Notice:  Includes adult themes and violence not suitable for young readers.

Chapter 1

San Diego rocked last night. 

Joe Cocker worked his magic under a hazy blue spotlight surrounded by a fiery, five-piece band.  Salt n’ pepper back-up singers echoed the gravelly vocalist’s lyrics, but two octaves higher.  The energy vibrated off the semi-darken stage, traveled down through the audience, bounced off palm trees that lined the open-air venue then folded back onto it. 

Maggie Lopez sat alone on a low, seat-high, concrete wall squeezed next to a couple of fifty-something, gay, female groupies – attending their nineteenth Cocker concert.  The divider separated Humphrey’s paying customers and the thirty-odd kayakers floating a few feet below her.  She attended alone because her friends’ last flight out of Phoenix was delayed, then cancelled at the last minute that same evening.

A full moon backlit the packed house at the bay’s edge.  With the first song, the enthralled assemblage including Maggie was on its feet, moving in quick time to the drummer’s beat.  A former NBA center stood, bobbed his head and raised his arm straight up appearing to nearly palm the moon.  Maggie recognized him.  His son was a carbon copy and had played basketball for the Arizona Wildcats not too long ago.

Joe wailed.  The crowd roared.

You had to be there.

* * *

Maggie pulled her way up the ladder from the galley and stepped out onto the deck.  She had spent the night, the lone guest on board her friend Charlie Ward’s forty-seven foot sailboat.  Ornate, gold letters outline in black on the Beneteau’s stern declared it the Incommunicado. 

            She watched the laser-like sunrays repelled off the glass façade’s north tower of the twin twenty-story, Marriott resort hotel.  It blinded Maggie for an instant and she quickly turned away.  Just a few minutes past six, already the reflection strikes half way up the building.  The sunbeams poke a crescent-shaped hole in the elongated, soft, gray, shadow cast by the equally tall south tower.

Maggie Lopez felt elated but contrastingly somewhat gloomy that she didn’t have anyone to share the experience with her on this glorious southern California morning.  Roger, her most recent boyfriend, a sports reporter for the local Tucson paper basically preferred a jock’s life to married life.  He was now yesterday’s news, a fading highlight clip.

Moored thirty yards beyond the entrance of the yacht club’s “F” pier, Charlie’s boat fit well with the luxurious nautical mixture of sail and motorized yachts.  Many stretched longer and towered higher.  The enormous hundred-footers crossed the “T” at pier ends. 

By nature, boaters are a friendly lot, but stinkpots and sheeters don’t care much for each other’s mode of transportation.  Maggie recalled Charlie saying that this year many sheeters were smiling wider than usual, as they knew it would cost nearly two thousand dollars to top-off a 525-gallon tank of the gas-guzzlers nestled alongside.  Maggie wrinkled her nose, catching a whiff of a diesel-burning monster idling directly across from where she stood.  The mild breeze steered the wispy, blue-white pollution cloud squarely into her face.  She raised a hand to her mouth and coughed.   

She glanced around for somewhere to park herself.  Morning dew covered every deck surface -- not a dry place to sit.  She grabbed a towel from a storage bin and spread it across the portside bench seat molded into the gunnel.  Dressed in white shorts and a beige tee shirt with “Cactus Hugger” blazoned across her chest, Maggie looked the part of a sailing mate with one major exception:  Her shoes.  She wore Nordstrom “Vicki” sandals, and although they featured rubber soles, the platform style with a two-inch heel made footing topside difficult.  The gently sway of the boat soothed her like a baby in its cradle but she drunkenly staggered, loosing her balance. 

“Shit,” she muttered.

She sat down but failed to flop entirely onto the towel.  Half her backside landed on the uncovered seat.  Instantly moister soaked right through her shorts and panties. 

“Shit.  Double Shit.”  She said it loud enough to be heard on the boats tied-up either side.  She looked around, cheeks flushed.  Thankfully their decks appeared lifeless.

She shifted her weight and moved her wet rear completely onto the towel. 

The motorized yacht backed out of its slip and sputtered away toward the bay.  After it cleared the harbor, Maggie ran her tongue across her upper lip tasting the now clear, clean, salty atmosphere that had pleasantly invaded her anglicized-shaped nose since awakening.  A slight smile deepened her already reddened, dimpled cheeks. 

Maggie had never been to San Diego before, or any seaport city, for that matter, except Puerto Penasco in Sonora, Mexico.  Rocky Point wasn’t exactly a city, she mused, but an emerging vacation village on the Sea of Cortez.  Located fifty miles below the Mexican border not far from her Tucson home, Maggie had enjoyed the few times that her father had taken her there.  Coming from the southern Arizona desert, the seascape surroundings thrilled her.  She kept her eyes open wide, not wanting to miss a thing. 

Looking out over the water, she scanned the horizon, rotating her neck in a slow half circle turn.  Directly opposite the hotel, six thousand feet across the bay sat three massive aircraft carriers.  The gray giants included the pride of the Navy’s Seventh Fleet -- its newest, the USS Ronald Reagan  -- now the grandest ship in the fleet.  It centered her view.  She could just make out small figures scurrying around the flight and hanger decks; doing, she supposed whatever it was that sailors and maintenance men do, when an active ship berths at its homeport after a long cruise. 

 Maggie noticed a small rubber dinghy racing toward the Reagan.  She stood up and stared.  Her face lost its vacation serenity, and snapped back to her border security job alertness.

“That seems odd,” she said softly through tight lips. Her brow narrowed.

The distant men on the carrier suddenly sprinted beyond her line of sight.

Then Maggie’s universe vanished in a brilliant flash of light.

Despite the morning sunlight, the entire sky illuminated.  Maggie blinked, then deliberately closed both eyes. 

A roar instantly followed the light that assaulted her ears like a concert speaker blasting Metalica from a foot away.  With the second double boom, agonizing pain shot through Maggie’s ears, then complete silence – a silence that felt as profound as if she were already dead.  Had her eardrums burst?  A hot air blast chilled her.  She folded her arms across her chest and shivered. 

Waves rolled against the boat, gently at first, then violently as they surged upward to the height of the main sail’s boom.  Maggie grabbed the rail.

“Mother of God!” she screamed. 

The deck neared perpendicular with the sky.  As the boat started to right itself, Maggie flipped over the side.

Underwater, she kicked ferociously to reach the surface, moving away from the hull, which she calculated would easily smash her against a bulkhead.  Gulping gasoline-enriched seawater, she broke surface, gasping for air.  She brought both hands up to her eyes trying to clear her chaotic view of the world -- which at that moment became a solid white mass looming overhead -- of all the times to make a ‘right-on’ accurate assumption. 

Chapter 2

The deputy secretary of Homeland Security was tired.  Naturally, he hadn’t slept last night.  He’d tried.  Lord, he’d tried, but the brainwaves wouldn’t shut down.   Robert Wright never took a sleep aid and he wasn’t going to start now.  As he walked by his administrative assistance’s station Sara gave him a look that told him that he appeared as bad as he felt.

“Morning, Sir.”  Her low, husky voice oozed sympathy.  “Staffs in the conference room waiting.  Any calls you want me to return?”  She retained a copy of all the calls, voice mails, and emails that Wright had already reviewed, and stored in his laptop.

“No, Sara.  I’m only taking two calls”

Sara tried, but failed to lighten the moment.  “I know.  The Secretary and your wife.”  Wright closed his eyes and moved his head ever so slightly side-to-side.

“No.  The Secretary.  The President.  Eileen won’t be bothering me today.  Guaranteed!”  Wright punched out each word and screeched ‘guaranteed’ much louder than he meant as he brushed by Sara and stepped into office. 

Sara made a habit of always greeting her boss by standing next to his office door and opening it for him the first time he entered the building.   The staff took it as a ‘suck-up’ move and Sara knew it; but she felt it added a degree of respect deserving the office, if not the man.  She’d only stop if Mr. Wright requested.  Privately he had mentioned to her that while he liked the gesture, it was totally unnecessary; but he hadn’t asked her to stop.

Sara closed the door behind Wright and returned to her desk.  All six incoming lines were lit.  Two separate phones for exclusive use by the Homeland Security Secretary and the President remained unblinking.  “Thank God for small favors this morning.” Sara muttered while closing her eyes and lowering her head.

The office was big.  Far too big for the intimate atmosphere Wright would have preferred. 

A psychologist might suggest that Wright’s modest height and slender build could have disclosed the reason that he preferred a smaller office with less overpowering furnishings, but it wasn’t the case.  Wright had earned degrees from Depauw, Harvard, and London’s School of Engineering and Mathematical Sciences.  There he had set the bar incredibly high for all future students of Maritime Operations and Management.  He also had acquired numerous honorary parchments and he possessed the ego to match his brilliance. 

Few in the Department knew, but Wright had spent a number of years in covert operations for the CIA attached to MI5 while at LSEM&S and during an extra nine months that he stayed on in England.  He spoke five additional languages and needed all of them – Arabic, French, German, Russian and Spanish for clandestine trips to Afghanistan, Morocco, Germany, Uzbekistan, and Mindanao. 

He feared no man or situation; he just preferred more intimate space at work and at home.  Even at five-foot four and three-quarter-inches, Wright cast a lengthy shadow.  The Secretary’s job would be his for the taking when John Stanton resigned.  Stanton had already told the President and Wright that he’d depart soon after the election no matter which party won next November.  The President’s chief-of-staff had told Wright that he’d get the appointment before the transition took place in January, which would make it very awkward for any new president to make a change.

He looked down at the fake two hundred dollar Rolex Submariner his wife had bought for him.  He wore it because it reminded him of Eileen throughout the day and not to impress anyone.  At six fifty his staff already prepped, alert, and waiting.  

Wright decided to use the ten minutes to collect his thoughts and have a second cup of coffee.  He placed his laptop on the desk, hung his jacket over his chair, and walked over to his fresh-brewing coffee system; the one luxury he allowed himself.  Through a series of filter belts, and a steeping process the ingenious device brewed a fresh single cup with the press of a few buttons.  Wright selected “regular, strong,” and then hit “start.”  Instead of returning to his desk he decided not to keep his staff waiting any longer.  With head up, back straight, he strode toward the door.  

Cup in hand, Wright walked past Sara’s station, peered over her cubicle, and mouthed the words, “I’m sorry.”  He knew Sara well enough that his earlier outburst hadn’t bothered her but it would trouble him if he didn’t apologize.   He continued down the hall to conference room HS-100, designated ‘The Ridge Room’ in honor of Homeland Security’s first Secretary.  He took a deep breath, held it, exhaled, then pushed open the door and walked to his designated place.

Wright stood at the middle of the highly polished, walnut conference table and surveyed his anxious staff.  He spoke softly but with a cold, serious edge.  “The questions.  Who launched the attack?  How’d they get explosive on the Reagan?  What could we have done to prevent it?  How do we stop the next attack?”  He sipped his coffee, sat, then looked directly into the eyes to his right for the some answers.  The eyes peered back from beneath slanted olive lids.  They belonged to Rogelio Estimo, Chief Intelligence Officer for the Department, a recent CIA operative of Filipino heritage.  Estimo had recently left the Agency under bizarre circumstances that were not discussed, even around the water cooler.

Estimo stiffened in his seat, but kept his gaze on Wright’s face.   “Need at least twenty-four before we have a positive.” 

From across the table, Adrian Turner, Under Secretary for FEMA, blurted, “CNN’s already reporting al Qaida,”

Estimo tightened his lips.  He lowered his head, glared directly at Turner and held up two fingers on his right hand and four on his left. 

Wright cleared his throat before Turner could respond.  It became clear to all present that the Deputy Secretary prefer solidarity to dissention during this session.  He paused, then asked, “Do we know how they got the explosives on board?”

 “Word has it they were hidden in the life rafts.”  Turner spoke again.

“Not confirmed,” said Estimo quickly.

“How the hell could they’ve …?”  Sara opened the conference room door and motioned to Wright, causing him to break off his thought abruptly.  He glanced over his shoulder.  “Yes?”

“The Secretary AND the President.  They specified no other ears.”  Sara looked apologetically toward the assembly; partly for her interruption, but also for their exclusion from the call.

Wright pardoned himself.  He hurried out of the room.

* * *

“The John F. Kennedy!  When?  Where?”  Wright listened to a three-minute response.  “Yes, sir.  Immediately, sir.”   His arm quivered as he laid the phone in its cradle.  He paled as the blood receded from his face.  He collapsed into his chair like a double amputee who had discarded his prostheses and crutches simultaneously.

Chapter 3

Maggie felt hands grab for her wrists then slip away.  They grabbed again and held tight.  Pain engulfed her.  The wrist ached from the vice lock of the powerful hands, the back of her head hurt where it had hit against something, and her leg from an unknown event.  She blinked three times and strained to look up.  Seawater-soaked, hair, eyebrows, and lashes streamed down making her vision blurred.  She felt her body raise out of the water then felt a solid support under her.  She felt around for the edge of the wooden dock.  Finding firm support her tightened muscles relaxed.

            “Maggie, you alright?”

            The voice was steady and calm.  She recognized it but couldn’t put a face to it.

            “Maggie, look at me … you hurt?

            Before she answered the questioner she rubbed her eyes clear, sat upright and looked down at her body.  Her tee shirt had risen up over her brassiere.  She pulled it down.  She spotted a gash just below her right kneecap.  It didn’t look deep but blood oozed from each end then curled downward around her calf.  Hands reached for her leg, lifted it then wrapped a torn-off shirtsleeve twice around the cut.  The hands tied off the makeshift bandage.  Maggie tried to stand.  “Hold still.  Don’t get up yet.”  The hands pushed on her shoulders so that she returned to her sitting position.

            Finally she looked up.  “Charlie!”  Her body wobbled as she spoke.

            “Don’t move yet.  Lie back down.”  Charlie seized both arms and pushed. She let herself fall back.  The dizziness eased.  She felt better reclining.

            Charlie looked across the bay.  He shook his head and watch silently at the smoldering aircraft carrier.  Smoke rose hundreds of feet into the air where it flattened then move at the whim of a westerly breeze. 

* * *

A bus engine roared above the speeding auto traffic flowing down the wide shade tree-lined boulevard that paralleled the northern limits of Ludwigsvorstadt, a mixed suburb of Munich.  Four-story commercial building and shops alternated with semi-attached residential houses.  Where space permitted, many residents had placed low wooden fences around oddly small but appealing flower gardens.  The municipality sandwiched between the University of Munich and the railroad station teemed with students, commuters, businesspeople, laborers and the locals who called it home. 

In the second floor office of 220 Schwanthalerstrasse, Ibrahim Harass hit the delete key on his Toshiba laptop.  A heavy aroma of chocolate floated up from the candy store below.  Ibrahim ignored the smell.  After eight months, he had grown accustomed to it.

He closed the lid of the laptop and thrust his right fist into the air. He spoke softly but with the passion of an orator. 

“Yes!  The Reagan is gone.” 

He slid the laptop into its case, zipped it closed, and slung it over his shoulder.  His eyes slowly passed over the entire one-room office.  It was nearly bare; nothing to show that it had ever been used.  An empty in/out basket sat on top of his cleared desk.  A swivel chair rested against the wall five feet away from the desk as if to suggest disuse.  

Ibrahim walked out of the office, then he turned, locked the double dead bolts and hurried down the steps.  He crossed the street to the Deutsches Theater, entered a side door and ran down a poorly lit, dirty stairwell.  In the hallway at the bottom he had to turn sideways to avoid brushing against dusty, ten-foot stage backdrops.  He tripped over a piano stool leg and stumbled.  Catching himself, he lunged forward to a partially opened door.  He catapulted through it, the momentum slamming both him and the door against the wall.  Startled, the room’s two occupants leapt up from their seats, their mouths dropped.  Ibrahim frowned at both men. 

“Why isn’t this door locked?”  He spoke in precise German.  His tone betrayed his anger at the breach in security.

Hamid answered in passable German.  “Gamal’s at the toilette.”  He raised his arm and gestured toward the open door.  “Sorry, Ibrahim.  I’ll lock it now if you wish.”  His voice was shaky.  The loud crashing arrival of his boss had shaken him. 

“Don’t bother.” 

Hamid sat back down at his desk.  Ibrahim watched him surreptitiously glide his left hand between his legs.  Ibrahim had observed the darkened crotch before he had settled into his seat.  He suppressed a smile.

“Pack up.  We’re leaving right now.”

Hamid raised his eyebrows in disbelief.  “Internationale Seedienstlestungen is relocating?”

Ibrahim switched to English.  “No, Hamid.  Maritime Services International is kaput.  Going out of business … today!”  Ibrahim removed the laptop from his shoulder, placed it on the nearest chair, and began to disconnect the first of three computer stations arranged in the office.  Hamid Saad and his coworker, Abbas Bishara watched him in disbelief.  They got up from their desks and immediately crammed all their loose papers into cardboard transfer boxes.  Then they joined Ibrahim in disconnecting the hardware.

“What’s this?” Gamal Dabashi, the fourth and final member of the all-Egyptian team stood at the door, hands on hips.

“We’re leaving.” said Hamid.  “Help us pack.”

Gamal didn’t move.  He waited.  Ibrahim crawled out from under a desk.  “It’s true.  Get moving.  Hurry.” Ibrahim stood up and flung connection cables into a trashcan.

Gamal hastened to assist Hamid who began to wrestle a heavy printer off a shelf.

Maritime Services International conducted all of its business from the theater basement office, but the official address was across the street where Ibrahim had already vacated. 

* * *

Riding over cobblestone streets in a vehicle with vintage springs made the beginning of the trip south less than comfortable.  Hamid drove while Ibrahim slouched in the passenger seat.  Gamal and Abbas laid on the floor of the 1967 Volkswagen split-window minibus where the rear seat used to reside, alongside the stored computer equipment.  Hamid, following too close behind an ancient sedan, saw the bumper fall off it.  He hit the brakes hard and jerked the wheel sharply trying to avoid running over it. 

He succeeded; but the VW predated seatbelt laws.  Gravity freed Hamid and Ibrahim from their seats. Their heads thumped against the roof.  Abbas flew up then landed hard on a PC monitor.  He grunted. 

Gamal fell on top of Abbas, and a flying keyboard smacked against his face.  Blood trickled from his nose.  He screamed at Hamid.  “Idiot!  Slow down, or you’ll ruin the equipment.”

Ibrahim looked over his shoulder and laughed.  “Gamal, we’re in a hurry -- and don’t worry, we won’t be needing the computers again.”

Abbas shoved Gamal off himself and asked, “Where we going?”

Ibrahim glared at him.  “Abbas.  Abbas.  You know better than to ask a question like that.  You’ll see when we get there.”

It was almost midnight when Hamid turned onto autobahn A-8.  It would take them east until the road turned south out of Munich.  The engine’s constant whine at seventy miles per hour, plus the smooth concrete road, soon lulled the passengers into a quiet, somber mood.  All but the driver slept as they passed through Innsbruck.   A few hours beyond daybreak the minibus pulled into the Italian seaport of Venezia, situated on the northern end of the Adriatic. 

Hamid pulled over as soon as he left the thoroughfare, got out and moved to the passenger side.  Ibrahim slid over behind the wheel and guided them to a private pier across the street from a grand, sixteenth century estate. “This was once a summer retreat for Bonito Mussolini,” he informed his yawning passengers.  “They say that Hitler even stayed here once.”

Tied to the pier, an eighty-foot motor yacht gently swayed with the rhythm of steady sea swells.  Gulls hovered excitedly above the boat.  They took turns diving just above the water to grab food scraps that had been thrown overboard by someone.  As the group climbed out of the minibus, the salty fresh air revived the sleepy travelers.  Now they were fully awake and anxious for breakfast.

Ibrahim walked over to the portable plastic steps that lead up to the deck.  He set his foot on the bottom tread, leaned over and knocked on the hull.  “Anybody home?”  He spoke in German.  He sniffed the air and smelled bacon cooking.

A well-wrinkled bearded face popped up from below deck.  “You’re late.” The chastisement was delivered in Arabic.

“And you’re breaking Allah’s law by cooking flesh of a pig.” Ibrahim replied in the same language.

The head smiled, looked all around then said just above a whisper.  “There are no laws for jihadists.”  In a loud voice the man announced, “Come on board.  I am Captain Azmi al Tarabili.  You can skip the bacon if it pleases you to please Allah.”

Ibrahim exaggerated smile showed a lot of teeth.  He then turned and called to his men standing beside the VW.  “Come!”

When they finished breakfast, Ibrahim and his men carried the computer equipment and boxes filled with papers onto the yacht while the captain and his three-man crew prepared for departure. 

Ibrahim handed the VW keys to an old man who had appeared from behind a hedge across the road just as they had finished unloading.  As the yacht inched away from the dock, the four Egyptians watched the minibus drive away.  The driver didn’t look back.

Eleven hours after they left the dock, the sun dropped below the horizon.  Thirty minutes later, Ibrahim, sitting alone on deck, could barely make out the cabin doorway just five feet in front.  Although the yacht was running without lights, it maintained a steady fifteen knots.  Ibrahim watched a sliver of a moon creep inch-by-inch above the horizon, casting a modest light, its reflection lengthened into a long, smooth streak across the water. 

He concentrated on his next task with his eyes closed.  First he removed the 9mm Glock 17 snuggled in the middle of his back.  Next he pulled a five-inch silencer from his pocket and screwed it in place, ejected the magazine, and felt the top for rounds.  Full. 

The Egyptian leader shoved the clip back, removed the weapon’s safety, then opened his eyes and walked over to the cabin entrance.  He pushed aside a curtain that blocked the lights from below deck, and called out.  “Hamid.  Come here, I need help.

"Tourists"   16" x 20" oil on canvas

Note:  All art in this website by my wife Judith Redner,
please visit www.jdiart.com for more of her work.

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Copyright ©2009 Charles J. Redner
Manuscript excerpts provided for review purposes only and may not be reproduced without  written permission from the author.