An Excerpt from Rendition Protocol – Nathan Goodman

CHAPTER ONE

Victim or Perp

Royal Police Force, American Road, St. John’s, isle of Antigua.

“You’re not going to fingerprint me!” Jana yelled.

The uniformed officer repeated his command. “Miss, you are going to be fingerprinted. You have no legal basis to refuse. If you do not comply, we’ll force you.”

She backed into a corner of the police station’s intake room and then lunged for a door handle, but the steel door was locked from the other side.

The officer pressed a button on the wall and spoke, “I need a team in here right now.”

Within moments, three officers entered and instinctively grabbed her by the arms. “Having a little trouble here, Charlie?” one said.

Jana thrashed against their viselike grips. 

“Calm down, miss. Calm down,” one of the officers said. But Jana slammed her heel into his foot. It impacted the lateral dorsal cutaneous nerve. He buckled under the blow but held tight. 

Charlie, the arresting officer, lunged to take the man’s place as a third officer circled behind and put a thick forearm around her neck then wrenched it tight.

“Assaulting an officer? Well, that’s going to cost you another six months inside. Let’s get her into the chair. We’ll print her once she’s secured.”

“No!” she screamed against the choke hold. 

The trio of officers yanked her into a rolling, metal chair, then strapped her arms, hands, feet. The officers stood back a moment and caught their breath. The struggle had been brief but exhausting.

“She’s strong as an ox,” one said. 

“Good God,” another officer said as he removed his boot. “That hurts like hell. Hey, lady. What is wrong with you?”

“I’m not going to be fingerprinted,” Jana returned.

“Well, I’m afraid that’s not your decision.”

She looked at them through eyes of steel. “I do not consent to this!” The bindings on her hands and feet brought back visions of her ordeal the year prior. The memories began to flicker and pop in her mind.

“Again, not your decision.” He looked at the other officers. “Let’s roll her to the table. She’ll be printed alright.”

“No!” she yelled as she thrashed against her bindings. Though the officers could not tell, Jana’s right hand had begun to shake.

One said, “What’s her problem? It’s not like we’re trying to hurt her. What did she do anyway?”

Charlie replied, “Busted a guy up pretty bad. He’s headed to the hospital. Never seen anything like it. I’m not even sure he’s going to make it. And she won’t even tell us her name. Must not want us to know who she really is.”

An officer said, “Tighten that wrist restraint. Good, now let’s get the digital pad underneath one finger at a time.” 

She struggled and thrashed but could not prevent her fingerprints from being taken. Her chest heaved and the edges of her vision began to darken.

“Good work, boys,” Charlie said. “Get her into solitary for now. And leave her in the chair. She needs a little time to cool down. I think the detectives are on their way.”

“Hey, is she alright? Miss?”

Jana’s eyes rolled into her skull until only the whites showed. Her body began to convulse.

“Oh, shit!” Charlie yelled, “She’s having a seizure or something. Quick, call an ambulance and tell them to expedite!”

CHAPTER TWO

The Devil Within

In a cellar deep underneath the home of Diego Rojas, a young woman lay on a table, unconscious, When she opened her eyes, her head hurt. She could see nothing in the pitch blackness. The air was heavy and the table cold. She was disoriented and groggy, like one awaking from a drugged stupor. At first, she was calm; the drugs still coursed through her system. 

She tried to move but her limbs did not seem able. She dozed off for what seemed like only a moment, but when she finally awakened everything felt different. 

The drugs had left her body, and she discovered her hands and feet were lashed. Her breathing accelerated in earnest. She began to scream but found her mouth taped shut. 

Just outside the room she heard muffled voices. 

“Where is this one from?” a deep voice said. 

“The homeland, Signor Rojas, as instructed. Villa de Leyva, to be precise. She has been prepared according to your instructions.” 

The cellar door swung open and light cast into the room, illuminating the table where the woman lay.

Rojas stopped and his eyes flared. 

Only then did the girl realize she was completely nude. She began to thrash and scream but to no avail. 

A sickening grin peeled across Rojas’s face. “Ah, yes. Villa de Leyva,” he said with a distant gaze, “just north of Bogotá. The women there are beautiful.” He walked into the room and closed the door. As it slammed shut, the room again descended into blackness. “We will get to know one another quite well.”

The girl thrashed at her bindings. 

His eyes widened further and his words sliced the air. “Yes, we will get to know one another quite well.” 

CHAPTER THREE

The Pinch of Truth

As a CIA operations officer, Kyle MacKerron was still green in terms of years of service. But as a former special agent with the FBI, he was allowed more than a little latitude. The typical two-year training window for new ops officers, which teaches clandestine operational tradecraft, had been shortened to eight months in his case, and after multiple successful assignments, Kyle was on his own. 

He hadn’t understood the reason for the assignment at first. To gather intelligence on a drug cartel setting up shop on Antigua didn’t fall under the typical CIA purview. But he accepted the assignment without hesitation. During training, his CIA handlers had practically beaten the charter into his brain. Clandestinely spot, assess, develop, and recruit. It had become like a mantra, but here on an active field assignment, the mantra was almost comical. Nonetheless it reverberated in his head. 

But waking up tied to a chair, reciting it was hardly comforting. The shroud over his head was thick and hot and made breathing difficult. Not a sliver of light penetrated and carbon dioxide had trouble filtering out. Kyle knew the excess CO₂ had resulted in a condition called hypercapnia, and he experienced the full brunt of it: flushed skin, muscle twitches, and reduced neural activity—and these were just the early stages.

Kyle struggled against his bindings, and between decreased brain function and sleep deprivation, he had trouble processing rational thought. The fear started as a trickle, but had grown to an immeasurable state. 

Muffled sounds were audible and Kyle struggled to decipher them. Where am I? he thought. His only defense was to joke with himself, We’re not in Kansas anymore, Toto. 

He tried to stay calm, but when a heavy metal door scraped open across the gritty cement floor and slammed into a wall, he startled. Two sets of footsteps approached. The first sounded like those of hard-soled boots, but the second were different. They sounded more like leather-soled dress shoes. The door slammed closed with a heavy bang that reverberated through the tiny room. Someone pulled at the base of the shroud and yanked it off.

Kyle gulped at the air but a hand grabbed his hair and yanked his head back, exposing his neck. He squinted in the low light at the man in front of him. He looked to be of Latin descent and was dressed in a double-breasted business suit. Kyle’s head began to clear, but he still felt an overwhelming sense of heaviness, as if someone was standing on his chest.

“Welcome to my humble estate,” the man said in an accent heavy of Central America. 

“Who the fuck are you?” Kyle said, though his voice was hoarse. He coughed.

“My name is Diego Rojas, and yours is Agent Kyle MacKerron.”

Kyle’s heart rate soared as the terrifying realization struck home. They know who I am. 

Rojas clasped his hands and walked a slow circle around Kyle.

“You have been very busy,” Rojas said. “Very busy indeed. And that is what brings you here.”

Kyle craned his neck to follow the man but feared a blow might come at any second.

“You’ve gotten yourself in deep, haven’t you?” Rojas continued.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Kyle said through a cough.

Rojas laughed. “How very in keeping with the United States government. Always sticking its nose where it doesn’t belong.” Rojas squared off in front of Kyle. “You have been very busy penetrating the Oficina de Envigado cartel. Yes, very busy indeed.”

Oficina de Envigado was the largest and most aggressive cartel in Colombia, and had been the subject of Kyle’s investigation. His brain raced to catch up. Shit, I’ve been caught by Oficina de Envigado. But who is this?

Rojas said, “And you are going to tell us everything you know about them.”

Kyle thought, Wait a minute. Tell you about them? If these guys aren’t Oficina de Envigado, who are they? But then it hit him. This must be Los Rastrojos, the competing cartel. 

Two Colombian cartels had recently infiltrated the tropical paradise of Antigua in order to establish new drug routes. The new routes were set up to push product to the Mexican cartels, and from there to the United States. What the cartels didn’t know was how deeply the CIA had penetrated.

Rojas reared a hand to punch Kyle, and Kyle braced, but the blow never came. Rojas laughed loud enough for the sound to reverberate off the cement walls. Kyle opened his eyes to find the man standing. “Ah, but in the old days, yes,” Rojas said, his voice becoming deep and distant. “We would torture out anything we wanted to know. Those, my friend, were good times. But as it is, I have other needs for you. And now there are better ways, more accurate ways to find out what we need to know.” Rojas nodded to the other man.

Kyle felt a sharp pinch in his neck as a syringe went deep and the plunger depressed. By the time the syringe was removed, Kyle felt a warmth unlike anything in his experience, and the feeling of heaviness in his chest evaporated. It was like watching the waters of a fleeing tide recede. His eyelids flickered and what he could only describe as complete euphoria overwhelmed his senses. His head slumped. He had been drugged and there was nothing he could do about it.

CHAPTER FOUR

Inhospitable

Four hours later. Mount Saint John’s Medical Centre emergency room.

“This is the one that shot our victim?” Lieutenant Jack Pence said as he peered through the window into the hospital room. Pence was new to the island and hadn’t even had time to learn the names of the other officers. 

“Yeah, won’t say a word though,” a junior detective replied. “Doc says she’s checked out medically. He can’t rule out a psyche evaluation though. Headshrinker will be down here from Clearview Psychiatric Hospital later.”

“What happened when they tried to book her?”

“Doc said she probably had a seizure or episode of some type. Brain waves are normal now.”

“Christ, what set her off?”

“I don’t know. I looked at the tape from the booking room and it looks like she fought them pretty hard. Once they strapped her in the chair, she went nuts.”

“And she won’t talk? Who is she?”

“Hell if I know, man. All I know is she got picked up by the uniforms two blocks from the scene. She had no ID and wouldn’t disclose her name.”

“The victim pretty bad?”

“Let me put it to you this way, the vic has a compound fracture to the left leg, broken collarbone, a face that looks like purple butter, and two gunshot wounds.”

“Two GSWs and he’s alive?”

“At the moment, yes. He’s upstairs in surgery. One through the kneecap, the other . . . the groin.”

“She kneecapped him? And the groin, huh?” The lieutenant rubbed his chin. “We sure she’s the shooter? They find the weapon on her?”

“Yes, sir. Glock .380 subcompact.”

“So what’s that look on your face supposed to mean?”
“It’s the gun.”

“What about it?” 

“Custom made. Never seen anything like it.” The young detective looked at Lieutenant Pence. “The grip had been shortened to reduce the size of the overall weapon. And then there was the silencer.” 

“A silencer? You’re kidding me. Where does she think she is? The Bronx? This is Antiqua. I didn’t think we got silencers here. She give the uni’s any trouble at the scene?”

“Ah, yeah, you might say that. Spun around on the arresting officer so quickly, all he knew was that his firearm was no longer in his hands. She had disarmed him and pointed it at his face. Then he said she disassembled the weapon so fast he couldn’t see anything but gun parts dropping all over the ground. After that she gave them no trouble. Scared the shit out of the guy though.”

“I bet.” 

“The victim is another story. Even though his face is bashed in pretty good,  the arresting officer was able to recognize him. Got a record a mile long. Several outstanding felony warrants.”

The lieutenant looked at him. “So let me see if I’ve got this straight. The vic is a perp we’ve been looking for. He’s broken to pieces in an alley, two GSWs, then we find her near the scene? Is that and the gun the only thing that ties her to the vic?”

“The weapon was still warm. And her knuckles have fresh blood on them. His, not hers.”

The lieutenant crossed his arms. “Shit, look at her. She can’t weigh more than hundred and twenty pounds, wet,” he said as he glared into the room where she lay. “Then again, look at the musculature. She looks like that actress from that second Terminator movie. You know, when she got in shape? What was her name?”

“Linda Hamilton.”

“Yeah, a blond-haired Linda Hamilton. And she won’t tell us her name? You run her prints? Anything come back?”

“Sort of.”

“The computer couldn’t find a match?”

“Not exactly. Weirdest thing I’ve ever seen. The computer found a match, but the results were redacted.”

“What do you mean, redacted?”

“Just like I said, redacted. They were blacked out on the computer monitor.” 

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“I printed it out so you could see.” The detective held out a piece of paper.

As Lieutenant Pence studied the printout, he shook his head. “What the hell?” Everything that would normally identity the matching fingerprints was blacked out. “Is she CIA or something?”

“No idea, but she’s highly trained, that’s for sure.”

“You try to talk to her?”

“Yup, twice. Doesn’t even look you in the eye.”

“This is bullshit,” the lieutenant said. He took a deep breath, opened the door, and walked into the hospital room. He placed his hand on an empty chair near the bed and said, “Mind if I have a seat?” but didn’t bother waiting for a reply. As he pulled the chair closer to the bedside he said, “So? How are things going with you?” 

Her eyes flared. His attempt at levity had gone nowhere.

He glanced at her deep-bronze skin and sun-bleached hair and knew she was likely a local. “Tourist season has been good this year. It’s great for the island economy, don’t you think?” He craned his neck to make eye contact but the effort proved futile. “Look, I’m just trying to make small talk. You seem like a person in need of a friend right now.”

Without looking over, Jana said, “Some women would take offense to what you just said.”

“Really? Why is that?”

“A lot of guys walk up to you in bars and say things like that. ‘Hey babe, looking for a friend?’ But it’s not your friendship they’re interested in.”

“My name is Jack. I’m not trying to make a pass at you. I’m a detective. You know, this conversation would go much better if I knew what to call you.”

Jana said nothing.

The lieutenant continued. “You busted that guy up pretty good. He’s in surgery, in case you were wondering. Where’d you learn to do that?”

She shifted in her bed and looked at the restraints on her wrists. 

“It doesn’t look good, you know?” Pence continued. “You not talking to me. We’ve got a man broken to pieces and unless you can tell me what happened, the district attorney is going to push for attempted murder.” He paused a moment to let the statement sink in. 

“The prick didn’t try to kill me.”

“The charge of attempted murder wouldn’t be filed against him, it would be filed against you.” He watched her facial expression. “I take it you disagree? The charges are real, miss. I tell you what, why don’t we share information? I tell you something, you tell me something. Is that fair? And since I don’t know your name, I’m going to call you Jane, Jane Doe. That’s what we do in an investigation where we don’t know the name of the subject. So, Jane, I’ll start. What interests me about the victim’s injuries are the gunshot wounds. One to the kneecap, one to the groin. Those kind of makes a statement, don’t they? Did you find yourself in a bad position, and this, perhaps, was self-defense?” But when she made no response, the lieutenant got up to leave. “Listen, Jane. If you aren’t going to talk, you don’t give me any choice. Once the headshrinker clears you, you’ll be taken back to police headquarters. And you might as well make yourself at home. You might be there quite a while.”

CHAPTER FIVE

Off the Reservation

Sometime the next morning Jana awoke at the police precinct to the sound of metallic keys throwing a heavy bolt. A uniformed officer stared down at her. “Jane Doe, number zero six six seven three? Right this way, you have a visitor.”

“A visitor?” she said. She rubbed sleep from her eyes and sat up then looked at the officer. “Get a good look? You like watching women while they sleep?”

The officer rolled his eyes.

Jana stood. “How can I have a visitor? There isn’t even anyone on this island that knows I’m here.” 

“This way.”

He held her by the arm and escorted her down the cinder-block hallway toward the interrogation room. The officer opened the door and motioned to an open chair. Seated at the table were Lieutenant Pence and a man whose back was to her. When he turned around, she immediately recognized him. He was a man from her past, a man named Cade Williams.

The lieutenant looked at Cade and said, “Alright, Mr. Williams, she’s here.” He glanced at the uniformed officer standing by the door. “You don’t need to stay. But make sure no one is in the observation room,” he said as he pointed to the mirrored wall of glass. He looked back at Cade. “Now, can you tell me what the hell is going on? Why is the National Security Agency on my island?”

Cade looked at her. “Jana, sit down for God’s sake. You want to tell him, or should I?”

Her eyes were locked on his as she approached the table. She leaned her knuckles onto it and spoke through gritted teeth. “I was doing just fine on my own. I don’t need your help.”

“That’s not the way I see it,” Cade replied. “Let’s see if I can recap the last many months of your life for you. Then we’ll see whether or not you need my help. First, you leave us without a trace. You don’t tell anyone where you’re going. It was as though you disappeared off the face of the earth. You go off the grid and assume a new identity. And from what the lieutenant tells me, and from the looks of you, you’ve apparently acquired a bit of field training during that time. A new-found penchant for snapping femur bones as if they were twigs, then shooting men in the balls? Should I continue, or do you want to take over from here?”

Jana yanked the metal chair back. It scraped against the cement floor, and she sat. 

Cade shook his head. “I don’t even know you anymore.”

“Wait a minute,” the lieutenant said. “You two have a past together? From the looks of it, there’s more than a little tension between you. Mr. Williams? This is not exactly the type of cooperation I was hoping for. If there’s history between the two of you, and from the looks of it, bad history, why didn’t you send someone else? I want to know who she is,” he said, finger pointed. “She’s charged with aggravated assault and attempted murder. This is not the United States. The isle of Antigua is a sovereign country, sir. And you are withholding state’s evidence.”

“Relax, Lieutenant,” Cade said as he leaned back in his chair. “I just wanted to give Jana a chance to speak for herself. She doesn’t appreciate it when people speak for her. At least she didn’t back when I knew her.” Cade shook his head. “Lieutenant, meet Special Agent Jana Baker, formerly of the FBI.”

The lieutenant traced his thoughts. “You’re telling me this is Agent Baker? The one that stopped those two bombings?”

“And I can tell you she certainly did not commit assault or attempted murder on your island.”

The lieutenant stood to emphasize his point. “Agent Baker, is it? I suggest you start talking so we can straighten this thing out. And your story better be pretty good. Mr. Williams is not apprised of all the evidence against you, but I am. And the DA is more than a little agitated. He wants to throw you under the prison.”

A tense silence ensued, then Cade said, “I’ve seen all the evidence against her.”

The lieutenant glared at him. “You couldn’t have seen the evidence.”

Cade saw no point in explaining that NSA had accessed the police computer during the night and downloaded everything. “Jana,” he said, “this thing could get ugly. The assistant US attorney is on a plane right now. He’ll be here in an hour. And if you don’t start cooperating with Antiguan authorities, he’s going to be pissed.”

Jana almost yelled. “I don’t work for him anymore, do I?”

“That may be, but Uncle Bill pulled a lot of strings to get him sent down here. He’s coming to help you, you understand that?”

She spoke as though her jaw would not open. “He shouldn’t have put his hands on me.”

The lieutenant turned to listen closer. “Who? Who shouldn’t have put his hands on you? Are you saying you were assaulted?”

“He would have liked to assault me. He would have liked that very much. So, I defended myself.”

The lieutenant crossed his arms. “You’re telling me you acted in self-defense? I’ve got a man lying in intensive care with multiple compound fractures and gunshot wounds. The surgeons spent most of the night rebuilding the bones in his face. Is that what you call self-defense?”

Jana slammed a fist into the table. “Got what he deserved!”

“Oh boy, here we go,” Cade said.

“I told the prick to keep his paws off of me, and I meant it.”

The lieutenant paced the room. “Apparently so. And after that gunshot to the groin, I suppose he’ll think twice before trying that on another woman, is that it?”

“Lieutenant,” Cade said, “it’s obvious this was an attempted sexual assault. The victim defended herself. Case closed.”

“Case closed, my ass,” Lieutenant Pence said. “The district attorney will decide that, the local district attorney. We are holding her until the investigation is complete.” 

“That won’t be necessary,” Cade said.

“Oh really?”

Cade cocked his head. “Lieutenant, let me ask you a question. When were you going to disclose the perpetrators’ criminal record to Agent Baker here?”

The lieutenant’s arms dropped. “How do you know about that?”

“We are the National Security Agency, we know what we know. And what we don’t know, we find out. Take you for example. An American, born in Brooklyn. Seventeen years with the NYPD. Got hired by the island recently to head up the police forces. Very impressed, Lieutenant, really. But let me help you.” Cade pulled a piece of paper from his jacket pocket. “Montes Lima Perez, attempted burglary, 1992, investigated for arson, 1994, looks like he started running drugs in ’95. Three counts of possession in that year. Not a bad start, is it? Now we’re on to 2002 when he resurfaced after doing six hard. Didn’t take him long to catch up with his old friends though. Three counts of attempted rape, did another year hard. Then he hits the big time. 2005, busted with sixteen kilos of cocaine. Now suspected of having ties to the Oficina de Envigado Cartel. Goes inside one more time for ten long. Then shows up here a month ago. So I’ll ask you again, when were you going to mention the fact that her attacker had a criminal record as long as my Johnson?”

The lieutenant never lost eye contact. “So it’s your decided opinion, in all your years investigating homicides, sexual assaults, and the like, that I am out of line here? I worked homicide for twelve years.” 

The sarcasm stabbed Cade in the gut but he did not flinch. He knew as well as the lieutenant that the NSA doesn’t investigate crimes of that nature, unless they intersect with a matter of national security. 

“Is that what the NSA teaches you? Homicide investigation?” the lieutenant said.

“Don’t hand me that crap,” Cade said. “I may not be a homicide detective, but as a top-level analyst at NSA, I see some pretty awful shit.”

“And if it were up to you,” the lieutenant continued, “I suppose you would let Miss Congeniality here go? No questions asked? National hero to the United States and all?”

“You’re an American,” Cade said.

“And I’ve got a duty to my employer, the government of Antigua, and I say her story stinks.”

Jana glared at the lieutenant through the slits of her eyes.

Cade said, “Lieutenant, I suggest you give me an answer, and give it to me right now. If the US attorney gets here and finds you not cooperating, he’s going to rip your Adam’s apple out of your throat and hand it back to you.”

“I may be an American, but the Antiguan government does not respond to idle threats of the United States!”

“No?” Cade jabbed. “Since you’re new here, maybe you weren’t aware that Antiqua receives a lot of aid from the US. When a senior member of the US administration shows up at your doorstep and makes a request, you jump or have your ass handed to you.”

“So here’s my problem, Mr. Williams. I started out investigating a case that looks suspiciously like attempted murder. It turns out, allegedly, it was simply a woman defending herself against an attacker. Where I get a little hazy is when I come across the fact that we have a highly trained special agent here. In a court room, whether on the isle of Antigua or in the United States, the law divides us into two simple categories: those that are untrained and have little control over their actions during a crisis situation, and people like her,” he pointed to Jana, “those with training. Extensive training. People like that are the ones expected to use restraint. After she hyperextended the elbow so far that it snapped backwards, the perp was down and would not have been able to continue the assault. But she didn’t stop there.” He squared off in front of Jana. “Did you? No. You proceeded to snap his leg nearly in half. And when did the face beating commence? After he was flailing on the ground in pain? Huh? How about the gunshot wounds? They look suspiciously like the type of GSWs we see in execution-style killings. Did you kneecap him first, or was that after you blew his dick off?”

Cade stood and placed a pointed finger in the man’s face. “Hey, she defended her life. It’s as simple as that.”

“Is it?” the lieutenant said as he again looked at Jana. “And what about the silencer? I want an answer, Agent Baker. Nothing? Once my forensic team does an analysis of the crime scene, are they going to tell me that I’m right? He was lying on the ground when you shot him, twice?”

Jana’s hands formed into fists and her jaw clenched. “Got what he deserved,” she said again.

The lieutenant walked back to Cade. “Your,” he searched for the right word, “asset is out of control. When I was in Desert Storm, we called it going off the reservation.”

“Are you going to formally charge her?” Cade pressed.

The lieutenant started to leave but paused. “No, not just yet. But she is not to leave this island.”

Cade pulled Jana up and said, “This interview is over.” 

CHAPTER SIX

The Pop of the Mind

4:00 a.m. 

Jana lay in bed with a sheet draped over her body. Her pupils darted from side to side as she entered the deepest stage of sleep, stage five, rapid eye movement. Her right hand trembled and goosebumps formed on her arms. She had descended into a dream and began to hear frightening voices, although she couldn’t tell where they were coming from. Her body was cold and all she could see was darkness. Fear built in the pit of her stomach, yet no matter how hard she tried, she could not pry her eyes open. It was as if they were draped in heavy sheets of lead. 

Jana’s heart began to pound as the voices became clearer, and the clearer they became, the harder her heart pounded. She recognized them, yet there was something different this time, something that sounded close and unholy, like the sound of a trio of beasts consorting against her. She’d never heard them with such vividness and panic filled her soul. 

There were three voices in total, each with its own distinct tone. 

The first whispered to the others, “We should kill her.”

Jana struggled to open her eyes and wake from the nightmare. She had become locked into the dream, a dream from which there was no escape. 

She’d previously fled the life of a federal agent and retreated to Antigua, a place of tranquil waters and calm ocean breezes, in the hopes that her nightmares would subside. But now in the dead space of night, she knew they might never end.

Then another replied, “We will kill her. The jihad will not be complete until she is dead.”

The more the voices spoke, the colder Jana’s skin became. She had entered a place of terror where past events tore at her psyche. She found herself tumbling down what looked like a long, dark tube that led into the pit of the nightmare. She backpedaled with her feet, but could not stop the downward fall.

Each time one of the voices spoke, Jana felt a burning sensation across the upper part of her torso. And since her skin had become cold and clammy, the pain was intensified.

“Retribution will be ours,” another voice said. “She is so much like her father before her, a traitor to his own country, his own blood. Yet she does not see it,” the voice laughed, “but she is a criminal to the core, just like he was.”

No, Jana thought, I’m not like my father. I can’t be. I can’t—a shiver rode the length of her body and the tremor in her right hand intensified.

“How will we kill her?”

“She will do it herself,” the centermost voice said through a laugh that curdled Jana’s stomach. 

“But how?”

“It will be simple. We will show her,” the laughing voice said. “We will show her again and again.” The voice lowered to a whisper, “Show her now.”

Suddenly, and as though someone had flipped the power switch on an old movie projector, what looked like home movies appeared in front of her. Light popped and flickered and Jana squinted into the brightness. Her heart beat faster and she struggled to focus on the images. She could see herself, it was like watching one’s life from a distance. These weren’t old home movies from her childhood, these were her worst terrors. It was the nightmare, the same nightmare she had relived over the past year, only this time it was worse.

As the movie rolled on, she saw herself again seated in a wooden chair in the center room of a remote cabin, her hands and feet bound. She had been stripped down to her undergarments. This was the same cabin she had awakened in after having been abducted during the throes of a horrific terrorism investigation the previous year. The scene was so vivid, yet against the backdrop of her present life here on Antigua, it represented a complete and total paradox; one she could not reconcile. 

And there the vision was. A Middle Eastern man towered over her and glared through coal-black eyes; the smile of a madman painted his mouth. His thick, black hair, broken by a single shock of white that ran up one side, was wild and unkempt. It was Waseem Jarrah, the most wanted terrorist in the world. 

Jana had hunted Jarrah for three years, yet she had left that life behind with the specific intent of starting fresh, living a simple existence. She sought to surround herself with the beauty of nature, and the anonymity of self that she could not find back in the dark hallways and dangers of the FBI. 

Back then she believed killing Waseem Jarrah would cause her post-traumatic stress episodes and nightmares to subside. After all, he was the person that had orchestrated the nightmares in the first place. She believed Antigua’s breathtaking blue waters would wash away her terrors and carry them out with the tide, the waters returning the next day, clean and new. But now, although she did not know why, she began to understand that her fears would never leave her.

 As Jarrah spoke to her in the vision, the center-most scar on her upper torso burned and she winced in her bed. The trio of gunshot wounds along her chest had been left there by one of Waseem Jarrah’s disciples two years prior—terrible calling cards that would never let her forget.

“Perhaps it is time for you to learn the truth, Agent Baker,” Jarrah said as he pulled a piece of paper from a backpack on the table.

His voice felt like a cigarette singeing her skin at the site of the scar. And she was sure this time; the scar was moving, as though it were the mouth of Jarrah himself. On the bed, Jana’s heart rate exploded and the vibration in her hand increased into a thrash. 

The nightmare played forth and Jarrah held the paper in front of her. Jana pulled against the bindings on her hands and feet but could not free herself. Then Jarrah withdrew a knife from the backpack, an ancient blade, razor sharp, and walked behind her. He held the edge against her throat, the effect forcing her to hold her head upright.

Jarrah again raised the paper in front of her. “Read it,” he said with grit in his voice.

“I can’t! I can’t!” Jana screamed. The blade touched her throat and blood leaked onto the cold steel. He let the paper drop to his side.

“Tell me, Agent Baker, did you search for more information about your parents?”

Jana’s sobbing was low and silent. She struggled to keep her neck high enough to avoid another stinging cut.

“Answer me, Miss Baker, or things will not go so well for you.” Jarrah’s tone had deepened.

“Yes,” she whispered over the building lump in her throat.

“And how much did you learn? Were you able to uncover the truth about them?”

She started to speak, but the blade touched her in the same spot and she winced. 

“Oh, are you not able to speak freely? Such a pity,” Jarrah said, now laughing. “Perhaps you see the way a woman should be, submissive.” He removed the knife and laid it on her lap. “Now, please continue.”

“Did I learn the truth about them? Yes, but I’ve always known the truth about my parents. Having a father who died of cancer and a mother of a car accident is nothing to be ashamed of.”

“The information-gathering capabilities of the FBI, NSA, and CIA at your fingertips, and that’s the best you can do?” 

“It’s the truth.”

“Is it?” he said, a smile oozing onto the edges of his lips.

He held the sheet of paper in front of her again. At the top, the paper read: 

State of North Carolina, Certificate of Live Birth.

 “Read the name and date of birth aloud, Miss Baker.”

Jana squeezed her eyelids to push free tears. 

“Jana Michelle Ames. Born October 19, 1986. But, but . . . this isn’t me. My name is Baker.” 

“Is it? Read the names of the birth parents listed here, please.”

“Father, Richard William Ames, born December 16, 1959. Mother Lillian Baker Ames, born February 9, 1960.”

“Fascinating, Miss Baker, isn’t it? It is true, you do not recognize the surname Ames, but your father’s name was Richard William, was it not? He was born on December 16, 1959, correct? And your mother, Lillian Baker was, in fact, born on February 9, 1960. And let’s examine this date, October 19, 1986. This is your birthdate, correct?”

Jana’s mouth hung open.

Jarrah continued. “And your mother’s maiden name was, in fact, Baker, was it not? Baker, the same surname of your grandfather. How very interesting. I can tell by that stupid expression on your face that you have never known the truth.”

Jana shook her head and more tears streamed down her face. “No. No, this can’t be. You falsified these documents! This is not my birth certificate!”

“Is it not? Yes, it would be a most disturbing revelation indeed. A federal agent just now discovering her entire life to be a lie.”

“My life is not a lie!”

“Tell me. How is it that you were not aware of your own surname?”

“My last name is not Ames, it’s Baker. It’s always been Baker. My parents were never married. Are you happy now? They never married. When my father died, I was two years old. That’s why my last name is the same as my mother’s.”

“Is that what your grandfather told you? Hmmm, I see. And what then, was said to be your father’s name?”

“His name was Richard William.”

“Richard William? It is true, the name of William is used in the Western world as a surname, but more commonly as a first or middle name, no? The surname of Williams, with an s on the end, is much more common. And this birth certificate says Richard William Ames. It is quite a coincidence that all the first names, middle names, and birthdates match up to you, your mother, and your father. Well then, let’s read further, shall we? These documents are so fascinating.” Jarrah was enjoying Jana’s mental anguish.

He held up another document. At the top, it read:

FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION

UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE

WASHINGTON, DC

CURRENT ARREST OR RECEIPT

Further down on the paper was a mugshot and other details.

A droplet of blood rolled down Jana’s throat and landed in her lap. Her eyes locked onto the mugshot. 

“You look white as a sheet, Agent Baker. The face looks familiar, no? A striking resemblance to your father, is it not? Now, read for me this part here,” Jarrah said as he pointed.

Jana’s voice became monotone as she read the words. “Date arrested or received, 10/29/1988. Charge or offense,” Jana’s body shook. “18 U.S.C. 793 : US Code – Section 793: Gathering, transmitting, or losing defense information.” Her body rattled into the overwhelming emotions. “No. No, this isn’t my father. It isn’t true!”

“But it is true, Miss Baker. The evidence is right in front of you. And having been at the top of your graduating class at Quantico, I assume this is a federal code section you are familiar with. And this is a federal arrest warrant, isn’t it? Tell me, what does code section 793 pertain to?”

“Espionage,” she whispered. 

“Correct, Miss Baker, espionage. Spying. And how interesting the date on this document is. October 29, 1988. You would have been two years old at the time.” He put his face against hers and she tried to recoil from his nauseating breath. “That particular date is etched into your memory. Don’t lie to me, Miss Baker.”

“Yes,” she said as a tear rolled down her face.

“And what does October 29, 1988 mean to you?”

“It’s the date my father died.” The enormity of the revelation lay upon Jana’s psyche like a thousand-pound weight.

“Your honesty is refreshing. October 29, 1988. The date your father died. Now, perhaps, you are starting to believe. Your father didn’t die on that date. It’s the date he was arrested, arrested for espionage against the United States.”

“No!” she screamed.

“You don’t know how much like your father you actually are.” 

“No!” she screamed once more, this time the effect causing her to awaken from the nightmare.

***

Jana sat upright in her bed and tears burst forth, unabated. She wrapped her arms around her herself, but then loosened and her fingers found their way to the three bullet-hole scars on her upper torso. The burning sensation on the center one was visceral. Now that she was awake, Jana sensed the vibrations in her right hand and knew that a PTSD episode was moments from overtaking her. I can’t be like my father. I can’t be, she thought. She tried to rid her mind of the awful images, but the realization that the centermost scar now represented Waseem Jarrah caused a wave of intense nausea to roll her system.

She struggled to control the images still flashing. But this time other images mixed in as well: memories from her childhood—a photo of her and her father sitting together on a sled, the smell of his aftershave, her as a toddler on the couch with her father outside throwing snowballs at the window to make her laugh. But the thought of him having committed treason was the most intense. As much as she tried to convince herself that she could not possibly be like him, the vivid memory of how she left the FBI, and the things she’d been accused of, gushed forth. The popping and flashing was as bright as a strobe and the room began to spin. 

“No, no, no,” she said to herself with determination in her words. “You can stop it from happening. I know you can. Come on, Jana, get a grip.” Each word vibrated out as it crossed her tightened vocal cords. She rocked back and forth on the bed and began a series of deep inhalations. “Find it, Jana. Find it,” she said as she closed her eyes. “Come on, think back.” 

Before she had begun her career with the FBI, she didn’t know terror could be this big. She’d never considered the enormity of the costs, larger than anything in her experience.

Waking from the nightmare was the first step toward thwarting the PTSD episode, but this one set her into a tailspin she couldn’t recover from. The episode began like many of the others, as though a lion was punching its head through a taught net, a net that wasn’t strong enough to hold it back. Then came the gut-wrenching feeling that her heart would burst from her chest. Jana struggled to vacuum up enough oxygen as the tears streamed down her face. This time she was seeing the nightmare even though she was awake. 

With all her strength, she thought back to the safest place she knew in her childhood. It had been a simpler time, when she would flee to the safety of a favorite hiding spot. She pictured her then seven-year-old self at her grandfather’s rural farmhouse in the rolling hills of Tennessee. She watched herself descend from the front porch, run down the creaking steps and across the hayfield. Once at the wood line, she ran through the opening in the muscadine vines, a tangle of leafy green ropes that twisted and snaked through tree trunks and other foliage. She ran down the path and up the next hill. “The path used to be an old game trail,” Grandpa had told her, “streaming with whitetail deer,” a species he’d hunted in his younger years. 

Once she crested the top of the hill, she could see it. The fort, as she had called it, was nothing more than heavy branches leaning against a sheer piece of granite outcropping. The rock stood about four feet tall and formed the fort’s wall on one side. The branches joined together to create a roof which was covered in a heavy layer of leaves. The door was made from a bramble of vines which Jana could shift aside. When pulled closed, the vines served to camouflage the entrance from prying eyes.

It was her fort, her hiding place, and after the deaths of both her parents, represented the only place where little Jana had felt safe. There were times in those days when she felt like she couldn’t breathe. But here in her fort, everything became calm. It was quiet and no one, not even her grandfather, knew where she was. 

Now, in the tiny bedroom of her bungalow, Jana wondered why images of her father had become interspersed with those of the terrifying ordeal with Waseem Jarrah. She’d gotten good at mentally running to her fort just before PTSD episodes started, and most times, the effect thwarted their advance. But this time, the harder she tried, the more fiercely the PTSD grabbed her. She felt as though her lungs couldn’t draw another breath. The fort blurred in her vision and she lost grip on the memory. Jana’s body convulsed as her pupils rolled into their sockets. The last thing she remembered was seeing the mugshot of her father on his arrest record. She blacked out and would not regain consciousness for several hours.

CHAPTER SEVEN

A Vile Gift

Diego Rojas gripped the stair rail, and his jaw clenched. His agitation had increased upon learning his personal bodyguards would not be permitted at the meeting. He’d been to many such meetings, but, in his home country of Colombia, he always had the upper hand. Here on Antigua, as Rojas descended the wooden staircase, a single word entered his mind. Vulnerable. The basement was dark and boards creaked under each step. He saw nothing in the darkness below until a man seated in the far corner flicked a lighter at the tip of a cigar. As the man drew against the smoldering tobacco, an amber glow alighted black hair, a thick beard, and eyes like dead glass. The man said nothing. 

To Rojas, he appeared quiet, reserved. Yet Diego Rojas sensed something about the man that troubled him. It was like looking at a boiler that held too much pressure. 

The meeting had been arranged months in advance. Rojas was accustomed to danger, but the heightened sense of it tasted like sulfur in his mouth. He had been weaned on danger from birth. But these people were different. It was one thing to know you had the power of an entire drug cartel behind you. It was another to be engaged in business with an organization of this sort. 

The man motioned to a chair. Rojas turned and looked up the staircase at an oversized man of Middle Eastern decent blocking the top of the stairs. The man shut the door. The sound of a bolt throwing home reverberated. There was nothing left to do. Rojas walked toward the chair.

Raised in the Hindu Kush region of Afghanistan near the borders of China and Pakistan, the man spoke, his accent a muddle of the three cultures. “Our paths have crossed and now our destinies become intertwined.”

Rojas waited.

“You are aware of our arrangement, are you not?” the man said.

Rojas nodded. With people such as these, it was better to speak less.

“And do you foresee any difficulty in delivering what has been discussed?”

“I do not.”

“Then we will double our volume, beginning immediately.”

“Double? But—” Rojas said.

“I am not asking,” the man said. He drew from the cigar and squinted into the smoke. “We intend to hold up our end of the bargain. Your little problem in Colombia will be taken care of. And all the loose ends will disappear.”

Rojas stuttered. “We are not prepared to move that much. It will draw attention.”

The man’s eyes focused on the amber tip of the cigar. “Or perhaps our people there will deviate from that plan, and the bomb will detonate elsewhere? Then another might find its way to a coca farm here, a processing laboratory there. . . . As for our new arrangement, you have no choice.”

Rojas’s voice fluttered. “We will handle what must be handled.” 

The man stood and extended his hand. He was taller than Rojas had envisioned. “Delivery will occur at your estate.”

“That was never discussed! We cannot take delivery of your shipment at my estate.”

“And I will be there personally to oversee so that we have no mistakes.”

Before Rojas could respond, the man walked through the darkness and opened a door. 

Rojas thought, This deal is getting worse at every turn.

The man stopped and said, “But to celebrate our little partnership, I have brought you a gift from my homeland.” From out of a blackened corner of the room Rojas heard feet shuffling against the cement floor and the sound of a woman struggling. A man standing behind her pushed her forward into the dim light. Her hands were bound behind her back and there was duct tape over her mouth.

“She is young and fresh,” the man in the doorway said. “We have saved her for you.”

The woman yanked against her oppressor, a greasy man who held a knife to her throat.

Rojas allowed himself to gaze upon her trim body.

The man continued. “It is true, she is culturally different from you, but Middle Eastern women, Mr. Rojas, oh, they can be so enjoyable. This one, I’m afraid, may need to be taught manners.”

Rojas smirked, then walked to her. He placed unwanted hands on her body and said, “Your gift is most generous,” and speaking of their business arrangement said, “We will redouble our efforts.”

The man smiled. “I know you will,” he said before disappearing. The door slammed closed. He was gone. 

“Now, my dear,” Rojas said to the girl as he towered over her and looked down her blouse. “You and I shall become well acquainted.”

She kicked at him and he cracked the back of his hand across her face. The man behind her held tight.

“Take her to my car. I will have to begin by teaching her respect.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

Right in the Middle

As they exited police headquarters, Cade squinted into the stark morning sunlight and donned a set of Ray Bans.

Jana turned to him. “I don’t go by that name anymore.”
“What name?”

The pair walked into the parking lot. “Agent Baker. I’m not a federal agent anymore and you know it.”

“Come on, Jana. I know you wanted to drop out of circulation for a while, but it’s time to come back to reality.”

“Reality? This is my reality. I haven’t gone by the name of Agent Baker in over a year. And I’m never coming back. I’m not going back to the Bureau.”

“When you disappeared last year, you not only left the Bureau, you left me. Did you ever think of that? What about us, Jana?”

“There is no more us.”

“Why don’t you just stab me in the heart with a knife? It would be less painful than to hear you say that.”

“I’m not who you think I am, Cade. I’m not the girl you fell in love with. She’s gone. That girl is dead.”

“Oh yeah? Well that’s bullshit!” Cade belted. “That’s you running away from our relationship.”

Jana continued walking across the parking lot as the stinging truth of his statement hit home.

Cade said, “There is something different about you, I’ll give you that. And I’m not talking about the bronze tan or new musculature in your shoulders.”

“What, then?” she said as she turned and squared off in front of him.
“It’s those,” he said, pointing to her eyes. “They’re different. It’s like you’re made of stone. Do you realize you haven’t smiled a single time since I’ve been here?”

She started to turn but he grabbed her arm. 

With the reflexes of a cat, she jammed her opposing hand on top of his wrist and spun toward him and applied a painful wrist lock. “Ow, shit!” he said, as he bent his chest forward in an effort to lessen the pain rocketing up his wrist and arm.

Jana released her grip. 

Cade stood and rubbed his wrist. “Jesus, Jana.”

“I’m not going back. I’m never going back to the FBI. If you came here for that, you can forget it. Tell them you couldn’t find me. Tell them I am dead.” She turned and began speed-walking across the parking lot but yelled back to him, “They made it pretty clear they didn’t want me anymore, and for once, I agree with them.”

When she reached the road, Cade finally called out, “Kyle is missing.”

Jana stopped in her tracks but did not turn. 

A long silence ensued.

She turned her head halfway toward him. “What do you mean Kyle is missing?”

Cade walked toward her. “He was on an op. He went dark four days ago. No one has heard from him since.”

Jana faced him but kept the distance. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Cade exhaled. “You’re not a federal agent anymore, remember? Me telling you this is a violation of national security.”

Jana walked to him and jabbed a sharp finger into his shoulder. “Well you son of a bitch. I can’t believe you just said that. Kyle is one of my only friends in the world. I’d trade my life for his. And you know as well as I do that I was forced out of the Bureau under bullshit circumstances.” She paused and the silence was punctuated by the lonely call of a distant seagull. “In case you don’t remember, there was no one to help me on the canyon rim that day when that terrorist prick Waseem Jarrah tried to kill me and detonate a nuclear weapon. When I killed him, I stopped what would have been the worst attack against the United States in its history. And they threw me out because I killed his accomplice, Rafael? The one that was about to rape then murder me? Excessive use of force? What a bunch of bullshit! I did what I did and I would do it again. It was clear to me then just like it’s clear to me now. They both got what they deserved.”

“There’s that temper of yours again. Jana, they pulled your badge and credentials because Rafael was unarmed when you pumped twelve rounds into his chest and balls. He was lying on the ground with gunshot wounds already. You killed him in cold blood.”

“That son of a bitch was about to rape me. And after he was done having his fun, his instructions weren’t just to kill me. He was to skin me alive. I don’t give a shit whether he was unarmed or not. He got what he deserved.”

“You know, I told Uncle Bill that me coming down here was a mistake. I told him you would react this way.”

“Well I guess you were right.”

“Uncle Bill misses you, Jana. He talks about you all the time. It’s like listening to a grandfather talk about a grandchild.”

“Well I miss him too. As much stress as it was to be at NSA headquarters working on those terrorism cases, he was the best part.” Tension eased from her shoulders. “Is he still eating those bright-orange snack crackers?” Jana allowed a slight smile to emerge.

“It’s getting tough on him. He’s getting old and can’t keep this up forever. Knuckles told me there was a pretty good chance Uncle Bill would be retiring soon. But when Kyle disappeared, that idea went right out the window. We’ve got to find Kyle, Jana. I didn’t come down here to bail you out. I came down here to get your help.”

“Where was he working?”

“Last known location was here, on the isle of Antigua.”

“What? He was here? What the hell was he doing on Antigua? Hardly a hotbed of criminal activity. What kind of op did CIA have him on?”

“You know I don’t have access to that information. But it had something to do with drugs.”

“Drugs? What’s the CIA got to do with—” She stopped midsentence. “Tell me the truth. Is Kyle the only reason you’re here?”

“Does it matter?”

Jana’s hands went to her hips.

Cade said, “Alright, I came here for Kyle, mostly. But there is more at play here than you realize.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

Cade exhaled. “Kyle knew you were here, Jana. He wouldn’t tell me, but he was keeping tabs on you. He’s always felt that you are in danger.”

“I’m not in any danger. How could I be in danger here? I work at a tiki bar on the beach serving drinks with little umbrellas in them to overweight tourists. No one even knows who I am.”

“Oh no? Last year, before you vanished off the face of the earth, you killed the leader of the most dangerous terror organization in the world and your face was splashed all over the papers. Not to mention all those pictures from when the president came and decorated you lying in a bed at Bethesda Medical Center. You’re recognizable. You’re in danger and you always will be.”

“I don’t want to hear it. Get to the point. What do we know about Kyle?”

“Both the Los Rastrojos and Oficina de Envigado cartels have quietly set up camp here on Antigua. They are the largest cartels in Colombia now. They’re pushing drugs through to the US on a new route. Los Rastrojos has been here for over a year, but Oficina de Envigado is trying to muscle in. Both cartels are trying to keep the violence to an absolute minimum to avoid attracting attention. And as it turns out, the perp that you put in the hospital last night happens to be the Oficina de Envigado cartel’s number two on the island. Late last night we intercepted a cell phone conversation between members of the Los Rastrojos cartel. They’ve taken notice of your handiwork, Jana, and are most impressed. You are right in the middle of this thing now.”

CHAPTER NINE

Into the Light

“Let’s start from the beginning. Are we sure Kyle is missing?” Jana said.
“You know him, Jana. He’s like a machine the way he works. Kyle communicated on a daily schedule. It’s been four days. He’s gone dark. We don’t have anything other than that.”

“Same time every day?”

“No, he uses a cypher to calculate the appropriate time to communicate each day. It was always different.”

“And how long has he been down here?” Jana said.

“Six months.”

“He’s been down here six months? Christ. And he’s been checking up on me that whole time?”

“I told you,” Cade said. “He’s worried about you.”

“And he didn’t stop once to say hello?”

“He knew you needed your space. And remember, officially he’s down here for work, not to check up on you. But, he had influence on being assigned here.”

“Oh, come on. He’s a puppy dog. Influence?”

“Jana, you’ve been out of circulation longer than you think. In the war on terror, things move fast. A lot has changed since you left. In fact, when you stopped that last nuclear attack, the gloves came off. Kyle is a part of that now.”

“It’s me, Cade. Stop talking in riddles,” Jana said. “You’re telling me CIA allows Kyle to decide where he goes and who he investigates? And what’s this got to do with drug trafficking? Isn’t that the DEA’s responsibility?”

Cade stopped in front of her but shook off the question. “Kyle took a lot of shit for sticking up for you, after you wasted Rafael, that is. You had resigned. Threw your badge and credentials at the director of the FBI as I recall. But Kyle defended you at his own peril. You have no idea how far he went for you.”

“Wait a minute. You’re telling me there are elements in the Justice Department that wanted me prosecuted, aren’t you?” She shook her head. “Why am I just now hearing about this? Those pricks want their bureaucracy? They can have it. I want no part of it.”

“Jana, when you shot and killed Rafael, an unarmed suspect, it was tantamount to murder. You and I were there. And we both know that’s bullshit, but that’s the law. Besides, after you resigned, you disappeared. Hell, none of us could have found you to tell you anyway.”

Jana knew he was right. She looked across the parking lot and into the turquoise waters of Side Hill Bay. Her mind drifted back to that terrifying day on the remote canyon rim one year prior, and her eyes became glassy. She had narrowly averted death, and now the horrors came flooding back. 

She looked at Cade. “Kyle found me,” she said.

Cade glanced down and noticed Jana’s hand had begun to tremble. He knew it was a precursor to a post-traumatic stress episode. PTSD had plagued Jana’s existence and it apparently had not abated. He said, “Kyle testified before congress in closed session. It even took Uncle Bill, with his sky-high security clearance a while to get a copy of the transcripts. I won’t lie to you, Jana, it wasn’t pretty. Kyle faced seven hours of questioning by senators.” 

The shaking in Jana’s hand increased.

Cade placed a hand on her shoulder and spoke just above the volume of the gentle island breeze. “But in the end everything turned out okay. It took a long time, but he was so focused on getting your record cleared, they couldn’t shake him. He was like a rock. He reminded them over and over the ordeal you’d been through, and that without you, much of the United States would be buried in ash right now.”

Jana’s hand shook harder and she leaned down and placed her hands on her knees. From Cade’s view, it looked as though she might be sick. But before he could say anything, she closed her eyes and began a series of long exhales. A minute later she stood and stared again into the distant ocean horizon. “We might as well get started.”

“You’re going to help us?”

She looked at him from the side of her eye as the statement processed, then she launched at him. “I will never, ever leave Kyle behind! I can’t, I can’t, I can’t,” she yelled. Cade’s mouth opened but before he could say anything, she continued “Don’t you ever question my loyalty like that. And let’s get one thing straight. I’ve spent a long time trying to forget the past, and I’m not going back to that life. You got it?” 

As they walked toward a parked car, he said, “You don’t have to bite my head off. And, hey, Kyle and I go back a long way too, so don’t think you’re the only one that will do whatever it takes.”

“Just take me to wherever we’re going,” she said. “And tell me everything. Don’t leave anything out.”

CHAPTER TEN

Kyle Interrogated

Kyle didn’t so much wake up as come to. He was disoriented and felt awful. Something akin to a hangover with an elephant sitting atop your body. His joints hurt, his head spun, and the nausea was so intense he felt he might be sick. 

It was only then he realized a man had been standing behind him this whole time. The man yanked his hair back and pried open one of his eyes, then flicked on a penlight to examine the pupils.

Kyle was exhausted and had a deep, ingrained feeling of panic, as if needles were jabbing into his heart and lungs. He had somehow descended into what could only be described as severe depression. It was deep and dark and carried with it a feeling like he’d never pull out. But mixed into the depression was anxiety stronger than he’d ever felt, and he gasped at the air.

The long-haired Latin man pulled open the steel door which again scraped across the cement, sand and grit crunching underneath. Kyle had no sense of time. He couldn’t tell whether Diego Rojas reentered the room a moment later or hours later. 

Rojas checked Kyle’s pupils himself and a deep smile formed on his face. “Muy bien,” he said. “I believe now you are ready to talk? But before we get to that, Agent MacKerron—”

Kyle murmured back, “I’m not an agent,” but his words were barely intelligible. 

“Of course you are,” Rojas said through a grin. He held out a syringe for Kyle to see. It was filled with a clear, dark liquid. “One of my specialties. I studied chemistry during my undergraduate work at Universidad Nacional de Colombia, but it wasn’t until I did my masters at UC ​Berkeley that I really came into my own.” He walked a slow circle around Kyle. “My chosen field of study was chemical and biomolecular engineering, and I was very good. What we’ve been injecting you with is a cocktail of my design. As a DEA agent, I am sure you are aware that Colombian cartels no longer focus solely on cocaine. We have a far more diversified portfolio than ever before. Everything from extortion, illegal gold mining, gambling, and this,” he held the syringe to the light, “synthetic drug cocktails.”

Kyle mumbled something unintelligible.

Rojas listened, then shook his head. He looked at the other man. “Bring me my bag.” When the man returned, Rojas removed a vial and inserted a new syringe into it and drew a dose of clear liquid. He stuck the needle into Kyle’s shoulder and squeezed. “Epinephrine,” he said. “Adrenaline.” He waited a few moments until Kyle’s eyes brightened. “There we are. Now where was I? Ah, yes, what we’ve been injecting you with is a combination of four ingredients. Synthetic, liquefied crack cocaine, heroin, and two of my new favorites, scopolamine and 3-quinuclidinyl benzilate, truth serums.” He smiled and continued walking a circle around Kyle. “We’ve been experimenting for the last few years and honed it to perfection. You are both addicted to the narcotics and willing to tell me anything I ask.” 

Kyle’s chest heaved up and down with morbid pain flooding his body.

“The misery you are suffering right now can be stopped, all with this needle.” He inserted the needle into a vein in Kyle’s arm. “In this dose, I’ve decreased the heroin and cocaine. You are getting a strong bolus of my truth serum cocktail. Why don’t we begin? But first, let me tell you why you are here. I want to know everything you know in your investigations of my competitors, the Oficina de Envigado cartel.”

A mild euphoria permeated Kyle’s chest and he felt like a million pounds had been lifted off him. The nausea and extreme joint pain also subsided, as did the other symptoms. And in all of this, he felt free, like he was floating.

Kyle struggled, but the power of the drugs overwhelmed him and there was no point fighting the inevitable. The truth began to pour out. “I’m CIA,” he laughed, though Diego Rojas’s intelligence information said otherwise.

“The drugs are almost at full effect,” Rojas said, not realizing Kyle was telling the truth.

Warmth and unadulterated joy washed through Kyle’s body. “I came down here to penetrate the Oficina de Envigado, and it’s been a blast,” he said through drooping eyelids and a smile.

Gustavo Moreno, Rojas’s intelligence officer, walked into the room and leaned against a wall.

“And how many other DEA agents are on the island?” Rojas said.

“Why do you keep asking about DEA? I told you, I’m—”

“How many others on the island?” Rojas smiled to play into Kyle’s drugged euphoria.

“Others? There aren’t any others, man. It’s just me. Hey, can we go to the beach?”

Rojas glanced at Moreno and shook his head. His agitation was building. “And how about our friends in the United States?”

“Oh, yeah, got lots of friends back home.”

Rojas started to raise up but caught himself. “No, I mean communications monitoring, signals intelligence. Eavesdropping, Agent MacKerron. To what extent is the NSA or others at Fort Huachuca in Arizona listening in on the operations of my friends at Oficina de Envigado?” Rojas knew the truth. If his competitors in the Envigado cartel were under the watchful eye of the United States through secret monitoring, then his own cartel, Los Rastrojos, had either been compromised or wasn’t far behind. 

“Oh, those guys at NSA are great,” Kyle said. His eyes glazed. “Them? Nah, if I had found more, they would have joined the party, but not until then. You think NSA doesn’t have enough to do sniffing out terrorists? They don’t have time for this drug business.” Kyle laughed and slumped over. The guard pulled him upright. “And what else did you say? Oh yeah, Fort Huachuca. Yeah, no, those boys don’t ask me for permission before snooping.”

“Is that so?”

“Yeah, they got a lot of stuff pointed this way though. Always looking for drug runners trying to sneak their plane or cigarette boat under the radar. Always trying to intercept cellphone calls between members of a cartel. You know, crap like that.”

Gustavo Moreno handed Rojas a manila file folder and Rojas opened it. Moreno said, “Fort Huachuca, Cochise County, Arizona, Patron.”

“Hey,” Kyle interrupted. “Didn’t they call Pablo Escobar, El Patron? The boss?”

Moreno said, “That’s about fifteen miles north of the Mexican border.”

Rojas spoke as he read, “Over eighteen thousand people are employed at the military base. Home of the 111th Military Intelligence Brigade. And I do love the US military’s use of acronyms, don’t you? United States Army Network Enterprise Technology Command, NETCOM. Army Military Auxiliary Radio System, MARS.”

“Hey, man. MARS, like outer space,” Kyle said. “What’s in that needle you gave me? I feel awesome!”

Rojas did not look up from the intelligence report. “Yes, I’m sure you do. But the effects won’t last long. The Information Systems Engineering Command, ISEC. The United States Army Intelligence Center. What? No acronym? How disappointing. And, I’ve saved the best for last. Fort Huachuca has,” he looked at the report, “a radar-equipped aerostat, one of a series maintained for the Drug Enforcement Administration. How very fascinating.” He looked at Moreno.

Moreno said, “An aerostat is a type of helium balloon that is lofted to elevate radar and other surveillance monitoring systems, Patron.”

“Yeah,” Kyle said. “They’ve got some pretty cool shit.”

“The intelligence community and the DEA seem to be very well aligned, do they not? A series of radar and listening devices maintained for the DEA. I’ll ask you again, Agent MacKerron. To what extent are the intelligence-gathering capabilities of the United States eavesdropping onto my island?”

“Oh, man, I don’t know. Like I said, those military boys don’t ask for permiss—”

Rojas screamed, “I don’t care whether they ask your permission or not!”

“Dude, so hostile. I don’t work with those guys. I don’t know what they’re up to.” Kyle’s chin lowered to a rest on his chest. Then he popped up. “And besides, don’t you cartels just change up your routes whenever Uncle Sam is getting close? What’s the big deal, man?”

Rojas shook his head and said to Moreno, “We have to assume we’ve been compromised. The timing could not be worse.” He turned on Kyle. “What’s the big deal, you ask? Changing routes is not a problem, Agent MacKerron. But this is a much bigger issue. I’m afraid you’ve gotten in way over your head and have no idea what is at stake. Now, tell me about the operations of the other cartel, Oficina de Envigado. How many people have they moved onto my island?”

“Best I can tell, about sixty. But you know,” Kyle said as he looked through the haze of his stupor, “sometimes I lose count. Don’t take this the wrong way, but some of those guys look alike. Kind of hard to tell them apart,” he laughed.

“Sixty?” Rojas said as he glanced at Moreno. “Were you aware of their numbers?”

Moreno looked at the tops of his polished dress shoes.

“And who have they moved into position to run the organization here?”

“Well,” Kyle laughed. “It’s sure not a guy named Montes Lima Perez. Got his ass shot off and kicked all to pieces by a girl. Yeah, this girl—”

Moreno said, “It just happened. An informant at the Royal Police Force said he’s is in the intensive care unit. Montes Lima Perez was number two on the island, their top security man.”

“Someone is making a play?” Rojas said. “Trying to muscle in on their organization? Are you telling me we’ve got a third player on the island? Now, at a time like this? We can tolerate no disruptions to our plans. Everything is riding on our ability to keep things quiet.”

“It’s too early to tell,” Moreno said with his palms toward Rojas. “We will have information about the girl within the hour. I’ve got a friend at Caricom’s Joint Regional Communications Centre.”

“Hey,” Kyle said, “You like acronyms, right?” He turned to Moreno. “Tell him about the CIP and the JRCC,” the last syllable rolling off his tongue like a song.

Moreno, whose expression never changed, said, “Caribbean Citizenship by Investment Programmes, or CIPs. JRCC is one of Caricom’s intelligence agencies. They monitor the movements of persons of interest, including those who may be a high security threat to the safety and security of the region. They’ll be aware of the girl and who she’s working for.”

“Wonderful,” Rojas said, though his voice was showing telltale signs of a growing impatience. “I want to know who she is. I can’t afford to have a drug war in the streets, not now. We’ve got to keep everything quiet, or else . . .”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Flow of Drugs

“I still don’t know how this isn’t in the hands of DEA. How did the US become alerted to the new flow of drugs?” Jana said.

“Wow, when you make a decision, you really make it, don’t you?”
As they got into the car, Jana’s eyes traced the horizon of the ocean in the distance.

Cade started the engine and pulled out of the police station parking lot. 

“Where are we going, by the way?”

“Safe house,” Cade said.

“Safe house? What safe house? You’re an analyst at NSA, not field personnel. What the hell would you know about a safe house?”

Cade ignored her.

“Since Antigua is in play, Kyle has been down here,” Cade said, “recruiting people on the inside to gather intel against the Oficina de Envigado cartel. What we’re afraid of is that he got too close and his identity was compromised.”

As the vehicle wove its way up into the Antiguan hills, Jana said, “You know I love Kyle like a brother, right? He’s always looked out for me. Saved my skin more than once.”

“Hey!” Cade belted. “It wasn’t just Kyle who saved you last time. And now that we’re on that subject, you’re right, I’m not field personnel. I understand that. But I took a bullet for you last year, and to hear you tell it, I wasn’t even there. You may want to forget the past like it never happened, but it did happen, Jana. We happened. And you’re not going to pretend there was nothing. Dammit, I was in love with you. And I know you felt the same way.”

“I don’t owe you anything, Cade.”

“Owe me?” he almost yelled. “You don’t owe me? That’s bullshit. I’ll tell you what you owe me. You owe me an explanation.”

“An explanation for what?”

“We were in a relationship that was going somewhere, remember? Jesus. Who are you? I want to know why you left me.”

“I told you, we’re over,” Jana said. “I’m no longer the girl you fell in love with. That girl is dead. She’s gone.”

“That may be, but I want to know why you left me.”

“Why I left you? I just finished saying—”

“No, not why you ripped my heart out and stomped on it. Why you left me to bleed out after I got shot in that cabin last year.”

Jana’s memory raced back to the scene that day, to the remote cabin deep within Wyoming’s Yellowstone National Park. After she had been abducted by Rafael, Cade and Kyle had kicked down the cabin’s door. In the ensuing melee, Cade, Kyle, and the suspect had been shot. Once freed from her bindings, Jana had shot Rafael to death as he lay helpless on the floor. 

Cade continued. “If it hadn’t been for that park ranger, I’d be gone. When you went after Waseem Jarrah, you bolted out of that cabin without a thought in the world about whether I lived or died. It was then I knew. I knew you had left me.”

Her hand trembled and the edges of her vision began to darken—the PTSD episode was renewing its fight. “I did what I did so I could stop Jarrah from detonating, and you know it. If I hadn’t bolted out of that cabin, he would have set off the nuke.”

“I know that. But you didn’t so much as glance back at me, or consider the possibility that even if you were to stop Jarrah, that I might be dead when you got back.”

“I’m not going to apologize for stopping the largest attack ever attempted against the United States.”

“No one is asking you to. But after all we’d been through . . .” Cade allowed the thought to trail off.

Jana looked out at the tropical foliage lining the roadside in an attempt to distract herself from the memories that had haunted her since that day. She switched the topic. “If Kyle’s been compromised, you know as well as I do that he may have been tortured.”

“You’re right. You’re not the girl I fell in love with.”

Silence permeated the air. It was Cade who finally broke it. “I might know what  happened to Kyle. We’ve got to find him.”

“You think I don’t know that?” Jana looked at Cade through the corner of her eye as the car banked up another curve. “Wait a minute. You didn’t just come here to find Kyle, did you? Kyle believed I was in danger. You came here because you already knew he may have been tortured, and that puts me in direct danger. If he knew where I was, the drug cartel may find that out. You came down here for me. You came here to pull me out.”

“Something like that,” Cade said. “But it’s not that simple. I didn’t come here to pull you out.”

“Hold on,” Jana said as the thoughts played forward in her mind. “I know exactly why you’re here. You’re not here to pull me out, are you? You want to use me as bait!” Her jawline clenched.

The rainforest surrounding the roads began to form a tunnel over the roadway the further in elevation the car climbed.

When Cade did not reply, Jana continued. “In fact, you’re not here for me or Kyle.”

This time Cade jammed a foot onto the brake and the car screeched to a halt on the quiet road.

“I can’t believe you just said that. After everything the three of us have been through. You and Kyle knew each other from the Bureau, but Kyle and I go all the way back to undergrad at Georgia Southern. I trust him more than anyone in the world. And you? You and I were practically living together. I was in love with you, and now you think I’ve come down here to further my career? To say the words ‘that hurts’ wouldn’t do it justice. Kyle’s life is on the line, your life is on the line. But there’s a lot of other things at play here. It’s bigger than any two lives.”

“And there it is. You’ve come down here to use me as bait.” Jana’s hand shook harder as she began to realize she was no longer safe on the island, a place she had come to know as a bastion of anonymity, a place to hide. And the very people she trusted now saw her as nothing more than a bartering chip. Her body shivered.

Cade began driving again. “Does the United States government want me to convince you to be used as bait in an investigation? The answer is yes. It’s the only way to draw the players out into the open. But as far as my career goes, I got in deep shit arguing against this plan. But in the end, I had to agree with them. There’s no other way.”

“How very noble of you.” 

It was a stab in the gut and Cade gave up all hope of resurrecting their relationship.

“When I said there’s a lot more on the line than you realize, I meant it,” Cade said. “Heroin flowing through Antigua is making its way all across the US. And this isn’t just typical heroin. It’s heroin laced with . . .” Cade stopped.

“Go on,” she said.

“It’s laced with fentanyl.”

Jana thought back to the night Rafael had abducted her. He had drugged her with an aerosolized form of fentanyl in order to render her unconscious and kidnap her.

“And the more that sells, the more kids die. Overdoses are at an all-time high. Then there’s the isle of Antigua itself,” he said as he waved a hand at their surroundings. “Like I said earlier, the cartels have been keeping violence to a minimum to avoid attracting attention, but if they get a foothold, the government here could lose stability. Then there’s DEA.”

“What about them?”

Kyle leveled a stern gaze at her. “Drug Enforcement is in this up to its ears. Even though Kyle was CIA, he was working hand in hand with DEA down here. And you know how Kyle is. He never met a stranger. He has a way of building trust in everyone around him. Apparently, DEA now practically consider him one of their own, on the same team.”

Jana’s thoughts pinged from one side of her head to the other. I’m not just going to help find Kyle, I’m going to have to go undercover. I’m going to have to go deep, and there won’t be anyone to protect me. “Go on,” she said, though her breathing became erratic.

“There’s more than just a little anger brewing. Over the last four days, every time I talk to DEA about Kyle, they bring up the name Kiki Camarena.”

“Kiki Camerena?” Jana said as her eyes closed tight.

“He was before our time, back in the early ’80s,” Cade said. “Kiki Camarena was a DEA agent working deep cover in Mexico. He disappeared. He had gotten way too far in. When he couldn’t be located, news of his disappearance made it all the way into the Oval Office. Reagan was so pissed off that he called the president of Mexico and threatened that if Camarena did not resurface, immediately, he would instruct the US State Department to issue a code-red alert for Americans traveling to Mexico. It would have dried up the Mexican tourism business within days. Not long thereafter, the body of Agent Camarena came forward. He had been tortured to death. It was the beginning of the United States’ drug wars into Mexico and Colombia. The gloves came off. Special-ops teams were inserted all over the place. They carried out a lot of raids, burned crop fields, and took no prisoners, and I think you know what I mean. When anyone in DEA so much as mentions the name of Kiki Camerena, it’s a precursor. They’re angry, they’re impatient, and time is running out.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

The Safe House

The car pulled further up the hillside of Gray’s Farm Main Road, past the Old Sugar Windmill up to a small house overlooking Hawksbill Bay, a beautiful stretch of pinkish sand and turquoise water. The house was shrouded in tropical vegetation and trees that overhung from every angle. As the tires crunched across the gravel-like driveway of crushed seashells, Jana said, “This is your safe house? Well, you certainly know how to treat the ladies.”

“It’s not that bad.”

“Not that bad? Look at this dump. Christ, the little hut I live in is nicer than this. And that’s on a bartender’s salary.”

“But it’s nice inside.”

“Your plane touched down at the airport an hour ago. You went straight to the police station to argue with the cops until they let me out. You haven’t even been here yet.”

“You never let a guy get the edge, do you?”

“Montes Lima Perez found that out the hard way.”

“That’s just cold,” Cade replied. They got out of the rental car and Cade looked across the roof at her. “Want to tell me what really happened? Perez didn’t attack you, did he?” 

Jana spoke through gritted teeth. “If I want a man to put his hands on me, I’ll let him know.”

“Let him know? Two compound fractures and two GSWs? That’s what you call letting him know? I’ll ask again, and I want the truth this time. He didn’t attack you, did he? Tell me what happened.”

“Or what?”

“Or I’ll go back and tell the lieutenant to arrest you.”

“Like I give a shit,” she said, though they both knew that was a lie. Jana exhaled. “Fine. It was a Monday night. I had the night off and went to a local club. He wasn’t a bad-looking guy. He asked me to dance, we danced. He bought me a drink, we drank.”

“I didn’t know you had a thing for Latin guys.”

Jana ignored the statement. “I told him I had to go, but he followed me outside. Said he wanted to make sure I got home safely.”

“And you believed that crap?”

“Of course I didn’t. I’m not an idiot, and I knew that look in his eye. I knew what he wanted. I just didn’t want the same thing.”

“You’re walking alone at night with a guy you don’t want to spend the night with, and you just happen to turn down a dark alley?”

Jana went silent.

Cade continued. “See, this is where your story gets a little hazy to me. How did you happen to walk down that alley when you knew full well this guy might try something?”

“Cade, I didn’t know he had a criminal record. Certainly not one that included sexual assault.”

“Go on.”

“About halfway down the alley he pulls me close to him and starts to kiss my neck.”

“Did you tell him to stop?”

“God. It’s like I’m being interrogated. No, I didn’t. You happy now? But when I finally did, that’s when his hands started crawling all over me. And then I—”

“You can stop right there. You lured him, didn’t you? You lured him down that alley.”

“I did no such thing.”

Cade couldn’t help but notice she had broken eye contact. He walked around the car and squared off in front of her. “I checked, Jana. The cops may not have picked up on it yet, but the walk from the club back to your place does not include that alley. You went out of your way to bring him to a dark, secluded place, didn’t you?” He paused a moment, waiting for an answer. When one did not come, he continued. “You know what I think? I think you can’t get past your ordeal with Rafael. You had a gut feeling that this guy Perez was bad news and you figured you’d teach him a lesson, like the one you taught Rafael,” he blurted as he leaned over her. “You went off on him, didn’t you?”

“What the hell would you know about my ordeal with Rafael?” she replied, almost yelling. “You didn’t show up until the last minute. And you don’t know me!” she said as she shoved him backward. “You don’t know what’s going on inside my head.”

 “What I know is that you’re not the girl I fell in love with. That much is perfectly clear. What I suspect though, is that you decided a long time ago that you would never again be a victim, so you found yourself some training. Christ, look at your shoulders and arms. Look at how you broke Perez into pieces. The guy must have seventy pounds on you.”

Jana looked away.

“And at that nightclub, once you got a bad feeling about Perez, you decided you’d test him on it.”

Her head snapped back. “Yeah, I decided to test him,” she said with a steely look in her eyes. “And my gut was right on point. He was a thug dressed in nice package, and I taught him a lesson. He won’t be forcing himself on another woman ever again, that’s for sure.”

“Not now that you shot his balls off.” Cade shook his head. “Tell the truth. The broken bones came first, didn’t they? And then the smashed face? And while he writhed on the ground, you shot him, twice.” Cade crossed his arms. “Not so different from what you did to Rafael back at the cabin. So what do you have to say now? What am I supposed to think? That you’re not a loose cannon?”

“What I do has nothing to do with you,” she said.

“It does now. The only thing we have in common is a past. A past and Kyle. Kyle needs our help, and I have to know you’re not going to lose your shit again if things go sideways.”

She poked a sharp finger into his solar plexus with just enough force to get his attention. “I am in complete control.”

“Then why is your hand shaking?”

Her mouth dropped open and she looked at the hand.

“I was right,” Cade continued. “Your hand starts shaking right before you have a post-traumatic stress episode. Using you is a bad idea.”

Cade continued his line of questioning. “So what about it? It was a PTSD event that sent you to the hospital last night, wasn’t it?”

She turned her back. “I’ve got control of it,” she said as she crossed her arms. “I left the Bureau to get away from it. All the stress, the male-dominated culture, the damned terrorists. PTSD had taken over my life. I came down here to start again, to not have to face down another terrorist, about to be killed at any moment. I’m not saying I’m happy, but I’m happier here than I’ve been in a long time. I had no idea how bad it had gotten until I got here. It was then I realized it. In my life at the Bureau I had forgotten.”

“Forgotten what?” Cade said.

“Forgotten who I was. Forgotten how to relax. I couldn’t even recognize myself.”

“And now?”

Her eyes became glassy again as she stared out into the blue waters. “I don’t know. Maybe I never really knew who I was in the first place.” She shook her head abruptly. “But I don’t have time for that right now. Am I stable, you ask? I don’t give a shit about that. If Kyle is in trouble, I’m going to help him, and there’s nothing you or anyone else can do to stop me.”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Interrogated

Rojas looked at Kyle. “I’ll ask again. Hey, wake up.” He slapped Kyle. “We’re talking about the Oficina de Envigado cartel. Who is in charge of their operations on the island?”

“Gaviria,” Kyle sang. “Don’t you just love saying that name?” His glazed eyes and thin smile spoke volumes to the euphoria he felt inside.

Rojas whispered, “Carlos Ochoa Gaviria.” There was shock in his tone. “I knew his father.” For this part, Rojas did not need Gustavo Moreno to hand him an intelligence report. “A former member of Muerte a Secuestradores.” Rojas began to pace the room. “Gaviria’s father ran the MAS, a paramilitary arm of the original Medellín Cartel. It was huge. It had the backing of the Colombian military, the Colombian legislature, small industrialists, wealthy cattle ranchers, it ran the gamut. And just to keep trade normalized, even Texas Petroleum, a US-based corporation with a huge investment in the region, were contributors. Carlos Gaviria would have gone with his father and been raised in that environment. Enforcement, murders, kidnapping, torture. He would have seen it all.”

Moreno said, “Patron? Perhaps Gaviria has not yet worked his way up within the new cartel.”

“No,” Rojas said as the thoughts percolated. “No, this is something else. Gaviria would be high up in their organization. Very high up. This means that Oficina de Envigado, the very successors to the Medellín Cartel, are making a much bigger play of Antigua than we thought. This raises the stakes.”

“Would you like me to gather more intelligence on Senior Gaviria, Patron?”

“Of course, you fool!” Rojas screamed. “I want to know his whereabouts. I want to know what he had for breakfast this morning. I want to know everything. The timing could not be worse. We’re going to have to do something.”

“Yes, Patron,” Moreno said.

“No, Agent MacKerron, changing a drug route is not the issue. What we’re involved with is much, much bigger than drugs.” He turned to Moreno before leaving. “Keep him alive. No one touches him. We may need him later.”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Training

Once they were inside, they looked at the dust-covered sheets draping the furniture. 

“We’re not going to talk about us anymore, got it?” Jana said. “I’m only doing this because of Kyle. What assets do we have at our disposal? And don’t try to tell me you can’t disclose that because of national security. I’m in on everything, everything you know.”

“We don’t know if the electricity works in here or if there’s running water, but you want to talk about assets?” Cade exhaled. “Let me get my stuff. I need to get the comms equipment set up. Then we’ll talk.”

Cade went back out and opened the trunk. He removed two large cases and a rolling suitcase and brought them inside. He placed one on an old wooden table and keyed in a passcode on top of the case. From it he withdrew an armored laptop and an IsatHub Wi-Fi satellite collapsible hotspot.

“Hardly anyone on the island knows we’re here,” Cade said. “I’ll be set up in a few minutes. We’ll have a direct uplink to NSA.” He looked at his watch then shook his head. “Uncle Bill is going to be pissed. I’m already late. Here, plug that in,” he said, handing Jana a power cord. 

“Is this all the equipment you have? What about weapons? What local assets are at our disposal?”

“We have DEA.”

“That’s it? How many agents?”

“One,” he replied.

“What? They’re only giving us one agent? What about all that talk about the murder of Agent Camerena? From the sound of it, I thought there were thirty hardened operators suiting up for a raid.”

“Thirty?” Cade said. “This is Antigua. It’s a pretty quiet place as far as drugs go, until recently, that is. This discovery of the cartels investment here is new. The DEA agents I was speaking of are in the Bahamas and the US Virgin Islands. They’re listening to their contact here. And besides, Kyle’s disappearance is a theory.”

“A theory? I thought you said—”

“Remember, all we know is that he’s gone dark. CIA isn’t so convinced. They’re accustomed to assets that go dark for months at a time. But it’s Kyle we’re talking about. He is relentless in his patterns. He doesn’t go dark, but no one seems to believe me.”

“But Uncle Bill is on board, right? He and Knuckles?”

“Uncle Bill doesn’t believe Kyle is missing. But once we convince him, he can put the full weight of the NSA behind this if need be. You’ve got to understand. It’s the war on terror, our assets are stretched thin. He can’t commit resources until we are sure.”

“Oh, great,” Jana said. “A bunch of guys with satellites, listening devices, computer hacking? Not exactly the collection of Jack Reacher superagents I was hoping for.”

Cade’s mouth dropped open. “Hey, I work at NSA.”

“My point exactly,” Jana said through a smile. “Satellites, listening devices, computer hackers. A bunch of geeks. You said DEA has a contact here?”

Cade logged in to the laptop and waited as it booted up. He positioned the satellite uplink in front of a bay window, then initiated the secure connection. “I’ll tell you about the DEA guy if you tell me about your guy.”

“My guy?” Jana said as she looked at him.

“Yes, yours.”

“I’m not following you.”

“Sure you are. I’m talking about your guy. The one you’ve apparently been spending so much time with. The one who trained you? Surely you remember him.”

Her face washed free of expression. “What makes you think there’s someone?”

“That’s what we call a nondenial. The FBI trained you, Jana. But they didn’t train you anywhere near to the extent that you are apparently trained now. There’s someone here, someone you’ve been spending a lot of time with. Someone who’s trained you in what? Spec ops? Close-quarters combat? What else? Interrogation techniques, how to defeat a polygraph, demolitions? Come on, out with it.”

“Fine. I met someone. He never talks about what he did in his past or what he does now, but it’s obvious he was an operator of some kind. I’ve been training with him for months. He taught me more than I ever knew. Like you said, the Bureau trained me, but where their training left off, his picked up.”

“What else did he teach you?” he asked, the implication being sexual.

“Hey!” she yelled. “Back off. I’m not talking about my personal life with you.”

“And there you have it,” Cade said. “The nondenial. He wasn’t just some guy who trained you in weapons and tactics. You were seeing him socially.”

An awkward silence ensued between them and Cade turned his attention to the laptop.

Finally, Jana said, “Anyway, that’s over now. We went our separate ways.”

“Jana, I get it. You and I were over. You found someone. You moved on. But why the training? What possessed you to go so hardcore?”

“I’m not hardcore.”

“What a load of crap. This boyfriend of yours didn’t just train you because he was bored. You asked him to.”

“I’m done talking about him. I’ve come clean with my piece. Now tell me about the DEA asset.”

“He’s a contractor.”

“He’s not real DEA? My God, how are we going to find Kyle and pull him out with no help?”

“DEA puts a lot of faith in him. He’s been down here a long time and apparently he’s well connected. He’s got their ear, that’s for sure. He’s the one telling DEA they need to send a crew down here and tear this place apart until they find Kyle.”

Jana closed her eyes. “So, it sounds like Kyle must have been in touch with this asset. Otherwise, how would he have known Kyle was missing?”

“That would be the assumption,” Cade said as he banged away on the keyboard. “Well, we’ll find out soon enough. The asset will be here any minute.”

“He’s coming here? I thought you said no one the island knew about this place.”

“Jana, the DEA has trusted this guy for years. And we need his help.” Cade pointed at the laptop. “See? Here’s his ping on the monitor. He’s just up the road.”

“Wonderful. Can’t wait to meet him,” Jana said, though her sarcasm was obvious. “He’d better be good. If he’s the only asset we have, that is.”

“Don’t forget, we’ve got whatever we need from Uncle Bill, if we can just convince him. Perhaps you forget how effective NSA can be at this.”

“It’s going to take more than code breaking to find Kyle.”

“Look, I need more information. We don’t have much time and you know it. I can’t be down here blind. Your personal history might be your business, but there’s more at stake than that. I want to know about this boyfriend of yours. I don’t want to be blindsided by some rogue. Did you ever stop to think that the guy you’ve been shacked up with is not who you think he is?” 

“What’s that supposed to mean? Are you saying he’s involved somehow? You don’t even know him. Besides, he stopped showing up. We’re not exactly seeing each other anymore.”

“Did you bore him to death?”

“That coming from the self-proclaimed dork,” Jana said with a smirk.

“Fair enough. So he didn’t tell you about what he used to do for a living? What type of training did he give you?”

“Weapons, close combat. A form of Brazilian jiu-jitsu. Arm bars, wrist locks, joint protrusions.”

“Joint protrusions? You mean you hyperextend the joint until it snaps back the other way? Hmmm, sounds similar to injuries suffered by a certain perp whose medical records I examined last night. He taught you how to do that?”

“He can teach how to kill in dozens of different ways, and I wanted to learn all of them. Strange thing is, he can be so gentle.”

“I don’t think I want to hear how tender he can be when both your heads are on the pillow.”

Jana threw her arms in the air. “Did you think after I left you I was going to be celibate for the rest of my life? I met him right after I got down here. I was struggling with all those emotions, and a lot of physical pain from my back injury. He struck up a conversation with me at the bar.”

“Bar? You mean that little tiki hut you work in.”

“He could see I was in pain so he offered to massage my back.”

“Yeah, I bet he did.”

“No, it wasn’t like that,” Jana said as she thought back to the encounter.

“Girls always think the guy just wants to be friends,” Cade said as he shook his head.

Jana ignored him. “He recognized me from my face being splashed all across the media after the attempted bombing. It kind of frightened me at first. I mean, I didn’t want anyone to know who I was. I wanted to disappear and start with a fresh slate. But being one of the few Caucasians that live here, and being from the States, he knew.”

“What’s his name?” Cade said while his fingers waited on the keyboard.

“You’re going to pull his background?”

“Of course I am. I’m tapped into the NSA database. Like I said, if things go bad, I need to know who’s down here.”

“You’re paranoid.”

“Name,” Cade said.

“He’s not a threat.”

“You’re not going to tell me his name, are you? Fine. At least give me his description. Caucasian?”

“Six feet, one hundred and eighty-five pounds. Long, curly blond hair.” Jana smiled at the thought. “Lean, very lean.”

“Lean? Uh huh.” Cade typed the description as if taking dictation. In his typewritten notes, he substituted the word “lean’’ with “muscular.” 

Jana sat and propped her feet on a covered coffee table and Cade glanced out at the driveway as a vehicle pulled up. “Six feet, one hundred and eighty-five pounds you say? Would you say the hair is true blond or more sandy?”

“Sandy. What does that matter?”

“Dark tan? Likes the unshaven look? Wears one of those woven cotton rope bracelets on his wrist like the locals?”

“Wait, what?”

“Did he tell you his full name?”

Jana thought about the question for a moment. “Come to think of it, no. Just his first name. I assumed he liked his anonymity. It wasn’t important to me, so I didn’t press it.” 

Cade cocked his head at her. “You slept with a man and you only knew his first name? Did he give you his real first name, or did you just call him Johnny?”

Jana sat straight up. “Now how the hell do you know that? Wait a minute,” she said as the thought played forward in her mind. “You’ve been spying on me. You son of a bitch! Eavesdropping from your little cubical at NSA.”

Cade held both hands up. “Didn’t even know where you were until yesterday.”

“Then how do you know—”

“Because he’s here,” he said.

Jana spun toward the front of the house and looked out the bay window. Her mouth dropped open.

“Congrats, Jana,” Cade said. “You’ve been dating John Stone, private contractor to the DEA.”

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