Scott Roarke 03 - Executive Command

by Gary Grossman

  “Live. Here and now,” the six-foot-two retired Marine made his point. “But that won’t end it. We’ll let you back out on the streets. What will your life expectancy be? Days? I’d say minutes.

  “You know how painful and difficult beheadings are. Nothing simple about it. Maybe you’ll man up to the moment. But your mother and Natalia? Would they make your mother watch your sister die or the other way around? How would you stage it? Or maybe they’d record your death, show it to them, then cut their throats. So many options.”

  The White House

  “Ms. Slocum, the attorney general said we’re not charging you with anything.” He paused. “But should we?”

  “No. I just did what I was told.”

  The comment hung in the air.

  Roarke stepped forward. He showed real compassion when he quietly asked, “Who told you, Christine? Who?”

  She took his hand. “I never knew. I just got some instructions over the Internet. Nothing that seemed really wrong. In fact it was exciting. I thought that’s how Washington works.”

  She was right, but Roarke didn’t say it.

  “And sometimes I had to send some messages out…”

  There are many ways to get information from an asset to a handler. The traditional method is through a dead drop, so named because it involves a person dropping off a message. It’s usually coded information inserted into a container of some sort and left at a prearranged location. Another person then picks it up and moves it along or decodes the communiqué. It’s the thing of John LeCarré novels and Cold War intrigue.

  Dead drops, like live drops—a face-to-face meeting, are still used. But with the development and proliferation of the Internet, a whole new world of anonymous data transfer has emerged.

  That’s how Christine Slocum delivered her information.

  “In pictures,” she offered. Slocum reached for another tissue but didn’t let go of Roarke’s hand. “A kind of nerdy guy came over a year ago and showed me how to do it.”

  “How to do what?” Bessolo barked none too politely.

  “To send and receive through pictures. But it was always gossip. You’d find better stuff on TMZ,” she complained.

  For years, there had been rumors that Al Qaeda embedded coded messages in Internet photographs. It wasn’t until 2010, however, that the FBI was able to confirm the actual use of high-tech data concealment.

  The technique requires a degree of technological training, but not a lot. Basically, it involves changing the numeric code that computers assign to a picture’s colors. To produce a computer picture on-screen, the computer gives every pixel three numeric values. They refer to the amount of primary colors—red, green, and blue that are generated in each pixel. Changing these values even to a small degree, allows spies to hide computer language of 1s and 0s in the picture’s pixel numbers.

  This doesn’t change a picture’s appearance. However, it does create an electronic dead drop. With billions of pictures on the Internet, analysis by the CIA or NSA is virtually impossible.

  While the technology is new, the act of concealing messages within images is not. Steganography, as it is called, is as old as governments and regimes themselves. It goes back at least as far as the ancient Greek messages tattooed into the shaved scalps of couriers, which became invisible as a head of hair regrew. Truly simple in its day; technologically elegant in modern times.

  Christine Slocum was as adept at the computer as she was in the bedroom.

  “Look lady,” Bessolo said, leaning right into her face, “this isn’t a goddamned reality television show. You are in serious trouble…”

  “I thought I was okay as long as I…”

  Bessolo didn’t let her finish. “Quite honestly, the attorney general has told you some things that I’m not happy with. And when I’m not happy, I am committed to make you unhappy and very, very miserable. So confine your answers to specifics and save the commentary for your best-selling autobiography five years from now.”

  Roarke patted her shoulder. “Just answer, Christine. We’ll be through soon.”

  “I’m trying.”

  “Did you ever know who you were sending reports to?” Bessolo asked.

  “A think tank in Maryland.”

  “What think tank?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “And you didn’t want to find out?”

  “I should have.”

  “Damned straight!”

  “Mr. Bessolo,” Attorney General Goldman chided. “Let’s stick to the questions.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said only somewhat apologetically. He returned to Slocum barely changing his tone. “What kind of information did you pass, Ms. Slocum?”

  “Like I said. Gossip. Sex stuff mostly. Short on details.” She looked at Roarke and pleaded, “I wouldn’t have said anything, Scott.”

  “People you were ordered to sleep with?” Bessolo demanded.

  “Yes. No. Not ordered to.”

  “Doors opened up for you pretty automatically,” the attorney general offered from a few feet away. “You never thought that was odd? That these partners came so easily to you.” Goldman hesitated to measure her next words, and then proclaimed what should have been abundantly obvious to Slocum. “You never realized you were spying?”

  “No. No! Why do you say that? Scott, what are they trying to do?”

  Randolph AFB

  “We have a problem that you helped create. Now you’re going to help us solve it. You’re going to do it without me having to lay a hand on you—which I’m quite capable of doing. Or worse, my colleagues will step in. They cut their teeth in Iraq, and what they didn’t learn there, they sure made up for in Afghanistan.

  “They’re all muscle. I’m what they call the negotiator. They don’t believe in what I do a lot. And I don’t like what they do all that much. But at the end of the day, we need information. So one way or another we’ll get it.”

  Watts moved closer and said, barely above whisper, “So here’s the deal. You answer all my questions without any hesitation; without any lying.”

  “If I do?” Estavan asked tentatively.

  “If you don’t!” he shouted as he turned to the mirror. They heard a loud knock back. “If I were you, I’d just open up right now.”

  The killer looked like a little boy who had done something terribly wrong.

  “And when I do?”

  “When is now. And we will come to an arrangement.”

  The word confused Estavan. “An arrangement?”

  “A business arrangement, Mr. Estavan. Because you will be out of the business you were in and we couldn’t possibly allow you to continue.”

  “And then?”

  “We’ll talk about a new job. You’ll be working for us.”

  “And if I don’t like this arrangement?”

  “We will always have the recordings. We’ll always know where your family is. Where your friends,” he stressed in a sarcastic way, “are. You will work for us. The details, of course, are a bit sketchy at this moment. But as the responsible adult in this equation; responsible to your mother and sister, I think you get it.”

  Estavan’s will, all but drained, barely held him in his chair. He had no fight left.

  “Shall we begin,” Watts said.

  The White House

  “Christine, you were being used and you used other people,” Goldman added softly. “By definition, you were a spy. And knowingly or not, you were reporting to someone. Perhaps a foreign national. Think. Do you have any idea at all?”

  “No. Honestly no.”

  “Okay,” Bessolo said completely changing his tone. “I believe you don’t.”

  Christine cried grateful tears.

  “But your computer will.”

  Over the next twenty minutes Slocum described everything in detail; how she chose noncopyrighted photographs to manipulate; those unlikely to be pulled from Internet use. She provided the names of URLs she found instructions on and how she
signaled through innocent-looking, but coded Facebook postings.

  The session concluded with Roy Bessolo telling her exactly what would happen next. “Now you will, with full knowledge, help us. You’ll tell lies and you’ll help us find who and where your handlers are. You’ll feed them information that will trigger responses…that will chip away at their armor…that will lead us to them. More of the game, as you said. This time, we make the rules. Do you understand, Ms. Slocum? Do you fully understand?”

  “Yes sir, I do.”

  “Mr. Roarke is going to get you something to eat. Take your time. We’ve got a team over at your apartment now checking for listening devices and cameras. They’ll clone your computer, laptop, and iPad. Figure a few more hours and you can go home. Tomorrow, you slip back into your normal routine and continue to see Mr. Roarke as if nothing has happened. It will require some good acting, but apparently you already have that talent.”

  Randolph AFB

  In the end, no real interrogation was required. The MS-13 gang leader gave Watts phone numbers, bank routing numbers, dates and locations, pseudonyms, call signs, his transporters still on the road, and other Maras likely to be involved in different cities. Estavan explained how money was wired to his accounts in Cyprus and St. Vincent, how cash was withdrawn and brought into the United States by couriers, and how he first got involved with a well-dressed foreign businessman two years earlier.

  Watts called his boss, FBI Director Mulligan, after the “discussion” concluded.

  “Did he ever directly meet his contact?” the FBI chief asked.

  “No,” Watts said. “But it wasn’t simply a contact. Estavan indicated that he wasn’t speaking to a go-between. This was the guy. He knew everything and berated and threatened the gang leader like someone who was in charge of facts, money, and the plan.”

  “No name?” Mulligan asked.

  “Only a pseudonym. Solon.”

  “Solons? What the hell kind of word is that?”

  “Don’t know. We’re running it now. Feels Middle Eastern. And even though Estavan doesn’t really have an ear for accents, we ran some tape for him and he seemed to feel that Solons fit a Middle Eastern voice pattern.”

  Given the threat, Mulligan wasn’t surprised. Given the scope of the attack, he had one man in mind.

  “Can Estavan dial Solons again?”

  “Not according to the last conversation.”

  “But can he?”

  “Well, why don’t I bring him a cell phone and find out,” Watts said.

  “Do it. Now. And keep him on long enough for an international trace. In the meantime, stay on those numbers and bank accounts and let me know the soonest you have something on this Solons.”

  Fifty-nine

  Washington, D.C.

  Later

  Roarke and Christine returned to the apartment at 9:45. The “exterminators” left a note on her door indicating that they found no evidence of cockroaches, but they would be back in two weeks to check again. They also tagged three other doors on the floor requesting a time and date for an inspection. Of course, it was for show.

  “You definitely had bug problems,” Roarke said as planned. He’d gotten a text confirmation from Bessolo’s FBI team that indeed she did, hidden in the walls and the phone. Now they ran the conversation they rehearsed at the White House.

  “I saw some run through the kitchen and under the stove,” she added. This building has had problems.” Bessolo backed that up with some false paperwork with the exterminator company, an agency cover that actually performed two jobs. Removing insects and rodents and installing listening devices and cameras.

  “Same with my building, especially in the winter. Guess they’re trying to stay warm, too.”

  All of this was outside her door.

  “How about you, want to get warmer?”

  “Warmer?” he asked.

  “Actually, I was thinking more about hot.”

  This was off the script.

  When first told about the hidden microphones, Christine was embarrassed. Then she felt violated and angry. Now she didn’t seem to care. She stood on her toes, dropped her purse and keys on the floor and found his lips giving him a very real, though short kiss. Then she worked up to his ear and whispered, “Got to make it sound real.”

  Christine Slocum was right.

  And so it went. A bottle of Pinot Noir, light classical music, candlelight, a move from two chairs at the table to the living room couch to Christine’s bedroom.

  That’s where they rested making fitting noises for twenty minutes. Just noise. When the playing was over, Christine rested her head on Roarke’s chest. He held her and ran his fingers through her hair, feeling her body shake as she wept, resigning herself to reality. Christine longed to make love with him, to feel him inside, to feel protected by his strength. There would be none of that, and Slocum cried more.

  Roarke touched her tears with his finger. She nestled in closer. He held her affectionately, but not lovingly. And there, they feel asleep.

  At 2 a.m. Roarke whispered loud enough for the microphone to pick up, “I have to go.”

  “Why?” she asked quite honestly.

  “Got an early meeting with the boss on what’s going down.” It should have been enough to interest anyone who might be listening live or playing recordings later.

  “Oh?” she said, again rehearsed.

  “Can’t talk about it now.”

  “Please stay. I really want you to stay.” She meant it.

  “I’m sorry.” Roarke was.

  There was the sound of dressing staged for the microphones. “Can I see you after work?”

  “I hope so,” he answered. “I’ll call you.”

  “Will you really?” It was a typical question after a first night in bed.

  “Really.” He returned to the bed and kissed her on the forehead.

  “Wait, I’ll walk you to the door. She slipped out of bed with the sound of her bare feet adding to the authenticity.

  “I wish you could stay.” She meant it.

  “Me too.” He didn’t.

  At the door, Slocum took the chance again, raised up on her toes to reach his lips and kissed him. He separated from her and smiled. And she knew there would be no more.

  Two transcripts of the conversation would be made in the morning. One going to the FBI from their microphones; another eventually to Ibrahim Haddad from his mics with what would confirm very credible contact. However, it really wasn’t necessary.

  Sixty

  Randolph AFB

  “Hello Solon, it’s Estavan. I have to talk to you.”

  “What? No! Do you have any idea of the hour?” Haddad was furious with the gang member. Another loose end he would absolutely have to deal with.

  “Wait it’s important. There’s a problem.”

  That got Haddad’s attention.

  “What kind of problem?”

  Estavan spoke slowly as he had been rehearsed. He was also told to use longer sentences to give the CIA computer tracers more time.

  “One of my drivers got away. He called and said someone tried to kill him. I listened to him. Of course, I didn’t say anything. But he’s alive.”

  “That’s your problem not mine. Take care of it.”

  “He’s in jail in Montana. The police found him on the side of the road after his car blew up. They started doing some checking and…”

  Watts watched on his iPad as the trace worked its way from Houston to Bonn, Germany, to Istanbul, Turkey…

  He gave Estavan a stretch, as if pulling an invisible string apart with two hands.

  “If he starts talking, it’s going to come back to me.”

  “Look. You take care of this now.”

  The trace continued to Jakarta, Indonesia…

  “You do it or I’ll have someone who will. If that happens, then your usefulness to me will have ended.”

  Jakarta to Mexico City…

  “I can do it,” Estavan
said. “I’ve got people nearby. Someone can slip in the jail where he is.”

  “Then we don’t have a problem.” Haddad stated.

  “No, Solon.” Estavan was running out of ways to stretch.

  …Mexico City to Ciudad del Este, Paraguay. That’s where the signal terminated.

  “No more calls. Ever.”

  “Yes, Solon. But…”

  The line went dead. Watts was satisfied.

  Sixty-one

  Washington, D.C.

  25 January

  0125 hrs

  The January cold slapped Roarke in the face. He’d done what he’d been ordered and he wasn’t happy. He couldn’t say nothing happened. Not now. But nothing else would happen.

  The frigid wind made it all the more clear to him. Katie Kessler was the one and only.

  Roarke’s personal thoughts did not prevent him from noticing a man who suddenly slinked down into a black Thunderbird parked down the street.

  Roarke avoided eye contact. But there was no conceivable reason for a man to sit in a parked car in the middle of a twenty-degree night pretending to be asleep. No one in his right mind.

  He passed the car and continued down the street away from Slocum’s apartment. Roarke kept his ear cocked for the sound of a car door opening, which it did not. He peered back before turning the corner of Dumbarton onto Twenty-ninth Street NW.

  Intuitively, Roarke recognized that he was dealing with someone equally cautious.

  He crossed the street and waited for some coverage to allow him to double back. A minute later he had it. A Washington Post delivery truck approached. The driver already had his blinker on to turn left back onto Dumbarton where Slocum lived.

  He ran alongside the truck and ducked behind a van diagonally opposite the Thunderbird. The limited street light made it hard to see. He looked for movement again, a beep of a lock unlocking, the door opening.

  Still nothing. Worse. Less than nothing.