by Trevor Scott
“I know. I’ve followed your career with the Agency and since.”
“Then you know I’m more retired than not.”
“But I need you, Jake,” Lori said. “Your country needs you.”
“That’s what they always say just before they send me out to get shot at. You have the entire intelligence community at your fingertips, why me?”
“I told you. They’re not telling me everything. I need a friend on the ground. Someone I can trust to tell me the real story.”
Jake had been keeping up with where they were driving until the last mile or so. Now the driver behind the sound-proof barrier pulled the Town Car to the curb in front of Jake’s hotel.
She pulled out a small envelope and handed it to Jake, which he reluctantly accepted and considered carefully. A big part of him wished he had stayed in Patagonia and then gone south to Tierra del Fuego to set the hook on those huge sea-run Browns.
“Look that over and give me a call,” she said. “My card with my personal cell phone number is inside. Please call me tonight after six. I have to get back to the floor for a vote.”
Jake reached for the door handle but stopped. “I’ll destroy what’s in here after reading it, but from now on don’t put anything down in writing.”
She smiled. “I’m covered there. You’ll see. Oh, and make sure you give your sister, Jessica, a call soon. I did a river raft with her last year. She could use a call from her big brother.”
He knew he hadn’t been a great brother over the years, but he had kept his distance for the protection of his family.
Jake shoved the paper inside his jacket, got out and watched the large car pull away, a plume of exhaust making Detroit proud.
●
The lone figure walked with a cane along the secluded path in Rock Creek Park a few blocks from Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Although he had been a civilian contractor during his time in Iraq, the bomb that took his right leg didn’t seem to care. He thought back on his evacuation to the German hospital and then his military transportation to Walter Reed with all the battered and injured soldiers and marines. They had all been too young for their lives to be transformed so drastically. He had been in his mid-thirties at the time, and he remembered thinking mixed thoughts. He was lucky to be alive, but he would never be whole again. Yet, he had pulled himself together and made his way into one of the top K-Street lobbying firms in DC.
He stopped and rubbed the stub at his knee where the prosthetic leg connected to his flesh. After a long day like this, even sitting in on congressional hearings, his leg ached in the evening until he removed his friend. He looked at the dragon handle at the top of his cane, a gift from a congressman a couple of years ago, and pondered the events of the day. But before he could think too much on the subject, his contacts approached him from the north. They had met only once before, and there could not have been two more intimidating figures. Both men were good physical specimens, but he had been used to that working around the military in his past. Yet these two, one with a completely bald head and the other with hair to his shoulders like an 80s big hair band member, had the intense stares of men who had not only killed in the past, but who didn’t seem to care about having done so. The only thing the Lobbyist knew about them is the fact that they were Slavic and were former intelligence officers.
The Lobbyist felt the hard outline of the 9mm Glock on his right hip under his Armani suit, and he reached into the right pocket of his Ralph Lauren Angora Chesterfield Overcoat to grasp his Smith & Wesson .380 Bodyguard semi-auto handgun. The Glock was too hard to draw with the overcoat. He didn’t think he’d need any of his guns, but since his incident in Iraq he had become increasingly cautious. And DC was still one of the most dangerous cities in America.
The men stopped a few feet from him and they both showed their hands, indicating they were unarmed.
Alex, the one with the long black hair, was the first to speak. “Did you see the video on the internet?”
“Afraid so,” the Lobbyist admitted.
“That California congressman. . .how do you say it? Was schooled?”
“More like bitch slapped,” the Lobbyist said.
The long-haired man pulled out a cigarette and offered one to the Lobbyist, who shook his head. Alex lit up and finally let out a long stream of smoke that mixed with his breath from the cold air. “Do you work with that congressman?”
Shrugging, the Lobbyist said, “We might try to influence just about everyone on the Hill depending on the issue.”
“Give that man a few donuts and he will do anything you say,” Alex said and then took a long drag on his cigarette.
For the first time the Lobbyist noticed a long scar along the jaw line of the man with long hair. He could only imagine how the man had earned that cut. Time to get on with the terms. “How is our work coming in the west?”
“The professor?”
“Of course.”
“We are on that like black on a hockey puck,” Alex said, mixing his metaphors.
A bit confused, the Lobbyist said, “So, he’s in your possession?”
The bald man’s eyes shifted toward Alex, who simply took another draw on his cigarette and slowly let out a couple of smoke rings. Then Alex rubbed his fingers along his jaw scar and said, “Not yet.”
The Lobbyist picked up his cane and gazed at the dragon on the end. “We might have another way to get to this man.”
Alex finished his cigarette and flicked the butt into a patch of snow alongside the path. “Okay. What will it take?”
Smiling, the Lobbyist said, “Persuasion.”
Alex nodded and said, “That’s my specialty.”
4
Portland, Oregon
Professor Tramil was so far out of his element, he wasn’t sure of much of anything. Since his friend and colleague Professor Stephan Zursk had been shot and killed, and Tramil had been chased and shot in his butt, much had happened that made no sense. He had given his statement to the Corvallis police, gotten the superficial bullet graze to his right cheek patched up with dermabond and a four-inch bandage, and then gone early the next morning to his lab at Oregon State. Someone had broken in there also during the night and trashed the place, taking the computers with them. And that’s what had gotten Tramil to believe that these were not random incidents of violence. As a scientist he was used to collecting empirical data that would lead him to a conclusion of some sort. ‘Follow the data’ had been the mantra shoved down his throat since his undergrad years. It might lead to where you want it to go, or not, but it will always tell the truth. And everything that had happened to him over the last twenty-four hours, from the shooting to the trashing of his lab, led him to only one of two conclusions. Either someone wanted to stop his research, or someone wanted to steal his research. Nothing else made any sense. But who would want his work? And why? He and Stephan had only published a recent paper, along with a couple of patents, so not many people could even know about their work.
Scientists were the most paranoid of the human species. Tramil and Stephan had been no exception. None of their research had been collected or hosted on university computers, sitting there waiting for some nineteen-year-old undergrad to download or destroy after getting a less than favorable grade in inorganic chemistry. No, that wouldn’t work for a couple of paranoid professors doing cutting-edge research. They had dedicated hosting off-site on a server in Denver with more security than the Pentagon used. Since Stephan’s murder, Tramil had done one thing he wasn’t sure was smart, but he had felt the need to download his research to a 64 gig flash memory card that resided now in a hidden compartment in the heel of his right running shoe. The files still on the Denver server? Permanently deleted.
After his lab had been trashed and he reported it to the campus and Corvallis police, he had suggested to them that his life was in danger. But they didn’t seem to believe him, despite the hole in his posterior and the death of his friend. They were considering the two incid
ents unrelated, with Stephan’s death the result of a breaking and entering gone bad, with Tramil at the wrong place at the wrong time. Total nonsense, of course. Anyone with an IQ slightly above the average human body temperature would have linked the two events.
Since then, Tramil had done his best to stay on the move. The police were still holding his car, so he had mostly traveled around town on foot. He didn’t even go to his own house for more clothes. Instead, he had taken out a cash advance and used some of that to buy clothes and a small backpack. Then he jumped a campus shuttle bus to Portland International Airport, where he caught the MAX Light Rail to the Amtrak Train Terminal on Sixth Street in downtown Portland. Luckily, Amtrak still took cash, so he bought a one-way ticket on the Empire Builder from Portland to Chicago.
He got up now with the first call to board the train, slinging his small backpack over his shoulder. He couldn’t help looking over his shoulder and stopping abruptly to see if anyone was taking an interest in him. Tramil knew he was being paranoid, but the pain in his rear end gave him a constant reminder that he wasn’t entirely nuts.
●
As the crowd drifted toward the outside train platform, a man with a black watch cap and horned rimmed glasses slipped along with them, his eyes trying desperately to concentrate on a small brochure he had been given by the ticket agent which explained the route they would take on the Empire Builder, along with history of the famous route from Portland, Oregon through Spokane, across Montana, to Minneapolis/St. Paul, and finally ending in Chicago. Sometimes the train even vectored to Seattle for passengers.
When the man reached the platform outside, he let his eyes catch a glimpse of the professor as the tall, slim man carrying only a small backpack rose up the steps onto the train.
His employers were not happy with him. He was supposed to first get the research and then kill the professors. He thought he had gotten that information at the professor’s house on the rainy night, only to realize later that what he had gotten was garbage. That had led him to the university lab, where he thought he could redeem himself. No such luck. Now he’d have to play this out a little more diplomatically, which was not exactly his specialty. Oh well. Maybe a train ride would be a nice distraction.
5
Through tired eyes, Jake Adams was able to access the information Congresswoman Lori Freeman had given him. She had used a combination of new technology and old-school information exchange. In the envelope was a single piece of paper with a link to a secure server where he would find the info, the login and password things that only Jake would know, based on his high school experience in Montana. And just in case anyone could discover these items, she told him to rip up and flush the paper down the toilet once he got online.
What he found there was surprising. Lori had decided not to give him a summation of what she had discovered. She simply had a list of seemingly unredacted documents and images from various sources, including the CIA, NSA, and military intelligence. A couple of documents were NSA transcripts of conversations from foreign nationals speaking with U.S. citizens. Each document was dated with two entries, the original date discovered, and then the date each was presented to the House sub-committee on intelligence. There were a few exceptions, and those came from Air Force intelligence. These only had the original discovery date. Jake guessed these had not actually been included in the House briefings. Also, they were perhaps the most damning and illuminating. Now he knew why his old high school friend was concerned. She wasn’t getting the full story. Someone was either cooking the books or simply using selective intelligence—not totally unheard of in the intel business. Most House members had never served in the military, and had no clue that Top Secret meant to keep your damn mouth shut. The Agency had a somewhat sick propensity to divulge totally useless salacious information, very specific in nature, just to see which member of congress was leaking info. This disinformation never came at an official House briefing, but instead during social functions, where an officer would pull someone aside and tell them the info was Top Secret but off the record. Keep this close to the vest. Right.
But this information, or lack thereof, was different. It dealt with a new technology weapon system that would make nukes obsolete. Perhaps even make conventional warfare non-existent. It could also make U.S. overseas commitments unnecessary. America could pull all of its troops home from foreign soil and simply respond from a bunker in Nebraska if needed. And, according to a patent application, this technology had been discovered by two professors in Oregon. Of course that information had not been briefed to the members of the sub-committee. Congresswoman Freeman had gotten that from the Air Force.
Now, Jake stood on the sidewalk outside an Italian restaurant in Georgetown, his hands deep into his pockets and his collar up to keep out the cold wind, a light dusting of snow falling to his wool watch cap. His eyes kept a vigilant view of the street scene. Two blocks down sat a line of four limos, their exhaust indicating the drivers were keeping the cars warm for their eventual riders.
Shifting his gaze slightly to his left, he caught a glimpse of his target at a table with an older gentleman. Jake considering going inside, but since his little incident in front of the cameras earlier in the day, which was now a viral video on the internet, there was a good chance he would be recognized. No, he had a better idea. Not a good one, though. Just the best he could do under short notice.
He walked up the sidewalk toward the line of limos, thankful that the one he wanted was the last one of the four. As he passed the last car, he rounded the trunk and came up to the driver’s side and tapped on the window.
The driver nearly leapt from his chair. Recovering, he shook his head and simultaneously shrugged. He was a short, stocky man in his mid to late thirties—about as white as the snow falling to the ground. Someone who spent most of his days behind tinted limo windows.
Jake twirled his finger, indicating to lower the window. The man did so, but only a couple of inches.
“You remember me from earlier today?” Jake asked the guy.
“Yes, of course,” he said, smiling. “I love your video.”
“Thanks. Listen, Lori. . .Congresswoman Freeman, told me to meet her here tonight. But now, with the video, I don’t think it’s a good idea to be seen together. You understand.”
The driver nodded agreement. “Yes, Sir.”
“Perhaps I should just wait for her inside the car.”
“That’s not proper,” the driver said.
Jake agreed with a nod. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have suggested that.” His gaze shifted off toward the restaurant as if in deep thought. “I’ll just have to go in there then and get her. I’ll tell her you said it was all right and that you wouldn’t let me get in out of the cold to wait for her to finish eating.” He started to walk away toward the back of the car but heard the driver open the door to come after him. Jake stopped behind the car, out of view of the other drivers ahead of them.
“Wait, Sir.” The driver was now outside the car holding his door open. “Please don’t do that.”
Jake smiled to himself and became serious as he turned to the driver. Then he looked down at the trunk and said, “What the hell is this?” He lowered himself out of view.
When the driver came around to see what was so important, Jake quickly put the man into a sleeper hold, his arms around the smaller man’s throat. “Don’t fight it. Just go to sleep and I won’t hurt you.”
But, although Jake had said similar things to others in the past a number of times, it was not in human nature to not struggle when one thought they were being choked to death. The need to survive outweighed any logical whisper into the victim’s ears.
In a few seconds it didn’t matter. The man slipped into a deep sleep and Jake lowered him to the ground. Then he put the man’s hat on and hurried to the driver’s side and popped the trunk. In less than thirty seconds, he was able to hoist the man up into the trunk. Before closing the trunk he found the driver’s cell phone
and pocketed it. Then he closed the trunk, got into the car and pulled out, stopping in front of the restaurant.
As Jake suspected, the driver had a text he would use to extract the congresswoman if anything came up. A few seconds later, she came from the restaurant looking somewhat concerned and got into the back without saying a word.
Jake quickly pulled away from the curb and raced off toward nowhere in particular.
“What’s the emergency, John?” her voice asked over the speaker.
Lowering the divider, Jake said, “Just wanted a private conversation with my representative,” he said with a smile.
“Jake. What have you done with my driver?”
“He’s taking a nap.”
When Jake got to a secluded residential area, he pulled over to the curb, left the car running and got into the back with the congresswoman.
“Sorry to meet like this,” Jake said.
“You mean kidnapping a U.S. congresswoman?”
“Kidnapping?” Jake shook his head. “A little harsh. You did tell me to call on you this evening.”
She sighed and smiled. “So, I take it you’ve had a chance to look over the information I gave you.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said.
“If you don’t start calling me Lori I might have to have you arrested,” she said. “Or I’ll tell your brother.”
“I haven’t talked with my brother in a long time.”
“Can we get on with this?” she asked.
“That’s right. You need to get back to your boyfriend.”
“That was the senior senator from the great state of Texas. He’s old enough to be my grandfather. I’m surprised you didn’t recognize the man.”
“I did. Just messing with my favorite congresswoman. So, Lori, what have you gotten yourself into?”
“What do you mean?” She looked genuinely confused.
“Well, first of all, those were Top Secret documents you showed me. Although I have the clearance, I’m not sure I have the need to know.” He paused for a beat but didn’t wait for her to answer. “Also, you have some Air Force documents and others not given to your sub-committee. I’m guessing someone from your past life is feeding these to you. But the patent application was quite interesting. How did you come across that?”