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  “This was all part of the plan? We’re going to a safe place.” The air rushed from her lungs. What a relief. She was sure they were headed for another hair-raising experience.

  “When we left the hotel this morning, all our gear was removed by the Company and will catch up with us in Rome. Now that Granger's out of harm's way, you and I have to gather INTEL for our meeting in Rome when we return from Socotra. I expect Granger and MJ to join us there as soon as he’s cleared for travel."

  “He’ll be okay?”

  "Oh sure. Granger's tough."

  “That’s what MJ said.”

  "The agent who's with him attended enough medical school to know he received minimal permanent damage. While he was under their control for close to a month, and our guy's primary concern centers on what drugs they used and for how long. That places his long-term memory and general brain health in question. He was not tortured."

  "He looked pretty bad." It was hard to take all the information in, and she switched topics in hopes of some balance. "Any feedback about Dr. Piero della Francesca?"

  He paused. “A good question. He’s coming across as two people. The young, good-looking well-educated, smart, biological researcher, on one hand, and a shady guy linked to Israeli INTELligence, on the other. The second part of that is tough to ignore.” When she didn’t reply, he added, “I like him.”

  Meret winced more than she meant to. “Aren’t you concerned he could be a security risk?”

  "Good question, but no. The INTELligence community has long been based on a cross-fertilization of information. A good agent knows where the line is and does not cross it. What we keep close to our chest is our analysis of that information, and that's a big difference."

  “I don’t suppose you’d like to elaborate.”

  He made a micro shrug and said, “We share the knowledge such as the Who, What, Where and When of something, but not the Why or the possible implications we generated doing our analysis.”

  She thought for a moment, dropped her shoes on the floor of the car, drew her legs up under, and nestled in the corner of the seat. “So the first part of your collective response is investigatory, that is, you do pure research.”

  He nodded and emptied his small bottle of Scotch. “Suppose so.”

  She tapped her knuckles together. “The actual response doesn’t begin until you work through your analysis of the collected data.”

  He nodded.

  “The analysis isn’t shared?”

  "Not so much. Usually, the lead analysts get together, and the head of that group presents the Director with options."

  “Ah.”

  “I’m glad we’re going to Socotra,” she said. I’ve had Poppy keeping a file on what they different teams on the ground are reporting. We’re learning about the attack. Who’s running the CIA’s show down there?”

  “Medical or political?”

  “Let’s begin with the medical. Got another small bottle in there?”

  Steve’s phone interrupted their conversation with a call from the team working the satellite’s view of the highway. In a tense voice, Steve said, “What do you have?” Concern flashed on his face.

  Meret glanced out of the left window, and she saw the SUV, which carried MJ and Granger, speed past them and then headed off the highway in a northerly direction across the desert. "What are—?

  "New plan," Steve said. Their vehicle pulled to an abrupt stop, and their driver dashed to the back to the opened trunk. "Hurry." Steve slid out hid door and Meret did the same, assuming that was what he meant.

  “What’s happening?”

  The driver answered. "Or satellite guys say there's a security checkpoint about fifty miles ahead, so the van's going cross-country in hopes of missing it. By now, Hawking’s name is probably all over the airwaves. We stick to the road.”

  “What are we, the experimental group?”

  “You mean like guinea pigs? Hopefully not, but obviously, we can't return to Aden, that would add several hours of driving Across the desert. We are going to plan B." He gestured toward the driver. "Meet your new father, and I'm his bodyguard. You put on this dutiful Arab’s daughter costume. He handed her a bundle dark material that seemed copious enough for several dresses and Meret shook it out trying to make sense of it.

  “Our cover is your father is teaching you to drive at high speed. Our driver speaks fluent Arabic and will do the talking. I know some Arabic, but you the dutiful daughter are not permitted to speak. Understand?"

  “Mute and mindful. You do realize that although women are allowed to drive in Yemen, not so many do it. Why am I leaning to drive fast?”

  “Because, ah, the times require it," Steve said.

  Their driver, as the father, dressed in a formal white robe. The blue cord about his hood tagged him as a member of a wealthy, trusted family of high rank. Fortunately, locals believed that Steve as an Arab bodyguard should look exactly like Steve, a CIA agent, only with more costly sunglasses.

  Father slid on some faux super bowl rings and spoke to his bodyguard in English, but with a thick Arab accent. "Does she know how to drive?"

  “Not too well, I hope.” Steve picked a small stack of papers from the trunk that fit the threesome in looks and legality.

  Father arranged and pasted his beard and mustache.

  Steve said, “Check the ID for anything that would give you away.” He spoke to Meret. “What did you do with Junior? If you still have him, toss him away from the car in the sand.”

  She handed Junior’s remains to Steve. “I can’t get my shoes dirty.”

  He examined the shattered insect. "Good point," and walked a few feet away to cover the bot's remains with sand. "Sorry, Meret. Okay. Everyone, back in the car.”

  An hour later they arrived at the dreaded the checkpoint that consisted of two desert-tan pickup trucks parked across on the going and coming lane of the highway. Each had a manned machine gun mounted on the roof. A small yellow car with white doors and a white top parked to the side of the road in the slight shade of an abandoned sheet metal store that was Yemen’s version of a dinner-gas station. Other than the small a shack of a building, that was it.

  In the glaring sun, three men were visibly engaged in spirited discussion around the each pickup’s tailgate. Two other men in desert camo pointed guns at Meret’s car. It was hers because she was driving. As planned, she jerked to an inept stop much too close to the trucks. Meret wore a hijab wrapped around her head, and because she lacked expertise, the cloth kept obscuring her vision, so the hard over-steer and bad braking were not the results of an inexperienced driver. She couldn’t see where she was doing.

  A third man, with shemaghs wrapped around his head, and wearing a bulletproof vest, approached the driver from the shack.

  “Could be more inside. The driver warned. I don’t think at this level, they’d have heard of Hawking’s rescue, but we can’t be sure.”

  Meret’s ear crackled. The ear bud. She’d forgot to remove the damn thing.

  Steve's tapped her arm. "You still have that thing on, good. We're being monitored. Don't deviate from the script. Minimize your movements. So you will know what’s happening, you will hear a full real-time translation from one of our agents back at the base. What you will hear is intended for me so no matter what you hear, don't react to anything but my voice. Understand?"

  “Yes.”

  “Wrong. Don’t speak. Nod slowly.”

  She nodded, barely moving her chin.

  The driver had been appointed lead of this phase of the mission. She watched him speak in the rear view mirror in a flat voice that didn’t move his beard. When the third soldier approached him, he mumbled directions to Meret. “We’re close enough for some nervous, yet restrained bad driving.”

  She took her foot off the brake, and the car slowly drifted off the road. All too slowly, she over corrected and jerked the limo to a premature stop. The security guy she'd almost hit scooted backward as fast as possible whil
e her father and bodyguard launched into a heated argument.

  The man who had narrowly missed being run over circled the car cursing. While the window-tinting could have hidden them completely, Steve lowered his window and presented papers.

  Meret couldn’t breathe. They were going to be shot, she was certain. The man took forever reading the damn ID when Meret would have bet money he couldn’t read a freaking word. She could tell the driver was telling a joke and the man finally smiled before asking in Arabic if they were Canadian.

  Without the ear buds, she’d have had no idea what was going on. Steve answered in Arabic. “I am.”

  “What is your business here today?”

  "I am one of the family's bodyguards."

  When the guard re-circled the car, he stopped at Meret’s window and stared rudely at her. Ridiculous as it was, she honestly thought she might really die on the spot. A silly notion, maybe, but it felt as real as the heat that threatened to scorch their very souls. When breathing is impossible, death is hardly a fancy.

  A string of angry words filled the air from her father, and the man stepped back.

  Meret didn’t move. Although that had been her instructions, she couldn’t have if she wanted to.

  “You have her papers. You may address your questions to me,” Father, said, getting out of the car.

  “Why is this woman driving?” The guard demanded.

  “These modern women.” Father waved a frustrated hand in the air. “She wants to learn to drive. What better place than out here where she cannot kill anyone?” he leered, “as you can see from your close call.”

  The guard handed him the papers and stepped back, waving them through.

  As they pulled away, Steve said, “Take the next north-bound hard paved road, drive five miles and stop the car. That where we’ll change back to our clothes.”

  Meret pulled the back of his seat to get closer. “What do you hear from MJ and Granger?”

  “They’ve gone dark.”

  37

  MJ and Granger

  Early May, Yemen’s desert - the race to safety and history

  MJ checked the rearview mirrors as they sped over the dry desert for over an hour without seeing landmarks or patrols. After splitting from Meret and Steve, she and Granger headed north in the van.

  She sat up front between Norman, the driver and the other agent, named Ron, but her attention focused on what the medic was doing to Granger in the back.

  "We're doing eighty and navigating by compass. You okay?" Norman asked, raising his voice above the tires thumping the rough ground.

  "I'm worried about Granger," she shouted. How much tossing around can he take?"

  "He's in good hands, don't worry." He paused to cup his ear with a speaker from his headset. "Roger that."

  "What's up?" MJ asked, not sure she wanted to hear the answer. They raced across a lumpy sea of sand with Granger in god-awful shape, and they didn't need any more complications.

  "Satellite picked up a vehicle five miles south east of us on a closing vector."

  "How's that possible? Yemen has no air cover, let alone satellite surveillance."

  "Maybe not but our tail of dust we're kicking up is a finger pointed at our ass. I'm going to head northwest. There's no wind so if we go slow enough, will lose the tail of dust and possibly loose them as well."

  "What will that accomplish?"

  "Might give us a few extra minutes, maybe not. I'm calling the chopper."

  MJ took off her belt and climbed over the seats to get to the back. "How's Granger?"

  "He's strapped solid, sedated and I got a line in for fluids. His only visible abuse seems to be from neglect. What's the word up front?"

  She pointed behind them. "Patrol." Then she pointed up. "Copter's on its way."

  A loud voice in the front seat called out, "MJ."

  In response to Norman's outcry, she scrambled back to her seat.

  "How much bang-bang you got in one of those beetles?"

  "Mine has three ounces of Nitrogen Octaiodide."

  "Is that enough to disable the patrol? Can you do it from here?"

  "Yeah." Her eyes lit up. "If I can get close, I think I can." She took her beetle from her shirt pocket and placed it on the dashboard and then checked her smart phone. "Thirty minutes of air time left. I'll have to fly in from behind and go under their vehicle. Gas tank's in the rear, right?"

  "Roger that. I hope it's a pickup."

  "Can you cut us back to forty miles an hour so the drone can get a safe launch?"

  He waved two fingers and allowed the car to slow without using brakes.

  She tossed the drone out the window to launch it. "It'll hover in place on auto two meters off the ground until I move it," she shouted over the sandy wind through the partially open window. "Here goes."

  She flew the beetle vertically 500 feet above the ground and hovered, scanning the horizon for any sign of the approaching patrol's dust signature, miles away and maintained her beetle's position.

  She raised her voice so everyone in the Van could hear her. "I'll hover the beetle bot in place and wait for the patrol vehicle to catch up. That's the best I can do to save its battery power. I figure they'll catch up to the beetle's position in five minutes. Don't get more than five miles ahead of them or I'll lose the connection."

  The driver responded in a calm, dry voice. "Copy that."

  MJ zoomed the view on the screen in and held it above her hear so they could see." "See them? They're close enough for me to initiate an approaching dive at their rear. It's a pickup," MJ announced as the truck passed below. I'm going in."

  The screen view of her dive toward the rear bumper of the truck looked like she planned to tunnel through the dirt. Matching speed, she rose to the height of the truck's tailgate and saw two men in the back. One pointed at the beetle and the other pounded on the glass behind the driver.

  "Too late, boys." She goosed the acceleration and ducked the bot under the rear of the truck near its gas tank. "Bombs away." She tapped the detonation icon, and her screen went blank.

  The medic attending to Granger let out a yahoo and the driver of the SUV swooped a wide circle and slowed to view the column of thick black smoke marking what looked like a pile of burnt scrap metal.

  "Good shooting, MJ." Norman patted her knee. "That was some show. No, let's get a move on. Prep that boy for a dash to the extraction point."

  Bouncing along, MJ next to Granger, she watched him with relentless concern. Although asleep, he groaned frequently and she knew if he were conscious, he would never let such sounds escape his lips. He was strapped down for his safety, but he periodically fought the straps. Sitting opposite from the attending medic, she held Granger's hand and spoke to him, although she was aware he couldn't hear.

  "You scared the hell out of me." Her free hand rubbed the back of his hand still tightly bound within hers. "I'm miserable we parted on a fight. I said so many stupid things." She wiped a tear with the back of her free hand. "Then you were called into the field before I could tell you how sorry I was. I don't know if the Company pulled us apart or we did it ourselves. I just know I'm sorry."

  His hand squeezed hers and seeing his lips move, she leaned closer. "What did you say?"

  Granger moistened his dry lips with his tongue. "Don't stop."

  She brushed his hair away from his forehead. "You son-of-a-bitch." She grinned and wiped her cheek. "You heard me."

  He nodded. "Thanks for coming for me." He pulled at his straps in an effort to sit. "I wish things would have worked out better."

  "Leave those alone. They are holding you steady." She took a firmer hold of his hand. I'll make do with a BFF for a while."

  "Thanks, MJ. I think . . . I'll sleep . . . a bit. They tried to keep me . . . awake . . . all the time." His eyes drooped shut and his grip slackened.

  She placed his hand on his chest and patted it. "You just do that."

  Suddenly, his eyes opened. "What happened in Soc
otra? Did they succeed?"

  She nodded and swallowed. "Yes, it was bad." She didn't want him to share the weight of their reality. In his condition, he didn't need to know they had failed to avoid the deaths of thousands.

  "Oh, my god." He pulled her hand to him. "We have to hurry. Socotra was only a test. Radio the helicopter. Relay a message. . . to Davies. I've learned . . ." His voice trailed off as the painkiller took effect.

  "Granger, finish your sentence. What? What have you learned? Damn it. Don't you go to sleep on me now? What does Davies need to hear?"

  "Another attack. Aimed at . . ."

  "Yes, yes. Aimed where?" She squeezed his hand and not in a loving way. "Where Granger?"

  "Uh" He opened his eyes. MJ . . ."

  "Where Granger. Where?"

  " . . . the Homeland."

  38

  Ambush

  Early May, desert extraction and a desert hideaway

  Special Agent MJ Wilson held tight to Granger's gurney as the SUV raced toward the extraction point. "Got a visual yet?" She yelled at the driver.

  Norman shook his head as the van lurched to one side and then to the other. "No visual. GPS show we're a couple of miles out."

  "This freaking road was made for camels," Ron, yelled from the suicide seat. We can't go any faster. How's Granger?"

  The medic flicked a finger on the tube of one of Granger's drip bags. "If we don't kill him first, he'll make it. Can't you guys miss at least a few of the freaking rocks?"