Unholy Code (A Lana Elkins Thriller)

by Thomas Waite

  Between him, Lana, and me, there are two gamblers. No one’s behind me, but that’s just luck. If someone appears, I’ll have to find a reason to delay, a sudden return to the center as though I’ve forgotten something. Thankfully, I don’t need to. What is even better is I immediately see that Lana has angle-parked her Prius by the dark, slatted fence. I dressed in black slacks and a dark top, knowing what I planned to do. I’d imagined executing my next maneuver by stepping away from the meeting for a bathroom break. But as soon as I saw the likely agent, I knew he might decide to follow me if I left that room, and I could ill afford to have been caught sneaking around Lana’s car then. Or now.

  What I plan should take less than ten seconds, but if I’m caught it’ll get ugly fast. I can’t be caught.

  I’m planning to drop low behind the fence when she climbs into her vehicle. Then I’ll reach through the slats and try to carry out my plan. And that might still work, but right now she’s stopping again to talk to the handsome guy who’s been trailing her all evening. To anybody else it might look natural enough: an attractive woman with a striking man chatting after a meeting they’ve both attended. But Lana’s not flirting, not with her arms folded tightly across her chest. I sense tension, possibly for reasons all my own.

  But now it’s getting interesting. As they start to wander toward her car once more, they turn away from me. I’m no longer in their peripheral vision, if they ever noticed me at all. Recognizing this, I slip behind the slatted fence and move through the darkness along it toward her Prius. They’re still turned away. I can almost hear them, which means they can almost hear me.

  With a breath I drop down to my knees, dig into my briefcase and pull out an electronic tracking device. They’re standing by the rear hatch of her car. I swear silently when they shift positions again. I worry this pas de deux is planned, that they’ve spotted me somehow and are coordinating their coverage. In fact, his gaze drifts over to the fence. I flatten myself on the sidewalk and listen for long seconds.

  Just do it, I tell myself. It worked for Nike.

  I reach through the slats and under the car. I have to stretch so hard the side of a board digs into my armpit. It hurts like hell but the magnet on the locator is not finding metal. There’s so much plastic crap on cars now. I stretch so hard I’m cutting off blood to my arm. This is taking a lot more than ten seconds. My fingertips tingle and start to go numb. The device finally clicks when it clamps to the chassis. A soft sound that to me is deafening.

  I freeze, not even breathing. I withdraw my arm carefully, feel the blood starting to pound through my veins. I try not to make the slightest noise. I listen intently to see if they’re talking—or walking toward me.

  They’re saying good-bye. The normalcy of the moment is undisturbed. The click didn’t register … apparently. But I take nothing for granted.

  I have to get away before she gets in her car and puts on her lights and backs away. The slats won’t hide me.

  I hear her take a few steps. She opens the car door, then closes it. But the Prius doesn’t move, and Lana’s friend or FBI agent or whatever he is stands off to the side, as if to watch her back up. I fear making any sounds.

  As soon she starts her engine, I look behind me and, staying low, I scramble backward, commando style, disappearing just as Lana backs up and her headlights throw shadows from the slats I’d been hiding behind seconds ago.

  She drives off, followed by the man in a Dodge Charger. It looks government issue.

  I spring to my feet and look around. I see no one. In the next instant I’m brushing myself off and requesting another car from Uber. I walk down to the corner and a new female driver greets me. I ask her to take me to the Watergate Hotel.

  The device on Lana’s car is not super-sophisticated. The first time she goes through security at Fort Meade they’ll discover it. Which is fine; she’ll know people are getting dangerously close to her. But I don’t think she’s going to make it to Meade.

  In the morning, she’ll be going to the Senate to testify before the Select Committee on Intelligence. That’s on the public record. I presume the senators are planning on a circus, which is no more prophetic than suggesting that a monkey will scratch its scrotum in the course of a day. The deputy director of the NSA will be there to testify as well.

  So there’s time to put everything and everyone into play.

  I’m smiling when the driver pulls up to the broad curved exterior of the Watergate. If it was good enough for Nixon’s cronies to break into, it’s good enough for me to launch my far more elaborate crimes from above its opulent, chandeliered lobby.

  I order room service. The kitchen offers an excellent hamburger, which might sound downmarket for the Watergate but it really is superb, and I’m an unabashed carnivore. I remind the staff to send up the freshest possible fries.

  After I eat I go immediately to work online. First, I must send a message to Steel Fist. It’s short: the code he needs to track the electronic beacon. I’ll leave it to him to decide how to disseminate it. It’s not as though he can put it out to ten million subscribers without it getting back to Lana in seconds. But he must have some killers he trusts. We all do, even if it’s only ourselves.

  I certainly feel murderous sending him my anonymous message. I wouldn’t give Lana Elkins twenty-four hours after this, if Vinko Horvat truly knows his business. And his business lately has been whipping up his troops to kill Lana and her family.

  “Have at it,” I say to myself as I issue another click, dispatching the code to his Idaho stronghold.

  But I’m not through with Vinko just yet. I decide it’s time to give him another tip, almost as juicy. I’m tired of waiting for him to figure it out on his own: in the background of the photo of Emma, her dad, and their new guard dog was an old Malinois with a gray muzzle. That was Cairo, the hound that went after bin Laden.

  If Steel Fist is really serious about showing how poor the country’s defenses are—and how necessary he is to the nation’s resurgence—he’ll have that dog killed. And he’ll do it in the most public way possible. Americans have learned to stomach a great many indignities in the past two years, but a “revenge” murder of Cairo would be the coup d’état.

  Leaving nothing to chance, I also give him the address of the kennel near Hagerstown, Maryland. I even write a headline for Steel Fist so he can immediately grasp the powerful nature of the potential propaganda: “Islamic Terrorists Kill Hero SEAL Dog. ‘Skinned Alive.’ ”

  Just do it.

  DEPUTY DIRECTOR BOB HOLMES looked as gray as his suit when Lana spotted him starting up the stairs of the Russell Senate Office Building, a Beaux Arts beauty of marble, granite, and limestone on the north side of the Capitol.

  Historic events had taken place inside those walls, but Lana had no illusions that today’s circus would produce the drama or statesmanship that had emerged so memorably in the past.

  She reached Holmes as he neared the double-door entrance, trying to hide her dismay at his peaked appearance. He’d sounded tired when they’d spoken on the phone yesterday, and now she had to remind herself that he was seventy-eight. On this morning he looked his age.

  “How’s that dog working out for you?” he asked by way of greeting her, jovial despite his washed-out look of weariness.

  “Great. He’s moved right into our daily routine like he’s always been part of the clan.”

  “Well, that was the plan,” Holmes rhymed with a smile. “You ready for these fools?” he asked as Agent Robin Maray held a door for them.

  “Ready as I’ll ever be.”

  “Don’t let them get your goat.” He leaned closer to her as they strolled into the rotunda with its stately columns and coffered dome, adding, “They’re assholes, the ones gunning for you. Long as you stay cool, you’ll look great compared to their bombast.”

  Lana and Holmes, with Agent Maray now a few steps behind them, entered the Dirksen hearing room, a generously wood-paneled expanse with green marble
accents. It smelled of old leather and coffee, and made her think of men and their politics, though two women did hold seats on the Select Committee on Intelligence. This would be Lana’s first testimony before the committee.

  Another woman was settling in at the witness table, Madeline Emberling, the sandy-haired lawyer who’d spent hours prepping them. After greeting them, Madeline settled back behind a table loaded with her impressive collection of briefing materials. She had two co-counsels assisting her. They perched on the edge of chairs behind her, as though ready to spring into action. Holmes sat to Madeline’s right, Lana to her left.

  More than two dozen senators assembled before them. The corpulent Senator Bob Ray Willens of Louisiana nodded at Holmes, but offered Lana only an amused expression, as he might a sausage roasting on a grill at a Fourth of July weenie roast.

  Spare me, she thought, breaking eye contact quickly. His rapt attention felt unbecoming.

  The chair of the committee was the senior senator from New York, known for his curt manner, cutting remarks, and remarkable intelligence. He banged the gavel and the assembled fell silent at once. Lana glanced around. Standing room only, which told her the media and Capitol Hill cognoscenti expected the circus Holmes had predicted.

  Three rings, no doubt.

  What none had expected—what shocked and horrified everyone—was the ringing explosion of a bomb so nearby that the walls and floor shuddered.

  As long-dormant dust loosed from the ceiling, every head turned toward the rear. Senator Willens was no longer looking so entertained by Lana’s presence; his startled eyes peered right past her.

  Capitol Police officers burst through the doors. One of them announced an emergency evacuation of the hearing room. As swiftly as he spoke, the men and women with him fanned out and directed those attending the hearing to the exits already filled with the receding backs of the senators.

  Agent Robin Maray appeared suddenly at Lana’s side, telling her to follow him. “You too, Deputy Director Holmes.”

  But Lana’s old friend was gripping his chest. Without warning, he pitched forward heavily, head and upper body coming to rest on a three-ring binder.

  Agent Maray was already on the radio transmitter tucked under his suit jacket lapel, calling for emergency medical personnel.

  Lana checked Holmes’s neck for a pulse, finding it thready and slow. He did not react to her touch.

  “We’ve got to get you out of here.” Robin signaled one of the security guards, who arrived as two paramedics raced into Dirksen. He took Lana’s arm. “We don’t know what’s coming next,” he said into her ear.

  Loathe to leave Holmes, Lana asked, “Is he going to be all right?”

  She immediately recognized the juvenile futility of her question, with the paramedics only beginning to attend to the deputy director. But Robin was already rushing her toward the door through which the senators had exited moments ago. From ahead, gunfire erupted abruptly. Outside the walls of the Senate building, she hoped. A second bomb, farther away, exploded as they passed quickly through a smaller room, rattling windows they were sprinting past.

  “Stay low,” Robin ordered as they burst into a light-filled hallway.

  “Where are we going?” she asked as they scrambled down the broad corridor.

  “A secure room,” he replied.

  Senate staffers were stuffing themselves into an elevator.

  Turning to Lana, he pointed to two Capitol Police officers rushing down a flight of stairs about thirty feet away. “Follow them.”

  She nodded and fled.

  He bolted to the elevators, ordering the mostly younger men and women out of the packed space, grabbing a callow-looking man frantically working his phone, oblivious to Robin’s commands.

  “All of you, use the stairs!” he shouted.

  That was the last Lana heard of Robin as she headed down them herself. Even in the rush she noticed people on their phones, swearing in exasperation. Then she overheard a man say he couldn’t get online.

  Here? Lana wondered if the attack included the Senate’s ISP. She’d have to check.

  In seconds she was sequestered in a crowded basement corridor, awaiting entry into what appeared to be the Russell’s very own panic room. She tried to use her phone. No service for her, either.

  She looked up as the door to the panic room was locked, leaving her and about forty others in the hallway.

  “The rest of you must stay down here for the time being,” a blue-suited woman announced with great authority. “We’re here to protect you.”

  Officers in full SWAT regalia flanked the crowd. The men and women were armed with automatic rifles, helmets, grenade launchers, and belts heavy with weapons and gear less readily identifiable to Lana.

  She could not let herself believe ISIS or any other terrorists had actually laid siege to the nation’s capital. This wasn’t Ramadi. This wasn’t even San Bernardino. This was Washington DC. But neither would she have believed that Liberty Square could ever have been the scene of a massacre of innocents.

  She heard children crying and wondered how they’d ended up down there. She also remembered an alarming episode of Homeland from years ago, in which Washington’s elite were jammed into a supposed secure room—with a suicide bomber in their midst. What had unnerved her then was what frightened her now: the very real possibility that a mass killer already stood among them.

  With no Internet access, Lana could do nothing but think and worry. She found hope in every minute that passed without an explosion in the corridor or terrorists trying to shoot their way through the Russell.

  A tall man wearing lanyards and laminates walked through the crowd, eyeing everyone carefully. She figured he was searching for a suicide bomber. But what do you look for? The would-be bomber on Homeland had been among the least likely suspects.

  Turned out the man with the laminates was looking for her.

  “Ms. Elkins, come with me.”

  “Why? Who are you?”

  “Detective Adams, Capitol Police. You were scheduled to testify, weren’t you?”

  “That’s correct.”

  “So you were in the hearing room when the bomb went off?”

  “Yes.”

  He was already guiding her up stairs near the rear of the building.

  “I’m going to put you in the hands of the Secret Service. They want to talk to you.”

  A special agent of the Secret Service intercepted them on the staircase. The woman wasted no time getting to what appeared to be her most critical question: “Did anybody in Dirksen react strangely, in your opinion?”

  “No, but all I noticed was dust falling down from the ceiling before Deputy Director Holmes collapsed onto the table. Do you know how he’s—?”

  “So no one ran off right away? Nobody was praising God or Allah or anything obvious like that?”

  “No, nothing. People just looked shocked. I don’t even remember anyone asking what it was. It was like everyone knew.”

  “We want you out of the Capitol zone as soon as possible. You might well have been a target. Did you drive?”

  “Yes.”

  “FBI Agent Stan Pence will get you to your car and accompany you home. He’ll be here shortly. Do not go to Fort Meade. The marine detachment there is fully activated. We want you to go home. As we understand it, your residence has bulletproof windows, a guard dog, and that you’ve been trained with firearms.”

  “That’s correct,” Lana replied.

  “Ms. Elkins, we also need to tell you that there was a bombing just outside CyberFortress, almost to the second with the one that went off outside Dirksen. We don’t believe that’s a coincidence.”

  “Oh, my God.” Nightmare images appeared, unbidden, in her mind’s eye. “Was anyone injured? Or killed?”

  “No injuries, no deaths, except for the suicide bomber.”

  “We have blast-resistant exterior walls over there, too.”

  Lana tried to text Emma immediately. Faile
d. She tried calling. Failed. And still no Internet.

  The special agent went on: “The bomber was a woman. She made an attempt to enter your firm but was repulsed by security personnel.”

  “I should be with them.”

  “No, you should not. Except for security personnel, they’ve been evacuated until we can secure the surrounding blocks.”

  “How is Holmes?” Lana asked again.

  The woman rested her hand on Lana’s shoulder. “Headed for the ICU at the VA Medical Center.”

  “But he’s alive?”

  “Yes, he is.”

  “May I go there?”

  “Honestly, we don’t want you doing that. There have been numerous casualties. We’re trying to get everyone away from the District so we can lock it down and help those in need. Are you armed?”

  “I have a Sig in my car.”

  “Excellent.”

  A blue-suited man ran up, early thirties, glasses, perspiring, as though he’d been in motion since the attacks began.

  “This is Agent Stan Pence. Agent Pence, Ms. Lana Elkins,” the Secret Service woman said, then started walking away.

  “Wait,” Lana called to her. “What about Agent Maray? He’s part of a security unit assigned to me full—”

  “Not now. We can’t spare him. Agent Pence will accompany you home. Once you’re safely locked in your house, he’ll return to duty here. Thank you for your cooperation.”

  Pence was on his radio when she looked back to him, signing off quickly.

  “How many casualties?” she asked right away.

  “I’m not permitted to disclose that information, Ms. Elkins. Where are you parked?”

  She told him, talking as they moved out of the Russell Senate Building and down its stone steps. “Look, I’m not trying to pull rank on you, but my security clearance is probably higher than yours, Agent Pence. You can tell me, for God’s sake. Do I look like a terrorist? I was here to testify before the Select Committee on Intelligence.”

  “Take it up with my commanding officer. Let’s keep moving.”