by Jack Slater
After all, technology was built and watched over by people. And in Mexico, everyone had their price.
This morning, nothing was visibly out of place. The chest-high gate that crowned the driveway was still closed and padlocked and bore no signs of any attempt to alter that equation. Flowerbeds ringed the inside of the fence, planted lushly with a riot of delicate, colorful flowers with barely an inch between them. They smoothed and beautified the appearance of the concrete driveway itself, but that was not their prime purpose.
There wasn’t even a petal out of place.
Satisfied that his home was secure, Hector turned to the garage and unlocked the side entrance. The chime of the security system warned him that he had 30 seconds to input his code before the sirens would start pealing. It had happened once before to María in a moment of forgetfulness, and he still hadn’t heard the last of it.
Both his own vehicle and María’s were nondescript Ford sedans in dark, drab colors and usually covered in a thin layer of dust. He always picked the same models from the rental shops to avoid attracting attention from any of his more curious neighbors but switched out the vehicles themselves every few months.
Just in case.
The two cars were parked side by side, and he walked a figure eight between and around the two vehicles, checking for anything that looked out of place. A scratch in the paintwork, or a smudge in the dust coating that he didn’t remember from the night before. It was difficult to replicate the way a road’s filth coated a car. Even more so at night, and in the dark.
Hector took his time, his pulse beating slowly and evenly as he performed what was to him almost a meditative ritual. He checked every window, every door seam, beneath the wipers and under the hood of both sedans. The check didn’t take long, but it was nevertheless thorough.
To complete it, he reached for a device that rested against the garage’s wall. It looked a little like a golf club, a small rectangular mirror attached to a long handle. He twisted it in his grip, then fed the mirror underneath the chassis of first his vehicle, then María’s. He walked slowly around both vehicles until he was certain beyond all doubt that no barnacle had been attached overnight.
Finally satisfied, he set the mirror aside and tapped the button that opened the garage door. The mechanism cranked into life overhead, its chain creaking grumpily in search of oil.
And as the morning sun crept beneath the rising door, Hector Alvarez León breathed a sigh of relief.
3
The Metro train was somewhat busy, but not unusually for rush-hour. Trapp managed to snag one of the few remaining seats, about halfway down the carriage, chosen for the fact that unlike many, it faced into the walkway, rather than simply forward or back, allowing him to surveil both sides.
A little above head height and directly in Trapp’s eye line was an electronic screen, which ordinarily would have displayed a map of the Metro system and warned commuting passengers when the next stop was approaching. That was the plan, anyway.
As so often with the new Kawasaki 7000 series carriages that had recently been introduced – accompanied by much fanfare in the local press – the screen wasn’t working. It was encased in a glass box for additional protection, and a combination of the black backdrop and the reflective glass acted almost as a mirror, allowing Trapp both to stare directly ahead and for his attention to wander.
A homeless man was seated to Trapp’s right, which perhaps explained why his seat wasn’t already taken. The man smelled quite pungently of urine, a particularly acrid fragrance that suggested this was not the first time for either man or garment.
But Trapp didn’t mind all that much. He’d worn such clothes before, though always out of choice rather than either necessity or the cruel hand of fate. He had visited a lot of countries over the course of his career, and some time ago realized that many countries treated the homeless better than America. In Japan and Korea, it was rare to ever lay eyes on one. In fact, few nations were so callous as his own.
It was not a fact that troubled Trapp all that much. Failure came hand in hand with opportunity, and his homeland offered much of the latter. Maybe it had something to do with the American Dream – in that nobody wanted to be reminded too much of the consequences of their own lives veering off the tracks. It wasn’t so much a meanness of spirit as a desire not to think too hard. And so, few did. To be homeless in a major American city was the next best thing to being invisible.
And so if Trapp had happened to be a counterintelligence agent in the employ of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, perhaps he might have considered that fact an opportunity in itself.
The trick to detecting a tail was no secret – but that did not mean it wasn’t fiendishly difficult to achieve. All that was required was for you to suspect everyone, at all times. The entire name of the game for the surveillance operative was to be gray. Seeing, yet unseen.
Trapp consciously wrinkled his nose and glanced to his right at the exact moment that the homeless man started retching, grabbing his stomach and letting out a pained moan. A woman opposite him dressed in a sharp pantsuit and probably destined for the office of one of the many thinktanks that ringed the Beltway frowned and stood, moving a few yards down the carriage.
The bum’s skin was caked yellow, though Trapp suspected that underneath the filth they shared a similar ancestry. His nails were impregnated with dirt, and age had carved deep furrows into his cheeks and brow.
If it was makeup, Trapp judged, then the artist should be working in Hollywood, not the espionage business. He knew from experience that masks, molded out of silicon and glued to multiple points on the wearer’s face, could be hyper-realistic these days. But this was not one of those. Trapp decided that the man was exactly what he seemed. Hiding in plain sight not because he wanted to, but simply because the world had passed him by.
Trapp cocked his head to the side as if out of concern for the hobo beside him, but his eyes focused elsewhere, scanning the carriage quickly enough that even a seasoned observer would probably conclude it was a casual glance.
The train slowed and came to a halt. It was the third such stop, and each time the carriage’s original inhabitants had faded and been refreshed. Only half a dozen or so of those who had stepped onto the carriage at the same time as him were still aboard.
One was a mother with two children, and since he felt sure that an American agency was unlikely to use kids, he felt free to discard all three. Which left an obese man with big can headphones pumping tinny music into the carriage, an elderly woman with a cane, and the girl.
He thought it was her. No reason really, just a suspicion. Perhaps she really was simply interminably dull, en route to a nine-to-five that paid the bills without ever threatening to stimulate the mind, then right back home to a husband who provided stability without ever threatening to excite the soul.
It probably wasn’t the obese guy. Not definite, but it would be a surprise. As with the elderly woman. Infirmity wasn’t an impossible trait to emulate, but she too would be giving an award-worthy performance.
It might not be any of them, of course. Maybe someone had stepped onto the next carriage, or perhaps there were agents stationed at every Metro stop, along with someone in the control room. That would probably be how he would organize it.
But then, it came down to numbers. How many agencies could sortie that kind of manpower? Not many. The FBI was one of them of course, but even in DC—where as with rats, you were never more than a few feet from an intelligence operative—pulling away sufficient agents from their work wouldn’t be easy.
So the girl.
The train slowed again, and the automated speaker announced that they would shortly be arriving at Foggy Bottom. Trapp gave no sign that he had heard the message, and in fact stretched out his legs, crossed them in the aisle, and leaned against the clear plastic window that separated him from the next seat to his left. A second later, his eyes began to close. At first heavy-lidded, batting as though exhaus
tion was assailing him.
Then complete blackness.
His body swung as the train came to a gentle stop, then rocked in the other direction. He opened his eyes just a crack. The girl was standing up now, studying the map printed above her head and paying him no attention.
The doors swung open.
It wasn’t that she wasn’t pretty, Trapp thought as he observed his prime suspect. But she’d disguised her bone structure well, using her makeup to soften her cheekbones instead of accentuating them. It was either that, or she was simply innocent of his charge and unpracticed with her brush. That was what made intelligence work so fiendishly difficult. When you pried into another’s motives, it was possible to paint whatever picture you desired.
The girl lingered by the carriage doors as the last of the departing passengers alighted. She rested lightly on the balls of her feet.
Trapp stood. Instead of walking toward her, he turned left, heading for the carriage’s other set of doors. They were farther down, and he was cutting it fine. He turned his frame to slip past a father and son duo standing in the center of the aisle and attempted to catch a glance of her, but his view was blocked by a mass of tourists.
As the doors began to close ahead of him, he quickened his pace, sliding through them with a moment to spare. The platform had the same brutalist vaulted concrete design as the one at which he’d joined the train. It was mostly empty, since he was trailing a few seconds behind the other alighting passengers. No one was waiting, although a small group of friends was standing on the escalator on their way down, chatting amiably.
He glanced right and left, as if checking that he was in the correct place, and walked briskly to the elevator, watching the train depart in the escalator’s mirrored finish. He could see faces through the carriage’s glass windows, but no features.
Worth a shot.
He rode the elevator up, facing outwards as its transparent doors closed, and reached the surface shortly after. As far as he could tell, he was entirely alone.
Trapp exited the Foggy Bottom Metro station onto 23rd St. and walked slowly one block over to 22nd, peering all around like a tourist—and occasionally snapping a photo with his phone to complete the look. He walked slowly enough that it would be difficult for anyone trailing him to match his pace without sticking out. He turned left onto 22nd St. and glanced at the café seating area outside the Whole Foods market on the corner.
There were about six tables. Half were occupied, respectively by a couple, a family, and on the last two men speaking earnestly to each other. One was willowy, with a shock of Scandinavian blond hair. The other stuck out less.
He kept walking, turning onto Pennsylvania Avenue, and then immediately onto the Washington Circle traffic circle. He waited patiently at a pedestrian crossing for the lights to turn. Still nothing. He started to wonder if he’d been right about the girl after all. Maybe she was exactly as boring as she seemed.
He crossed into the public gardens in the center of the circle and spent a few minutes admiring the statue of Washington astride his coppered horse, sword in hand. He circled it twice, snapping pictures from every angle, and still sensing nothing.
Over his left shoulder, he saw a group of Asian tourists about twenty strong. Several of them wore I Heart DC T-shirts and hoodies. There was something incongruous about decorating a $10 novelty T-shirt with a $2000 Nikon camera. He followed them closely, using them to shield his precise location from anyone on the other side of the park. The cover allowed him to more closely interrogate his surroundings. No one looked at him. Not even the tourists.
As they reached the edge of the circle, Trapp stopped and thrust his hands into his pockets. The traffic flowed in a pulsating rhythm, and gaps occasionally appeared between the cars. The road wasn’t particularly busy. He shuffled to the edge and stepped over the low black chain that ringed the grass.
And then he ran right across the road, narrowly missing a silver Hyundai hybrid and earning a long horn blast for his troubles. He ignored it, and strode quickly up New Hampshire Ave. before doubling back onto 22nd St. The traffic was one-way, and he was against the flow.
“I guess you made it,” he murmured to himself, not sounding entirely convinced.
It only took two minutes to walk back to the Whole Foods café. Two new tables had filled up, and two empty. The blond guy was still sitting there. He walked up to it, slowing as he prepared to turn and take his seat.
And then she was right in front of him.
“How the hell did you –?” Trapp began.
He caught himself instantly, recognizing something in her eyes. She was the one, all right. But she didn’t want him to stop. In fact, she was warning him off in the strongest possible terms short of actually whacking him around the back of his head. And so he kept walking, schooling his features back into an impassive mask. In the end, he barely broke stride.
What the hell is going on here?
The FedEx van was parked on a side street behind George Washington University Hospital, and its engine was off. Trapp walked toward it with a looseness in his step and barely paused before swinging the rear doors open.
He climbed inside and saw the familiar sight of FBI Special Agent Nick Pope sitting in the back, his tall frame hunched over a bank of thin LCD monitors. Pope turned, and the shock of white in his dark hair swiveled toward the door. He grinned and beckoned Trapp in. “Come on, make yourself at home.”
Trapp did as he was told, clearing a hole in a pile of empty soda cans and candy bar wrappers, which he swept onto the floor. “You should go easy on this crap, buddy. Not sure if they’re worse for your teeth or your waistline, but I know you don’t wanna find out.”
“How many of these jobs you worked, Jason?” Pope asked, eyebrows raised.
“Enough…”
“But not as many as me, I’m guessing.”
“No shit,” Trapp chuckled. “I’m the tip of the spear, Nick. Not a babysitter.”
“You volunteered to help out,” Pope retorted. “Third time this month. Someone a bit more paranoid than me might get the impression you kinda liked it. And besides, someone needs to show the new kids the ropes. Might as well be us. How’s that spear looking, anyway, tough guy? Bit rusty?”
“You tell me…”
The truth was Pope was right. He was enjoying training the FBI’s new recruits. It didn’t draw the same rush as going into the field, but it brought with it instead a different sense of satisfaction. And strangely, a bit of pride.
You’re getting old.
Trapp grinned at the thought. A couple of decades before, flitting from town to town atop his Harley, age was never a thought that crossed his mind. Either he never figured he’d make it this far, or it just didn’t occur to him to care. Maybe a little bit of both.
“Still good, unfortunately,” Pope said, disappointment evident in his tone. He leaned back against his plastic folding chair, and the sight of it caused Trapp to wince.
Which in turn made his friend cock his head to one side with a questioning squint in his eyes. “What?”
“The Bureau can’t afford better than that?” Trapp asked, gesturing at Pope’s chair. “Ergonomics, man. You mess your posture up now, you’ll regret it for the rest of your life.”
“Who died and made you Dr. Oz?”
Trapp rolled his tricky shoulder and pulled the arm into a stretch. “Trust me, when you’ve been to as many physical therapy appointments as I have, you pick up a few things.”
“I’ll take that under advisement,” Pope said, his tone making it clear that he most likely would not.
“So,” Trapp said, tapping his index finger with the opposite thumb, “what the hell happened out there?”
“Beats me.” Pope shrugged. He opened his mouth to continue, then paused and scrolled back along the live video feed from the café. “She hasn’t checked in yet. I know about as much as you do.”
“I saw her on the train. That was the only time,” Trapp said. �
�The brunette, right? Kind of a 1960s accountant’s clerk vibe, from somewhere out in Wisconsin.”
“Yeah, that’s her,” Pope confirmed. “Name’s Kelly. I think she’s going places.”
He paused the video and turned back to Trapp. “You made her, though, right?”
Trapp nodded. “I saw her looking over. She was real smooth, but I remembered her from the platform. How many in the surveillance team?”
“Just two,” Pope said.
Trapp winced. “That’s tough.”
“Train hard, trail easy.” Pope shrugged. “But you’re not wrong.”
“That the Bureau’s catchphrase?”
The FBI agent grinned. “Nah, that’s all on me. So anyway, I hear five rapid clicks on the radio as you’re walking up to the café. You still got the file drive?”
Trapp reached into his pocket and pulled out the USB key. It was in a magnetic case designed to attach to the underside of the café table, or any other metal feature. He handed it over. “What’s in this thing, anyway?”
“Couple gigs of porn and the menu for my local Turkish joint,” Pope laughed. “Nah, it’s empty. This is just a training exercise, right?”
“Right. So the clicks on the radio – what are they about?”
“If she remembered right, Kelly spotted a contact in progress. It’s just like we teach them at the Academy. Gets everyone to shut the hell up and stay off the radios.”
Trapp frowned. “That must be right around the time she gave me the wave-off signal. You think she figured we were trying to trick her?”
“No, the rules of the game were simple. I showed her a picture of your face and gave her a time. That’s it. She was supposed to follow you and tap you on the shoulder if she noticed you making a drop.”