White radioed, “What the hell are they doing there?”
Scotty looked up at the sign posted over the grocery store entrance. “There’s a bank branch inside the grocery.”
“Ten-four,” White said. “I do not want them going in. Intel says they’re armed. The driver’s on searchable parole. I say we take them down and do a search.”
“Ten-four.” Scotty looked over at Sydney as the Hyundai cruised slowly up the parking lot. She sped around the perimeter, pulling in behind the car, then hit the lights and siren as he called in the felony stop of two possible armed suspects.
Within moments Special Agent White’s Ford Interceptor skidded into the parking lot behind her car, siren screaming. Sydney slammed on her brakes, angling her vehicle for the stop, and she and Scotty jumped out, drew their weapons.
“FBI!” Sydney yelled, her gun pointed at the two men.
The passenger bolted from the car, then slipped on a patch of rock salt, and fell facedown on the ground.
“I’ve got him,” Scotty said, then moved in that direction as Special Agent White ran up from behind to take Scotty’s place, his gun aimed at the driver.
“Get your hands up where I can see them!” Sydney shouted.
The driver exited his car as ordered, but then reached for something. Sydney pressed her finger on the trigger, felt that first initial click. A hairbreadth away from firing. Then she focused on his eyes. Saw something. Not anger. Not desperation.
Terror. As though he knew in that moment his life wasn’t his own.
And for an infinitesimal moment they were connected. The same. Pawns in a game. “Hands up!” she said.
He raised his hands. Empty.
Sydney released the trigger.
“Jesus,” White said. “We almost killed him.”
She held the man at gunpoint, ordered him onto the ground beside the passenger as the air pulsated with the sirens of a half-dozen patrol cars that flooded the parking lot. Scotty cuffed both men, patted them down, then searched the car.
Not a gun to be found.
Anywhere.
And with half the Metro Police force staring at the four agents, probably wondering what all the fuss was about for two unarmed men. The radios blared to life: “Shots fired! Shots fired!”
Sydney heard chaos and screaming in the background, and then a panic-filled voice transmitting from the radio. “It’s the senator . . . Senator Grogan’s been shot!”
Then a faint voice, her sister’s, coming from the speakerphone in her car, saying, “Mom! You’ll never guess what happened!”
Great. She could hardly wait to get her mother’s phone call.
Chapter 3
December 3
Big River Discount Electronics
Washington, D.C.
The moment Alvin “Izzy” Isenhart heard the breaking news about Senator Grogan’s murder on every television in the store, he knew he was in big trouble—bigger trouble than any nineteen-year-old should be in. And though he tried to look away from the TV screen mounted beside the others, he couldn’t move. He stood there transfixed, telling himself over and over, This can’t be happening.
“Where are the video games?” The sound of someone clearing her voice, then, “Hel-lo-o?”
Izzy turned toward the woman, and it took a moment for him to realize she was speaking to him. “The senator was shot.” He nodded toward the screen.
She glanced up at the TV, watched for a few seconds as the camera panned over the community college where the speech took place, then said, “The video games?”
“I’m sorry. I—what did you want?”
“Vid-e-o games.”
He pointed her in that direction, then, ignoring another customer who wanted to know if they still had the Sony fifty-two-inch TV on sale, he walked toward the front of the store, where the manager stood at a computer, looking up an item from some list on his clipboard. “I need to go home,” Izzy said.
The manager never took his eyes off the monitor. “You can’t. We’re shorthanded.”
“I don’t feel good. Like, I think I’m going to be sick.”
“Can’t you at least wait for the next shift?” his boss said, finally turning toward him. “Jesus. You look like hell. Get out of here. And for God’s sake, don’t throw up in the store.”
Izzy walked straight out the door, not even bothering to clock out. He pulled off his vest as he crossed the parking lot to his car, unlocked the door, started the engine, then sat there for a full minute, his hands sweaty, his underarms sticky even though it was in the mid-thirties outside and his heater had not yet kicked in.
Think.
Could any of this be traced back to him?
Oh God . . . What the hell was on Hollis’s computer? The very thought sent his heart racing, and he started to back out just as a white florist van drove behind him. He slammed on the brakes, shaken that he was too upset to even drive.
Idiot! If he hit someone, that would bring the police and then where would he be? He didn’t want anyone to see him, and waited until the van turned into the next row before he pulled out of the parking lot, wondering if he should drive to Hollis’s, wipe the computer clean in person before the cops got there. But then what if they were watching Hollis’s place? Not willing to chance it, he drove to his own apartment instead. Because he was thoroughly spooked, he parked behind the complex, then walked to his own building. Trying to shove his key in the lock, he dropped it twice before he managed to get it in the door, then bolted it behind him.
His desktop computer, the one that linked to Hollis’s, was in the living room. It was where he spent the majority of his time, and he sat in his chair, booted up his computer, then swiveled around to turn on the TV, wondering if there had been any more information.
Every local channel was covering the shooting as Izzy sat there in the safety of his apartment, remotely viewing Hollis’s computer, meticulously going over every file, making sure there was nothing left to identify him with. No records of chats, no programs or viruses. Nothing but the desktop background photograph of a girl Hollis had been friends with, Maddie. Izzy had a crush on her, but it never seemed right, asking her out. Not when it was clear that Hollis liked her—why else leave her photo on his machine? he thought, as the TV reporter began discussing the arrest of the man responsible. Izzy glanced over in time to see them leading someone in handcuffs to a patrol car.
Hollis. They’d arrested Hollis.
No time. Concentrate . . . Izzy turned back to the computer, poised his hands over the keyboard, getting ready to access Hollis’s e-mail folder, when suddenly it disappeared from the screen.
Izzy looked down at his fingers, then at the mouse. Still untouched.
Someone was in Hollis’s computer.
He ripped the Internet router from the wall, worried that they would see him poking around in Hollis’s files. And then he realized that they’d already seen him. If they were in Hollis’s computer, they knew who he was. That meant they could find him. Looking around the room, he wondered what he could salvage, what he should take, his gut twisting the whole time.
Izzy threw some clothes in a duffel bag, packed his laptop into a backpack, then ran a program to wipe the desktop computer clean. He had no idea how long they’d been in his computer. Even with all his firewalls, they’d gotten to him.
Probably with the program that Hollis had on his own damned machine.
He should never have listened to the guy. And now Hollis was in jail for murder . . .
Forget Hollis. What else did he need? He made a quick walk through of the apartment, figuring he had what he needed, and more importantly, wasn’t leaving anything vital behind. He grabbed the duffel and backpack, then his keys. It was by chance he glanced out his front window through the two-inch parting in the curtains, and saw the white florist van with
two men in it, cruising through the parking lot.
He froze.
It was the same van he’d seen at his work.
Izzy pulled the curtains tight. Maybe it was nothing. This was a big complex. Someone else could be getting flowers. But somehow he doubted that and he walked over, turned the TV back on, hoping they would think he was inside, listen in first to see if they could hear what he was doing. If he was lucky, that might buy him a few seconds.
How to get out? The patio door, then jump over the fence? Bad idea. Someone watching from the front could see the patio. And on every cop show he ever saw, they always covered the doors. Not that he thought these guys were cops. But he figured they watched the same shows, so he decided to go out his bedroom window instead. They’d have to walk all the way around the building to see back there.
The cold air hit him as he opened the window, then popped off the screen and lowered his duffel to the snow-covered ground. He checked to make sure he had his car keys. The moment he started out himself, he heard someone knocking on his front door. As quickly and quietly as he could, he closed the window, replaced the screen, then walked through the complex to his car.
Chapter 4
December 3
ATLAS (Alliance for Threat Level Assessment and Security)
U.S. Headquarters, Washington, D.C.
The moment Special Agent Zachary Griffin saw Marlene, the division secretary, walk past his door with a sheaf of papers toward the copy machine, he slipped into her office, leaving an envelope with a Visa gift card on her desk. She was leaving at the end of her shift for two weeks. Vacation, she’d said. Truth was that she was driving cross-country to pick up her daughter and new grandson, who were moving back home. And though Marlene tried to downplay the situation, Griffin knew financially it would be a strain, because she’d already helped her daughter pay for a much needed divorce attorney.
She was not, however, the sort to accept charity, hence the anonymous gift, and before she was even finished, he was back at his desk, adjusting the volume on his scanner, listening to the officers at the scene of Senator Grogan’s murder. They’d made an arrest, and were now directing the CSIs on what they wanted cordoned off, then processed.
Griffin expected the FBI would be looking into the investigation, due to the top secret clearance Grogan had involving national security. And sure enough, about five minutes later, as Marlene knocked on his open door, he heard one of the officers asking for the FBI’s ETA. She crossed the room to his desk, carrying a packet of papers. If she’d seen the envelope, she gave no sign. “The security plans for the upcoming global summit haven’t come in, but I made you three sets of your briefing on the stolen AUV for your meeting this morning.” She handed Griffin the packet, then tapped his phone. “And you might want to turn your ringer back on. There’s a call holding for you on line one from Amsterdam.”
As he reached over to switch off the scanner, she leaned down and kissed him on his cheek.
“Thanks,” she told him. “You shouldn’t have.”
“Don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said, trying not to notice the shimmer in her eyes. He picked up the phone, saying, “Griffin.”
“Zachary Griffin?”
He didn’t recognize the woman’s voice. “Yes.”
“My name is Petra Meijer. I think you know my uncle, Faas Meijer.”
It took a few seconds for the name to sink in. Faas Meijer was an old informant, one he’d not heard from for quite some time.
Two years, in fact.
His gaze flicked over to a framed photo on his bookcase, one of Griffin and his late wife, Becca, skiing in Gstaad six months before she’d left him. A year later she’d been killed in an operation she and Griffin had worked together. It was Faas who’d provided the needed intel to Becca that had sent the two of them on that fateful mission.
“How is he?” Griffin asked carefully, wondering not only why Faas would be using his niece as a go-between, but why the man would even be trying to contact him.
“He’s fine, thank you,” Petra replied. “He asked me to inform you that he recently received something you’d be interested in. His expertise is in small antiques at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.”
“I remember.”
“His feeling was that this would be . . . something you’d want to see in person, something he felt you had been looking for the last couple of years. It might answer the who and why.”
Griffin stilled. Several seconds passed by, his grip on the phone so tight it was a wonder the thing didn’t snap. Then again, what if he’d heard wrong? It had been two years . . .
“Are you there?” the woman asked.
He shook himself. “Yes. Did he say anything else?”
“Just that you’d know what he meant. Oh, and that he was worried about other buyers finding it, and so wanted to meet as soon as possible.”
“I can be there tomorrow.”
“He won’t be able to meet you until after six when the museum closes.”
“That’ll be fine.”
She gave him her contact number, then disconnected. He dropped the phone into the cradle, sat there, replayed the conversation in his mind, going over each detail, trying to ascertain what wasn’t spoken, as well as what was. Two years. He’d been waiting for this information for two years . . .
“Zach?”
He drew his gaze from his late wife’s photo and saw Marlene watching him from the doorway. “Yes?”
“The stolen AUV? Your meeting’s about to start.”
He glanced up at the clock, unaware until that moment how much time had passed. His boss was expecting the report on MI5’s investigation of the Amphitrite, an autonomous underwater vehicle used for scientific expeditions that had been stolen from a British port. ATLAS had been called in due to the potential threat should the robotically controlled underwater vehicle fall into terrorist hands, and this report on the AUV was the first lead they’d had since it went missing a month ago. Not much to go on, he thought, taking it with him. He paused outside the partially closed door of McNiel’s office, checking to make sure he had the number of copies he needed. It was then he chanced to hear his name.
“Griffin’s not going to be happy if he figures out why you’re doing this.” The voice belonged to his partner, James “Tex” Dalton.
“Griffin doesn’t run this division. I do,” said their boss, Ron McNiel III, as the phone rang.
Not sure what had prompted the conversation—never mind that in this business, there was always something going on that wouldn’t make him happy—he knocked on the door.
McNiel answered the phone as he walked in. Tex was sitting in a chair opposite their boss, and with him was Marc di Luca, an agent they’d worked closely with in Italy a few weeks ago. Normally he wouldn’t think twice about Tex being holed up in McNiel’s office, if not for the oddly guilty look on Tex’s face and the bit of conversation he’d overheard.
McNiel thanked his caller, then hung up the phone. “They’ve confirmed the arrest on Senator Grogan’s shooter. That’s all we know. No clue if his murder is related to anything we’re working on, but the early reports indicate it to be an isolated event.”
“Isolated?” Tex said. “Ten bucks says that early reports are wrong.”
“We’ll let the investigation determine otherwise,” McNiel replied, always the voice of reason. He looked over at Griffin. “You have the report from MI5?”
Griffin handed each of them a copy, then took a seat. “Nothing definitive, because on the surface it appears that we’re dealing with ordinary pirates.”
“How so?”
“They’re basing their analysis on a tentative connection to a freighter that went missing a couple weeks before the Amphitrite was stolen. That and some pirate activity off the coast of Jamaica. We received a naval report about a couple of college
students on an oceanic field trip who mentioned seeing a cargo ship in the area that matched the freighter’s description just before the students’ boat exploded. At first they thought it accidental, until they saw a motorized raft being driven by men with long guns coming from the direction of the freighter.”
“What’s the theory?” McNiel asked. “Using the freighter to transport the AUV to search for gold?”
Tex tossed his copy of the report on the table. “You don’t steal a long-haul freighter, sail it for two weeks to some godforsaken coast to look for sunken treasure. There’s enough of it at the bottom of the English Channel where the AUV was stolen from. What they were looking for was right there where those students were shot, and they sure as hell didn’t want witnesses.”
“I have to agree,” Griffin said. “The ocean floor drops off pretty deep out there. Which means we can’t rule out the use of the Amphitrite.”
McNiel pinned his gaze on di Luca. “We need to investigate this further. I want you in Jamaica, heading the dive team. Find out what the hell was going on out there.”
“Lucky me,” Marc said.
McNiel leaned back in his chair, a look of frustration on his face, one that was no doubt shared by every intelligence head in the alliance of nations that worked closely with ATLAS and the other U.S. intelligence agencies. The hypotheses from the various think tanks as to what might be achieved by someone who had possession of the AUV ran the gamut from piracy to spying on naval fleets to planting underwater explosives in order to take out entire ports. What the hell someone might need an AUV for in deep water channels, other than scientific exploring, had them stumped. “Let’s get moving on this.”
“I’ll check for satellite images,” Griffin said, then stood to leave.
“No,” McNiel said. “You won’t be assigned to that part of this investigation. I’d like you to accompany di Luca to Jamaica.”
Griffin stopped in his tracks, turned, eyed Tex, who once again refused to meet his gaze. Even Marc looked distinctly uncomfortable. “To Jamaica?” Griffin asked. “I thought you wanted me to head the global summit security team.”
The Dark Hour Page 2