Black Flagged Apex

Chapter 30





12:16 PM

Bonitos Boathouse

Fripp Island, South Carolina



Jessica stared at the young woman like she was holding a wet brown paper bag filled with dog feces over her lunch. The waitress looked to Daniel for support, still holding the phone out for someone to grab. Jessica didn't need to ask to figure out who was on the line. Few people knew they were here, and only one of them would have the nerve to call them. Given the fact that he had tracked them down at lunch on the first day they were together, Jessica was pretty sure this wasn't a social call. She could barely bring herself to look at Daniel, who should have snapped up the phone immediately. She was starting to wonder if this was her husband's intention all along, to let her make the decision. Well f*ck both of them.

"I'm not talking to him," she said to Daniel, then turned to face the ponytailed, twenty-something waitress. "And if you continue to hold that phone in my face, I'll throw it over the railing into the water."

The woman retracted her hand and bit down on the top of her lip, unsure how to proceed.

"I realize this isn't your fault. I apologize for snapping at you," Jessica said, staring at Daniel. "I'm talking to her, not you. Go ahead and hang up on the gentleman, miss. I'll add a twenty to your tip if you do it within the next three seconds. Three, two…"

The waitress smiled and pressed the disconnect button. Before Jessica could dig the money out of her handbag, the phone rang again.

"I'll make that $500 if you throw it into the water."

"Don't throw the phone over. She doesn't mean that," Daniel said to the waitress. He turned to Jessica. "You want me to take this?"

"Not really, but I have a feeling it's inevitable. I don't want to talk to him. He's not going to get my approval to drag you off on another crazy adventure."

Daniel took the phone from the waitress and thanked her. Before she scurried off, Jessica gave her two twenty-dollar bills and apologized for putting her in the middle of their dispute. She watched the waitress walk quickly away from the table and thought about the difference between the two of them. At her age, Jessica had been learning spy craft at Camp Peary, Virginia, also known as "The Farm." A world apart. One woman ready to cry after being placed in an uncomfortable position while waiting tables, the other training for the rigors of an undercover position in war-torn Yugoslavia. She envied the waitress and wished her a simple life that she herself had had.

She caught snippets of the conversation, choosing to focus on finishing her grilled calamari salad. It was a little heavy on the southern spices, but otherwise cooked to perfection. She drank most of her Bloody Mary, staring out at the marina, watching the masts bob up and down, back and forth. She heard enough of the conversation to be satisfied with Daniel's performance. Her suspicions had been wrong.

"He won't be bothering us anymore," Daniel said, placing the phone on the table.

"What did he want?"

"Do you really want to know?"

Jessica considered his question with her own internal query. Were they really done with the Black Flag program? Could they afford to cut ties with the program? That seemed to be the real question they needed to answer. Neither of them could predict how long their current immunity deal would last under a new administration. They were one year away from an election year and a possible reshuffle of the White House. They had planned to disappear as Jessica and Daniel Petrovich and reemerge as a "regular" couple somewhere within the United States. Living in another country remained an option, but their options would be limited, unless they were willing to spend a considerable sum of money. Money like that always attracted the wrong kind of attention.

"Where does he want to send you now? Back to Europe?"

"Atlanta, and he doesn't need me. He wanted to speak with you for a reason."

"He found a job for me? He is still aware that I was recently beaten to within an inch of my life and shot in the hand, right?"

"All of that supposedly makes you the best candidate. If not you, he'll have to hire from outside the group."

"A woman with a claw hand, strangled neck and black eye is the best candidate for the job? Why can't he send Diyah Castillo instead? I'd be happy to punch her in the face a few times."

"Diyah's in critical condition, along with Sayar Abraham. The rest of Sayar's team is dead. They were part of an FBI undercover operation in New Jersey. Sanderson's already sent Munoz and Melendez to Atlanta to start surveillance. The target is a highly successful quasi-lobbyist and fundraiser named Benjamin Young. Apparently, he has a weakness for beautiful women."

"Don't they all?"

"He has a specific weakness for the professional ladies," Daniel said.

"Sanderson needs someone to play the role of a prostitute? Wonderful."

She started to get up, but thought about what little she had heard of the conversation. Daniel had flat out refused whatever Sanderson had suggested, quickly ending the call. She had to remember that none of this was his fault. She lowered herself back onto the plastic patio chair and finished the Bloody Mary in one long gulp.

"You know how I feel about work like that," she said.

"The suggestion didn't sit well with me either," Daniel said.

On paper, two years of intense training with the CIA had prepared her to operate undercover in Belgrade. In reality, nothing could have prepared her for the ordeal she had been selected to endure. She had been too naïve and enthusiastic in Virginia to put the pieces together. Too caught up in her success within the agency to see it coming. From top to bottom, men dominated the Serbian government and paramilitary structures. Women played no role in these corrupt and brutal organizations. This fundamental characteristic of Serbia was so overwhelmingly obvious that it remained invisible to her. The training continued, and she remained blind to the jaws waiting to chew her up and spit her out when she arrived in Serbia. Her handlers only made matters worse for her in the long run.

Beyond the best clandestine training available worldwide, she was spoiled by the CIA. Indulged in expensive clothing, etiquette lessons, and exposure to the finest food and wine money could buy. She emerged from the CIA's clandestine operations training program feeling unstoppable. Highly trained, confident and sophisticated, she could breeze through the casinos of Monte Carlo like James Bond or scale the walls of the Kremlin after sipping a martini with a Russian double-agent. The possibilities were endless for the newly minted agent. Even her undercover name sounded like something out of a Frederick Forsyth novel: Zorana Zekulic.

Her first assignment was to develop Serbian contacts in Paris. Members of Milosevic's paramilitary organizations made a killing in the black market, selling everything from stolen cigarettes to knock-off Polo shirts. The more cosmopolitan criminals traveled throughout Europe, spending time in cities like Paris and Amsterdam, where they could party like rock stars and try to expand Serbia's black market reach. These were typically highborn Serbs, who had vacationed with their families outside of the Balkans and were accustomed to more than Belgrade had to offer.

Family business connections had put them in a position to participate in the paramilitary Ponzi scheme at a high level, but they didn't mix well with the rough crowd that dominated the ranks of most paramilitary groups. Extended stays in the fashionable European cities served many purposes. Survival sat at the top of the list. The more time they spent outside Serbia, the less opportunity their paramilitary brethren would have to cut their throats open in a dark Belgrade alley.

For eight months, "Zorana" had lived the life of a runway model, partying with the "long distance" criminal element of Milosevic's paramilitary regime. Her time in Paris was extremely productive, exceeding CIA expectations. She fine-tuned her newly acquired tastes and broke into nearly every important social circle within the city. As a result of her "hard work," she developed well-placed contacts from three of the major paramilitary groups competing for Milosevic's attention in Belgrade. She repeatedly turned down offers to return with them to Serbia. The CIA wanted her to arrive in Belgrade on her own, not beholden to any particular group. Her handlers would direct these efforts once word of her arrival had spread throughout Belgrade. It would also give the CIA time to assess the success of her cover story, as the name started to filter back to Serbia from Paris.

So far, her "legend" had raised no eyebrows among Serbian expats in Paris, but Belgrade would be a different story. Serbians were suspicious by nature, especially in their own backyard. Her "legend" had been crafted carefully, extensively weaved into her training at the one year mark, where she would start to learn region specific skills that would transform her into Zorana Zekulic.

Zorana had left her parents when she was seventeen to live in Novi Sad with another girl from her small southern village. For two years, she waited tables at night and cleaned houses during the day, saving enough money to travel to Amsterdam. Two months after arriving in the Netherlands, she learned that her parents had been killed by Bosnian guerillas in a rare reprisal attack against civilians in southwestern Serbia.

Zorana Zekulic was found dead a few months later, floating in an obscure canal west of the city, the apparent victim of a heroin overdose and possible strangling. CIA analysts given the task to find a new "legend" had struck gold making these connections. Zorana's death went unnoticed in Amsterdam, since she had never broken into any significant social scene. CIA agents struggled to find anyone that remembered her beyond a hazy "oh yeah, I remember her…she used to hang out at the, uh…one of the cafés in De Wallen…I'm trying to think of the name…give me a second" comment. Agents in Amsterdam calculated that any memory of Zorana Zekulic would fade within three months, long before her replacement arrived in Paris.

Paris had been like a dream for Jessica, now living as Zorana Zekulic. Three inches taller, and she could have easily broken into the runway model business. She had already turned down several photo-ops for women's fashion magazines at the request of her CIA handlers. They wanted her to attract attention, but not worldwide attention. Several months later, she was given the "green light" to leave Paris.

Immediately upon arrival, she noticed that the scene was starkly different in Belgrade. Her "friends" had kept their distance in Paris, despite their wealth and overconfidence. In Paris, she held the upper hand. She learned very quickly where she stood among these "friends" in Belgrade—a few notches up from prostitute. The rest of the men didn't differentiate. She spent most of her first month crying in her apartment. She was trapped in the most demeaning role imaginable, with no way out. She had been recruited by the CIA because she was "the very best of the best" and accelerated through the most selective training program in the world. All of that had landed her on the streets, fending off the most vile savages on earth. Looking back, she couldn't believe she hadn't seen this coming. She came from nothing. Why would she have expected anything different?

She looked back at Daniel. He had rescued her from the depths of hell after she had turned her back on him and disappeared in Chicago. He never asked any questions about why she had abandoned him. That was the thing with Daniel; he never judged, and he never hesitated to take her back. He understood her on a core level, which both frightened and comforted her. No matter what she did, he'd always be there for her. She couldn't ask for anything else. She loved him fiercely and wanted to do what was right for both of them, even if it meant small sacrifices.

"What's the risk level?" she asked.

"Low. Young travels between D.C., Manhattan, and his home in Atlanta. True America wants him dead. Apparently, he knows too much about their organization at this point for them to overlook his addiction to escorts and drugs. Sanderson sent your two friends to keep an eye on him. He wants us to talk to Young before they kill him. This involves you luring him from a hotel lobby bar to a hotel room, under our watchful eyes. We'll take care of the rest."

"You'll be there?"

"The entire time," he assured her.

"This may sound crazy, but I don't think we should sever ties to Sanderson yet. He may be the only person that can save us if the immunity deal falls apart. Despite his cold, calculating personality, I sense a loyalty to you that can never be broken. As long as we can work together, I'm in."

"Nothing crazy about sticking together. Are you absolutely sure about this?"

"I'm sure. What's the timeline?" she said.

"Young is scheduled to be in town for two more nights. Sanderson doesn't know very much about his Atlanta routine, but the guy's taken a room at the Ritz Carlton in Buckhead, presumably for extramarital entertainment. The dynamic duo has secured the room across the hall from him. Sanderson wants us to give this a try tonight. He stressed the importance of grabbing him during his normal routine at the hotel. Munoz hasn't detected any third-party surveillance, but it's only a matter of time before True America gets some eyes on Young…or stuffs a gun down his throat. They have already issued Young's death warrant, so Sanderson thinks tonight might be our only chance to do this without drawing attention."

"Buckhead is a four- to five-hour drive from here, and I need to do some shopping. Preferably in a few of the boutique shops on Peachtree Road. We need to get moving."

"We can finish lunch. Sanderson reserved two seats for us on the 2:15 out of Savannah. Puts us in Atlanta by 3:30."

"In that case, I think I'll order the buttermilk fried flounder and another drink while you give Sanderson the good news."

"Sounds like a plan," Daniel said, staring off at the ocean past her.

She could tell something bothered him about the seemingly simple mission. Something he had chosen not to disclose.