’m afraid. There were suspicions about you because of Elise and Amun’s deaths. Your adopted mother, my sister, my son, all dead in an instant. I am sad they are gone, but life and our mission moves on, does it not? You have certainly proven yourself worthy of the Five.”
Time to test the waters. To find out if I’m actually one of the Five.
“What’s the caretaker doing in Texas?” Malak asked.
“A car bomb,” Paul answered immediately, as if the question didn’t bother him in the least. “He’s with three others. We haven’t quite decided where to place the bomb as of yet, or if we will even detonate it. Now that you are one of the Five, you will be in on that decision.”
“Why wouldn’t we detonate it?” Malak asked.
“We’ve had some timer problems. At least that’s what we think. Three of the vehicles last night were carrying bombs. Not the vehicle you and Bethany were in, of course. We do not have our best assets drive bombs around.” He gave her a small smile. “The car bombs were meant as a diversion to draw police away from the route you were taking down here.”
“What happened?”
“One exploded on I-95 killing everyone inside and a pedestrian that had stopped to help them when their car broke down. The second vehicle exploded two hours early. Our target was a naval admiral in Norfolk who jogs along the waterfront every morning at the exact same time. We’ve been clocking his daily run for months. The time and route never varies. This morning he was to be jogging with a senator on the Armed Services Committee. The bomb was placed at the U.S.S. Cole memorial.”
“Fitting,” Malak said. “What happened?”
“The bomb went off prematurely, destroying the memorial, but sadly missing our primary targets by several hours.”
“Too bad,” Malak said. “Maybe we should turn the bomb heading to Texas around an
d try again.”
“That is a possibility, but first we have to have the timer examined. We have someone meeting the Tahoe in Texas. He is very good. If it is faulty, he will be able to repair it. The third vehicle was our roving bomb. We usually have one. Sometimes we use it, sometimes we don’t. We had one in the D.C. bombings. It’s still there waiting for a target.”
“Smart,” Malak said. She would have to find out where it was parked so she could have it disarmed. “When will we decide on the targets?”
“Within a few days. You and I will be traveling to Texas after we finish our business with Bethany Culpepper and the children.”
Malak did not react even though he was talking about killing Bethany, Angela, and Q. The ghost cell did not keep hostages for very long. Hostages were used, then disposed of. Keeping them caused too much exposure.
“I wanted to ask you about the children,” Malak said calmly.
“Yes. Quest Munoz and Angela Tucker. I understand you know them.”
“I saw them at the White House. Why were they taken?”
“A target of opportunity.”
“Perhaps I’m overstepping my bounds as a new member of the Five, but taking them was stupid.”
She watched Paul’s reaction to this very carefully. He frowned and nodded. “I voted against it.”
“Voted?”
“You’ll be meeting the others in Texas, and all of this will be explained in detail. We don’t often get together because it’s too dangerous for us to be in the same place at the same time. One of the exceptions is when a new member joins the Five. Two of the five were already going to be in Texas, so it seemed the best place to meet.”
Malak nodded, relishing the idea of having them all in the same room at the same time.
“Of course Ariel will be running security for us while we’re in Texas,” he said.
No she won’t. She and her team will be dead in a few minutes.
“Of course,” Malak said. “Can we get back to why the children were taken and the voting?”
It’s time to plant the seeds of sedition among the Five.
“It’s simple really,” Paul said. “We have five members and each of us has a vote, but the votes are skewed. My position among the five is number four. I have one half vote. You have taken Elise’s position at number five. You also have one half vote. Position number three has a full vote. Position number two had two votes. Position number one has three votes.”
“So the person in position number one is really in charge,” Malak said.
Paul shook his head. “Not really. If you add the votes together there are a total of seven. If number one wants to launch an operation that the other four disagree with, than he loses by four votes to three. There is no lobbying by the other members. The operational ideas are floated completely anonymously. Take the kidnapping of Q and Angela, for instance. It was discovered that Tyrone Boone had placed a tracking device on the Tahoe, and we’re following it. Obviously he is not who he appears to be. He needed to be removed. The first idea was to simply have Ariel take him and the children out. That was my idea. I’ve been watching this Tyrone Boone for several weeks and I believe he’s a major player, but I’m not exactly clear what team he is playing for.”
It wasn’t easy to keep her face neutral as this monster talked so casually about giving the order to have Angela assassinated.
“What happened?”
“The vote was unanimous. Six and a half votes, because you were not yet onboard. But then one of the five added what we call a change order. The children’s parents are famous and very popular right now. The idea was floated that we should kidnap the children and video them along with the president’s daughter. I voted against this. I thought it was too big of a risk to the current mission. I did not prevail. The vote was two and a half to four. When Boone wasn’t in the car, Ariel wanted to leave one of her men behind to wait for him. I voted for that, but again I was voted down.”
“For what it’s worth,” Malak said. “I would have voted with you. I don’t know who this Tyrone Boone is, but I don’t like the fact that he’s …”
The front door burst open. Malak’s shock and surprise were genuine. She hadn’t expected them so soon. Boone must have figured out the destination before they arrived. Eben Lavi was the first through the door. As she pushed Paul down to the floor, she shot Eben in the chest. He flew backward and hit a wall.
“The president’s daughter!” Paul shouted.
“No time!” She pulled him to his feet. “There are more of them. We need to get out of here. The boats!”
She dragged him through the front door.
Ziv was waiting for them. He put a bullet in Paul’s shoulder. Paul screamed and went down. Malak shot Ziv twice, knocking him off the porch. She yanked Paul back up again.
He grimaced in pain. “Maybe there were only …”
The windows on either side of the door shattered in an explosion of glass.
She pulled Paul down the steps. Silenced bullets zipped by their heads. They ran past Ariel, who was slumped forward with her weapon still in her hands, a bullet hole in her head.
“Are your keys in your boat?” Malak shouted.
“Yes,” Paul answered, breathlessly clutching his shoulder.
“I’ll cut the lines, you start the engine!”
They ran along the dock as bullets splintered the wood around them. Malak pulled her knife and flipped open the blade one-handed. Paul jumped into the boat. Malak cut the lines. The engine roared to life.
“Go! Go! Go!” she shouted, diving over the gunwale.
The boat nearly capsized with the surge of power he had given it. Malak crawled forward and took over the controls. Paul slumped to the deck. Blood oozed between his fingers. His face had gone pale.
“Who were they?” he asked weakly.
“The first man through was Eben Lavi.”
“Mossad,” Paul said.
Number Five nodded and headed for open water.
Silence
We heard a crash, three shots, two more crashes, then silence.
“Is it over?” Angela asked.
“I don’t know. It doesn’t seem possible it could be over that quickly. It hasn’t been a minute since we heard the first shot.”
We were hiding behind the bed staring at the door. If there was going to be trouble, it was going to come through there. Croc was still sprawled out on the expensive bedspread, but both of his eyes were open and his head was up.
The doorknob started to turn. I held my breath. Croc started scratching his ear with his hind foot. I knew we were safe. He would have growled otherwise. Boone opened the door.
“You two okay?”
We stood up.
“That’s it?” I asked.
“That’s it,” Boone said. “These things happen a lot faster than they do in the movies.”
“My mother’s safe?”
“Yep,” Boone said. “She got away. Leopards are hard to catch.”
“It happened a lot sooner than I thought it would,” I said.
“The team was here within two minutes after you arrived.”
“And you and Croc were here before us,” I said under my breath.
Boone ignored the comment. “Come on out. Someone wants to talk to you before they leave. And they’re in a hurry to get her out of here.”
We stepped out of the bedroom. Bethany Culpepper was standing in the living room surrounded by two heavily armed men. I recognized John Masters from the video inside his SUV.
“We have a chopper coming in for the evac,” he said. “ETA less than a minute.”
Bethany looked at us and smiled, then took Angela’s hand. “I just want you to know that your mother is the bravest person I’ve ever met. This country owes her a huge debt of gratitude for her sacrifices, which can never be repaid. If there is anything I can ever do for you …” She tapped the watch around Angela’s wrist. “I’m ten digits away.” She looked at me. “That g
oes for you too, Q.”
The roar of the helicopter came through the shattered windows.
“You coming with us?” John asked Boone.
Boone shook his head. “We have our own ride. I’ll call J.R. and tell him you’re on your way. Thanks for your help. It was good working with you again.”
They shook hands.
“Another chopper is on its way to clean up the mess,” one of the SEALs said.
By mess, I assumed he meant Ariel and her team. There were two men in front of the house zipping something into a large bag.
John and the other SEAL escorted Bethany out the door to the waiting helicopter. We stepped out onto the porch. Eben was sitting on the steps, looking tired and battered. Sitting next to him was Ziv. We hadn’t seen him since Philadelphia, where he was posing as a policeman outside Independence Hall. Angela hadn’t seen him since she had discovered that he was her grandfather, which I guess made him my step-grandfather.
“Are you all right?” Boone asked them.
“We will live,” Ziv said.
“Next time someone else needs to get shot,” Eben said.
“Quit your complaining,” Ziv said. “The Leopard shot me twice, and she’s my daughter.” He looked at Angela. “We have a few minutes before the second helicopter arrives. Perhaps we should go for a walk.”
“I’d like that,” Angela said quietly.
Ziv got stiffly to his feet.
Bethany climbed into the helicopter. As soon as she was in, it took off and headed out across the water.
“Shall we go?” Ziv asked. “We have very little time. Eben and I will be on the second helicopter. I do not want your mother to get too far ahead of us.” He used Angela’s shoulder to steady himself as they walked down the stairs.