The Asset (33 page)

K
ennedy opened his eyes and
he was back on the plane with Belle.

“You drifted off,” she said.

“Yeah, sorry. What were you saying?”

“I was saying I'm proud of you.”

“Bullshit,” he said sarcastically. “What were you really saying?”

“It's not bullshit. You're a pretty all right brother.”

“I'm proud of you too,” he said, tearing up in spite of himself.

“God, you're such a crybaby.” She laughed.

“I know. I'm weak, like Dad says.”

“Weak, my ass.”

“Hey, you're not supposed to talk like that.”

“I'm on a plane. International waters. Rules don't apply. In fact, I think I'll order a drink.”

“No you won't,” he said. “But I might.”

Belle pushed the flight attendant call button.

“Jesus, Belle.”

“Told you I'm getting a cocktail.”

“Cut it out. They're not going to serve you.”

“They might serve
you
,” she said hopefully.

Kennedy switched off the call button. Belle switched it on. Kennedy
switched it off. Belle tried to switch it on and Kennedy grabbed her hand. She pulled her hand free, lunged over him, and hit the call button again. The flight attendant walked up with an annoyed sigh. They couldn't see her face, as she was backlit by the dim cabin light behind her. Kennedy stopped horsing around with Belle, instantly self-conscious about being so juvenile.

“Can I help you?” she asked.

“No, that's okay,” Kennedy said, “my sister accidentally—”

“I want a drink.” Belle laughed.

“No she doesn't,” Kennedy said.

“Will there be anything else?” the flight attendant asked.

“No, thank you,” Kennedy said.

The flight attendant leaned over him and switched off the call button. Her face was briefly illuminated. It was Love.

“Good,” she said. “Because you need to wake up.”

Kennedy was blinded by a bright flash of light and found himself looking into a flashlight beam a doctor was shining in his eyes. Love was standing next to him. She was pale, with dark circles under her eyes and a bandage on her forehead.

“You need to wake up . . . Ah, there he is,” she said and kissed him.

Day 56

H
ey, chief. Guess you got
in a little deep, eh?”

Wes Bowman stood over Kennedy, raising an eyebrow. Kennedy and Love were in a US Coast Guard base hospital in Dania Beach, Florida. They had been there for two days.

“Wes?”

“What, you were expecting the girl of your dreams? Oh wait, she's here too.”

Love walked up next to Wes and smiled.

“Don't look so surprised to see me,” Wes said. “You think after grilling me about this little church picnic I would just take a pass and let the vultures pick you clean?”

“I thought . . . you said you worked in IT?”

“We're all a bunch of fucking liars. That's our job. I'm actually a UK station chief. Dirty-work specialist.”

“What the hell are you doing here?”

“I'm not here. I was never here. I'm on vacation in Mykonos.”

“He saved our butts,” Love said.

“I put a tail on you after you were in Paris. Did you ever get the feeling you were being followed? You were. By me. Tracked you to Miami. Bada-­bing. Bada-boom. And that was one helluva boom. Pulled you out of the drink and here we are.”

“Then you know about Kruz?”

“Yup,” Wes said.

“We have to get moving. We have to stop him.”

Kennedy got up and fell right to the floor. He dragged himself up under his own power but was shaky on his feet. Love held his arm.

“Take it easy,” she said.

“We're going to try to stop him. Even though this is way outside my jurisdiction, and when they find out I did this they're going to crucify me—unless we can bag Kruz, in which case I'll get a medal.”

“He found Nuri,” Love said.

“Really? Is she okay?”

“She's in pretty bad shape,” Wes said. “She had managed to get one of the lifeboats into the water during the melee on deck. Put a couple of miles between her and the bomb. Lucky for her, it blasted her with seawater, so she wasn't burned to a crisp. The lifeboat was trashed and she floated in her vest longer than you guys. When we found her, she was hypothermic, in shock, and barely breathing. Docs put her in a coma to try to stabilize her but—”

“What are her chances?” Kennedy asked.

“Not sure. I'm amazed she's lived this long.”

“Which is why we have to find this motherfucker and stomp his fucking guts out,” Love said through tears.

“How can you help us, Wes?”

“I have an American Express black card and a massive set of cojones. So, you tell me what needs to be done and I'll do what I do best—lie, cheat, steal, spend taxpayers' money indiscriminately, and stomp motherfuckers' guts out.”

Kennedy downloaded Wes on everything: suitcase nukes installed in millimeter wave scanners at twenty-five airports. Devices set to detonate simultaneously on the day before Thanksgiving at 9:00
A.M.
Eastern. Attack would be initiated by a preprogrammed satellite signal that couldn't be deactivated, not even by Kruz. The only thing they could do to stop it was to remove every single device. It had taken nearly three weeks to install them and they had seven days to yank them all out.

“Jesus, this is dicey as hell,” Wes said. “Extraction is going to be a bitch, but then we have to contain the little fuckers somehow. We're talking nukes here, so we can't just toss them in the recycle bin. How am I going to scramble a containment unit in twenty-five cities by . . . now?”

“There's no time for that, Wes. They'll have to travel with us.”

“You want to fly around the country in a pressurized cabin with a small arsenal of nuclear weapons? That has to be a
don't
in the TSA manual.”

“They'll keep us warm at night,” Kennedy said.

“Fine,” Wes said. “Why not? The alternative is imminent death, so what's a few kilotons of white-hot destruction between friends? Speaking of friends, what kind of tech assistance do we need to pop these babies out?”

“I've got to do it myself,” Kennedy said. “I'm the only one left who knows where to find them and what they look like.”

“I'll hold the flashlight,” Love said firmly.

“You can't take them out yourself and you know it,” Wes said. “TSA knows you're not a qualified tech, and pulling something like that is definitely going to derail us. I'll get you an engineer with weapons experience. You can supervise.”

“Fine. The bigger problem is that I'm a pariah at some of these airports by now, and Tad Monty is bound to have spread the word to the others,” Kennedy added.

“Yeah, I kind of figured that, so I have a solution,” Wes said. “After your tussle at JFK, Monty put in a request to the Science and Technology directorate at Homeland, asking them to pull your upgrades for further testing. The request is under review, but I can make a few calls and have them grant his wish within twenty-four hours. Paperwork would go into effect immediately, especially if the device removal is due to hazard or performance impedance.”

“That's genius, but we still have to be the ones retrieving the equipment. We don't want some rookie TSO trying to handle it.”

“Agreed. Since the upgrades were initiated by you through the phony grant Alia set up, Science and Tech will actually
expect
you to supervise removal.”

“Is there anything you haven't figured out?” Love said to Wes.

“Yeah. Logistics are a bitch, and pretty much the only way we'll have a chance to hit all the airports in time is with a very expensive private jet and some morally flexible pilots with little regard for safety. That way we can move quickly, using private terminals at the main airports, maybe municipal airports, whatever keeps the wheels on the wagon.”

“How long do you think we have until Kruz realizes we're back from the dead, cockblocking his mini Armageddon?” Love asked.

“We definitely have a head start, but he has eyes everywhere so we have to assume our advantage will be short-lived,” Kennedy said.

“Agreed. And remember we have zero support from Langley. In fact, they would bag us if they knew what we were up to. The whole thing has to be stealth and low profile. Congratulations, you just graduated from asset to black ops.”

“When can we start?” Love asked.

“We have roughly twenty-four hours to prep,” Wes said. “Get whatever tools and supplies you need and I'll have the jet pick us up at one of the Richie Rich airports outside Fort Lauderdale. Start thinking about flight logistics. We may want to prioritize airports in the highest collateral damage zones or those close to government targets.”

“I'm on it,” Kennedy said.

Day 57

T
he plan with TSA Science
and Tech worked, and Kennedy was cleared to remove all of the upgrades. Wes got them a former army combat engineer to travel with them to do the work and make sure the nukes didn't accidentally detonate. Once they had all the bombs in their hot little hands, they would turn them over to DoD for containment and their hero status might keep them out of prison for breaking a phone book of federal laws. Kennedy worked logistics with two pilots who looked like they'd been dragged out of a bar in Tijuana after a five-day bender. He charted a course for them to hit the West Coast and Southwest first, then move through the middle of the country and finish in the East behind a nasty weather system coming down from Canada.

“Monty is tracking the Science and Tech thing,” Wes said to Kennedy and Love on the day they took off. “He's been probing the Department of Justice to bring charges against you.”

“For what?” Kennedy asked, incredulous.

“It doesn't matter. He's blowing smoke. The problem is, he's high up in the food chain at DHS, so they can't ignore him.”

“What can we do about it now?” Love asked.

“Nada,” Wes said. “I'm just keeping you in the loop. While you're on the road, I'll keep my eye on him and let you know if you're about to step in it. If Justice starts paying attention to him, we might have a problem. Have a nice trip.”

The pilots turned out to be top-notch, and once they got cleaned up, they were excellent at snowing airport staff into thinking they were a couple of buttoned-up good old boys from Texas. Flight manifests said they were hauling a rock star, Love, on tour. When people saw her, they had no problem believing it. The key with the private jet was speed. They could hit three to four, sometimes five, airports in a twenty-four-hour stretch without breaking a sweat. It was easy to see why the wealthy chose private. Without all the airport-delay bullshit, it was almost like driving.

On top of that, TSA paperwork Wes conjured for them made their work a breeze. TSA chiefs actually avoided Kennedy when he arrived to pull the upgrades. They were either afraid of associating with him because of Tad Monty or they were embarrassed for him and didn't want to deal with the awkwardness of Kennedy being clipped by the biggest asshole at DHS. Even the weather was cooperating, making their first four days of travel all over the West Coast, Pacific Northwest, Southwest, and Midwest smooth sailing.

But Love had been right when she said it all seemed too good to be true. By the time they got to Detroit, Tad Monty was waiting.

“You got about five minutes to get the fuck out of this airport or I'm calling the police and having you removed.”

“You can't do that,” Kennedy said, standing toe-to-toe with him.

Monty backed off slightly at Kennedy's bravado. Even Love raised an eyebrow.

“Bullshit, I can't. Watch me.”

Kennedy waited and didn't move. He kept his eyes on Monty the whole time.