Turbee was inconsolable. Khasha tried to comfort him, but he was working his way into a full-blown panic attack. He began rifling through his pockets, looking for appropriate meds.
Khasha glared at George. “You know that was illegal. You can’t put someone on a no-fly list just because you don’t like him. That’s a criminal act, George, and you dragged Turbee into it. I don’t know how you can fix it.”
George looked at the floor as Khasha put her arm around Turbee. For a few minutes no one spoke. A small TV in the corner of the conference room was on and featured a news alert from the Leon Lestage trial in Vancouver, Canada. The trial had gained more than a passing interest with the TTIC regulars.
The three of them were silent for a minute.
“Turb, Turb, Turb,” clucked George. “This will pass. The government can’t sit on this fraud forever. Too many people know about it. Have you seen the traffic to some of those websites we created? The truth will come out, and when it does, things will be fine. The president is dirty. The whole Yousseff thing is dirty. We are onto something and we are going to stay on it. Let’s get out of here.”
“Where to?” asked Turbee.
George looked intently at the television. “Vancouver. Vancouver, British Columbia.”
34
As the Allegro Star approached the British Columbia coastline, a change in tactics was called for. The closer they came to North America’s west coast, the greater the surveillance, the more frequent the Coast Guard patrols, and the greater the density of drones and satellites. Yousseff, when he had Kumar design the Allegro Star, took this into account. At 1,400 miles west of Vancouver, a different mode of travel was needed.
“Have you found any yet, Jimmy?” asked Kumar from the Allegro Star’s central living area.
“Yes, boss, I have. There’s a container ship about three hours ahead en route to Vancouver Harbor. It’s the MOL Honor. A Japanese supercontainer ship, Triple-E class. She’s going at a real healthy clip. Twenty-seven knots, more or less.”
“A Triple-E? That makes it 400 meters long,” Kumar said.
“Yeah. More than four football fields long. And a beam of close to sixty meters.”
“Will we have enough oxygen?” Kumar asked.
“When we intercept, we will be 1,300 miles from harbor. At twentyseven knots, barely, but we should be okay. I checked online and she has a specific dock time at Centerm. We’re good.”
Richard looked up from the video game he and Zak were playing. Jimmy performed some quick calculations on his phone. “That’s six acres of hull, more or less,” he said, shaking his head. “Absolutely awesome. This will work well.”
“Have you plotted an intercept yet?” asked Kumar.
“Yeah. I just plugged it into the nav program. If we go at max speed, we will rendezvous with her in about two hours.”
“Okay, Jimmy. Get it done.”
“Richard, pay attention,” snapped Zak, looking up from his controller. “We’re being swamped by Nazi zombies here.”
Richard and Zak were playing the WWII version of Call of Duty. Zak was winning, as he did in most any contest that the two were involved in. They had known each other since their early teens. Both had parents who were on Uncle Sam’s payroll at the Islamabad embassy. When Richard’s parents died in an accident on the Islamabad/Peshawar highway, Zak’s parents took Richard in, and when, shortly after, they left Pakistan and returned to their California home, Richard tagged along. They both did four years in the nation’s premier military academies. Richard went to the Naval Academy in Annapolis, and Zak went to the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs. Both had sterling careers: Zak flying mostly Hornets, and Richard mostly Tomcats. Then came disaster. Richard, suffering from chronic back pain due to an accident in basic training, gradually became addicted to opioids. While Zak was discharged honorably, Richard was not. He was unceremoniously bounced out of the Navy when he splashed a Tomcat off the deck of the Big John. It was discovered that he was high on oxycontin at the time.
Both gravitated to the CIA where they became valuable assets because they understood the many languages and cultures in the Middle East. In fact, Zak’s mother was of Pashtun heritage. Zak worked under deep cover and ultimately became a soldier and advisor to the unsuspecting Yousseff, until his cover was blown. Zak was imprisoned in Inzar Ghar and at the hands of a psychopathic failed medical student, Hamani.. He lost his left forearm and two toes on his left foot, all removed without the benefit of anesthetic, and with surgical implements that were somewhat less than optimal. Zak had troubling psych evaluations after his escape from Inzar Ghar. He had developed an antiauthority streak, and was less predictable in tense situations.
Richard, over the years, gradually lost his alignment, but it wasn’t until the Colorado River attack that the wheels came off. He overdosed on a mixture of fentanyl and benzoids of various sorts and almost died. The admiral personally took an interest in him, got him detoxed, and into rehab. Richard went straight, and had not used drugs or consumed alcohol for almost a year.
Despite intercessions by Admiral Jackson, the CIA wanted nothing to do with either Richard or Zak. The admiral was loath to see two such talented assets go to waste. Using his connections with TTIC, and his friendship with Liam Rhodes, also an ex-Navy man, he placed them both in the employ of TTIC. While TTIC was theoretically an intelligence analysis agency, and not an intelligence gathering agency, the arrangement worked well and no
