by Jeff Gunhus
Mara saw there was more he wanted to say but was holding back. She was tempted to just ignore it and move on, but that was her weakness in relationships. And she wanted this one to work out. More than anything.
“What is it?” she asked. “What’s wrong?”
He looked away, deciding whether to engage. Finally, he said, “Lies. They come to you a little too easily sometimes. That worries me. With us, I mean.”
Mara was taken aback. Emotionally, the implication hurt. The timing for a comment like that was pretty shitty, too. Her instinct was to lash out, mount a defense, throw gas on the fire.
Instead, she took a deep breath and pushed that instinct away.
“I’ve never lied to you,” Mara said, thinking mostly it was because he knew which questions not to ask. When he did wander into questionable territory, she preferred just not to respond at all. It was their shorthand for I can’t tell you that.
“Then we don’t lie through all of this,” he said. “We don’t tell the others, but you and me, we tell each other everything about this mission. All right?”
Her training immediately gave her the green light to agree. If that was what he needed her to say to feel better, then sure. A cost-free statement.
But she hesitated. This was different. She actually intended to keep this promise.
“The thing is,” she said softly, “sometimes the truth can get you killed.”
“We take that risk,” he said. “This is too important.”
She assumed he meant the mission, but he could have easily meant what they had together. She didn’t ask for clarification.
“No lies,” she said.
They kissed. And as they did, she couldn’t help but wonder which of them would be the first to break the vow they’d just made.
CHAPTER 47
“That was Mara,” Scott said, hanging up the phone. “She and Rick will meet us there.”
Hawthorn and Anna nodded at the news. They were all in a black SUV being driven to Secret Service Headquarters at 950 H Street, just blocks away from the more famous address of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, home to the agency’s most famous protectee.
While presidential protection was almost entirely how the public saw the Secret Service, it was actually a small part of its mission. In fact, the agency was first formed to combat widespread currency counterfeiting in the second half of the nineteenth century. It was why the agency had been under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Treasury Department until the reorganization of the entire intelligence community in 2003. After that, it was brought under the umbrella of the newly formed Department of Homeland Security.
With 136 field offices and offices around the world, the Secret Service’s mandate was broken into two missions: investigation and protection. The investigation mandate was rarely seen or acknowledged by the public. Responsibilities extended into financial crimes, electronic investigations, and intellectual property crimes. But the Secret Service was also a valued partner in the Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) and assisted with the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC).
But nothing captured the public’s imagination like the Secret Service agent standing watch over an American president.
Even the protection mission is more complicated than the public appreciates. Protectees include the president and immediate family, the vice president, past presidents, and foreign dignitaries on American soil. They are responsible for the physical security of the White House and Treasury and all foreign diplomatic missions. They review and investigate all credible threats and take the lead on National Special Security Events (NSSEs), which in the current situation gave them jurisdiction and responsibility for the events in New York.
While a failure in the investigation mission was a hard pill to swallow, failures in the protection arena were the nightmare scenario for any agent.
Dealey Plaza still haunted the organization. Reagan’s near miss did, too, but at least it’d been years before the public understood just how close Hinckley had come to killing the man.
So, while Dreslan was the director of an agency spanning the globe with over 7,000 employees engaged in hundreds of types of missions, threats against the president always came first.
The Secret Service headquarters never made the tour for out-of-town guests to DC. From the street, it looked like any other office building in town. Fronted by a five-story building with the original brick look, the building rose to ten stories to fill the rest of the block. An old three-story building of row houses was attached to the left side of the building, but each window was covered by thick wood like it was an abandoned building. In reality, the windows were sealed to better protect the men and women inside from prying eyes. And because nothing said government job better than a windowless room.
Scott, Hawthorn, and Anna passed the checkpoint to park in the underground garage beneath the building. If the Secret Service had their way, it was how every dignitary would arrive at every location. A controlled setting. No sightlines for a shooter. Perfect.
While politicians liked not being killed, they liked being in power even more. That meant being elected, so that meant appearing in public. That battle between the mission to keep those they protected alive while constantly getting pushback on the needs of those same people to work rope lines, attend public events and make outdoor speeches was what drove every Secret Service protection detail crazy. The stress was also why the Secret Service had one of the highest rates of alcoholism and divorce in the intelligence services.
As they parked the car, Scott saw Mara’s vehicle at the security check-in behind them. They waited and joined up together. As she and Rick walked up, he’d expected her to have at least some glow of satisfaction about her. Or maybe Rick might have the smallest bit of self-consciousness. He was Mara’s father, after all, and it didn’t take a brain surgeon to guess how the two of them had spent their hour break from this madness together.
But there was none of that. They both looked focused and intense. On the job. He wondered whether that was just a mark of their professionalism, or a sign that there was trouble in paradise. Maybe the last hour hadn’t been as fun as they’d expected.
“We have new information,” Mara said as they walked up. “It’s a dirty bomb. Already in the UN but Scarvan needs to get in to assemble it.”
Scott blinked hard. “How do you know this?”
Rick stepped forward. “There’s a cell phone trigger, but an RF backup if that fails.”
The elevator behind them opened and a young agent who could have appeared in the recruiting manual for the Secret Service stepped out. “Director Dreslan is waiting for you,” he said.
Hawthorn whispered to Mara. “How certain?”
Mara glanced at Rick. “Single source,” she said. “Someone in position to have the information. Could be misinformation, but my gut tells me it isn’t.”
“Who’s the source?” Scott asked.
Mara shook her head. “Can’t say.”
Scott froze in place, not quite believing the answer. Anna, standing next to them, picked up on the sudden tension. “I’m going to let the four of you discuss this,” she said. “I’ll occupy our very handsome, young Secret Service minder.” She walked toward the elevator, giving them space.
Scott waited until she was out of earshot. He didn’t hold Mara’s secretiveness against her. It was good procedure. But he wasn’t prepared for the stonewall look on her face even with Anna gone. He knew that look well enough. Hell, he’d been on the receiving end of it off and on since Mara had become a teenager.
“In the last hour, a source approached the two of you with this information?” Hawthorn asked. “But it was delivered on the condition that the source not be revealed.”
Mara nodded.
Scott pointed to himself and Hawthorn. “This is us. I understand not telling Anna because you don’t know her, but . . .”
“I’m sorry,” Mara said. “Not this time. Trust me on this.”
&nbs
p; Scott felt the word trust cut into him. He wondered whether this was all a show for Rick. Proof that she wouldn’t reveal the source to her inner circle so he wouldn’t, either. That had to be it. Why else would she keep it from him?
Hawthorn may have reached the same conclusion, because he didn’t pursue it. “Okay, we take this to Dreslan as high-confidence. We don’t rule out other scenarios. The good news is that if Scarvan still needs to assemble the bomb, we have a chance to intercept him.”
“Let me go over this with Dreslan,” Rick said. “No offense, but he doesn’t much care for you.”
Scott couldn’t suppress a grin. Hawthorn didn’t flinch. He hadn’t survived as long as he had in the jungles of DC without ruffling feathers. Scott just appreciated the young agent’s frankness. Maybe he was a good fit for his daughter.
“Agreed,” was all Hawthorn said.
“We look for the bomb inside,” Rick said. “The building was going to be swept as a matter of protocol anyway. Now we can adjust search methods to a specific radiological signature.”
“But here’s the hard part,” Mara said. “If we find it, we leave it.”
Scott got it immediately. “Bait for the trap.”
Hawthorn agreed. “We get Dreslan to go harder on the physical search on all entries into the building,” Scott said. “Jordi just demonstrated how the facial recognition systems are basically useless. We’re going to need more manpower.”
“We’ll get it,” Rick said. “In a budget pinch, the Counterfeit guys get screwed. There’s always money to protect the president.”
“In case both of those fail, we need to ensure our jamming tech is ready to stop the detonation signal,” Mara said.
“The Secret Service SOP is to shut area cell towers and jam RF channels whenever there is a credible threat,” Rick said.
“That’s what worries me. That protocol is in every TV show and thriller novel. Omega has been ahead of us when it comes to tech. Jordi’s RF blockers need to be on-site as well. We need to be on-site to see if there’s something we can do better here.”
“What about this meeting?” Scott asked, nodding down the hallway where Anna was keeping the young Secret Service agent on a holding pattern while they spoke.
Hawthorn was decisive. “Rick and I will meet with Dreslan, the rest of you can get to work.” He glanced at Rick. “Don’t worry, I’ll let you do all the talking. Use Mara as the obstacle to revealing the source. Leave yourself out of it. Are we good?”
They all nodded. Scott called out to Anna. As she walked back to them, he noticed a quick exchange between Mara and Rick. It was discreet, a brush of the hands and a glance, but it was enough. He knew that look. A terrible combination of trust and doubt. They had a secret between them. The question was whether they were going to keep it.
CHAPTER 48
Asset watched the car leave the underground garage. He was surprised to see them leave so quickly. The SUV had tinted windows that prevented him from seeing inside, but the plates told him it was Mara and Rick’s vehicle. That meant the old man, Hawthorn, was likely meeting with Dreslan now. He wondered whether they’d already violated their vow to keep the source of their information a secret.
He’d find out soon enough.
He dialed the encrypted satellite phone.
Marcus Ryker picked up on the first ring.
“Is it done?” Ryker asked.
Asset appreciated that the man always got to the point.
“Yes.”
“And you warned them about the consequences of revealing who gave them the information?”
“I did,” Asset said. “Not sure what difference it will make. Scarvan will figure it out once he gets wind of the Secret Service searching for radiological signatures.”
There was a long pause on the line. Asset wondered whether he’d crossed a line. He was paid to execute directives, not challenge his employer’s strategy.
“Perhaps,” Ryker said. “Scarvan used polonium with Belchik. It’s a reasonable precaution to take.” Another pause. Asset didn’t know whether the man was thinking or just multitasking. “Or perhaps it doesn’t really matter whether they share the source or not.”
Asset shook his head. He should have seen it from the start. He’d been a pawn in a larger game and hadn’t realized it. “That was just a play to drive a wedge in the group.”
“Who do I trust? Who don’t I trust?” Ryker said. “It occupies a considerable amount of my energy these days. Why not have them wrestle with it, too?”
“And the president?”
“What about him?”
“If they break the promise, you want me to follow through on the threat?” Asset asked.
Ryker’s voice took on a detached tone. Slower. An octave lower than before.
“Civilization is in a deep dive. My objective is a controlled emergency landing. The slightest miscalculation and it’ll crash into the side of a mountain. If that happens, then instead of the right people dying, we all will.”
Asset waited for clarification. When nothing came, he weighed whether to ask more directly for instructions. Ryker had already made his intentions clear when he’d told him the threat to deliver. He’d treat it as a standing order until otherwise instructed.
“I’ll go to New York as support,” Asset said. “Is there anything else you want done here in DC?”
“No, go to New York,” Ryker said, his usual clipped tone suddenly back. “Ensure our plan is executed. I want updates along the way.”
The line went dead. Ryker wasn’t much on goodbyes.
Asset imagined Omega had eyes on the ground watching his every move. He doubted Ryker had any lack of intel. Then again, Asset was in a silo on his own. Thanks to Scarvan, he possessed information no one could access.
The night Scarvan had showed up in his hotel room in Seville still had him rattled. Every precaution he’d taken to hide his location and secure the room had been thwarted. Returning from watching Scott and Mara case Belchik’s villa, he’d intended to grab a quick shower and two hours of rest.
Instead, there’d been a shadow standing in the corner of his hotel room, gun in hand. The man seemed to absorb light. Draw in the oxygen from the room that made the atmosphere thick and stifling. Once, as a teen, without a weapon, Asset had been stalked by a wolf in the Bosnian forest. He’d never forgotten the naked vulnerability he’d felt in the presence of a pure predator with superior innate skills. Jacobslav Scarvan’s presence had exactly the same effect.
Asset’s limbic brain had screamed at the danger in front of him. His training allowed him to avoid the mistake of pulling his weapon. He knew if he had, it would have been the last thing he did.
Lucky for him, the man had come to talk.
And Scarvan hadn’t wasted words. He’d laid out his plan and his demands of Omega. Asset had been amazed by what Scarvan knew of the organization. There were some details he had wrong, indicating the man had pieced together incomplete information to draw conclusions. But he knew enough to be dangerous to Omega in general. And to Marcus Ryker in particular.
But Scarvan didn’t care about Omega. Not really. He only wanted the means to achieve his end.
The interaction lasted only a few minutes. A litany of demands followed by a test of whether Asset had committed everything to memory. He’d passed and earned a begrudging grunt of approval from the much older man. And then he’d walked out of the room.
Asset remembered feeling as if he could suddenly breathe again. Out of character for him, he’d laughed. An unusual outlet of nervous energy.
Inside, he seethed at the reaction. Disappointed he’d been unable to control his emotional response. Certain Scarvan had been able to see his discomfort. His fear.
As Asset packed his gear for the trek to New York, he wondered whether he’d have a second chance to prove himself. Perhaps he would suggest to Ryker that Scarvan knew too much. The idea of hunting the man excited him, just the way hunting Scott Roberts did.
> He hoped in the next two days to have the opportunity to do both.
CHAPTER 49
Mara watched the video footage of Air Force One taking off from Andrews Air Force Base on its way to LaGuardia. The UN address was only hours away.
She rubbed her eyes and downed the last of her coffee. The last two days in New York had been filled with many things, but sleep wasn’t one of them.
Scott stepped up next to her, cradling his own cup of coffee like it was a precious artifact. “You okay?” he asked.
“Yeah, just great,” she answered. “You?”
He took a drink of his coffee. “Love New York. Great city. Nice restaurants. Terrific shows.”
She laughed. The United Nations security center where they stood had been their home for the last two days. The regular UN protection team had resisted their operation being taken over, but a personal call from the president to the UN secretary general had worked things out. Not long after, the building had literally crawled with every manner of law enforcement and intelligence personnel to engage in the search for Scarvan’s bomb. K-9 teams were flown in from around the country. The most sophisticated equipment to sniff out radioactivity arrived from military research labs; every inch of red tape was cut by executive order.
Since hitting the ground, neither of them had left the UN building. Rick had been back and forth between the UN and the New York Public Library where the General Assembly reception would be held later that night. As long as they stopped Scarvan from blowing the largest collection of world leaders into smithereens, that is.
Based on their complete lack of results over the last forty-eight hours, she had a growing sense of dread that their efforts were going to prove fruitless.
“Hawthorn is on the flight up,” Scott said. “He’s going to pitch Patterson again on cancelling the UN address.”
“Brave man,” she said. The president hadn’t been shy sharing his feelings about their inability to find any trace of either Scarvan or the bomb supposedly already hidden within the UN building. Hawthorn’s stonewalling about Alpha Team’s source of this information hadn’t helped, either. He and Dreslan were barely on speaking terms. The president’s frustration was no secret.