Executive Treason

by Grossman, Gary H.

  “Photographs suggest that subject may work for the U.S. of A. With access.” Beth studied the photographs. Senators, congressman, the Ambassador to Israel. Even President Lamden. “High up.” No casual pictures. No single pictures of boyfriends.

  Bessolo listened to the commentary in the van. He tapped his fingers to a tune he quietly hummed. His team members, blind from the beginning, were making solid observations. But what would they find that he didn’t already know?

  Shik returned to the living room after completing his electronics sweep. Now he could concentrate on the physical information. “Personal touches everywhere.” He examined some tabletop sculptures. “Woman is an artist. Signed and dated work. Recent.” He remembered seeing a poster in the bedroom. “Likely college art classes. Living room decorated artfully. Flea market finds on the tables. Lamps, vases, mobiles, all reworked, distressed, and displayed. She probably watches the junk-to-funk shows on HGTV and DIY. Her cable company can confirm viewing habits. Functional, inexpensive, out-of-the box Ikea furniture. A few throw rugs to pull the space together. Artistic hand. Creative,” he said on mic. “Boxes in the living room.” He looked around. “I’d say about a dozen.” He opened one. “College books. She’s still moving in. Betcha she’s too busy at work to get this done.” The mainly empty shelves reinforced the point. The only volumes in use were history books, non-fiction and fiction, de Tocqueville to Vidal. “History buff. American history.” He examined the pages. “Individual words highlighted in yellow marker.”

  Bessolo heard the comment. What words? He made a mental note to examine the book himself. Codes are often developed through words in a book. Both sender and receiver work from the same source to communicate. A message?

  Beth still worked the bedroom. “Subject’s bed faces the windows. Morning sun. Sheer drapes. Very little privacy, but not much of a view from the condo across the street. Going to check out the closet now.”

  Meyerson’s closet was another thing entirely. There simply wasn’t enough room for a woman’s clothes. Beth looked at everything, moving each item carefully. Like the other members of Bessolo’s team, she wore latex gloves.

  The closet overflowed with any number of requisite black and gray pantsuits, two conservative knee-length black business skirts, two black cocktail dresses, one mid-knee skirt, a collection of blouses and sweaters and basic athletic clothing. She was about Beth’s size, in good shape, except for her back problem. But the jogging shoes suggested she ran to keep fit. “Nice taste. Very presentable. Professional, moderately conservative. Jogs or walks for exercise. Damn, it’s cramped in here.” She felt a twinge of sympathy, then looked for the natural space to store more clothes. Thomas found it. “There’s more under her bed.”

  Meanwhile, Gimbrone followed the wiring in the living room, a few feet from Shik. “Flat-screen TV, hooked up to cable. Multiple phone lines.” He crossed over to the bay window, where Lynn had her desktop. He checked the hookup. “Cable modem to a 3-year-old Dell 4600C. MP3 player patched into the system’s speakers.” He powered up and immediately discovered a wall. “Shit. Password protected.” He grimaced. “Sorry about that, boss.”

  Bessolo didn’t worry. In his opinion, just a temporary obstacle.

  “Now the bed,” Thomas explained. “Queen.” She felt the springs. “Sleeps on the right side. Alone.” The information in the pictures, the clothing in her closet, and the college poster gave her enough intel to make an educated guess. “I’d say we’ve got a young Congressional aide or government staffer—maybe working for someone up the food chain. Works all the time,” she felt the bed again, “and doesn’t have a steady boyfriend.” Beth knew the feeling.

  Right again, Bessolo thought from across the street.

  Slowly and surely, Bessolo’s squad compiled an accurate snapshot of Lynn Meyerson. Now it was time to see if they’d find any blemishes in the picture. He counted on it.

  Mossad Headquarters

  Tel Aviv, Israel

  “Then tell me, Ira. You’ve read the communiqués. Travel plans? Fleet locations? Pending legislation? Why aren’t I celebrating?”

  Wurlin smiled. He was quite prepared to volunteer his opinion. Walk-ins were his specialty. They always had a personal reason for offering themselves up. Sometimes it was their urge as a Jew to connect with Israel; other times, an individual epiphany brought on by a news story, a teacher, or a book. Something as simple as that. Loyalties also swung because of deaths of loved ones. There were often two other reasons: money, or the sheer, addictive lure of living on the edge.

  “I have been thinking about it. Chuntul shows no level of sophisticated technical expertise here. Detail is lacking. And as we both suspected, the information is publicly available if you know where to look. These are simply teasers. Dainty bites to entice us, to suggest how close she is to greater information.”

  “In such an open manner?”

  Wurlin laughed. “Our own website invites people to e-mail us to become agents.” The Mossad discovered that even they needed to find new ways to recruit.

  “So, where does Chantul work?”

  “State Department. A key senator. Maybe somewhere in the White House.”

  This piqued Schecter’s interest. He hadn’t considered that. It had been a few years since they had someone close to an American president.

  “But you say there’s no real level of intelligence.”

  “No. Not yet.”

  “No names?”

  “Just what you’ve seen, Jacob,” Wurlin replied. “References to Papa Bear, Baby Bear. Things like that. And what we’ve already discussed. Legislation that could have an impact on us.”

  Schecter pursed his lips. “Money or conscience, Ira?” He then phrased it differently. “Will we get a bill?”

  “Can’t say yet.”

  “Create a short list of likely candidates,” the Mossad Chief ordered.

  “Already on it.”

  “Good. I want to know who this Chantul is. I still have a bad feeling about this. Nothing you’ve presented is making it go away.”

  Washington, D.C.

  Gimbrone peered at the 17-inch computer screen. He’d already tried the passwords most used by people—the ones that required little or no thinking. 1-2-3-4-5, A-B-C-D-E. The third one worked. 1-1-1-1-1. Once in, he called up the most recent word docs—all innocuous files. Then he scanned through hundreds of cookies recorded in Windows Explorer. “She shops online,” he reported to his recording in the van. “Some travel destinations checked out: France, Italy, Israel. No porn sites.”

  Now to her Internet account. She subscribed to Comcast. He tried the winning password again. It didn’t work. Nor did any of the other likely choices. He tried combinations of birthdays, family names, and other obvious combinations.

  “Anyone have any ideas? I’m stuck,” Mark Gimbrone admitted. He turned to the team because that’s what Bessolo had taught them. Individually, they were all highly trained agents, but they were part of a bigger team. They knew when to ask for help.

  Certainly another court order could get them into her account through the provider. But Bessolo wanted information now.

  Bessolo, monitoring the conversation over the wireless, radioed back. “Come on people. We might have company soon.”

  Pictures, Beth Thomas thought as she walked into the living room. Having examined her most intimate apparel, she was probably developing the strongest sense of their subject. “Hey, anyone seen any photo albums? Might be something in one.”

  “Don’t know. Try the boxes,” Shik offered.

  It took Thomas a few minutes to find two albums filled with laminated pages. “Let’s see what these tell us, missy,” Beth softly said to herself.

  The FBI agent leafed through the pages, going back in time through internships, college, high school, and earlier. That’s when she spotted it: A photograph of a then-12-year-old girl holding an apricot toy poodle. Her allergies! Of course she’d hav
e a poodle or another non-allergic dog as a pet. Not a cat or a long-haired dog.

  Now for a name. She went to another photo album. On the third page she found the teenager eating a piece of cake. She looked closer. There was the dog: a puppy. Frosting was smeared over its muzzle. She studied the photo more. A number was visible on the cake. They were celebrating the dog’s first birthday! One more look.

  Beth swung her backpack around and off her shoulder and removed a plastic kit containing a magnifying glass.

  The name on the cake, a blur to her unaided eyes, became clearly visible.

  “Try Buckets,” she called out.

  “What?”

  “Buckets. B-U-C-K-E-T-S.”

  “What the hell is that?” asked Gimbrone.

  “A password, you idiot!”

  “Buckets?”

  “Buckets,” Thomas repeated.

  Seven letters later, Gimbrone was into his subject’s e-mail account. “Well what do you know,” he said under his breath. “Nice going, Thomas. How’d you pull this one out of the hat?”

  Thomas smiled. “Woman’s intuition,” she slyly said. But it was nothing of the kind. One of the leading passwords, and easiest to remember, is the name of a first pet. That’s what credit cards, bank accounts, and online services even recommend. Thomas also knew the old joke about porn stars taking the name of their first pet and the street where they grew up to come up with an exotic stage name.

  “Son of a gun,” was all that the computer wiz offered in return.

  The criminologist flashed a satisfied smile and joined Gimbrone at the computer. A minute later, after scanning a list of deleted e-mail, Beth tapped the screen. “There. What’s that?”

  Gimbrone opened a recent outgoing mail and read through it. “Uh-oh.”

  Bessolo keyed his mike. “I heard that. Speak to me.”

  Gimbrone reached in his backpack for a backup Zip drive.

  Bessolo called again. “What’s going on, people?”

  “Going to back up the hard drive before I look any further,” Gimbrone explained. He plugged in his accessory, but before he left the Internet, he decided to read the contents of the e-mail again.

  Bessolo was getting annoyed. “Gimbrone!” he said in a raised voice.

  “What did you find?”

  “Sir, why don’t you lock up and come on upstairs. You’re going to want to see this.”

  Chapter 16

  Washington, D.C.

  “What’s up, Louise?” Roarke asked.

  “The vice president wants you to see this.” She handed him a CIA briefing on the Ville St. George discovery and the subsequent evacuation.

  Louise Swingle greatly respected Scott Roarke, a man who received no public recognition for his work, but who deserved the gratitude of his nation. Roarke was the Special Ops soldier who rescued Morgan Taylor after his Super Hornet took a hit and crashed in Iraq. More recently, he helped prevent a White House coup. Even she didn’t know the depth of his involvement, but Morgan Taylor’s secretary did recognize his importance.

  Roarke read the report. It went way beyond the news reports of the Sydney Hotel evacuation. On the second page, he came to a section that detailed the discovery of C-4. The summary explained that the bomb squad took more than four hours to meticulously disassemble the explosive device, expose the critical wiring, and disarm the mechanism. It also noted the cover story. It concluded with the revelation that the President of the United States was scheduled to stay there in August.

  “Okay, consider me informed.”

  “He awaits,” the 55-year-old secretary said.

  “Then buzz me in, Louise.”

  Swingle typed a note into her computer. The words simultaneously appeared on a screen on Taylor’s desk. After a moment, the letter “y” showed up on her desktop.

  “He’s all yours.”

  Roarke tipped two fingers to his forehead in thanks and charged through the door. The CIA report was in his hands.

  “Boss.”

  “Hello, Scott.” The vice president put down the papers he was reviewing. “You know, part of my job as President of the Senate is to read these damned things. Let me tell you, they don’t pay me enough.”

  Roarke let out an agreeable laugh. Taylor got right down to business.

  “Let me take those and give you something else to look through,” the vice president said. “Grab yourself a cup of java. Then you have a go at it.”

  “Okay.” Roarke gave Taylor the CIA report and went to the pot of freshly brewed coffee.

  “You might want something stronger by the time you’re through.”

  Roarke raised his eyebrow out of curiosity. If news troubled Morgan Taylor, it was bound to trouble him.

  “Is this related to the hotel bomb?” Roarke asked through his first careful sip.

  “No. It’s simply turning into a very busy day.”

  The vice president invited Roarke to sit in one of the hardwood chairs from Thomas Jefferson’s term that he brought over from the White House. He handed the Secret Service agent a brown folder held together with a metal strip on the left side.

  Roarke took the file and rubbed his thumb over the FBI insignia on the cover. Below it, in bold caps, was the warning: TOP SECRET

  Before reading he flipped through the time-stamped pages. There were eight in all, and the file was only hours old.

  “This feels hot,” he said, trying a joke.

  “Don’t burn yourself,” Taylor replied.

  Roarke carefully read a summary paragraph. A staff member of the Office for Strategic Initiatives had been murdered in Los Angeles. He didn’t recognize the name. But it already wasn’t good. “A bungled rape.”

  The word “bungled” sent the first shiver through him. He looked up at the vice president. Taylor, busy again with his own reading, wasn’t paying attention to Roarke.

  Bungled. Roarke thought for a moment. Bungled? There’s something about that word. His right hand automatically moved inside his blue wool sports jacket. With the simple reflexive motion, he felt his holstered Sig. The pressure of the gun heightened his sixth sense. Bungled. That’s how they described the death of Teddy Lodge’s wife. A bungled assassination attempt of the Congressman.

  Roarke returned to the report. It contained a combination of the LAPD account of the murder of a Jane Doe, later ID’d as Lynn Meyerson, Washington, D.C. resident. He didn’t know her name, but a biography cleared up exactly who she was and what Meyerson did for a living. Roarke now understood why he was called in.

  Next was a report from a name he did recognize: Roy Bessolo. In Roarke’s estimation, Bessolo was the Neanderthal—a boorish, argumentative brute. But he was also a solid FBI field agent. Bessolo wrote a summation of his team’s search of Meyerson’s Washington apartment. They found e-mails on the victim’s computer. The exact transcripts of the correspondences were not specified, but the report indicated that “due to the contents, the agency has sealed the subject’s apartment and an investigation into suspected espionage activities is proceeding.” The use of the word “subject” was also a tip. But to what?

  There were no further conclusions.

  Roarke closed the folder. Now for some questions.

  “Did you know this woman?”

  Taylor carefully put the cap on his pen, turned over the papers he was reading, and slowly responded. “I spoke with her on the phone a few times.”

  “And your impression?”

  “Very smart. Well-liked. Well-connected. I’ve seen a lot like her over the years. Seemed like she could be on a fast track. Congressional material.”

  “And these e-mails? What were they? Mulligan’s brief doesn’t say.”

  “And it won’t.”

  “Dirty laundry to the folks back home?”

  “Worse. I’d term them more like contacts. Evans and Mulligan are knee-deep into it now.”

  “So what do you need from me?” />
  “You’re going to tell me how worried Henry and I need to be.”

  Chicago, Illinois

  Luis Gonzales perused The Washington Post and The New York Times websites. Nothing broke yet. It was only a matter of time. Maybe on the nightly news, he thought. If not there, cable, and eventually Internet bloggers. He could even arrange for a sketchy leak to cause some chatter. He laughed to himself. These days, so many people could own a big story in so many ways.

  Chapter 17

  Andrews Air Force Base

  Suitland, Maryland

  Thursday, 21 June

  Air Force One was more than an airplane. It was an airborne extension of the government. A flying White House. An office unlike any other in the world.

  President George H. W. Bush flew the maiden flight of 28000 out of Andrews on September 6, 2000. The plane bore the distinctive blue, silver, and white look created for President John F. Kennedy’s Air Force One in 1962 by designer Edward Lowey.

  The sheer size of the 747s have inspired articles in every major newspaper in America, to books, television documentaries, and a variety of websites. Lt. Eric Ross knew every detail. Yet, not a day went by when he wasn’t impressed by the commanding presence of the planes. Six stories high. The fuselage nearly the length of a city block at 231 feet. A bulge in the nose to handle midair refueling. SAM 28000 and SAM 29000 could slice through the air at more than 600 miles per hour, powered with 56,700 pounds of thrust by each of the four General Electric CF6-80C2B1 engines. The wings carried 53,611 gallons of fuel, accounting for a takeoff weight of 833,000 pounds. They were magnificent machines.

  The planes were reconstructed by Boeing with a three-level floor plan.

  From aft to stern, Level 1, the uppermost space, contained the cockpit. Behind it was a small galley, a lounge, and then the communications center with a stairway leading to Level 2.