Ann jumped up and limped to the far side of the Taurus, where she found Fowler lying facedown next to the front wheel.
“Dan,” she cried, kneeling beside him.
He pried his eyes open and eased himself to a sitting position.
“I’m okay.” He rubbed his jaw. “Never saw that coming.” His eyes gradually focused on Ann. “Are you hurt?”
“No, I’m fine. But that was no random stickup.” She tilted her head toward the open trunk.
“Not the files!” blurted Fowler, struggling to his feet. Holding each other for support, they stepped to the rear of the car and peered into the open trunk.
Inside sat Ann’s travel bag. And nothing else.
28
THE MEMORIAL SERVICE FOR JOE EBERSON WAS WELL attended by his fellow research scientists at DARPA, many of whom stepped to the Annandale Church podium and expressed their esteem for him. Sitting in a middle pew, Ann felt a bit uncomfortable because she’d been assigned to the agency only at his death. But clearly Eberson was a respected man, and that sharpened her resolve to catch his murderer.
Fowler sat at her side, a small bandage on his chin reminding her of the attack the night before. Alexandria paramedics and police had responded quickly to Ann’s residence and found no serious injury to either one of them. But the authorities also found no trail to the muggers. Ann alerted federal officials of the theft, and an alert was put out on the assailants’ Chrysler for the greater Washington metro area. By morning, it had been found in a grocery store parking lot. Reported as stolen the day before, it also had been scrubbed of any incriminating fingerprints and Heiland’s records as well. A special FBI team was assigned to the theft, but they had very little to go on.
“I’d like to pay my respects to Joe’s family,” Fowler said as the service ended. “How about I meet you at the car?”
Ann nodded, thankful that he had offered to drive. When they climbed into Fowler’s car a short time later, Ann commented on Eberson’s popularity.
“He had a lot of years in the business,” Fowler said. “Made a lot of friends. And also a few enemies.”
“What kind of enemies?” Ann asked.
“The professional sort. The typical DARPA research project parcels out work to different companies and universities. Then we tie everything together—and garner all the credit. The little guys who make the real breakthroughs often go unnoticed.”
He turned to Ann. “I don’t think that any research scientist knocked off Eberson and Heiland, if that’s where you’re headed.”
“Just touching all the bases,” Ann said. “I know we’ve talked before, but I want to ask again what the prospects are that a leak came from inside DARPA?”
Fowler frowned. “Anything’s possible, but I just don’t think that’s the case. There’s just a relatively small team here running the Sea Arrow program. Most of the work is farmed out. That’s where I think the real risk is—with our external subcontractors. Of course there are people at the shipyard with knowledge, and that’s an obvious focus.”
“Yes, that’s why we’ve already assigned a dedicated NCIS team to Groton.”
“It may not mean anything,” Fowler said, “but I find it somewhat curious that Heiland and Eberson were killed shortly after the President toured the shipyard. I wasn’t there, but I ran the security list.”
“Are you suggesting someone at the White House might be involved?”
“Not directly. But you know the White House is a sieve. Although this administration is better than most, it wouldn’t surprise me if details about the Sea Arrow were released to the wrong people.”
“Can you give me the security list?” Ann said.
“Sure, it’s in my office—if you don’t already have enough on your plate.”
“At this point we have to cast a broad net. I’d like to check the history of any recent technology thefts of a similar nature. Have you dealt with any foreign espionage cases?”
“Not since I’ve been at DARPA,” Fowler said. “Our issues are mostly lost computer disks and the like. But I’ve been here only a year. We had a few espionage cases while I was with the Army Research Laboratory, both suspected Chinese and Israeli spies, but we never had enough to prosecute.”
“The bagmen in this case seem a bit out of character for the typical espionage operatives,” Ann said.
“True, but you never know who’s footing the bill.”
“I suppose,” Ann said. “Any idea of the impact to the Sea Arrow program?”
“I’m not technically savvy enough to know, but apparently the program hinged on Heiland’s supercavitation model, which would totally transform the Sea Arrow’s capability. Now that his original research is lost, the program may be set back several years. No one believes they can duplicate Heiland’s work easily without his designs.”
“I can’t believe they robbed us of them in Alexandria. How could they have known?”
“Hard to say. Perhaps someone was tracking you after the incident in Tijuana. I’d have to think there was a third member of the party in Idaho, monitoring events. Somehow they arranged a jump on us here at short notice.”
He gave her a worried look. “Maybe you should check into a hotel for a few nights, just to be on the safe side.”
“No, I’m fine,” she said, her own safety not a concern.
“Still, I’ll follow up with the Alexandria police to make sure they patrol your town house on a regular basis.” He rubbed his jaw beneath the bandage. “I’d like to see those guys go down hard.”
Fowler turned into the parking lot of the DARPA headquarters building in downtown Arlington. Ann preferred to work at the DARPA site rather than her NCIS office across the river in Anacostia, having commandeered a small, windowless office next to Fowler. With her laptop computer, she could access nearly the same criminal resources while establishing relationships with the DARPA team working on Sea Arrow.
As she returned to her desk, she felt oddly energized. Aside from its importance to national security, the case had become personal. She shrugged off the physical and emotional drain of the past few days, motivated to dig into the evidence and discover who was behind the thefts and murders.
Her first call was to the FBI field office in San Diego. An agent named Wyatt was managing the local investigation.
“Have you heard anything from Mexico yet?” she asked.
“A few things,” Wyatt said. “The two deceased males, both in their early thirties, were not Mexican nationals. Colombian passports were found on both bodies. I can give you the names, but in all likelihood they’re phony. We checked with the State Department in Bogotá, and both names came back negative with the Colombian government.”
“The passports were fake?”
“Yes, high-quality counterfeits. We checked the prints on the deceased and found no matches in either the FBI or INTERPOL databases. Our best guess is, they were low-level hired muscle. Customs showed that they actually came into the U.S. with three other men a few weeks ago. They crossed the border at Tijuana with temporary visitors’ visas.”
“Any of them go by the name of Pablo?”
“No, nothing close to that.”
“How about the pickup truck and the boat?”
“The truck was recently purchased from a used-car dealer in Tijuana. Paid cash, registered to one of the Colombians at a taco stand’s address in Rosarito Beach. I’m afraid the Mexicans haven’t found anything on the boat.”
“Any record of their activity while in the U.S.?”
“We’re still looking. Interesting thing is, five individuals were recorded crossing the border in the truck, but only three returned. We followed up your tip about a possible break-in at Heiland’s company office. Surveillance video shows a janitor entering Heiland’s office after hours. The individual appears to match the passport photo of one of the Colombians.”
“Wyatt, I suggest you call the Spokane field office when we’re finished. Two men were just killed in Bayview
, Idaho, after a break-in at Heiland’s lake house. I’ll wager a month’s salary that those are your two missing men.”
“How about a bonus if one is our janitor?” Wyatt asked. “They seem to be a persistent bunch, that’s for sure.”
“Agreed. Do you have anything else?”
“We had an explosives expert examine Heiland’s boat. He confirmed that a charge of low-grade plastic explosives was embedded in the boat’s interior and mechanically detonated. The wiring looked to have been in place for some time.”
“So Heiland triggered the explosion,” she said—Pitt had been right after all—“Any idea why?”
“He may have been aware of the threat or maybe just sensitive to the nature of his work. Was it anything worth killing over?”
“It would seem so.”
“There’s one more bit of mystery tied in with the event.”
“What’s that?”
“The autopsy report on Eberson. Based on the physical evidence and the position of his body at the back of the boat, we believe he was not killed by the explosion.”
“His feet were tangled in fishing line,” Ann said. “I assume he panicked when he couldn’t get clear of the boat and ended up drowning.”
“Actually, the pathologist says he was dead before he hit the water.”
“Was he shot?”
“No—” Wyatt fumbled for the proper description. “His skin showed signs of severe burns. His death was attributed to trauma related to burn damage.”
Ann had seen his gruesome blackened limbs but assumed it had to do with his body’s submersion at such depth. “Why doesn’t the pathologist think he was killed by the explosion?”
“Because his surface burns were atypical of fire damage—and extended beneath the skin. In other words, he cooked from both inside and out.”
Ann shook her head. “From the inside?”
“The damage is consistent with acute microwave irradiation.”
Ann fell silent, trying to make sense of the report.
“Could it have anything to do with the equipment Heiland was testing?” Wyatt asked.
“I can’t imagine. It was still in its case.”
“Understood. It’s got everyone here stumped, too. I’ll send you the report, and we can talk again.”
“Thanks, Wyatt. And let me know if you hear any more from Mexico.”
Eberson’s death was an odd twist that didn’t make any sense. If Pablo’s crew was going to kill him, why didn’t they simply shoot him? And what could have caused the microwave irradiation?
Ann beat Wyatt in phoning the FBI’s Spokane field office—and confirmed what she’d already guessed. The two men killed in Bayview had also carried phony Colombian passports. They had arrived in Idaho on a private chartered flight, which accounted for their ability to bring in weapons. The charter operator was being investigated but had no apparent connection to the Colombians.
Ann opened her laptop and began scouring national law enforcement databases, searching for criminal acts in the U.S. by Colombian nationals. In the National Crime Information Center’s system, she assembled a list of such felonies prosecuted in the past five years. Aside from a few random murders and a bank robbery, the major crimes were primarily drug related, concentrated in Miami and New York. A search of the FBI’s Guardian Threat Tracking System also failed to trigger any obvious links.
Until the FBI completed DNA testing on the bodies in Idaho, she was only chasing ghosts anyway. So she turned her attention to potential internal leaks.
Fowler had given Ann detailed profiles of fifteen DARPA scientists and administrators assigned to the Sea Arrow project. She spent the next hour sifting through the reports, keeping an eye out for the three D’s of nonideological subversion: debt, drugs, and divorce. She made note for Fowler to check up on a female physicist who was undergoing a bitter divorce, as well as a lower-grade engineer who had recently acquired a new Corvette. But, on the surface, none of the employees fit the profile for a security risk.
“Got a second?”
Fowler appeared at her door, walked in and placed a thick folder on her desk. “Here are the staff reports on the DARPA subcontractors working on Sea Arrow. Groton obviously has their own subs under review, plus the Office of Naval Research has a number on their end.”
“What’s the damage locally?”
“Eight private defense contractors, not counting Heiland, plus three university research programs.”
“Enough to keep us busy a while. Thanks, Dan. Can you do me one more favor?”
“Sure, name it.”
“Can you pull the travel history of your DARPA team assigned to Sea Arrow? I want to check for any trips to the major hot spots: East Asia, Russia, and the Middle East.”
“No problem. By the way, here’s the security list for the President’s shipyard tour at Groton a few weeks ago.” He handed her a sheet, which she placed to the side of her desk.
“Interested in lunch?”
“No, I’m good,” she said, diving into the subcontractor data. “Thanks for the reports.”
As she dug into the files, Ann soon realized there was only a peripheral connection between the other contractors and Heiland. Most of the subcontracts focused on hull design and electronic systems, with little, if any, interplay with Heiland’s supercavitation system. Eberson had been the central conduit for all the systems Heiland was developing.
Ann stood and stretched before picking up the security list from the President’s Groton tour. There were only seven names, three from the White House and four from the Pentagon. She immediately noted Tom Cerny’s name. With only Fowler’s off-the-cuff remark as a basis, she phoned in the names to an NCIS colleague and requested an online background check. While she waited to receive an e-mail with the results, she thought of the rarity of a murder like Heiland’s.
The theft of industrial or defense secrets seldom crossed over the line to homicide. Yet Heiland, Eberson, and Manny had been murdered for their work on the Sea Arrow, while Ann and Pitt were nearly added victims. Only a handful of rogue nations would risk such provocative measures, but others might if working through a proxy. The Colombian government certainly wasn’t competing with the U.S. in defense weaponry, so clearly the thieves were working for someone else. But who?
Ann began examining other domestic espionage cases, searching for a pattern. Ignoring terrorist and computer hacking cases, she found that most spy busts involved diplomatic and policy secrets, from individuals or groups serving the old antagonists of Moscow, Beijing, and Havana. Of greater interest were a handful of cases involving military and commercial technology thefts by Chinese operatives. Though none had the earmarks of Heiland’s case, it was clear that China, more than anybody, was aggressively pursuing foreign military technology.
She found that China had a long history of stealing and imitating technology from foreign powers, primarily the Russians. Copycat artillery systems, antiaircraft missiles, and even Navy destroyers had long upset the Kremlin brass. But the Russians weren’t the only target. Several items in the Chinese arsenal bore strong similarities to American weapons. Aviation experts found a suspicious resemblance between China’s J-20 stealth fighter jet and the American F-22A Raptor. The country had recently announced the deployment of a crowd-control system identical in appearance to a device developed by the U.S. Army. And a new Chinese helicopter that mimicked the U.S.’s Apache was said to be imminent.
Engrossed in her work, Ann didn’t realize it was nearing six o’clock until her phone rang. She had covered a lot of ground but had little to show for it. She answered the call with a weary voice, becoming alert when she heard a familiar voice.
“Hi, Ann, it’s Dirk. Still at the salt mine?”
“Yes, chipping away. How are you?”
“Just fine. Say, I was wondering if you could meet me for dinner tomorrow night? I have something we need to discuss.”
“Tomorrow? Yes, that would be fine. Is it something important
?”
“Could be,” Pitt said, hesitating. “I’d like to know if you’d go on a cruise with me.”
29
ANN CAUGHT SEVERAL MEN STARING AT HER AS she swept through the dining room of the Bombay Club with only a slight limp. Dressed in a saffron linen dress that clung to her curves, she resembled a runway model more than a criminal investigator. She ignored the looks as she stepped through the restaurant onto an elegant patio that overlooked Lafayette Park. She quickly spotted Pitt at a corner table.
He was seated next to a tall, attractive woman who looked vaguely familiar. With a touch of unease, Ann forced a smile as she approached the table.
Pitt rose and greeted her warmly. “No more crutches?”
“No, the ankle is much better, I’m happy to say.”
“Ann, I’d like you to meet my wife, Loren.”
Loren sprang to her feet and gave Ann a warm hug. “Dirk’s told me all about your ordeals in Mexico and Idaho. Though he apparently forgot to mention how pretty you are,” she added without spite.
Whatever instinctive resentment Ann may have felt toward Loren melted at the unexpected compliment. “I’m afraid to say that all our troubles went for naught.” Ann gave Pitt a guilty look, and described how she and Fowler had been robbed of Heiland’s research.
“That sounds like no coincidence,” Pitt said, concern etched on his face.
“More like blatant espionage,” Loren said. “We need to get some high-powered resources involved.”
“There’s already at least three FBI teams assigned to the case,” Ann said, “along with DARPA’s staff security and several NCIS investigators, besides me.” She looked at Loren, her eyes brightening in recognition. “You’re the congresswoman from Colorado.”
“Careful, you’ll blow her cover,” Pitt said with a laugh.
“I thought you looked familiar,” Ann said. “I remember your efforts to pass legislation to improve benefits and leave for enlisted parents in the military. You’re a hero to women in the armed forces.”
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