Chapter 19

The helicopter was airborne before James had both feet on board. He tightened his grip on the steel bar he had intended to use as leverage to climb up and instead just span around and took a seat on the floor of the chopper with his feet on the skids and looked out over the island that had been his home for the past two years. He hadn’t been able to hear it over the sound of the helicopter, but another black huey was already landing on the spot they had just taken off from and a team of operatives were dismounting and heading inside the police station. They wore all black, but James recognized the flak jackets and Kevlar from his days in the Corps; they usually referred to it as “full battle rattle” to denote that it was gear utilized in situations with a high likelihood of combat. He wondered to himself if the agency expected resistance from local law enforcement; that would denote that they didn’t have permission to operate in Honduras, which would come to him as no surprise.

A common misconception about helicopters that people have developed from watching too many Arnold Schwarzenegger movies is the idea that you can have a conversation on board one. Of course, there were sealed and sound proofed choppers like Marine One that the president would fly in, but the vast majority of choppers were nothing more than giant lawnmowers with a flimsy metal body strapped to the bottom. They were shaky, unstable, and above all else, loud. James had once heard a marine pilot describe flying a chopper as similar to training bears, sometimes it would cooperate but you could only be successful at it if you stayed constantly aware that it wanted to kill you. With the doors closed, you could probably make out one another’s words through a combination of screaming and lip reading, but for the most part, it made sense just to use the headsets with radios. As Ramon and the three other men were hooded and led out to the waiting helicopter below, James turned to see his old friend Deep Throat with his arm outstretched, a headset in hand. James leaned onto his side and slid his legs into the cabin of the chopper then climbed to his feet with the grace of a baby deer before plopping down in an open seat and taking the headset.

“You know one of them,” Deep Throat’s voice crackled over the speakers surrounding James’ ears. He couldn’t tell for sure if it was a question or an answer. James just nodded. “Could he have compromised you?” was the next logical question. James thought back to the night he met Deep Throat in person for the first time. He had left his laptop with Ramon for safe keeping. I’m such an idiot, he thought to himself as he once again nodded his head, this time with his eyes to the floor.

“He had access to my laptop for an hour or so,” James began.

“And now it’s gone.” Deep Throat seemed to know as much about the story as James did. James just nodded again. The older man was barely visible in the dim light of the helicopter, but James could make out a well-tailored suit gaining wrinkles from hours strapped to a small chair on the side of a helicopter.

“Local law enforcement ties him and the others to the bombing. They work for a cartel with connections to the group out of Kurdistan in your files.” Deep Throat was probing James, looking to see how much he already knew. James wondered how disappointed he would be to know this was all news to him.

“I had coffee with the enemy every morning.” James slumped in his chair. The slight chance that he could have prevented this awful tragedy from occurring had just become much larger. If only he’d been paying attention. If only he hadn’t been blinded by his feelings for Eve. If only he had done his job.

“We’re relocating you to Barcelona. Intel suggests Al-Hejaz is recruiting there,” James recognized the name of the group from the dossier Deep Throat had given him a few weeks prior.

“Why me?” James honestly couldn’t think of a single bit of information he could produce that would be of help to the investigation.

“You should know better than to ask that question. You were our eyes and ears on the ground here, you just interacted with one of their operatives over the span of months. You will be debriefed for any information that could benefit our pursuit and capture of Zareek Lal then further reassigned as the agency sees fit.” His tone was firm and definitive, as though he had already grown tired of speaking to a child.

“For God and country.” James spoke almost too quietly for the microphone to pick up, but it didn’t matter. He wasn’t speaking to Deep Throat anyway. His eyes had already drifted out over the water and toward the swirling lights of the ongoing rescue and salvage operation going on at the pier. Two thousand lives lost. James kept repeating the number in his mind.

“A masochist revels in blaming himself. An asset makes it right.” Deep Throat leaned in and snapped James back to reality, “Brandon Webb is dead. He drowned down there trying to help the victims of a tragic bombing, James.”

James continued to look out over the water, “I used to go by Jimmy,” he finally spoke.

“Well maybe it’s time you grew up.” Deep Throat leaned back into his chair and adjusted himself for comfort. It seemed they’d be in the air for a while. James leaned back in his and tried his best to get comfortable, but his mind was still floating in the sea below with the bodies of the people that died that day. A violent mix of humiliation, shame, regret, fear and self-loathing percolated in his head, bubbling within him as he ran over the events of the past few months, the conversations with Ramon, how long had he been playing him? James felt like he might throw up. He wondered what Deep Throat would think of that.

James woke up suddenly as the skids of the chopper touched down on something he assumed was land. As his vision blurred and he felt the moisture laden breeze of the ocean hit his face, he realized he was wrong. They were on a ship, he could tell, but not much else. Bright lights all around them made it difficult for him to get his bearings, but as he unbuckled his seat belt and watched men in blue uniforms scurry about around the helicopter, he assumed it must have been an aircraft carrier. Beyond the bright lights, he could see landing lights for an airplane extend beyond the scope of his vision, solidifying his theory. Deep Throat was already standing when a young sailor opened the sliding door and greeted him (or so it seemed, James’ head gear had been turned off and the prop of the helicopter was still spinning overhead). James unbuckled his belt, removed his headset and followed behind Deep Throat. As he stepped out of the chopper, it occurred to him that he had never been on an aircraft carrier before. The child inside him begged him to look around, but he thought better of it. Act like you’ve been there before was the solid advice he’d once received about scoring a touchdown in a football game, but it seemed relevant when trying not to make a fool of yourself in the intelligence industry as well. Instead, he kept his eyes locked on Deep Throat’s back, following him toward an open hatch about thirty yards ahead of them. Deep Throat paused and looked back to check to make sure James was following.

“First you go to debriefing and get cleaned up. We’ll discuss reassignment after,” he yelled over the ambient noise that James could only assume was always present on the flight deck of an aircraft carrier. He nodded an affirmative and the two men started off toward the door again. Somewhere in the back of his mind, James wondered if he was going to be killed once he got inside, but he shook off the paranoia. If they wanted him dead, there were a thousand easier ways they could have done it than waiting until he was onboard a Naval Vessel. At least, he hoped so.

Once inside, James was surprised at how much the interior of the ship looked just like it did in the movies. Grey steel walls with rounded holes seemingly cut directly through the metal a few inches above the ground and sealable doors complete with locking valves forced him to lift his bad leg up and over every ten yards or so. He felt as though they’d been walking long enough to have reached the pier from his apartment by now had they stayed on land. Finally, Deep Throat stopped and turned to him.

“Sergeant Garcia, please escort Agent Carter to debrief room four,” he spoke to one of the Marines that had been walking with them as they traversed the ship, “follow the good Sergeant to debrief. We’ll speak again later.” He now spoke to James. James simply nodded and turned toward the Sergeant. His expertly rolled sleeves denoted a Marine with good attention to detail; his five o’clock shadow meant he had either forgotten to shave or had been working since yesterday. Knowing his beloved Corps, James assumed it was the latter. He nodded to the Sergeant to proceed and the two continued down the hallway silently.

James was beginning to wonder if the Sergeant was intentionally leading him all over the ship to ensure the he couldn’t know where he was. Their route was littered with left and right turns and they had been walking for longer than seemed possible in any kind of ship, but then James was familiar with cruise ships, he’d been on just about every kind there was, but he’d never been in the bowels of an aircraft carrier before. There was really no way for him to know what was ordinary at this point. Finally, they came to a closed, unmarked door and the Sergeant stopped and pounded on it three times. James thought back to his days as a Sergeant in the Marine Corps, always walking the fine line between supreme confidence and perpetual terror when people like James were around. There was no way to know if he was a serious player, an important person or just another schmuck getting the grand tour. Always best to act like whoever you were ushering was a visiting dignitary, you never knew who really was. After a brief moment, the door opened and a slender red-headed woman in a smart looking suit eyeballed him through her fifties-style reading glasses.

“Agent Carter?” She spoke firmly but with a friendly tone.

“Yes ma’am.” His ma’ams and sirs were bound to come back being surrounded by uniforms like this.

“Please come in.” She looked away from James to nod to the Sergeant. James wasn’t sure if she was acknowledging that he was now in her custody or simply saying thank you, but either way, he was pretty confident he wouldn’t be allowed to leave this meeting if he wanted to. With no course of action but to do as he was told, James stepped inside the room to find an empty chair facing a conference table with five seats. Three of the seats were empty, one he assumed belonged to the red head, the other two occupied seats were filled by middle aged men in ill-fitting suits. The two looked alike, but not so much that they might seem related, just equally plain and forgettable. One of them had done a poor job of dying the grey out of his hair, leaving it an unnatural shade of black; the other had opted to accept his changing hair and looked better for it.

“Please, have a seat Mr. Carter.” The man with Superman hair spoke.

“Yes sir,” James’ replies were on autopilot at this point.

“Mr. Carter, you’re aware of the attack on the,” the red head paused and looked at the paperwork on the desk as she came around to her seat at the table, “Allure of the Seas that occurred yesterday morning and according to our sources you have close contact with one of the men responsible.”

“Yes ma’am.” James knew that in these situations, you always wait to be asked to elaborate.

“And it appears he compromised your cover?” Superman added.

“Yes sir.” James realized he was sitting with his hands on his thighs exactly as Sergeant Carter once had while being questioned by his commanding officer over an incident in Africa. Guns were pointed and people had shouted at one another during one of his patrols, no one was hurt or killed, but at the time, it was the most terrifying experience of his life. The line of questioning that followed had, until now, been the second most terrifying experience. This time thousands of people were dead and James knew the blame belonged squarely on his shoulders. They slumped a bit under the weight of realization.

“Any idea how this could have occurred?” The red head prodded him for his first essay answer.

“He had access to my laptop for the better part of an hour. I believed him to be who he said he was and I left it in his possession when meeting with my contact in person approximately three weeks ago. I believed my life was in danger and didn’t think it was safe to leave the computer unattended in my apartment.” He spoke articulately as though he was reading from his official report.

“And you thought leaving it in the hands of a terrorist was a more apt solution to your problem?” The grey haired man finally chimed in.

“No sir. Like I said, I was unaware of his ties to Al-Hejaz.” James knew arguing wouldn’t do him any good, “But for what it’s worth, I take full responsibility for what happened back there… I should have seen it coming.” James’ eyes pointed down to his lap.

“Self-pity is like masturbation, Agent Carter. It does no one any good but yourself.” The red head clearly could read his body language. James wondered if she’d done some time in uniform herself; that was exactly the type of thing he’d expect to hear from an angry female Master Sergeant. Then again, James considered, for all he knew, she was still in the military now.

“No ma’am, no pity. Just responsibility.” James stared at her through glassy eyes. They weren’t tears that were forming, at least not ones of sadness. James’ self-loathing was already beginning to shift toward something stronger: hatred for the men responsible for the attack.

“We’re not here to determine the shortcomings in your work, Agent Carter. Tell us everything that you know about Ramon Esposa.” The grey haired man’s expression softened and James realized that despite the table between them and the air of mystery surrounding all of this (at least from James’ perspective) everyone in the room was on the same side. They had all been assigned this region and they had all been blind-sided by this attack. Only James had been in a position to make a difference, though. Only James could have saved those people.

“He has ties to the local cartel, cocaine mostly but got out of the business when his boats were burned out at sea.” James began.

“By the cartel?” The woman asked.

“By the police. Since then he’s been running a small coffee shop on Roatan Island, but I’d suspected that he might have maintained some ties.”

“He’s still running drugs?” Superman was taking notes as he spoke.

“Not personally, at least not that I saw, but he wears a two thousand dollar Omega watch and I’ve never seen him sell more than five cups of coffee in a day.”

“You suspected him of running drugs and yet you still trusted him with your agency-issued laptop?” Grey-hair seemed unimpressed. James’ mind was adrift, thinking again about the bloated face of a drowned young woman he’d fished out of the water the morning prior, “Agent Carter?”

“I’m a cultural analyst. I don’t work for the D.E.A. and I don’t give a shit if the guy that makes my coffee sells coke on the side.” James came back to the present and met the old man’s stare with a glare of his own.

“We’re not in the business of dealing solely with the good guys, Agent Carter, but we are in the business of keeping secrets. We have not been able to recover the laptop in Mr. Esposa’s residence or in any of the other suspect’s homes. We exercised the system’s remote detonation option six hours ago but we cannot confirm if our system was breached prior to execution.” The red-head was showing her cards. They were afraid Al-Hejaz had access to their secure communications. It was a legitimate concern.

“Remote detonation?” Had they actually blown the computer up, James wondered?

“A satellite transponder with a pencil eraser’s worth of C4 rendered the computer unusable.” Superman answered.

“Why not use the transponder to track the computer?” James asked.

“The decision was made that risking a breach of the network was not worth the apprehension of Esposa’s accomplices. Responsibility has already been taken for the attack by Zareeq Lal and we know he’s not in this region of the world. He’s the target. The rest are just pawns.” The grey haired man explained.

“Let’s get back down to business. Tell me about the coffee shop.” Superman looked back down at his legal pad. James took a deep breath and adjusted himself in his seat. His ribs were killing him.

“I met Ramon almost seven months ago,” he began. James would spend the next five hours telling and retelling every facet of his relationship with Ramon before being permitted to leave. He’d never learn the names of the agents (if that’s what they were) he’d spoken to, and he was quite certain he’d never see them again.