by L. T. Ryan
“I don’t know any more than I’ve told you.”
Either the guards were involved or someone highly skilled manipulated the feed into the guard room of one of the most secure buildings in the world. How many people had that ability? That much skill? A handful at most, Jack figured.
“What about the Pentagon?” Jack said.
“That’s where things get troubling.”
This was the information that Jack anticipated and dreaded at the same time. “How so?”
“I don’t know how much I should say over the phone.”
“This is a generic line, sir. No one knows about it.”
“They know about mine though.”
“Can you tell me without naming names?”
Marlowe exhaled heavily and paused for a few moments. “All signs point toward my successor.”
“Christ.”
“Now Jack, I don’t have anything concrete. There’s no proof yet. You can’t go into the Pentagon guns blazing, or break into his house at four in the morning.”
A smile briefly formed on Jack’s face, then the gravity of the situation resurfaced. “The Pentagon is the last place I should walk into. And I’ll stay away from his house. For now. Keep working it, and I’ll check with you in the morning.”
Jack ended the call and stuck the phone in his pocket. On his way back to the car, he pulled the phone out, removed the battery and SIM card and proceeded to throw the phone and battery into the woods, then destroyed the card. He’d pick up another cell next time they passed a convenience store.
“What did your contact say?” Jasmine asked as Jack ducked inside the car.
“Frank’s clear. NSA is an inside job. Pentagon is legit.”
“Good. I believe it. We’re wasting our time.”
If it weren’t for the direness of the situation, he’d have laughed at her ability to be as succinct as himself.
“Call Frank,” he said. “Have him meet us at the first place open on F Street between 15th and 3rd.”
“Why there?”
“Because I don’t want him choosing the location.”
“You’re paranoid.”
Jack said nothing. He didn’t have to and Jasmine, of all people, should understand that.
Half an hour later Jack and Jasmine sat on a vinyl bench seat against the back wall of a twenty-four hour diner on F Street. Jack watched the door. A trickle of diners entered and exited. None of them Frank. None of them agents, as far as he could tell. For the most part the crowd was young. People in between bars or filling up before heading home. Friends and strangers. Strangers and friends. Mixed up and intertwined thanks to the false bravado that alcohol afforded them. After a while, Jack began to wonder if Frank would bother to show.
“There he is,” Jasmine said, her arm pointing beyond the door.
Jack nodded as Frank entered. The man’s eyes scanned the room before finally settling on their table. Jack kept his eyes on the door while Frank walked toward them. He didn’t want any surprises entering after Frank sat down.
“Relax,” Frank said. “I’m alone.”
Jack glanced and him and then returned to watching the door.
“Christ, Jack,” Frank said. “You can trust me. What else do you want me to say or do to prove that?”
“Tell me everything,” Jack said without taking his gaze off the door.
“It’s not an inside job,” Frank said. “The theft at the NSA.”
Jack lowered his line of sight and made eye contact with Frank. He wanted to watch the man’s eye and facial movements as he spoke. “Then who was it?”
“Rogue agent.” Frank’s eyes were locked on Jack’s. His face gave away nothing.
“From the NSA?”
“At least someone familiar with them.”
“What else?”
“The leak is inside the Pentagon.”
Jack’s trust in Frank slowly started to grow. He decided to hold off on divulging the information Marlowe passed on to him.
“Guys,” Jasmine said. “We are wasting our time with this Pentagon angle.”
“Why’s that?” Frank said.
“She’s got a conspiracy theory,” Jack said.
Frank shifted his gaze to Jasmine and smiled. “I’d at least like to hear it.”
Jasmine leaned forward and placed her elbows on the table. “If whoever leaked the first time is actually in the Pentagon, and as high up as you seem to believe, why would they do this again if they nearly got popped the first time?”
Frank lifted a single eyebrow and shrugged and turned up his hands. “He’s got balls.”
Jasmine rolled her eyes. “Doesn’t it make more sense that the original buyer has found a way to turn an agent and has convinced them to procure the information for them?”
“Or maybe had an agent on the inside all this time,” Frank said. “No turning needed.”
“Ah, c’mon Frank,” Jack said. “You’re not entertaining this.”
Frank whipped his arm around and pointed at Jack. “Jack, we don’t have anything to work with. We need to explore all ideas. This is plausible. Think about it. Say North Korea, or someone there, or maybe even someone in the Middle East was involved with the initial purchase. Things happened and they didn’t get their hands on what they wanted. But they’ve been kept up to date on developments and found out that the intel had found its way home. So they contract someone who would turn for money and then issued the command to steal and deliver the documents.”
“It adds up,” Jasmine said.
Jack leaned back. His hand reached for a cigarette. He had none. He didn’t want to admit it, but Jasmine’s theory had legs. Maybe Marlowe could weigh in on it. He’d make sure to ask next time they talked. He leaned forward and opened his mouth to speak when the waitress came by with a fresh pot of coffee.
“You guys gonna order something?”
“I’ll have three eggs, over easy, and two orders of bacon,” Jack said.
Frank and Jasmine declined.
After the waitress left, Jack said, “OK, so tell me, who was the original buyer?”
“Officially?” Frank said.
Jack nodded.
“We don’t know.”
“Frank, c’mon.”
“The only witness we might have had couldn’t speak.”
“Hey, that was his decision. I gave him the option of walking away.”
Frank shook his head. “This friggin’ mess.”
“What about unofficially?”
Frank’s eyes shifted from Jack to Jasmine and then back again. He sat back and said nothing.
“What?” Jack said. “She can’t know? Or she does know and you’re deciding whether to tell me the truth?”
“Jack,” Frank said, his arms outstretched.
“Don’t Jack me. I’ll walk away right now and you guys can figure this out on your own. You’re already barking up the wrong tree with this former buyer garbage.”
“It was North Korea,” Jasmine said.
Jack turned to face her. Her eyes were dark and her face hard. As he stared at her she seemed to soften, as if she had been holding back a deep, dark secret during the time they had known each other and it had finally surfaced. The question was whether or not this was only the trickle before the dam broke. He broke off his stare and looked back at Frank, who nodded in agreement.
The weight of the situation hit him hard. When it was a ragtag Russian terrorist organization, it was bad. He thought that maybe Muslim extremists had been involved with the initial purchase. That had given him cause to shiver. But now hearing the North Korea was involved left an empty feeling in his stomach that was replaced with an odd sense of validation that he hadn’t actually caused more problems by stealing the documents. He’d potentially saved the world.
“The government?” Jack said.
“It’s fifty-fifty at the moment,” Frank said. “If it wasn’t ordered from the top, it wasn’t far below him. Even if it was an extremist g
roup, the call would have come from within.”
Jack exhaled loudly and shifted in his seat. He glanced around the room to make sure no other diners were paying attention to their conversation. The fact that they were the only sober ones in the place left him feeling a little better.
“Now you see why I’m pushing this?” Jasmine said.
Jack nodded. Said nothing. He was still processing the information.
“I’d be happy to be wrong,” she said. “Hell, prove to me that I’m wrong, and I’ll dance on the hood of the car. But until that happens, we need to chase this down. It might spread us thin, but we’ve got to do it.”
“Who can help?” Jack said.
“We’ve got options,” Frank said. “Let me take care of that. You keep working your sources. I’ll work mine. You meeting with Clarissa soon?”
“I expect to tomorrow.”
Frank stood and slid out of the booth. “Call me tomorrow. And for Christ’s sake, put your phones back together. I need to know where you guys are.”
Jack watched Frank exit the diner and kept his eyes on him until he disappeared from sight. He and Jasmine sat in silence for ten minutes. Finally she spoke.
“We can stay at my place.”
Jack nodded. “Let’s go.”
11
Clarissa stayed close to the buildings, walking in the shadows. Her dark clothing made her practically invisible. Her hair was tucked under a dark skull cap. Fortunately, the night was cool and the excess clothing was comfortable. Clouds blocked the moonlight, providing another layer of security.
Breaking into the residence of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was risky, but Sinclair believed that was who the unnamed source was. Perhaps with the gentle nudging of Clarissa’s 9mm pistol, he’d be more forthcoming.
For a million dollar neighborhood, she found it quite easy to sneak through unnoticed. Still, she couldn’t let her guard down. That was how accidents happen and people get caught. For a woman dressed like a burglar and armed to the teeth, that would be a bad ending to a stressful day.
She stopped across the street from the house of General Marcus Prather, Army Chief of Staff. The house appeared still and quiet. The windows were dark, the entrance too. No porch light turned on. Streetlights far enough away that the pools of light they cast didn’t reach the house.
She crossed the street quickly, never letting up on her pace. When she reached the house, she pressed firmly against the exterior and slid to the ground. First she had to check for a security system. There was no obvious giveaway that there was one installed. No sign attached to a stake and planted in the yard. That didn’t mean there wasn’t one, though. Experience had taught her that. She rounded the house and found the utilities. Phone, power and cable all neatly placed one next to the other.
She reached into her bag and pulled out a phillips head screw driver. Opened the phone box. Reached into her bag again and pulled out a pair of alligator clips with an electronic device attached. She clipped the device to the solid blue wire and the blue and white striped wire that connected to the phone company’s feed. The device served two purposes. First, various agencies monitor certain phone lines. If she were to simply cut the phone line, it would register a state of permanent lock out. That would be noticed and a Secret Service team would be dispatched. The device she attached cut off phone signal to the house, but left the line in an operable state as far as anyone monitoring would be concerned. The device also relayed the appropriate heartbeat signal to an alarm company monitoring system.
Satisfied the house was cut off, she continued around the perimeter to find the best entry point. It didn’t take long. The kitchen window had been left open and it faced the backyard. She’d be exposed for a few seconds as she climbed through the window. However, the houses behind Prather’s looked as quiet and silent as his. She decided to take her chances entering through the kitchen instead of picking the lock of the darkened front door.
The house was on a crawl, which left the bottom of the window slightly higher than the top of her head. A nearby lawn chair solved the problem. She lifted and set the chair down, then stepped up, being careful to not let her foot slip through the openings created by the criss-crossed fabric.
She used both hands to force the window all the way open. Reached inside, grabbed the window sill and pulled herself up. Her body slid up and through the opening with the grace of a gymnast on the high bar. A few seconds later she crouched against the wall and reset her bearings.
The information she had gathered on Prather told her that he was divorced and his children were fully grown. That led her to believe that the house would be empty except for him. She prepared herself for the possibility of a third party being present and would deal with them accordingly.
The floorboards creaked as she crossed the kitchen. Despite the updated facade, the house was an older rehabbed building. She knew the General would be able to differentiate between the sounds of his home settling and expanding and contracting, and the sounds of an intruder.
Clarissa continued on, gripping her pistol tightly in her palm. The handle pushed the inside of her sweat dampened glove against her skin.
She cleared each downstairs room, gliding through the house with the stealth of a cat on the prowl. Then she took to the stairs. Up six steps to a landing which curved around, then up another half-dozen steps. At the top she looked left and then right. One door to the right, three to the left. The master, she presumed, was on the right. She headed left to clear the remaining rooms.
The first room she came to appeared to be a guest bedroom. The door at the end of the hall led to a full bathroom. The third door opened up to an office. All three rooms were unoccupied.
Clarissa returned to the top of the stairs. Stopped. Listened. She planned the sequence of events as she wanted them to play out. It would be quick and easy and painless.
She reached into her bag and pulled out a silver tin. Twisted the lid. Scooped out some of the black substance it contained and spread it across her face. She had done this prior to approaching the house, but wanted to make sure that she was covered. Being made later by Prather would bring unwanted attention to herself and Sinclair.
She took a deep breath and started down the hall toward Prather’s bedroom. Three quarters of the way there, a loud pop erupted from below her feet. Another faulty floorboard, or perhaps something done purposefully by the owner of the house to alert him should someone be approaching the room. Either way, she saw light flood out from the gap below the door and in the cracks along the side and top.
Two distinct voices began speaking in hurried, anxious tones.
12
Clarissa’s heart beat against her chest with the ferocity of a drum solo. Her adrenaline spiked. It felt like a fifty pound weight sat atop her lungs. Twinges of panic ripped through her chest and abdomen. Her fingers tingled and began to go numb. She had to get it together. The phone lines might be cut, but who uses a house line anymore? Prather could be dialing the police on his cell phone at that moment. There was no time to waste.
She forced a deep breath into her tight chest. The pain of her lungs being stretched to full expansion nearly caused her to scream. Her hands clutched her pistol tightly. The feelings of panic subsided and her training took over. She took four quick steps toward the door and then kicked it open with her right leg.
She held her weapon with both hands, pointed at the man she identified as Prather and yelled, “Don’t move.”
Prather dropped his cell phone. He tried to speak, but could only stutter.
Clarissa assessed the room for any potential threats or weapons. It barely registered with her that Prather’s companion in bed was another man. She couldn’t place him, and he already had his hands up in the air, so she ignored him.
“Throw the cell phone over there.” She gestured with her gun toward the closet.
Prather complied and picked up his phone and tossed it.
She looked at the other
man. “On your knees.”
“What?” he said.
“Do it,” she said. “Now. And keep your hands where I can see them.”
The man wriggled his way onto his knees.
“Now lie face down. Hands behind your back.”
He fell forward and clasped his hands together behind his lower back.
She looked at Prather. “Get up.” As he slid out of bed, she reached into her bag and pulled out three black cords. Tossed them onto the bed. “Even though you’re an Army man, I’m sure you can figure this out. One for his wrists, one for his ankles, and the third to connect them. Anything funny and he gets shot first.”
Prather nodded. He started to settle down. Perhaps he figured because she hadn’t shot him yet, she wouldn’t. He picked up the cords and began tying the other man’s wrists together. Then he moved down to his ankles. Finally, he laced the third cord around the knots near the man’s wrists and ankles and drew it tight, hog tying his companion.
“You’ll never get away with this,” he said.
“Shut the hell up,” Clarissa said.
“Do you have any idea who I am?” he said.
“Of course I do,” she said. “But you have no idea who I am.”
He looked over his shoulder at her as he finished the knot. Said nothing.
“Other side of the room. Face the corner.” She waited until he complied with her order and then she moved toward the tied up man. She checked the knots to make sure he hadn’t done anything that would allow his friend to escape easily. Satisfied, she turned her attention to Prather. “Now move to the door and wait for me.”
“Where are you taking him?” the other man said.
Clarissa flipped her gun in her hand and slammed the handle into the back of the man’s head. The blow knocked him unconscious.
“Don’t hurt him,” Prather yelled as he took two steps toward Clarissa.
She quickly spun the weapon around and aimed it at his head. “One more step. Go ahead. Take it.”
Prather stopped and raised his hands, palms out.
“Good boy,” she said. “Now turn around. We’re going to your kitchen.”