Buried Beneath Read online

  BURIED

  BENEATH

  BURIED

  BENEATH

  DEBBIE BALDWIN

  Charleston, SC

  www.PalmettoPublishing.com

  Buried Beneath

  Copyright © 2021 by Deborah Johnson Baldwin

  All rights reserved

  No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted

  in any form by any means–electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or other–except

  for brief quotations in printed reviews, without prior permission of the author.

  First Edition

  Paperback ISBN: 978-1-63837-535-7

  Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-63837-536-4

  eBook ISBN: 978-1-63837-537-1

  Contents

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  CHAPTER FORTY

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

  CHAPTER FIFTY

  CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

  CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

  CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

  EPILOGUE

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  “Try to be a rainbow in someone's cloud.”

  -Maya Angelou

  To the women of Wednesday night, my rainbow.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Thirty miles north of Stowe, Vermont

  November 20

  T

  he small cabin sat nestled in a clearing in the snowy wood. Smoke puffed amiably into the starry sky.

  The setting might have inspired Robert Frost but for the rotting roof and supporting wall threatening collapse. The crumbling chimney sat at a Seussian angle, and most of the windows were boarded up.

  Then, of course, there were the men inside.

  Dressed in winter camouflage, Camilo Canto moved silently through the wet snow, approaching the house from the side. He was the newest member of the team, but with each day that passed and every op they ran, Cam grew more certain that leaving the CIA to join Bishop Security was one of the best decisions he had ever made. In eight short months, he had found a home and had slammed the door on the demons of his past undercover work.

  If only those demons would stop knocking.

  Cam stepped on a twig, the small snap like an explosion in the quiet. He was distracted, and it didn’t matter if he was a SEAL, an undercover officer, or a Bishop Security operator; distraction could get you killed.

  Before they boarded the jet in South Carolina, Cam had received word from the CIA that someone had called the cell phone belonging to Cam's cover identity, Miguel Ramirez. The call had not connected and had come from an untraceable burner phone. It was a nonevent—no message, no caller to identify—and yet it needled him. It was the country code where the phone call originated that spurred his disquiet: Crimea.

  There was one man who might have called him from that part of the world. Cam didn’t have friends in the CIA, but Raymond Greene came close. He and Raymond shared a common interest in a very uncommon criminal. Greene knew Cam was out of the CIA, which only made the phone call more confounding. If it even was Greene who had attempted to contact him.

  A voice in his ear forced Cam into the here and now. “Cam, what's your twenty?” Miller “Tox” Buchanan, their team leader, spoke in an even voice.

  “About thirty yards to the north. I have a clear view of what looks like the kitchen. No activity.” Cam refocused—if there was one thing he could do without hesitation after living for more than two years as his cover identity, Miguel Ramirez, it was compartmentalize.

  “I thought Vermont was supposed to be quaint, like where they tap maple trees and churn butter and shit. This isn’t one bit quaint.” Hercules Reynolds, their sniper, spoke into the comm from his perch in a White Poplar. “Very un-fucking-quaint.”

  “Fuck off, Herc. At least you’re in a tree. I’m stuck in an ice swamp,” Jonah “Steady” Lockhart muttered from thirty feet below Herc's roost. Steady had earned his nickname on his SEAL squad for his ability to keep an even keel under the most trying of circumstances. Despite the griping, today was no exception.

  The crunch of tires on gravel had the men snapping to attention.

  “Incoming.” Looking through binoculars, Leo “Ren” Jameson spoke from behind a tree to Cam's left. Ren was short for Renaissance Man. Leo Jameson was officially their medic; he also possessed an encyclopedic knowledge of topics ranging from astrophysics to zoology.

  Bishop Security had been contracted to locate and rescue the daughter of a prominent insurance executive. Amy Rafferty had been driving from Bloomington, Indiana to Colorado to meet up with friends for a ski trip when she went missing. Her car was located at a truck stop outside of Lincoln, Nebraska. The FBI was only too happy to hand over the case. Their list of investigations into killings and abductions potentially involving long-haul truckers was so long, the agency had an entire database dedicated to it.

  The evidence—security footage and some blood droplets at the primary crime scene—had led the team to Alfred Winston Bell. Bell was a forty-three-year-old trucker with a string of offenses, including public indecency and peeking while loitering—a lawyerly way of saying he was a peeping tom. It appeared Mr. Bell had decided to take it up a notch. Unfortunately for him, he chose the wrong girl. Amy Rafferty's father was an influential businessman with a network of connections that looked like an airline route map.

  A rusted-out pickup rumbled up the drive, pulled onto the grass, and stopped with a sputter. A tall man with a beer gut jumped down, then turned back to the cab to grab four pizza boxes and a six-pack. He entered the cabin through a side door.

  “Is that Bell?” Herc asked.

  “Negative,” Steady responded.

  Cam crept through the wet snow to a closer tree, confident in his ingrained training. He had served as a SEAL with most of these guys before leaving the Navy to work for the CIA. He spoke softly into his comm.“I’ve got three men in the cabin. I don’t have a visual on the girl, but Asshole Number One brought four pizzas when he came in, so it's a safe assumption there are more people in there.”

  “Unless Tox is in there,” Steady ribbed. “Four pizzas would be about right.”

  Tox fired back, “I’m currently in a warm, dry van getting some very provocative texts from my wife, b
ut by all means, you boys keep up the trash talk.” Tox was a newlywed. He had fallen in love on an op last spring, and the six-foot, five-inch warrior was like putty in his new wife's hands.

  Steady and Ren both groaned from their positions in the icy snow.

  “Got a visual on the girl,” Herc said, staring through the scope of his rifle. “She's in an upstairs bedroom. Looks like she's alone.”

  “Tox, Asshole Number Two just polished off the fifth of Wild Turkey they’ve been passing around. I’m going to move to the window,” Cam said.

  “Good copy. Any of these assholes our guy?” Tox asked.

  “Negative. Moving in now,” Cam answered.

  “We’ve got you covered. Chat's on your six,” Ren added.

  Andrew Dunlap moved into position, his dark skin and bald head masked by the night. The guys on his SEAL squad called him “Chat,” a facetious nod to the fact that he was a man of few words. His instincts, however, were razor-sharp—when he did speak, they listened.

  “Right behind you, Cam,” Chat spoke into the comm. “Looks like Asshole Number Two is going outside to use the facilities, and by ‘facilities,’ I mean tree.”

  “Neutralize and move in. Nathan wants to avoid a body count on this one. The local sheriff is a friendly, but he hates paperwork,” Tox instructed, referring to their boss, Nathan Bishop.

  A minute passed, the silence cut by the drunken man's crunching footsteps in the snow, and then by Chat's neutral words, “Asshole Number Two is hogtied and napping.”

  Steady whispered, “Chat and Cam, take the back. Welcome Wagon is coming in through the front door.” Cam watched Steady, with Ren at his back, make a low run to the entrance.

  “Copy that,” Cam acknowledged. Then, with practiced movements, he and Chat darted to the unlocked rear door.

  If a mini-fridge, a hot plate, and a card table qualified as a kitchen, then the kitchen is where Cam spotted Asshole Number Three standing with a slice of pizza in each hand and a look of confusion on his face. Cam dropped him with one punch. Chat restrained the unconscious man with zip ties, and they continued into the cabin. By the time Chat and Cam got to the main room, Steady and Ren had taken down Asshole Number One.

  A dingy back hall led to opposing bedrooms and either a very narrow staircase or a very wide ladder that went to a loft above the front room. Cam took point. The step-rungs groaned their protest as he climbed. When his head cleared the second floor, he immediately spotted the girl. Appearing unharmed, she was sitting on the side of the bed shivering in jeans and a T-shirt. When she looked up at him, he recognized Amy Rafferty from the photo her parents had provided. The picture… That's when he remembered. They also had a photo of the perp. None of the assholes downstairs matched the description of their suspect, Alfred Winston Bell.

  When Cam looked at Amy again, she was indicating frantically with just her eyes that someone was behind her. He reached for his sidearm, but not before the man himself, Alfred Winston Bell, popped up from the far side of the bed on his knees, pump-action shotgun pointed directly at Cam's head.

  Cam was torn between cursing himself for the rookie mistake and trying to recall some sort of Catholic invocation from his childhood when he heard the tinkling shatter of glass. Alfred Winston Bell fell forward onto the bed. The back of his head did not follow. Amy released a pent-up scream and raced to her rescuer. Cam moved her against the wall, cleared the room, and crossed to the window where he spotted Herc in the tree, sighting Cam through the scope of his Remington. Herc lifted his head and gave a thumbs up. Cam nodded his thanks and turned his attention to Amy just as Chat, with Steady on his heels, leapt up into the loft.

  “Amy Rafferty?” Cam held her upper arms gently as she nodded confirmation.

  “You’re safe now,” he reassured her.

  She took in their tactical gear and face paint. “What are you guys? Commandos or something?”

  Cam explained, “We’re security specialists hired to get you out.”

  Amy started to shake. Chat threw an emergency blanket around her shoulders and spoke softly. “Your parents are nearby waiting to bring you home. Ready to go home?”

  She gripped the edges of the silver blanket and nodded again through her shivers.

  Ren called up from the bottom of the stairs. “Local law enforcement is en route with an ambulance. Tox is going to sort it out. Her parents are meeting us at the hospital in Stowe.”

  Twenty minutes later, Cam stood in front of the cabin and watched the commotion. Tox was shooting the shit with the sheriff while two deputies loaded the three assholes into the back of a police cruiser and a body bag into the coroner's van. Chat climbed into the ambulance with Amy. Steady and Ren flanked Cam and clocked Herc as he swung down from the tree, long gun in its soft case over his back. He joined the group with fist bumps for the team.

  Steady pointed to Cam. “You may not be the new guy anymore, but you’re still buying the beers.”

  Cam smacked Herc on the shoulder, and they turned as a group to head to the van. “Yeah, sure. I guess you clowns have earned a free beer.”

  Cam joked and trash-talked with the guys as they left, but in the back of his mind, that phone call to his old CIA cell phone continued to plague his thoughts.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Ten nautical miles off the coast of Sevastopol, Crimea

  November 21

  T

  he Maestro bobbed peacefully in the heart of the Black Sea. At a mere twenty-four meters, the flybridge pocket yacht was luxurious but unobtrusive—megayachts were not an uncommon sight in these waters.

  Clad in an impeccably tailored Armani suit, The Conductor sat alone at the head of a lacquered cherry wood dining table and cut into a rare filet. Juices flowed onto the plate surrounding the complements to the meat—beet salad and seasoned potatoes.

  Standing at attention in the corner of the room, a leggy assistant, in a green dress just long enough to be within the bounds of propriety, eyed her boss with obvious interest. Nothing would come of the invitation. It wasn’t the assistant's employment status or appearance that precluded consummation; it was the simple fact that desire alone was enough to keep her loyal. Sex was a weapon for The Conductor; better to conserve ammunition when one could.

  Strains of Prokofiev filled the small room, the music both invigorating and soothing. It was a far more pleasant sound than the crunch of bones and the cries of pain from the interrogation taking place one deck below.

  Over the past several hours, a bloody-knuckled man had appeared at the doorway three times and uttered only two words each time: still nothing. Nevertheless, the information would be obtained. The truth agent and roughing up were simply the prelude. It was time for the finale.

  When the meal had been consumed and the plates cleared, the assistant sauntered to the table and placed a single photograph on the gleaming wood. In the picture, a smiling, dark-haired girl of about six or seven held the hand of a woman on a tree-lined street, a school bus in the background. The street sign on the corner read “Birchwood Lane.” Pleased, The Conductor slipped the photo into a pin-striped pocket.

  “The CIA can teach you all the resistance tactics they want. There's no defense against love.”

  Raymond Greene didn’t have long to live. Raymond knew it, and The Conductor knew it. Drugged and pummeled, the CIA officer sat tied to a chair, staring at the opposite wall. Greene hadn’t uttered one word. Admirable.

  Not one to mince words or waste time, The Conductor grabbed a folding chair from against the wall, opened it, and took a seat directly in front of Greene, whose eyes widened slightly in recognition.

  “Officer Greene, your country is grateful for your service. So what do you say we end this suffering?”

  Greene remained stoic, returning his gaze to the far wall, but The Conductor felt the aura of defeat blanket the man; he was waiting for the other shoe to drop.

  “Two people are going to die as a result of this encounter. One of them is you. The questi
on is, who will be the other. Will it be the man whose name you refuse to tell me? Or…”

  Holding the photograph up for Greene to see, The Conductor sounded like a game show emcee introducing a contestant. “Will it be Lily Marie Pope? Lily lives with her mother, Teresa Pope, at 4214 Birchwood Lane, Springfield, Kansas. She is a first-grader at Parsons Elementary and loves soccer and Peppa Pig.”

  It was then Greene broke. The Conductor waited.

  “You’ll leave her alone?” Greene spoke to the floor.

  “Like I never knew she existed.”

  Eyes squeezed shut, chin to chest, Greene's words were barely audible. “His name is Miguel Ramirez.”

  “That's his alias. What do they call it at The CIA? His legend? I want to know his real name.”

  “Miguel Ramirez. That's all I know.” Greene bit out, tears dripping down his face.

  The Conductor stood and patted the man's shoulder, then instructed, “William, arrange for the execution of Lily and Theresa Pope.”

  “Wait!” Greene shouted.

  An underwater silence blanketed the room. Then Greene groaned, “His name is Camilo Canto.”

  “He is hunting me, yes?”

  Greene grunted his affirmative.

  “What evidence does he possess?”

  Greene's voice dripped with venom. “He has a log of detailed notes and a video of a meeting on this ship in Morocco.”

  After giving a slight nod to the man in the corner, Greene's captor stood and left the room.

  After waiting in the hall for the sound of the suppressed round, The Conductor walked the narrow passage of the yacht and entered a stateroom akin to a hotel penthouse. The office was luxurious and masculine, with rich burgundy walls and dark maple wainscoting. Paintings of ships at sea and photos of sport fishing decorated the walls and bookshelves. A humidor sat at the corner of the desk. On paper, the yacht belonged to a Russian oil exporter, a family friend. No one tracing the vessel's ownership would find any meaningful connection—if anyone ever got that far.

  Now to the matter at hand. This type of situation was part and parcel of this business. The secret was stamping out the small flames before they grew into wildfires. This wasn’t the first time an American CIA officer—or SIS or Mossad or the SVF—had poked a nose into the myth of The Conductor: a lone oligarch who held the reins of all international black market shipping. It was, however, the first time an operative had discovered any sort of proof. Camilo Canto most likely didn’t even realize what he had. If that video saw the light of day, the entire house of cards could collapse. Camilo Canto had sealed his fate when he recorded the activity on The Maestro that day; he would soon be nothing more than a plaque on the wall at Langley.