End Times

by P A Duncan

“Or restrictions on internal espionage,” Alexei added.

  Randolph contemplated their words and looked at Vejar who nodded. He turned back to Mai.

  “What are you proposing?”

  The intent was to have him think this was his idea, and Mai chose her words with care. “This is a situation we are currently analyzing. What we would like to do toward that end is expand that analysis into intelligence gathering. We would make periodic reports, for your and the attorney general’s eyes only.”

  “Without the knowledge of the CIA or FBI?”

  “Yes. Compartmentalization of this effort protects us. Protects you.”

  Randolph gave her another teasing smile. “You mean something like, ‘if any of your team is caught or captured, the secretary will disavow any knowledge of your actions?’”

  “Something like that.”

  Randolph’s gaze flicked from one to the other and settled on Mai again. “Ms. Fisher, would you mind telling me how you got in and out of that compound when dozens of highly trained law enforcement officers wouldn’t even try?”

  “I’d like to think I’m as highly trained.”

  “I must admit, after meeting you, it seems, I don’t know… You don’t look like a spy,” Randolph said, his southern accent softening.

  “Why, Mr. President,” Mai mimicked, “what is a lady spy supposed to look like?”

  Randolph’s smile was disarming, even intimate. “Not so attractive, I suppose. I apologize for being nosy, but how does one make such a career choice?”

  “In my instance, it’s a family legacy, but that’s not why we’re here.”

  If he disliked the abruptness, he didn’t show it. “I gather you both feel this expanded analysis is important.”

  In her periphery, Mai saw Alexei’s pursed lips. His patience was thinning. “Yes, we do. However, there is one thing we’d like assurance on,” she said.

  “What is that?”

  “If we uncover a tangible threat and suggest a plan of action to address it, we’d like your assurance the appropriate agencies will give it fair and full consideration.”

  Randolph was thoughtful for a good stretch of time, weighing political ramifications, Mai supposed.

  “If any plan you devise fails,” Randolph said, “I’d like your assurance no one can trace it back to this office.”

  “It won’t be.”

  “Besides,” Alexei said, “considering the violent potential of the patriot movement, if we fail, it’s unlikely either or both of us will be around to trace it back to you.”

  Randolph’s eyes widened as he considered the intent of Alexei’s words, which Mai thought were over-dramatic.

  “You think these people are that dangerous?” Randolph asked.

  Before Alexei could inject more doom and gloom, Mai answered, “From the analysis we’ve conducted so far, yes.”

  “And you said periodic reports?”

  “Yes, and they’ll be thorough, though not on a set schedule. As we make inroads into certain areas, we’ll report our findings. A hard copy for your eyes only or through the attorney general, or verbal, in person to whomever you prefer. Again, we’d like to compartmentalize it to only yourself and Attorney General Vejar.”

  Another smile directed at Mai. “Well, now, Ms. Fisher, I’ve always preferred the personal touch.”

  Where his arm rested on the back of the sofa, Alexei’s fingers began to drum. It seemed Randolph didn’t know the extent of her and Alexei’s “partnership.”

  “Okay,” Randolph said, “I’m sold. Do we do another of those protocol things?”

  “A corollary to the current one will suffice,” Alexei said.

  “Route it through the attorney general.” Randolph looked at his watch and stood, the other three following suit. “Okay, I’ve a national security council meeting in fifteen minutes. Would you two like a tour of the White House?”

  “No, thank you,” Alexei said.

  “We appreciate your time,” Mai said, “and we’ll see your faith in us is not misplaced.”

  “Oh, my pleasure entirely,” Randolph said, again lingering over the parting handshake with Mai. “You be careful now.”

  This time Alexei sighed.

  Vejar said, “I’m afraid I’ll have to stay for this meeting, but my driver can take you back to your car.”

  “It’s a nice day,” Alexei said. “If we can be escorted off the grounds, we’ll walk back.”

  Once past the main gate, Mai and Alexei strolled down Pennsylvania Avenue. The late spring day was bright and warm, and Washington’s office workers crowded the sidewalks.

  Mai linked her arm through Alexei’s, surprising but delighting him with the display of affection.

  “I’ll buy us lunch at the rooftop restaurant of the Washington Hotel,” she said.

  “Lunch? What did I do to deserve that?”

  “You restrained yourself when the President flirted with me.”

  “He and I have good taste in women.”

  “Is that a yes?”

  With a smile playing on his mouth he said, “I don’t know. If you buy me lunch, you might expect something in return.”

  “Oh, I’m counting on it.”

  “In that case, perhaps we should see if the Washington Hotel has a vacancy.”

  “Great minds think alike.”

  He liked their banter, the innuendo they exchanged. Juvenile perhaps, but he looked forward to it. Banter meant Mai was in a good mood.

  They walked in silence until they had to wait for the light to cross the street.

  “We left something out of that report,” Mai murmured, as they crossed.

  “I thought it was exceptionally thorough.”

  “Alexei, don’t be droll. The shell casings and the corpse?”

  “I have plans for the shell casings, and Fitzgerald probably had the corpse mixed in with the other fatalities.”

  “I see. We have the shell casings, but they don’t know we have them. At some unspecified time in future, we can use them to our advantage.”

  “Careful, you’re starting to think like this wily, old Russian.”

  “I should hope not.” She stopped on the sidewalk near the Washington Hotel’s entrance. “That’s volatile evidence we’re holding onto.”

  “Yes. You and I are the only ones who know about the shell casings and the corpse.”

  “The President was right,” she said. “We’ll have to be careful.”

  She headed for the hotel’s entrance, but Alexei hesitated, wondering why her last remark had given him gooseflesh.

  32

  All American Boy

  Bukharin-Fisher Residence

  Mount Vernon, Virginia

  On occasion, Mai wished her spy life were more like the movie version of James Bond: amazing cars, five-stars hotels, and, in her case, lots of young, hot men to seduce. The reality was filling out budget requests for a mission whose parameters weren’t yet concrete and answering uncountable questions from The Directorate’s budget office to justify the expenditure.

  She’d had an email exchange and a lengthy phone call already, had faxed amended forms back and forth, and was in a state of pique because Alexei diddled elsewhere in the house, so he didn’t have to help.

  After ten minutes with no follow-up from the bean-counter-in-chief, Mai resumed her scan of postings in pro-gun newsgroups and chat rooms on the web. Oh, right; now it was to be called “the internet.” Killeen was still a hot topic, and even though she might be in agreement the government’s actions were overkill, she was amazed at the misinformation being spread. Rumor had whipped up already angry people—armed people—into a seething rage.

  The lock on the door cycled. Of course, she thought, he comes to the office once the paperwork is done.

  Alexei entered, and she smiled as she took in his tan Dockers, Polo shirt, and bare feet in boat shoes. Ah, so that’s where he’d been, down in his boathouse. All so suburban and middle class until you noticed his ponyt
ail and the scars creeping from his hairline.

  He held up a thick mailing envelope. “You have a package from the FBI,” he said.

  “Is it ticking?”

  “No, but I wouldn’t expect our friend Hollis to be so unsubtle.”

  “How did it arrive?”

  “U.S. Postal Service Priority Mail to the mission post office box we use. The courier cleared it as usual and delivered it just now.”

  “Oh, I know what it is. I asked an FBI cameraman to send me some stills and a video of that odd chap I pointed out to you at Killeen. He must have gotten around to it at last.”

  “Asked him or bribed him?”

  “I asked and may have sweetened the deal. Best you don’t know.”

  He handed the envelope to her with a wink. “They can’t compel me to testify against you anyway.”

  She looked up at him. “You opened it?”

  “It’s not my fault the staples popped loose.” He came to the back of her chair, leaned down, and nuzzled her neck.

  “I see. Are you going to help with the research on this guy or not?”

  He kissed her below an ear. “You’re so much better at that than I. I’ll leave it to you.”

  “I expect you to make it up to me.”

  “Gladly.”

  She turned to look at him.

  Alexei smiled. “Oh, you mean now?”

  Alexei left the office humming as he tucked his shirt back into his trousers. After the dullness of the earlier paperwork, Mai decided the little diversion was exactly what she needed. She pulled her clothing back on, returned to her desk, and poured the contents of the FBI cameraman’s envelope onto the desktop.

  She shuffled through the additional stills, of better quality than the ones he’d given her on-site, for an overall impression. Then, she studied each. Some showed the young man smiling while he chatted with other demonstrators. He had a winning smile, one that lit up his narrow face and made him almost handsome. That smile had a goodness to it, almost innocence, an all-American boy quality.

  Other stills, however, showed him stone-faced, eyes vacant, much like the first time she’d seen him.

  She sorted the photos according to mood and the date/time stamp on the photos. They’d all been taken during an eleven-minute period on the same day. A curious mixture of emotions in a compact amount of time. A short fuse, then, implying impulsivity.

  Mai selected the best of the face-on shots and scanned it. While her scanner worked on that, she pinned the other photos to her cork board, which already held the bumper stickers and softer-focus photos. She arranged the photos chronologically, stood back, and studied them from a distance, extrapolating from them possible body language and posture. At first, her eyes moved slowly from one photo to the next. Her eye movements sped up, left to right, faster and faster until she could almost imagine his gestures, the movement of his long hands.

  The scanner chimed to indicate it had finished, and she studied the result. Good. She cropped it to exclude any background scenery and now studied the face, committing every freckle, blemish, and dimple to memory until she was certain she could spot that nondescript face in a crowd.

  Now, she needed a name to go with the face.

  She accessed The Directorate’s gateway to select government agencies and private corporations. Where to start? The obvious. The U.S. military, specifically the Pentagon’s personnel files. While she waited for the back-door access to burrow its way in, she used a recently developed Directorate biometrics program to highlight distinguishing aspects of the man’s face: distance between the pupils, arc of the eyebrows, the distance between the columella and the upper lip, width and shape of the philtrum, etc. The program made a geometric shape of the selected points—connecting the dots as it were—and would use that to compare to photos in the Pentagon’s personnel files. The tech was cutting edge, developed by The Directorate’s computer genius, Nathan Hempstead, and his team of geeks. Other countries were working on similar projects, but The Directorate had beaten them to it. Nelson had decided it was something he wasn’t ready to share beyond the organization.

  Mai narrowed the search parameters to white males between twenty and thirty-five, active duty and discharged or retired in the past five years. The program began to run the parameters, pulling up photos and comparing Mai’s biometric plat to ones using the same distinguishing marks. She watched for several minutes as the program checked and discarded a half-dozen possibilities. Well, this was going to take a while.

  With her computer occupied, she sat at Alexei’s desk and turned his on to continue her chat room and newsgroup research. Four hours later, all she had from the program was rejections. The clock told her Natalia would be home from school soon, and Mai left the computer to do its work while she did things that would never show up in a James Bond movie—overseeing homework, having a family dinner, and enduring a tussle over bedtime on a school night.

  When she finally returned to the office, the computer screen showed her a familiar face beside her photo, with matching plats. The search was complete and had yielded only a single possibility. She sent a request to The Directorate’s computer genius to bootleg a copy of the man’s DoD file. A reply indicated she’d have it in forty-eight hours.

  The DoD official photo showed a man a few years younger than the photo from Killeen. No matter; she had a name now.

  Mai turned her chair to look at the montage on the cork board again.

  “John Thomas Carroll,” she said. “I’ll wager you’re a John or a Tom, not Johnny or Tommy. At least not anymore.”

  She stopped her scrutiny of his cold, empty eyes and wondered what he sounded like, what moved him besides the obvious.

  “John, without your knowing it, I’ll get to know you, all about you. What you like to eat. With whom you are sleeping. Your favorite color. I will know you better than your own mother does. If you’re up to something, I’ll find that out, too. And I’ll use it against you. Or stop you.”

  From outside the office door that Mai had left ajar, Alexei had listened and, for the second time in a few weeks, felt a chill of doubt creep up his spine.

  33

  Crossing Lines

  Northern Virginia

  Enjoying the approach of summer, Mai increased the pace of her jog along the streets and trails paralleling the George Washington Parkway. Most of the runners she encountered were regulars, and they greeted each other with grunts or nods.

  Because the regulars were just that, the man running several meters ahead of Mai stood out like the proverbial sore thumb.

  Not much taller than Mai’s five and a half feet, he had a lean, runner’s body, sinewy but with developed musculature. He wore electric blue, Spandex bicycle shorts, expensive Reebok cross-trainers, and a tee-shirt from the Marine Corps Marathon. Now and then, he glanced over his shoulder, timed with a faster runner or a bicyclist passing him. He had a cassette player strapped to his waist and wore headphones.

  Mai stayed a constant distance behind the runner, as though he’d gone unnoticed. Was Fitzgerald at it again? A late-model Crown Victoria with two front seat passengers, a man and a woman wearing sunglasses and expensive clothes, had also piqued her interest. The car had passed her three times, first going south, then north, and south again. Granted, they could be a realtor and a client looking at properties in the area, but things were seldom that coincidental in her life.

  If this were Fitzgerald, he was endangering the careers of FBI agents to conduct surveillance the attorney general had expressly forbidden.

  Or…They could be mercenaries, Mai’s term for “private security consultants.”

  Was this a shadow job or a bag and grab? The guy ahead of her, she could take, but she suspected the cassette player was a two-way radio. He could call for reinforcements, and she doubted the Crown Vic’s occupants were the only available assets.

  The man stopped at an intersection and jogged in place as traffic made turns into the side street. He checked both
ways and jogged across the side street, his pace slowing.

  When Mai reached the intersection, she veered right into the neighborhood and picked up her speed. After a series of right turns, she arrived back at the intersection and a good hiding place behind a large azalea. She knelt, pretended to tie her shoe, and watched for the man.

  Almost on cue, he ran down the side street, head swinging right and left, looking for her. He ran deep into the development and stopped, hands on hips. He looked around some more and continued down the street, slowing to peer down cul-de-sacs and lanes. Before he jogged out of her sight, Mai saw him speaking into the “cassette” player.

  Mai left the jogging path and crossed the Parkway into another residential area. She took a convoluted route home, doubling back to check her six often. She was late getting home, but that gave her enough time to let her anger at Hollis Fitzgerald boil.

  Once home, she showered, changed, and went to the office to make the first of several calls.

  “Russell,” came a gruff reply.

  “Did I wake you?”

  “Yeah, you sure as hell did. Who is this?”

  “Mai Fisher.”

  “Oh, oh! Sorry. What do you… Wait, I never gave you my home number.”

  “I didn’t need for you to. Interested in that side employment I mentioned?”

  “Sure. What do you need?”

  She liked it when her stringers asked those kinds of questions. “I need for you to run a license plate for me.”

  She heard what sounded like a yawn, then, “Can’t do that from home.”

  “When are you going in?”

  “I’m on midnights. Not for a while.”

  “Don’t you have paperwork or something to catch up on,” she said. Silence. She imbued her voice with the right amount of coyness. “I really need this information.”

  A sigh this time. “How much?”

  “How much do I want the information?”

  “No. How much will I get?”