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The official
Pete Grimm and Jake Driver Website
Emails to: nelevonkiel@yahoo.com
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 EXCERPT
FROM THE Work in Progress
OLD SCHOOL
Sandy looked so beautiful, so peaceful Jake couldn’t bear to wake her. It was 6AM and time for Sandy’s watch. He had swung down from the cockpit and peeked into the aft cabin. Sandy’s hair spilled across the pillow like a lioness’ tawny mane. The soft pre-dawn light made her skin glow. He studied the rise and fall of her breathing and felt so happy his heart ached. They had settled into a routine. He took the 9PM to midnight watch. Sandy took midnight to 3AM. He relieved her for the 3AM to 6AM watch. Then he would wake her and they would cuddle in the cockpit together, drink coffee and watch the sunrise. Daytime naps made up for some of the sleep lost each night. They were three and a half days out of Georgetown in the Exuma Islands of the Bahamas and headed for Bermuda. He had nothing with which to make a comparison, but the last two and a half months had to be best honeymoon ever, except they weren’t married. Maybe I should do something about that. I don’t want to screw this one up…, and I don’t want to lose her again. His first sight of Sandy walking on Palm Beach, long tanned legs striding, shoulder length blonde hair dancing in the breeze, and cornflower blue eyes set wide in a strong boned yet still feminine face, made his heart skip a beat. If it wasn’t love at first sight it was more than fascination. He had been a commitment phobic serial womanizer, but soon decided he had found the love of his life. Sandy was a recent widow searching for the person she had been before her marriage. For three months, they were inseparable. He followed her from Palm Beach to her beach house on Sullivan’s Island in South Carolina. Then he lost her, or thought he had. She had issues with his activities as a federal agent that had often required him to perform dangerous and bloody missions. She was afraid of commitment herself. When she finally decided she wanted him back he was already embroiled in the investigation of a friend’s murder and infatuated with another woman. What followed would have made a great plot for one of his romance novels. After the horror of getting shot, saving the other woman from kidnappers, and settling old scores with the leader of the Houston branch of the drug gang MS-13, he and Sandy reconciled. They sailed from Hilton Head, SC to Jacksonville, then spent a week motoring down the Intracoastal to West Palm Beach. Walking the beach where they first met, hand in hand, as they had six months before, was an emotional homecoming. With stops on Grand Bahamas, two anchorages in the Berry’s, Nassau, Warderick Wells, Big Major and Farmer’s Island, they sailed to Georgetown in the Exumas and anchored about a half mile south of Volleyball Beach and St. Francis Yacht Club off Stocking Island. He chose the spot for a balance of proximity and privacy. They were still only a short dinghy ride away from all the socializing and fun the cruising community cooked up on a daily basis, yet far enough away not to be bothered when they wanted to be alone. He smiled as he remembered his old friends Bill and Janice Townsend kidding him about disappearing from the social scene for weeks at a time. Now they were on their way to the Chesapeake via Bermuda and planning to arrive in plenty of time to attend Samantha and Bobby’s wedding in Alexandria, Virginia. Samantha Barker and Bobby Gulakowski were the DEA and ICE agents who helped him bust the gang distributing cocaine between Savannah and Charleston. It still amazed him that somehow, in the midst of the murders and gun battles, Samantha and Bobby managed to fall madly in love. He smiled as he studied Sandy’s sleeping face. I am so frigging lucky…. Quietly he slipped back up the companionway to the cockpit.
As was his habit, Captain Carlos Guttierez ate his lunch alone under the big canopy of Café Corazón. He considered his good fortune. His last assignment was in the garrison at Matamoros across the Texas border from the city of Brownsville. It was a horrible place to spend the first two years of married life. He had been a platoon leader and it was dangerous work. Over the course his assignment, his platoon had saved two kidnapping victims and gotten credit for several spectacular drug busts. Despite living in constant fear of reprisals from the drug cartels, he had kept his nose clean and he and his wife survived. Finally, a year ago, his good work paid off. He received a promotion to Captain and a plum assignment as an army liaison to Universidad Autónoma de la Ciudad de México. I love this city. I love its energy. Just living here quieted his wife’s fears. She finally felt secure and the birth of little Carlos soon followed. His world now revolved around his wife and son. It also helped that his Captain’s pay eased the impossible financial difficulty of supporting a family on paltry Lieutenant’s pay. His job at the University let him rub elbows with powerful men in the Army too. He was a man on the way up. Someone destined for bigger things. The traffic on La Avenida de la Universidad, the bustle of people passing on the broad sidewalk, the hum of conversation and admiring glances from his fellow diners, all energized him.
The gurgle of the sea rushing past the hull and the sun’s rays flickering through a portlight across her face stirred Sandy Carlisle to wakefulness. She reached for the teak grab-handle mounted on the ceiling and levered herself out of the big aft berth. She paused in the head to brush her teeth. In the galley, she opened the gas valve, lit the stove and put on a pot of water. She shouted up the companionway, “Coffee?” “Please,” Jake said from the cockpit. Jake likes his black. She put three scoops of instant into a mug inscribed “Captain” and two scoops of instant, a half teaspoon of sugar and three ounces of cream into one with “Admiral” on it. When the pot began to whistle she poured in the steaming water and gave each mug a quick swirl with a spoon. She slipped on the life preserver she had left hanging on its hook four hours before and cautiously climbed the companionway with both cups in her left hand. “Was this the face that launched a thousand ships and burnt the topless towers of Ilium? Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss,” Jake said as she emerged into the cockpit and put his Captain’s mug into the cup holder by the helm. She laughed and kissed him. She snuggled into his arms. Jake ran his hands under her sweatshirt and kneaded his fingers deep into the muscles of her back and up and down her spine, then playfully his hands crept around her sides to cup her breasts. “Umm, that feels good,” she purred raising her arms, arching her back and stretching her skin to his touch. “You let me oversleep. It’s almost seven. I missed the sunrise.” Nele sailed along under a single reefed main and full genny guided only by the windvane they had nicknamed “Georgette” on a course of roughly fifty-five degrees. Jake said, “Georgette handled all the steering for me and you looked like you needed more sleep. I have a present for you. Look off the port bow.” She broke their embrace, leaned out of the cockpit and squinted into the rising sun. There was a gathering of low clouds with a hazy dark line beneath them in the distance. “Land! That’s Bermuda.” “Either that or Mr. Garmin has us terribly lost.” “How much longer until we get into port?” “We’re still six to seven miles from the southwest corner of the island. We have to sail the full fifteen-mile length of the island, then into St. Georges Harbor. We probably have a little more than four hours to go at this speed.” Jake said. “I was just getting into the rhythm of living at sea,” she said, “getting used to the midnight to 3AM watch and napping and reading during the day.” It has been almost four days since we left Stocking Island. The wind filled in from the southeast for a wonderful beam reach just like our weather guy Herb Hilgenberg said it would. The time has flown. Except for that one squall, it’s been fun. “Hey, we can keep going. It’s only another ten or twelve days to the Azores,” Jake said smiling, tongue-in-cheek. “We have enough canned goods and water to make it.” She punched him in the shoulder and he feigned hurt. “Alex and Sarah are flying in to meet us next week then we promised Bobby and Samantha we would make their wedding in Alexandria next month. You’re screwed buddy boy.” “Now, since you brought it up, why don’t we let Georgette handle the steering a while longer and….” She punched him in the shoulder again. This time she did it hard and Jake didn’t have to feign hurt. Then she smiled in the mischievous way she knew Jake had come to recognize and scampered down the companionway laughing. She could hear him following as she climbed back into the big aft berth.
“We have your wife and child.” In horror, Captain Guttierez read the note the waiter had just delivered a second time then clenched it in his fist. Shaken to his core, he scanned the café for its source. Nothing. Nothing appeared unusual, yet everything had changed. Other diner’s glances now held menace. The bustle of the city seemed inimical, each person brushing by on the broad sidewalk a threat. He pushed and held the number one on his cell phone to call his wife. A raspy, smoke-damaged masculine voice answered, “Now you know it is true. Tell no one if you want to see your wife and child alive again. No police. No army. Wait for our call.” “I want to speak with my wife,” he demanded. “You want to hear your wife?” the raspy voice said angrily. The raspy voice uttered something in a malevolent tone and he heard his wife’s voice shout, “No.” Then he heard her scream. The raspy voice said, “Go home. Wait for our call.” The connection broke.
DEA Agent Samantha Barker studied surveillance photos, DEA field reports and police reports spread across the kitchen table in her two story, red brick townhome in downtown Alexandria. She knew she was capable of obsessing about her work to the exclusion of all else. She felt a rush of warmth when she heard her lover, former Green Beret and ICE Agent Bobby Gulakowski come home. Bobby was what had been missing from her life for a long time. A big, solid bear of a man, he made her feel complete. “In here,” she shouted. Bobby came into the kitchen, put down his keys and briefcase on the counter, took two wine glasses out of the pantry and started to pour chilled chardonnay. “No wine for me tonight Bobby,” she said. “I still have work to do.” “Spoilsport.” Bobby walked behind her, reached over her shoulder to put down his wine down on the table and bent to kiss the nape of her neck. Then he stood behind her and massaged her shoulders. “You need to leave this stuff at the office more often.” She titlted her head forward enjoying Bobby’s touch. “Baltimore has a fresh rash of OD’s, some new, nearly pure cocaine hitting the market and a brutal drug war in progress. Higher wants me to get to the bottom of it right away and they assign me two, a total of two, rookie agents. I’m swamped.” “Welcome to management. At ICE when I ask for more resources higher usually reminds me that I’m supposed to use local and state agencies as a force multiplier.” Bobby moved his massage up the back of her neck. “It takes something really hitting the fan before we throw a lot of bodies at anything.” She tilted her head left and right as Bobby kneaded first one side of her neck then the other. “I’m getting all the state and local police reports in paper and electronic form, but that’s not the same thing as directing the action. Getting anybody who doesn’t work directly for you to do what you want them to do is just impossible. I know MS-13 is moving into Baltimore and that’s what is driving the drug war. I know they have a fresh source of supply. I just don’t have the resources to discover who the players are much less how they are bringing it in. If I don’t get a lucky break soon I don’t know how I can take leave for our honeymoon.” “Whoa babe.” Bobby stopped massaging her neck. “You’re putting way too much pressure on yourself. The world isn’t going to come to an end because we take off for a week.” “I know that,” she said. She turned in her chair to hug Bobby around the waist with her head on his stomach. “I just keep seeing the faces of all the kids who have OD’d. I know the faster I shut this down the fewer there will be.” “My wife, the Elliot Ness of the Mara Salvatrucha drug wars,” Bobby said, “I kinda like that.” “I like that too.” “Being compared to Elliot Ness?” “No, silly,” she stood and reached up to wrap her arms around the big man’s neck. “I like being called your wife.”
In the basement of his Wyman Park townhome Muhammad Al-Muntazar, the sixth and youngest son of Palestinian immigrants, and a direct descendent of Mohammed the prophet, brushed his lips to the floor before him as he completed a raka'ah of his evening Salah, the ritual prayers he performed five times each day. Muhammad was a tall thin man with intense hawk-like eyes. He carried himself regally and, after his direct connection to the prophet, he was most proud of his keen intellect. He held a BS in applied physics from University of Michigan and an MS and PHD from Johns Hopkins Whiting School of Engineering. He was an assistant professor of Applied Nuclear Physics at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore. After his Salah, Mohammad planned to do some engineering on a more practical level. He owned a very complete Shopsmith system modified to perform metalworking tasks to precise tolerances. He had grown up around such equipment in his Dearborn, Michigan home. His father was responsible for several worldwide patents and had been a highly placed engineer in Palestine before the 1967 Six-Day war with Israel. After the war, his whole family immigrated to the US and settled into the large Muslim community in Dearborn. Limited English skills kept his father from finding a job that used all of his education. At the suggestion of a cousin, his father joined the United Auto Workers Union and settled for a job as a machinist in a Ford Motor Company auto assembly plant. Making things from metal became his father’s vocation and avocation, and as he grew up his father’s skills became his own. This night’s metal working task was a simple one. He had cast three rings from lead. Each was nine inches in diameter and one and a half inches thick. He needed to drill a hole precisely three inches in diameter in the center of each ring such that each could slide easily over a metal tube. He had threaded that tube to accept a part from a medical imaging device called a neutron generator. The lead rings were simply dummy rings. He would only use them to test the mechanical functionality of the device he was building.
Captain Silvio Cordoba sat alone on the bridge of his containership, El Aguilar de Mexico. It was dark and he could see nothing of the transfer taking place on the docks beneath him. The lights of Mexico’s oldest and most beautiful port city stretched out before him in the dark. He preferred to be on the bridge when these transfers took place. Somehow, not being involved in the actual transfer of goods made him feel cleaner. All eighteen seaman aboard knew that they carried some contraband. That the ship often made a rendezvous with cigarette boats and offloaded a small cargo when they came into American waters made that much clear, and all hands received a cut of the pay. Silvio’s cut was by far the largest. Exactly what and how much contraband they carried only the four ship’s officers who handled the transfers knew. He shook his head in mournful penitence. Bless me Father for I have sinned…. He knew what he was doing was wrong and could cost him his job and his life. But it isn’t like I have a choice. These Salvadorian animals make us choose between taking their money and having our families killed. He was making a lot of money but his wife and family managed to spend it almost as fast as he made it. Another year, maybe two and I will be able to retire and get my family away to somewhere safe. Maybe the United States. I have a sister in San Antonio. He recognized that he had told himself the same thing two years before, and the year before that.
Captain Guttierez staggered to the bathroom of his small two-bedroom apartment, knelt on the floor and vomited into the toilet. He rose and brushed his teeth, looking at himself in the mirror while he brushed. He had dark circles under both eyes and a pasty pale cast to his skin. He had not slept. No one has called. The numbers of kidnappings in Mexico were still increasing. It was the primary reason he and his wife were happy with his assignment to Universidad Autónoma de la Ciudad de México. The northern states bordering the USA were where most of the drug dealing and lawlessness took place. Places like Matamoros. La Ciudad de Mexico was supposed to be relatively safe. I am not a rich man. What can they want with me? Maria must be terrified. His empty stomach gnawed at him. He went into the kitchen to get something to eat. He took a left over boiled egg and some orange juice from the refrigerator. He got down the egg, but the first sip of orange juice brought it right back up. He rushed to the sink and emptied his stomach again. Why am I doing this? I’m not going to be able to help Maria in this condition. His cell phone rang. He fumbled drawing it from his pocket and dropped it on the floor. He bent to pick it up, lost his balance and sat down hard on the floor. Finally, sitting there, he opened his phone. “Captain Guttierez,” he said. “Yes, I know where that is. On the side facing the volcano. Yes, I understand, no police, no army. 11 AM. Yes, I will be there.” They didn’t mention money. Madre de Dios, I hope this is not a reprisal for my successes in Matamoros. What is it they want?
Iman Mukara al Hasim looked up from a stack of paperwork on his desk to see Muhammad Al-Muntazar standing in his doorway. Mohammed bowed to him and entered the cubicle. He scowled at his young protege. “I told you that we should not meet again my son, especially not here. This place is watched.” “I am just another worshiper come to perform my Salah in the mosque, father. We are alone,” Muhammed said. The Imam let the scowl fall from his face. He knew the young genius worshipped him as a son and wanted nothing to break that tie. However he kept a stern tone in his voice when he said, “Do not do this again my son. You must have no connection to me, or this place. You are the chosen one. The other things we do here are as nothing to your purpose. “I came only to tell you that the device is ready.” Muhammad murmured with downcast eyes, hurt by his mentor’s disapproval. “All that remains is to replace the inert material with….” “Shhh…,” he commanded, and Mohammad ceased speaking. “We must not speak of this, especially here. The walls have ears.” “Here? Here in the mosque? The infidels dare to invade the mosque?” Righteous anger flared in Mohammad’s hawk-like gaze. “Shhh...,” he commanded again. “We have found devices and we sweep every day, but still we must be circumspect. I understand. The first part of your task is finished. Now I must complete the second part.” He rose, held his protégé by both arms and kissed each of his cheeks. “You have done well, but you must go now. Become one with the infidels again. Do not let them see the fire I see in your eyes. You are the sword and your time is coming soon. I will call you when all is ready. Do not return.” He watched the heat leave Mohammad’s face as Mohammad regained control. Then Mohammad bowed and kissed the back of his hand and turned to leave. “I will see you again Father, if only in paradise. Allahu Akbar.” “Go with God, my son. Allahu Akbar.”
He walked with Mohammad as far as the curtain that separated the office sections of the Islamic Center of Alexandria from the areas of worship. To think when I found him in Dearborn he was just an angry, lonely boy of thirteen. Now he is a preeminent scholar of the scriptures and the instrument that will strike at the heart of the Great Satan. He waved as Mohammad left and walked back to his cubicle to resume the administration of the Alexandria Chapter of Worldwide Islamic Charities, a federally charter 501(3)(C) US nonprofit. He looked at the bank balances on the papers in front of him and smiled in satisfaction. I collect millions, tax free, right beneath the noses of the infidels for the very enemies they seek to destroy. He laughed aloud. Even the faithful do not know the purposes to which I put their money, and stupid Christian foundations, anxious to show they have no prejudice, add millions more. His assistant, Imam Abu Hamari al-Maziri, joined him to plot the delivery of cash to support the compound called Islamtown in upper New York where a band of several hundred disaffected African Americans, recruited from among the graduates of America’s toughest penal institutions, lived, trained with weapons and studied scripture. Our black brothers prepare for the day when they too can strike a blow for Islam in America.
Muhammad passed from the dim light of the interior of the mosque to the bright sunshine of the street. He raised his hand to shield his eyes and saw a flash of light from the window a parked car fifty yards down the street. A reflection off binoculars? He gazed towards a blue Ford Crown Victoria. There are two men in that car. The Imam was right I should not have come here. He quickly turned his face away and hurried around the street corner to his own car.
“Did you get that guy Jim? Damn, as soon as he made us did he look guilty of something or what?” The man in the driver’s seat of the Crown Victoria lowered his binoculars. “I think I got him.” The man in the passenger seat turned around and thumbed back through a series of digital photos he had just taken with an expensive 20X-optical-zoom digital camera. “Blurry…, blurry…, blurry…, OK. Gotcha, you son-of-a-bitch.” He held the camera over for his partner to see that he had gotten at least one clear, well-focused, high-resolution shot of the guy’s face. “One exciting moment in an otherwise totally boring shift…. I wonder who the guy is, or if we’ll ever find out.” “We also serve who only sit and wait,” said the man in the driver’s seat.
Randall Burbridge stood at what he thought of as parade rest in front of the desk of the Chief of Staff of the Transportation Security Administration. James (“Call me Jimmy”) DeWitt was a pudgy faced political appointee in his early forties and the number two man in the chain of command. The Assistant Administrator of Legislative Affairs, Phil Blackwell sat off to one side. Randall was a powerful man in his own right. He wasn’t used to being called on the carpet, though Congressional Investigations into his $200M per year budget had caused that to happen several times in the past months. He was the TSA’s Assistant Administrator in charge of Law Enforcement and the Federal Air Marshall Program. A former Marine and Vietnam Vet with a Purple Heart, he had been a beat cop and had retired after a long career as a member of the Treasury Department’s Secret Service. Even though it had been decades since he carried a gun, he still thought of himself as a law enforcement officer first and foremost. I came back to help my country after 9/11 and I just don’t need this shit…. He tuned out most of the senseless tirade coming from his superior. “Are you listening to me Burbridge?” DeWitt shouted. Without responding, he raised his eyebrows to indicate he was. “Do you realize there were twelve men killed in this fracas down in South Carolina? Do you realize that your man Driver was responsible for killing eight of them? Why wasn’t I warned about this? This is just the kind of surprise some GOP Congressman would like to shove up my ass!” “Apparently Mr. Driver was actively assisting an investigation by DEA and ICE during the incidents in question, sir.” He said. “He was not acting in his capacity as an Air Marshall. If he had been I would have briefed you, sir.” “One of your guys is involved in the biggest gun battle in which an Air Marshall has ever taken part and you think some Congressman is going to care that he wasn’t on an airplane at the time? Tell me, who the hell is this Driver guy anyway?” Dewitt demanded. “And why is he listed on administrative leave?” “Some years ago we got a joint request from NSA and DIA to carry him on our rolls, sir.” “You mean there is some kind of NSA spy hiding out in your department.” Dewitt’s tone communicated how nearly close to ballistic he was. “Sir, Driver is a qualified Air Marshall. We put him through all our schools. From time to time we even pay him for his services when he flies internationally.” “This old coot passed all your physical and weapons training requirements?” He let it pass that the Chief of Staff was talking about a man almost precisely his own age. “That old coot was number one in his class in both, sir.” Dewitt flipped a couple of pages in a personnel file on his desk, nodded and grunted, “Harumpf. I want this guy standing tall in front of my desk tomorrow morning to give me a blow by blow of what went down. It’s bad enough that I have to defend your department in Congress against reports of Marshalls with felonies and the accusation that the Air Marshall Service costs us a hundred million dollars per arrest. I’m not going to get blindsided by one of your guys going cowboy and shooting up illegal aliens.” “Two things sir, please note that the DEA and the Beaufort County Sherriff’s Office both issued letters of commendation for Mr. Driver and….” “And what Burbridge?” DeWitt interrupted. “And we can’t find Mr. Driver, sir. Apparently he is somewhere at sea.” “At sea? Why the fuck am I not surprised…. Get him in here just as soon as he hits American soil. Got that?” “Got it, sir.” Without waiting for more abuse, he did a snappy about face and fled back to his own office on the next lower floor. He called in his Deputy. “Find Jake Driver and get him in here ASAP. The Chief just went ballistic on me when he got wind of Driver’s run in with MS-13.” I was afraid burying those after action reports would blow up in my face. Driver is just what we need on the front lines, old school, like me. I could do my damn job for one-third the budget if I could copy Mossad and El Al’s procedures. Trouble is, they’re either illegal or not PC.
Captain Guttierez sped like a madman down the Mexico-Puebla highway. He had called in sick, and truly, he felt sick. He was faint and his hands quivered on the wheel of his little Volkswagen. His destination was Cholula, a suburb of the larger city Puebla some 170 KM to the southest of Mexico City towards Veracruz. In Cholula, right on top of the most important Nahuatl Indian spiritual center, the Spanish conquistadors built the the Santuario Nuestra Señora de los Remedios church. He had visited the site several times before. He recalled the site was sometimes called the Great Pyramid of Cholula because the huge man-made hill was both the largest pyramid and largest monument in the world. The kidnappers had told him to meet them there next to the church on the side facing of the 17,802 foot volcano Popocatépetl. He wound up through the hills overtaking and passing other cars with abandon. Only the tightest of hairpin turns kept him from passing. His fear that he would not arrive in time was unjustified. He arrived at the church with fifteen minutes to spare and rushed on foot to its east side. With fearful eyes, he scanned the visitors oblivious to the grand view of the volcano. “Do not turn around, Captain.” The voice was not the raspy voice of the man who spoke to him on the phone but a different, oddly accented one. “What do you want? Where is my wife? Where is my child?” he said. “Your wife and child are alive and well. They are not here, but if you want to see them alive again you will do exactly as I say.” He started to turn around and the voice brought him to a quick halt. “If you turn around they will die! Do not do that Captain.” “What is it you want? I do not have much money.” The voice chuckled. “We do not want your money Captain. We want one small thing from the University. On Saturday at 8AM, when no one else is there, we will meet you on the steps, go to your office, and get what we want. Then you may have your wife and child.” “How do I know they are still alive?” “Take this.” A hand snaked around his side and thrust a picture at him. He took it. It was a picture of his wife holding a copy of today’s El Universal. She is still alive. “Go back to work Captain. Act as if nothing has happened. Meet us Saturday at 8AM on the steps and your wife and child will live.” “But Saturday is four days from now….” Something had changed. A shadow on the ground was gone. Reflections of noise were different. Somehow he knew there was no longer anyone there to hear him. Nevertheless, he waited minutes before turning around to see. How will I get through the next four days. What is it they want? |
