by Clancy, Tom
The dueling careers had come between McCaskey and Maria once, when they first met in her native Spain. They had reconnected when McCaskey was on a mission in Madrid. Maria had agreed to give it up and move to Washington.
Now his beautiful, dark-haired wife was helping him with a stakeout. She woke up smirking. Though Maria was in character now, pretending to be an artist sketching the Memorial in pastel, the bemused look was still there.
“Honey, I am so incredibly bad at having these fake conversations,” he said into the deactivated phone. “Pausing and pretending to listen to someone.” He paused and pretended to listen. “Then laughing disarmingly.” He chuckled. “I’d rather be in a firefight.”
“You may have an opportunity,” Maria said from the side of her mouth. “Three o’clock, nanny with a stroller.”
McCaskey glanced over as the young woman passed. She had Asian features. She was dressed in a Georgetown University sweatshirt and jeans and was absently rocking a charcoal-colored Maclaren stroller with a hood.
“I don’t think so,” McCaskey said.
“Darrell, there’s no baby in the stroller,” Maria said. She put the ivory-colored chalk back in the wooden carrying case.
“I know,” he replied, still pretending to talk in the phone. “There’s a shopping bag in the stroller. It’s probably got everything she owns. Look at the laces of her Adidas. Broken and knotted, hole on one side. The foam handle of the stroller is torn. It was probably discarded. She’s homeless.”
“Or pretending to be,” Maria said as she selected a navy blue stick to lay in shadows.
“It’s possible,” McCaskey agreed. He looked toward the lawn beyond the path. “I’m more concerned about the guy sitting on the grass with the laptop.”
“The man in the windbreaker?”
“Yes.”
“Why?” Maria asked. “His back is to the mailbox.”
“But the web cam is not,” McCaskey said. “He could be teleconferencing, or he could be watching the mailbox.”
Just then the mail carrier pulled up in his small localhaul truck. A lanky, blond-haired young man emerged carrying a white plastic bin and stepped over to the mailbox. McCaskey continued to talk on the phone as March moved his cart so he was closer to the mail truck. The carrier did not seem to notice. He knelt, opened the front panel with a key from the ring on his belt, and slowly scooped the contents into the container. He appeared to be looking for something. When he found it, he swept the rest of the mail in quickly and shut the box. Evidently, that was all March needed. He stepped from his cart and intercepted the mail carrier. McCaskey saw March show the carrier his badge, but he could not hear what was being said. The carrier made a disbelieving, then angry face and shook his head. March was insistent as he got on his cell phone and made a call. He was summoning his backup.
The mail carrier moved toward the truck, still holding the bin. March grabbed his arm and said something.
“Hey, will someone call a cop!” the carrier shouted.
The man with the laptop turned. So did the homeless woman. The two of them started to rise.
“Are both of them in on this?” Maria said.
“I don’t know,” her husband said. “Stay here.” He got up and walked toward them. He was still holding the phone to his ear.
The man with the laptop had folded it away, slipped it into a shoulder bag, and also walked toward the mail truck. The woman was quickly pushing her stroller toward March. Other people stopped and watched from a distance.
The carrier attempted to pull his arm free. He yanked harder than March’s grip required, upending both the carrier and the bin. The woman with the stroller started running to where mail had been strewn across the street. McCaskey also rushed over. He got there first and, crouching, began pulling mail toward him. Most of it was picture postcards along with a handful of letters. He was looking for an oversized envelope or small parcel with a South Pacific or Far Eastern address. He found one, a fat manila envelope with a Kuala Lumpur address. McCaskey pulled over other letters so this one did not seem to be all that interested him. Maria, sitting close by, was watching the homeless woman.
The mail carrier hurried over. “Thank you, sir. I’ll take those,” he said, reaching for the letters.
“And I’ll take those,” March said as he leaned over the mail carrier and wrapped a thick hand around his key ring. He flipped the small metal latch and pulled it free. The ignition key to the truck was on the ring.
McCaskey released the mail. He stood and watched as the carrier put them back in the bin. Then the young man went to collect the rest of the mail. The homeless woman was on her hands and knees, also gathering pieces. The carrier went to take them from her and, with a snarl, she slapped over the bin and its contents. The package bound for Malaysia went spinning back onto the street. The woman scrambled after it. The mail carrier did not go after her.
McCaskey did.
“Hold on!” McCaskey yelled after her.
The man with the laptop was closer. He intercepted the woman as she tried to get away. March did not see him. He was busy waving over a blue sedan. There was a brief struggle, but the man with the laptop got the mail. The woman sped away as McCaskey arrived.
The large envelope was in the man’s hand, folded in half. “I’ve got it all,” he said to the mail carrier.
“Thanks. I’ll take it,” March said, walking over.
“Glad I could help,” the man with the laptop said. Then he turned and walked away.
McCaskey had an uneasy sense about this. He waited anxiously while March flipped through the few pieces of mail. He reached the envelope addressed to Malaysia. He held it so McCaskey could see. It had been torn open.
“Shit,” McCaskey said.
The carrier was no longer a problem. One of the plainclothes officers had him in custody and was taking him to their car. They had to stop the man with the laptop and the homeless woman.
McCaskey and March exchanged looks. March set out after the man with the laptop. The other plainclothesman followed when the carrier was secure in the sedan. McCaskey turned toward the field that stretched to the Lincoln Memorial. The homeless woman was at the edge of the lawn, digging around in her stroller. If she were stowing the contents of the envelope, they would have a problem. They had no right to search her belongings. If she had a weapon, they could have an even bigger problem. There were hundreds of potential hostages out here.
The former FBI agent walked quickly toward the woman. He still had his cell phone. He pretended to be deep in conversation and walked into the woman. Her stroller was upended, and the contents spilled onto the grass.
“I’m so sorry!” McCaskey said, tucking the cell phone in his pocket as he bent to help retrieve her belongings. Among the clothes and a water bottle were passports from different nations.
“Stay away!” the woman shouted, pushing him back.
McCaskey did not have to yield. Not anymore. He moved to confiscate the evidence of either theft or passport forgery.
With a cry of rage, the woman drew a double-bladed knife from a sheath on her forearm. The leather hilt was in the center with a serrated blade on either side. McCaskey backed away, and she approached him, her legs wide as she slashed left and right. They were not the wild moves of a homeless woman but the centered attack of a trained fighter.
The former FBI agent did not carry a handgun. Only Op-Center field agents were issued firearms, and the shotgun he kept at home for intruders would not be appropriate in a situation like this. He watched as she cut from left to right and back in a dead-horizontal line waist-high. He had to get close to the hand with the knife and do a forearm break. That meant cupping her elbow in the palm of one hand and pushing up and placing another hand on the inside of her wrist and pushing down. The wrist strike would numb her forearm and cause her to drop the knife. The trick was not to get stabbed in the process.
McCaskey kept his hands level with the slashing blade. He did not blink.
That had been part of his training. He had to wait for her to do so, then he would—
The homeless woman suddenly flew to her left as a wooden case of pastels smacked into the side of her head. The knife dropped as the woman fell to her knees. Maria was still holding the handle of the box tightly. She brought it back for a second blow, driving the brass hinges into the back of the homeless woman’s head. She fell forward on the lawn and landed on her face.
“I have always felt that aikido works better in the dojo than in the field,” Maria said.
“Not everyone carries a combat-ready art box,” McCaskey said.
The homeless woman’s eyes were shut. McCaskey put an index finger under her nose to make sure she was still breathing. Then he retrieved the knife and passports and motioned for the tourists to move away. Security officers from the Lincoln Memorial were running over.
Maria picked up her art kit. “I knew she was bad when she picked up the letters,” she said.
“Why?”
“Homeless women don’t use apricot-scented shampoo. That’s why I watched you instead of Ed.”
“I appreciate that, hon,” McCaskey said. He looked back toward the street. The plainclothesman was escorting the man with the laptop toward the sedan. The man was complaining loudly. March was walking toward the lawn. When he arrived, McCaskey handed him the passports and knife. March called his dispatcher and asked for emergency medical technicians to care for the woman.
“These are impressive,” the postal officer said. “Thanks. Both of you.”
“Glad we could help. What have you got on him?” McCaskey asked, nodding toward the man with the laptop.
“He didn’t stop when we asked him to,” March said.
“Is that a crime?” Maria asked.
“No. I’ve got a feeling he’s hiding something,” March said. “I want to have a look at the computer.”
“You are permitted to look at his computer files because of a feeling?” Maria asked.
“No,” March said. “We are permitted access to his computer under Section 217 of the USA Patriot Act. Suspected computer transgression, possible web cam surveillance of federal officers near a national monument is a crime. No court order required to investigate.”
“He may not have known you people were federal officers,” McCaskey pointed out.
“Perhaps,” March said. “But we have reasonable cause for suspicion. He handled the parcel from the embassy, and he did not stop when we asked him to, repeatedly. If he’s innocent, it’s a minor inconvenience, and we’ll apologize. If he’s guilty, we may save lives.”
McCaskey made a face as the security officers from the Memorial arrived. March showed them his badge, then asked them to watch the woman. He said an ambulance would be arriving in just a few minutes.
“Look, I’ve got to put this baby to bed,” March said. He offered his hand to McCaskey and Maria in turn. “I can’t thank you enough. If you ever need anything, just shout.”
“I will,” McCaskey said.
Op-Center’s top cop felt as though he should say something more on the man’s behalf but decided against it. Ed March had a point. He also had the law on his side. McCaskey himself had thought the man might be involved in this. That, too, had been a feeling. Sometimes, lawmen had to act on that.
McCaskey had parked on C Street. He walked back with Maria. His wife was scowling and complained that this was what Spain was like under Franco.
“If everyone El Caudillo arrested had actually been guilty of crimes, Spain would have been a nation of felons,” she said.
“The situations are not the same,” McCaskey said. “Franco was a tyrant. Ed is a good officer trying to protect American lives.”
“This is how good officers become tyrants,” she replied.
“Not always,” he said with more hope than conviction.
The American system was not perfect, but as they drove to Op-Center, McCaskey took comfort in a slogan that had been written on the blackboard of a Community Outreach Theory class he once took at the FBI Academy in Quantico. It was a reassuring quote from Jefferson: “The boisterous sea of liberty is never without a wave.”
SIX
Washington, D. C. Monday, 9:02 A.M.
Mike Rodgers pulled into the Op-Center parking lot moments after Darrell McCaskey arrived. Their reserved parking spots were side by side, and McCaskey waited while Rodgers got out. The spots were numbered rather than named. If security were ever compromised and someone rigged a car to explode, the assassin would have to know which vehicle he wanted. That was why Rodgers had started leasing cars every six months instead of buying them. He had made a number of powerful enemies abroad with his Striker assaults. The general was not paranoid, but Bob Herbert once told him that Washington, D.C., had over five hundred freelance “street potatoes,” as they were called. Individuals who watched the comings and goings of government officials and reported the information to foreign governments. That data could be used for everything from blackmail to murder. Changing cars, like alternating the routes Rodgers took to work, was just good sense. Of course, the general half-expected to open the newspaper one morning and read about some poor joker with his last car getting blown up in a driveway or sniped at in a shopping mall. Then again, Rodgers always checked the provenance of his vehicle. He did not want to end up with a car that had been rented by an embassy employee or drug dealer who was someone else’s target.
“Did we both sleep in?” Rodgers asked.
“Nah,” McCaskey said. “Maria and I were on a stakeout for a friend with the postal service.”
“Some careless spy using the same drop box more than once?” Rodgers asked.
“Sort of. He was passing material to the carrier to bypass security inspections,” McCaskey said.
Our own people betraying us, Rodgers thought. Whenever he heard something like that, the general felt every civilized inhibition slide away. He would have no trouble executing someone to whom a payday mattered more than his country. “Did you get them?”
McCaskey nodded. “Maria had the spook spotted from the start. That lady’s intuition is amazing.”
“Jealous?” Rodgers joked.
“No. Proud. I went after a guy who was web camming the Lincoln Memorial. He turned out to be undercover with Homeland Security. I swear, we’ve got more cops here than gangsters.”
“There are still plenty of bad guys to round up,” Rodgers said as they entered the building.
“I know,” McCaskey said. “But when counter espionage units start taking friendly fire, it’s time to rethink our overall policy. We should be doing more of what you’re doing, training personnel to operate abroad and targeting ETs.”
ETs were not just aliens, they were exported terrorists. When Striker had been replaced by a human intelligence unit, the mandate was to infiltrate and undermine foreign operations before they became a real threat.
Rodgers did not disagree. But the intelligence community had spent decades relying on increasingly sophisticated ELINT—electronic intelligence—such as intercepted phone and E-mail messages, spy satellites, and unmanned drones. Human intelligence was deemed too risky and unreliable. Foreign nationals who could not be hired outright had to be blackmailed into cooperating. That was costly and time consuming and required a sizable support system. Even then, the nationals could not always be trusted. Ramping up HUMINT operations also took time and ingenuity. In the interim, United States intelligence operations had assumed a posture similar to the Soviet approach of defending the homeland during World War II. They threw every available body at the problem in the hope of stopping it.
The men emerged from the elevator and went in separate directions along the oval corridor. As deputy director, Rodgers’s office was located next to that of Paul Hood in the so-called executive wing. The only other office in that section was that of attorney Lowell Coffey III. McCaskey, intelligence chief Bob Herbert, computer expert Matt Stoll, psychologist Liz Gordon, and political liaison Ron Plu
mmer were in the operations corridor. That was where all the real work was done, according to Herbert.
When Rodgers passed Hood’s office, Bugs Benet asked the general if he had a minute.
“Sure,” Rodgers said. “What’s up?”
“The chief wanted to talk to you,” Bugs replied.
“All right. When?” Rodgers asked. Hood’s door was rarely closed. It was closed now.
“He said you should go in when you got here,” Bugs told him.
“Thanks,” Rodgers said. He walked past Bugs’s cubicle and knocked on Hood’s door.
“It’s open,” Hood said.
Rodgers went in.
“Good morning,” Hood said.
“Morning,” Rodgers said.
Hood rose from behind his desk and gestured toward a leather sofa set against the inside wall. Rodgers walked over and sat. Hood shut the door, then joined Rodgers. His expression was curiously neutral. Hood was a diplomat, but he was usually open and empathetic. That helped people trust him, and that made him effective.
“Mind if I help myself to coffee?” Rodgers asked.
“No, of course not, Mike,” Hood said. “Sorry I didn’t offer. I’ve been preoccupied.”
“I can tell,” Rodgers said. He went to the coffeemaker on a small, triangular, teakwood corner table. “Want any?”
“No thanks. I’ve already had enough to float a horseshoe,” Hood told him.
“What’s going on?” Rodgers asked as he poured.
“I spoke with Senator Debenport this morning,” Hood said. “He wants me to make deep cuts.”
“More than the four percent we just gave him?”
“Much more,” Hood told him. “Five times more.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Rodgers said. He returned with his mug and took a sip. “You don’t trim that kind of money. You amputate.”
“I know,” Hood said.
“How far from that figure can you move him?”
“He’s not going to yield a dime,” Hood said.
“Balls. Everything is negotiable.”