Chapter 24
Chapter 24
I called Ashley from the plane. He picked up after the third ring. His voice sounded tired. “Hey, Murph.” He tried to sound strong. “How about some good news.”
“Sir, we followed a lead to Maui. Now Jerusalem. We are en route.”
“Anything solid?”
I chose my words. “Not yet.”
I could hear him rubbing a stubbled face.
I pressed him. “Sir, how’s Esther?”
“Um . . .” A long pause followed by an honest admission. “She’s . . . not good.”
I could hear people in the background, so I said the only thing I could. “Hang in there, Ash.”
When he finally spoke, his voice cracked. “Murph?”
I knew what was coming. “Yes, sir.”
“Find my girls. Please find my girls.”
We were met by Customs in Tel Aviv, who seemed to be expecting us. They also told us we could keep our sidearms and they said nothing about Clay’s cane. Indicating that Ariel felt safe enough in his own security protocol and setting to allow armed strangers to enter. This told me a good bit about him. Against his protests, we left Gunner on the plane. Not because I didn’t need him. We did. But he draws attention like a magnet, which we did not need. We needed to get in, get out, and leave no impression in the process. We took a private car inside Jerusalem and stopped at a nondescript gated home on the outskirts of the northern end of the old city walls.
We walked through the Damascus Gate at sunset, turned left, and wound down a tight alley hugging the ancient wall. Left. Right. Up a small ramp. Another left. Down several steps. Up another ramp. A left. Followed by twenty long steps that covered more distance than height. The stones were smooth, worn, and spoke history. We stopped at several large buildings that grew out of the wall’s interior where a gate led into a courtyard.
I knocked and a kid opened the door. Maybe twelve. A soccer ball under one arm. He half bowed, then pulled the door open and gestured to the stairs. “Dad’s up there.” The smell emanating from the house was almost intoxicating enough to cause me to miss the more than twenty cameras capturing our arrival and the four men staring down on us from elevated positions. I liked this guy already.
We climbed the stairs, wondering what on earth was cooking in the kitchen and who we had to pay to get some. The stairs ended on a landing that bled into a library. Several thousand books. Mostly history. Some fiction. He had three of those cool ladders that slide on wheels along the shelves. We found him atop the third, a book in hand.
He descended and extended a hand. “Murphy Shepherd.”
He was smaller than me. Sinewy. Dark eyes. Wisps of gray showing in his beard. Little to no wasted movement. “Ariel Underwood.” I shook his hand. “You can call me Murph.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Or maybe Colonel.”
“News travels quickly.”
“I was and am sorry to hear about Bones. I knew him to be a man who did what he said he was going to do. Rare these days.”
“You worked together?”
“Many times.” A nod. “He got me out of a few tight spots. And...” He covered his heart with one hand, suggesting either an honest admission or failure. Or both. “When my niece ran away with a young man with bad intentions, Bones found her and brought her back. I owe him much.”
Despite all the miles and all the time spent in his presence, I never cease to be amazed how little I actually knew Bones. Underwood’s present-tense use of the word owe was not lost on me. Ariel motioned for us to sit. A lady, presumably his wife, entered carrying hot tea. “Since you are working...”
I accepted the tea. “I didn’t realize it had been made public.”
“You have your secrets. We have ours. Sometimes we are able to keep them.”
Clay’s bear-paw hands had a difficult time grasping the dainty teacup. After several unsuccessful attempts to bring it to his mouth without spilling it, he just set it down.
Ariel turned to Camp. “Commander, we’ve never actually met.”
“No, sir. But we’ve shared the same geography for a time.”
Ariel smiled and nodded. Then he turned to me. “You managed to do what no one else has.”
“Which is?”
“Get the better of Steve Plexis.”
“What can you tell me about him?”
“Teams guy. Good at his job.” He weighed his head side to side. “Used to love his country. Sold his soul when his CO left him someplace he shouldn’t have been. Lost a few buddies.”
“Why’d he send me to you?”
Ariel rubbed his chin. “Francis Walker.”
The image of Frank falling backward down the well and taking Bones with him flashed before my mind’s eye. I waited.
Ariel continued, “When you did the world a favor and sent Frank to his watery grave, you, in a very real sense, opened the gates of hell.”
I was pretty sure I knew this answer, but I asked anyway. “How so?”
“Frank had seven generals. All either wanting out or vying for Frank’s seat. No lost love between any of them. Steve knew we had special interest in the identity of those men. Those people.”
“We?”
He tapped a star of David hanging around his neck. “Us.”
“What does that have to do with Steve and the vice president’s daughters?”
“Maybe nothing.” A pause. “Maybe something.”
“Why do I get the feeling there’s something you’re not telling me?”
He looked to each of us. “Gentlemen.” He stood and beckoned. “Please.”
We followed him downstairs and through two keypad-controlled security doors. The second of which included face recognition technology. The door opened to reveal a network of tunnels. He spoke as he walked. “Much of the stone Herod used to build his magnificent city above us came from these underground quarries. During the multiple times the city has been overrun, my people have hidden down here.” We came to the end of a long tunnel, turned right, and continued straight. As best I could tell, we were either beneath the ancient wall of the city or just beyond it.
Finally, the tunnel led us to a third keypad. Underwood typed in his code and presented his face to the scanner, and the door unlocked itself and swung open, breaking the air lock. Underwood smiled at me. “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.” The room was large and filled with several people staring at screens, typing on keyboards, and speaking quietly into ear-mounted microphones. He stood aside, allowing us to take in the room. “From here we monitor what concerns us.” Israel’s satellite and drone technology was second to none, and the high-def resolution of the screens in front of me proved that.
“Let me back up,” said Ariel. “Frank controlled an empire by controlling seven generals, for lack of a better term.”
“Correct.”
“Until now, the identity of the seven was closely guarded by Frank. Only he knew. We’ve tried for years to discover just one, but each ended in a dead end. Frank enjoyed sending us on, how do you say, wild-goose chases.” A pause. “He controlled these seven evil people by leveraging their deviant sexual sins against them. Evidently in the form of extensive video footage, which, if exposed, would lead to only one place.”
“Prison.”
“Correct. And we assume these people don’t want that footage seen to the extent that they were willing to do what Frank commanded, which was to manage one-seventh of a sex-trafficking empire.”
“Correct.”
“But to Frank’s credit, he knew that sooner or later they’d tire from being led around by that ring in their nose, so he sweetened the deal by paying them otherworldly amounts of money, making them worth hundreds of millions, if not a few billion. Proving the age-old adage ‘How do you prevent mutiny?’”
“Give the crew a piece of the gold.”
“Exactly.”
Camp spoke next. “An interesting mousetrap.”
Then Clay. “Nothing like money to keep the family close.”
Ariel raised a finger as if asking a question. “But how long can money, mixed with the not-so-unspoken threat of prison, keep them compliant?”
“I think Frank was assuming the rest of their natural born lives.”
“Agreed.” Ariel continued, “But if you’re paranoid on a level not easily measured...”
“Which Frank was,” I added.
“Then you have to assume that at some point one or all of these people will discover they are rich enough to disappear. Buy an island. Plastic surgery. Whatever. At some point their money can grant them freedom.”
“If”—I raised a finger—“they’re willing to leave the life they currently lead.”
He nodded. “So, given this possibility, and knowing that at any moment any one of them could give you the finger, what would you do to keep track of these seven people upon whom you’ve built your empire? To what extent would you go? Let me ask it this way: What would you not do?”
These were good questions, and I found myself liking Ariel and his process. “You have a theory?”
He nodded. “It’s thin. Not a lot to go on. More of a hunch really. But I want to show you something.” He motioned to a woman sitting at a terminal who punched several keys on her keyboard, which powered on a screen above a large table. The screen showed a shimmering blue ocean with astounding clarity. More key clicks caused the perspective to zoom in on a land mass. An island. And an airstrip on the southeast coast of that land mass.
He turned to me. “Look familiar?”
It did. Also familiar was the pain it produced in my stomach. I nodded.