There was nothing exciting about a video screen that was overwhelmingly blank. Maybe all the better, Rong thought with a yawn, to dramatize the climax once it arrived.
* * *
“WE ARE YOUR BACK-UP,” advised the Deputy Assistant Director of Counter-terrorism, whose presence represented for Hildebrandt only his latest puzzlement. “Why don’t you explain what’s going on here?”
Recalling that McBurney had mentioned the possibility of Assistant Director Lance Lee meeting him at the airport earlier that morning, Hildebrandt led Lee and Special Agent Han, the younger agent accompanying him, into the dead executive’s office. Mindful of the urgency several stories beneath them, he quickly recapped events of the previous night, beginning in Reston and leading up to the grisly discovery before them; Hildebrandt found it difficult to follow his own convoluted explanation. He added finally that today’s murder might or might not be the handiwork of the elusive espionage-turned-terrorist suspect.
“We haven’t even begun to get our arms around a motive,” Hildebrandt concluded.
Lee speculated that perhaps the CIA agent might have something to contribute on that note. “What do you think?” The latest FBI arrivals appeared eager for his opinion.
Hildebrandt shrugged. “He doesn’t seem to know much of anything.”
“Maybe there’s something that I can pry out of him.”
“I’ve generally found Mr. McBurney the cooperative type. But you’re certainly welcome to try.”
The official and his associate started at that. “You mean, they’re still here, on the premises?” Lee asked.
Their response struck Hildebrandt as a little bit odd. “Sir, we called in back-up to help secure the building. There doesn’t appear to be an imminent problem, but yeah, if you’d care to join me, I left them all downstairs with my partner.”
Hildebrandt followed behind Lee and Han, who stepped hesitantly around the barrier cones and into the elevator. His hand trembled with fatigue as he reached for the button to descend. Not since some fairly grueling rights-of-passage doled out by the academy had he felt so stressed.
The doors slid shut and Hildebrandt experienced a burst of adrenaline. I hadn’t told Lee that McBurney was still on the premises. Yet Lee had instantly drawn that conclusion—why? It also seemed that the high-ranking official had a habit of materializing whenever Devinn was at large.
Outlandish. Hildebrandt considered the broad implications and rejected them outright. Why, then, had his legs become rubbery?
“I think last time we must’ve just missed each other,” Hildebrandt reflected, allowing fatigue to feign relaxation in his tone.
Lee turned toward him wearing a scowl. “What?”
“Yeah, my partner and I were walking onto the George Washington Bridge, and the agent-in-charge told us you were escorting material evidence away. Or maybe it was the transit authority guy...guess it doesn’t matter.”
Lee and the other man stared at him.
“You were driving the big pickup, right? Had this crane mounted on the bed? We were actually quite impressed, sir. I for one didn’t know the brass got out and roughed it up, you know, getting their hands dirty with us grunts.”
“The grunts sometime don’t give us any choice.”
Probing the senior agent’s stare, to Hildebrandt the guy seemed absolutely humorless. “They said the thing in the bed was heavy. You could’ve at least had somebody accompany you.”
“I didn’t need anybody along. That was the whole idea of the crane.”
You lying son-of-a-bitch. Hildebrandt realized his error in not removing the rubber disc propping open the security door. How could he get word to Brophy and the others with Lee and Han standing right next to him? You can’t, Eddie Boy—you’re on your own.
In the chromium surface of the elevator door, the diffuse reflection of two featureless faces reminded Hildebrandt how dulled by fatigue his reactions were likely to be. Turning his head fractionally, he noted Agent Han’s clasped hands. While inside the dead executive’s office, he had noticed that half of the last two fingers of Han’s right hand were missing. Perhaps that would level the playing field some...
Hildebrandt advised his fellow agents to take standard precautions. The car slid to a stop. He withdrew his Smith & Wesson from the Bianchi leather strapped beneath his soaking wet armpit. Behind him, he saw the men follow suit before the elevator doors retracted their reflected image away.
Nobody moved.
“Is this not the right floor?” Lee asked too casually as he stepped past Hildebrandt out of the elevator.
Agent Han remained in the rear of the elevator, holding his gun at his waist. “After you,” the man said.
“Sure.” He would try to make it look fluid. With Han standing to his left, he angled himself toward the door and, rotating his arm at the elbow, he extended his shoulder—
The blast drove him stumbling from the elevator. His first thought while falling forward was that his vest had trapped the slug. Pain ripping through his chest as he hit the floor delivered the truth. The mistake that the shooter made was not following through—Hildebrandt squeezed off two shots before a spasm rendered his hand useless. The shooter seemed to slip from sight beneath his feet as Hildebrandt’s head fell back with a smack on the floor. The fading image of the ceiling tiles transformed before his eyes to the kitchen floor inside his own home, his son clutching his leg and gazing into his face, smiling his gappy tooth six-year old’s smile. Everything became dark.
“Motherfuck!” screamed Special Agent Han as he slid against the back of the elevator to the floor, clutching his groin, pain and fear twisting his face. “I’m hit! I’m really hit...”
“I can see that.” Lance Lee actually was not without sympathy. He knelt beside Agent Hildebrandt to retrieve the fallen agent’s revolver. Then he leveled it at Han’s head. “Sorry.”
FATIGUE AND DISBELIEF tempered Emily’s response to the incoming lines of text scrolling onto her screen. “It’s here...” she whispered. “Hey! I’ve got it!”
Thackeray clambered out of his chair. “What’s the encryption?”
Emily opened the largest file first. It would take a minute. Good—there seemed to be more definition than they had expected. “Looks like DES!”
Thack dashed back to his workstation. “Plug it in!”
Digital Encryption Standard was a relatively common routine, which Emily found almost too good to be true. She counseled herself not to let her thoughts get too far afield from her fingers. Maybe, just maybe...
“Okay, got it. I need the transmission frequency and the key—the key, Emily, the key! Hey, how long is it?”
Emily’s finger came down on send. “You’ve got it!”
They heard deep in the distance what sounded like an explosion, then another and another. Emily spun her chair when a fourth echoed through the facility. Stuart had gone pale and was looking at McBurney. Emily’s voice trembled as she asked, “Was that—”
BOOM! Emily jumped from her chair. Obviously a gun had been fired just outside the door.
McBurney got there first. He cupped his hands to his mouth, “Brophy!”
Brophy’s shout was muffled. “Open the door!”
McBurney gripped the handle with both hands and gave it a pull—it unlatched with Brophy pushing hard from outside. In the instant the door burst open, a stray bullet sheared through the thin steel of the door and zipped inches past McBurney’s head. He tumbled backward beneath Agent Brophy, whose neck exploded in a bloody spray on their way to the floor.
“Get him off me!” McBurney shouted, kicking his legs and wriggling frantically to free himself of Brophy’s lead-heavy torso. “Shut the door, shut the door!”
But Brophy’s legs were blocking the door. Stuart grabbed two fists full of the immobile man’s clothing and—phutt!—a bullet whizzed past his ear. Emily screamed, Stuart flinched and he reached for Brophy’s handgun. He gritted his teeth and thrust his arm around the half-ope
n door. Without seeing to aim he squeezed the trigger three times—the semiautomatic coughed three deafening blasts. They cleared McBurney and Brophy and slammed the door shut.
Stuart and McBurney dragged Brophy by his armpits over the floor to the workstations. They knelt, chests heaving, collecting their bearings. McBurney reached to make the obligatory check for a pulse. Shaking his head, the CIA officer bunched the collar of Brophy’s parka over the eviscerated throat. He draped the man’s arms over his chest.
“We need some more time here, Stu,” snarled Thackeray, who then muttered something angrily that nobody understood. A badly shaken Emily spun her chair around in order to resume her work.
Stuart asked McBurney, “Could you see who it was?”
“Are you kidding?” He used his sleeves to wipe Brophy’s blood from his face.
“What do we do now?”
McBurney was nonplussed. “There’s someone out there with a gun. Do you want to challenge him to a duel?”
Stuart lowered his voice to a harsh whisper. “So we just sit here and hope he decides to go away? Maybe you noticed that door isn’t bulletproof. Or maybe he’ll choose the back entrance.”
“Ah, Jesus...”
Stuart removed the clip from Brophy’s semiautomatic pistol. Forty-five caliber, he saw.
“How many?” McBurney asked.
“Five, plus one in the chamber.” He rammed the clip back home.
“Be careful with that thing,” McBurney advised. “What about those distant shots?”
Brophy had reported that the gun used by Devinn, or whoever had killed Perry, must be fitted with a silencer. “Maybe that was Hildebrandt.” Remembering Hildebrandt should have called by now, Stuart walked over and picked up the telephone. He dialed Linda Potter’s number, received no answer, and then he followed with several others. In each instance, nobody answered.
“They must all be outdoors,” he said, “or something.”
“Will cell phones work down here?” McBurney asked.
“Forget it,” Thackeray said, eyes glued to his screen.
Both engineers remained hunched over their keyboards. Stuart suspected nothing short of a bomb going off would impede the frenzy of their work. “Here’s how I see it,” he said, turning toward McBurney. “They’ve killed twice trying to get in here, assuming Hildebrandt isn’t among the casualties. We’ve got one gun to cover two doors. I had the impression in the van that you and Hildebrandt thought Devinn might not be acting alone.”
McBurney rubbed his hands over his face.
“Am I right?”
“Probably. You seem to know how to use that.”
Stuart hefted Agent Brophy’s Glock 30 in his hand. Unlike the .357 caliber Colt he had kept loaded bedside for years, this gun consisted primarily of a lightweight polymer. He found the feel a bit discomforting, like a toy from his youth. It certainly didn’t shoot like a toy. “I can manage. You?”
“I’m actually not a big fan. All right, this is what I guess we should do...”
122
STUART THOUGHT THE DISTANT, metallic clang sounded as though it might have come from inside the well. Hoping he was wrong, he left Emily and Thackeray oblivious to all but their monitors and crept toward the rear of the computer facility.
Staring down the dark stairwell entrance to the well, it was tempting to blame the hum of the powerful servers for playing tricks on his ears. He thought of McBurney, who at that moment probably was dodging cubicle to cubicle racing for cover more illusory than real. Stuart chided himself and started down the stairwell.
Leading with the barrel of the dead FBI agent’s handgun, Stuart was met by the usual rush of pressurized air as he eased open the door. The well inside was minimally lit, like the rest of the facility, but his eyes were drawn to an object near the middle of the empty floor. It looked like a simple box wrench—his ears had not deceived him, after all. Sticking his head past the edge of the door had not gotten it blown off, so he stepped fully inside the well. He had no sooner let the door close gently behind him than he swore under his breath for having forgotten to ask Thackeray for the access code.
High overhead, the two imposing laser modules bore down on him. Each was accessible by a catwalk that bridged the ceiling space three stories above the floor. Of course, whoever might have dropped the tool was nowhere in sight. Stuart remembered being able to enter the suspended walkway through either the electrical breaker room or at the opposite side, through an access door atop a short flight of stairs above the observation deck. He craned his neck and squinted; it looked as though somebody had left the cowling propped open on one of the lasers. Perry had told him that the ordered closure of the Project facility was abruptly enacted. He still found it hard to believe the wrench had fallen of its own accord.
Despite an abundance of caution it took only a minute to climb the stairs to the breaker room. Stuart slowly opened the door leading out onto the elevated catwalk. Never one for heights, particularly open mesh walkways, his eyes continuously scanned the vast cavern below as he approached the laser with its cowling propped open. On the walkway nearby he found a large mechanic’s box, and scattered beside it, an assortment of tools. A cursory check beneath the open cowling indicated that none of the components appeared to be missing or disturbed...
His eye dipped below the catwalk toward the source of diffuse light. Somebody had left a door open inside the observation deck.
MCBURNEY DROPPED to one knee and assessed Agent Hildebrandt’s enormous loss of blood. Ten feet away, the apparent aggressor in the grisly dual had fared even worse—Hildebrandt had blown away a chunk of the man’s cranium.
McBurney shook his head. It was sadly evident that his FBI friend had not died quickly. He picked up the handgun from the floor beside Hildebrandt’s open hand. After checking to see that he could operate it, he gathered himself off the floor. He was tempted now to go back inside; he had left the door ajar with his shoe in order to preserve that option. On the other hand, Stuart wasn’t exactly defenseless, and so the question was whether to continue upstairs in order to summon help.
McBurney stepped over to read the display monitor beside the security door. He frowned—it showed a tally of six people inside the facility. There was no way to know if he had succeeded in his attempt to lure anyone away from the others simply by what the monitor read. Six...but with Brophy dead, that leaves three total friendlies...Hildebrandt must’ve been outnumbered.
Without warning, somebody slammed the security door shut.
“Hey!” McBurney hammered the door with his fist. “Open this damn DOOR!” He looked at the security console. Blasting it with Hildebrandt’s gun would accomplish little if anything. He had stupidly allowed somebody else to narrow his options. McBurney kicked the door and swore.
It was then that he heard a peculiar sound. He turned from the door and knelt beside Hildebrandt. Studying the blood-soaked clothing covering the man’s shoulder, he placed a finger on the agent’s jugular...he was surprised to discover a faint pulse. Placing his head next to the floor he could see the rise and fall of Hildebrandt’s chest. A faint gurgling sound accompanied each breath.
“Hang on, Ed.” He reached over and gently moved the FBI agent’s bad arm to place it over his chest—Hildebrandt groaned. “Just hang on, we’re going to get you out of here.” McBurney stood and dropped the pistol into his pants pocket. “Maybe your friends aren’t as smart as they think.” He bent over and, carefully gripping Hildebrandt beneath each of his armpits, began dragging him toward the elevator.
STUART STARED AT THE LIGHT SPILLING out from the half-open door. He was uncertain whether to proceed or simply turn and retrace his steps. Wandering into the observation deck was maybe not so bright given the limited avenues for retreat. It struck him with stark clarity that his occasional plinking didn’t qualify him as any kind of a marksman.
To his immediate left was the wall of Lexan overlooking the well; empty theatre-style seating to his right. Extending
the muzzle of the handgun in front of him, he hauled open the heavy door to the capacitor room and rushed inside. He swept his eyes around the broad belly of the massive device, and also up over his head into the cavern where it extended into the darkness. He lowered his arms. There appeared to be no one inside.
Stuart returned to the observation deck feeling foolish, realizing he could have found more space to hide in a clothes closet. Glancing at his watch, he also realized that he had completely lost track of the time.
KA-BOOM! The loud whipcrack drove Stuart to the floor. The expected shower of glass never came and he removed his arms from covering his head. He looked up to find the flattened projectile embedded in a starburst of blast-proof glass. Stuart poked his head up over the bottom of the window frame. On the opposite side of the well, he glimpsed a shadowed head and arm just as someone withdrew behind the closing door of the electrical breaker room.
Stuart’s fear turned to outrage. He climbed to his feet and rushed to the steps leading back up to the catwalk. Whoever fired the shot would now be descending from the breaker room to the well, and would then have to expose himself to Stuart outside the door leading to Emily and Thackeray. Stuart bounded up the steps and burst out onto the catwalk. But would Devinn expose himself with somebody poised to fire down from above? No—he would make his way back through other corridors leading to...where? SHIT—I don’t know my way around this fucking place. He thought he remembered that the corridor behind the breaker room led away from the supercomputer...
Stuart stopped, chest heaving, and he thought: Wait—that can’t be Devinn. I’m being led away. His decision made, Stuart turned and ran back to the observation deck.
HAVING HEARD THE DISTANT SHOT, Paul Devinn waited to see that the unprotected entrance remained that way. A minute later he stood with his ear to the door, listening to the debate underway inside.
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