by James Phelan
60
Hutchinson pulled the Ford Taurus from the curb and did a U-turn. As he drew his seatbelt to stop the chime of the warning, he glanced over and saw that Eve had closed her front door.
A Dodge Charger passed him. Dark-gray metallic.
Hutchinson checked his rearview mirror, his mind catching up with the Dodge’s bright-red flaring brake lights. He took his foot off the gas, allowing the Taurus to coast. His mind replayed the pass. Male driver, thirties, plaster tape over his nose and dark eyes like he had suffered blunt-force trauma right between them. He had been looking at the street numbers on his right like he was visiting the place not for the first time but it had been a while.
The guy was familiar.
Hutchinson saw the driver pull over to the curb and get out.
Hutchinson stopped the Taurus at the intersection. A car behind him tooted to pass through, but Hutchinson ignored it.
It took Hutchinson another few seconds to make the guy.
He turned right, floored the gas, did another U-turn, then turned left back down Eve’s street.
Ahead, he saw Pip Durant on the front porch, knocking on the timber cladding by the door.
•
“INTFOR means smaller government,” McCorkell said, “and for the majority of the House and Senate, that’s all they care about.”
“And they’re just going to hand over the keys to our spy kingdom?” Somerville said.
“Yes,” Walker said. “They will. It’s the dawn of the intelligence-industrial complex.”
“The way Bellamy’s been spruiking it is: you’ve spent all this money finding bin Laden, and where did that get you?” McCorkell said. “How long did it take? How many lives wasted?”
“Heller used to say a similar thing,” Walker said. “He said, essentially, that we’ve had eight years to find bin Laden—and all we’ve got to show for it are a bunch of photos of naked Arab men peeing on themselves and wearing dog collars and black hoods.”
“Well, those days are over,” McCorkell replied. “The government wants nothing to do with that kind of thing. Not in this day and age.”
“So, outsource it?” Somerville said. “Keep it at arm’s length?”
“Damn sight easier,” Walker replied. “With OBL, there was no secret group up on the top floor looking for him. We were chasing ghosts around the world. We took our eye off the ball for too long, when at the end of the day it was our priority—it was our job to find him, and it took far too long.”
“Did Bellamy have a hand in it?” Somerville asked.
“Abbottabad? No, not directly,” McCorkell replied. “But he helped put a rocket up the Agency by telling the President that INTFOR could find bin Laden within twelve months. He said to give him that chance, and they’d do what the CIA and the other intel agencies couldn’t do. And, if proven effective through that op, INTFOR would rise to become everything that Bellamy wanted it to be.”
“And that pushed the Agency?”
McCorkell said, “Damn straight. The President said no. He wanted to give the proper channels time, and had his new DCI say, Go find bin Laden—and don’t use torture. Torture is morally wrong. Torture is the coward’s way. C’mon—we’re smart, we’re the USA, and you’re telling me we can’t find a six-and-a-half-foot Saudi who’s got a twenty-five-million-dollar bounty on his head?”
Walker said, “Makes sense.”
“I know,” said McCorkell. “So, they do their thing. The agents switch from torture to detective work—and guess what happens? They find bin Laden! Eight years of torture—no bin Laden. Two years of detective work—boom! Bin Laden! So, where does that now leave the big fat intel community?”
“They’ve spent umpteen billion dollars on the war on terrorism,” Walker said.
“Yep. Terrorism. People fell for it, and these rich men and their friends made billions of dollars from contracting deals and armaments and putting a Burger King on every US base in Iraq. Billions more were made creating a massive internal spying apparatus called ‘Homeland Security.’ Business was very, very good, and as long as the boogieman Osama was alive, the citizenry would not complain one bit. That’s been part of Bellamy’s case since. He wants the private spy of tomorrow to be what the private contractor is today.”
“And make a killing in the process,” Walker said.
McCorkell nodded. “We’re not talking small change here. This is tens of billions in government contracts every year.”
“Okay,” Somerville said. “Well, now that bin Laden’s gone, there’s no poster-boy of evil to hunt, so the war on terror isn’t what it used to be. So, what’s Bellamy’s leverage? A cheaper, more efficient intel community?”
“That’s because we don’t know it all,” replied McCorkell. “What are they doing tomorrow morning, when the Stock Exchange opens?”
“They’ve set up an attack. A bombing.” Walker headed to the small galley area and took a bottle of water. He stayed standing, drinking, then said, “We get to Heller, and we get to Bellamy. If we get them both, we can shut this down.”
61
Hutchinson killed the engine a house down from Eve’s.
He watched as the front door opened. Eve looked Durant up and down questioningly. His boots and jeans and checkered shirt were like any other Texan’s around here. His face, however, was all banged up. Durant replied with a shrug and few words. Eve hesitated a moment, and then embraced him. They went inside the house.
She looked outside as she closed the screen door, and saw Hutchinson getting out of his car. She called for Durant as Hutchinson walked up the driveway.
Durant came out to the porch. “Can I help you?”
Eve made the introductions, explaining how Hutchinson had just been inside for coffee and a chat about Walker.
“Right,” Durant said, his gaze never leaving Hutchinson. “Can I see ID?”
Hutchinson showed his FBI credentials.
“Why don’t you come on in again?” Durant said with a smile, revealing he had lost a front tooth from his run-in with Walker at the safe house. “Maybe I have some information that will be helpful to you.”
“Thanks,” Hutchinson said. It was not the greeting he’d expected. Hutchinson paused as he saw the look in Eve’s eyes. She seemed uneasy with the little get-together. He asked her, “Would you like us two to go talk someplace else? We can go to my car?”
“No,” she said, “it’s fine, come on in.”
Hutchinson entered, walking past Eve, who held open the screen door. He walked a few paces up the wide, antique floorboards and paused.
Durant was to his right, outside the line of the hallway, in the space where a wall used to be but had been cut out in a renovation to make the living room open to the hallway.
Durant motioned onward, toward the kitchen. Hutchinson headed for the kitchen again.
Durant attacked him from behind.
Hutchinson hit the floor hard, dazed but conscious, the blow to the side of his head having just missed his temple. He rolled to his left—
WHACK!
A boot heel stomped down where his head had just been.
Hutchinson turned—
Durant pulled a Smith & Wesson revolver. Hutchinson kicked out and tripped Durant. The .38 boomed.
Plaster rained down from where the round hit the ceiling.
Eve screamed.
Durant was on his back and reached for the spilled revolver.
Hutchinson grabbed Durant’s ankle and pulled him toward him.
Durant sat up and made to swing, but Hutchinson was ready, sideswiping the blow and grabbing Durant’s arm, twisting him around on the slippery polished floorboards, getting behind him in a sleeper hold.
The upper hand was short-lived—Durant dropped to the floor, Hutchinson’s grip lessened, and Durant had the .38 in hand and whipped around—
CRACK. The steel butt caught Hutchinson across the chin and he fell to the floor.
Eve tried to run, but Durant caught her by her hair
and slammed her against the wall.
“You’re going to get what’s coming to you, bitch,” Durant said, his left hand pulling down hard on her hair. His right hand was by his side, with the Smith & Wesson hanging.
Eve was stunned. Wide-eyed. Dying inside at the betrayal.
“First, you’re going to see me kill this guy. Then, you’re going to feel what it’s like to—”
Hutchinson crash-tackled Durant to the ground, plowing him into the wall. The Agency man turned with the hold and pulled Hutchinson into a headlock.
Eve screamed at them to stop.
“Get out!” Hutchinson yelled to Eve, his face and neck red with the effort of fighting against the hold. “Get out now!”
Eve ran out the front door.
Hutchinson fought for purchase on the slippery floor and found it. He rose on a knee and snapped his head back, using the back of his skull to crack Durant in the face, but the CIA man took the blow to the forehead and kept his hold.
Hutchinson twisted but Durant held tighter, gripping his arm around Hutchinson’s neck and pulling him deeper into the sleeper hold.
Hutchinson squirmed, bending his legs to steady his rubber-soled shoes on the floor and then pushed back, moving them both across the floorboards and crashing against the wall, Durant bearing the brunt of the impact.
The FBI agent repeated the move, and again, until he felt the grip slacken and he twisted from the hold—he felt bones in his right wrist snap as he broke free. He let himself fall to his right, his left hand reaching across his body for his service pistol, but Durant caught him by the ear and threw his head down to the floor.
CRACK.
Hutchinson saw stars in a black sky, though he was still conscious. His head rolled to the side and his focus found Durant, his face covered in blood from his re-shattered nose, getting to his feet, the Smith & Wesson in hand. He was turning as Hutchinson reached for his pistol.
“Hey,” Hutchinson said. He was lying on his right side, his left hand holding his service pistol sighted on Durant’s chest.
Durant turned and showed more of his body, raising his revolver to aim—
Hutchinson fired twice. Both shots hit Durant in the chest, a little to the right side of the rib cage, blowing him away.
As Durant fell, he returned fire, two shots. One bullet flew wide, gouging through the floorboard to Hutchinson’s right.
The other was on target, and grazed Hutchinson as he turned in reaction to the first shot, the slug burrowing a groove across his forehead. The last thing he saw through a curtain of dark blood was Durant, dragging himself to his knees and crawling out of the house.
Twenty-two hours to deadline.
62
Walker had been to Langley hundreds of times, but he had never felt like this. He was nervous as they entered the grounds.
Just inside the gate, which looked a lot like a customs stop, was a traffic light. When it turned red, people stopped their cars. If they didn’t, the steel barrier that was poised to rise from the roadbed would stop their cars for them.
McCorkell parked the hire car and led the way from the car park, Somerville and Walker behind him. The three of them walked in silence.
There were two main office buildings, one occupied in 1961 and another in 1988 after the Agency outgrew the first. By the piercing floodlights Walker could make out the lesser buildings on the grounds: the steaming block that was a gas turbine back-up power plant; The Bubble, an auditorium; the tall water tower; and a modern house out of character with the rest of the architecture, which served as a day-care center.
The CIA’s white marble lobby set a tone of austerity. No one got in without going through one of a battery of special gates, inserting an ID card and punching in a code. Even then the cards didn’t always work, and sometimes an arm of the gate would stick. The visitor’s ID card was unmistakable, with a large orange V and the words “Visitor—Escort Required.” Everyone wore ID here, all the time. Not long ago Walker felt at home here, but tonight he was slapped with a big, conspicuous V. His biometrics would be stored, and when he made his move, and security files were checked, there would be a few surprises for the security guys.
He couldn’t help but cast his eyes over the memorial wall as he passed. Each of the hundred-plus stars commemorated the life and service of a CIA officer who had died trying to protect the United States.
Walker was one of those stars. He wondered how many others were like him—presumed dead, but not.
Not many. Maybe none. It had been Agency lore that there was another, far larger, list of bright stars in the night sky that represented field officers listed as MIA.
Inside, Walker headed for tech services in the basement to search for his kill order, while McCorkell and Somerville went to confront Deputy Director Jack Heller.
“I need the bathroom,” Walker said to his escort, a young guy who looked like he belonged in high school.
The guy gestured to a door, and Walker went in—followed by the escort.
“Really, in here too?” he said.
The guy shrugged.
As he headed for a cubicle, Walker surreptitiously unhooked his ID pass and it fell to the floor. He turned to retrieve it.
The Agency escort bent to pick it up by the lanyard, and Walker kneed him under the chin as he rose. The guy went limp, falling unconscious to the floor. Walker dragged him into a cubicle, sat him on the toilet with his head slumped against the wall, and locked the door, then hoisted himself over it to the other side.
He slipped Pip Durant’s ID pass over his neck and left the bathroom. On the way to tech services he passed four people working the night shift, none of whom he recognized.
•
Somerville stood next to McCorkell, waiting outside Heller’s office.
“Don’t mention anything about Bellamy until Walker gets up here,” McCorkell said quietly.
Somerville smiled. “I can’t wait to see the look on Heller’s face when Walker appears.”
“I can’t wait to see the look on Heller’s face when you arrest him.”
The secretary came out. “The SAD Director will see you now.”
•
Tech services was located in what used to be a storage area before most of the paper files were digitized. It could fit four football fields per level, and it was four levels deep.
The attendant was vaguely familiar to Walker, and it went both ways, with a mutual “Hey there” greeting. Walker wore Durant’s ID lanyard, the face and name turned around so that only the color of the back, which signified his Above Top Secret clearance level, showed.
“I need a head-case scanner,” Walker said, rapping his fingers on the desk.
“Which station do you need it sent to?” the guy asked, reading off a computer screen as he continued with the task Walker had interrupted.
“No, I mean right here, right now,” Walker said, tapping a finger to the side of his head. “It’s in me.”
“Oh,” the tech officer said, looking at him queerly. “That’s odd.”
“I got in a tricky situation,” Walker said, playing with Durant’s ID card. “It’s lucky I’m here at all.”
“Right. Well, have you got your Agency phone handy?” he said.
Walker paused briefly and said, “No. I kinda need a new one of those too.”
“Right . . .” The tech tapped away at his keyboard and then produced an iPad with a requisition order. “You field spooks—this ain’t the army, you know. These ain’t boots and blankets we’re issuing. We have budgets to answer for.”
“Yeah, sorry about that.” Walker looked at the screen, uncertain.
“You need to put your thumbprint where it says.”
“Right.” Walker did so, and the image of his print stayed on the screen, lit up in bright blue. He saw the print flash three times then stay green, IDing him as field officer Pip Durant. Nice work with the switch, Marty . . .
“I’ll have the phone pre-loaded with the one-ti
me app.”
“The one-time . . .”
The tech looked at him. “You haven’t done this for a while, have you?”
“I’ve kinda been stuck in the field, living under a rock, if you know what I mean.”
“Well, hang on a sec,” the tech said, and he left his station and disappeared between stacks of metal shelves that used to hold file boxes and now held all manner of tech and IT gear. The office was open plan, and by the glow of the screens and dim lamps Walker could make out six other staffers working away in the cavernous space.
“Here, this one’s old tech but compatible, and secure,” the tech said, handing over an iPhone 4. “You want to use a computer room?”
“Room—yeah, for sure.”
“Number seven, down there.”
Walker took the phone and its charger and went to the computer room. He locked the soundproof door behind him and then opened the phone’s head-case application. He watched the screen. It said it was scanning, and then a “downloading data” message came up along with a progress bar that moved slowly across the screen.
While waiting, Walker used the browser to access the CIA’s secure wi-fi network and looked up Dan Bellamy. In paper terms the file—full biographical information—was the equivalent of a couple of inches thick. The private bio ran at just a couple of pages. Walker downloaded Bellamy’s home address and phone number, along with the family details of his wife and daughter, and a thumbnail sketch of the guy’s life. Walker then entered Bellamy’s financial and cell-phone details in the shared database that all intelligence and law-enforcement agencies could access. The system did a search of real-time location, bringing up details of when and where credit cards were used last, Trapwire image hits, phone calls made and vehicle location.
Bellamy’s location popped up within a few seconds: he was currently checked into a hotel in lower Manhattan.
The phone beeped. “DOWNLOAD COMPLETE.”
Walker checked his watch.
Fifteen hours to deadline.
63
Bill McCorkell told Jack Heller that he had debriefed Walker.
“And?” Heller said. “I have no further interest in Walker; he’s as dead to me today as he was last week. He’s got nothing to do with this Agency.”