passports to cuba

Chapter 1





“I won’t work with a couple of idiots who nothing about the spying business!” said the kid C.I.A. agent next to me angrily.
“Well excuse me for living, but I happen to have been on more missions than you have,” I said jumping out of my chair with one hand ready to slap him up-side the head so hard that he would end up in next week and the other hand clenched into a fist. I’ll let you figure out what I was going to do with that one because before I could do anything at all I was stopped by the head of the youth agents division of the C.I.A. who stood up himself, slamming his fist against the table causing the two of us to sit down still steaming. You may, at this point, be wandering where on; God’s green earth I’m from. That’s only natural.
I had been flown in from Georgia, to New Port News Virginia, and from there I had gone by C.I.A. limo to Langley Virginia, by the C.I.A. for this briefing with no idea that there would be other agents in the room. My thoughts of what I could have been doing at that moment were interrupted when the for mentioned head of the youth agent’s division said, “The three of you will work together on this mission or you will all be sent home without a mission for a full year,” he said with great force causing me to forget what I was going to say to the kid on my left. “Now if you sit there and be quiet and I’ll tell you just what you’re going to be doing on this mission in about a month and a half,” he said sitting himself down slowly, “our sources tell us that there is someone stealing the passports of American citizens while on their cruising vacations making it harder for them to reenter the U.S. These passports, we expect, are being used to make fake ones for spies in other countries such as China and Cuba in order for the enemy spies to enter the U.S. and it’s your job to retrieve them and if possible catch or kill the spy behind it.” The impact of this information caused us all to become silent with the sheer weight of the information that we had just been given.
“Well that is different,” said the kid on my right.
“You sound as if you’ve never been on this kind of mission,” said the other kid and me simultaneously, amazed.
“Well I’ve only been on twenty missions and all of them were in Canada stopping wannabee communists,” he said giving the other kid and me a shock as those missions were always saved for the most promising kids.
“You’re more talented than you look,” I said.
“Well, I did get an ‘A’ on all of my training tests,” he said making me stop in mid breath to take in this surprising information. I began to feel as though someone had just unscrewed the top of my head and poured in several bits of confusing and intriguing information.
“Well, I’ll be back in ten minutes, and if you three haven’t at least found out each other’s name that year without a mission will be enforced,” said our boss getting up and leaving the room.
“Well,” said the kid on my left, “I might as well start the introductions my name is William Stevens.”
“Okay my name is John Woozle and trust me I’ve heard every joke there is about my last name,” I said preparing for the onslaught of jokes that usually came after this introduction but they were to speechless to do anything but gawk at me as if I were an alien from Mars.
“The John Woozle?” they asked simultaneously.
“I won’t and don’t work with someone that goes strictly by the seat of his pants,” said William before I could even form an answer.
“Ahem,” said the other kid, “I believe you don’t know my name.”
“Tell us then,” I said getting frustrated with William.
“My name is Jonathan Jackson,” he said beginning to fume himself, looking back on this I begin to realize that this was the beginning of our later trouble with working in conjunction with each other on the mission.
“I think I’ve heard your name,” said William.
“You’ve probably heard everyone’s name,” I said striking a chord in him I hadn’t meant to strike. But I had meant to strike one of them.
“Well not everyone’s but probably every name of every agent in the C.I.A.” he said angrily trying to keep himself in check.
Our boss came back in and said, “If you three are done bickering I would like to send you all home until you leave on your mission.”
“That’s fine with me I said getting up and leaving the room ahead of the other two. I walked out of the C.I.A. Headquarters in Langley, Virginia, and turned left towards the C.I.A. stretch limo, the driver of which had been my first friend in the agency. His name was Joseph Clemens and he was a retired agent who had turned into one of their limo drivers. He had become the one who usually picked me up and dropped me off at the airport on my way to and from the C.I.A. office. The limo was already on so he had obviously known how long the briefing would be. I got in and closed the door still fuming not wanting to talk.
But of course Joseph was intent on dragging the information out of me and maybe “help” me, “Well?” he asked looking in the rearview mirror at me, as he pulled out of the parking lot.
“I’m being forced to work with two other agents one of which isn’t exactly fond of agents who work strictly by the seat of their pants,” I said trying not to blow my top in front of my friend.
“Well, sometimes missions like this can help you become a better agent, but if it makes you feel any better I didn’t like the idea the first time I had to work with someone other than myself either,” he said trying but not succeeding to comfort me.
“Yes but I’m not you,” I said beginning to think that no one was on my side today.
“Yes but you never know, you might learn something,” he said. The rest of the trip was quiet me fuming, and Joseph trying to figure out how to get me back up with my usual spring in my step. As he pulled up to the New Port News, airport departures section, I got out of the back without saying anything collected my stuff and went inside.

Chapter two



The location of our mission was on the cruise ship Carnival Freedom. The Carnival Freedom is 952 feet long, holds 2974 passengers, has 1150 onboard crew, and has thirteen decks. It was an eight day cruise in the Gulf of Mexico from Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, to Cozumel, Mexico, Limon, Costa Rica, and Colon, Panama, and returning to Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. We had been given this information in a secured email sent a week after the briefing and hadn’t spoken since the email had been sent a month before the cruise. You may be wondering how we managed to get our parents to take us on this cruise. I can’t speak for Jonathan or William but as for myself my parents work for the C.I.A. as well and were told of the arrangements for the cruise. All this aside on the second day of the cruise, which was a sea day, I was on my way back to our cabin on a hunch. I slipped my card key into the card reader, pulled it out, and opened the door. I stepped inside, and noticed my parents were gone, probably on the Lido deck. The cabin had three closets to the left of the door with a small bathroom on the opposite side. To the right of the closets was a small desk with a mirror above it. To the right of the desk was a small cabinet with a safe inside and a TV mounted on the wall above it. On the opposite side of the room was a bed and a couch which could be folded out to become my bed. When the couch was folded up a small table was in front of it. Exactly parallel to the door was a door to the small balcony which had a table and two chairs. I opened the safe by slipping it thru the card reading lock and opened the safe, I peered inside and just as I had expected our family passports were gone, I had seen this before and new that they would be gone by now but now here was something different, a note. They never left notes as the handwriting could be traced, because notes were usually handwritten and this one was no different.

I know who you are, give up your petty schemes. You don’t scare me I’ve dealt with worse. Give up now or your little “operation” “sinks” to the bottom so to speak.
René Gonzalez

So our cockroach was either Cuban or of Cuban decent due to the fact that The Mexican’s were America’s allies and I had met several Mexican spies and I knew they wouldn’t stoup that low. I looked back at the door and saw that I had left it open and the way I was standing anyone could have seen that I was reading something, but the note wasn’t important so I didn’t worry. Then I realized why it struck a feeling of wrongness in me. If any enemy spy saw me reading it, and recognized me from a picture or past experience they might think that I was planning something other than what I was really planning, which wasn’t much.
Before I could close the door Jonathan, who was passing by my room, looked inside saw the piece of paper in my hand and asked, “You got one to huh?”
“Yeah, although I wouldn’t think much of it it’s not like it’s a real threat,” I said confidently. The note really was nothing to worry about but he looked as if he were mad at the fact that I seemed unmoved by the note as he walked off. I crumpled up the note and then thru it in the trash can under the small desk on the left wall of the cabin and closed and locked the safe. I then walked out of the room and turned left toward the ship’s grand atrium. Once there I took one of the four elevators to the Riviera deck, which has guest rooms, two decks below the atrium. Once there I took a left towards one of the two hallways on each side of the ship and turned left down that hallway. I wasn’t quite sure what it was I was going to find but my instincts told me that I would find something. As I walked down the long hall I began to hear someone else’s footsteps behind me. By the sound of the footsteps the person was tall and most likely strong as an ox by the sound of their footsteps. I turned around and saw a tall man surprisingly thin but obviously strong as an ox, he had a tan that could rival that of a true Mexican and was probably in his mid 30’s. Before I could say anything he turned and ran. I gave chase, knowing that this was probably the guy that I was looking for, I soon realized that I wouldn’t catch him and that I had seen him before somewhere on the ship but I didn’t know where I had seen him. He hung a right back to where the elevators where as his luck would have it there was an elevator door open and as my luck would have it as soon as he stepped inside and pressed the button, the doors closed before I could even get in front of the door way. Frustrated I began to realize that maybe I did need help. This realization lead to me remember that this was the deck William was staying. This lead me to the conclusion that maybe I was down here to talk to William about actually working together. With that I promptly forgot about the guy I was chasing, I never had a wide attention span anyway. I then returned to my cabin made two identical notes saying to meet me near the top of the water slide on the ship at 4:00 Pm and slipped one under Jonathan’s door and one under William’s door. By now it was lunch time so I decided to postpone the mission until after lunch.

Chapter 3



At exactly four o’clock I was at the top of the water slide waiting on the others, as they climbed up the stairs I began to rethink my spuel that I had prepared, but I knew that this was a sign of nervousness that I didn’t need to be having at that moment in time so I began thinking over what I had seen an hour ago as I turned my gaze towards the main section of the lido deck looking for my “shadow”, who, it seemed, had followed me from the time I left the restraint at the back of the ship until a few minutes ago when I chased him off. Only this time he had lost me on the lido deck in the crowd.
“You wanted to see us here?” asked William fidgeting with the note I had slipped under his door. I saw this as a sign of not wanting to be there.
“Yes,” I said gathering myself for the speech I had prepared, “I realize that we don’t really want to work together but we have to or come out of this either dead or empty handed or both. So basically, as a start we should share any important information we come up with.” I paused just long enough so that I could get a breath before divulging my important information, “I’ll start: first I think I know what René Gonzales looks like, he is most likely in his mid 30’s, six feet, tall, thin, Cuban, and definitely strong as an ox. Also I think I know where the passports are.”
I paused to let this sink in and before I could continue William asked, “So, you expect us to believe that you know where the passports are?”
“No,” I said becoming aggravated, “I expect you to trust that I think I know where they are.”
“Well where do you think they are,” asked Jonathan.
“That way and down three decks,” I said pointing towards the double Decker buffet, also at the back of the ship, and as if on cue someone pushing a box on a cart exited the atrium below us and pushed towards the entrance of the buffet. All the while he kept looking around trying to make sure that no one was following him.
“I believe that that’s our cue,” I said going into silent chase mode. The others were slow to react, but they soon got the message and ran after me as quietly as they could. The guy pushing the cart disappeared into the buffet followed by Jonathan, who had overtaken me; then William and I entered almost directly after him. We followed the cart pusher around the oval shaped main buffet and then thru a door about halfway down the other side on our right. As we ran thru the door the man began to run and curse in Spanish. I began to think that he would never go down any decks but he soon turned right into an elevator we made it into the elevator. I as we stood blocking the man’s way I gave him an evil grin the elevator doors closed and when they opened exactly three doors down the man lay unconscious on the floor. We waited a few seconds to the left of the door way making sure no one was coming and then Jonathan grabbed the cart handle and followed us, as we turned left and down the long corridor at the end of the hallway was a door which happened to be unlocked. I opened the door and inside was at least half a dozen boxes of the same size I opened one and it was full of the missing passports. Behind me I heard the door shut. I turned around and ran at the door and busted it open before it could be locked.
“Wow,” said William amazed at my suddenly developed super strength.
“Hurry we need to find someone that will believe our story, and redistribute these things,” I said, turning on end of mission mode. But later as we were telling our story to the cruise director I began to think that maybe we should try and bag this René Gonzales instead of letting them go. After proving everything we had said I said as much to William and Jonathan and they agreed so I turned off end of mission mode and turned on bag the cockroach mode.


Chapter 4




That night at dinner, the seat that had been vacant on the previous night was filled by a calm cool and collected René Gonzales.
“Good evening everyone,” he said in a decidedly British voice, my prime suspect was British, there was no way on earth that he was Cuban, “sorry I couldn’t make it last evening I had some business to take care of.” I could see his eyes scan our faces and stop when he saw my face. For an instant they turned hostile and once again returned to a friendly face.
“My name is Gabriel Folksworth,” he said. I thought that this was an alias because even if he wasn’t Cuban or René Gonzales, he had to be a spy of some sort and would never reveal his real name. Afterwards everyone continued the introductions and we commenced into your regular dinner table conversations as the waiter took everyone’s order. Later when desert was being served I had an idea as to how I could find out the Brit’s real identity. I excused myself saying that I needed to use the restroom and turned in that direction. Turning the corner out of the restaurant, I looked back to see my shadow following me. He caught up with me, grabbed me by the shoulder, and turned me around.
“Alright,” he said, angry and annoyed at the same time, “I’ll ask the questions and you’ll supply the answers. First what in blazes are you up to?”
I answered him by saying, “I could ask you that exact same question,”
“Touché,” he said calming down a bit.
“But if you really want to know I and two other people were sent on this cruise to keep passports from being permanently ‘lost’ basically lost because someone keeps stealing them,” I said, hoping that the truth would actually be the best policy in this case.
“I see,” he said, unconvinced.
“Also capture whoever is behind him and short of that kill him or at least make it so that he can’t repeat the crime without someone else knowing,” I said, trying to make sure he understood what I was saying.
“Since when does the C.I.A. have a youth agent’s program?” he asked confused.
“That, of course, is confidential,” I said.
“Of course,” he said, “well do you at least know who it is?”
“All we have is a name René Gonzales and by your appearance I thought that you might be him,” I said, beginning to trust Gabriel.
“Yes, I get that a lot when René is involved,” he said.
“You know him?” I asked hopefully.
“Know him? Everyone in Interpol has either heard of him or thwarted one of his schemes. His latest one has something to do with destroying America’s Government and assonate your president,” he said.
“I see,” I said, “now it’s your turn.”
“All right,” he said, “I’m here because I’m supposed to be on vacation.”
“Oh, that’s easier than my explanation,” I said, believing him.
“But if you want information about René Gonzales meat me on the lido deck at midnight and I’ll tell you everything I can,” he said. I agreed and I walked back towards the restaurant and he walked in the direction of what I supposed was his cabin.

Chapter 5

It was about five minutes till midnight and I was already on the lido deck. Agent Folksworth was outlined on the upper section of the deck by the moonlight and stars. The sea was calm and no one was around. I approached the man going up a few sets of stairs. Folksworth was looking out upon the water hands behind his back in a military fashion.
As I got closer he sarcastically asked without turning, “Are you always this early for everything?” without turning.
“No, but it depends on the importance of what I’m going to,” I said ready for what I was about to be told, “now what do you know about Gonzales?”
“Well for one thing he wouldn’t be on this mission unless the Cuban’s didn’t want any interference what so ever,” he said, taking a breath before continuing, “Also he probably knew who you are before you stepped on board and has a plan to stop you already. He has been given several awards in espionage by his country’s leaders and is notorious for passport forgery,” he paused a moment to let this sink in, “I can’t tell you much more without being in deep trouble with my superiors, because Interpol doesn’t like it when their agents share information about what they consider to be public enemy number one.” This last bit of information came as a shock and annoyance to me. Interpol had very few major enemies but if my prime suspect was their public enemy number one I would probably only get what was left of his DNA after Interpol was done with him and most likely have a very mad boss for not bagging him first.
“So, basically if I interfere with your case I might get hurt?” I asked, out of pure curiosity.
“Do you think like your average every day ‘get out of my case or get hurt’ kind of agent?” he asked more than annoyed.
“If the boot fits,” I said trying to keep my own cool. At that moment the cruise director ran up to us.
“I’m glad I found you,” he said directing this sentence at me.
“Why?” I asked worried.
“The passports have disappeared again,” he said. I could tell that this Gonzales didn’t give up easily at all.
“Let’s go,” I said, “Folksworth I may need your help.”
“Why are we trusting him?” asked the cruise director.
“Because, he knows more about our thief than either of us put together,” I said moving in the direction of the buffet. The two men followed suit as I strode towards the previous location of the stolen passports. Once we reached the door to the room I opened the door and inside was one small box with a white piece of paper.


Find me find the passports.
Before Costa Rica, or I will be gone.
René Gonzales

“Well,” I said, “He sure does like to leave notes with his name on them.”
“That’s true it’s like his way of giving you a hint,” said agent Folksworth.
“He doesn’t give us much time does he?” I asked.
“No, and…” agent Folksworth stopped in mid sentence as if to listen. In the silence I could hear something as well. I exchanged a glance with agent Folksworth and we both began to herd the cruise director out of the room.
The explosion was sudden we had just managed to get the door shut outside the room and get down the hall a few feet when the door flew off its hinges. I threw myself on the floor pushing the cruise director down as I went. I heard a pained grunt as agent Folksworth went down. In the aftermath I looked around there were a few flames but nothing serious. Agent Folksworth’s back was bleeding where a small piece of the door had embedded itself into him. Several of the ships’ security officers came and escorted us to the infirmary. As we waited to go into the doctor, I finally began to realize just how dangerous this was. There was nothing routine about it.

Chapter 6




The next morning the ship was docked in Cozumel, the original plan had been to go snorkeling in a park called Chankanaab, and maybe find an elusive Cuban listening post. The windows of which were rumored to be hidden among the rock formations of the reef. But with the unexpected changes in my mission, that wasn’t going to happen. The piece of metal had been painfully extracted from agent Folksworth’s back and the wound had been stitched up, putting him out of active duty for a few hours. I had been sitting on the couch in our cabin for the last hour reading and re-reading the note. We didn’t have much time. After Cozumel, we would have a total of one day to catch or kill René Gonzales, because there was a sea day and then Costa Rico. My thoughts were interrupted by a knock on the door. I got up, went to the door, and looked through the peep hole in the door. It was Jonathan. I opened the door to let him in.
“I heard what happened,” he said as he walked in.
“Yeah, something tells me this guy isn’t afraid to kill a minor,” I said sarcastically.
“When aren’t they?” he asked.
“True,” I said, “so, why are you here?
“I found something that might help,” he said pulling a piece of what looked like plastic that had spent a minute in lava.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“Plastic from the bomb, I found it near where the bomb exploded,” he said pulling a small test kit out of his pocket, which was standard issue, “When I inspected it I found traces of C4 on the plastic.” I could feel my eyes widen in surprise.
“How did he get it on the ship?” I asked.
“How am I supposed to know? I just found it,” he said.
“Let’s show this to the cruise director, he may want to know that we found this,” I said moving towards the door. Jonathan agreed and followed suit. I closed the door and we headed towards the main atrium.

After we had shown what we found to the cruise director we headed back to the room where I found the watch that had alerted us to the presence of the bomb. From the looks of it, it hadn’t been attached in any way to the bomb so someone had to have been waiting on us to reach the room and used a blasting cap. Also, I concluded that they had wanted me to find it. I began to look for one and was just about to give up when a surprised exclamation came from Jonathan’s direction.
“What is it?” I asked hopping for the blasting cap.
“A small video camera,” he said, “and it’s on.” I stood up and walked in that direction. When I reached the corner and bent down I could see the camera and the little red light that said it was on.
“Grab it,” I said, “it may be useful later.”
“Got it,” said Jonathan; who pocketed it
“Let’s keep looking there’s probably a blasting cap around here somewhere,” I said continuing my search.
“What makes you say that?” asked Jonathan. I showed him the watch, which had probably been a top of the line Rolex at one time but now looked as if it had been in the middle of an atomic bomb explosion.
“Well then let’s get a move on,” he said coming to the same conclusion I had. We spent the next few hours until lunch looking for the missing blasting cap sifting through all of the debris without finding anything. We decided to take a break for lunch and continue the search afterwards.

When we returned I suggested that we start looking in the hall. As we searched I began to realize that there were five pairs of feat going to and from the room as opposed to the four of the cruise director’s, agent Folksworth’s, Jonathan’s, and mine that I knew had gone in and out.
“Jonathan,” I said coming to a dreaded conclusion.
“What?” he asked looking under a few shards of the door.
“I think our guy has been here,” I said gesturing towards the fifth pair of feet. Jonathan looked at the different tracks looking for what I was seeing.
“I don’t see it,” he said. Over the next few minutes I explained to him the intricacies of noticing the length between footstep marks that I had learned by reading to many Sherlock Holmes stories. When I was done he was still a little confused but he got the basic point someone else had been there. We returned to the lido deck. At this point it was one o-clock and I needed a snack so I told Jonathan to meet me at the Pizza bar in an hour and went to find William and agent Folksworth.