No Fortunate Son (8 page)

L
ieutenant Kaelyn Clute slowly came to consciousness, the world a hazy kaleidoscope of light. She felt a ravenous thirst, but also queasy, as if she’d just been on a roller coaster, her inner ears in turmoil from repeated spinning. She strained her eyes, trying to penetrate the gloom, but still couldn’t see anything concrete. Only vague light and shadow. She realized it was because of a rough burlap sack on her head. In a panic, she attempted to sit up only to find she was tied at the ankles, knees, wrists, and elbows.

And it all came back.

The Irishmen’s car pulling over to the side of the road, flashing its lights. Mack cursing his luck, saying he wished he’d hadn’t agreed to show them to the aquarium. Her calming him down as they pulled alongside the disabled car, one Irishman already out and under the hood. Her exiting the vehicle, then seeing the pistols. Mack shouting and fighting. The needle being injected into her neck. Her vision blurring as she watched Mack being beaten.

The memories slammed home, making her tremble, sweat popping out on her neck. She rolled onto her back, the nausea returning, her body feeling as if it were rocking left and right even as she lay still. She felt damp, rough-hewn lumber under her and heard a steady mechanical noise. A pump. She smelled diesel and realized it wasn’t the drugs affecting her equilibrium. She was on a boat. Or more precisely, in the bowels of a boat, next to the bilge pump. But where was Mack?

Afraid to speak, afraid of alerting anyone that she was awake, she slowly lowered her head down to the wood and scraped, feeling the
sack move an inch. She continued until she had a sliver of light at the base of her neck, enough so that she could see her chest. She lay still, waiting to see if the motion had caused anyone to notice. Wondering if someone was watching her right this minute. Nothing happened. She repeated the maneuver until she had a good five inches of vision at the base of her chin. She rolled her head to the left and saw the dim interior of a ship’s engine room, but no Mack. She turned right and saw a pair of legs, tied.

McKinley.

She wormed her way forward until she made contact with him, then did the best she could to wake him, rolling her body on top of his and patting his chest with her restrained hands. He did nothing, sending fear through her that he was dead.

She slid off him and squeezed her eyes shut, fighting the panic. She chastised herself, reverting to the discipline it took to achieve her position in naval aviation. Remembering her survival and resistance training, she began thinking through the problem just as she would if she’d had a catastrophic failure in her aircraft, putting aside the fact that she had absolutely no control over anything.

Then McKinley’s legs moved.

She sensed it more than anything else. She cocked her head back to see, remaining still as a stone. A moment passed, and she saw them move again. She sagged to the hull, letting out pent-up relief in one ragged breath. She waited, knowing Mack was working through the aftereffects of the drugs just as she had. He slowly showed more animation, and she could stand it no longer.

She wormed toward his head and whispered, “Mack . . . Mack, are you awake?”

He groaned, a noise that overshadowed the bilge pump. She hissed, “Mack, quiet. Whisper to me.”

She craned her head again until she could see the burlap over his face. It turned toward her. She said, “Mack, can you hear me?”

“Kaelyn?”

“Yes.”

“Are you all right?”

She snorted quietly and said, “Well, I’m alive. I don’t think this qualifies as ‘okay.’”

“Where are we?”

“On a boat. Somewhere in the ocean, but it’s got to be near the island chain. This thing isn’t big enough to cross the Pacific. I have no idea how long we’ve been out. Could be hours. Could be days.”

She saw his head sag back. He said, “What the hell is going on?”

Before she could answer, she heard a hatch slam onto the deck and saw a spike of light near the engine. Footsteps resonated from someone coming down, and she lay still.

Through the gap in her hood she watched the legs approach, stopping between Mack and her, just next to her chest. She studied the leather boots, waiting.

The man said, “Looks like that needle worked as advertised. I was beginning to wonder if you two was in a coma, but it cleared out just like they said.”

The accent was heavy, and Slavic.
Not Irish. Eastern European.

Mack fought to sit up, shouting, “What do you want from us?”

She saw the boot rise, then push McKinley back to the hull, not harshly, but with enough force to show he meant business.

“I want nothing from you. I’m but a delivery boy. We will be stopping soon. When that happens, I’m going to untie your legs and remove your hood. You have some walking to do. If you try to escape, I’ll kill you.”

She felt the boat shift, the engine slowing down. He said, “I want both of you to roll onto your belly. Now.”

She did so and felt the rope around her knees and ankles fall away. She remained still. The hood was removed and she was told to stand. She complied and found she was a half a head taller than her captor, a short, wiry man wearing a wool sweater, with close-cropped black hair and eyes as dull and lifeless as a chunk of burnt wood. He reminded her of a KGB agent from a cartoon. All he was missing was a pencil-thin mustache. In one calloused hand he held a fillet knife, undermining any notion that the man was a comic book buffoon.

He pointed to the ladder and said, “Go onto the deck. Sit down and wait.”

She hesitated, looking at Mack still tied up, and he said, “Do as I say. I’m not going to harm him. I just don’t want two of you loose down here at the same time.”

She climbed the ladder carefully, afraid of tumbling back down below without the use of her hands. She reached the top and was hoisted out by another man, then forced into a sitting position. He showed her a pistol and shook his head. She understood.

She found the boat much larger than the engine room indicated. A fishing trawler with great nets attached to booms on either side. The ladder came up just outside the wheelhouse, where she saw another man steering and cursing. To the left, a third man was lowering a rubber dinghy with an outboard motor, working the cable winch and answering the curses with foul language of his own.

She heard scuffling, and Mack appeared, his hands still tied behind him, the small man from below keeping him from falling backward. He turned to face her, and she was shocked at the damage. His left eye was swollen shut, his lip split, dried blood looking like ketchup stains from a greasy burger underneath his nose and on his chin. He smiled to give her confidence, but it came out hideous, like a caricature from a horror movie makeup room. It did little to ease her fear.

They were ordered to the stern of the boat, where the edge was closest to the water. The dinghy was brought around, and they were passed into it one by one, dropping unceremoniously onto the rigid deck. The original man, now armed with a pistol and wearing a rucksack, climbed in behind them and said, “Just sit still.”

And off they went.

Five hundred meters away, she could see an island. It grew until she could pick out the shore and the jungle beyond. No houses or other signs of civilization. They beached on a short, rocky stretch of sand. They were made to exit, then began walking up a steep footpath, slipping and falling among the roots of windswept brush. They reached the top away from the shore, breaking out onto a road facing a large open area with concrete pads stretching off into the distance.

Mack said, “Holy shit. I know this place. It’s Tinian Island. We’re at North Field.”

The man pushed them forward, saying “Quiet.”

They walked for another hundred meters, getting close to an outbuilding of crumbling concrete and indeterminate usage. When they reached it, he pointed with the pistol and said, “Sit.”

They did so, and he walked fifty meters away, withdrawing a radio from his rucksack.

Seeing he was out of earshot, Kaelyn whispered to Mack, “Where are we? And how do you know?”

Mack said, “Northern Mariana Islands. It’s an American protectorate. Way south of Japan. East of the Philippines. It’s the base where the
Enola Gay
took off from when it dropped the bomb.”

She said, “
Enola Gay
? How on earth can you tell that from looking at a bunch of concrete?”

“Remember a year ago when I finally got to leave Oki? Go on an exercise instead of working provost marshal stuff? Well, it was to this godforsaken lump of rock. Exercise Forager Fury. The whole point was to establish a forward landing strip for the Marine Expeditionary Force. That was the exercise. I pretended to pull security with a platoon of MPs while they rebuilt the old World War II infrastructure. It culminated with C-130s landing, proving we could project force in an austere environment.” He leaned back and said, “I spent twenty-eight days on this piece of shit, patrolling the perimeter over and over. I’d recognize it in my sleep.”

She took in what he said and instinctively knew the implications: It was an abandoned airfield with new, serviceable runways. They were waiting on an aircraft.

No sooner had the thought entered her head than the man returned, saying, “Get up.”

They did so, and she scanned the sky. To the west she saw a speck, which grew into an aircraft. It hit the ground, and she recognized a Viking de Havilland Twin Otter, a twin-engine plane designed for short takeoff and landing. Used the world over for harsh environments, it was loved by bush pilots for its ability to get into tight, rough spaces. But it wasn’t known for its endurance.

He pushed them forward, and she began to see the plan fall apart.
To see their death. She said, “Listen, we’re going to be lucky to get to another piece of land on that thing. I don’t know what the pilot told you, but I’m surprised it made it out here on one tank. Getting back is suicide. You’re going to kill us in the ocean.”

The man said, “Perhaps we should let you fly it, hmm?”

The words caused an involuntary spike of fear, belying his earlier words about being just a “delivery boy.” He knew exactly who she was.

The plane taxied to their location and stopped, the engines still turning. Two men exited, moved to the concrete building, and pushed out a large cylinder on wheels, with a gas nozzle attached. They began refueling, and Kaelyn finally realized how much effort had been put into their capture. How much coordination and preparation.

Which meant the men had something very valuable in mind in return.

I
stepped out of the train station behind Jennifer, dragging our two carry-ons behind me. She pointed to the street and said, “Guess I was right about the rental car.”

In front of me was a sea of bicycles, all chained and stacked haphazardly as if the Tour de France had decided to stop for a train ride. Well, that is if the Tour de France was run with rusted beachcombers and ancient ten-speeds. It looked like a bicycle graveyard. Which did nothing to help my mood.

My entire plan of attack had started to disintegrate over the Atlantic Ocean, ten minutes out from the British Isles. Knuckles had gotten a redirect. Apparently, the vice president’s son’s car had been found out in the English countryside, and it had been clean with the exception of one clue: a ferry receipt for Tangier, Morocco. It had necked down the potential kidnappers significantly, pointing to three or four different Islamic groups. As hunting terrorists was more of the Taskforce forte, he was given a mission change to explore the connection, leaving the English criminal investigation with the FBI, which meant we were dumped as soon as possible at Heathrow in London, nowhere near Cambridge.

Poking out of the hatch of the Gulfstream, he’d said, “Sorry to do this to you, but orders are orders.” Then he’d smiled and waved before closing the door and leaving us on the tarmac holding our bags. I knew he thought it was incredibly funny, and I felt like a hitchhiker that had been tricked and taken to the wrong destination.

I’d wanted to get a rental car and drive to Cambridge, but Jennifer
said that taking a train would be much easier. I’d argued that we needed the flexibility, and she’d stated that she’d done the research on Cambridge University and the surrounding town and that having a car would be more of a hindrance than a help. I’d acquiesced, mainly because I’m the one who had tasked her with the research, so I had to live with the results. But I was sure I’d prove her wrong when we arrived.

That certainty faded in view of the bicycle graveyard, sending a little stab of aggravation through me. Jennifer said, “Want to rent some bikes? The hotel I booked is right around the corner.”

I said, “And what? Strap these bags to the seat like a Vietcong on the Ho Chi Minh Trail?”

I saw a tiny grin slip out and realized she was screwing with me. Knowing that I had been all set on a big ol’
I told you so
, she was returning the favor.

I shook my head, unable to stop my own smile. I tried to maintain my annoyance, but it was impossible with her. I said, “Can we get a cab instead?”

Three minutes later and we were headed to our hotel in downtown Cambridge. It turned out that the university didn’t have a single campus but instead spanned the entire town. Composed of over thirty colleges, each with its own separate green, the school was impossible to separate from the town. And the town was old. I mean, really old, having been founded in 1209. Charleston, South Carolina, prided itself on its history, but it had nothing on this village, something that Jennifer loved.

Getting the history lesson on the cab drive over, I began to regret giving her the research task. Right up until she corrected the cabdriver on his knowledge of the town, which was funny as hell.

We dumped our bags at the hotel and asked directions to Queens’ College, the campus where Kylie was conducting her exchange. A third-year student studying English literature, she should have been finishing up her first semester here. Instead, she’d disappeared, and I dearly hoped to find out it was just a college prank.

Kurt had already smoothed the way with the administration, and they were expecting us, so I didn’t think we’d have any trouble with the school. Her roommate might be a different story.

I tried to get a cab, but Jennifer insisted on renting some bikes from the hotel, and we set out, pedaling through history, the stone buildings and alleys projecting a stoic reticence at our very presence. Allowing us to view them, but knowing we would never appreciate the history they embodied. Well, that’s what I thought, anyway. For her part, Jennifer kept exclaiming one thing after another from her research, making me wish we could explore and let her run around like a puppy in a field. Making me wish we had some time before we began to dig into what had happened to Kylie. Something I was dreading.

After a short ride, we chained the bikes outside of Queens’ College and entered through the arch to the administration building, stepping back in time in more ways than one. The first person who met us was an ancient dragon lady with a dour expression soaking through her wrinkles. Apparently, one of the first to graduate from Queens’ College in the fifteenth century, she was convinced we were a couple of slimy Yank tourists out to deface her beloved grounds. We spent about twenty minutes trying to break through her prejudice, with me growing more and more aggravated.

Jennifer saw me getting pissed and knew my nascent social skills were at the breaking point. I was on the verge of simply walking into the courtyard, ignoring the old prune’s protests. Jennifer glared at me, giving me her disappointed-teacher stare, and I hissed, “Well, you take over then. Before I crack that bitch in the head.”

I saw her face flush at my cursing, her expression looking like she was trying to contain a volcanic eruption. I immediately regretted my choice of words. She clenched her teeth and bored into me with her eyes. I did what every man on earth had done since leaving the cave. I cowered.

She said, “Don’t utter another word,” then turned to the battle-axe, all sweetness and sunshine. After a bit of back and forth, the biddy was on the phone, calling down Kylie’s roommate and giving me the stink-eye. Reminding me yet again how much fun Knuckles must be having chasing bloodthirsty terrorists.

Five minutes later a slight girl with long black hair, glasses, and bushy eyebrows entered the office. She had a piercing next to her right
eye, and my first thought was
English lit major
, but I knew better than to allow that to escape out of my mouth. Jennifer would probably punch me. I decided to let the females handle the introductions.

She shook our hands, then, speaking with a Scottish accent, said, “I’m Blair, Kylie’s roommate, and I’ll help you any way I can. I’m worried about her.”

Which popped any ideas I had about a bender in London and ramped up my concern. I said, “So you haven’t heard from her? At all?”

“No. I haven’t heard from her since she went out the other night. She never came home, and that’s not like her.”

Jennifer said, “Can we see her room? Her stuff?”

Blair looked at the battle-axe, who nodded, squinting at me as she did so. I almost said, “I won’t shit on the floor, I promise,” but bit my tongue. We left the dragon lady behind, walking to the dorm.