“It’s like when you’re dropping an album or releasing a movie,” Love said. “You have to be strategic about it to maximize the Oprah moment. The choice of 9/11 was basically branding, a tongue-in-cheek play on our emergency number, which makes the date more memorable. Trust me, no one thinks of anything else when you say September eleventh.”
Kennedy said, “Since we couldn’t think of any dates that have the same double meaning, like 9/11 or 10/4, we figured Lentz might be going the route of choosing a sacred cow, a time when we’re happiest and, more important, most vulnerable.”
“There goes Christmas,” Nuri said.
“Actually, we were thinking Thanksgiving is a better option,” Kennedy said. “Christmas is too religious and centers on one group. Thanksgiving is secular, so almost everyone takes part, regardless of culture.”
“It’s like Christmas without Jesus and expensive gifts and a looming credit card hangover,” Love said. “You can fuck with Christmas, but if you fuck with Thanksgiving, you’re kicking us right in our patriotic nuts.”
“Yeah, but who’s flying on Thanksgiving?” Best asked.
“Hardly anyone,” Kennedy said, “but the day before Thanksgiving is the busiest travel day of the year. More planes in the air, more human cattle in the airports. If you really want to ring our bell, the day before Thanksgiving is the knockout punch.”
“Every time Lentz has acted in the past,” Nuri said, “it’s been at the height of what Langley calls cultural vulnerability. Like when he helped to incite protests in Egypt during Ramadan, taking advantage of people having their minds on the holiday. He’s used election riots and other forms of unrest in Myanmar to get his hooks into their natural gas reserves. I think the day before turkey day is a solid bet.”
“The day before Thanksgiving is twelve days from today,” Kennedy said. “If Nuri can work out the FAA hack, we might have a shot at intercepting him as he makes final preparations.”
“Which brings us to our next problem,” Mitchell said. “If we find him, what are we looking for? We sort of know what he looks like. We know the number of his private jet. But what we don’t know is how he’s moving freely around the country sabotaging commercial aircraft at busy airports. You don’t do that without a cover, my friends.”
Nuri turned, nodding.
“True. He’s got to have a serious layer of smoke and mirrors to pull this shit off.”
“Especially since it’s highly likely he’s traveling with the nukes,” Mitchell said. “If I were him, that’s how I would do it. It’s old tech, so if they were handled improperly, they could be useless. And who the hell would you trust to deliver them for you?”
“Isn’t that dangerous, taking them on the plane?” Love asked.
“As long as the detonators aren’t attached to the bombs, they don’t present any extra risk to him and his flight crew. My money’s on him making deliveries.”
“For that to happen, he’d need to be able to operate at each airport with very little oversight,” Kennedy added. “Like a politician or foreign leader.”
“Some celebrities get that kind of treatment,” Love said. “If you’re big enough and rich enough, you can get away with murder on private jets. Literally.”
“Jesus, that’s it,” Kennedy said.
“What?” Mitchell asked.
“Celebrity travel. It’s one of the biggest loopholes in TSA protocol because of their trusted-traveler bullshit,” Kennedy explained. “If you’re a big music act or touring theater show, or Johnny Depp and his Yorkies, you can preplan your trip with TSA and bypass most of the security procedures so you never get hung up in any of your tour cities, which might cost millions in revenue.”
“The guy’s a ghost,” Mitchell said. “How would any of that be useful to him?”
“The bigger acts always bring an entourage—roadies, stylists, sound guys, video guys, lots of people and chaos he could hide behind,” Kennedy said. “There’s your smoke and mirrors.”
“He could hide a lot more than himself too,” Love added. “Rock stars and celebs end up being mules for all kinds of contraband, things that are a lot more conspicuously illegal than a bomb in a suitcase.”
“So, if that’s his cover, how do we break it?” Mitchell asked.
“Once I get the FAA info, we can cross-reference Lentz’s stops to date with the recent tour dates of major acts currently on the road,” Nuri said. “Then we can see how the stars, or starfuckers, align.”
Day 52
You guys aren’t going to believe this,” she said, grinning. “This is too good!”
While Nuri had worked on the FAA hack all night, everyone else crashed on whatever was soft and got a few much-needed winks. But she was like a rooster, crowing them out of their slumber. Kennedy opened his eyes to the blinding-white morning sun and recoiled like a snake being poked with a stick.
“Get up, dummy!” Nuri yelled in his face. “Santa Claus came early!”
They all assembled in the dining room, yawning and bleary-eyed, and watched Nuri dance around like a wood sprite.
“Okay, check this shit out. Got into the FAA servers by pulling some pretty brilliant moves. What else is new. Blah blah blah.”
She threw down a set of papers on the table.
“That’s their record of all the places Lentz’s jet has been over the past year, leading up to now, of course. More on that later. Dessert first. See if you can guess which major touring act has dates and locations that perfectly coincide with Lentz’s airport stops.”
“The fate of the world is at stake, so yeah, let’s play a fucking guessing game. Just tell us, Nuri, or I’m going to have to shoot you,” Mitchell growled.
“I’ll guess. Donald Trump,” Kennedy said.
“This is way better.” Nuri laughed and threw some more papers on the desk.
They were photographs of Noah Kruz.
“Holy shit,” Love exclaimed.
“I’ll be damned,” Mitchell said. “I love that guy.”
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” Kennedy said, looking at a shot of Noah Kruz shaking Bill Clinton’s hand.
Kennedy had been to that event as a VIP. He had the same picture.
“You’re sure about this?” he asked Nuri.
“I’m sure his tour matches up perfectly with Lentz’s airport stops. I checked some of the local news reports, and Kruz was in some of these places within an hour of Lentz’s FAA log arrival time, which could mean they were actually traveling together.”
“Kennedy, what’s up? You know him?” Mitchell asked.
“No. Not personally. I’ve just . . . been listening to his tapes, reading his books, and going to his events for years.”
“Yeah, me too,” Mitchell said.
“I’m even part of his VIP circle.” Kennedy chuckled, trying to mask his shock and disbelief with sarcasm.
“Is that like the Mickey Mouse Club?” Nuri asked.
“It’s elite status. You get it after a certain number of purchases. They give you premium ticket access, discounts on books and podcasts, meet-and-greet photo ops—”
“We might be able to use that,” Mitchell said.
“How?” Kennedy asked.
“To get us close to Kruz.”
“Is it like a VIP meet and greet with a band?” Love asked. “You get a photo and a T-shirt, and get to shake hands?”
“Exactly like that,” Kennedy said.
“Then we can use your status to get me into the meet and greet. I can bag him and we can take him someplace quiet for a little chat,” Mitchell said.
“It doesn’t work that way,” Kennedy said. “You have to build status over time. He hates it when people can buy their way into something instead of earning it. I would have to go to the meet and greet.”
Kennedy looked like a kid who h
ad just been told Santa Claus wasn’t real.
“If Lentz is tagging along with Kruz, it’s because he’s got a gun to his head. This is your chance to help the self-help guru,” Love said, trying to make him feel better.
It didn’t work. So much of what Kruz had said or written about over the years made sense to Kennedy and actually helped him to shape his life and find success. Kruz had given him the context for truth in a world run by bullshit and lies.
If Kruz were complicit in Lentz’s plan, all of that would be dead now, leaving nothing but the smoking gun of irony.
“His next appearance is in Miami at the James Knight Center,” Nuri said, looking at her screen. “Day after tomorrow.”
“Does your FAA data on Lentz’s plane match up?” Kennedy asked.
“FAA data has Lentz’s plane in Palm Beach. Kruz has an event there tonight.”
“I say we roll the dice on Miami. How about you, chief?” Mitchell asked Kennedy.
Kennedy nodded.
“I’ll prep my team,” Mitchell said. “Nuri, get us a fucking airplane.”
Getting the team from Boston to Miami under the radar of the CIA, Homeland Security, and Lentz was a major problem that Nuri had to solve quickly or there wouldn’t be enough time to prep before Kennedy had his Noah Kruz moment. She had to rely on bush pilots, surly misanthropes who charged a king’s ransom to drop spec ops teams into war zones, deliver drug hauls into the United States from all over the world, and provide no-questions-asked evac services for people who needed to get out of hot spots in a hurry.
Kennedy and Love worked on Miami. He used his VIP code to buy himself a $10,000 private “life sculpting” session with Kruz, while Love focused on getting herself backstage. She’d been an opening act and special guest for some bigger bands back in the day. The stage manager was an old friend she’d done a lot of favors for over the years—mostly drug-related and potentially damaging to his career—so she called in a favor of her own. She told him she was dating Kruz and wanted him to help her surprise her “love guru” after the show. For five hundred bucks, he told her, he would help her out and keep his mouth shut. Once she got in, her job would be to let Mitchell and his crew of mercs in the back door.
Kennedy briefed Mitchell and Nuri about what he knew of Kruz’s travel. When he was touring within the United States, he flew between each city and very rarely took a bus, even if he was going a short distance within the same state. After his Miami appearance, his tour was going to take him to the Bahamas, Puerto Rico, Jamaica, and the Dominican Republic. Kruz had a 180-foot super yacht that was once featured on MTV Cribs, so Kennedy figured he was probably going to use it to hit those stops and host a few of his infamous parties.
“What if we take him on the boat?” Kennedy said. “When he’s isolated out in the open water?”
Kennedy showed Mitchell the vessel schematics from the manufacturer’s website.
“Plenty of room belowdecks and a Zodiac on board big enough for our team to bug out if we get some heat,” Mitchell observed. “Nice and private in case we need to motivate our motivational speaker to talk. You’re getting pretty good at this, chief.”
Nuri found Kruz’s docking information and reserved a slip next to his for a rented yacht that Mitchell was going to use to stow mercs and guns until it was time to hijack Kruz. Then she got word from one of their black ops pilot contacts, a drug runner on an opium delivery tour, coming from Kandahar and stopping in Boston sometime in the next few hours on his way to Miami. They would have a direct flight, but it was a cargo plane the US military had contracted out to fly medical supplies to the army’s occupying troops in Afghanistan. Because of his cargo, the pilot had carte blanche with European and US air traffic, so he took full advantage and loaded every return flight with hundreds of kilos of pure Afghan opium. He was going to make millions from the haul, but still charged them ten grand a head for the pleasure of riding three and a half hours on a dirty metal floor.
At 4:00 A.M. the next morning, Nuri got the call. The team stole an SUV from the parking garage and drove to Hanscom Field, twenty-five miles west of Boston, with all the guns and money they could carry. They arrived with twenty minutes to spare. Their pilot, a gristly Sergeant Slaughter type in his fifties wearing Saigon mirror shades and a flight suit with a decade of pit stains, demanded the cash up front and barked orders at them as they loaded in their gear. He and Mitchell nearly came to blows several times when the pilot called him a plebe and a maggot. Kennedy handed him a few more stacks to shut the fuck up and they were off.
There was a storm cell moving up the Atlantic coast, and the first hour of their trip was a living hell. There were no seat belts for them in the cargo hold, so they held on to webbing tie-down straps while the plane bucked and rolled in the soup. Kennedy was violently ill the whole flight, puking in a trash bag Sergeant Slaughter had thrown at them for airsickness, along with a few bottles of water and a bag of peanuts (his idea of a joke), before locking himself in the cockpit. The plane landed at a small municipal airfield forty-five minutes outside of Miami so Slaughter could dump the dope before flying to Homestead Air Reserve Base to resupply for another run to Kandahar.
“Um, how the fuck are we going to get to Miami from here?” Nuri asked.
They were looking out the small aft porthole window, seeing nothing but palm trees and a concrete blockhouse for a radio tower. Sergeant Slaughter opened the cockpit door and stretched, smiling like a jackass at their motley appearance.
“End of the line, ladies. Sweet swingin’ Jesus it stinks in here. Gonna cost you another five hundred for me to clean that up, ’less you want me to tell the authorities about y’all.”
He lit a cigarette and let the smoke ooze through his brown teeth.
“No problem,” Mitchell said, handing him another stack. “Mind if we wait to go after your people pick up the goods? The fewer eyes on us the better.”
“For another grand, I’d be happy to oblige.”
Mitchell peeled off more bills and held them out for Sergeant Slaughter. When Slaughter reached for them, Mitchell snatched his wrist, twisted it behind his back, and slammed the man’s face into the floor of the cargo hold, grinding it into the metal.
Slaughter sputtered bloody epithets through a mouth full of broken teeth and reached for his knife. Mitchell grabbed it first and shoved it into his neck at the base of his skull. Slaughter went limp.
“The drug runners are here.”
Kennedy was holding a .45, looking out the porthole. He knew Mitchell wasn’t just getting payback. The equation was simple. Sergeant Slaughter had to die because he would never have kept his mouth shut. The drug dealers were on their way with the only vehicle within miles of the airport. The clock was ticking and the team needed that vehicle. Which meant the drug dealers had to go too. There appeared to be six of them riding in a black Suburban, towing a horse trailer, presumably for the opium bales.
“Six including the driver,” he said.
Everyone but Love grabbed weapons.
“When I start shooting,” Mitchell said to Kennedy and Nuri as he slapped a mag into his .45 and jacked a round into the chamber, “you two flank the SUV and take out anyone I miss. And please try not to hit me.”
Mitchell opened the rear cargo door. As it slowly lowered to the ground, the dealers got out of the SUV, bristling with weaponry. Mitchell sprinted out of the airplane and opened fire. Kennedy and Nuri followed him out. The drug dealers never had a chance to even draw their guns. Mitchell took them with scary speed and precision.
Kennedy and Mitchell dragged the bodies into the horse trailer and released the hitch while Love and Nuri loaded money and weapons into the back of the Suburban. Mitchell took the wheel and started the engine.
“Bienvenidos a Miami.”
MIAMI
Day 54
They made it to the city in forty-five minut
es, and it was a mad dash to get everything ready. The mercs brought the rental yacht in from a different marina and tied it up on the slip next to Kruz’s. They were quiet, no-bullshit men who looked just like Mitchell—leathery and battle hardened. They spent hours working with Mitchell prepping the gear, then the whole team went over every detail of the plan until it was committed to memory. By the time they were finished, it was 2:00 A.M. the day of the Kruz event. When everyone else went to their berths and collapsed, Kennedy tried to relax on deck in a chaise. It was a balmy night, with a warm breeze coming off the water that helped him shake the chill he’d gotten into his bones in Boston. Love sat next to him and passed him a bottle of red wine.
“They stock these rentals with quality hooch,” she said. “I think this was bottled the year I was born.”
“A good vintage,” Kennedy said, toasting her.
“I figured you could use a drink after vomiting three hours straight, witnessing the gruesome, yet justified, murders of seven of the world’s biggest assholes, and preparing to kidnap your life coach so you can torture him for information on his luxury yacht.”
“He’s not my life coach.” Kennedy groaned.
“Sorry.”
Love sipped her wine. Kennedy could feel her look.
“Spit it out,” he said.
“What? I got nothing to spit.”
“Really?” he said, remembering the kiss she had laid on him in the Southie bar.
“Really.”
Kennedy smiled. “Remember when you and Belle took sailing lessons over at UCLA? She bought those preppy shoes from the L.L.Bean catalog.”
“Boat shoes,” Love said.
“Yeah, and that stupid Cap’n Crunch jacket.”
“That was her stylish sailing jacket, you mean big brother jerk.”