Code Name: Houdini - The Jake Tolbert Incident

By Dave Taylor

Decorated Afghan vet JAKE TOLBERT barely escapes with his life when assassins nearly wipe out his entire homeland special ops team. Jake must hide in plain sight as he embarks on a cross-country motorcycle trek when the FBI identifies him as "a person of interest." As well-informed and well-financed assassins and unrelenting FBI agents close in on him, Jake taps into the escape and evasion skills he honed in Afghanistan while battling the psychological demons of PTSD. If he survives, he may earn a very special honor- Code Name: Houdini.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dave Taylor
• Release date: Apr 25, 2015
• ISBN: 9781311861382

Dave Taylor

Dave Taylor holds a BS from Western Oregon University and an MS from Central Michigan University. He is a retired military veteran and has supported the defense department for over 35 years. Dave met his wife Deborah during a military tour in Germany, and they were married in Switzerland in 1982. They enjoy travel, sitting around a campfire in the mountains, relaxing at the beach with family, and poking around Civil War battlefield locations. He is currently working on HOUDINI episodes and Sagacious Odysseys, a science fiction series. Dave is also a musician, with three years of public school teaching experience in the 1970s. He enjoys a good game of cricket (darts) and riding his Harley-Davidson motorcycle. Dave has been an avid reader for a very long time.

Book preview

Part 1

The Blitz

Friday 1:43 am Central Time

Blake Reynolds stood in the shadows in a small residential neighborhood outside of San Antonio. He looked at his watch – 1:45 am. Blake was dressed all in black to include a mask. U.S. MARSHAL was emblazoned in subdued grey letters on the front and back of his team’s black fatigues. As Blake looked down the street, he observed his five-member ops team move slowly into place. Their suspects were reported to be in two adjacent houses near the end of the block. Blake thought about their orders from the National Analytic Agency one final time. To assault both houses at precisely 2 am. Three other operations were to be conducted simultaneously in San Diego, Chicago and Trenton. The purpose of the simultaneous take downs was to prevent any one of the suspects from alerting the other suspects.

Within the past two months, the National Analytic Agency (NAA) had discovered a number of known terrorists had somehow entered the United States undetected. The NAA Operational Planning Team had tracked down the terrorists and several criminal suspects who were wanted by Interpol and other foreign law enforcement entities. By NAA’s estimate, there should be a total of eight suspects within the two houses. Blake glanced at his watch again – 1:50 am.

Ten years ago, as a Navy SEAL, Blake would have considered this operation tame in comparison to the kind of action he had seen in Iraq, Afghanistan, and secretly in North Korea. Even so, you can never let your guard down. Unexpected things can happen during any assault, and these were some pretty bad characters. Still, his orders were to take all suspects alive, if possible. Blake looked again at his watch – 1:55 am. His team took pride in their ability to go in and capture their suspects so fast; most of them should still be asleep when they are cuffed. Speed was the key. Odds were that even if they did have a lookout or a contingency plan, they probably hadn’t practiced it, and after all, this was America. No one would notice a few more foreigners in this land of many cultures.

At 1:59 am, Blake raised his hand out of the shadows, so his team could see it in the moonlight, and a brief flash from five mini-mag flashlights confirmed all team members were in place and ready. Jill, Harold, Frank, Leonard, and Bill had been working together as a team for over three years, and they had been involved in similar operations before. Two of the team, Jill and Frank, had been in combat in Afghanistan. This was a good, solid group that knew their jobs well. Blake had trained each of them personally.

2:00 am – Blake signaled and his team moved with blinding speed. Three team members hit the far house and Blake moved in with the other two to the house closest to him. Bill was the size of a linebacker and found the front door no match for his armored shoulder. Blake and Leonard each crashed through large windows near the sides of the house. They converged on five men still groggy from sleep. ‘Good’ thought Blake, ‘they hadn’t put up a lookout.’

Jill, Harold, and Frank hit the other house with equal speed and agility.

At 2:03 am, all eight suspects were face down on the floor. Four minutes later, all of the suspects were being loaded into vans. Blake made a two-word call to Dr. Lee Irwin, Director of the NAA waiting in Washington, D.C., Mission accomplished.

Success

Friday 9:00 am Eastern Time

Great job, rookie. Steven Bradshaw said to Jacob Tolbert as he kicked off an impromptu Operational Planning Team meeting. Everyone in the small conference room was smiling at the rookie, Jake Tolbert. Jake sat there embarrassed but let it all sink in - what a satisfying success the last several weeks had been.

Nice work kid – you really helped us put this new misfit Operational Planning Team on the map. Calvin Jones chimed in.

After two months of labor-intensive research and analysis, our plan of action paid off. The ops guys were able to take down over 30 terrorist sleepers across the U.S simultaneously. Well done team. Steve looked around the conference table and directly into the eyes of his talented and cohesive four-person Operational Planning Team. The team is a small but crucial part of the small and secretive National Analytic Agency within the Department of Homeland Defense.

Alice Cranston beamed, Jake, your hands-on approach and analytic skills really helped us provide Homeland’s Ops with a sure fire plan to quickly take down some very bad terrorist operatives.

Let’s look over this plan one more time to make improvements and develop an even better plan for the future. Let’s break it down into its actionable parts.

Steve brought the team back on task. A superb team leader always evaluating and refining processes even after major successes, Steve spent the next 25 minutes re-hashing the events of the previous two days in detail.

Lee Irwin entered the conference room at 9:30 Nice work team. Congratulations all around, especially you, Jake. I got calls in from all four ops teams. Everything went like clockwork, no one on the teams were injured, and we got a total of 33 terrorist sleepers.

Jake looked around the room – all were smiling knowingly at him. Jake thought, ‘What is going on?’

Irwin turned to Jake: I felt I, uh, was taking a risk hiring a green Afghan war veteran onto this team. Both Steve and I saw something in your resume and during your interview that indicated to us that you could be a major part of this team. Your contributions over these past months to last night’s successful operations proved us right.

And he hit a home run on his first at-bat, muttered Steve.

As I was saying, Jake, your contributions have been immeasurable to this team, Irwin continued, Tell me again how old are you?

Self-consciously Jake replied, Twenty-seven, I’ll be twenty-eight in August, sir. Jake then looked over at Alice, who was looking at him as if she knew something he didn’t. He thought, ‘What? What’s going on?’

Irwin cried out, Twenty-seven. Jake, please let me embarrass you for another few minutes. We clearly did not expect your advanced contributions to this team’s mission when we hired you. Your attention to the smallest details have been extraordinary. I want you to know I pulled a lot of strings and called in a few favors for what I’m about to tell you. It was tough, but I was able to ‘wrangle’ an out-of-cycle promotion for you. As of the first of May, you will be promoted GS-12. We are deeply indebted to you for your team’s fantastic success. Well done!

Thank you Dr. Irwin, Steve said. We are definitely fortunate to be able to take advantage of Jake’s insights and skills. Congratulations Jake!

Calvin chimed in, I say Jake gets a well-deserved day off.

Here, here! shouted Alice and Steve at the same time with wide smiles on their faces.

Get out of here Jake, said Irwin. Go celebrate a well-earned break. We’ll see you bright and early on Monday.

Jake’s head was spinning. I don’t know what to say. Thank you. I won’t let you down.

He thought inwardly, ‘Wow! An early promotion! Wow! I’ve only been working here for six months.’ Jake felt elated as he departed the building and walked to his bright blue 2010 Ford Fiesta. He was happy to have such an amazing job and hoped there would be many more opportunities to contribute to the team’s success.

Fifteen minutes later, Jake pulled into his parking space in front of his small condo and went in.

‘What should I do to celebrate? Call Maggie?’

No, that would send conflicting signals after their last time together. He really needed to take time to come to terms with his issues before their relationship became more serious. Although he hadn’t had a flashback in over three weeks, he needed to keep his distance a little longer. Not a flashback, but Jake had experienced a near-episode while at a movie theater three days before with Maggie. They had been enjoying the movie, snuggling close together and holding hands, when a loud explosion from within the movie suddenly transported Jake’s mind to Afghanistan. For more than a few minutes, Jake froze, heart pounding. There was no way Maggie could have missed that. She had not said anything, but Jake was certain Maggie had noticed something was wrong, if only briefly.

Back to the present, Jake wondered how he would spend the rest of his day. Jake decided to go over to Doug Sundquist’s house to attend to his vehicles. Sundquist, a senior official at NAA, was a widower with no children. Many years ago his 31-year-old wife had died in childbirth…and the baby was also lost. Doug had been devastated and had spent the last 22 years since their deaths dedicating himself to his work. Doug had been in the Intelligence Community for over 30 years, was a superb analyst and field operative who travelled extensively in Europe and the Middle East. He was the Chief of the NAA Current Operations Division, with line management responsibility over Steve Bradshaw’s Operational Planning Team. Like Lee Irwin, Doug quickly became another mentor to Jake.

Doug had been on a temporary overseas assignment for more than two months and was due to return in another month. He had asked Jake to periodically come over and take care of his ‘toys’ now and then. Doug’s toys were late and vintage model cars and motorcycles. Jake thought, ‘Tough duty.’ as he changed into a pair of jeans and a polo shirt. Jake picked up Doug’s house keys and set out on foot to Doug’s house just a little less than a mile away. It was a beautiful April sunny day with blossoming cherry trees gently blowing in a light breeze. Within minutes, Jake opened the front door of Doug’s spacious home in a tree-lined Fairfax, Virginia neighborhood. Jake thought, ‘Someday I will live in a house like this.’

Jake walked through the house and entered the garage and turned on the lights. He panned the large two-car garage slowly with his eyes. The oldest vehicle was a vintage 1966 Ford Mustang Fastback. It had a classic white paint job with a flawless shiny finish. Doug’s father had left him this gem in his will after he passed away in 1984. The other car in the garage was a monster vintage 1977 Corvette. The Corvette had a highly polished black finish. It made the ground shake even when it was running in idle.

Sandwiched between the vintage cars were two motorcycles. In the back was a 2000 Indian Super Chief. A real gentleman’s touring bike with an eye-popping tan and cream finish…perfection. The other motorcycle was a new 2015 Harley-Davidson CVO Breakout. In contrast to the Indian, the CVO had a stealthy black denim finish. This machine was made for pure speed with a heavy power to weight ratio. The only significant modification Doug had made on the CVO was to put a larger front wheel and fork, to increase stability for Doug’s larger size.

‘Choices, choices…what to drive today?’ The vehicle that was most due for a riding was the Corvette. Jake climbed in, remotely opened the garage door, cranked up the Corvette and pulled it slowly out onto the street while closing the garage door. Jake figured the Corvette should get at least 10 miles of freeway time. A great way to celebrate the day! Jake pulled the Corvette onto Interstate 395 South. He gunned the engine – instant high-powered …responsiveness…`I love this car.’

Jake thought about today’s team meeting and the team’s success over the last couple months. Jake felt very fortunate to be part of this team. Steve, Calvin, Alice, Dr. Irwin and Doug, along with several other NAA staff had been very helpful in acclimating Jake to NAA’s culture and operations. For Jake, the last few years had been a roller-coaster ride: Two combat tours in Afghanistan; afterward, months pondering his future in the Army before deciding not to reenlist and then searching for a civilian job. Everything had changed so quickly.

Jake’s thoughts shifted to his relationship with Maggie as he drove. They had met during an Intelligence Community orientation program at the Defense Intelligence Agency a few months before. Maggie was perfect. She was twenty-six, bright, funny, and she genuinely enjoyed going out with Jake. But Jake felt he had to move slowly. Too much happening all at once- a new job, new city, relationship…he needed time to adjust. He really liked Maggie and he hoped the relationship would develop in time. Jake’s worse fear was becoming a burden for someone else. Jake again thought back to the movie episode. He didn’t exactly come back from Afghanistan unscathed. Jake suffered from periodic flashbacks, some violent and some just frightening. If they were to continue or got worse, Jake promised himself that he would get to a VA hospital. Because he was so busy with his new job, Jake hoped the flashbacks would get better in time. He avoided using the term post-traumatic stress disorder or its acronym PTSD.

Thirty minutes later Jake pulled the monster back into the garage. He spent the next hour riding the Indian. It was a superb handling machine, perfectly balanced and responsive. Jake compared it to his own motorcycle, a 2006 Honda Shadow. The Shadow was nice and got better gas mileage, but the Indian was a work of art with an engine twice as large. Jake left Doug’s house after dark having spent a few more hours cleaning and polishing Doug’s treasures. When he returned home he baked a French bread pepperoni pizza. Three hours later Jake was sleeping in an easy chair in front of the television.

Death

Jake was startled awake by the motorcycle ringtone on his cell phone. Groggily Jake answered, Hello?

Jake!

Alice?

Jake, you need to get out of there now! Someone is coming to kill you! Alice's voice was extremely agitated.

What? Who’s coming to kill me? What are you talking about?

No time to explain, they may be at your house soon. Get out right now!

Jake asked, But what is happening?

As Jake was talking, he heard a loud knocking sound in the background as though a door had been kicked in and what he thought were gunshots. He heard Alice gasp and the phone hit a hard surface.

Alice! Jake yelled into his cell phone. He heard someone walking and the sound of the person picking up the phone. There was silence on the other end for a few seconds before the call was disconnected. Jake tried to grasp the situation. ‘What the hell just happened?’

Alice was in trouble herself but took the time to call to warn him. Until he could get some answers, Jake needed to do what Alice said, get out right now. Jake stood for a minute longer. He needed to think this through. He stuffed a small duffle bag and backpack with clothing and grabbed a few items from the fridge. Jake had $40 in his wallet…not enough. He would need to get more cash and quickly. He needed to become invisible. He knew instinctively that he couldn’t use his car, motorcycle, or cell phone. Hell, using his debit card was going to be risky, but he needed more cash.

He left his cell phone on the table by his easy chair, left the television on, grabbed his duffel bag, backpack and food and slipped out the kitchen door. As he cautiously crossed