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The Lavender had long been one of the best nightclubs in all of the D.C. area. It was, surprisingly, not that difficult for non-power-players to get into given its popularity—provided you could afford the prices on the menu—considering it was at the top of everyone’s list of “the places” to be in D.C.
Ever since the first day the club had opened for business—right in the middle of prohibition no less and with plenty of liquor provided for its guests despite the law of the land at the time—there was one strict rule that was followed to the letter. If you were a politician or, god forbid, a lobbyist, then you were denied entrance. If you even so much as worked for one of those two groups and were discovered inside, you were promptly shown the door, sometimes not so gently either.
The Lavender was for people who appreciated fine dining, fine spirits, intelligent discussion, and the arts. Writers, actors, musicians, and all who were connected to those worlds, along with those who gave serious thought to serious issues, were warmly welcomed inside.
As the name implied, the primary interior color was lavender with only the occasional white of the linen, the silver of the cutlery, and the clear crystal glassware serving as accents. Each table and bar was adorned, naturally, with an arrangement of lavender grown year round in a small greenhouse behind the club.
It was likely the last place in the world FBI Special Agent Jack Del Rio would walk into while off duty, even though members of law enforcement and the military were also warmly welcomed within the Lavender. But the club had the one thing that made the place attractive to him, and she was standing front and center on the Lavender’s small stage on this night, as she had for every night for the past year.
Sara Tomassi, dressed in an elegant white evening gown, sang “For Sentimental Reasons” with her accompanist masterfully playing the baby grand piano to her left. Jack had been promptly waved in at the front door, much to the chagrin of the dozen or so people stuck waiting outside, and made his way around the large room by sliding along the outer wall where little of the lighting fell. He managed to make his way backstage without Sara spotting him and leaned against a pillar so he could watch her as she sang.
In the months following his return from the Navajo Reservation murders out west, it was remarked by those who best knew him, that a smile rarely found its way onto his face. When one made such a rare appearance the smile never quite made it all the way up to his eyes.
But Sara was the lone exception to that rule. Whenever he saw her, his smile was quick, warm, natural, and made his blue eyes twinkle. She had done more to help him recover physically and mentally from the wounds incurred in New Mexico than anyone else.
But he was still very much haunted by his failures. In his waking hours, and often in his dreams as well, he kept replaying that fateful morning trying, and failing, to figure out what he could have done different.
He had told Sara all about the investigation during the third date, which had originally been delayed by his trip west. To jazz things up, it was a morning coffee the day after he’d returned to D.C.; his arm still in a cast and the stitches just barely removed from the stab wound in his shoulder.
She’d listened wide-eyed with occasional glances at the wounded areas when they came up during his narrative. But his concern that the violent nature of his job would scare her away proved to be unfounded. Instead of her being jealous of a ghost, he’d told her just how close he’d come to his temporary partner while out west, she’d shown nothing but compassion and understanding for the pain he was feeling at the loss.
The fourth date, and the delayed dinner, took place later that same evening, and the decision to keep seeing one another soon followed. With Sara singing six nights a week at the Lavender, which lay less than six blocks from Jack’s top floor apartment, it seemed only natural to move in some of her things rather than deal with the near hour drive to her place in Aspen Hill every day.
She had fallen in love with the place he’d played a large role in designing the very first time she’d set foot in it. And Jack had quickly discovered that having someone around was far from an intrusion but more like completion.
The sudden applause of the crowd interrupted his musing as Sara wound down the song. As she took a quick bow, the accompanist looked over his shoulder and nodded his head at Jack. With Sara’s attention out on the crowd, she did not see the two men quickly change places.
Jack had felt a little flash of nerves as he settled in. His mother had insisted that he learn to play a musical instrument as a small child, so he’d chosen the piano. Although he rarely played now, he’d kept in practice out of respect for her memory. But in the last two weeks he’d been practicing a little more often for just this night when he’d get to play for Sara as she sang as a surprise present.
“Thank you ladies and gentlemen,” Sara said, casting a quick glance around the room as if she were looking for someone. “I’d like to dedicate my last number of the evening to a very special person. He has devoted his life to making people safe and I know I always feel safest when he’s near.”
She gave a slight nod of her head toward the piano without looking to see who was seated behind it. Jack, knowing that nod was the signal for him to begin playing, gave one quick prayer to whatever music gods there were and launched into “Someone to Watch over Me”.
The Gershwin jazz classic, nearly a century old, took only three minutes to play and Jack was very surprised at how fast the time passed. The payoff came as the song ended and Sara took her bow to the loudest applause of the evening before turning to acknowledge her accompanist.
At first she didn’t register the change behind the instrument, but once she recognized who it was she gave a quick squeal of delight as the curtain dropped and rushed into Jack’s waiting arms.
“You sneak,” she exclaimed around a quick kiss. “I didn’t know you could play.”
“Been awhile,” Jack admitted, displaying one of those rare smiles. “I finally started seriously practicing again a few weeks ago.”
“Well anytime you want to give me a break just let me know,” Sara’s original accompanist said as he walked up to the couple from offstage. “That was some fine playing, son.”
“Thanks, Sam, but I think I’ll stick to my day job. It seems a lot less stressful.”
Sam, who’d been playing the piano at the Lavender for three decades, chuckled as he clapped Jack on the shoulder. “Alright, kid. But if you ever change your mind, you just say the word.”
“So, Mr. Sneaky,” Sara asked as Sam went to work putting away the microphone, “how was your day?”
“Getting better with every passing minute. So, you want to grab something to eat at Jersey’s?”
“No,” she replied with a mischievous grin. “I want to go home and get out of this dress.”
“Oh.”
“Yes, I have plans for your body, Mr. Sneaky G-Man, and I want to see just how talented those fingers of yours really are.”
“I hate to interrupt,” Sam called out as he lugged a speaker over from across the stage, “but you two should probably get a room if you’re going to keep talking like that.”
Chuckling, Jack retrieved Sara’s coat and helped her put it on. Then the couple slipped out the backstage door and headed for home. It was a warm evening for January, a brief respite before an expected snow storm that everyone was praying would arrive the day after the inauguration, making for a pleasant stroll.
“You know you’re not the only one with a surprise tonight,” Sara said as she gave Jack’s hand an extra squeeze.
“I knew I should have checked that coat closer,” he cracked. “So what have you got up your sleeve this time?”
“I got a call from my agent this afternoon,” she began after a slight hesitation, as if uncertain how to phrase her next sentence. “There’s a gig for me in Las Vegas that could lead to a pretty big recording contract. I’d be out there for a few weeks, maybe even a few months.”
“That’s great news,” Jack replied, genuinely happy that Sara seemed to have gotten the break she’d been working so hard for, after so much time. “When would you go out there?”
“Next week,” she replied, reaching into her purse to pull out a single folded sheet of white paper. “I want you to come out there with me, Jack.”
Jack quickly unfolded the paper and saw it was a flight itinerary for two passengers. Sara’s name was printed in one of the slots while the second slot had been left blank for an unnamed passenger. It was also for a flight due to depart Reagan International the day before the inauguration ceremonies.
“I know you are involved in the inauguration,” Sara continued quickly, anticipating the obvious issue, “but it’s the day before and you'll be done by then, right? And it’s an open ticket, so even if you can’t make that flight, you can take a later one. They set it up that way when I asked them.”
Sara had been talking faster and faster, afraid to let Jack manage to get in a word edgewise and she was showing no sign of letting up anytime soon.
“Jack, I really want you with me. Ever since you came into my life everything seems to be going my way. It’s like you are my good luck charm, and I know your boss has been trying to get you to take some of your vacation time—”
Jack moved quickly, but gently, laying his index finger on her lips to pause the verbal landslide cold. He then leaned in and kissed her, only then realizing she’d been trembling.
“I can’t promise anything for sure,” he said when they separated. “But if I can, I will find a way to make that flight with you. And if for whatever reason I can’t make that flight, then I will get on the very first flight that I can as soon as it’s over. I’ll probably send shock waves throughout the Bureau by taking my first ever vacation though.”
Sara’s eyes lit up and she smiled widely as she drew him closer and kissed him again, garnering an amused glance from an older couple as they walked by.
“Are you sure?” she asked after a few moments without pulling away.
“Yes,” Jack answered softly. “You’ve become a very important part of my life, and I want you to be a part of my life for a very long time. Besides, I think I’ve done enough over the past few years to earn an extended leave. I doubt Baker would say no.”
“So just how much time off can you take?”
“At least two months...” Jack began to answer but then his eyes suddenly narrowed. “Why do ask? What are you up to now?”
“Nothing really,” she answered, suddenly nervous again. “It’s just that I mentioned you to the people out in Vegas I’m going to be working with. They are looking for someone new to head up their corporate security and they’re very interested in talking to you about taking the job.”
The unasked question hung in the air between them. Leave the FBI was basically what she was asking him to do. Jack’s initial reaction was completely against the thought. For just over a decade now his entire life had been in law enforcement and he’d accomplished quite a lot during his time at the Bureau.
But as his initial reaction faded, and he gave serous thought about his career path at the FBI, he knew he only ever wanted to be a field agent; that he would never follow the same route to a desk that Baker Collins had taken on his way to upper management. Jack had at best ten, maybe fifteen, more years before retirement and then what would there be for him then?
His time with Lucy Chee, as tragically brief as it had been, had taught him that he did not want to go through his entire life as a lone wolf. He very much wanted there to be someone to share his life with and he knew at that moment exactly who that someone was.
The whole process of thinking it through had taken him just a few seconds. Sara had watched him work it out with silent intensity, both hoping and fearing what his decision would be.
“I’ll tell you what,” Jack finally said, taking both her hands in his. “I’ll go out and listen to what they have to say. If the job doesn’t sound good, then I’ll fly back here and call in every marker I have in the Bureau to get transferred out west.”
The pronouncement, after a moment of silent disbelief, earned him another lengthy kiss.
“Jack, are you sure? What if they won’t transfer you?”
“Baker knows what I’ve done for the Bureau. He’ll hate to see me leave D.C., but he won’t stand in my way. And if for some reason they don’t transfer me, you’d better be a huge success out there because I’ll have quit the FBI. I promise you I’d be a very expensive boy toy.”
They both laughed at the last few words he’d spoken. Money was never going to be an issue for Jack, or for his brother, as their late parents’ estate had ensured their financial futures. Finding a professional replacement for the void his departure from the Bureau would create would be a challenge for him, that he knew, but he was willing to face that challenge for her.
As they walked the last few blocks arm-in-arm Jack came to realize that right now his life was as close to perfection as he could ask for and the future looked even brighter and happier than he ever could have hoped for.
***
THE Los Angeles had closed in on the crash site quickly. Four seamen in a Zodiac, a powered rubber raft, was dispatched to search the area where the debris from the second explosion had fallen to the sea and was still visibly burning, while the rescue crews from the sub searched the water for survivors with spotlights. The fuselage of a jet bobbed in the waves. It was mostly intact and amazingly hadn’t caught on fire. When the lights fell on the lone visible wing bobbing in the waves they could clearly see the bullet holes that had riddled the area around the engine.
“What the hell is going on here, Captain,” the XO asked as he watched the rescue efforts below from the conning tower. “Someone shot that plane down out of the sky.”
“I don’t know,” the Captain answered grimly. “Let’s hope someone in there survived and can give us some answers.”
Unable to open the jet’s cabin door, which would have rapidly flooded the cabin and sank the jet along with whoever might still be alive in there, two crewmen began cutting through the fuselage well above the waterline. Of growing concern to the rescuers was the lack of any sign of life seen in either the cockpit or the passenger cabin. Both the Captain and his exec men turned toward the sound of the Zodiac’s engine screaming back toward the Los Angeles at top speed.
“That didn’t take long,” Captain Del Rio remarked.
“Sure didn’t, and he sure as hell is in a big hurry to get back here, too,” the XO replied. “I wonder if they have a survivor aboard?”
The powered rubber raft was a workhorse for the U.S. Navy, and it easily plowed through the waves and barely slowed down as it returned to its mother ship. Ensign Melton, who had been in command of the Zodiac, hopped onto the deck before the rest of his crew had tied off. Del Rio could not make out what the object Melton carried was, but it took both hands to hold it and it was most certainly not a survivor.
When Melton reached the tower’s base he held up the object to give his captain a clear look at what his crew had brought back. It was a small section of metal from a military jet’s fuselage and it had six letters printed on it in large black, block letters: U.S. Navy.
The Captain turned to his XO and was certain the look on his own face was a match to the look of stunned disbelief he saw looking back at him.
***
DINNER, ONCE THEY’D returned to the apartment, had been more of a light snack than an actual meal as their appetite had turned toward some other type of fare.
When Sara had first moved in it had taken some time for her to become convinced that even though they could clearly see the outside world, the one-way glass panes that comprised nearly every square foot of all the four outer walls of his tenth-floor apartment kept anyone on the outside from seeing inside.
It had taken her three full days before she stopped getting fully dressed behind a partition separating the bedroom and the bathroom before moving around the flat. Jack had wondered what she would have done those first few days if the glass installed around the shower area hadn’t been slightly frosted.
Even if the outside world could have seen inside his home, he’d arranged the area around the bed to be as separated from the rest of the open floor plan as was possible. A layout decision that was probably for the best considering what they’d done once they’d gotten into the bed. They had drifted off to sleep afterward; Jack listening to the sound of her breathing even as he relinquished to exhaustion. This act had become an amazingly simple pleasure, in a tangle of arms and legs and in perfect contentment.
Sara was the heavier sleeper of the two, but Jack clearly heard the soft knocking sound at the door. What had brought him quickly out of the bed and fully awake in an instant was the realization of which door it was that the knocking was coming from.
The primary entryway door was over in the southwestern corner of the apartment, aligned with the building’s lone elevator shaft with an enclosed foyer separating the elevator from the rest of the floor. But the knocking that had awakened him was coming from the “back” door in the southeastern corner, the one that led to the interior stairwell. The stairwell and that door were separated by a locked gate and whoever was knocking on the door had gotten past that gate.
There were only three keys to that particular lock. He had one, Sara the other, and the third he’d given to his brother Steve. Not even the building’s custodian had a key to get past that gate. As far as he knew, Steve and the Los Angeles were well along their way into their patrol in the Atlantic right now.
The knocking was repeated, slightly louder this time and somehow managing to sound even more urgent. Jack quickly slipped out of the bed without waking Sara. He made his way to the door, stopping only long enough to pick up his gun, making a mental note to himself to have an eyehole installed in the door for the next time he was going to receive an unannounced visitor at this door.
With no way to see who was out there, he decided to forego calling out through the door and went for the element of surprise. Throwing open the door with his weapon levelled and ready for just about anything, Jack found himself face to face with about the only thing he wasn’t ready for, the executive officer of the Los Angeles. To the man’s credit, the XO never said a word, although his eyes had widened enough that Jack was surprised that they had stayed within their sockets.
After several moments of stunned silence had passed, Jack slowly lowered and safetied his weapon, much to the XO’s visible relief.
“What the hell are you doing here, at this hour, and using this door?” Jack finally managed to get out without shouting.
The XO ignored Jack’s question and simply held out a slip of paper, folded in half. Jack took it and read it, then read it once again just to make sure before looking back up at the high-ranking messenger.
“Is this my brother’s idea of a joke?”
“Believe me,” the man replied solemnly, “I wished it were.”
Something in the man’s tone caused a shiver to crawl down Jack’s spine, as if a sudden blast of cold air had struck him with full force.
“Alright, give me a minute to get dressed.”
Jack made quick and quiet work of it, managing not to wake Sara up. He scratched out a quick note, telling her he’d been called away and would return as soon as possible. He’d had to slip away in the middle of the night twice before, so he was certain she wouldn’t be too concerned if she woke up and found him gone. He stepped back out, closing and locking the door behind him.
“We’re going to have to hurry if we’re going to get to the coast before the sun rises,” Jack remarked.
“We don’t have to go that far, sir.”
“What?” Jack said, stopping up short in surprise. “Where exactly is the Los Angeles right now?”
“She’s holding just below the surface near Annapolis.”
“You brought the Los Angeles into the Chesapeake Bay?” Jack said, shocked. He might not be an experienced Navy sailor, but even he knew getting a submarine the size of the Los Angeles into the bay was tricky.
“It was a tight fit,” the XO allowed, “but the skipper felt it was necessary under the circumstances.”
Jack shook his head in disbelief and led the man back down the stairwell and outside. They crossed the empty street to the parking garage where Jack kept his Mustang parked. At one in the morning there was not much in the way of traffic anywhere in the area and they quickly made their way east toward the Naval Academy.
Pulling into a parking lot north of Annapolis with easy access to the beach, Jack got out of the car and followed the XO down to where two sailors sat in a Zodiac, alertly looking around to assure their presence remained unnoticed.
When they saw the two men walking toward them, the sailors pushed the Zodiac back toward the water, holding it close to the shore as the XO easily got in first. Jack paused on the shore however, looking back and forth between the small boat and the dark waters of the bay.
“Skipper wouldn’t have asked you to come out if it wasn’t important,” the XO, knowing of Jack’s dislike of being out on the water, day or night, said with some understanding.
“I know. I just wish he could have come ashore and explained what is going on to me in person and safely on land.”
With a resigned sigh, Jack stepped into the raft and settled in as the sailors pushed off and jumped in. The XO fired up the motor and headed out into the bay. Jack knew enough about submarine operations to know that his brother was likely sitting right on top of the sonar station, and as soon as they picked up the sound of the Zodiac on the water he would bring the Los Angeles to the surface.
In less than a minute, Jack saw the Los Angeles’ conning tower break the surface, but only the first four feet of it was visible. His brother was certainly doing whatever he could to make sure no one knew his boat was out here. The Zodiac swiftly pulled up to the tower and several pairs of hands helped pull Jack and the XO onto the tower. The two sailors below remained in the raft and quickly pulled a few yards away as Jack, the XO and the rest of the crewmen descended below. No sooner had the hatch been slammed shut and sealed when Jack felt the boat begin to descend back into the bay.
“Only about twenty feet,” the XO said when Jack shot a very concerned glance his way. Jack decided that as much as he disliked being on board a boat that was out on the surface of the water, being on board a boat that was under the surface was an even more dislikable experience.
“Mr. Del Rio,” an ensign called out as Jack stepped out onto the bridge, “the Captain is waiting for you in the wardroom. I can take you there, sir.”
“No need,” Jack replied kindly. He’d been on the Los Angeles twice before, and while he did not know the boat as well as the people who served on board her, he knew how to get to a few of the more important areas.
Still slightly unsettled by being below the water, and a little unnerved by the clandestine meeting in the dark of night with his own brother mysteriously pulling the strings, Jack ignored the naval custom of knocking on the door and waiting for permission to enter to be granted when he reached the wardroom.
He just stormed into the room ready to ask his brother for an explanation and immediately stopped in his tracks, the demand dying unspoken on his lips.
“Good morning, kid,” Steve Del Rio said with a devil may care grin on his face, extending a cup of coffee to his sibling.
The cup was ignored as Jack tried to get his mouth to work properly. After one or two tries failed, he finally took the cup and drank from it. He had immediately recognized the other two men in the room with his brother even though he couldn’t even begin to understand why the Vice President-elect and a member of his Secret Service protection detail were sitting here on his brother’s sub. Both men looked haggard, dressed in standard sailors’ working uniforms and wrapped in blankets. They both were sporting an assortment of cuts and bruises.
“Agent Del Rio,” Cashman greeted with as much warmth as his injuries allowed. “It’s been a while since we first met out in New Mexico.”
“Yes, sir, it certainly has,” Jack replied, having rediscovered how to get his mouth to produce words again. “It appears that quite a lot has happened since then. We’ve met recently but I don’t recall your name.”
“Kliene, Agent Del Rio,” the Secret Service man answered Jack’s query. “It was about two weeks ago, when you presented your first brief to the security details.”
“Alright,” Jack said with a nod, dispatching the social graces to get down to business. “So, who is going to start telling me what is going on out here?”
“Perhaps,” Cashman replied, turning the laptop on the table toward Jack so he could see the screen. The thumb drive Karpov had given Cashman was still plugged into the laptop, “it would be better if we showed you this before we tell you how we came to be on your brother’s submarine tonight.”
***
AS IT WOULD HAVE FOR most anyone else, a knock on the front door in the wee hours of the morning was an unwelcome disruption in the routine of Bradley Cavanaugh. By the time he’d shrugged into a robe and grumpily navigated his way past his living room furniture to reach his entryway, he was ill-tempered. The identity of his visitor did little to improve his mood.
“What the devil!?” he exclaimed.
“There’s been a development,” the man standing on the other side of the door replied, extending a large manila envelope for Cavanaugh to take. “We had access to one last satellite pass over the crash sites. We were checking for debris and confirmation of no survivors when we found this.”
Cavanaugh opened the envelope and pulled out a set of photographs. The first showed him what he had expected to see, the remains of a private jet bobbing in the water although it was much more intact than he’d have expected after a missile strike. The rest of the pictures also showed something he hadn’t expected to see at all, a U.S. Navy submarine plucking a pair of survivors from the water. One survivor had white hair, and there was only one person on board that jet that had been anywhere near old enough to have a full head of white hair: Norman Cashman.
“What the hell happened out there?” Cavanaugh growled.
“Our best guess is our hotshot pilot got cute and didn’t use a missile to bring down the jet. Somehow the pilots aboard the jet controlled the crash just enough to let two people survive it.”
“That area was supposed to be completely clear of any traffic, surface or air,” Cavanaugh snapped. “Where did this sub come from?”
“No one knows. It’s the Los Angeles. She had left port in Norfolk hours before. She should have been miles away and well under the water at the time Cashman was shot down.”
Then a sudden thought brought Cavanaugh fully awake. A late night visitor at his door shouldn’t be breaking this kind of news to him. The next Vice President of the United States of America being fished out of the Atlantic Ocean by a Navy sub after being shot out of the sky should have had every one of his phones ringing like mad hours ago.
“Not a sound,” the visitor, seeing the thoughts behind the changing expression on Cavanaugh’s face, replied to the unasked question. “The submarine apparently took on the two survivors and slipped back beneath the surface without so much as making a report of any kind.”
“But it makes no sense at all,” Cavanaugh muttered. “Why wouldn’t her captain immediately report in once he realized who it was that he’d rescued? Who is the commanding officer of that sub?”
“Steven Del Rio.”
“Del Rio!” Cavanaugh all but roared. As if that damned family hadn’t been enough of a nuisance to the cause through the years, he raged silently to himself, for them to reappear now when they were so close to the end seemed unfair.
Cavanaugh took a deep breath to get himself back under control. Sleep, for this night at least, was over and done with.
“Very well,” he said. “Get back to work and find out what you can. I’ll reach out through my channels and see if we can locate the Los Angeles and sort out what her captain has in mind. Let’s just hope he doesn’t pop up in some port and parade Cashman in front of a bunch of damned TV cameras or some idiot with a cell phone before we get our hands on him.”
***
JACK CLOSED OUT THE last file on the drive, then reached over for the mug of coffee, which had been refilled twice while he had scanned the documents, without looking up at the other men in the room, and took a long swig before setting it back down. If it hadn’t been for the bedraggled presence in the room of Cashman and his bodyguard he probably wouldn’t have believed a single word of what he’d just read. When his brother started to break the silence, Jack held up his hand for quiet and spent the next full minute thinking over what he’d read and what it might mean for everyone in the room.
“If I understand this correctly,” Jack said at last, looking at Cashman, “a secret Soviet project was begun several decades ago that was designed to infiltrate the political system of the United States along with industry, financial, and other areas of influence as well, and all from within by planting a dozen young couples over here after World War II to raise their children and grandchildren toward a single end. The purpose of which,” he paused to take another sip from the mug, “was to ultimately place one of their people inside the Oval Office. Once there they would capitulate, for lack of a better term, to the Soviet Union and form one communist mega-superpower?”
“That is how I read it also,” Norman agreed.
“But the bottom line is this, all that we really know from these documents comes from the Russian side of this operation. We don’t know who these people became once they got here or who is running the show over here right now. For that matter, we have no idea what their goal is now given that the Soviet Union they were working for no longer exists. Are they looking to just take over this county now or are they hoping they can also resurrect the old USSR at the same time.”
“That is all very true,” Norman replied wryly.
“Maybe you should tell me now exactly how you came to be in possession of these files, as well as exactly how you managed to end up on my brother’s boat tonight when you are supposed to be in Atlanta.”
“Vlade Karpov was an old adversary from my CIA days. Over the years, after the USSR collapsed, we became friends,” Cashman began. “A couple of days ago he made contact with me, said he needed to speak with me as soon as possible; that it was of high importance and that he wanted to meet with me in Nassau.”
“Any particular reason why the Bahamas instead of somewhere on the mainland U.S.?”
“We had a few ‘adventures’ together there in the past,” Cashman replied with a slight smile. “He knew I could easily get to this little spot on the beach we’d both frequented back in the day; that no one would know of the place but the two of us. As soon as I could arrange it, I slipped away from my staff in Atlanta and flew on down to see what was on his mind. He gave me these files and he warned me to watch my back. These people, whoever the hell they may be, aren’t taking any chances now that they're this close to pulling it off. He's lost a few of his people trying to track this down from his side. He suspects it won’t be long before they make the attempt to kill him.
“Tonight,” Cashman tugged the blanket closer against a sudden chill, “they definitely tried to kill me. No one knew that I was going to be on that jet. And yet, just a few hours ago, somebody with some very high connections to our own military ordered my plane to be shot out of the sky.”
Jack shot a look at his brother who grimly nodded confirmation.
“Jack, while we were pulling these two out of the water, some of my men investigated a second crash site and they came back with this.”
Steve reached under the table and pulled out a scrap of metal with the words U.S. Navy painted on it. Jack had been around his brother long enough to recognize an authentic piece of a Navy jet when he saw it.
“While we were waiting for you to get here, I sent a man in, very quietly,” Steve explained, “to check on any flight ops anywhere on the eastern seaboard tonight. No bases and none of the ships within range of us had anything up in the air tonight anywhere near the area, and no planes, military or civilian, have been reported as being missing.”
“I know the man who gave me this material,” Cashman interjected quietly. “If he says this is on the level, then you should consider it as such.”
“Even though you could be the very operative intended to make it to the Oval Office and betray this country?” Jack accused coolly.
Kliene ignored his injuries enough to lurch out of chair in an outraged protest that matched the volume of the sub’s captain, but Jack and Cashman merely held their ground and calmly regarded each other.
“This could very well be a false flag operation, Senator,” Jack remarked quietly after the protests faded to a stunned silence. “It would explain why your plane was not shot down by a missile, which surely would have resulted in a catastrophic explosion that you could not have walked away from alive. You are shot out of the sky,” Jack carefully gauged Cashman’s reaction to his accusations, “and are miraculously rescued by a Navy sub and able to return to D.C. to shout conspiracy. Perhaps even to accuse your own running mate of being in league with the conspirators and, with an outraged country demanding justice, you are sworn in as next President of the United States. Then, finally in the position of power needed to complete the plot, you fulfill your destiny and the America as we know it exists no more.”
“That is one plausible interpretation,” Cashman allowed in a tone that seemed far too calm under the circumstances, “but you certainly credit me with a little more nerve than I believe I would admit to in taking the kind of risk of crashing into the sea. I have no proof to offer you right now, Agent Del Rio, but I can and do assure you that I am not their operative.”
The room was deadly quiet as Cashman locked gazes with his accuser, who in turn held his ground against the shared outrage of the others, searching the older man’s face for any clue of duplicity in his expression.
“Knowing what I do about you, sir,” Jack finally said to break the heavy silence, “I would be hard pressed to believe otherwise.”
“Thank you,” Cashman said. “And remind me never to play poker with you in the future, young man. I get the distinct feeling that I was just read like an open book.”
“Which leaves us with three possibilities as to whom it actually is we are up against,” Jack said with a slight grin, acknowledging Cashman’s compliment. “The first is the current resident of the White House, which is possible but highly unlikely.”
“Why not?” Kliene asked, as stunned at this latest accusation as the earlier one against Cashman.
“If it was him, they'd have made their move long ago,” Jack replied quickly. “There is no need to wait around once their man, or woman, is in power. In fact, they can't afford to wait and run the risk of someone finding them out and trying to stop them. No, if I were the sitting president, I doubt any of us would be here talking about it tonight. Which leaves us with either your running mate or the man they name to take your place, once your ‘death’ tonight has become official, as our possible conspirator. At any rate, it is a starting point to work from.”
“What do you mean ‘a start’, Jack?” Captain Del Rio demanded. “You find out which one of them it is and stop them.”
“Steve, whoever is running this show it's not actually Arthur or whoever Cashman's replacement is, even if they think they are. That operative's only job was getting elected into the Oval Office. Once that has been accomplished, his or her usefulness is over. That is when the real players will step in and take over. So whoever they are, they’ll be running as low of a profile as they possibly can right now.
“The other problem is we have no proof of anyone’s direct involvement on this side. If I can't uncover this conspiracy and everyone who is behind it, while getting enough proof to make it stick in court, I might add, it will be far too late to do any of us any good.”
“Why?” asked Cashman.
“Because this thing is set up to move very quickly,” Jack answered. “I'd bet that within seventy-two hours, probably even less than that, after the inauguration they will make their move to take power. The only country in the world right now that might have a chance at threatening the resulting new superpower is China, even if you believe that they might not welcome a changed America that is more aligned to their way of thinking. With the type of long-range planning we've seen so far, I imagine that China would be quickly neutralized, or brought into the fold. And with China out of the picture, there'd be no one left to stand in their way.” Jack paused for a moment as the dark future he was proposing sunk in to everyone else in the room. “Oh, there'd be protests. There’d even be an open rebellion or two, but before a full decade had passed that old communist dream of total world domination would have finally and firmly taken hold.”
“The military wouldn’t stand for it,” Steve protested.
“Are you sure? There have been a lot of major shake ups in the top brass in all of the branches lately. Given what we’ve seen in these files tonight, doesn’t it make you start to rethink some of those sudden resignations just a little bit?”
Cashman, who served on the Armed Services Committee, found himself nodding his head in agreement. A few too many of the recent resignations had seemingly come from nowhere. Del Rio’s theory certainly, and uncomfortably, explained more than one of them.
“What can we do?” Cashman asked, almost too quietly to be heard.
“You? Not a single thing right now, sir. You and Mr. Kliene are dead and you're both going to stay that way until I can sort everything out. Steve, can you and this boat disappear?”
“That is our job,” the Captain replied. “Why do you ask?”
“Because after I leave here tonight, you and this boat need to vanish with these two along for the ride. Our only advantage at this point is that they think he's dead and that the information on this drive is sitting on the bottom of the ocean with his corpse.”
“Surely there's something more we can do other than run away and hide?” Cashman replied, outraged at the thought when his country was in grave danger.
“Right now, that's the only thing you can do. If you go up there and yell ‘conspiracy,’ with no proof to back you up, they can paint you as a nut case and replace you without protest. Assuming they don’t just decide to shoot you on sight and claim you were an imposter, insisting the ‘real’ Cashman died in a plane crash. No,” Jack sighed, “I've got the ball now, and our best advantage at this time is that they don’t know that, so let me run with it. I need you to stand by in case I run out of time up there. If I do, that is when I want you to show up and start yelling foul.”
“But you said—” Cashman said, confused.
“It’s the timing, Senator,” Jack broke in. “If you return from the dead after they've buried you, and just before the inauguration, it'll throw everything into total chaos. In the meantime, in all of the confusion, someone just might panic and make a mistake that we can take advantage of.”
“Remind me not to play chess with you either,” Cashman said with a smile. “You have a very devious mind. Good luck, Jack.”
“Thank you, sir,” Jack said, shaking Cashman’s extended hand and motioning for his brother to walk him out back to the conning tower.
“Steve,” Jack said after they had left the room. “I meant every word of what I said in there. You can bet they might have had an eye on what happened out here. They might already know you've got him on board and they’ll be coming after you. That piece of fighter jet you found says they control enough of the military to use it against anyone who gets in their way.”
“We’re way ahead of you, little brother,” Steve replied. “Once you’re ashore I'm going to find a nice, deep hole in the water to hide my boat in.”
“Sounds good,” Jack replied. “But don’t even wait that long. As soon as I shove off in the raft get below as fast as this boat can get there. And listen to me, you had better be prepared in case something goes wrong.”
Steve stopped in his tracks, spinning around to face his brother.
“I mean it,” Jack said firmly. “If I can’t find a way to stop this, or if I screw this up somehow, it'll be up to you and Cashman to stop this.”
“Alright, kid,” Steve relented. “I’ve been trained for this kind of thing you know. But I don’t much care for you going off solo. You won’t know who to trust, and everyone you even so much as look at up there could be one of them.”
“Your training is against a known enemy, but not against people who are supposed to be on your side. This is a game that is played by an entirely different set of rules. What I do can be done even when it is actually just one lone man against the world. I’m not saying it will be easy, but I can do it. In the meantime you be careful out here, you hear me?”
“We’ll be fine,” Steve said, relenting. “And you watch your back up there, too. I have no intentions of being the last of the Del Rio clan.”
“Me neither,” Jack replied soberly.
The two brothers resumed the trek through the boat, pausing only long enough for Steve to give the order to surface again. By the time they reached the outer hatch, the Los Angeles had breached the surface and the XO and the two seamen waited with rubber boat Jack had traveled out on. The Captain ordered the two sailors back into the sub as Jack stepped into the small craft.
“Sir?” the XO asked. “I though your brother didn’t care for boats. Shouldn’t someone go with him to bring it back?”
“I said I didn’t care for them,” Jack said as he started the engine with practiced ease. “I never said I didn’t know how to operate one.”
“Don’t worry,” the Captain said, addressing the XO with a chuckle he didn’t really feel, “my kid brother can out sail me on his worst day. As soon as he’s is clear, dive the boat and get us to our nice little cubby hole as fast as possible, then rig for silent running until further notice.”
“Aye, sir,” the XO replied as he stepped back inside to carry out his orders.
The Captain waved goodbye to Jack as he pulled away, following his XO inside the tower.
Jack headed back to the shore, turning around just once to watch as the Los Angeles quietly slipped below the waves. He had talked a good game back there in the wardroom, but deep down he was extremely worried. If any of them had bothered to ask for the odds he would give for his own survival, they’d have gotten a very low number in reply.
On a dark sea in a moonless night Jack’s mood was as dark as the clouds on his immediate horizon. For a moment, just before he turned back to resume his course to the shore, he had the uneasy feeling that he just might have seen his brother for the very last time.