Black Ops Bundle: Volume One

by Allan Leverone

  "I don't believe you for a second," Petrovich said, and Parker interjected.

  "He's telling the truth. The operative assigned to the Ghani job had a mental breakdown two days ago."

  Petrovich started laughing, taking several seconds to regain control of himself. "Imagine that. Another one of your willing participants, General? And for the record, Parker, your glorious leader may be telling the truth about the last minute assignment, but his truths can be slippery. One way or the other, my life in Portland, Maine, was scheduled to come to an end today. It didn't matter who killed Ghani. Once the list of operatives surfaced, I was burned. Having that assassination shoved down my throat gave me a little more time to prepare for the inevitable," Daniel said.

  "Nice work by the way. Parker should have provided you with a knife," Sanderson said.

  "I keep a few around the house for the occasional murder," Daniel replied, wondering how much the general really knew about what happened the night of Ghani's murder.

  "Parker, what do you think?" Sanderson asked.

  "Based on the profile workup I'm seeing in this laptop, and Brown River's involvement, I'm pretty sure we have two problems at the CIA. Keller's memory is one, and that needs to be erased, but I think we have a bigger problem out there. Someone moved pretty quickly to take you out, and they didn't hire a few ghetto thugs to do the job. Keller took the information back to the CIA, and within a few hours, they found you. That's both impressive and frightening, and suggests the work of someone highly placed within the CIA, with NSA contacts…"

  "Or a leak within your group," Daniel interjected.

  "There's no leak here. Parker's the only one other than myself that knew about you, and I trust him completely. Whoever activated the Brown River team has a personal grudge against something you did while assigned to the Black Flag program. I can only think of one possibility."

  Daniel tensed at the thought that someone at the CIA had made the connection to a secret he had taken every precaution to keep buried. Secrets like Daniel's died hard, and Sanderson's supernatural efforts to resurrect Black Flag might have raised a few other unintended specters from their burial sites. He had no choice but to finish this day's work for Sanderson. Black Flag would rise from the ashes, but Daniel's connection to Zorana Zekulic had to be put back under the ground, for good.

  "Do you have anyone working in Langley?" Daniel said.

  General Sanderson smiled, which gave Petrovich little satisfaction.

  "We have a few people in the CIA, but not at Langley."

  "I guess it doesn't matter. Colonel, what is Keller's status? Will he need to be hospitalized?" Daniel asked.

  "No, I hit him with a Taser and gave him a specialized neurotoxin. He might be coming around right now. The toxin is harmless, as far as we know," Farrington said.

  "They'll still take him to the hospital, or FBI headquarters for questioning. The FBI is going to shut everything down, I assume," Petrovich said.

  "They'll be in a panic. As of thirty minutes ago, they lost every link to Black Flag and any hope of figuring out what happened today. The trail went cold for them," Sanderson said.

  "We need to take care of the CIA problem immediately. I can breach hospital security. Might get messy, but they probably wouldn't expect it, especially since Keller was left unharmed at the Pentagon. I assume Farrington left him alive so we could find the bigger fish?" Petrovich said.

  "Precisely. Brown River's involvement suggested a bigger issue. Pictures of you in this laptop confirm it. I doubt Keller will consent to hospitalization. He'll want to report immediately to his supervising agent. I'm not the only one who will suggest the Brown River CIA connection. He'll most likely report in person, and I have an idea where they might meet. If my instincts prove correct, we'll be able to take them both out at once."

  "I don't think we have the resources available to breach Langley," Daniel said.

  General Sanderson gave him a quizzical look and shook his head.

  "You were always fucking crazy, and I mean that in a good way," Sanderson said.

  "I didn't take it any other way."

  "People talk in this town. Rumors fly…it's hard to keep a secret. There's a wonderful, quiet little street in Georgetown that I'd like you and the colonel to visit."

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  9:45 p.m.

  FBI Satellite Office, Portland, Maine

  Special Agent D'Angelo led Edwards and Jessica Petrovich through a small maze of hallways and offices shared by several federal law enforcement agencies on the fourth floor of the building. The FBI officially occupied two rooms toward the back. One was Special Agent D'Angelo's office, and the other served as an administrative support center, with room for an assistant, several file cabinets, and a large all-in-one copy/fax machine. The different agencies shared a conference room past the DEA's offices, several doors down, and this was their destination. As team leader, Edwards had been given one of the spare offices used by agents on assignment to Maine, but hadn't felt the need to leave anything there. Everyone else processed the information he needed and reported to him, so there was little need for a briefcase or files.

  While he walked the key piece of the FBI's puzzle to the conference room, his team was busy at her house with local police detectives, searching for evidence and clues linking her husband to the murder in Cape Elizabeth. He didn't think they would find anything relevant at the house. The Cape Elizabeth murder scene had been sterile and yielded nothing useful to the investigation. Still, he couldn't voice this opinion openly.

  He had received a call from Special Agent Frank Mendoza stressing the importance of finding information that might help them locate Petrovich, so he put his relatively useless team to work processing the house. Address books with friends' information, computer contact lists, bank information, and the pictures. They seemed really focused on scanning and downloading every picture of Petrovich in the house. It sounded like another waste of time, but he could tell it was important to someone back in D.C. Hopefully D'Angelo would join his team back at the house. So far she had proved useful dealing with the locals, and he had made a mistake by keeping her out of the raid on Petrovich's house.

  "Here you go, Mrs. Petrovich. Would you like some coffee, water, or a soda?" D'Angelo said, standing at the door to the conference room.

  "I'm fine right now, thank you. Is there a bathroom I can use to change?"

  "You can use one of the spare offices right across the hall. Do you have any shoes?" D'Angelo said.

  "We sort of left in a hurry," she said.

  "It was a hostile environment. They'll be lucky if she doesn't press charges," Edwards said, and D'Angelo shot him a concerned look.

  "I've already heard," she said and added, "I keep a pair of running shoes in my office. You can use those for now."

  "That would be great, Agent D'Angelo. I can't thank you enough. My head is still swimming," Jess said and walked across the hall to an empty office with her outfit.

  Once the door to the spare office shut, D'Angelo turned to Edwards.

  "What happened at the house? I get a call from Lieutenant Moody, and he's pissed. Pissed at you. Pissed at the FBI. Said you treated his officers like shit. Justin, I have to deal with these guys when you leave. Can you take it easy on them?"

  "You should have seen what was going on over there. If we treated anyone like that, we'd have a lawsuit on our hands and agents would be fired," Edwards said.

  "Unfortunately, I wasn't there," she said and paused. "Moody said she pulled a weapon on his men?"

  "She had a spoon. I saw it on the floor next to her. That's the level of professionalism we're dealing with here. They're just looking to crack some skulls, and they're not about to let a spoon get in the way. I don't know how you deal with this level of incompetence on a daily basis," Edwards said.

  "They're fine. I should have been there to run interference," she stated.

  "They're not fine, but you're right. You should have been the
re. I think you should head over and make sure everyone is getting along with my agents," he said.

  D'Angelo stared at him for a few seconds, and he couldn't get a read from her.

  "Are you sure it's a good idea for me to leave the two of you alone here?"

  "I can handle her…what are you saying, D'Angelo?"

  "Nothing. I'm just not sure it's safe for the two of you. I'd feel more comfortable if you brought her to the police station across the street. I'll smooth things out for you," she said.

  "No way. Her husband killed a cop in D.C. You didn't see the looks she was getting at the house. No way I'm marching her into that building," he said, pointing across the street at the Portland Police Department headquarters building.

  "When did you learn this? This is the kind of thing I need to know," she said, irritated.

  "I got a call from my task force ops center while we were in the house. Your local boys got the news right about the same time, and it started to get ugly," he said.

  D'Angelo stood her ground, shaking her head and grimacing.

  "You didn't see it," he insisted.

  "That's the point. I wasn't there. I know you don't like dealing with the locals, me included, but this is the real world. These guys don't give a shit where you went to college, or what field offices you've been assigned to in the past. They judge you right on the spot, and you don't get many second chances to make an impression. I'll head over to the house to make sure things are running smoothly. I'd recommend staying here until I get back."

  "We might step out to grab some dinner. She hasn't eaten since lunch," Edwards said.

  "I'd order pizza. There are sodas in the fridge. You don't want her out on the streets if her husband is wrapped up into whatever happened today. I still think you should be over in the other building," she said.

  "We'll be fine here," he replied, and the door to the office slowly opened.

  "I hope so. Let me get you those shoes," she said to Jessica, who appeared in the hallway from the spare office.

  She wore a pair of dark jeans and an untucked, white-patterned, long-sleeve blouse. She had pulled her hair back tight into a ponytail. Edwards thought she looked incredible and caught himself staring. If he could have seen D'Angelo's face, he would have known that Jessica's security situation wasn't her only concern. He had no idea that his reputation as a misogynistic womanizer preceded him everywhere in the FBI.

  "Is everything all right?" Jessica said.

  "Absolutely. Why don't you grab a seat at the table," Edwards said, leading her inside the small conference room.

  D'Angelo returned a few minutes later with a pair of white running shoes and socks.

  "These will look a little clunky with that outfit," she said.

  "They'll be fine for getting around in here. I hate walking around in bare feet, especially in an office. At least this office is clean. You should see mine…junk all over the floors. It's really quite disgusting," Jessica said, and Edwards thought she sounded a little less shell-shocked.

  "Sounds good. I'll be over at the house. Stay in touch," she said to Edwards.

  "Make sure they don't tear the place apart. They did a lot of damage breaking in," Edwards said, figuring the place was already destroyed, but wanting to score points with Jessica.

  "I'm sure they won't do any more damage," D'Angelo said and left the office.

  As soon as she was gone, Edwards walked back into the conference room with a legal pad and a few pens, which he tossed on the table in front of Jessica.

  "Can we get something to eat? I don't know if I'll be able to concentrate. I could use a strong drink, too, if that's allowed," she said, smiling demurely.

  Edward couldn't have been happier. The whole evening was shaping up nicely. Jessica had no food in her stomach and didn't appear to have any hang-ups about alcohol. He would delay her request long enough to plant the seed of fear and distrust about her husband in her, then loosen her up enough with alcohol to spill the information needed to track down her husband. A few more drinks after that, and he could offer her some kind of deal to help her husband, for a price. He'd administer a few chemicals at some point later in the evening to remove that memory and leave her in a confused state of exhaustive guilt.

  "Let's go over some basic questions, and we can take a walk down into the Old Port to grab a late dinner. My treat."

  "Thank you. I know a nice Italian place that stays open late. It's not very far from here," she said.

  "Sounds like a plan. So, tell me, did your husband come home later than usual last night, or run any last minute errands that seemed odd?" he said, hoping to catch her off guard with a direct question.

  "I don't think…" she said, pausing, "he had soccer practice, but they practice all the time…last night was an extra practice. They haven't been winning many games lately, so it seemed normal, I guess. He was home by eight."

  "Can you provide me with some contact information for his soccer team? I'll need to check into this," he said and grabbed the yellow legal pad and a pen.

  "Sure. His league plays at the big indoor field near Westbrook. I think it's the Portland Sports Complex. I can give you the numbers of some of the guys on his team when we get back to my house. Was the murder before eight?"

  "I can't really disclose any of the details regarding the investigation, but the information you provide is critical to figuring it out," Edwards said.

  "Danny wouldn't shoot anyone," she said.

  "Mr. Ghani wasn't shot."

  "What happened?" she asked.

  "I suppose the details will become public knowledge soon enough," he said, leaning in a little for effect.

  "It was brutal and efficient. The work of a professional killer. Single stab wound through the neck and into the chest cavity. I've never seen that much blood before at a murder scene. I really hope it wasn't your husband. How familiar are you with Daniel's military background?" he said and looked up into her terrified eyes.

  "Danny's not capable of doing something like that. He barely touches knives in the kitchen. He's sort of clumsy with them…" she said, and her voice trailed off.

  "What about his military training?" he pressed.

  "He was in the navy for eight years or so, but he wasn't like a SEAL or anything. He was on a ship. He'd been stationed in Europe for a few years before we met in business school at BU," she said.

  "Have you ever met any of his navy friends?"

  "I think so. I don't really know. He doesn't really talk about it much."

  "Eight years is a long time not to make friends," Edwards said.

  "I guess, but…he got to live in Europe, and…"

  "Have you noticed anything strange about him lately?"

  "No."

  "Calls coming into his phone at odd times?"

  "No. Not that I can remember," she said.

  Edwards studied her closely. She had emerged from the office reenergized in a fresh outfit, peppy and uplifted, but now she looked glum again. He would continue to pepper her with meaningless questions for another twenty or thirty minutes, occasionally casting a few well-crafted questions designed to raise serious doubts about the man she married and ultimately break down her natural instinct to protect him. A few drinks should seal the deal on Daniel Petrovich…a few more drinks would ensure that the hotel room he reserved in the Old Port wouldn't go to waste.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  10:50 p.m.

  FBI Headquarters, Washington, D.C.

  A dull murmur had blanketed the operations center for nearly twenty minutes, as agents simply ran their last assigned tasks into the ground. Little to no evidence was found throughout the day at any of the eight murder sites along the East Coast, aside from the fortuitous and purely accidental acquisition of one of their murder suspects, who was no longer in custody.

  Of the two Brown River contractors captured in Silver Spring, only one was conscious, and he swore up and down that their operation was a legally sanctioned counterterrorist
operation. Of course, he had no evidence to back this claim, other than his insistence that the group's team leader had specifically briefed them prior to departing Brown River's headquarters in Fredericksburg, Virginia. Jeremy Cummings, apparent team leader for the eight men, lay dead in the Natural Foods, surrounded by forensics specialists and police officers.

  The FBI raids didn't look promising either. The data processing and analysis team, led by Special Agent O'Reilly, had been busy processing images from over a dozen raid locations, and Sharpe considered shifting other agents in an effort to assist them. So far, nothing immediately useful had been recovered at any of the raid sites, and the trail had gone cold for every one of the operatives on the supplied Black Flag list, except for Petrovich.

  His wife had been home when Special Agent Edwards' team hit the house, and Daniel Petrovich had reported to his job earlier that day, which further supported his loose theory that Petrovich was a last minute replacement for the mental patient guy in New Hampshire. The rest of the Black Flag suspects had gone underground over a week before, taking family with them.

  Sharpe flipped open his cell phone again and tried to call Mendoza. He knew that cell phones wouldn't be allowed in the Compartmentalized Information Section, especially if they discovered a problem, but he could barely stand the suspense. Mendoza had left nearly thirty minutes earlier and should have arrived at the Sanctum by now. He had a terrible feeling about what they would find.

  Special Agent Weber called out from the communication section, one of the few busy areas in the operations center.

  "Sir, it's Mendoza," he said, and Sharpe ran across the room.

  "Frank, give me some good news. The trail on Munoz has gone cold. Eight heavily-armed men just vanished into thin air," he said.

  "Ryan, it's bad over here. The Sanctum was breached, and the file is gone."

  "Be careful what you say over the phone, Frank."

  "I understand. The only one missing is the colonel in charge. Farrington. He departed the Pentagon at exactly 9:52. Looked like Hannibal Lecter got loose in that room, Ryan."