Jason tried to insert his key into the deadbolt lock of the front door. The key simply pushed the door open. It slid inward with no resistance. The hair on his neck stood up.
“Shit,” he whispered.
Jason heard Peter’s holster unsnap, followed by his brother racking the slide of his nine millimeter Remington 1911 R1. Jason removed the Colt from inside the waistband of his back.
He pushed the door wide with one finger and stepped in, leveling the gun. Flipping on the light switch, Jason swung the weapon in a horizontal arc.
The brothers secured the first floor in two minutes. Peter then exited through the back door, moving to Chrissie’s Chrysler 300 in the driveway. Jason remained inside, continuing to scan the first floor. Peter returned, shaking his head, indicating that everything outside appeared normal. The pair climbed the stairs single file. Each room along the hallway was searched and cleared. Three minutes later, they arrived at Chrissie’s closed bedroom door.
Jason turned the knob, pushing the door open. It crashed into the closet door. Jason jumped back as Peter pointed his weapon into the darkened room, scanning. Peter nodded and entered followed by Jason. Both had their weapons leveled, fingers on triggers.
Jason noticed the bed, sending a cold shiver through him.
“She never leaves it unmade.”
Peter stepped past Jason and checked the bathroom. “Empty.” Then Peter flipped on the light.
Jason sank onto the bed, put the gun on the disheveled covers and lowered his head into his hands. “What the hell is going on?”
“You said you two had a fight. Maybe she is staying with a friend.”
Jason’s gaze noticed a spot on the scuffed hardwood floor, just off the throw rug. Lowering himself, Jason reached out and touched the small circle. A droplet of crimson clung to his forefinger.
“I don’t think so.”
The spy gasped, intensifying his already unbearable torment. Oliver had approached Hammon and nearly ripped the hair from the rotund man’s head. Hussein grunted one word, “Attendez!” Wait!
She had studied Hammon for several minutes as Oliver held the man’s head upright by his hair follicles. Hussein shrugged and said, “I guess he’s not ready to talk. Go!”
Oliver tilted the bottle over the gaping, blood-soaked head wound. As the liquid dripped from the plastic container, an acrid, acidic stench filled the air. Muriatic acid sizzled, bubbling and smoking over the crimson flesh.
Three seconds later, Hammon’s body tensed as if current flowed through it. His eyes, already closed, squeezed tighter. His lips parted in a silent scream. The enormous man’s muscles quivered as the seizure gained momentum.
“Arrêtez!” Hussein shouted at Oliver. Stop!
Several more seconds elapsed. Hammon’s body went limp.
“Merde,” she spat. “I hope you haven’t killed him.”
The ship had been docked for an hour at Pier Five under the massive derrick offloading the metal containers. The whine of motors told Gundersen that the transfers had begun.
Both five-man military teams had been delivered to their drop-off points, one in Chesapeake Bay the other at the mouth of the James River. A ten-ton weight had been removed from the captain’s shoulders. However, a small, uncomfortable pressure still niggled within his chest.
At least the commandos are gone, he thought.
One more delivery lay before him. One he would handle personally. This would be easy compared with the previous two—no guns, no night-vision goggles.
Deep in the stacks of containers still on board the Thor, Gundersen angled his body as he maneuvered among the containers looking for the correct number. He found it.
Above him, the monster derrick’s gears whizzed as the large harness was brought into place over the remaining hundreds of metal boxes. It would be an hour before this container was moved to the yard of the terminal.
Gundersen had checked on this piece of cargo three times every day since they’d left the Ghanian port of Tema on the West African coast, fretting over it like a mother hen hatching a chick. The journey to Norfolk had taken twelve interminable days.
The captain removed his key, the only key for this box, and inserted it into the large padlock. He swung open the doors, stepped inside, and reclosed them, sealing him inside. Producing a small flashlight from his pocket, Gundersen looked at the medium-sized truck squeezed into the interior of the metal container. This shipping container had been specially modified to hold this vehicle and support its needs.
The gentle whirring sound coming from the front of the container and the very cold temperature of the ambient air put his mind at ease. Gundersen shivered. It would be a shame to have the cargo spoil after getting halfway around the world. He had been warned that if the cargo did not remain frozen inside the truck, he would be held accountable. The Norwegian held no illusions about what that meant.
Satisfied that he would not be disturbed, he wedged himself along the right-hand wall. He checked the cab of the white truck. All appeared in order. To save time, the sailor crawled beneath the chassis, scooting to the opposite side.
The electric panel mounted to the interior wall of the shipping box glowed with a series of red and green indicator lights over a panel of eight two hundred and twenty volt outlets. This container had been wired into the ship’s electrical system which in turn fed current to the vehicle. Just above the electrical panel, a flat, rectangular black box, the backup generator, provided a twelve-hour backup in case of a power failure. When it was lifted by the derrick, the electrical connections would be severed and the back-up supply would take over. Gundersen had plenty of time to transfer the power to the truck’s power plant.
Gundersen studied the wall unit. From two of the outlets, a pair of thick yellow power cables snaked from the console and draped to the floor. A foot past the truck’s cab, they ascended to the refrigeration unit mounted on the front-facing wall of the truck’s hold. The cables disappeared under and into the refrigeration unit, feeding the massive machine.
Gundersen stepped onto the running board of the passenger door and shined the light on the temperature gauge mounted on the ceiling of the cab.
Minus 2 degrees Celsius. Perfekt!
He placed his hand on the sidewall of the truck’s cargo area. A patina of frost coated the outside. He removed his hand, leaving a hand print on the frosted metal. He smiled a thin, weary grin.
All was good.
He would soon be rid of this worrisome container. The sound of motors whirring and grinding above him told him the derrick was in motion again, removing another container. Soon this box would be removed from his ship.
Gundersen smiled, locked up the container and counted the minutes until he would make the delivery … and the moment he could relax.
“J’ai besoin du nom, Hammon.” I need the name …
Still alive, but barely conscious, the fat man slumped on his right side in the Adirondack chair. The pattern on his floral print shirt had become obscured by the large amount of blood soaked into its silk. Two of the wounds, the knife wound on his torso and the gunshot wound in his shoulder, were congealed with blood.
Hammon’s head bobbed intermittently as he bounced in and out of consciousness. Hussein could not determine if it was a haphazard movement caused by extreme pain or if he was shaking his head in disagreement or simply nodding a capitulation.
His eyelids fluttered. The blackened, sizzling hole in the left side of his head continued to ooze rivulets of blood where the ear once resided, revealing a canal leading to the brain. The acid cooked the blood and eroded a trail of skin down to his neck. The excess caustic fluid dripped onto his shirt, burning holes in the collar.
“You must be in incredible agony, mon ami,” she continued.
Hussein nodded to Oliver again. The manservant lifted the weapon sitting beside the severed ear, sitting in its own small pool of thick, sanguineous fluid. He pulled back the slide on the nine-millimeter in his pinky-less hands and brought it to Hammon’s face, dimpling a small intact area on his temple.
“Just give me the location where he is and we will put an end to your misery.”
Hammon’s lips moved, mouthing incoherencies.
“I can’t understand you. Speak up!”
Hussein did not look at her tortured captive. She studied her manicured fingers, frowning at a blemish. “Cut the other one off!”
Oliver yanked Hammon’s head to the left, exposing the remaining ear. Hammon groaned. His eyelids fluttered, exposing glassy, unfocused eyes.
The manservant lowered the sharp blade, touching it to the valley of skin.
As soon the blade made contact, Hammon screeched two unintelligible words.
“I’m sorry,” Hussein asked. “I did not get that.”
“Onion,” Hammon pleaded, drawing out each tortured syllable. “He‘s … at … Red Onion … with Cooper … Steven C …”
Hussein stood up, retrieving the nine-millimeter from the glass table. She raised the weapon and fired a round between Hammon’s eyes. “Merci beaucoup, mon cheri!”
The matriarch of terror pointed to the corpse, then toward the ocean.
“Jettez ce morceau de merde dans le mer.” Throw this piece of shit in the ocean.
“Oui, Madame.”
“Do we have anyone with access to the Red Onion?”
“We will have to pull some strings,” Oliver replied, “but I believe we have an asset ready to go.”
Hussein grinned. “Didn’t I tell you they would keep him at a black site.”
“Oui Madame, you did,” Oliver replied. “What about Cooper?”
Hussein rubbed her chin with a thumb and forefinger. “Yes, indeed. It is fortunate that Hammon also divulged that Cooper is being held with my son. It is a fortunate turn. We can kill two proverbial birds, n’est-ce pas?”
Oliver nodded.
“Get al-Raqqah on the line. They will need to coordinate with our friends at the GRU,” Hussein commanded, pointing at the satellite phone.
“The GRU?” Oliver asked with a tone of incredulity. “Do you think the Russians will want to be a part of this?”
Hussein had been performing a delicate balancing act over the past two years, juggling the desires of ISIS and their quest to bring harm to America with the agenda of the Russians, who tried to appear disgusted by the terrorist group but who secretly also desired to wreak havoc on the States.
She was on the secure satellite phone every day with her handlers in al-Raqqah, Syria, the de facto capital. Hussein also made frequent overtures to her contact at the main intelligence agency of the general staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, the GRU. Hussein was confident that day-to-day reports to her Russian counterpart were making their way to the Russian president.
“The Russians have hacked Americans emails, no ? With the right amount of money and the chance to help bring down the American economy, they will jump at the chance. We need to move quickly. They have the resources, we have the people on site. I want a plan in place in twelve hours.”
Twin navy-blue Lincoln Navigators skidded to a halt on the tarmac at Hampton Roads Executive Airport on West Military Highway in Chesapeake. A Gulfstream G-IV SP sat quietly outside a hangar in the dim predawn glow. The airport’s posted hours were from seven to five. It would be another two hours before the airport would begin serving southeastern Virginia businessmen.
A five-man group emerged from each vehicle, now dressed in casual business attire. Two toted briefcases. Two clusters of three men from each Navigator moved with military precision to the rear of the SUVs. As soon as the lift gates had fully elevated, each trio pulled a wooden coffin-sized crate cratered with fist-sized breathing holes from the vehicle’s bed.
As this occurred, the briefcase-toting men approached the jet. A sleepy-eyed airport official appeared from the main hangar holding a steaming Styrofoam cup of coffee, meeting them at the nose of the aircraft.
Each man lifted his respective briefcase and opened it, allowing the airport man a glimpse inside. With a satisfied nod, the cases were closed again. The airport official poured his coffee out onto the asphalt and dropped the cup. He took the cases, one in each hand, and disappeared into the hangar.
The two coffin crates were loaded onto the Gulfstream jet by the rear staircase. The Navigators zipped to a distant parking area and the drivers jogged back to the aircraft.
Inside the cabin, the senior team leader, commander of Team Mohammed, stuck his head in the cockpit. The former briefcase-carriers were now buckled into the seats checking dials and flipping switches.
A moment later, the twin engines whirred to life.
“Did you file the flight plan?” the leader asked.
“Yes,” the pilot responded in perfect English. “We’ll land in Georgia to refuel. The second leg was filed as going to Miami. After we take off from Augusta Regional, we’ll turn off the transponder as if we’ve gone down. Of course, we’ll be well over the Atlantic before anyone realizes we’re not on course. We’ll send out a distress call when we are a few miles offshore. Then we’ll adjust our course to the final destination.”
“Excellent.” The leader turned and motioned for his compatriot, the junior team leader of Team Isaiah, to follow him through the cabin. They arrived as the lids were being removed from the coffin-like crates.
The Pettigrew woman—bound, gagged, and unconscious—was lifted from her crate, laid out on a small sofa, and strapped down. The boy’s limp body was moved onto a second couch across the aisle. Two men took seats in swiveling captain’s chairs, watching over their prisoners.
“The next shift will relieve you in three hours,” the senior leader commanded. “The rest of you relax and get some rest.”
Five minutes later, the Gulfstream lifted off the four-thousand-foot runway into the receding darkness. The plane banked on a southerly heading and disappeared over the trees.