Making the call on the clinic phone would require a bit of acting on her part. She pretended to try using the phone one more time, moving it around in the air, and fake-pushing random buttons, letting whomever might be watching know she couldn’t get a signal. Shaking her head, she lifted the receiver on the wall phone. Standing very close, her body shielded it so that no camera could see the number she dialed. First she called Ziv.
She was relieved to hear him answer but could do nothing to show it.
“Yes,” she said, knowing he would recognize her voice. “My cellphone dropped the call and I did not hear the end of your instructions. Paul Smailes told me we are flying to San Antonio. I heard you say an airfield in Manteo? Then the call disconnected. I am having trouble with cell reception. Yes. Manteo airport, hangar 23. I will be there within the hour. I am driving a black Suburban. Make sure I am expected. I will leave Mr. Smailes’s phone on while I’m driving in case you need to reach me.” She hung up, letting out a big sigh. Ziv would instantly understand her message.
The Leopard was on the move, she was in danger, and Boone and his team would need to track her flight. His technical mastermind would need to hack into the smartphone to erase the call record. Boone and his crew were top-notch. She hoped they could do everything that needed to be done in time. The plane would be the easiest part. Not even the ghost cell could hide a jet from air traffic control and satellite tracking.
Malak put the phone in her pocket and walked out to the garage without speaking to the doctor. Her sudden disappearance would unsettle him. Number Four was no longer her concern. He was in no shape to do much, even if he recovered. She supposed they might check the number she’d dialed on the landline, but hoped she’d sold the fact that her call dropped, and it would be overlooked.
In the garage she spied the button for the overhead door. She pushed it and the door rose slowly and silently. Climbing into the SUV she started it up, backed out of the building and onto the street.
Inside the temporary safety of the Suburban, she took a deep breath and tried to relax. Focus was required. She recalled her conversation with Boone in the cemetery, a few hours earlier. She had become Number Five. Smailes was Number Four and was gravely wounded.
That left three more for the Leopard to hunt.
Not on My Watch
Eben Lavi felt like someone had punched him in the chest with a concrete fist. Malak Tucker, known in the international terrorism community as the Leopard but in reality a deep-cover Secret Service agent, had shot him during the rescue of Bethany Culpepper. Malak was on the trail of the ghost cell. In order to maintain her cover, they’d choreographed an elaborate plan for her to shoot him in his center mass while the SEAL team rescued the president’s daughter.
His ballistic vest had prevented him from being pierced through the heart, but the shot had also catapulted him into a wall and his back was killing him. Their charade had worked to perfection, but the pain was still intense. Eben had not yet worked his way up to deep breaths.
“You look pale,” Ziv said. Eben couldn’t be sure but he thought there might be a hint of sarcasm in Ziv’s tone. With Ziv it was always hard to tell. He was Malak’s father. For years he’d protected her while she chased the ghost cell. He referred to himself as “the Monkey that watches the Leopard’s tail.” It was a classic countersurveillance technique—someone watching you while you watched the target. He’d spent the last few years of his life following her—without her knowledge until only recently—guarding her back and making sure she didn’t walk into a trap.
“You are quite a comedian,” Eben said, his breath coming in short gasps. “When this is over you should take your act on the road. Preferably a road that leads far, far away from me.”
In truth, Eben was starting to grow somewhat fond of the older man. How was this possible? They should be enemies. Eben was one of Mossad’s finest agents, or at least he had been once. In Philadelphia he sent his two fellow agents back to the Institute, telling them he’d killed the Leopard, completing their mission. But so far no one had reached out to him. His status might have changed since he had gone off the grid with Boone and his SOS crew. Mossad, Israel’s intelligence agency that was similar to the CIA, had been his life. But now he sat next to a former enemy, a man who had once been a terrorist and assassin. The irony did not escape him. It would forever be necessary to guard against those who sought to do harm by violent means. But he now wondered if relationships could change and conflicts be prevented if adversaries took the time to get to know each other. What if they shared common goals? He found himself pondering this very question the more time he spent with Ziv.
Ziv chuckled. “I don’t know what you’re whining about. I’m nearly twice your age and my own daughter just shot me two times. You don’t hear me complaining. I think you should do as the Americans say and ‘shuck it up.’”
“That is not what the Americans say.” Eben winced. “It’s ‘suck it up.’”
“Are you sure?” Ziv asked.
“Quite,” Eben said.
“That expression makes so much more sense now,” Ziv said, taking a sip from his bottle of water.
They were in a nondescript hangar at the far end of the First Flight Airport in Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina. After a helicopter had evacuated them from their elaborately staged raid, navy SEAL John Masters accompanied the president’s daughter on her return to Washington aboard a CIA Gulfstream jet. She was likely back in the White House by now.
The two men were quiet for a moment, each mentally replaying the events of the raid. It was a form of internal debriefing every agent did after an operation. Slowly they reimagined each step. First: Eben bursting through the front door. Then Malak shooting him in the chest. Ziv shooting the man she was with, an unsub or “unknown subject” in their trade, who had only been identified as a highly placed member of the group who ran the ghost cell, a group calling themselves the Five.
Malak shot Ziv twice. Eben had to admire the older man’s toughness. Even with the ballistic vest he wore, his chest and ribs were going to ache for days. Ziv had stepped about a little gingerly in the minutes right after the raid, but now he acted as if he hadn’t felt a thing. He was a tough old bird, Eben had to give him that.
“Are you sure you only wounded the man?” Eben asked. “It would be a tragedy if he were to bleed out before the Leopard could learn more from him.”
“The Monkey does not miss. He is wounded enough so that he is not a threat to Malak, but not so much that he should die from it. If she can get him treatment in time.”
The sound of another helicopter touching down outside the building diverted their attention. The SEAL team, at the far end of the hangar, gathered up its gear and exited through a side door. A few moments later a man in a dark suit, black sunglasses, red-and-white-striped tie, and with an American flag pinned on his lapel entered the hangar. He was carrying a small red leather box. Eben and Ziv recognized him immediately as a member of the U.S. Secret Service. When he stopped in front of them he stood ramrod straight.
“Mr. Lavi, my name is Agent LeMaire. The president has asked me personally to deliver this to you,” he said, handing the box to Eben.
Inside it Eben found a very fancy-looking watch and a folded piece of paper, which contained a note.
Mr. Lavi,
Mere words cannot measure the amount of thanks I owe you for your actions today. This watch, an Omega Seamaster, is a small token of my gratitude. On the back you will find ten digits engraved in the casing. That is my personal phone number, one that I ALWAYS answer. If at some future time you find yourself in need of assistance, no matter the hour or where you are in the world, call this number and I will take whatever action I can to assist you. This is a very exclusive club you have just joined. But you earned it.
Regards,
J. R. Culpepper
POTUS
“What does it say?” Ziv asked. Eben absentmindedly handed the note to him as he put the watch
on his left wrist.
Ziv scanned the note quickly. “Where is the box for me?” he asked Agent LeMaire.
“This was the only box I was given,” the agent answered.
“Are you sure?” asked Ziv. His voice carried a mixture of confusion and disappointment.
“Yes, sir,” Agent LeMaire said.
“Please extend my thanks to the president,” Eben said. The light coming through the high windows of the hangar danced and glimmered off the watch’s crystal facing.
“I shall. Now if you gentlemen will excuse me, I must return to Washington immediately.” He turned on his heel and was gone as quickly as he had appeared.
“It is a very nice watch,” Eben said, twisting and turning his wrist to admire it.
“Hmm,” Ziv said, standing up, ignoring Eben’s gloating. His phone chirped and he answered, listening for a few seconds.
“Understood,” he said, snapping the phone closed.
“The Leopard is on the move. The Monkey must guard her tail. Are you able to travel?”
Eben looked at his new timepiece. “I think I can make the time,” he said dryly.
Disgusted, Ziv stalked out of the hangar to their waiting car. Eben was admiring his watch. But Ziv was wondering about Malak. His phone still in his hand, he pushed the button that would connect him with Boone.
Back On Line
After Felix got his new clothes at the Big and Tall Shop, we had to pop into an AT&T store so I could get a new iPhone. It was kind of funny because Felix had the same effect on the AT&T guys as he did on Stanley. Even though his clothes were clean, his face was still darkened by the blast and he reeked of smoke and explosives. The clerk couldn’t complete the transaction fast enough.
Outside the store, Felix handed me the bag. Taking the phone out of the box, I powered it on. The phone rang almost immediately. I looked at Felix, completely confused.
“Answer it,” he said.
I slid the bar on the screen to the right and lifted the phone to my ear.
“Hello?” I said cautiously.
“Q it’s X-Ray. Hey, listen, I need you to go to the settings icon and turn on the wireless network reception. Do you know how to do that?”
“Sure,” I said.
“As soon as you do, your phone is going to be cloned to your old one and it will have the same number, your contacts, texts, history, and all that.”
“Okay,” I said.
“Catch you later,” he said and disconnected the call.
I did as X-Ray instructed and the screen on my phone started blipping all over the place. A few seconds later it was back to normal. Felix looked at me and grinned.
“How did they—” I asked him.
“Hey, I just do what X-Ray tells me,” Felix said. “He does all the voodoo. Don’t ask me how. I’m the one on the team that usually gets blown up. He sits in a comfortable van and pushes buttons,” he said. Felix said it all as if it was normal for a guy in a beat-up van a couple hundred miles away to clone a phone in about three seconds. It’s not. And since he’d mentioned voodoo, I wanted to ask him if he knew that Boone zipped all over the place at the speed of light and could apparently travel over water without a boat.
“How—what … can … I …” I was no techie like Angela, who stood there looking a little dumbstruck herself.
Felix shrugged. “You got me. I can fieldstrip a MAC-10 machine pistol in under seven seconds and shoot an apple with an M-4 at three hundred yards, but the tech stuff is all up to X-Ray. Guy’s a genius with that stuff. Come on. Explosions make me hungry. Let’s get some chow.”
Felix headed in the direction of the McDonald’s, between the gas station and the outlet mall. Roger had forbidden us to eat at fast-food places on tour. Of course this only made us crave it more. There were some perks that came with hanging out with a bunch of old spooks run by a … wizard or warlock or whatever Boone was.
It took Angela and me about three steps for every one Felix made, just to keep up. I was still staring in wonder at my new phone when Angela started her interrogation of Felix. The rain was letting up but we were already wet so there wasn’t really much to do about it. Felix walked like he wasn’t even aware the rain was falling. Now he smelled like a pile of wet gunpowder.
“So, Felix,” Angela said. I could tell she was using her nonchalant voice. As it turned out, Angela was pretty good at this whole everyone’s-got-a-secret thing and she wanted to be an agent like her mom. Knowing Angela, she’d probably be director of the Secret Service someday.
“How long have you known Boone?” she asked.
Felix shrugged. “Don’t know. Ten, maybe twelve years.”
“Really!” Angela answered like she had just learned the most interesting fact in the world. “Where did you meet him?”
“You know, I don’t really remember. I think my sniper team was on temporary assignment with Delta. We were deployed to rescue some American citizens who were being held hostage. We parachuted into some place I can’t tell you, because we weren’t supposed to be there. Our team was supposed to meet our guide, as they called him, who would take us to where we needed to go. Boone was NOC for CIA, but I suspect you know that. We got to our rally point and the guide was Boone. It was about twenty miles outside a city where a concert was going on. Being a roadie is kind of a good cover for him. Even in countries that don’t like us much, they’ll let the rock bands in. Boone’s been in a lot of places.”
I was trying to keep up with his strides and pay attention to what he was saying. Delta was Delta Force. It was a Special Forces unit in the U.S. Army. I wasn’t exactly sure what it did, except go into really bad places and try to rescue people in trouble. Kind of like the army version of the navy SEALS, which we’d just seen in action. Whatever Special Forces group Felix was in, I guessed it involved a lot of explosions and guns.
NOC stood for No Official Cover. It meant that Boone once worked for the CIA but not on an official basis. If he ever got caught or captured someplace he wasn’t supposed to be, doing something he wasn’t supposed to be doing, he’d get no help from the Agency. He would probably rot in a jail somewhere. But Angela and I had just learned that Boone came equipped with a double serving of “I bet you can’t catch me” juice. It seemed pretty unlikely there was a jail anywhere that could hold him.
“You were in a Delta unit?” Angela sounded impressed. “Like Delta Force? The counterterrorism guys? They’re awesome!”
“I was temporarily assigned to Delta,” Felix said, correcting her, “and they’re okay.”
“I’m confused,” Angela said. “What were you in, if you weren’t in Delta?”
“I bounced around,” Felix said.
We only had a short distance to go before we reached the door of the McDonald’s and Angela seemed to sense that once Felix found food, he wasn’t going to be doing much more talking.
“So Boone met you on this … mission. Was Croc with him?”
“Croc is always with him.”
“Do you think that’s strange?” she asked.
“What?”
“Croc. I mean everyone says Croc has always been with Boone. Dogs don’t live that long. It’s just curious is all, don’t you think?”
“Never really thought about it. Probably gets new ‘Crocs’ from the same breeder or something,” Felix said.
The McDonald’s was close enough for me to smell. And my stomach audibly rumbled. I was concentrating on the food now. My attention wandered as I considered what I was going to order.
“Really, you’ve known Boone that long, and you’ve never wondered—” Angela didn’t get a chance to finish her question because right behind us a voice made the two of us jump.
“Wondered about what?” Boone said.
Hunting
Once Malak left the garage she took a zigzag route to the airfield, doubling back a few times. When she was certain she wasn’t being followed, she drove directly there.
As she had suspected, it was quiet
.
At the far west end of the field she spied a white Gulfstream in front of a hangar. She maneuvered the SUV to a parking space near the jet and paused for a moment, her hands on the steering wheel. There was a fuel truck just pulling away from the plane. The door opened and a stairway unfolded until it rested on the tarmac.
Malak the Leopard drummed her fingers on her right thigh, trying to calm herself. Taking several deep breaths had little effect. She was closer to bringing the cell down than she had been since she had taken on the Leopard’s identity. Now it felt like she was at the point of no return. The truth was, Smailes said the plane would carry her to San Antonio to meet the other members of the Five. But she had no way to verify this. For all she knew the Gulfstream could be carrying her anywhere. Even to her death.
Contacting Ziv again was out of the question. Somewhere out there was one remaining car bomb. Boone would have his hands full looking for it, plus he also had to get Q and Angela to San Antonio.
Every maternal instinct she possessed told her to restart the Suburban and drive away. To find Angela and never let her out of her sight, no matter the cost. She leaned her head on the headrest and closed her eyes. She was getting so close. If she did not get on that plane there was no doubt the cell would fade away for a while. But eventually they would find her and exact their revenge. The only chance to regain her old life was to see this through to the end. Boone, Ziv, Callaghan, and the president were all watching out for her and now Angela was involved. Her daughter’s safety was paramount. That was all she truly cared about.
Angela was her little girl. Of course fifteen was not so little anymore and Angela was full of fight and spirit and possessed a fierce intellect. But Malak had left her. Abandoned her. The reasons were worthy ones, but the ache would never go away. Her actions, no matter how well-intentioned, had put her little angel in danger. It ate away at her.