She found the right apartment, rapped on the door, the kind of authoritative knock that rarely spelled good news an hour before midnight.
Nothing stirred inside. She knocked louder.
Still no movement. She pounded a third time, announced herself as a federal agent, and listened.
Nothing.
She produced from her purse what looked like a standard key card, but with computer wires attached to one end of the card. The wires converged to form a cable, which fit perfectly into the receptacle on Sam’s Blackberry. She called up an application on the phone called Cypher King. She scrolled to the green button, pressed it, inserted the key card into the slot in Jonathan France’s door, and waited.
It took just shy of a dozen seconds. Sam heard a definitive click as the lock retreated from the jamb. Sam opened the door, marveling again at how far surveillance technology had come.
The smell hit her immediately.
Sweet, metallic, moist, sickening.
She had smelled it more times than she could count. It still made her stomach turn. She drew her weapon, crouched, searched the apartment one room at a time.
Empty.
Except for the body of Jonathan France. She found him fully clothed in the bathtub. His face was drawn, gray, slack. Extremely dead. Both wrists were slit.
Sam sighed. She snapped photos of the scene, then leaned in close to examine his wounds. Most suicides had hesitation marks, small, probing cuts next to the lethal wound, as the victim worked up the gumption to make the big cut. But Jonathan France’s arms had none. The wounds were deep, definitive, confident, determined. He was either extremely eager to die, or he had help making his way to the afterlife.
Sam’s money was on the latter. She looked around the apartment for a suicide note. She didn’t find one.
Dead-end. No signs of forced entry, no signs of struggle, and a fully clothed victim lying in a pool of his own blood in the bathtub. Lots of different ways to interpret the scene. Had the old assassin been here? And where were France’s wife and kids?
And France’s computer was missing.
She dialed Dan’s number. He picked up on the third ring. “How did it go with our friend the lawyer?” Dan asked.
“He’s permanently taciturn,” Sam said.
“Jesus,” Dan said. “It got serious all of the sudden, didn’t it?” He thought for a moment. “You’re wondering if our man Frankel didn’t pay him a visit, aren’t you?” he asked.
“Among other things,” Sam said. “No forced entry, no struggle, two wrists with deep gashes in them, no hesitation marks.”
Dan whistled. “A pro.”
“I think so too. I was hoping you had some ideas,” Sam said.
“It wasn’t our favorite semi-retired Agency man,” Dan said. “We’ve pieced enough of the video together to account for his whereabouts since arriving in DC.”
“It didn’t seem like Frankel’s MO,” Sam said. “He’s too frail to manhandle anyone. Any other ideas?”
“Well, let’s figure out who was in the apartment. I can cross reference all the cell phone networks for their location data.”
Sam heard a keyboard clacking away in the background.
“What the…?” Dan said absently.
More clicking.
“Those bastards,” Dan finally said.
“What is it?”
“Those assholes have denied me access to the cell phone records.”
“Which assholes?”
More clicking. More cursing. “Unbelievable.”
“NSA?”
“Yep. It’s their surveillance system and database. Homeland has a subscription to it, but they control access.”
“Policy change?” Sam asked.
“No way,” Dan said. “I stay up to date on all of that kind of stuff. No policy changes at all. Let me make a phone call and I’ll call you right back.” Dan clicked off.
Sam took another look around France’s apartment. She didn’t find anything useful. She phoned in his death to the DC Metro police, and to the local FBI office. She left her business card on the counter in case they needed to get ahold of her, then she got back into her car and drove to downtown DC.
To the Department of Justice.
The gigantic Justice edifice was deserted. It was dark and gray, more than a little ominous. Sam used her Homeland badge to gain access. The rent-a-cop seemed happy for the diversion from what was otherwise a mind-numbing evening. “Are you sure I can’t help you, ma’am?” the pudgy guard asked.
“Matter of fact, you can help me,” Sam said, handing her card to him. “Anyone else comes to that door, you hold them and give me a call right away, okay?”
The guard nodded, eager to help, unaware that he had been sidelined.
Sam made her way to Jonathan France’s office. She turned on the light. She pulled out a small antenna from her purse, again with a cord attached to it. Again, she called up an application on her government-issued Blackberry, plugged in the antenna from her purse, and began walking slowly around the room, looking at the display.
There were a couple of false alarms. The equipment was terrific, sensitive and reliable, but the designers had erred on the side of caution, and it reported a few false positives.
But the third time was the charm. The signal was loud and strong, coming from a clear acrylic obelisk on the edge of Jonathan France’s desk. With great appreciation for a job well done, the inscription said. An award of some sort. From France’s last law firm. Maybe a going-away gift. Sam turned it upside down. There were no visible openings. It appeared just to be a solid piece of acrylic. Nothing out of the ordinary.
Except that it transmitted a signal.
Sam captured and copied the signal using her phone. She stored it as a graphics file and sent it in a text to Dan Gable. “Somebody’s been spying on our man France,” she typed.
39
Sam went home. There wasn’t much left for her to do. Dan and Mark Severn were working on decoding the messages sent by the listening device she found in Jonathan France’s office at Justice. DC Metro and the local Bureau office were busy working the scene at France’s apartment.
The scene was conditionally classified as a crime scene, on Sam’s insistence. She was sure there would eventually be overwhelming pressure from somewhere else in the government to classify France’s death as a suicide. And it may very well have been. But probably not. Whoever slashed France’s wrists had more than a little experience digging knives into flesh. Suicide victims rarely had that kind of experience.
Sam left her clothes in a heap and crawled into bed next to Brock. She snuggled close, feeling his warmth, feeling the instant comfort of his scent, enjoying the familiarity of his soft snores. He felt like home.
She fell asleep moments later, exhausted from an extremely long day.
Then the phone rang. She fumbled in the dark, looking for it. Her office Blackberry. She found the device, pressed the green button, held the handset to her ear. “The hospital feelers came through,” Dan said.
“Someone checked in?” Sam asked groggily.
“Quite the opposite. Someone checked out.”
“Of the hospital?”
“Of life.”
“Someone we know, I take it?”
“No, but someone maybe we should know. NSA employee, name of David Swaringen.”
“Doesn’t ring any bells,” Sam said, rubbing her eyes.
“He’s on the list of executives at NSA,” Dan said. “That’s why we got the call from the hospital, after our request last night.”
“What happened?”
“Girlfriend made the 911 call,” Dan said. “Apparently, he just keeled over in bed.”
“That’s how I want to die,” Sam said. “How old was he?”
“Early forties.”
“Heart attack?”
“For the moment,” Dan said. “But that’s mostly because they haven’t been able to find any other cause of death.”
“Fit as a fiddle. Except he up and died.”
“Like Janice Everman,” Sam said. “Okay, text me his address and I’ll take a look around. You can go home and get some sleep.”
“I won’t argue with you. The computer’s analyzing the signal from the bug in the lawyer’s office at Justice. Should be done in an hour or so. And we’ve completely traced Frankel’s whereabouts since his arrival, but we’ve learned nothing new.”
“Thanks, Dan. Get some rest.”
Sam dressed, kissed Brock lightly on the cheek, and left.
Sam set out for David Swaringen’s apartment. It was about halfway between DC and Fort Meade. Undoubtedly chosen for its proximity to both places. Work in one direction, fun in the other.
Along the way, Dan filled her in on Swaringen’s last evening. The NSA exec took the train into town, had dinner and drinks with a new flame, then took the girl back to his apartment for conjugal delights.
Eva something-or-other was the girlfriend’s name. Not a long-term relationship — only a few hours old, to be precise, which piqued Sam’s interest. But the girl seemed genuinely distraught, Metro had said. Swaringen hadn’t died during intercourse, evidently, but he expired not long after. It was undoubtedly unnerving for the girl, who’d accompanied Swaringen to the hospital, then gone home from there.
Sam parked in the parking garage and took the elevator to the twelfth floor. Swaringen’s place wasn’t considered a crime scene, and Sam took advantage of an unlocked door left by the medical technicians to gain entry. She looked around. The decor was consistent with mid-life bachelorhood. Minimalist, a few status symbols laying around, nice furniture but not too nice, all hardwood and hard edges. Very masculine.
She looked at the pictures on the wall. Handsome guy, she thought. Good job, good salary, good looks. Probably a bit of a player.
She looked again at his face. Something in his smile. A lack of confidence, maybe. A little bit of self-doubt. Maybe he wasn’t a player after all. Maybe he had just gotten lucky with Eva.
Her phone buzzed. A photograph, sent by Dan Gable, which he evidently received from the Metro police. Of Eva. She was young, beautiful, exotic. Slavic. Sam typed the question that popped immediately into her mind. “A hooker?”
“LOL,” Dan replied. “I thought so too. But evidently not.”
At least not a hooker with a record, Sam thought darkly. Maybe an in-house hooker. Maybe employed for particular purposes. It was the Russian face that kept giving Sam pause.
Of course, there were a lot of Russians in the world, but it seemed like a hell of a coincidence. You could go months without seeing a single one of them, but Sam had seen a dozen in the last week. It made her suspicious.
She searched Swaringen’s bedroom. His clothes still lay on the floor, strewn haphazardly, as if they were shed during the heat of the moment, leading up to the Big Moment. Which was duly documented by the presence of a used condom, drying on the carpet. At least he went out with a bang, Sam mused.
She searched his drawers and closet. Nothing unusual.
On to the bathroom. A Xanax prescription was the only thing of note, sitting next to a bottle of Viagra. Anxiety and flaccidity. She wondered if Swaringen’s angst was real or imagined. She wondered if there was any way to know the difference. An NSA executive on anti-anxiety medication probably wasn’t all that uncommon, but it was a data point, and she made a note. Job stress, maybe. Or maybe his anxiety was caused by erectile dysfunction, Sam thought with an inner smirk.
She wandered into his office. A pair of diplomas hung on the wall, from schools with impressive names. Swaringen had an executive MBA from one of them. Harvard.
Sam wondered if that was how he had landed the job at NSA, by rubbing elbows with up-and-comers. Technician jobs were a dime a dozen at NSA. In fact, there were very few employers in the world with a larger number of tech-savvy employees than the NSA. But executive jobs were another matter. Executives got the keys to the kingdom.
NSA was one of the most secretive organizations on the planet. It had been beaten up badly in the press, and probably rightly so. A series of high-profile leaks had left no plausible doubt that NSA had overreached its charter by light years, trampling on basic privacy rights and pissing off everyone on the globe who possessed an email account. Sam wondered what kind of enticement NSA had to offer in order to attract new talent in the aftermath of all the drama.
Specifically, she wondered what attracted David Swaringen. He was a recent hire, according to Dan. His position was high enough to place him on the list of potential terror targets, which also placed him on the list of persons of interest in the previous evening’s hospital and police query.
Sam continued her methodical search through Swaringen’s apartment. She hadn’t found anything unexpected, but she still had a hard time shaking the feeling that something was amiss. Young, healthy people rarely keeled over dead.
Sure, it did happen on occasion. Sometimes there were hidden medical conditions. But it was starting to smell like a pattern was emerging. And then there was the Russian girl, the maybe-hooker. Those things made Sam think there was something else going on.
She searched through David Swaringen’s desk. There were old bills, paid and unpaid. There was a copy of a divorce decree. It contained child support provisions. Strange, because Sam saw no pictures of children in the apartment. Maybe they were too painful of a reminder, or maybe they slowed things down with the young ladies Swaringen might have managed to lure back to his bachelor pad.
She turned on his computer. She wasn’t a forensics expert by any stretch, but she knew the basics of what to look for. She perused the file index, looking for anything of interest. It didn’t take long to find his bank statements. He downloaded them onto his hard drive every month, evidently paranoid about a data loss at the bank itself. Sam noticed nothing out of the ordinary. It didn’t look like he was receiving large deposits, and his only outrageous expenditure over the past several years, other than alimony, was for graduate school. And it was an outrageous expenditure. Sam wondered if it had been worth it.
After bank statements, there was no more informative a place on a person’s computer then the browser history. Sam saw the usual. Lots of pornographic searches. Swaringen liked brunettes, evidently, with manicured nethers, bending over while nude. Blondes, too. An equal-opportunity self-flagellator, it appeared. Years ago, it would have been a solid basis for blackmail. But not any longer. The chief function of the Internet, some argued, was to indulge the universal voyeuristic dark side.
There were some strange searches that caught her eye. “Drones over US territory” was one of them. “US surveillance laws” was another. There was a dictionary word, an obscure one. Penumbra. Maybe Swaringen had run across it in a book and wanted to know the definition. Probably nothing at all, but Sam wrote the word down, along with the notes on the surveillance searches. They were potentially noteworthy, particularly given that Swaringen worked at the National Security Agency. Why would an executive at the world’s largest surveillance apparatus be researching surveillance legalities on his home computer?
And why would that person die at the ripe old age of forty-something?
Maybe he should have asked his doctor whether he was healthy enough to engage in sexual activity.
Or maybe there was something else going on.
The sun threatened to take over the horizon by the time Sam left Swaringen’s apartment.
She had closed her eyes for a little less than an hour in the past day, and she wasn’t quite on her game.
Which was why she saw the tail so late.
Too late.
Caucasian this time, not Slavic, dressed in jeans and a leather jacket and a black ball cap. Cliché. Young. Fit. Late twenties, maybe. He joined her in the elevator as she descended to the parking garage. She heard the faint crackle of an earpiece.
Interesting.
Unnerving.<
br />
Sam smiled and nodded at him.
He reciprocated, but it was pained. He was definitely on the job, she surmised. She snuck her hand into her purse.
The elevator dinged. Sam motioned for the guy to exit first. “After you,” she said.
The man extended his arm, reversing the invitation. “I insist,” he said.
Sam didn’t want to make it awkward. She exited the elevator, walked quickly to her car, hand still in her purse.
The man followed.
She stopped, turned, looked.
“Hands up,” the man said. A large-caliber pistol stared Sam in the face.
Sam tried never to overcomplicate things.
She asked to see the man’s badge.
The man didn’t produce a badge.
Sam shot him.
She didn’t bother to pull the pistol free from her purse. She just shot right through the side. The bullet made a little hole in the side of her Prada bag, a small tragedy, but it made a significantly larger hole in the man’s gut. Loud, noisy, messy, and effective.
Gut shots were excruciatingly painful. It was difficult to describe how much they hurt. They were good for taking all the fight out of a person. The man didn’t try reaching for his gun. He was done. He offered no further resistance, no further antisocial behavior.
Sam kicked away his pistol, just to be sure. Then she knelt down to talk with him.
“You know how this goes,” she said. “This is the part where I ask you who the hell you’re working for.”
The man shook his head.
“My suggestion is that you skip the tough-guy act. I may take it the wrong way, like maybe you’re resisting a federal officer.”
He groaned, regarded his gut, then looked back at Sam with anger and defiance on his face.
“I may decide that your actions are placing my safety in question,” Sam said. “I may not feel comfortable bringing an ambulance into this kind of situation. Which would be unfortunate, given the size of your leak.”
The Essential Sam Jameson / Peter Kittredge Box Set: SEVEN bestsellers from international sensation Lars Emmerich Page 82