Tom Clancy Support and Defend

35

Dominic made it back to his primary hide site just before midnight. He planned on calling David to let him know that he had positively identified Ross, but the rain clouds had completely obscured the moon and taken every bit of the natural light Ethan planned on using to traverse the jungle. Instead, he found that the only way he could move was by keeping dangerously close to the lawn of the safe house. Even though the main house’s lights didn’t reach all the way to the rainforest on the edge, some ambient light made it this far, so Dom used the faint glow to find his way back toward the water and his hide.

Now back in place and secure, he pulled out his sat phone, ready to call in Israeli special forces. But before he could make the call, the phone vibrated in his hand and the low-light screen came alive with one word: ALBRIGHT.

This was interesting. Albright calling him? Dom answered in a voice just above a whisper. “Actually, Darren, this is kind of a bad time.”

The line hissed and crackled. Dom assumed the rain clouds were interfering with his signal. Albright’s tone was sharp despite the distortion. “That is interesting. A couple of days ago you were bugging the shit out of me, and now you’ve suddenly found something better to do. Well, I won’t keep you, I just thought I would let you know before you see it on the news.”

“Let me know what?”

“Ethan Ross has stolen something in the neighborhood of six hundred eighty thousand files out of Intelink-TS. Sensitive compartmented intelligence documents relating to CIA assets all over the world.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“He perpetrated a one-hundred-twenty-gig intel scrape the day before yesterday. He used Eve Pang’s credentials and logged on to a virtual private network, used some sort of a crawler that knew just where to go and what to look for. Forensics is still trying to reconstruct the breach so we can figure out exactly what he has, but it has been characterized to me as, and I’m quoting the techs here, ‘pretty much everything.’”

“Oh, God.”

“The two missing SSG guys turned up floating in the Potomac riddled with bullet holes. And a body that was shot up and torched in a Richmond hotel room the other day has been ID’d as another government IT guy. An ex — NSA employee named Phillip McKell. This murder looks like it is somehow related.”

Dom just laid his head on the wet ground. “This keeps getting bigger, doesn’t it?”

“You’re damn right it does. And that’s not the worst of it,” Albright continued. “Now it looks like Ross has run off to Venezuela.”

Dom lifted his head and cleared his throat softly. “Why do you say that?”

“Our CIA liaison has come to us at FBI to let us know that Agency proxy assets in Caracas are getting snatched off the street. We’re talking about somewhere around two dozen, just in the past forty-eight hours.”

That’s it, Dom thought to himself. Payback to the Venezuelans to get him out of the country. Before he could say anything, Albright continued.

“We checked some static cams we have set up to monitor the Venezuelan embassy on Thomas Jefferson here in D.C., and we see Ross walking into the front door the day before yesterday, right about the time the surveillance officers went missing. We figure he gave Venezuela intel from the scrape so they would help get him out of town. In the process, either Ross or the Venezuelans killed Phillip McKell, Eve Pang, and two FBI surveillance officers. We’ve got to assume he’s down in Caracas right now.”

Dominic’s brain executed a multitude of calculations in the next few seconds. He tabulated all the pros and cons, and decided to tell Albright almost everything he knew. “I’ve got some intel you can use.”

“I kinda hoped you might.”

Dom said, “Ross is in Panama. Bocas del Toro Province. An island called Bastimentos.”

If Albright expected that Caruso might have something for him, he certainly didn’t expect this. “I beg your pardon?”

“He is under the protection of Venezuelan intelligence officers. He’s being held at a safe house about a half-hour boat ride from the airport.”

After several seconds with nothing but the pops and cracks of the sat-phone connection, Albright replied, “If you don’t tell me how you know this, I am going to make the very small and very reasonable leap that you are, in fact, working with Ethan Ross.”

“You know that is asinine.”

“Probably so. But I’m going to fuck with you anyhow. You are impeding my investigation.”

“You have been holding on to information about my suspect. You are impeding my investigation.”

“Damn it, Albright, I just told you where your suspect is hiding. That is exactly the opposite of impeding your investigation.” Dom took a calming breath. Did his best to look at it through Albright’s eyes. “I know because the Israelis told me.”

“What Israelis?”

“The guys who want Ross for his role in Arik Yacoby’s death.”

“Any chance I could sit down with these Israelis and have a little friendly chat?”

“I doubt it. Anyway, they have me at the tip of the spear right now. I know more than they do.”

“How is that?”

“I’ve got eyes on the safe house as we speak.”

Albright’s tone turned even darker and more accusatory. “You are in Panama?”

“Yep.”

“You are in pretty fucking deep, aren’t you, Caruso?”

“Hey, man, no law against a private citizen taking a trip down to sunny Central America.” As he said it, the rain began to fall again.

“Don’t bullshit me. You’re down there with your spook friends with a plan to kill Ross.”

“I keep telling you. No spook friends. I am down here with a hot blonde who could kick both our asses, but she’s no spook.” Dom cracked a half-smile, wiping water from his eyes as he did so. “She’s just a stewardess.”

Albright obviously didn’t know what to make of this comment, but he did not, for a moment, think it was true. He was fixated on the fact Caruso might be on a kill mission. “Listen to me very, very carefully. Whatever you and your friends have planned for Ross… this is a game changer.

“Ethan Ross very likely has the scrape with him right this minute. You kill him, and we might lose access to it. It’s out there in the wind somewhere, and we have to get it back.”

Dom said, “He’s got a laptop with him. I saw it.”

“That might be it, then. If not that, it could be put on a portable hard drive.”

“How do you know he hasn’t already handed it off to someone?”

“We don’t know. But this last-minute scrape wasn’t designed to go unnoticed. It has all the markings of someone trying to give himself a bargaining position. To steal data because he knew we were onto him so he’d have something to barter with. We think he’ll keep it with him at all times. He knows computers and has the expertise to encrypt the files to where they are worthless to anyone else without his password.”

Dom wanted to kill the son of a bitch in that house lit up across the dark lawn, or at least help the Israelis do it, but he knew now that killing Ross without getting the scrape back would endanger the lives of American assets all over the world.

Fuck. Things just got complicated.

He understood the ramifications of that type of intelligence product loose in the wind. He’d play by Albright’s rules.

“Okay. I’ll hang tight where I am and help you guys get it back. I’ll text you the coordinates as soon as we’re off the phone. How long till you are down here?”

“I’ll get a fly team from HRT together and get the paperwork in motion. It’s four-plus hours in the air direct with fixedwing to Panama City. We’ll need to meet up with helos that can take us to his actual location. It might be after dawn before we get there.”

“I’ll keep an eye out till then,” Dom said.

“Not alone you won’t. We’ll get you some support. We’re friendly with the Panamanian Public Forces, I can make a call and—”

“Look, it’s your show, but I wouldn’t do that.”

“And why not?”

“I’ve seen Panamanian police patrol boats cruising up and down the waterway by this safe house all day long. I think it’s possible the local cops are getting paid by Venezuelans to keep an eye out.”

Albright understood the quandary. “Shit. And even if we talk to the federal cops, there’s no way to be sure they won’t let the wrong thing slip to the local cops, and Ross might well disappear again.”

“Bingo,” said Dom. “Maybe you guys should just haul ass down here and raid this place. I haven’t seen more than a halfdozen guards outside. I assume there are at least that number inside, but if you come in with enough shock and awe first thing tomorrow when everyone is tired you can wrap up Ethan Ross and his scrape.”

Albright said, “It would make me feel better if you went ahead and admitted you did have some other spook friends with you.”

“There are no other guys, Albright.”

The FBI man sighed. “I’ll send special agents from the FBI office in Panama City your way. It’s just a couple of guys who investigate bank fraud, but I want Bureau control of your operation.”

Dom said, “I have no idea what kind of time we have. The Venezuelans might move him at any time.”

“It’s important that you and your guys keep eyes on him and do not try to take him yourselves.”

Dom sighed. He was tired of repeating himself that he wasn’t down here with the CIA. He said, “Okay, I’ll pass the word down to the rest of my brigade to stand fast.”

“Smart ass,” Albright mumbled before hanging up.

Dom’s phone rang moments later, he looked down and recognized David’s number. The D.C.-based Mossad officer would be calling for an update, hoping his American confederate had made a positive ID of the target so he could send down a team of shooters on a vengeance mission. The Mossad’s interests were clear and unchanged, they wanted Ethan Ross’s head on a pike, but Dominic’s mission had changed with the call from Albright. He didn’t even see how he could tell David, an agent of a foreign nation, about the intelligence scrape. Israel was an ally of the United States, maybe the CIA would notify them at some point, but Caruso knew it sure as hell wasn’t his call to make.

He did not answer his phone. David would be pissed, but right now there was nothing Dom could do about that.

He shifted positions in his hide and moved the fern a little in the process. He reached up to stop the stems and leaves from moving, and as he did heard a noise nearby.

Dom froze, but after twenty seconds of holding his breath he saw the source of the noise in the dark. A pair of howler monkeys moved along the lawn in front of him, not forty feet away. Either they didn’t see him or they didn’t care that a human being was lying in the brush at the edge of the trees.

Once he relaxed his nerves with a few sips of water from his canteen, he realized it was time to check in with Sherman. Even though it was midnight, she answered on the first ring; Dom was continually impressed with her abilities as a supporting agent.

He told her about seeing Ross and about getting the call from Albright that meant this tropical island would soon be running with hyped-up and pissed-off American federal law enforcement officers.

Adara said, “You want me to start heading that way?”

“No. I’m going to keep eyes on the compound all night.”

“It’s midnight now. There are still a few boats moving between the islands. If I don’t get you now, you run the risk of getting stuck there. If you call me for an extraction at three a.m. or some other time in the middle of the night, I’ll be on the only boat on the water. The Venezuelans will hear me coming for miles, or the Panamanian police will stop me. A blond tourist cruising alone in the middle of the night is going to draw some attention that neither of us wants.”

“I understand. HRT will be here in the morning, and I need to give them real-time intelligence on the area. I’m on my own till the Feds get here. Then I’ll have you come and pick me up.”

“Roger that,” said Adara, and Dom hung up. He lay there surrounded by the flora and fauna of Central America, hoping like hell nothing larger than a mosquito would dine on him this evening while he kept tabs on the American traitor tucked in and comfortable in the big house across the lawn.