Insertion, page 2
There was a long hallway in the back of the club that separated the kitchen on the right from the restrooms on the left. The men’s restroom was in the back closest to the emergency exit ending the pathway down the hall. Even though the sign on the door said “alarm will sound,” the sicarios watched as they constantly saw patrons leave through the door all night. Leaving the restroom, Ben didn’t make it five feet before running into Santiago and Matias.
“Hey!” Ben said, throwing his arms into the sky like a referee signaling a touchdown. The two sicarios looked at each other and checked behind them. Sure, people were around, but nobody was paying any attention. “You guys, let me buy you a each a shot this time.”
“Sure,” Santiago said. “You said you were from Texas, right?”
“Originally, yeah, but I live in Virginia now, why?”
“I’m thinking about moving to Texas, but I can’t decide where. It’s too expensive to live out here,” Santiago said. These Americans were so gullible when they got drinks in their system.
“Oh, perfect, where are you trying to live?” Ben asked, very inquisitive now that this stranger was talking about his home state.
“Let’s take a step outside,” Santiago said, “I’m going to smoke, and we can chat while I do. It’s a little stuffy in here.”
Ben looked back in the direction of Bri and shrugged. Santiago led the way and Matias followed up behind Ben. Stepping outside, and walking just out of eyesight from the door, he lit his cigarette and spoke. It was at this moment Matias noticed they were alone in the alleyway. He reached into his blazer pocket and pulled out a syringe. He stabbed Ben in the neck and pushed the orange rod down, watching the sleep serum flow through the clear syringe. Matias caught Ben just as his knees buckled. Pablo pulled up next to them and jumped out to open the back door and help shove the body inside.
“Took you idiots long enough!” he snapped.
“Shut it, pendejo,” Santiago said, taking one long drag from his cigarette and flicking it off to the side. Doing one last look around, all three sicarios hopped into the SUV and sped off into the night.
CHAPTER 2
Jack Knowles hadn’t even finished turning onto the stone-covered sidewalk before seeing the familiar blacked-out federal SUV pull up behind him. Still walking, knowing exactly who would waste time trying to find him instead of making a simple phone call, he sighed.
“Jack, next time you decide to not brief me and go above my head to ask for authorization for a mission, I’ll have your head on a platter,” Janet Carrera said.
“Hey, we needed our first real mission and I saw an opportunity to take it. You weren’t around to ask,” Jack replied sarcastically.
“You could have called and left a message. David chewed me out for twenty minutes.”
“Sorry,” Jack said.
“You’re not sorry!” Janet snapped. “You have any idea how that made me look? Let me remind you of my job because clearly you forgot. I divvy out all of the assignments to the agents, who to kill, what information we need, and most importantly, who gets what assignments. I’ve been around the block a few times, Jack. I know what I’m doing.”
“You think being a field analyst studying terrorists for most of your career gives you permission to be the biggest and craziest on the block? You were given this job because you happened to help Max and I find Khaled Ahmadi in a warehouse three years ago. You know, I would have thought the Director of Clandestine Operations would be more cautious than trying to do a meet and greet in broad daylight,” Jack said, sipping his vanilla latte.
“What’s even more suspicious is a person talking to a blacked-out SUV following him on the sidewalk. Get in,” she said.
Jack looked to his right as a group of college schoolgirls laughed. “And here I was thinking that this little cafe was enough off the books for no one to know about it.” He opened the door and slid in. Her perfume was the first thing he could smell as the SUV pulled away from the curb. It reminded him of his late wife, and he had to admit to himself, she had good taste.
“We’re the CIA, Jack. We know where our members are at all times,” she said, raising her penciled-in eyebrows. She was very attractive at forty-two, and her clothes fit so tightly explained to anyone who spent just five seconds looking at her that she was a glutton for punishment in the gym.
“What do you want? I have a boating trip with some friends you’re delaying my departure for.”
She adjusted her posture and brushed her shoulder-length dirty-blonde hair off her face. “I didn’t know you had any friends,” she said, throwing her hands in the air in a surrender pose.
Jack took a sip from his latte as his patience was wearing thin. Struggling to hold his tongue, he said, “What do you want? It’s Friday morning.”
“Which means it’s still part of the work day, right?” she said, rolling her eyes. “Anyway, I hate to be the bearer of bad news but your fishing trip is going to have to be put on hold.” She reached inside the pocket of the seat in front of her and pulled out a manila folder.
“What’s this?” he said, setting his latte in the cup holder, picking at the tape that wrapped the top of the envelope. She quickly put a hand on top of his, stopping him abruptly.
“This just got awkward,” he said, giving her a blank stare. “I at least want to be wined and dined first.”
“This is serious,” she said, quickly removing her hand.
“Okay, well, why don’t you front-load me then?” he said, sitting up straighter in his seat now.
“I don’t have time to brief you right now because if I sit here while you open that you’ll have a million and one questions. Also, I have to be back at work to deal with the contents of that envelope,” she said. Jack took a deep breath, tucked the envelope in the small of his back, and grabbed his latte from out of the holder.
“You know—”
“Excuse me,” Interrupted Jack, opening the door and stepping outside. If Janet was a cartoon, smoke would have been billowing from her ears. “I hope you have a good weekend.” Jack just stood there with the door open, admiring the words that just left his lips. Was he out of line? Absolutely. But he had been waiting to throw her off her cloud for a long time and this was the opportunity that presented itself.
“Close my door,” she said, as he kicked it shut. “And by the way, you missed a middle button,” she replied, looking at his shirt and flipping him the bird.
He laughed but did not give her the satisfaction looking at his shirt until the SUV was out of sight. “I actually did miss a button. What a way to start the weekend.”
CHAPTER 3
Jack had everyone meet at what the team called “the Office,” which was in reality a four-thousand square foot mansion sitting in a gated community behind a golf course. When Jack was asked by his best friend, David Carter, to spearhead the new off-the-books clandestine group for the agency, he only had one request: ensure that his Bering Group did not have to go through the rigorous checkpoints of reporting to the agency every day. Through some negotiating that David was able to secure with the finance department—being the Director of the agency had its perks—Jack was given a month to find a place to lease. He only needed a week.
The estate was all well-surrounded with trees and shrubbery, and on the outskirts of it all was a luscious golf course that ranked in the top twenty on the Eastern sea border. The old, Victorian-style mansion, which happened to sit on two acres of land, was purchased in Gainesville, just thirty-eight minutes from the CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. Over the course of the next two months, which gave Jack plenty of time to recruit his members, it was transformed and renovated into a glorified safe house for the team that was hidden in plain sight. The neighborhood, Green Falls Manor, had security guards at the front gate, who were later replaced by newly recruited agency operatives from the CIA who paid the security group enough money to say “we’ll take it from here.” This made it possible to add an extra layer of security so the Bering Group always knew who was coming in and out of the complex.
“Okay,” Jack said, “sorry to spoil your weekends, but Janet wanted me to open this envelope today.” The tape ripping from the manila folder was the only sound. The six members— Kyle, Courtney, Pete, Kwame, Alex, and Nate—were all sitting in the theater room which was outfitted with soundproof walls. Jack stood in front of the computer screen and held a small white USB flash drive from the envelope. Jack flipped his wrist over, scanning his Omega Aqua Terra, which read just after ten o’clock. Part of the Omega worldtimer collection, this was by far the prettiest watch he ever owned. “So much for that fishing trip,” he mumbled to himself, trying to find the right files to pull up on the computer.
“This better be good, my boyfriend booked a couple’s massage today that I had to pass on,” Courtney said, not happy to be at work on a Friday. Pulling her ponytail from dangling behind her chair, she intertwined it within her fingers. Courtney Dixon was the shortest at five foot five, but she could handle herself just like if not better than any of the guys she worked with. Born and raised in Anchorage, Alaska along with her four brothers and one sister, she was more than comfortable being called, ‘one of the guys’. She was young and the only woman in the group, but at twenty nine years old she had more than enough credentials to roll around with the toughest men. After high school she applied for the Anchorage Police Department and after growing up in the city, and knowing the police chief personally, she was an easy pick. Not having much to do in Anchorage, she was an avid fisher, hunter, and a black belt in Brazilian Ju Jitsu.
Excelling quickly throughout the department with constant drug busts, criminal apprehensions and minor infractions, she was known as a no-nonsense kind of woman and quickly earned the respect of the men around her. She even joined the Special Weapons and Tactics team, the first female to do so in the city. Courtney was on top of the world and found her calling, or at least thought she did. After eleven years of the same dog and pony show, dealing with the same criminals and often raiding the same houses she wanted a new challenge. All of her other siblings took the opportunity to move from Alaska the first chance they had and were always trying to get her to do something more, often telling her she had a higher calling. As it turned out, eleven years was the tipping point as she looked for more careers in the government, the CIA came to mind. Not knowing anyone in that line of work she figured that would be the next best challenge. After applying and waiting several months for a response, she was selected.
“Perks of the job, Miss Courtney,” Jack said.
Kwame, the six-foot-five ex-Nigerian special forces, said, “Didn’t you say a couple days ago that you caught him talking to one of his exes on Instagram or something?”
“Yeah,” she sighed. “We talked for a while and he said he was sorry, but I still have this feeling in my gut like he’s lying or something, I don’t know.” Her deep Southern drawl only decided to leave her lips when she was annoyed or stressed, and she was both.
“Oh, fuck him,” Kyle said, smirking and looking at Pete, usually his partner in crime. But Pete was shaking his head and continued to look at his phone. Kyle Wright and Pete McKinley were always together despite the fact their personalities couldn’t be further apart. Pete was the nice one from Tampa, Florida and Kyle was the ‘hard-headed’ one from the south side of Boston, yet somehow they seemed to click. Courtney however, hated when Kyle’s Boston way of thinking got the better of him, although she never pulled her punches.
“I don’t remember anyone talking to you. Are all you North-Easterner’s idiots or is that just you?” Courtney replied, turning around to address Kyle, who was from Boston.
“Well,” Kyle said, reclining his seat, “you can’t be the love of his life if he’s off talking to other broads. Plus, it’s a day spa and I don’t know any guy who likes those.”
Her blood boiled. “Have you ever thought that maybe, just maybe, there is a reason why you’re single?”
“You two are like children,” Kwame said. “If she loves someone then let her love. You Americans are so different than us,” he said, laughing to himself as he too reclined his seat.
“Oh really, and how would you handle this situation?” Kyle asked, teasing him.
Kwame leaned over into Kyle’s ear and said with a feint whisper, “Listen here, you wouldn’t last a day with African women. They would chew you up and spit you back out.” Kyle flipped him the bird as Pete let out a laugh.
“Now, that was funny!” he said, sliding his phone in his pocket.
Jack stood back from the computer and raised his hand as everyone quieted down to give him undivided attention.
“Okay, let’s get this over with,” Jack said, signaling to Kwame to get the lights in the back of the room.
The recliner moaned in agony as Kwame’s powerlifter frame build stood up to walk over to shut the lights off. The only glow in the room now was the light emulating from the screen.
On the projection screen was a thirty-second video clip of what appeared to be some alleyway behind what they could only guess was a nightclub. The footage wasn’t very clear but they could see three men walking outside. A couple of seconds passed as one of the men pulled out a cigarette and lit it as the third man in the back pulled something out of his pocket and stuck the man in the middle in the neck. As the man fell, an SUV pulled up and a fourth person hopped out to help load the body into the back. Within a matter of seconds all individuals were inside the SUV as it sped away.
The video stopped and froze at the empty alleyway for five more seconds before it went dark. Pete was first to speak up, “Rewind the footage if you don’t mind.”
“Not at all.”
The screen turned back on as all the events played backward in a slow succession. “Stop!” Pete yelled.
The image now frozen were three individuals right before the middle man was stabbed in the neck.
“Who are we looking at?” Courtney asked, who was now squinting at the man getting stabbed in the neck.
“I guess that’s the million-dollar question,” Jack replied, walking up to the screen.
“Can you zoom in at all?” Alex asked. He was the only Hispanic speaker on the team and being raised in Dallas, Texas his southern drawl in conjunction with a light Puerto Rican accent came out when he got excited. Although he was not as big as Kwame, he was next in line for most muscular member of the group. Standing at five foot eleven with brown eyes and dark brown hair, he resembled a model one would see on the cover of any fitness magazine.
“Yeah, standby,” Jack said, walking back over to the keyboard.
“The timestamp on the bottom right corner says Wednesday morning,” Nate said, who was just as confused as everyone else in the room. “So, at 12:06 on Wednesday, three people were standing outside this…what I guess is a club…and one person was kidnapped?”
Jack leaned into the computer screen instead of the projector. “The video is too fuzzy to make out anything,” he said.
“Hey Jack, didn’t you say Janet wanted you to call her after we watched all this?” Alex asked, who was now standing right next to the edge of the screen trying to look as closely as possible to make out any details in the picture.
“Ah shit, that’s right,” Jack exclaimed, reaching into his pocket to pull out his phone. The room fell silent as a couple more people stood up and walked over to the massive screen to try and make out any other details. Not thirty seconds went by before Jack was already screaming at Janet through the phone.
“You’re serious, and you’re just now telling me this?” After Jack stepped out of the room to finish his conversation in private, everyone went back to trying to decipher the video. Five minutes went by before Jack stepped back into the room, shutting the door behind him.
“What’s up? What did she say?” Pete said, once again breaking the silence.
Shaking his head in confusion, Jack said, “Apparently, the tech division ran the facial recognition data through the software and those are Alejandro Alvarez’s sicarios and Ben.”
The room went silent and nobody said a word for a good minute. Reality was sinking in fast.
“Why are we just now seeing this? The time stamp said Wednesday morning, it’s Friday almost noon,” Kwame said, his massive forearms crossed.
“That’s a good question.”
CHAPTER 4
“Janet, why am I just hearing about this two days later?” Jack had left the mansion like a bat out of hell, drove to the agency and stormed into David’s office to see Janet sitting in it already. David was sitting behind his gigantic mahogany desk on the infamous seventh floor, which was reserved for the director of the agency and everyone who worked directly for him.
“You weren’t around, and the analysts had to be sure it was Ben kidnapped in the video,” Janet said with a smug expression. “Janet,” he began, but stopped when he heard the door opening up as David’s secretary peered inside, “Is everything alright?”
“It’s fine, thanks,” David responded, waving his hand up, instructing her to close the door. Closing his eyes, he removed his glasses sliding down his clean-shaven face and massaged the sides of his temples. David said, “You two are going to cause me to have a heart attack.”
“You both know there’s a pecking order here, and keeping me out of the loop doesn’t cut it. I have nothing but the best interest in your team, Jack,” she stated, crossing her legs.
“And that’s your justification for keeping us in the dark for a couple of days? How does that fit into all of this?” Jack responded, one more comment away from telling Janet to screw off.
“You act like it was a week! I mean, come on, the footage showed he was kidnapped early Wednesday morning and I met you literally less than forty-eight hours later. Cut me some slack,” she said.
