The Blowback Protocol

by Lars Emmerich

  “What I’ve discovered since then,” she went on after a moment, “is that Tariq Ezzat was also a CIA asset.”

  Elizabeth brought her hand to her mouth. McCulley looked as if he had been kicked in the groin.

  “The CIA is somehow involved with Tariq Ezzat’s terror financing organization,” Sam said. “Maybe the Agency is skimming money or maybe they’re trying to take the organization down. Either way it’s illegal for them to be operating on US soil, so they must have a very compelling reason to be doing it and I want to understand what that reason might be.”

  “And you think Senator Stanley is somehow involved?” McCulley said.

  Sam shook her head. “No, but I think he may have more information about who was behind this whole thing than he realizes.”

  McCulley was silent for a long moment. Sam felt him sizing her up. “Okay,” he said. “Like you guessed, the senator requests occasional meetings with the president and vice president. He also sometimes asks for meetings with the DNI and the Secretary of Defense.”

  Sam nodded. “That all sounds normal. Is there anyone else?”

  McCulley nodded. “A man you’ve probably never heard of.”

  “You’re probably right,” Sam said, “but indulge me anyway.”

  “He also reaches out to a man named Artemis Grange.”

  58

  They left the McCulley residence in a hurry. Sam drove the stolen sedan hard through the streets of Georgetown. She turned onto the George Washington Parkway and accelerated, following its contours and weaving through traffic with practiced ease. To the right and across the river loomed the Watergate Hotel, still bearing the name made infamous by yet another DC crook, but neither Sam nor Hayward bothered to gawk at it.

  “Earlier, when you were talking about a ‘house divided,’” Hayward said, “you were talking about the McCulleys?”

  Sam shook her head. “I think they’re well on their way,” she said, “but I wasn’t talking about them. I’m talking about our Agency friends.”

  “You said that I’m living proof. What did you mean?”

  “Think about it,” Sam said. “On paper, you’re a CIA asset, but when was the last time you acted in their interest?”

  Hayward shrugged. “What’s your point?”

  “Ask yourself, if the Agency is so eager to get their hands on Joao’s work, why the hell won’t Artemis Grange close the deal?”

  “I’ve been asking myself nothing but that question since midnight.”

  Sam smiled a little. “Isn’t the answer obvious?”

  “I’m sure it will be, as soon as you tell me what the hell you’re getting at.”

  “We’ve assumed that Artemis Grange is acting in the interest of the CIA, but isn’t it possible that he isn’t? He took over for your Agency handlers on the ChemEspaña op, but how can we be sure that he hasn’t taken things in an entirely new direction?”

  Hayward narrowed his eyes and cocked his jaw. “Holy shit,” he said. “I never really entertained that as an option. I mean, in my mind Artemis Grange is the CIA. He’s a contractor now, but he was one of the instructors at the Farm and we were all in awe of him. Hell, the man’s been operational since Khrushchev was in diapers.”

  “Exactly my point,” Sam said. “So who would have guessed that he’s gone rogue?”

  “Holy shit,” Hayward said again. “But why? What could he be after?”

  Sam shook her head. “What is anyone ever after? Could be any one of a million things.”

  “Not really,” Hayward said. “Whatever he wants, he thinks he’ll get it by withholding Joao’s files. That narrows our possibilities quite a bit.”

  “Maybe,” Sam said, “but there’s still a problem. Why has he kept stringing us along? Why not just walk away?”

  “The hostages,” Hayward said. “Joao and Katrin.”

  “I don’t think so. I don’t think a man like Grange would have any compunction with a quick solution to that problem.”

  Hayward flinched a little, but he didn’t disagree. “They’re still alive for some reason . . . probably the same reason we’re still in play.”

  “Right. So this is the part where I rely on your vast CIA experience and you come up with a brilliant insight.”

  Hayward chuckled. “Fat chance.”

  Sam looked at her watch. “Oren Stanley’s place is ten minutes away,” she said. “No pressure.”

  “You’re thinking Oren Stanley is somehow beholden to Grange,” Hayward said as Sam made a left turn into a posh neighborhood full of mature trees and multi-million dollar estates in McLean, Virginia.

  Sam shook her head. “I don’t know what to think. I don’t recall any scandals involving Stanley, and I don’t know if he’s any more crooked than the next guy. But I think it’s interesting that a big-shot senator like Oren Stanley asks to meet with a guy like Artemis Grange. Usually the little guy asks for a meeting with the big guy, and not the other way around.”

  Hayward nodded. “Maybe Grange does have him over a barrel.”

  Sam took the final turn and started up the long driveway. The senator worked hard to cultivate a “man of the people” image, but it was all show. He was as aristocratic as they came, Sam concluded as she took in the vast estate. It was more a palace than a DC home, like something a French king would have commissioned. Family money? Wall Street baron? Dipping into the war chest? Sam didn’t know as much as she would have liked to know about Oren Stanley.

  Under normal circumstances, she’d lean on Dan Gable and his cyber magic to rustle up the goods. With his help, she’d know more about a mark in ten minutes than the mark knew about himself. But Dan’s semi-dirty cyber tricks were now nearly ubiquitous. The FBI could use the same tricks to ferret out her location and to slap an indictment on Dan for aiding and abetting.

  So, it was down to skill, cunning, and improvisation. Maybe a winning smile. Maybe show a little leg. Cleavage, too. She laughed at herself. Did she really think there was any possibility she could win over Stanley? According to Dan, the senator had railed against her in the press and pushed hard for her indictment—did she think she could charm him into changing his mind? Of course not. Sam was prepared to bare her claws and sink her teeth into the old senator if necessary.

  A security man met her and Hayward at the doorstep. Sam flashed her Homeland badge and introduced Hayward as her associate. The guard studied the name on her badge, looked closely at her face, and then studied her badge some more. He opened his mouth to speak. Sam raised her knee with lightning speed. It caught the security man square in the junk. His face took on a ghastly contortion and he doubled over at the waist. A sound like unnnnh came out of his mouth.

  Sam sidestepped and swung her arm low, catching his Adam’s apple in the crook of her elbow. In a flash, she completed the half-Nelson hold, and the man thrashed to free himself.

  Hayward swept the man’s legs out from under him, then swung his arm cast like a club, connecting with the man’s gut.

  Sam tightened her grip and moved her hips forward. The man’s weight was now supported almost entirely by his windpipe. His struggle grew weaker. It wasn’t long before his body grew limp.

  While Hayward stood guard, Sam dragged the security man to a walk-in coat closet adjacent to the grand entrance, checked his pulse, used his own zip-ties to bind his hands and feet, and pulled a garment from a hanger to use as a gag.

  One down. How many left?

  Sam emerged from the closet in time to spot a woman rounding a nearby corner. She had a matriarchal quality about her, probably the lady of the house. “Emerson, who is it?” the woman asked.

  “Homeland Security,” Sam said in her best take-charge voice, hoisting her badge. “It’s urgent that we speak with the senator immediately.”

  “Where is Emerson?” the woman asked.

  “The security guard?” Sam asked, and the woman nodded. “He went looking for Senator Stanley,” Sam bluffed.

  “He won’t have to look very
hard. Oren is in hiding in his study, like always. It’s budget season and I’m lucky if I see him once a week. Happens this time every year. I don’t know why I don’t just go home to Florida.”

  “Will you show us to the study?” Sam asked.

  The woman obliged. She made small talk as they walked through the large house, and Sam did her best to play along. The woman seemed completely unfazed by Sam and Hayward’s presence. Evidently, urgent federal business on a weekend afternoon was business as usual in the Stanley household. They passed sculptures and paintings—originals, if Sam had it right—on their way to a set of large oak double doors with more layers of shellac on them than an aging starlet’s face. The woman knocked, announced their guests, and opened the doors.

  Then she let out a horrendous, primal scream.

  There was blood everywhere.

  Chaos ensued. The woman shrieked and sobbed. Between howls, Sam heard the pounding of footsteps. She took one look inside the study, then grabbed Hayward’s arm and pulled him at a run down the long hallway and toward the exit.

  Already her mind was at work, trying to figure out the angle and trying to find a way out of the situation. The cops would arrive soon. The security guard at the entrance would moan about his aching balls while pointing an angry finger in Sam’s direction. The policemen would call in her name and promptly learn they’d just found an international fugitive. It would be nearly impossible to convince them that she and Hayward hadn’t had anything to do with the grisly scene in Oren Stanley’s study. There was also the small matter of the stolen automobile they’d arrived in. Say good night, Gracie. Lingering at the scene would sign them up to spend a lifetime untangling the mess.

  They exited the hallway and bounded into a sitting area. For the second time in mere hours, a strident male voice yelled, “Stop!”

  Sam held aloft her badge and waved it at the new arrival, another private security officer with a big gut partially covered by a small suit coat. “Step aside!” she commanded. “Federal agent. I’m calling in backup.”

  “What the hell’s going on?” the security man wanted to know.

  “In the study,” Sam said, rounding the corner into the foyer and running to daylight.

  She was technically still a federal agent, though not in active service, and she most definitely didn’t call in backup. Instead, she and Hayward strapped into the stolen sedan, started the engine, and barreled down the picturesque drive toward the street below.

  Sam heard sirens in the distance as she pulled to a stop at the end of the driveway. She forced a too-small gap in traffic, earning a honk and a hand gesture equal to one-half of the peace sign. She stomped on the accelerator and willed the engine to pull them up to traffic speed.

  A police cruiser passed them heading in the opposite direction, lights twirling. In the rearview mirror, Sam saw an ambulance approaching Oren Stanley’s drive. It wouldn’t take much medical expertise to properly handle the situation in Stanley’s study, Sam thought. The amount of blood on the floor was staggering, and the senator was well beyond saving.

  “Well, that went pretty well,” Hayward deadpanned.

  Sam smiled. “Not nearly as poorly as it could have gone. You’re not dead and I’m not in handcuffs.”

  Hayward’s turn to smile. “Let’s not get cocky. The night is young.”

  Indeed it was. Dusk had arrived, and with it a cold drizzle. The nip in the air suggested frost was a distinct possibility. Sam drove the speed limit but continued to put distance between them and Oren Stanley’s estate.

  “Who would want Oren Stanley dead?” Hayward wondered aloud.

  Sam shook her head. “The man’s been in Washington for eons. Could be any one of a dozen people.”

  “Helpful.”

  “I try.”

  “So let’s try it this way,” Hayward said. “Who benefits the most from his death?”

  “I don’t know enough about him or his politics to even hazard a guess.”

  “Armed Services and Intelligence committees,” Hayward thought aloud.

  “Plenty of opportunity to get dirty,” Sam said. “But again, we’d just be guessing.”

  “What if it’s Grange?”

  Sam arched her eyebrows and rocked her head from side to side. “It seems like a safe enough bet. If Frank McCulley was right, the two of them were tangled up together. Maybe their relationship soured.”

  “That would have to be one hell of a falling out. Why would Grange bother slicing Stanley’s throat? Why not just leak some damaging information about the senator and watch his career melt down?”

  “Good question,” Sam said. “Maybe it was one of those mutually assured destruction situations.”

  “Like maybe Stanley had just as much dirt on Grange as the other way around?”

  “Right,” Sam said, “so maybe it was too risky for Grange to leave the senator alive to run his mouth.”

  Hayward nodded. “Makes as much sense as anything else, I suppose.”

  “Let’s pretend it was Grange,” Sam said. “Where does that leave us? Are we any closer to finding him or the hostages?”

  Hayward shook his head. “With Stanley gone? I feel like we’re at a dead end.”

  They drove in silence for a moment until Sam had another cheery thought. “I doubt anyone would play this angle,” she said, “but Stanley’s death would certainly seem to benefit my situation. Dan told me Stanley was the one who pushed Justice and Homeland to come down on me.”

  Hayward shook his head. “Far-fetched. You risk returning to the States just to smoke a senator? I don’t think so.”

  Sam nodded. “Right. It wouldn’t get very far as a legal theory, except that we were just at Stanley’s place, we assaulted the security guard, blah-blah-blah.”

  “It would be hard to prove,” Hayward said.

  “Doesn’t mean they wouldn’t ruin my life trying.”

  “Good point. You probably need to hand an airtight case to them on a silver platter to have any hope of clearing your name.”

  “Thanks for the pep talk.”

  “Where the hell are we going, by the way?”

  Sam took a deep breath and let it out. “To put someone else in grave legal jeopardy.”

  59

  Grange moved with sparse traffic into the center of the city. It was the weekend, it was after dark, and there weren’t many people interested in going where Grange was headed. Most people who worked in DC lived miles away in cookie-cutter bedroom communities, unique only in the various creative names chosen by developers to evoke images of opulence and prosperity. Downtown DC was nothing but congestion and hassle during the week, but it was eerily deserted on the weekend.

  Grange had a delivery to make and a showdown to engineer. It was well past time to end the game, one way or another. He had worked hard to arrange things in a way that favored an agreeable finish, but he knew enough to avoid overconfidence. It would be a narrow thing, and he still had an uncomfortably large number of loose ends to handle. If he pulled it off, it would be one hell of a grand finale.

  He slowed, turned on the blinker, and steered the van into a belowground parking garage. He drove carefully. There was the cargo in the back of the van to think of. It was both fragile and volatile.

  Grange drove through the first parking level. In the building above him were hundreds of cubicles, most with no access to daylight and outfitted with the cheapest modular office furniture available. The building was deserted, as was the first level of the parking garage, but he continued to the next level below, driving slowly down the ramp, concerned for a moment with the vertical clearance. The top of the van cleared the concrete supports with inches to spare.

  Grange found an agreeable spot on the third and lowest level and parked next to the elevator. There was work to be done before he could unload the cargo, and he set about it with grim determination. He checked both handguns in his possession—loaded, cocked, and ready. The building was empty, but it certainly wouldn’t s
tay that way.

  Grange pulled a dark ball cap low over his brow and donned sunglasses. He zipped up his winter parka. It added twenty pounds to his silhouette. It wouldn’t fool anyone for long, but it might be good for half a second’s hesitation. An eternity, depending on the situation.

  He checked again on the cargo. Satisfied it wasn’t going anywhere, he opened the door and got out of the van. He walked to the elevator and pushed the button. When it arrived, he inserted a magnetic access card into a slot. The card contained electronic credentials that gave him access to the building above, but the credentials didn’t belong to him. The elevator doors closed and the car lurched upward. Grange looked at his watch. It wouldn’t be long now.

  60

  Sam walked into the pizzeria and paused while her eyes adjusted to the light. Hayward followed at her heels. “Ciao, bella,” boomed a voice that she’d heard a hundred times. It belonged to a fat, swarthy man in his sixties with an ebullient smile, a damp forehead, and the biggest heart on the block. His arms were stretched wide, and he moved in for a hug.

  Sam obliged. “Hi, Mario,” she said. It wasn’t his name, but Mario was what everyone called him. “How have you been?”

  “Bene, bene!” Mario gushed. “And you?” He eyed Hayward with a wary look. “Where is the luckiest man in the world tonight?”

  He was referring to Brock, and it caught Sam off guard. In the day’s chaos, she’d managed to keep the devastation of his note somewhat at bay. But it all came roaring back with the atmosphere of the pizza joint they frequented together, and especially with Mario’s query. She did her best to blink away the sudden tears, with limited success.

  Mario was quick on the uptake. His face contorted in sympathy, and he put his hand over his heart. He embraced her again, patted her back, and said, “A good meal, maybe, and it will all seem better.”