Big Three-Thriller Bundle Box Collection (43 page)

FLIGHT OF THE INVESTIGATOR

April 30, 1330 - American Airlines Flight 634, One Hour Out Over Atlantic Ocean

“LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, this is your captain speaking. Due to some unexpected storms in the North Atlantic, I’m afraid we’ll have to deviate our course a little. We’ll be flying into London’s Heathrow Airport for a short layover before flying on to our destination, Madrid. I’m sure it will delay us only a couple of hours. Madrid is aware of our change of flight plan and will post the delay to insure that any parties meeting you at the airport won’t worry and will be able to make other arrangements. Again, we’re sorry for the inconvenience.”

“Oh, wonderful,” the elderly lady sitting next to the aisle said, clutching her purse as she had been for the past sixty minutes. She wore her salt and pepper hair in a bun on the top of her head and a large floral-print dress that fit like a sack on her squat little body.

Spurs had dressed in her summer-white uniform to start “feeling the part,” like an actor or an undercover investigator should. She reasoned that the two jobs weren’t all that different except, as an actor, if you didn’t perform convincingly, the audience probably wouldn’t kill you. She smiled at the woman as she finished stitching up a small rip in the sleeve of one of her uniform blouses.

“Don’t worry,” Spurs said reaching over the empty seat between them and patting the old woman’s hand, “I’m sure it’ll be only a short delay as the captain said.”

“Oh, I’m not worried, but I’ll bet my son will be. He always worries about his old mother.” She looked at Spurs with wide smiling eyes. “He’s in oil, ya know.”

“Ooh, that sounds slippery,” Spurs said.

The old woman just looked at her, puzzled.

“I’m sorry, it was supposed to be a joke. Not a very good one, I suppose.”

The woman gave a slight curve of the lips and nodded.

Spurs said, “I tend to joke when things get tense or worrisome. Sometimes, it’s a curse.”

“Are you worried?”

Spurs sat back. “Just a little anxious. I’m going to Spain to meet my ship. It’s got a lot of problems that I’m supposed to fix.”

“You’re a mechanic?”

“No, ma’am, just a problem solver.”

The old woman nodded again and laid her head back on the headrest. After a moment, she closed her eyes, and Spurs gazed out the small, round window next to her. Between wisps of clouds were the ocean waves—tiny white lines on the blue-green mat 30,000 feet below. The butterflies still played in her stomach as they had when she’d boarded the plane, and she felt a slight case of the shakes. It reminded her of the first time she’d calf-roped in the rodeo at age eleven. There was so much to remember, so much to do, so much to be responsible for. But finally, the months of training would soon be put to practice.

* * *

Spurs thought back to when she’d been given her assignment the previous morning. NCIS Director Harley Burgess had called her at her cubicle and requested her immediate presence in his office. His voice was blank of emotions. As she gathered up a notepad and pen and walked down the long echoing hall to meet him, she wondered what she’d done to deserve a reprimand from the boss.

She’d never
really
met Director Burgess before, just shook his hand at the brief graduation ceremony after she completed the NCIS Basic Agent Course at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Glynco, Georgia. But he seemed to be a pleasant man, bald and chubby, not what someone might think an ex-CIA spook would look like.

Burgess was on the phone when his secretary ushered her in. He leaned back in his leather swivel chair behind a highly polished, cherry-wood desk, his waxed crown reflecting the sunlight flooding through the large picture window behind him. It was like a beacon, and she had to squint and suppress a laugh—although a nervous one—as she approached his desk.

“Yes, Mr. Secretary,” he said into the phone, “I have one of my best people on it.”

She was reminded of the man’s position, and it made it easy to forget his lighthouse forehead. Was it the Secretary of the Navy or the Secretary of Defense he was speaking to?

She glanced around the room while waiting for permission to sit. It was like a photo gallery. Lining three walls, above the many bookcases, were dozens of framed pictures of Burgess shaking hands and rubbing shoulders with various foreign and US dignitaries. Burgess shaking hands with the Shah of Iran, with Golda Meir, Margaret Thatcher, with Presidents Ford, Carter, Reagan, Clinton, and both the senior and junior Bushes. Pictures with people she didn’t recognize, all regally dressed. On the far wall hung a mounted, seven-foot-long swordfish, its tail curled out and mouth open as if still fighting its fate.

Burgess’ desk was clear of pictures, cluttered with stacks of folders and the usual desk paraphernalia. But on each side of his desk were two small stands, each dedicated solely to a single 8X10 sitting on top. On the right was a photo of Burgess and a lady who was probably his wife, both of them in evening attire.

The photo on the left was different than all of the rest. It was taken in front of a boat with Burgess and another man, probably thirty years his junior and a good six inches taller, in casual clothes instead of the formal ties and tuxedos that the subjects in the other photos wore. She wondered if the younger man might be Burgess’ son. They stood next to what was probably the same seven-foot swordfish that now lived on the wall, only it was hoisted up on a pole. Both men wore sunglasses, big smiles, and shirts you’d buy at a tourist’s trap in the Bahamas, their arms on each other’s shoulders. The name of the boat in the background was blocked partially by the huge fish;
Cham
_ _ _
on
. Probably
Champion
, she thought.

“And what about our golf game on Saturday. Okay,
no mulligans this time. See you then, Mr. Secretary.”

He hung up and said, “Have a seat, Agent Sperling. That one.” He pointed to a high-back, leather chair to the left of his desk. He smiled pleasantly as he watched her step over and sit down.

“Thank you, sir.” She glanced at the swordfish again as she sat. “Nice fish.”

Burgess kept his smile as he turned and gazed at his trophy catch. “Yes. Yes, it is, isn’t it?” He looked at the photo Spurs now sat beside, and she could see something distant and affectionate in his eyes. “It was our last catch on our l
ittle boat before Fran got it.”

She didn’t understand. “Your ex-wife, sir?”

He chuckled and glanced over his shoulder to the other picture. “No, I’ve been married to the same girl for over forty-two years. Her name is Susan. The hurricane’s name was Fran.”

Spurs felt her face flush. “Of course,” she said and nodded.

He paused before saying any more, still watching her with the smile that made her think of a father admiring his child on the kid’s first bicycle solo.

“I’m sorry that this is the first chance we’ve had to talk, Janelle—oh, uh, I see you have a nickname,” he said, glancing ba
ck at an open file on his desk. “Spurs, I believe.”

“Yes, sir,” she said, smiling, “some of my friends call me that.”

“Does that include me?”

She grinned at him. He was good at breaking the ice. “Of course, sir.”

“Good. And you’ve been out of training for what, a month now?”

“Three weeks, sir.”

“How do you like it so far?”

“Just fine, sir—well, can I be frank?”

“But of course, by all means,” he said, his face showing a practiced concern.

“I’m getting a little bored with the paperwork, you know the filing and things. I was hoping I’d be assigned a case by now.”

Burgess pulled a file folder from a stack on the corner of his desk and opened it. He leafed through it briefly. “Funny you should mention that, Spurs,” he said. “I just might have one for you, but I’m concerned that you may not be ready.”

Spurs’ eyes grew big. “Sir, I’d do anything to prove that I am. I was second in my training class at the center—top of my class in forensic psychology in college.”

“Yes, I see that. But those aren’t the reasons I’m considering you for this case. Normally, for what I have in mind, we’d use a more experienced field agent.”

Spurs sat on the edge of the chair. “What I lack in experience, I’m sure I can make up in enthusiasm, sir. I have a bachelor’s in criminology.”

“From Oklahoma University, yes, I know, but that isn’t it either, Spurs, and too much enthusiasm can get you killed in this business.”

She sat back and tried to calm herself, realizing she was looking like a rookie—the kiss of death for an investigator, rookie or not.

“Then what is it, sir?”

Burgess’ eyes met hers over his reading glasses. “You’re in the Navy Reserve?”

“Yes, sir, joined in my college freshman year. Six years now.”

He looked back to her file. “Trained as a weapons officer?”

“That’s right, sir.”

“You’ve spent some time at sea. How did you like shipboard life?” He seemed to ensure good eye contact on this question as if how she’d dealt with being out to sea would be a major factor in determining whether or not she was suitable for the assignment.

Spurs was only half truthful. On board ship, she was fine, as long as she didn’t have to get into the water herself. “I enjoyed it, sir.”

“I guess it figures, your father’s Admiral Oliver T. Sperling. He’s retired now isn’t he?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I’ve met your father. He’s a good man—tough, but good. And your mother drowned. I’m sorry.”

“That was a long time ago, sir, when I was twelve.” Concerned that he might be searching for a reason to disqualify her from her first chance at an assignment as an investigator, she changed the subject. “What kind of case are you considering me for?”

“It would be in line with your fields of interest: criminal investigations and counterintelligence. Undercover, aboard a ship.”

Spurs swallowed hard. “Contraband, theft?”

“Murder.”

Spurs blinked. “Please give me a try, sir.”

Burgess looked back at her file. “I’ll catch hell from Paul Royse. I understand my assistant director is your father’s stepbrother—your step uncle, so to speak. I’m sure that had nothing to do with you getting a job here.”

“Uncle, sir. I don’t think about the ‘step’ part. But, even so, there’s no nepotism I’m aware of, sir. I passed all of the tests in the upper ten percent of the class.”

“Uh-huh. But you’re very close to your uncle?”

“Yes, sir. I pretty much grew up on his ranch in Oklahoma. And, after my mother died, Uncle Paul and Aunt Katherine took care of me—raised me. That was when he was FBI. I guess he’s why I wanted to be here. He said it would be a rewarding career and I could still be near the Navy.”

Burgess nodded. “And your father will want a piece of my hide, too. There’s too much at stake right now to worry about that, though. You fit the profile, except for lack of experience. However, as I tell any of my undercover operatives, if I give you this assignment and you find you’re in over your head, you will abort and seek safety immediately.”

Spurs smiled. “Yes, sir.”

“You’re sure? There’s considerable danger. Your life could be at risk at any time without you knowing it.”

“I’m sure, sir.”

“All right, Special Agent Sperling, but if you feel that this assignment is not for you at any time during my briefing, you’ll stop me and not breathe a word of it to anyone, understand?”

“Of course, sir.”

Burgess unlocked a desk drawer on his left and pulled out a two-inch-thick folder.

“Again, I must warn, the security of the United States Navy might depend on you. Our own security at NCIS might already have been compromised— penetrated.”

“A spy, sir?”

“A traitor.”

Spurs frowned as Burgess went on. “You’ll be stationed on the
USS Atchison
, a frigate.” He handed the thick file to her. “We’ve had two AWOLs and two suspicious deaths on board the ship—all in the last ten days. We’ve interviewed the relatives of all but the latest dead man and we’ve conducted an on-ship investigation. There appears to be nothing out of the ordinary—except an inordinate number of misfits aboard the
Atchison
. Your assignment will start with interviewing the family of the latest man killed— an Ensign Charles Nader. They live here in DC. You’ll put the pieces together while aboard the
Atchison
. You’ll be undercover, assigned as their weapons officer in place of Nader.”

Spurs leafed through the folder as she listened. “Where’s the
Atchison
now, sir?”

“Rota, Spain.”

Spurs lifted her eyebrows. “How will I proceed, what will I be looking for?”

“Here’s the risky part. We think that this problem may have something to do with a drug-smuggling ring funded by Arab terrorists.
Allah’s Jihad
, to be exact. Also, it may be beneficial for you to operate as yourself instead of with an assumed name. Being Admiral Sperling’s daughter might be an asset. Most of the salts know or know
of
him. Might give you some weight. We’ll alter your PR file—take out any NCIS training recorded and maybe add a little black mark or two—say a minor drug bust that you were acquitted of due to lack of evidence. That’ll help you fit in
well
with this crew.”