Systematic Attrition

by Waggoner, Robert C.

  In his room at the hotel he called his wife back in Oregon to give her a report on the recent activities. It was around four am when she picked up the phone knowing who was calling. Twenty minutes later he had her up to speed and then asked how their little guy was doing. She told him all was well and that the training too was going better than expected as her body was responding exceptionally well. He signed off telling her he missed her and little Brian with the other news by leaving for New York City in the morning.

  Formidable Foe

  Chapter 7

  Mike Henshaw met them at the airport in New York’s Kennedy airport. He’d rented a van so there was lots of room for all as he filled them in on the two suspects and their movements yesterday. Nothing out of the ordinary as they left work and then stayed home all night leaving in the morning to work; just like a normal family commute to work and coming home to the wife and kids. Mike told them he booked them in at a medium priced hotel just off Wall Street and that is where they went to study the files on all of the upper level cabinet members. Brad last night had Nancy call New York and have Billy’s room outfitted with whatever computers he wanted and now the stage was slowly being set for an offensive move rather than sitting back and waiting for another murder.

  Sitting in the coffee shop of the hotel Brad and the rest of the team read the news from the Washington Post for the New York Times about the cover up of the murder, not suicide of the undersecretary of state. A connection was suspected between the former speaker and the latest assassination of the undersecretary. All agreed the press had the ball and was moving toward the end zone with this breaking news as they called it. Brad said to the group, “Well Mike and friends what is our next move?”

  Mike said, “I think we should make it obvious that we are on to them and put some heat to see where it leads us. Sitting around waiting is not going to work. Maybe we can scare them a little or enough they will call it a job and go to ground.”

  Wendy was next and said, “I’m not sure of that. If they know we are on to them how can we prove they were responsible for two murders. This action would only make them more cautious and harder to build a case. I think we need to connect them to the assassin and a money trail or computer link or something like that.”

  Brad looked at Billy and he said with a fork full of hash browns, “With these two names Mike gave me I will tell you what color socks they have on today and by nightfall how much they pay a babysitter.”

  “Ok, let’s head upstairs and do some reading to see who might be next on the list of victims.” Billy made for the outdoors to smoke and jaw jack with the door man while the rest of them went to Brad’s room for a day of reading. Brad took the files on the VP, defense and state secretaries, while Wendy and Brad took the others. After an hour or so Nancy called to tell him about the bank she was at and the mainframe room deep in the basement. They were finished and would do rush job on the prints and fibers found in the filters and floor. The steel table produced a lot of fingerprints and it would be a long time before anything was known, but it was a beginning. She told him if he wasn’t busy tonight how about dinner and he agreed.

  Four hours later Brad thought he had his man. He’d started his career with the Regan people back in the eighties and other than Clinton, he’d continued with the Republican administrations up until the present time when he held the Secretary of Defense job. Brad put him in the eyes and minds of the PAE and saw an arrogant man mostly on his own mission of controlling the Middle East keeping the oil base in America. So what if a few lives were sacrificed for the good of the whole. It appeared he was a contemporary Patton who thought he knew better than the president when it came to foreign policy. This guy, Brad thought was a loose cannon and surely must be on their list. It was kind of a toss-up between the National Security Advisor and the Defense Secretary. Let’s see what the others have come up with as he called them on the phone asking for a meeting. Both knocked on the door coming in with red eyes and a stack of files. Brad called Billy and told him to bring what he had and join them, but first have a cigarette or two. Brad smiled at that last statement and then waited for Wendy to give what she had on her people. She said, “The only one under the criteria we agreed upon that shows promise, God I hate that word promise, is the Attorney General. The rest of them are staunch Republicans, except the current Secretary of State who doesn’t have the far right beliefs of the other two victims we know about. She appears middle stream”

  Brad looked at Mike knowing it was Billy knocking on the door. Wendy jumped up and opened the door to a smiling face staring at her like he’d just got caught with his hand in a cookie jar. He brushed past her and flopped on the sofa with Rocky landing on top of him. It always seemed to Brad that Billy broke the tension when he was around and in a few minutes he would be all business again. Finally Brad told Rocky to behave and Billy sat up saying, “Those two guys are clean as a whistle. Actually they’re too clean if you ask me. They both earn six figure incomes and pay taxes in around twenty percent of income. Investments include blue chip stocks and mostly hi tech stuff. They donate heavily to the church and take few vacations as most lawyers work sixty hour weeks. Well, that is about it for these guys.”

  Brad then said, “What were you so happy about when you came in. I thought maybe you had something special to tell us.”

  Billy, with another of those grins said, “Well, I left the best part out and that was last August these two guys made a trip to Florida for a long weekend with others from their church. I got a list of the people who went with them and low and behold, three more like the guys who work for a different law firm surfaced from the list. I ran a check on them and all five seem to have been cloned from the same mother. If I don’t miss my guess, this is the core of the group we are looking for. I have names and address and the whole ball of wax in a file for each of you fine people.”

  Brad opened the file Billy handed him and scanned the five guys who were probably the one’s responsible for the deaths of two Americans. As Billy said, nothing unusual was learned from any of the names on the list, except one, that caught his eye. Something about the last name made a buzzing sound in his head. It would come soon and he sat the file down and asked the team what they should do next. Mike took a chance and said, “Well, if we know these are the core, then we have to find the dude who is contacting the Ninja guy. How are we going to root him out? We can tail each of them as they probably are ignorant of tails. But if he is using a cell phone or the internet, or a prearranged schedule, we are SOL.”

  Billy spoke up saying, “I have my guys on each name as we speak and will have a full list of their e-mails soon. We can also get their cell phone numbers and do the same thing. I see the noose getting tighter and maybe we can get lucky before they hit another victim. Also by tomorrow some time we will have their company e-mails too. And what might take bit longer to sort through their phone calls at work and home. Happy days are here again and now I’m hungry for both a something to eat and a half pack of cigarettes.”

  Brad told them Nancy was coming for dinner and would meet her downstairs in the restaurant at seven. “It is now six thirty so I for one am going to take a shower and call home,” as he stood up indicating the meeting was over. After calling home and in the shower he thought about the secretary of defense being the next target. He believed that it would be pushing their luck to assassinate the defense secretary. By now he was surrounded by security agents and probably had one sleeping with him as it was rumored he was still in the closet. He’s been married but his wife died having their second child and he never remarried. Not that made him gay, but his staff in his house, other than the cook, was young men working their way through college. What was his next appointment that was known to the press and staff, he wondered while standing under the hot shower letting the water hammer away the stress from his head. Nancy would know he thought as he stepped out and toweled dry.

  Brad was the last one to sit down with the team. Nancy looked wru
ng out and her makeup couldn’t hide the dark rings on her face. Her usual tall frame was hunched over as she sat in at the table sipping a glass of white wine. She looked all in and Brad decided to make light conversation rather than discuss the case in detail. He did ask her, however if she knew what the defense secretary’s schedule was and she, efficient in most ways, dug in her large bag for a notebook she always had at the ready. “Let’s see,” she said as she flipped a couple of pages, “he’s just back from South Korea and is not scheduled to leave the country for a few weeks when he will go to Belgium for a NATO meeting.” She looked up from her notebook and looking at Brad asked, “Do you think he is the next target?”

  Brad answered, “Maybe, to me it seems logical, but to these guys, who knows for sure except them. An assassination attempt on the secretary of defense would rock the country after the last two and pressure would come from all liberals demanding some sort of compromise or god knows what they might say. I will say this, it just can’t happen and we must stop these guys before they strike again. Once again we all agree they are smart as hell and what if they change to another killing method and we keep on chasing the Asian phantom? Sorry to get into this while we are going to have dinner, but you asked and there is still more, but for the time being, let’s have a nice dinner together.”

  Billy excused himself and left for a couple of Marlboros and to clear his head a little. Mike sat thinking how he would kill the secretary if he was an assassin and came up blank other than a long range shot from a building or something like that. Wendy had an idea, but was afraid to speak up just then. She would wait until the time was right to say what was on her mind. Meanwhile dinner orders were taken and salads arrived along with Billy renewed with nicotine and an appetite worthy of a mountain man.

  Brad flashed back on his first meeting with Nancy Longstreet in Sacramento with the old FBI director. She had a chip on her shoulder the size of a piece of large driftwood. The former FBI director had led her down the primrose lane hoping she could be the cog in the wheel of the Batt Team the director so despised. Whatever the director intended it backfired and he lost his job and if it wasn’t for Brad she would have cleaned her desk out too. He saw real potential in Nancy and brought her to the Round House for some soul searching. He felt she would either find herself or head back east to the comfort of her lover. In the final analysis she found a new lease on life and now she was one of the FBI top special agents. While Brad was thinking about her, she was thinking about him and her subsequent time after she came to stay with them at the beach. She now had respect for him and his team. He especially had the uncanny ability to reason out and lay a plan for all to follow when it came to very complicated operations like the Senior Killer. He alone guessed correctly that John the serial killer would have his brother's murder a senior citizen while hundreds of miles away he would do the same thing. Now she sat there eating her dinner and when this case was over, she would ask him if she could be part of the team. Her lover would not like it if she was not in DC, but after so many years living together, both felt the need of a change. The higher up in the FBI knew she was gay, but in this day and age, she managed to hold her head up and do her job better than some others. However, she was as high as she could go in the FBI and that bothered her. She could only follow orders and even though she didn’t mind that so much she longed for the excitement of brainstorming in the circle room downstairs learning from the gentle and brilliant man Brad Pratt. To her he seemed so pure and real, not like most men she knew as macho stuffed shirts, or power hungry climbers. He rarely ordered but suggested and followed up by guiding each team member along the way. What Nancy really like was his relationship with his wife Sujin? He was patient and sensitive to her needs. He was always a step ahead of the others in his vision of the future, but took the blame and shared the rewards of the teams operation. She looked up and he caught her eye and gave off one of his boyish smiles that would melt anyone including her.

  Wendy guessed correctly as she saw Nancy in deep thought and then looks up at Brad. She wasn’t jealous, quite the contrary, she was a little happy that Nancy had decided to fully and completely work hard for their mutual good and for the good of the country.

  * * *

  The PAE group sat in a different hotel than the last time when they met. Now, however, unknown to them the FBI was on location after following them each to the hotel. Nancy was informed of the meeting and she yelled at the agents to get some eves dropping equipment on site now. They knew the room number and what time they all arrived, but they failed to hear much of the conversation until the meeting was almost over.

  Inside the room talk was beginning when one said to anyone that was listening, “The papers and TV are locked on like a pit bull to the assassinations. I for one am getting a little nervous. Surely the FBI and the Batt team haven’t been sitting around doing nothing; are we followed; do they have a line for us; my god they could be listening to us right now with the hi tech equipment nowadays.”

  “Calm down Peter. They have nothing on us and no way to connect us. And so what if they are following us. As far as anyone knows we are having a group sex meeting with a whore. Now, my advice is this is our last meeting and we are here now to have a backup plan if our guy falls into a net. After this one the second will take over for the next two I’m told.” All was quiet and a knock at the door nearly shocked the hell out of them all.

  “Easy guys, we are clean so don’t worry,” as he got up to answer the door. Opening the door room service with a cart and a knockout looking girl smiled back at him.

  His mouth open she said, “Compliments of the hotel Mr. Smith. We thought you might like some refreshments,” as she pushed her way in and deposited the cart in the middle of the room. She turned to go with a big smile as one of the guys gave her a tip. She closed the door and the one who opened the door strolled to the cart which was loaded with drinks of various sorts from juice to hard liquor. He shrugged his shoulders and cracked open an apple juice as the other guys made for the cart. Few people cannot accept anything free and this was surely the case with the five guys in the hotel room. A few minutes later they all sat back down and the meeting continued.

  A quiet guy broke the silence saying in a very high pitched voice, “I for one am in for the long haul and let’s keep on schedule. When again is the secretary to meet his maker in hell?”

  February 17th when he give a press conference and that will end the Asian connection unless plan B falls through. The plan B person is wacko and even though he comes highly recommended and his fee is in place, I’m just not comfortable with him. However, I agree, let’s keep on schedule,” as he drank at the hotel expense not realizing the cart had a super sensitive bug and they were being recorded.

  Nancy in her office was tapped into the conversation as it happened. She smiled knowing how quickly and efficiently her agents had responded. The room service girl was a trained agent and two other agents were dressed in hotel garb. The tail agents were scattered up and down the block waiting to continue the tail after they left the hotel.

  Meanwhile Nancy had Brad on her cell giving him the information as it came to her. After the meeting broke up, he told Nancy they would come to her office for a meeting. He broke off the conversation and told Wendy and Mike the story as they rose to go out the door. Leaving the room Brad knocked on Billy’s door and was greeted with a cloud of blue smoke telling him the meeting coming in the FBI office. He told Brad he was hot on the money trail and he would stay here and continue the search. Brad told him see you later and off they went to get some details from the recorded meeting with PAE members.

  “February 17 is the date of what secretary’s press meeting?” Brad asked while sitting around a conference table with Nancy and selected other members of her team. On the way to the office, Brad had called Steve in Washington and informed of the latest and would give him some details after the meeting. Steve gave him the go ahead and now Nancy was saying only the defense secretary
had a press conference on that date.

  Brad sat there mulling over the news and listening over and over again the recorded message from the PAE group in the hotel. First thought was this would be a suicide mission. How could they put a hit on the secretary knowing he would be covered in security ten ways to one? Was this a ruse? What was plan B and who’re the next targets? More questions than answers for as he raised his head and looked at Nancy who was looking to him for guidance. Brad said, “It’s now January 20th and that gives us about twenty days to prepare security for the secretary. Now let’s assume our Asian hit man is the assassin. How would he accomplish this and think to escape? Wait a minute please,” as a thought hit him and he rose to go out and call his wife. “I’ll be right back and meanwhile please get us a layout of the press conference room and all exits in and out plus the heating and cooling systems ducts.”

  While he was gone, Nancy had an agent scrambling for blue prints and up to date drawings on the press room. Mike went with him as he knew what Brad wanted. Wendy had on a head set listening to the voices from the tape. Especially the high pitched voice she was a little troubled about. Was it from fear or from a natural voice? Surely he wouldn’t be used in a courtroom with a voice like that, so he must be used elsewhere. Maybe this was the weak link they were looking for if he was running scared. She was still listening when Brad came back from talking to Sujin.

  Brad noticed Mike gone and told Nancy they should wait until he comes back so he can hear it firsthand what he had to say. While they waited he took the opportunity to congratulate Nancy and her team for the good work taking advantage of a situation and capitalizing on it picking up valuable information. Nancy blushed and told him thank you, but passed on the glory to her team. Brad like the way she was humble and thought she was turning out to be a fine leader and a person.