12

Jack

 

 

Panther Force War Room,

Iniquus Headquarters, Washington DC

 

 

“This is Reagan International’s front entrance.” Nutsbe explained.

Suz had changed her clothes out of the yoga pants and hoody that Joe, her ISO had said she had been wearing with the black ballet slippers she had on during her great escape from St. Basil’s. In this picture, Jack saw her taking her zombie bag from the taxi driver’s hands and thanking him. She had put on a pair of the BDUs stored in the bag along with a t-shirt, an all-weather jacket, and her hiking boots. New. Never broken in. Clothing he could never imagine her actually wearing. While he had packed the bag in all seriousness, he had given it to her as a joke. Her taste ran toward the romantic and feminine. She preferred long flowing dresses. That she had been dressed in all black on Valentine’s day – with no makeup, pants and turtle neck instead of the pretty pink dress she had modeled for him before he left. . . what did that say? Something. It looked like she was in mourning.

She pulled the zombie bag up and fumbled with the straps that buckled around her waist and sternum. The way she held her posture, Jack could tell she hadn’t adjusted the lengths correctly, and the bag sat too high on her hips, making her lean forward to counterbalance the weight.

She was alone. In one hand she had a piece of paper. In the other she had a black object.

“Cell phone in her right hand?” Nutsbe asked.

“Looks that way,” Lynx responded. “Must be someone else’s. We have her phone.”

“Could be a burner phone to give her instructions,” Nutsbe said, his fingers flying over the key board. He tapped enter and the screen shot, while pixilated showed the screen of a phone and text messages.

“Any way to read that screen?” Jack asked.

“Sorry, man, that’s as tight as I can get.”

Lynx moved over to a board. She noted:

• Not visibly constrained
• No visible handler
• Has phone access
• Dressed for the outdoors

The view switched back to Suz as she hiked to the ticket counter to check her bag in. She had nothing but the paper and the phone in her hand as she moved to the security desk.

“The check in lady was pretty blasé. It didn’t look like Suz passed her any kind of ‘help-me’ message when she was showing the woman her ticket,” Lynx said.

Suz now entered the security section. There was a collective holding of breath. This was the spot to get help, with the phone on the conveyor belt, her boots and jacket in a bin, and no possible way that it wouldn’t be detected if she were wearing a wire as she raised her arms for the x-rays. Come on, Suz. This was the time to explain that something weird was happening as she stood in a protected machine where she spoke one on one with an armed guard. There’s no better time than this. . . take this chance, Suz. . . tell them you need help. Jack pushed his thoughts out there though he knew full well that this was hours and hours ago and whatever had happened was a done deal.

Suz moved on through like everyone else moved through. She gathered her things, checked her paper, checked the phone, went to the bathroom, went to the shop and bought a large bottle of water with money that was in the cargo pocket on her thigh. So many opportunities to get help. She took none of them, and Jack knew that this was all being noted by Nutsbe and Lynx.

After Suz paid for her water, she went to the gate that said Miami. Time passed with Suz sitting alone, staring straight ahead. Nutsbe sped up the video feed.

“They called seating,” he said, shifting it to natural speed, again. “She must have a first-class ticket because she’s in with the first ones loading.”

“Suz can’t afford first class tickets. Did this go on her credit card?”

“Yup. On the Travelocity site. But you’re right, the tickets she bought were first class where her flight to St. Martens was commuter class,” Lynx responded walking to the board.

• Sat alone at gate
• First class seats
• Boarded alone
• No purse

“All righty then, ready to see what happened in Miami?” Nutsbe focused down on his keys.

“Wait,” Lynx said. “Can we watch the other passengers board? She bought two tickets.”

They watched the black and white images of the slow process of boarding. A few of the men had hats on their heads. From what they could see, no one who looked like Jones was in the line. But not everyone turned in the direction of the security camera.

Jack turned to Nutsbe, “Do you have any descriptors on the guy? Weight, height, hair color?”

“According to the passport, he’s five-eleven, hundred and sixty pounds, brown hair, blue eyes, no distinguishing tattoos or scars. His name and facial biological markers are churning through the system. Hopefully, we’ll get a ping and some identification beyond the Samuel Jones name soon. I sent a request up to IT to see if they couldn’t get hold of the passenger lists and see if he checked in. I’m not a good enough hacker to do that here. I have the CCTV because we already have their security link on file.”

Lynx leaned down and quietly caught Jack up on what he had missed while he was asleep.

“Do we have someone down in Brazil who can get eyes on? We still have a few hours until they land.”

“Lynx already asked that, I sent out an inquiry. This isn’t a contract case so its low priority. Logistics hasn’t gotten back to me yet, and I doubt they will until after zero eight hundred hours. They’re running a skeleton crew at night unless they had a heads up and Command called them in for emergency action. It’s our new protocol while we get our feet back under us from the Hydra attacks. Once their crew clock-in, though, you know how they are — they’ve got fingers in pots all over the world, US agencies and foreign. I’m betting they can pull something out of their hat.”

“Along that line, let me see,” Lynx pulled Suz’s computer over and typed to pull up a screen with the itinerary for Brazil, “Suz has another stop – it’s not a straight shot.”

 

7:30 am – 9:05 am

Brasilia Intl Airport (BSB) – Guarulhos Intl Airport (GRU)

Flight 3578

TAM · Airbus A320

Layover GRU Guarulhos Intl Airport1h 30m

 

9:40 am – 11:10 am

Guarulhos Intl Airport (GRU) – Cataratas Airport (IGU)

Flight 3559

TAM · Airbus A320

 

“11:10 hours their time. They’re an hour ahead of Washington, so 10:10 hours our time, and that’s the point where we lose track. That’s our time frame for making contact.” Jack said. “Lynx, did she schedule a hotel from the Travelocity site? Is there any clue about what she’s doing once she hits the airport?”

“Here we go,” Nutsbe clicked away at the keyboard and a new CCTV stream showed up on the screen. “She’s getting off her flight and walking to her new gate.” The image jumped as he used the feed of one camera and then another as he followed her to the TAM gate. Her walk slowed to almost a crawl. She stopped completely and gazed around her. Her shoulders sagged, and she moved to the seats, choosing a chair next to a tall man in a dark colored coat with wide apple cheeks showing under his Homburg-style hat.

“He looks very European businessman-like.” Lynx said. “Did you see that? Go back a couple frames, try to get the image down to her face, please, Nutsbe.”

The image spun down to take in Suz and the guy beside her. “This is as close as I can get it and still keep things recognizable,” Nutsbe said.

“A little farther back. Take it to where she moved to that seat and sat down,” Lynx stood up and walked to the screen, so she could point. “That’s it. Now slow-mo. Okay, good. Suz walks in and sees the guy, recognizes him, walks over toward the only open seat which happens to be next to him, but she’s determined not to look at him. See? Her eyes are everywhere except on the man. She sits down and crosses her legs away from the guy, swivels her hips to turn her belly button toward the exit – the belly button is a body language indicator of where a person would like to go. In this case, she wants to go back to where she had walked from. She lifts her right shoulder, that’s a protection gesture – a block. He’s typing something into his phone. . . Her phone buzzes. . . she looks down. She hates what she reads. Did you see that her eyes squint and her head sways back? That’s a momentary short circuit of the nervous system. It happens when someone gets bad news. No way to see that message?”

“None,” Nutsbe responded. “That guy was on the first leg of the Suz’s flight. He was one of the first off. She was one of the last off.”

“Same guy as in the passport photo?” Jack asked.

Lynx got up and walked toward the screens her focus moving back and forth between the two images. “Bottom of the face seems to match, but it’s hard to tell with the hat on.” She came back to sit next to Jack.

“I’m being fed another piece of information,” Nutsbe said. “The DOD has a satellite in the area. It hasn’t got a long window. It’ll be in range until 14:11 hours her time. Then we go black.”

Jack’s eye was twitching. “So we can see where she goes.”

“I’m making the request now.” Nutsbe typed rapidly, then took a sip from his mug, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “I’ll do my best. If she stays on the streets, we can follow her. Once she goes into a building, maybe a garage and gets in a car? We’d lose her for sure.”