Fitz was checking out the food on the table, the food I wasn’t eating. Not that he’d take any of it without being given permission. But he was letting his nose investigate. I gave him a fry, then pushed them away and told Jim, “You said you thought there was a leak? That someone there was…what? You call them moles, don’t you? I’ve seen that in movies. But what if your boss is the mole? I’ve seen that, too. Did you think of that? He knows all about you and me better than anyone.”
Jim smiled at me. “Don’t worry about that. Colt, look, I can trust him. We can trust him. The two of us both started at the agency together. I’ve known him for about forever. We were roommates in college. I know his family. He knew mine. I don’t have mine any longer, but he knew my parents when they were still alive.
“Both of us knew when we were in college and about to graduate that we still had no thoughts about a career. We wanted something more than a nine to five job at a desk pushing paper, though. That we knew for sure. A guy working for the CIA came to a recruiting fair our school sponsored for seniors. We talked to him, and he seemed to think we were the sort he wanted. He had us come to Washington for an interview, and we were both hired. Eventually, we both moved to the agency I work for now. We trained there together for field work, different training than what military intelligence people get, although we got some of that, too. It was both mental and physical, and I loved it. Then, initially, we went out on assignments together. I saved his life a couple of times. He saved mine once. You do all that, you tend to get very close. We did. We’ve got each other’s back, and he’s as patriotic as anyone can be. There’s no way he’d betray me or the country. He’s not part of any terrorist activity.”
“What do you mean? What terrorist activity?” I was getting more and more upset.
Jim got a look on his face, a look like he was deciding something. It took him several moments to decide what to say. But then he sighed and spoke.
“Colt, I’m not supposed to talk to anyone who isn’t sworn or anyone outside our agency about this, but you’re involved and deserve to understand what’s going on. It’s confidential, top secret stuff. I know you can keep what I tell you to yourself. I trust you to keep this to yourself more than anyone I know.” He gave me a serious look, I nodded, and he continued. “I just finished an assignment before coming to spend time with you. The purpose of the work was to dismantle a domestic terrorist cell. That’s one of the things my agency does—that I do. There are such cells operating here now. The FBI is involved in finding terrorist cells and shutting them down, though it mainly looks for groups with overseas leadership and/or immigrant agents. Our group looks mostly for the homegrown variety. These are fanatics who are American citizens, people who are disaffected for a variety of reasons. They’re just as set on creating havoc and fear, and many of them are just as willing to martyr themselves doing so as the foreign-born variety are.
“I was successful. The leader of the cell I infiltrated died. The others got away. The state police were set up to grab them, but they somehow slipped through. There are four of them, but I wouldn’t use the word ‘smart’ to describe any of them. They’re small fry. My objective was to terminate the cell’s leader and in so doing destroy the cell; that’s what I did. But the top guy, the one who was running this cell and probably several others—I think he’s the mole, as you put it—could have been in contact with one of the guys in the cell I broke up, one of the ones who avoided the state police.
“The reason I think the mole’s in Washington, D.C., is because only someone there working for one of the intelligence agencies could have access to my agency’s files. They can’t be hacked; trust me on that. But people at the top of all the agencies have access. So, that’s how my name could have been associated with the disruption of that cell: someone with access got into our files. The mole could then have looked into my background and found out that I was the guy who was responsible for what happened to several other cells. This isn’t the first cell I’ve brought down. But seeing that, he’d have a good reason to go after me so I couldn’t continue the harm I was doing his organization.
“He’d also have been able to see from my file the tie-in I have with you—and you with Jerrod. He couldn’t use you to get to me because he had no idea where you were. But Jerrod’s location was easier. This guy would have access to phone records, and Jerrod was certainly speaking to his mother. I think he found out where Jerrod was. And my guess is, he sent someone, either a single guy or a cell—possibly the one I disrupted—down to get Jerrod so he could use him to entice me to come down there where I’d fall right into their hands.”
“But that’s just what we have to do!” I said with some passion. “Go down there! Save Jerrod!” The thought of some bureaucracy dithering about what to do while Jerrod was in the hands of a madman or perhaps a group of madmen had me as upset as I’d ever been. “So what if someone’s holding him and wants you to come down there? We have to do that. It’s what you’re good at! Let’s go get him!”
I thought Jim would argue, but instead, he agreed with me. “That’s exactly what we’re going to do, Colt. But we can’t be reckless about it; getting both him and us killed is what’ll happen if we go in there half-cocked. My boss is checking something. He’ll get back to us. Meantime, we can do some checking of our own. Let’s look at Google maps again.”
ʃ ʃ ʃ ʃ
We finished ourlunches, then looked at the satellite view of Jerrod’s aunt’s house. It looked the same as last time, but this time Jim looked at the surrounding area as much as the house. I got antsy right away. I wanted to be moving! How he could be so patient waiting for a phone call from his boss I didn’t understand. He’d said we were alike. Well, if we were, he was hiding his frustrations with being stuck in that motel room better than I was able to.
Just to get him talking, I asked a question. “Jim, you said you got the ball rolling, finding out who the mole was. What did you do? I’d think finding a mole would take days, maybe weeks, of research. There must be all kinds of guys to be vetted.”
He nodded and closed his laptop. “It normally would. And might in this case, too. But I had an idea, and my boss is running with it. See, taking Jerrod had to happen really fast if it’s tied to my last assignment. Communications between cells and their control are usually complicated and slow. This had to be fast; the timing of Jerrod going silent so soon after I came down here is very suggestive of that. So I asked my boss to investigate whether there was a phone call from someone at the time the cell members avoided the state police that went to our mole. What made this possible was, they could eliminate any calls that didn’t go through the single transmitting tower in that area where we’d been.
“That part of the state where we were is practically deserted by Eastern standards. The specific location was more than practically deserted. You could walk for days in the wilderness there and never bump into a single person. The FBI has no interests there at all; neither does the CIA. So I suggested to my boss that he check all calls through that tower, especially ones at the time I was getting out of the area. That’s what he’s looking for. Even if the calls were encrypted, they’d show up as going to a location in Washington if I’m right. We should be hearing from my boss soon. If that doesn’t work, it’ll take much longer to find this guy.”
Just as he finished, his phone rang. He smiled at me and picked it up. He spoke to his boss for ten minutes, then disconnected. I’d listened to Jim’s end of the conversation but couldn’t tell much from it.
“That was my boss,” he said unnecessarily. “They got the guy. Well, they know who he is. Two calls came from that tower. They got rerouted and bounced around like you’d expect, but the guy looking for them is about the best we have. He found the calls and was able to work out who they went to—an NSA operative, one of a hundred anonymous people working there. He’ll be checked out thoroughly, but quietly. If he’s dirty, we want to use him to find the cells he’s running, and we can’t do that by blowing him up. We’ll leave him in place. What we gain by doing that may well be invaluable.
“What this means, though, ultimately involves us. They won’t be sending in any storm troopers to free Jerrod. Doing that would tell the mole we’re onto him. It also would be much riskier for Jerrod and his aunt, as we’re pretty sure these guys are prepared to die if confronted. So instead of SWAT or government agents, I’ve been given the rescue mission. That’s now my job. But Colt, if you want to be involved, I’m not going to cut you out. I like the idea of just you and me doing this, you primarily as my backup. But, it’s your choice, of course. You want out, just say so; I can get you a ride home. This is stuff I’m good at, and you’re a kid. It’ll be extremely dangerous. I won’t think less highly of you if you say no. No reason to put yourself in harm’s way.”
“Of course there is!” I responded, still with the passion I was feeling. “You’ll need help, and I’m part of this. Jerrod’s my boyfriend, but this is more than that. You’re my friend, too, and I won’t let you do this alone. That house is isolated. They may have four or five people there. How you’ll possibly get in, save Jerrod and his aunt, assuming she’s still alive, and get out again, I have no idea. But it would have to be harder all by yourself. No, I’m in on this.”
He was watching me. Perhaps evaluating me. I couldn’t tell from his look whether or not he was buying what I was saying. So I continued. “Look, I’m not a 14-year-old runaway like I was last year, yet we worked pretty well together, didn’t we? Well, I’m older now and just as good as I was then, probably even better. Smarter, more capable. I don’t know how you’re planning to do this, but two heads have got to be better than one. You need me, and whether you do or not, I’m still staying with you.”
Perhaps my vehemence sold him. But he kept looking at me for a few moments after I finished, then nodded. “Yeah, I need someone, and I trust you. The problem is, I should tell your parents about both you and Jerrod.”
“No, you’d just worry them. If you think we can rescue him, if the odds are good, then let’s wait till we’ve got him.”
“You know this’ll be dangerous. There’ll be a lot of risk involved, no matter what our plan ends up being. You willing to face that?”
I quickly surveyed myself. The only fear I felt was for Jerrod. Myself, I was eager to get to it. More than eager. “No problem,” I said, looking him in the eye.
Jim smiled. “Told you we were alike.”
ʃ ʃ ʃ ʃ
After that, we moved. I was glad to stop sitting on our butts and get going. We left Jacksonville, heading south. I wanted to get there as quickly as possible. Jim had experience, though, and I accepted that. I wanted to save Jerrod. The best chance of that was by letting Jim call the shots. If he didn’t want to rush, then that’s the way we’d play it.
We talked as he drove. I had the impression he was saying what he was more to calm me down than anything else. I think he was afraid I might not be stable enough to take it easy when we needed to.
“Colt, I’d get in big trouble if my handlers knew I was telling you this, but in for a penny, in for a pound. I’m going to tell you about the cell I just broke up. My last assignment.”
He was driving in the slow lane of I-95. He said he’d get on I-295, then catch US 1. He said he needed time to think, and talking to me was a good way to start that process. I did what I’m pretty good at. I sat and listened.
“Someone in some terrorist organization had come up with a new idea, a new way to wreak havoc. At least it wasn’t one they’d tried before and we knew about. We have all sorts of sources out there, hired ears, a lot of them guys hanging out in bars. Alcohol loosens tongues, and some of these cell members aren’t too sophisticated. Plus, they’re proud of what they’re doing and have this need to talk about it. They disguise it and all, but we hear things and can put odd bits of information together.
“We got word from someone who passed it on to someone else, all the way up the line to my agency, that a small group of guys was going to be the first in the US to try this. I was assigned the job of going in and getting accepted by that terrorist cell as a fellow nihilist who was open to suggestions about their ‘religion’. I pretended to be disaffected and perhaps a little simple, and I eventually got accepted. I do that. I guess I’ve got an honest face.”
He let out a sarcastic ‘ha ha’ and grimaced. “Anyway, to cut to the chase, these guys hated America, everything we stand for, wanted to help create uncertainty and fear among the population, wanted to become famous martyrs and were going to do that in a novel way. It was something new. They were going to put suicide bombers in parachutes and drop them where they’d have maximum impact, like into crowds or restricted military installations or critical domestic facilities like power plants or dams. They were training me to be one of the parachutists.”
That certainly caught me by surprise. Could they do that? Or better yet, was there any way to stop them? Well, I could see one way: the way Jim had just accomplished.
“Little did they know I’d spent more hours in a parachute than all of them put together,” Jim said, continuing. “I had little trouble convincing them it was all new to me, however, and that I liked the idea of destroying important things. They minimized the fact I’d die doing it and maybe even thought I wouldn’t realize that until too late. As I said, they knew me as a little simple and a lot naive. Anyway, in training, during what was supposed to be my first jump out of a plane, I caused the death of the cell leader. We were the only two jumpers in the plane; the other cell members were on the ground. They included the leader’s brother. It’s quite possible the brother would love revenge and talked this mole into being one of the ones waiting for you and me. Some of these people think that way, that eye-for-an-eye stuff. Revenge is big in their world-view.
“Or it could be an entirely different group that’s waiting for us, if it’s a group at all. But both my boss and I are convinced the party that’s been set up is to get rid of a big thorn in their side: me.”
As we drove, I was getting more scared than I’d been earlier. “But if they’re out only for you, they have no need for Jerrod. Is he okay, you think? Have they…?”
“He’s most likely fine,” Jim interrupted, being reassuring. “They need to keep him that way because of your message. If you hadn’t sent it, your fear would have made sense. I doubt they’d do anything to jeopardize their plan, though, and having Jerrod silenced could do that.
“Also, there’s this. While they might not be too smart, their handler would be and they march to his orders. It would be his plan they’re following. The mole would have already thought about keeping Jerrod alive just as a contingency safeguard. When you sent that message saying you needed to speak to Jerrod, if the kidnapper—or kidnappers—passed it on, that would just support his own thought that keeping Jerrod alive was necessary. I think the odds are way in our favor that he’s being held there, alive and well, and that whatever has been planned for us, someone is waiting for us to show up.”
That did make sense and helped ease my fears. A little at least.
Jim continued in the vein of talking to clear his head. “We have to play this close to the vest. I told my boss I’d take care of the problem. I think there are probably three guys. At the most five, but probably three or four if he sent a full cell in. They probably aren’t the brother and his cellmates, but could be. I think the mole would want to take vengeance out of the situation and use people without that motive, clear-headed people, so I think what we’ll be facing is a bunch of guys we have no IDs on. Whoever they are, what makes them doubly dangerous is their fanaticism. They’re willing to die. The mole would only recruit and use people like that. That makes any rescue operation against them very dangerous. For us and Jerrod.”
“So what do we do?” I asked.
“We need to get down there, do some surveillance, find out just how many there are if we can, and see what we can do to neutralize them while rescuing Jerrod and his aunt.”
We’d come to the junction of I-295 and US 1. He transitioned to the latter and we kept going south.
“Remember, these are guys most likely willing to die for their cause but want to take others with them. If the guy or guys who have Jerrod see us coming and realize that they won’t be able to escape, they’ll have no problem at all blowing themselves up and everyone around them. So we have to figure things out. And the first thing we need to do is get a feel for where we’re going. The lay of the land. And we have to do it quickly and in complete secrecy.”
ʃ ʃ ʃ ʃ
We’d merged onto US 1 from Interstate 95 north of Ormond Beach and driven for a couple of hours south, stopping in Oak Hill where US 1 cut west to avoid the Indian River waterway. We weren’t far from Titusville and not that far from Jerrod’s aunt’s house. Lionel Road, the largest street near her house, was on the north side of Titusville.
We stopped mid-afternoon at a Burger King in Oak Hill, a small town of fewer than 2,000 people. All this nervous energy that was making me squirrelly, and the fact I had not eaten much lunch had combined to make me ravenous. I guess, because we were now actually doing something instead of sitting and talking, my appetite had been restored. Jim just had a cup of coffee. I had the Whopper meal. And got an extra hamburger with nothing on it for Fitz. I’d give it to him when we returned to the car.
Jim took a table in the back corner, something he routinely did. He faced out into the room; I had my back to it.
I was halfway through my Whopper when he said, “Oh, my god!”