The man gritted his teeth, wincing in pain. “You have no idea what kind of shit you’re in,” he said, voice strained.
Sam looked at him. Dark, purple blood spewed from his gut. His insides made a gurgling sound. Sam guessed her bullet had maybe nicked a lung. It made death by suffocation a real possibility. She pointed that out to the young gentleman.
He didn’t reply.
She studied his face. He looked young, hard, lean, professional. Close-cropped hair. He didn’t look like a thug. He looked well trained. Like a fed.
“CIA?” Sam asked.
The man shook his head. The pain on his face gave way momentarily to insult. “I’m not permitted to divulge my affiliation.”
“Do you want to die for a secret?”
“I’m already dead.”
“Nobody likes a drama queen,” Sam said. “It’s not becoming. Man up. You just pulled a gun on a federal agent. That’s a federal bullet in your gut. I think it’s probably going to kill you, if we don’t call someone soon. I’ll do that as soon as you give me a name.”
The man shook his head. “You have no idea,” he said.
“Obviously. Enlighten me.”
The man shook his head again, stared at the profuse bleeding from his midsection, cursed.
“You’re going to wait me out, aren’t you?” Sam asked. “You’re going to hurry up and die. Pussy.”
The man shook his head again, groaning, red foam forming on the edges of his lips. “They’re listening.”
“Who?” Sam asked. “Who’s listening?”
He shook his head more vigorously. “I’m not allowed…”
“You’re crooked, aren’t you?”
The man shook his head. “Not even close,” he gasped. “I’m following orders.”
“You can’t possibly be following orders,” Sam said. “Nobody would ever give you orders to pull a gun on a federal agent.
The man shook his head. “You don’t understand,” he said again. “You have… no idea.”
His eyes glazed. His gaze lost focus. Sam provided compression on his wound with one hand and slapped his face with the other. “Wake up, asshole,” she said.
He didn’t wake up.
Sam dialed 911. She spoke to the operator, got medical help on the way. But she knew it was a lost cause.
Sam took a picture of the man’s face.
She got into her car, started the engine, pulled out of the parking space, turned toward the garage exit.
It was blocked by a man with a gun.
Sam’s mind raced. She weighed her options. Bad and worse. She should have taken Dan up on his offer to accompany her. She shouldn’t have been running around out in the wild all by herself.
She made her decision.
She slammed on the brakes, squealed to a stop, opened the door, grabbed her keys, and ran back into the building. She heard no footsteps behind her. That was a bad sign. It meant a disciplined team. Some agents had perimeter duty, and others undoubtedly had search duty.
Sam bounded up the steps of the mid-rise apartment building. She burst through the door, found a janitor’s closet, picked the lock, sealed herself inside.
She took a moment to catch her breath.
Then she called Dan, after texting a picture of the dead agent to him.
“It’s a dirty trick,” Dan said. “Sending me home to sleep, only to wake me up again with a phone call.”
“Misery loves company,” Sam said. “I need you to work your magic, please.”
“Don’t I always?”
“Did you get the picture?”
“You made another new friend, I see,” Dan said.
“I think he was a fed of some sort. He pulled a gun, wouldn’t show me a badge, so I shot him. He kept talking about following orders. I didn’t find any ID on him, but he had a federal vibe.”
“Is that your scientific diagnosis?”
“You can just tell after a while. I need to know who he is, affiliations, the whole nine.”
“I’m already on it.”
“You’re at your computer?”
“No,” Dan said. “I’m in bed. But I have system access on my phone.”
“He brought friends,” Sam said. “So I’ll need a clever way out.”
“Sorry, boss,” Dan said after a brief silence. “I think you might be screwed.”
“What gives you such unbridled optimism?”
“The system just returned an ID on your newest dead guy.”
“And?”
“Deleted.”
“You mean it didn’t find a match?”
“No. It definitely found a match. The guy has been deleted from the database entirely.”
“Balls,” Sam said.
“So he’s a battered spouse, a protected witness, or an asshole working for one of the clandestine services.”
“I asked him if he was CIA,” Sam said. “He gave me a look like I had insulted him.”
“No chance he was FBI?”
Sam shook her head. “No way.”
“I think we know who that leaves, then,” Dan said.
Sam took a deep breath. “I think we do.”
40
Sam pondered the situation in the darkness of the janitor’s closet.
The dead agent’s voice echoed in her ears. They’re listening, he had said.
David Swaringen had been an NSA executive.
Janice Everman had been working on national security policy. With the NSA, among others.
They were all dead.
And NSA had switched off Homeland’s access to pirated telecom information.
All of it meant that there was no effective way for Sam to coordinate any kind of measured response to stop the bloodshed. NSA was among the world’s elite electronic surveillance agencies. There was no electronic communication that Sam could trust to be free from prying eyes.
It didn’t matter what she tried. They would always be one step ahead of her. Because they would always know exactly what she had planned.
NSA also had access to the same video camera network that Homeland had. There was virtually no stoplight in America that didn’t feature a video camera of some sort. The cameras fed video to a massive database. Even if she destroyed her phone, her face would trigger a response. She would be instantly recognized, and more paramilitary NSA trigger-pullers would descend on her like locusts.
But there had to be a way.
There was always a way.
It usually involved seeking an answer to the right question.
So what would cause the NSA to call off the dogs? What would cause them to stand down?
The answer, when it came to her, seemed obvious.
Obvious, and terrifying.
If your opponent has overwhelming strength, maybe it can be used against him. Maybe all of his momentum can be turned to work in your favor, rather than his.
There was no way to win in a strength-on-strength confrontation, Sam knew. So it would all come down to art and guile and a little bit of skullduggery.
She destroyed her cell phone. Because there was no sense in making things too obvious. No reason to give them any suspicion. She was going to have to communicate with Dan, which meant they were going to listen in — his phone was undoubtedly tapped just like hers — but she had to make it look like she was attempting to be stealthy.
She sprinted to the seventh floor, using the stairs, avoiding elevators and hallways, running on her toes to keep the sound down. She figured the seventh floor of the apartment building was as good as any, far away from the muscle on the ground floor, and several floors away from David Swaringen’s apartment on the twelfth floor. Sam wasn’t sure how many NSA agents were on the scene, but she felt fairly confident it wasn’t a large enough number to station a team on every floor.
Sam put her ear to the hallway door and listened. No sounds. She peeked through the little glass window. No movement in the corridor.
She took a breath, turned the handle,
looked both directions down the hall, and walked toward the nearest apartment door.
She rapped loudly. “Federal agent!” she shouted in an authoritative tone. “Open up, please.”
It was early in the morning, and Sam didn’t expect an immediate response. She repeated the knocking and yelling procedure a couple more times before she heard the latch retreat.
“Can I help you?” asked a groggy young man, dressed only in boxer shorts. He was trim, athletic, handsome. His nearly-naked body made her think of Brock, lying naked at home in their bed. She longed to go home, to see him, feel him, touch him.
“Sorry to disturb you,” she said, showing her badge. “I just need to borrow your cell phone.”
The man stared blankly, blinked a few times, shook his head. “My cell phone?”
“That’s right,” she said. “And maybe a cup of coffee, if it wouldn’t be too much trouble. It’s been one of those days.”
More staring and blinking. “I’m not in trouble?” the man finally asked.
“Not that I’m aware of,” Sam said with a smile. “But I haven’t tasted your coffee yet.”
The man smiled. He opened the door and motioned her in. Sam thanked him.
He handed her his iPhone and padded off to the kitchen. He had a nice ass, Sam noticed. Broad shoulders. Well endowed, if the jiggle in his boxers was any indication. It was also evident that he was circumcised. Her thoughts turned briefly to mischief. But only briefly. She wasn’t into straying.
She dialed Dan Gable’s number for what had to have been the hundredth time in the past day. He didn’t answer. Not unexpected. It wasn’t a number he’d recognize.
She called a second time, and then a third. Dan picked up on the fourth ring. “Special Agent Dan Gable,” he said.
“Hi, Special Agent Dan Gable.”
There was a long pause. “Sam?”
“Who were you expecting?”
“Whose phone is this?”
“Belongs to a guy in boxers. Cougar bait.”
“What are you doing?”
“I need to pass on some investigation direction,” she said slowly and deliberately, sounding official and officious.
The statement was clearly stilted. It didn’t sound like Sam at all. Which, Sam hoped, Dan would understand as her way of telling him that she was engaging in a bit of theater.
It took Dan a moment to wrap his mind around things, but he played along. “I’m ready,” he said.
“First, I need you to send me something. Those results you were waiting for.”
Dan thought for a moment. “The computer is done analyzing. I have a name and address.”
“Send it in an iMessage to this number,” Sam said.
Dan immediately realized why. NSA had strong-armed all of the telecom companies into giving up all of their information, but Apple had fought back by encrypting its users’ messages. From one iPhone to another, text messages were sent with strong encryption. Hackable, of course, but it would take NSA a bit of time to break the code and decrypt the information Sam was asking for. “I’ll send it as soon as we hang up,” Dan said.
“Great. Here’s the plan,” Sam said.
She spoke for a while. Dan listened.
“That’s a terrible plan,” Dan said when she had finished. Not because he was playing a part in her charade. Because it was a terrible plan.
But it wasn’t really the plan. Sam had just laid out a pseudo-plan. A curveball. Sleight of hand.
The real plan was even worse.
Sam sipped coffee as she waited for Dan’s text. It arrived with a ding-ding. It contained a name, title, and address.
She read the man’s title. Her heart sank as realization dawned. It was worse than she thought. Much worse.
She felt waves of exhaustion wash through her mind, bringing fear and despair. She tried to clear them with a deep breath, and more coffee.
She wrote the name and address on the back of an envelope and stuffed it in her pocket. She thought about the address. She was familiar with the area and had a good idea how to get there without using the map function on a telephone. Avoiding electronic navigation aids would help keep the goons at bay for a little longer. Maybe it would allow enough time for her misdirection to take hold.
But she didn’t have much time.
Sam finished her coffee and thanked the handsome young man with the athletic body and the enviable bulge in his pants. She left him her business card. “If you ever need anything,” she said.
“I very well might,” he said with a coy smile.
Sam caught his meaning. She winked. “Next life, maybe.”
She closed the door behind her, checked her pistol, steeled herself, walked toward the elevators.
It had all the makings of a long and painful morning.
The National Security Agency processed more data than Google. It processed more data than Facebook. In fact, NSA processed all of Google’s and Facebook’s data. NSA obtained this data by stealing it.
And they processed even more data than that.
The FBI, CIA, and Homeland had some pretty impressive tools. Surveillance was no problem for any of America’s federal agencies. But none of them had anything on the NSA. There really was no place to hide. They had tapped into every camera in the United States. They had tapped into every Internet pipe. They had tapped into every telephone, and, effectively, every computer with an internet connection.
And, evidently, they also employed a team of trigger-pullers. This was news to Sam.
Not a terribly competent team, if the dead guy on the parking garage floor was any indication, but NSA’s omniscience was a tactical advantage that could never be overestimated.
In effect, Sam was outnumbered by about a billion.
But the pieces had started to come together for her. She finally understood why they were after her.
It wasn’t about her. At least, it hadn’t started out that way. That was clear.
And it wasn’t about Mark Severn, either.
It wasn’t even related to Swaringen, the dead NSA employee, or France, the non-suicide, or Janice Everman, the Justice lawyer whose death had sparked Mark Severn’s investigation.
It wasn’t personal in the least, Sam realized as she pushed the elevator call button.
Except for one man. The man whose name, title, and address were written on the envelope in her pocket. It was probably always personal for him.
If he wasn’t the guy, then he knew the guy. That much was certain, with a title like his.
It was about secrets, scandals, and still-healing wounds. It was about blowback. And fallout.
It was about a nation gone rogue.
Which explained why they’d hired Russian thugs. Plausible deniability. Misdirection. The United States of America wouldn’t possibly do those things, people would think. Couldn’t possibly. Because it was un-American, against everything America stood for.
Except they could.
And they had.
And they still were doing those things.
We are doing those things, Sam thought. Us. Doing it to ourselves.
The elevator arrived. The doors opened. The immediacy of the situation descended upon her. She had to get away from the apartment building, put some distance between her and the thugs surrounding her.
But she had to do it extremely carefully. She had no idea how many more shooters might be lying in wait for her.
A familiar, asphyxiating sensation descended. Fear, with a healthy dose of panic mixed in. The odds were ridiculously bad. Even with Dan’s help, and all the help she hoped he would have the good sense to rally. It was just a hope, because she couldn’t be specific with him on the phone. They were listening. So she had left a lot unsaid. Which left a lot open to interpretation. Or misinterpretation.
In a sense, it didn’t matter whether Dan could read between the lines of her instructions. Because it all came down to her, for reasons that were immediate and inescapable. For them, at that mo
ment in time, Sam personified an existential threat. She had decimated their Budapest team. She’d poked around at Justice. She had tossed the Boston gang’s nest. She’d led the team that followed Frankel through the city. She’d investigated France’s murder scene. She’d nosed through Swaringen’s apartment.
And, ultimately, she’d traced the problem to its source. Or very near to the source, she reasoned. Within one or two people on an organizational chart.
Which was close enough to be more than a little lethal.
Because it didn’t start out personal. But it sure as hell was now.
The elevator stopped. Ground floor.
She held her breath and her gun. Her heart hammered. She felt sick with adrenaline.
The doors crept open.
She exploded through them. She caught the sentry completely by surprise. He faltered, unable to decide whether to raise his weapon to shoot her or raise his forearm to block her wild attack. In the end, he did neither, and the butt of Sam’s pistol caught him square on the side of the head. His body folded up underneath him, and he crumpled to the floor. “Nighty-night,” Sam muttered.
She commandeered his weapon, a Walther PPK. Compact, accurate, chambered in 380 ACP. Not a huge punch, but enough to grab someone’s undivided attention. James Bond’s gun, Sam thought with a chuckle. But this guy was no James Bond. She checked it, set the safety, and tucked it into her sock.
She dashed down a darkened hallway. She didn’t want to emerge from the front or back doors, for fear an ambush awaited her.
A laundry room, sauna, and mechanical room dominated the ground floor. She checked each in turn.
The laundry room and sauna didn’t contain what she was looking for.
She shouldered the door open into the mechanical room. It smelled of oil and grease and a carcinogen whose name Sam couldn’t conjure. It was hot and humid. Sweat instantly formed on her brow.
She heard voices in the hallway, terse and clipped. And footfalls, heavy and determined. They’d undoubtedly found the unconscious sentry, probably bleeding out his ear and well on his way to permanent brain damage.
She was running out of time.
She glanced around the backside of the furnace.
Bingo. A small window, chest high, opening to the cool morning air.
The Essential Sam Jameson / Peter Kittredge Box Set: SEVEN bestsellers from international sensation Lars Emmerich Page 83