The Fusion Cage

XXVI

Doug Jarvis drove back into the parking lot at the DIAC just over an hour after he’d left the Pentagon, his mind still buzzing with paranoia and fear over what had transpired since he had left the center of the United States military command structure.

A source in Dubai had informed him that at dawn, local time, a small unit of unidentified agents had stormed the maritime vessel Huron at its dock in Abu Dhabi. In the wake of their presence, the ship’s captain had become the victim of a tragic accident, crushed beyond recognition beneath a seventeen ton shipping container. The local DIA agent, a man named Willis with whom Jarvis had spoken only the previous day, had been relieved of his post after suffering what was believed to be a nervous breakdown and was already being repatriated to the US for debrief and counselling. All that Jarvis had been able to glean was that whatever had happened, Willis had witnessed it first — hand and wasn’t talking to anybody about it.

Jarvis parked his car and hurried into the building, then took an elevator up to the fourth floor, hoping against hope that his team had managed to provide Ethan and Nicola with an exit out of Abu Dhabi. He walked into his office and was met with a toothy grin.

‘We did it,’ Hellerman said.

Hellerman was a short, slightly built man with a thick beard and a youthful expression. Barely out of his teens, he had served the DIA for six years and been on Jarvis’s team under General Mitchell before transferring to the DIAC.

Jarvis felt a wave of relief flush through his body. ‘Tell me, everything.’

‘Your guy Warner knows how to smell a rat, just like you,’ Hellerman said with what sounded almost like a fatherly pride. ‘He must have booked a commercial flight out of Abu Dhabi before leaving Damman. They were airborne even before the raid on Huron.’

‘Where did they go?’ Jarvis asked.

‘Charles De Gaulle airport in Paris, France,’ Hellerman replied. ‘I managed to track their fake documents but the trail goes cold there. My only guess as to why they’re in France is to do with Stanley Meyer. France is home to ITER, a nuclear fusion project — he may have allies there.’

‘Makes sense,’ Jarvis agreed. ‘There’s no other reason to go there unless Ethan wanted to be off that plane in case MJ–12 tracked him just like you have.’

‘It’s only a matter of time,’ Hellerman pointed out. ‘There are only so many flights out of Abu Dhabi each day, and those documents they were supplied with will only hold up so long. Once they’re identified as having travelled to Paris, MJ–12 will be able to pick up the trail right there and then, and they’ll likely be able to draw in assets on the ground that we cannot.’ ‘Can we get anybody to them from here?’ Jarvis asked.

‘You mean like friends of mine who live in Lyon?’ Hellerman replied with a grin. ‘Who I called, and who might have been able to find them and pass word from us?’

Jarvis’s jaw dropped open. ‘You’ve found them?’

‘They’re on a private jet out of Lyon — Saint — Exupery airport,’ Hellerman chortled in delight. ‘The flight plan’s filed and they’ll land in Virginia about three o’clock local time.’

‘Was the flight chartered?’

‘Private,’ Hellerman reported proudly, ‘using a payment chain that will take the feds days to follow up. If they’re looking for a digital trail, they won’t find it. All they can do is figure that Ethan and his companions will arrive in the USA on a flight from somewhere in France, and that’s a lot of flights to check through.’

‘Don’t think that they won’t do it,’ Jarvis cautioned. ‘They’ll put agents at all civilian fields on the east coast within range of that aircraft. We need to be there to spirit them away from any FBI intercept. What about Huck Seavers?’

‘Heading back from Saudi Arabia,’ Hellerman replied. ‘His crew filed a flight plan direct to Cincinnati. They’ll land somewhere behind our privately hired jet.’

‘What about the Saudis?’

The technician’s jubilant expression faltered slightly.

‘We’ve been monitoring the channels and it’s not looking good. The story of a militant attack on Saudi helicopters appears to have been accepted at face value by the media, but behind the scenes the Saudis are screaming for blood. All they care about is that their Apache was downed by a couple of American fugitives and they’re piling pressure on the administration to hand over those responsible.’

Jarvis winced. The events in the Kingdom had played directly into the Bureau’s hands, giving them every reason they needed to hunt Ethan down.

‘We need to figure out a way for them to disappear once they land in Virginia,’ Jarvis said.

‘Not much we can do for them,’ Hellerman said. ‘The jet’s flight plan is for Charlottesville. I guess we could change it at the last minute, but that might in itself raise a flag if the feds are watching incoming air traffic from Europe.’

Jarvis’s mind began racing. ‘Where’s the nearest air — intercept unit based?’

‘Langley Field,’ Hellerman replied. ‘F22 Raptors.’

Jarvis thought long and hard. ‘They won’t shoot them down if they identify the jet, but they might be able to escort it forcefully to Langley Field and search the plane. Charlottesville is a customs airport — as soon as they land they’ll be picked up.’

Hellerman said nothing as Jarvis thought long and hard about what he knew. His reveal to the Joint Chiefs of Staff of Ethan’s plans to escape Saudi Arabia had resulted in a storming of that very same vessel within a few hours. That the leak could only have come from the JCOS meeting was obvious, and that it resulted in the raid by unknown agents suggested assets of MJ–12. Jarvis could only assume that FBI Director LeMay was behind the leak, but he could be wrong.

Intelligence was a game of chance, and only those willing to bet the farm made big gains. He knew that he would be for the chop as soon as LeMay figured out what Jarvis had in mind, but Jarvis reminded himself that he wasn’t the one leaking intelligence to private organisations presumably in return for professional or financial favours.

‘I’ve got an idea,’ Jarvis said finally and pulled out his cell phone. ‘I need you to remain here and if Ethan calls, you give him whatever support he needs, okay?’

‘Where are you going?’ Hellerman asked.

Jarvis did not answer as he left the office.

‘Our target is a Caucasian male, late thirties, six feet tall and in the company of a Latino woman, another Caucasian male and a teenage girl. The target is considered dangerous and should not be approached without the presence of back — up.’

Special Agent in Charge Valery Jenkins was a formidable woman, almost six feet tall and with dark hair tied in a severe bun behind her head, streaked with fine lines of silver that only seemed to make her look more stern. Special Agent Hannah Ford watched as Jenkins gave her brief in an abandoned lot to the south of the airport, the entire operation one of the swiftest Hannah had ever witnessed.

Photographs of the fugitives were handed out to each of the twelve agents present, all of them wearing their distinctive FBI jackets and bullet — proof vests. Hannah looked down at the image of Ethan Warner and his accomplices and briefly scanned the biographies attached to them.

‘Who’s the kid?’ somebody asked.

‘Amber Ryan, seventeen,’ Jenkins replied. ‘According to reports, she has been abducted by Warner and Lopez.’

Hannah frowned. The brief said that Ryan had vanished from somewhere in Missouri but now the fugitives, having fled to the Middle East, were apparently on their way back to the USA.

‘What’s the evidence that this is an abduction case?’ she asked.

Jenkins directed a cold glare in her direction.

‘What, you mean apart from two adults scurrying around the world with a missing teenager?’

A ripple of chuckles floated across the gathered agents and Hannah felt color rising in her cheeks. She swallowed her embarrassment down, hoping that her voice wasn’t trembling. ‘They abduct her, flee to Saudi Arabia, then they come back again? Doesn’t make sense if they want to remain undetected — they were already clear and away. And how did we catch this case when nobody has reported the girl missing?’

Jenkins smiled without warmth.

‘If you pay attention to catching them instead of asking questions that nobody can answer yet, then I’ll guess we’ll find out.’ Jenkins looked at the rest of the team. ‘We don’t know what these folks are up to, but orders are they’re fugitives from the law and it’s our task to apprehend them and bring them to justice. We have agents at fifteen civilian fields on the east coast, that’s how important this case is, and Charlottesville is considered their most likely point of entry. Focus on finding them, understood?’

A chorus of yes ma’am followed and then the FBI team split into groups and headed for their vehicles.

‘Good call.’

The voice of Hannah’s partner, Mickey Vaughn, served to calm Hannah’s beating heart as they climbed into the pool car they’d been assigned. Mickey was a stocky, blond junior agent not long out of Quantico and assigned to Hannah. Hannah was a ten year veteran of the bureau and had already been disciplined twice for aggression in the field and an unlawful discharge of her weapon that had brought some disrepute to her field office and the wrath of Valery Jenkins.

‘The White Witch didn’t seem to think so.’

Vaughn’s eyes widened. ‘Your mic’s on!’

Hannah panicked and looked down, then slapped Mickey across the shoulder as she saw him chuckling to himself.

‘She’s been gunning for me ever since we iced Sylvester Ruslo down in Auburn Hills.’

‘He was a damned child molester, he got what he deserved,’ Mickey said as they drove out of the lot, following the rest of the team.

‘Civil rights didn’t agree,’ Hannah uttered in disgust. ‘Jenkins has had it in for me ever since.’

‘Jenkins is an asshole,’ Mickey pointed out. ‘She missed out on Langley because of her divorce and now she sees herself being stuck down here as some kind of punishment. She’s venting on you — don’t give her the satisfaction.’

Hannah sighed and saw her reflection in the mirror, auburn hair flowing in the wind from the open window, pale skin across a slightly too — wide jaw and freckles populating her cheeks. Vivid blue eyes stared back at her, angry and afraid all at once.

‘When’s the jet due to land?’

Hannah looked at her notes. ‘Fifteen minutes. You read this guy’s rap sheet?’

‘A few arrests from years back, former Marine Corps right?’

‘Iraq and Afghanistan,’ Hannah confirmed. ‘Supposedly has done some work for the government recently, runs a bail bondsmen business out of River Forest, Chicago with this Lopez woman. She’s an ex — DC cop. Nothing fits an abduction case.’

‘Sometimes even the good guys go bad,’ Mickey pointed out. ‘Don’t start personalizing them. Jenkins was right, we need to get them into custody and then we can figure this all out.’

The cars swept into Charlottesville — Albermarle airport as Jenkin’s voice warbled over the intercom.

‘I want agents in the terminal and at all airport exits. Be ready to apprehend the suspects at all costs. As soon as the aircraft comes to a rest at the terminal, we move in.’

Hannah did not respond to the call as she surveyed the airport. A large terminal faced out onto a long runway orientated 03–21, with aircraft landing on the 21 runway according to the orange windsock she could see gusting in the light breeze far out across the field.

‘Take us to the southern — most point you can find,’ she instructed Mickey. ‘I want to keep an eye on that plane from the moment it touches down.’

‘Roger that,’ Mickey replied as he turned into an airport parking lot.

Hannah reached down and checked her service firearm one more time before they deployed from the vehicle.

Ethan looked out of the jet’s windows as it turned onto final approach to land, the aircraft wallowing and rocking on the wind currents as it extended undercarriage and flaps.

‘You think there’s anybody waiting for us?’ Lopez asked.

Ethan nodded slowly, trying to get a better view ahead as he pressed his face to the window.

‘It’s what I’d do,’ he replied. ‘There can’t be many trans — Atlantic flights coming into this field from France. We can’t just walk off the jet and through the terminal or customs will spot us — we’ll have to figure something out.’

The rolling hills below basked in the sunshine as the jet flew gracefully over fields and forests and then Ethan spotted the airfield perimeter and the parking lots filled with assorted vehicles flashing as their windows caught the sunlight.

‘What’s the plan then?’ Stanley asked. ‘We can’t just jump out.’

Ethan thought for a moment, and then pushed away from the window as he finished surveying the rest of the airport. He looked at the jet’s interior, the exit hatches and the general shape of the aircraft, and he sighed and shrugged.

‘We can’t do anything,’ he said finally. ‘We’d better get ready.’

Hannah Ford watched as the impressive, sleek white jet landed on the runway and rocketed past them. She heard the engines whine into reverse thrust and the aircraft braked as it rolled toward the end of the runway, almost a mile away. Hannah shielded her eyes against the bright sunlight and squinted as the aircraft slowed to a stop at the end of the runway, heat haze rippling and obscuring the jet as it turned slowly and began taxiing toward the parking area in front of the main terminal.

‘That’s them,’ Mickey confirmed. ‘The tail code matches the FBI alert notice.’

Valery Jenkin’s voice blared over the radio. ‘All units, go now!’

Mickey accelerated their car and Hannah watched as half a dozen vehicles all emerged from within parking lots or from behind hangars and converged on the jet as it reached the main terminal and rolled to a halt. The engines were still whining as Hannah jumped out of her vehicle and ran toward the aircraft, the engines mercifully shutting down as she reached the entrance hatch just as a female attendant lowered it and then stared at Hannah in shock.

‘Freeze, FBI!’

The attendant threw her hands in the air in surprise and backed up into the aircraft as Hannah advanced up the steps and inside. Mickey followed her, and together they turned and looked down the jet’s plush interior.

Two men, one woman and one young girl stared back at them in horror.

Hannah lowered her pistol as she looked at their faces and in an instant she knew.

‘It’s not them,’ Mickey said.

Ten more agents piled into the aircraft, followed by Valery Jenkins, who stared at the unfamiliar faces sitting in the aircraft’s leather seats.

‘What the hell is going on here?!’ asked the older of the two men as he got out of his seat. ‘This is a private aircraft!’

Hannah pushed past Mickey and the other agents and approached the cockpit. There, two pilots, one male and one female, stared in surprise at her.

‘Is there a problem?’ the captain asked in amazement.

Hannah slid her pistol into its holster. ‘Yeah, there’s a problem.’

‘It’s not going to take them long to figure out what happened to us.’

Ethan sat in an SUV, a fresh cell phone in his hand as Lopez drove.

‘It’s enough of a diversion to give you time to get out of sight,’ Jarvis replied. ‘I dropped the leak to the FBI but it won’t take long for LeMay to figure that out. Once they solve what happened to you, I won’t be unable to offer any further assistance. One DIA leak could be ignored, but not two.’

‘I know.’

The SUV pulled out of Yeager International Airport in West Virginia as Lopez aimed south, Stanley Meyer and Amber Ryan in the rear seats behind them. The airport was shared with the Charleston Air National Guard’s 130th Airlift Wing, a connection that had enabled Jarvis to arrange the false lead and then divert their aircraft to West Virginia.

‘The feds are all over this,’ Jarvis informed him. ‘MJ–12 have players within the bureau, so they’ll know by now they’ve been duped. Whatever you’re thinking of doing next, do it fast. They know you’re on US soil and they’ll be using every resource at their disposal to track you down. I have a reliable contact here at the DIAC named Hellerman. You can call this number if you need to move long distance, but that’s it for me. Go dark as of now, and good luck.’

‘Understood.’

The line went silent and Ethan switched the cell off, ensuring that it could not be tracked until he next was forced to use it. Now, they were all in Stanley’s hands as he searched for his mysterious contact in Virginia.