18

Jack

 

 

Foz do Iguaçu, Brazil

 

 

Jack checked his watch as he sat down on the bench outside of the old mission church. He had stowed his bag in a locker at the bus station five blocks east. His crutches rested propped up beside him. He popped open his bottle of antibiotics and knocked two back. He swigged from his water bottle then repeated the process with some Tylenol. His knee was on fire. Lynx was probably right. Bending his knee should have happened over time with professional help. He bent it to about 50% of what had been his normal angle, and then straightened it back out a few times trying to calm the biting edge of pain. The swelling felt like it had increased on the plane. The flight attendant had been helpful in bringing him ice packs. Jack tried to imagine that there was improvement.

His phone buzzed.

Lynx: Got info from forensics. Acepromazine — a doggie tranquilizer was in the pill pockets. They took blood samples from Dick and Jane. Trace tranq in both dogs. Know anything about that?

Jack: Nada

Lynx: Think I should try to contact this Emma person?

Jack: Tough call. Wish we knew what was going on. – Jack hesitated before he typed any more. It might give us more information if we hang tight and see if she calls me to ask about Suz. See if she’s in a panic. I hate to do it to her though.

Lynx: Those were my thoughts, but I wanted that to come from you.

A man in a polo and loose-fitting cotton pants came up and sat on the edge of the bench. He pulled out a pack of cigarettes and lit up. Jack slid his phone into the back pocket of his jeans.

The man spit toward the gutter, his saliva arching through the air, and landing with precision.

“The rain clouds look like they want to beat the hell out of us.” Jack said in Arabic.

The man snorted mucus up his nostrils and spit again. “The same every day. Rain. Let’s walk.”

They moved down the street, the man flipped to English. “That a fake injury or are you really nursing that knee?”

“I wish it were fake,” Jack said.

“We put eyes on your POI,” he said. POI was the speak they used to distance themselves from talking about human beings. POI—person of interest—PC—precious cargo. Those little psychological tools kept them from getting emotionally involved. Emotions in these types of circumstances were usually a bad thing. It made one stop and assess, to second guess when first impressions and action should rule.

Jack picked up eyes from a building up ahead. And more from a car at the corner.

“Those your people keeping watch?” Jack asked.

“Have to be careful.”

“Agreed. Just checking in. Mind telling the guy with the scope to drop the barrel a couple inches? I need my brains to think through this problem.”

The cigarette guy pulled at his ear and the glint from the glass moved out of sight. “So who were we looking at?” he asked turning his head left then right, sweeping his gaze over the neighborhood of boarded up apartments. “CIA? FBI? Why is she down here?”

“She’s a school teacher. We don’t know why she’s down here. We thought you could help us out with that.”

“The US is tracking its school teachers now?”

“We have a couple of kids missing. We need to ask her a few questions.”

“She’s the perp?”

Jack squinted at a guy in the car, trying to decide what his hands were doing. “No, she’s a puzzle piece.”

“Her actions say she’s a tourist. She went to the dam yesterday. She slept at the address you gave us last night. She’s spoken to no one who isn’t busy doing their tourism jobs. She left this morning in a cab.”

“Do you know where she went?”

“To a point. First, tell me about these children. About six years old? Boys? American speakers?”

“You’ve seen them? The boys?”

“We had our eyes on two boys, and they disappeared. We had followed a mark to his normal pickup spot, we expected a high ranking official, instead we saw two sniveling kids.”

“Do you have photos?”

“Too dark. Too dangerous.”

“Could be the kids we’ve got missing. And if they are, they aren’t high ranking officials but they could make a high ranking official jump.”

The guy nodded. “The boys came in on the Brazilian side and walked the bridge with our mark, a Hezbollah trainer. We hoped they would lead us to their camp. We know that Hezbollah has something planned. Lots of chatter – nothing concrete. When they came off the bridge there was a car waiting on the other side. They loaded up and disappeared into the traffic. It’s hard to keep track at night.”

Jack nodded. “Why are you guys in town?” Jack asked, slowing his gait before he crossed over the alley, giving himself time to assess.

“We believe they have a farmer who grows suicide bombers as his cash crop.”

Jack pulled out his phone and opened his photos. “Is this the woman you saw?”

“Affirmative. That’s her, she’s not dressed that way though. She’s dressed like a soldier – camo pants, olive t-shirt, Bates Defender zip boots. If she’s special ops, she’s doing a crap job at incognito. She couldn’t look more like a soldier if she was fast roped off a helo into the middle of the square. She’s getting attention with her get up and her red curls. Pale skin sticks out in these parts.”

Jack took that information in. He scrolled forward on his phone. “These the boys?”

This time the man took Jack’s phone in his hand. He reached up and scratched his shoulder – a signal. A man in a car got out and walked over to them. They both looked at the photos and discussed them in Hebrew. The second man lifted his chin and went back to his car.

“Right size, right age, right coloring. When did they go missing?”

“Monday morning, taken from their school around zero nine hundred eastern standard.”

“Right time frame. They came in early Tuesday morning well before dawn.”

“So they’re training for suicide runs down here. Where’s that?”

“We haven’t found their camp.”

Jack stared at him hard. The guy had information; he just wasn’t willing to share. “You’re afraid I’ll mess up your operation?”

The man stopped and held Jacks arm to keep him from moving forward. “We have a mission to accomplish and the outcome is much bigger than the lives of two children – as sad as that is to say.”

“The children’s well-being might very well have national security implications. Their grandfather is on the Senate Arms Committee and there are several votes that are coming up with which he has major political sway. It could change the whole dynamic in some of the old Eastern Bloc countries and change the temperature in the Middle East. We believe the children are being leveraged to change United States security policy.”

“News of the children’s deaths reaching the US population would take away this power.”

Jack took that information in and processed it. “We don’t know what the desired outcome is and which policy is being influenced. In fact, we don’t have any idea who took the children. According to the grandfather, they have heard nothing, and there have been no demands.”

“The Americans know that the children were kidnapped?”

“They know the children are missing. There’s a difference. We have something called an Amber Alert it went out up and down the East Coast. A school was attacked, St. Basil’s. Four adults were killed, one of the assailants committed suicide in front of an auditorium of kids. Two trucks with explosives were set to detonate on either side of the school. Their detonators failed. That information has not been released to the public.”

“The school’s attack hasn’t played on the news down here.”

“Any chance you’re missing some people from the cell you’re watching?”

“I can find out. Do the Americans believe the live-shooter at the school was staged simply to get to those two boys? It seems extreme.”

Jack’s eyes scanned the horizon as they came up near the river. “Ever hear of St. Mogila’s School during World War II?”

The man stopped walking. “That would be a very bad set of circumstances. That’s what’s being considered? Then the shooters failed to see it through properly. Certainly if that is the case, the Americans are better off if the boys are dead. The boys are better off dead, too.”

“Americans don’t think that way.”

“Israelis don’t either. But sometimes it is best to be pragmatic.”

Jack wiped his hand across his mouth and sniffed. The air smelled like hot dog crap. “Let’s take that right off the table. We don’t know if this is a chess game that’s trying to force us to move a particular piece. Sacrifice a Bishop to trap the opponents King. What if, for example, the politician recuses himself or steps down from the chairmanship? Perhaps, that’s exactly the end goal. Perhaps, they have the next in line already over the fence about something; maybe they have him reaching into their deep pockets. Since we don’t know, the best strategy at this point is to rescue the children and return them to their parents. If anything happened to the kids, we don’t know what detonator fuse was lit.”

“If the Chairman stays in place with the children absent, the reporters would explain this to the Americans. His actions would be scrutinized.”

“I think you have an old-school view of our journalists. Now, there are many who are more about entertainment than holding people’s feet to the fire. The children who are missing are not taking up any vital time on the news shows. The pundits are fighting about gun laws and second amendment rights. They want to know why the principal wasn’t armed, why the secretary couldn’t reach under her desk and pull out an AK and take down the bad guys before the school was shot up. The nuances of geopolitics is too difficult to get off in a sound bite. The media doesn’t even try.”

“Your chess analogy is sound reasoning. The terrorist groups have, by necessity, become extremely savvy strategists. And this woman, the teacher, she is trying to infiltrate the terror group who took the children? If these are the right boys, I’m surprised she made it here so quickly. I’m also surprised that she isn’t trying to blend in.”

“The woman is my fiancée,” Jack’s voice was so quiet he wasn’t sure his counterpart could hear him. “We believe she is being manipulated by the terrorists. She’s wearing the clothes that were packed in a bugout bag I gave her one year as a birthday gift. I think she grabbed it on the way out and that gear is all she has with her.”

“Digital print backpack? Solar panels?”

“Exactly.”

“Someone handed that to her just this side of the Friendship bridge.”

“When was that?” Jack’s whole body tightened down.

“10:40 hours. This morning.”

Jack’s jaw locked, thrusting his chin forward. “Do you still have eyes on her?”

“No, my friend, that we do not. She took a taxi thirty kilometers to the north, to Refugio Tatí Yupí. The taxis can only go 10 kilometers into the park, then the passenger must walk the rest of the way. We saw the taxi exit without a passenger.”

“You left someone there to watch for when she comes out? Is she there now?”

“This is personal. I understand that. I’m very sorry to tell you that we doubt very much that she will ever come out again. Walking into Refugio Tatí Yupí is like walking into quick sand.”