The Oceanic Princess (Brice Bannon Seacoast Adventure Book 2) Read online

  But his questions nagged at him, kept him from fully enjoying the sun and sea. Who was this Safiyyah Zayd? Why was she so important? What made her a terrorist threat? Why had Grayson kept them in the dark about what their real objection had been?

  The two ships entered Piscataqua River and slipped past the Portsmouth Harbor lighthouse on New Castle Island. A quintessential New England coastal fixture, the fifty-five-foot, white cylindrical tower had stood quiet sentry in one form or another on that rocky shoal since 1771. In close proximity to the lighthouse was Fort Constitution, a military outpost dating back to the Revolution. It was a state historical site, sharing real estate with the Portsmouth Harbor Coast Guard Station.

  They were to dock alongside the wharf extending out from Sullivan Lane. It would be closed to civilian boaters for however long they’d be there. Bannon wondered how long that would be.

  “Hey.” McMurphy joined him on deck, a thick cigar jammed in the corner of his mouth. He carried two Styrofoam cups. He handed one to Bannon. “Sorry I bounced you guys around out there like that today.”

  “Sorry they were shooting rocket launched missiles at you.”

  McMurphy shrugged. “Not the first time, won’t be the last.”

  Bannon laughed. “Probably not.”

  “Gotta ask. What’s the deal with that chick? She looks like she could be Blades’ twin sister.”

  “No clue. And Grayson’s not talking.”

  “Typical bureaucrat.” McMurphy puffed out a cloud of cigar smoke. “When we started this thing way back when, she was supposed to be different. Guess not.”

  “That’s a little harsh. She’s not like that bunch in Washington, you know that.”

  “You’re right. She’s not,” McMurphy said, amending his stance. “At least she’s been in the trenches like the rest of us. Maybe the rest of ’em are rubbing off on her. Like being a bureaucrat’s contagious.”

  Bannon hoped that wasn’t the case, though he’d seen it before. “It sure does feel like she’s holding something back and that’s not like her.” He tried to put a positive spin on it. “I’m sure she’ll explain it all to us at the debrief.” Bannon mulled it over a bit more before adding, “She’s never steered us wrong before.”

  But was he trying to convince McMurphy or himself?

  “I’ll give you that. But remember, there’s a first time for everything.”

  Bannon grinned. “Careful. You’re pessimism’s showing, old friend.”

  “Other than you and Blades, my pessimism’s the only thing that’s never let me down.”

  “I’ll drink to that.” Bannon tipped the coffee cup back and drank. He blinked and sputtered. “Jesus, Skyjack. This isn’t coffee.”

  McMurphy laughed. It was straight Kentucky bourbon. “Never said it was.”

  “Guard vessels are supposed to be dry.” No pun intended.

  “When did that ever stop me, brother?”

  The man had a point. Never had Bannon met a bigger rule-breaker than Skyjack McMurphy. The whole time Bannon had known him, it seemed as if the man went out of his way to thumb his nose at authority. Like it was a source of amusement for him, a game to see how much he could get away with. Be that as it may, Bannon had also never met a more skilled pilot, a more able seaman, or a more compassionate man than Skyjack McMurphy either. He trusted the man with his life, and had a dozen times over.

  McMurphy puffed and squinted up at the sun as seagulls circled overhead and cawed. “So, while you’re singing Lizzy’s praises, riddle me this. If she’s not hiding something important from us, why’s the debriefing at the FBI offices in the federal building on Daniel Street?”

  “The FBI’s involved?”

  “It’s what I hear.” McMurphy looked around the deck as if he’s lost something. “And by the way, where the hell’s Blades been all this time?”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  AN HOUR AFTER THE Bowman and Naeem docked, Bannon and McMurphy returned to the main deck having showered, shaved, and changed into civilian clothes. For Bannon that meant a black Polo shirt, khakis, and boat shoes. McMurphy wore white painter’s pants, an untucked plaid work shirt, unbuttoned and loose, and a novelty T-shirt, one of thousands he seemed to own.

  The Bowman’s captain assigned a seaman to drive them into town. They were told Grayson and Tara would meet up with them there. Their driver dropped them off at the Thomas J. McIntyre Federal Building on Daniel Street in downtown Portsmouth. After being directed through the metal detectors, they were met by a humorless man in a dark suit. A fed. He again checked their IDs before stoically nodding. “Follow me.”

  Bannon and McMurphy exchanged glances behind the man’s back.

  McMurphy leaned closer and whispered, “Is he Agent J or K?”

  “Which one’s the funny one?” Bannon asked.

  “J.”

  “Then this is K. Definitely.”

  “Or Lurch from the Addams Family.” He lowered his voice and made it very deep. “You rang?”

  Bannon could barely suppress his laughter.

  They were taken to a second-floor conference room. No one else was inside.

  “The others will join you shortly,” J or was it Lurch said.

  “What others? What’s going on?” Bannon asked.

  The man left without answering, quietly closing the door behind him.

  McMurphy made a beeline to the buffet of sandwiches, pastries, and desserts set up on the counter in the back. He grabbed two sandwiches and sucked a smear of mustard off his thumb before wrapping his mouth around a turkey, ham, lettuce, and tomato on rye. “You want something to eat? A coffee?”

  “What I want are answers.”

  The door opened behind him. Secretary Grayson strolled into the room. “And you will have them.” She sat down at the head of the long table. “I’ll have a coffee, black. Thank you, Chief.”

  Behind her, another man wearing a dark suit and white dress shirt strolled in. As much a uniform for the FBI as the ODUs were for the Coast Guard, Bannon thought. The man carried several file folders under his arm. He shut the door and placed the files on the table at the space to Grayson’s left.

  “Have a seat, Brice,” Grayson said, as McMurphy placed a coffee in front of her.

  He busied himself at the buffet then returned to take a seat next to Bannon who had pulled out a chair to Grayson’s right. McMurphy slid a hot coffee over to him and dug into a second sandwich. The man had an insatiable appetite.

  The suit gave the buffet spread in the back a longing look but remained seated.

  “Let’s began,” Grayson said. “First, I want to introduce you both to Agent Daniel Pierce. Dan’s the Special Agent in Charge of the FBI’s Boston field office.”

  He nodded sternly. “Gentlemen.”

  McMurphy continued to eat, seemingly ignoring the conversation and the man.

  “What’s the FBI got to do with this, Madam Secretary?” Bannon asked. The Coast Guard operated under the jurisdiction of the Department of Homeland Security. The FBI was part of the Justice Department. Not that the two never cooperated…

  “This situation was first brought to our attention by the FBI so I’ll let Dan fill you in on the details. But, before he does, let me just say, gentlemen, based on the Intel we’ve gathered and the increased chatter we’re hearing, we suspect an imminent terrorist attack on U.S. soil. Something on the scale of 9/11 or worse if we don’t stop it.”

  That got Bannon’s attention. Even McMurphy put his sandwich down and listened.

  Grayson went on. “Today’s capture of the MV Naeem is a very important piece toward doing just that.”

  The two men gave Agent Pierce their undivided attention.

  “Gentlemen, do you remember Farouk al-Kalil?”

  Bannon spoke up. “That kid last year who tried to detonate an SUV full of explosives in front of the Javits Center.”

  “And when that didn’t work, he blew himself up, killing three other people,” McMurphy added.


  Pierce nodded. “And wounded twelve more. Our joint task force on terrorism, working in conjunction with the NYPD, discovered al-Kalil was part of a terror organization with cells operating in New York City and Boston.”

  “According to the news, al-Kalil was a lone wolf. They reported he had no affiliations,” Bannon said.

  “A story we planted.”

  “More fake news.” McMurphy shook his head and resumed eating.

  “There was no upside to revealing that information to the public,” Pierce said defensively. “By not disclosing what we knew, we hoped the cells would continue to operate with their guard down.”

  “I’m guessing that didn’t happen,” Bannon said.

  “One thing terror cells have learned to do very well is to operate autonomously. These cells appear to be better at it than most,” Pierce admitted. “Whenever we get close to identifying someone who might be involved with them, they leave the country, disappear, or end up dead.”

  “Translation,” McMurphy said around a mouthful of sandwich. “You’ve got bupkis.”

  “Right,” Pierce admitted. “We’ve continued to monitor several persons of interest. People we believed are affiliated with one cell or the other, without much luck. Until six months ago. We got a lead. Increased chatter about this woman.” Pierce activated the room’s smart board and a younger headshot of the woman Bannon apprehended on the Naeem appeared on the screen behind Grayson. She wore a white lab coat and a smile.

  “This is Safiyyah Zayd,” Pierce said, “and thanks to your good efforts today, she’s now in federal custody.”

  “Who is she?” Bannon got up and went to the coffee urn.

  As Pierce spoke, Bannon filled up three cups and returned, giving one to Grayson and one to McMurphy. Pierce watched him distribute the cups like a puppy eyeing his food bowl before his owner sets it down. Bannon paced the length of the room, listening. He sipped from the third cup. Grayson sat half-listening, typing messages into her phone and sipping her coffee. It was obvious she’d heard all this before.

  “Miss Zayd is single, thirty-two years old, and the daughter of a prominent lieutenant general in her country’s Army. He’s currently the commander of the southern command. Her mother was a teacher who was killed along with thirteen other men, women, and children when the school she worked at was destroyed in a bombing raid several years ago. Dozens of others were maimed and seriously injured.

  “Miss Zayd is highly educated. She went to the University of Glasgow and graduated from MIT here in the States with computer science and electrical engineering degrees.”

  “Pretty and smart,” McMurphy said. “Usually my kind of woman.”

  “Don’t forget dangerous,” Bannon said. His sensitive parts still ached.

  “Which is why she is of interest to us,” Pierce said.

  “She was radicalized as a result of her mother’s death,” Bannon guessed. “She blames the U.S. or at least the allied coalition for killing her.”

  “If that’s true,” Pierce said, “she didn’t get there by the usual means. After attending MIT, Zayd worked at the Grandville National Laboratory, a research and development center in Ohio, before returning to her country to take a position at NSEADC.”

  “Her government’s National Space Exploration and Development Center,” Grayson said without looking up from her phone.

  “What did she do there?” Bannon asked.

  “Specifically, we don’t know,” Pierce said. “Even if we did, it would probably be over all our heads. We do know she was assigned to their aerospace and avionics engineering division. In layman’s terms I understand, she worked on aircrafts and spaceships.”

  “Not your typical terrorist CV,” Bannon said.

  “It gets stranger from there.” Pierce glanced at the coffee urn but remained seated. “Around the time al-Kalil was doing his thing in New York, badly, Zayd went missing. She left work one evening like normal, and never made it home. Considering her father’s powerful position and the work she did for NSEDC, the assumption was she’d been kidnapped, but no ransom demands were ever made. Our agents on the ground over there—FBI, CIA, even the NYPD Intel group—got wind of it. We suspected espionage, either political or corporate motivated. From what little we could gather, Zayd’s work involved some high level, cutting edge technology.”

  “What kind of technology?”

  Pierce shrugged. “Their government wouldn’t tell us, citing state secrets. We offered investigative assistance—”

  “Not wanting to pass up an opportunity to peek behind the curtain,” McMurphy said, “by spying on them.”

  “In the spirit of cooperation,” Pierce countered. “They declined our offer. On our best days, the relationship between our two countries is…complicated. Even previously established cooperative channels dried up on us. They clammed up tighter than usual. They assured us nothing had been stolen. That Miss Zayd’s disappearance was no cause for concern. Simply an internal matter and they would treat it as such. Thanks but no thanks.

  “That changed six months ago. Surveillance photos picked her up at a meeting in Nangarhar, on the Afghan border, with a group of suspected enemy combatants. One of the people she met with was a man named Yusufi Nawab. Born and raised in Boston, an American citizen, he was a person of interest who we suspected had connections to the Boston terror cell al-Kalil also had ties to. He became aware of our interest in him and fled to Afghanistan.”

  Bannon asked, “Where is he now?”

  “After attending the meeting with Zayd, he was killed in an airstrike.” Pierce added, “According to military authorities, his body’s never been identified. Since then Zayd went to ground, again. But we’ve picked up increased chatter between overseas and the cells in Boston and New York. Talk of something big in the works. We didn’t know where or when, but my counterparts assigned in that part of the world have been putting pressure on their resources for any information they can get. Through those efforts we learned an important asset was coming to the States from Northern Africa. It wasn’t until the Naeem set sail—”

  “It’s not a sail boat,” McMurphy said, picking through his fruit salad with a plastic fork.

  “You know what I meant.”

  “Left port,” McMurphy said, popping a cube of watermelon into his mouth and chewing.

  “Fine, left port that we learned the asset was Zayd. That she was being brought here.”

  “For what purpose?” Bannon asked.

  “We don’t know.” Pierce looked from Bannon to McMurphy. “But like the Madam Secretary said, whatever it is, it’s going to happen here, and it’s going to be big.”

  “And…” Grayson looked up, rejoining the conversation. “Safiyyah Zayd is an important part of it.”

  “Fine,” Bannon said, finishing his coffee. “We have Zayd. Let’s make her talk.”

  “We will,” Grayson said, setting aside her phone. “But that’s not why you two are here.”

  Finally, Bannon thought. “Why are we here?”

  “I’m surprised you haven’t figured it out yet, Brice.” She glanced over her shoulder at the image on the screen. Bannon followed her glance and was still slow to put it together.

  When he did, he shook his head. “No.”

  Without looking happy about it, Grayson said, “Yes.”

  McMurphy looked between the two of them. “No. Yes. What? Wanna explain it to the slow kids in the class?”

  Bannon answered. “She wants Blades to go undercover. She wants her to become Safiyyah Zayd.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  “CAN I HAVE A word,” Bannon said. “Alone?”

  Grayson sighed, probably having anticipated the sidebar request. She rose. To McMurphy and Pierce, she said, “Give us the room, gentlemen.”

  McMurphy grabbed his coffee cup and wolfed down the last bit of his turkey and ham on rye.

  Pierce glanced at the buffet set up in the back, hesitated.

  “We’ll only be a minute, Agent,” Gr
ayson said.

  He followed McMurphy toward the door, giving the coffee urn a final wishful look. When the door was closed, she said, “Brice, hear me out before you say anything.”

  Reluctantly, he sat down.

  “There’s a lot more to all this than what Pierce reported.”

  “His secrets or yours?”

  “That’s not fair.”

  The same thing he’d said to McMurphy, and they’d both been right. He backed down. “You’re right. But there’s a lot you’re not telling us. We’ve never operated like that before, Elizabeth.”

  “Because there’s a lot I don’t know, and a lot that’s happening very fast.”

  He took in how tired she looked. The crinkly laugh lines at the corner of her eyes were etched deeper than usual. He saw the lack of sleep under her eyes. Bannon couldn’t begin to imagine the sort of strain being Secretary of Homeland Security put on a person under normal circumstances. That he usually didn’t notice was a testament to how strong a woman Elizabeth Grayson was.

  This was different. This weighed heavily on her and the last thing he wanted to do was add to her burden. “Okay. Tell me what you have, all of it. Let’s see if we can figure it out. Together.”

  She sat back down and appeared to relax, a little. “Everything Pierce said is accurate, as far as it goes, as far as he knows. Miss Zayd’s work with NSEDC was beyond classified. Even at the highest levels we’re having trouble determining exactly what projects she worked on, or even what her expertise really is. All I get from my closest contacts is the party line Pierce talked about. It’s nothing to worry about. An internal matter, easily handled.”

  “That’s what has you worried,” Bannon said.

  She smiled, appreciating that he read her so well. “We don’t know what Safiyyah Zayd was in working on, but we know it was cutting edge, state of the art stuff. We knew that before she went missing.”

  “You were watching her before all this?”