Sleeper Cell Super Boxset (13 page)

“My dad is coming to get me!” Sean spit his words out defiantly.

“He will try.” Perry nodded. “But each time he does, I’m going to hurt you.” Perry pulled a blade from his ankle and pressed the flat side to the boy’s exposed forearm. “And every time he fails at the missions we give him, I’m going to hurt you. You will associate you father’s name with pain. And by the time your father is done”—Perry brushed the hair off the boy’s forehead with the blade’s spine—“all that will be left of you is scars.”

***

The police station Dylan, Evelyn, Peter, and Mary were brought to was a considerable improvement from the last station Dylan had been in, and twice as busy. They were shuffled past officers and criminals, looters and thieves who’d taken advantage of the chaos that was now Boston, and put into a small conference room, where members from Perry’s team took their statements.

No matter how many times Peter tried putting his arms around Evelyn, she wouldn’t stop crying. It took the investigator almost thirty minutes to pull everything out of her. Dylan had sat with his daughter, Mary, in the adjacent room, where he watched her hysterics through one of the windows. The investigators chose to interview them separately, seeing to their previous history.

Mary had been quiet the entire time. She hadn’t said a word since Dylan went to pick her up at Evelyn’s and just kept her head pressed against his side as she leaned against him. “You hungry or thirsty, Mary?” The little girl gave a light shake of her head. He bent down and kissed her on the cheek, giving her a few pats on the leg.

“Daddy, where’s Sean?” She looked up at him with her big green eyes, her light-blond eyelashes batting nervously.

Dylan knew she’d ask about him sooner or later, and he’d racked his brain on how he thought he should handle it, but he still had no idea what to tell her. “He’s with some people. He’s okay, but these people—” He paused, watching Mary’s small features twist in preparation of tears. “We’re going to get him back. I promise.”

Marry nodded then buried her face into his ribs. The door to the conference room opened, and Peter escorted a still-weeping Evelyn. The investigators called him inside, and Mary was left with her mom and Peter. A light chill of fear hit him when he sat down inside and realized that the phone Kasaika had given him was still in his pocket.

“Mr. Turk, have a seat.” The agents only sat down once Dylan had done so himself. They adjusted the ties around their collars, already having shed their jackets. It looked as if it was only a matter of time before the ties would be discarded as well. They shuffled the papers on the desk and brought out a fresh file for Dylan’s statement. “Mr. Turk, what can you tell us about the incident at your apartment?”

“I rode with Agent Cooper and her team to see if my son had made his way there,” Dylan answered.

“And what did you find upon you arrival?”

Dylan exhaled. “I saw that my son’s bike was parked outside. I got out of the car and rushed to the staircase that leads up to my apartment. Before I got there, gunfire broke out from the second floor.”

“Just the second floor?”

“Yes, why?”

“Just making sure I have everything correct here. And what can you tell me happened when you were inside speaking with the terrorists?”

“I went upstairs alone, and when I walked through the front door, which was already open, I saw six men in masks—”

“At any point did they take off their masks?”

“No.” Dylan had rehearsed what he’d tell them in his mind over a hundred times since Kasaika spoke to him, and he determined the less he pretended to know the better off he’d be. “They handed me the list of demands and told me that they were going to kill my son if they didn’t get what they want.”

“Do you believe your son is still alive?”

Dylan shifted uncomfortably. He fumbled over his words, shaking his head. “Why would you even ask that? How could you say that? Do you know something?” Dylan leaned forward on the table, slightly rising out of his seat. “Do
you
believe my son is still alive?” The words came out harsher now. He felt his face redden.

One of the agents put his hand up. “Mr. Turk, please, I was merely asking, seeing as how we were not able to give them their demands.”

Dylan leaned back in his seat, his arms folded across his chest. “My son is alive.”

The agents continued to jot down their notes. “What else did these individuals speak with you about?”

“Nothing. They gave me the list, told me that’s what they wanted, smacked me in the back of the head when I tried to reach for my son, then shoved me back outside. I gave Agent Cooper the list, and then you guys showed up.”

“Did you notice anything odd in your apartment?”

“Odd?” Dylan’s pocket buzzed. He froze as the two men glanced down at the pocket where the cell phone was. “No.” Dylan quickly shook his head and shifted in his seat. “No, I didn’t notice anything odd or out of place.”

“Do you need to get that?” The agent gestured to the cell.

“I’m sure it can wait.”

“Well, Mr. Turk, we’ll need to wait to see what forensics tells us after their sweep of your apartment, but we’ll do everything we can to make sure your son is returned to you. In the meantime, do you have a place to stay?”

“I’ll figure it out.” Dylan left the room then gave Mary a kiss goodbye. Neither Evelyn nor Peter asked what he’d be doing, but any words about Peter pressing charges seemed to have disappeared, which Dylan was glad to be rid of. Once outside, Dylan checked the message on his phone. It was a text.

Your boat dock. Tomorrow. 5:00 a.m.

And that was it. Dylan snapped the phone shut and slid it back into his pocket. He had no idea what these people wanted him to do, and he had no idea on whether or not the agents at Homeland would find his son before he did. All he knew for certain was that if he failed or was found out, Sean would die.

Distressed: Enemy Of the State

Chapter 1

The night air had an odd chill to it, despite the fact that it was still the dead of summer. Captain Dylan Turk attributed the cold to his ship’s occupants. The Egyptian foreigners walked the deck of the ship awkwardly, still without their sea legs. He’d fished the waters off the Eastern Atlantic Seaboard for more than fifteen years, and in all that time he’d never had a crew like this or carried such cargo as what lay in the belly of the ship.

The fish holds that were meant to house tuna had been replaced with bombs and guns. But despite the change of cargo, Dylan still kept the same steady hand on the wheel, as though he were hauling in a full cache of seafood.

It’d taken a few trips, but the terrorists had finally allowed him to stay in the wheelhouse unattended. It was a welcome relief from the constant guarding he’d experienced over the past week. Each ship he’d taken out had been different, but the one commonality had been the fact that they were fishing boats, which was Dylan’s area of expertise. It allowed for inconspicuous travel even in the heightened security that had engulfed the entire country.

But the terrorists who had blackmailed him into running bombs and guns didn’t leave their fate just to the disguise of fishing ships. The technology of the boat allowed them to slide undetected through the waters, dodging the Navy and Coast Guard’s radar and making it to their destinations safely. Still, the dangers of being spotted by line of sight were always present, and they wouldn’t be able to outrun a warship.

Moonlight shone down onto the deck and lit up the unused nets and gear below. Despite whatever cloaking device the ship carried, Dylan still made the transport runs at night and kept the ship lights off. He had more riding on these deliveries than just his own life.

The quiet solitude of the night was only interrupted by the rumble of the boat’s engine and the strikes of doubt that screamed in Dylan’s mind. He knew what the terrorists walking aboard the deck of the ship planned on accomplishing with the cargo. He’d bargained and justified everything he’d done on the simple fact that the one life he wanted to save was worth more than the thousands of others who would die from the instruments of death he helped deliver.

Kasaika, one of the Egyptian radical’s commanding officers, waved from the deck, catching Dylan’s attention, and pointed toward the shoreline. Dylan checked their course heading on his GPS then nodded, turning the ship toward land. The shoreline was as black as the night around them, and Dylan had to rely on Kasaika’s men to help guide him in.

Dylan had never been this far south before. Judging from the maps, he would say that he was only a few miles north of Savannah. He made sure to pay special attention to the depths in the unfamiliar waters; with the cargo stored below, he preferred not to run aground.

Dylan idled the engines as they coasted closer to a dock that jutted out from a cluster of trees on the shore. The ship bumped lightly into one of the dock’s pillars, and ropes were tossed back and forth to be tied down. The terrorists quickly rushed below deck and retrieved their cargo, and Dylan was summoned down to help.

Even under the cover of darkness, Dylan felt the terrorists’ eyes watch him. The crates in the cargo hold ranged from small boxes to six-foot-long refrigerator-like cases that had to be carried out by two men at a time. Dylan hated when he had to help unload. It left a sour taste in his mouth, knowing what these vile men planned to do with the cargo. Those weapons would kill hundreds, thousands even. It would leave sons without fathers, husbands without wives, parents without children, all for the sake of one man’s madness.

When the drop-off for the location was complete, Dylan ascended back into the wheelhouse, wiping the dust and grime from his hands onto his pants. He reached for the engine starter but paused as his eyes caught the picture of his children taped next to the throttle. He peeled the piece of tape that held the two together and ran his finger over the picture’s weathered faces.
For them. To keep them alive.

It was a mantra Dylan had grown accustomed to saying over the past week, but the words were like a noose slipping tighter and tighter around his neck. Those words were only keeping him alive long enough to kill him.

“Hey!” Kasaika and the other terrorists gestured impatiently.

Dylan taped the picture back to the console and reversed off the dock, leaving nothing but a wake behind them. The shoreline slowly disappeared behind them in the distance as Dylan piloted back out to sea to begin the next leg of their journey, the deckhands below busy preparing the cargo. It’d been like this for a while now, this routine, and Dylan felt an apathy toward himself grow a little stronger each day. His mind was numb and lost, buried in the seas he had navigated his entire life.

The flash of a spotlight and the shouts of the terrorists down below triggered Dylan out of his stupor. Kasaika burst into the wheelhouse. “Keep heading south.”

Dylan looked to the source of the light. It could be anyone, Coast Guard, Navy, another boat, but if it were the latter and they were spotted, it wouldn’t end well for anyone. “We won’t be able to outrun them,” Dylan said, pressing down the throttle as if he disregarded his own words. He watched Kasaika reach for the rifle hidden under the control dash. Dylan grabbed Kasaika’s wrist. “No!” Kasaika went to raise his hand to strike Dylan for the defiance, but before he had a chance, Dylan pulled the terrorist closer. “The moment you open fire, we lose any element of surprise.”

The pirate puffed up at the authority in Dylan’s voice. Reluctantly, Kasaika jerked his wrist away and left the rifle where it lay. He descended back to the deck, where he echoed Dylan’s orders.

It’d been a dogfight since the beginning with these people, but he’d managed to convince their boss that if they wanted their weapons delivered safely, then Dylan’s word was law on the water. Kasaika, along with the other Egyptians, didn’t agree but begrudgingly listened.

Dylan kept an eye on the flickering spotlights to their east, the boat bouncing against the Atlantic waves more ferociously than before. He gripped the wheel tight, and his eyes squinted into the night’s horizon, and he desperately hoped that it was just another fishing vessel and not the military boats that had thickened the waterways of late.

When Dylan noticed the light growing, he quickly shifted course to move closer to the shoreline, toward the shallows. The radio crackled, and his heart jumped along with the growing noise blowing through the radio’s speakers. “This is Coast Guard Cutter 4152. Cut power to your engines, or prepare to be fired upon.”

The vessel was less than sixty yards from them now, and Dylan didn’t have a choice. He pulled back the throttle, and the engines whined to an idle. Kasaika rushed up the stairs to the wheelhouse and kicked the door open with the heel of his boot. “
What are you doing?
” His words left his mouth in harsh, thick whispers, his accent apparent in the angry tone.

Dylan reached under the control panel and ripped out the electrical circuits to the lights. Waves rocked the deck from side to side, but Dylan made his way across the wheelhouse effortlessly. “We don’t make a move unless we have to, you understand? We comply with everything they ask.”

Kasaika blocked the exit, and the spotlight from the Coast Guard ship flashed behind him, allowing Dylan to see only his silhouette. “You mean to have us caught.”

“I mean to not have you kill unless we have to.” Dylan was nose to nose with Kasaika, and the Coast Guard continued to boom its warnings through the radio. Finally, Kasaika descended, and Dylan followed. Although he wasn’t sure if Kasaika was going to heed his advice.

Four men lined the side of the Coast Guard ship, one of them manning the fifty-caliber aimed at the deckhands. They tossed lines over, and Kasaika’s men tied off, and the sailors boarded the ship. “Who’s the captain?”

“I am, sir.” Dylan stepped forward, and the spotlight swiveled on him. The sailors’ radios crackled with chatter, radioing their position to another ship in the area. Kasaika’s men shifted uneasily as the sailor stepped forward.