66 Arlington, Virginia
The war room was in a dingy office area in an older section of Arlington. The building was what the real estate industry euphemistically called flex space, a structure that has been converted to office space from what originally had been light industrial or warehouse usage. Levell was able to secure the use of the office on short notice through a retired CIA colleague who had a portfolio of real estate investments.
The place looked tired and neglected. An acoustical ceiling and drywall had been installed in what had been bare bones warehouse space. A number of ceiling panels sagged from their gridwork of metal strips. The wallboard was deeply gouged in a few places and badly scuffed in several more. A few of the florescent light fixtures had burned out. Linoleum flooring, scarred and cracked from years of foot traffic, had been laid directly on the concrete slab. It was peeling up in several places.
There was a heavily barred door in the rear wall that opened onto the alley behind the building. A cheap, hollow core wooden door on the opposite wall led to what had once been a small reception area. Someone had smeared a coat of white paint over the door’s original varnished surface. It hadn’t improved its appearance.
A mass of maps, aerials, building plans, satellite imagery and other materials had been gathered from the same sources that had provided similar data for the warehouse in Richmond. Some of it was pinned to the walls and some was spread out on jury-rigged tables made of sawhorses and planks quickly acquired at a nearby Home Depot. The materials related mostly to Chaim Laski’s estate in Potomac, Maryland. In the center of the room, two three-foot square card tables had been pushed together to form a poor-man’s conference table. They had gray metal legs and frames with cheap, brown vinyl tops. Ten gray metal folding chairs were scattered around the tables.
Brendon Whelan sat in one of the chairs near the middle of the combined tables. He was alone in the room, waiting for Cliff Levell to arrive. Gazing at his humble surroundings, he was reminded of the old saw, beggars can’t be choosers. When Maksym’s escape had been discovered, they had quickly vacated the country manor outside Fredericksburg. It seemed a sure bet that he would report back to his comrades and they would place the estate under one or more modes of surveillance, particularly by Russian satellite. The Bureau and possibly others had the lodge in Tidewater Virginia under surveillance. They were running out of safe houses, and Levell had determined that it was safe for Christie’s family to return home.
The cheap wooden door to the reception area opened and Levell wheeled himself across the room to the table near Whelan. Despite the whirlwind activities of the day, he looked relaxed and pleased. He had a rare smile on his face. Whelan knew the reason for the old Cold Warrior’s good spirits – intrigue, retribution and violence.
“This isn’t exactly the way the mission we planned for you boys was supposed to go, but we can salvage a part of it,” Levell said.
“Is Laski more important than other parts of the overall mission you’d planned?”
“Important enough. Laski was always one of our targets. He’s the money manager for the Russians and their leftwing domestic comrades who have infiltrated damn near every corner of this country and its major institutions.”
“Cut off the head and the rest of the snake dies?”
“Usually, but this snake will just grow another head.”
“Presumably,” Whelan said, “it won’t grow it overnight.”
“No, it definitely will suffer for a while. And, while it does, it’ll buy time for us to regroup and replan.”
“What about your Russian buddy, Federov?” Whelan said it with a mischievous smile.
Levell’s eyes flashed. “He’s not my goddam ‘buddy’.” He took a deep breath and said, “Frankly, I was hoping the sonofabitch would succeed. What an incompetent candy ass. He’s supposed to be an expert fucking marksman. He nicks the president’s ear.” He paused briefly then said, “At least he took out that worthless, Stepford Wife of an AG.”
“Must be a hell of a thing,” Whelan said. “The president’s own handlers want him dead and so does the loyal opposition.”
There was a twinkle in Levell’s eyes.
“So, did the original mission call for us to take the president out?” Whelan said.
“No. That sonofabitch is the worst thing to happen to this country in its almost two hundred and fifty year history. But that doesn’t give us the right to ignore constitutional protocols and assassinate him.”
“Then what was our mission to have been?”
“That’s on a need to know basis and, under the circumstances, you no longer need to know.”
Whelan regarded his old friend and mentor. “Okay,” he said, “after Laski, then what?”
Levell reached over and clapped Whelan on the shoulder. “After that, you go home to that beautiful wife of yours.”
Whelan smiled at the thought. “Fair enough, but I assume that, in time, the mission or something approximating it will be resurrected.”
“You never know about these things,” Levell said with a sly smile. “God willing and the crick don’t rise, who can say what might transpire.”
“I’m going back to ground in Ireland. The FBI won’t be able to get to me there…if they’re even interested at this point. But what about the other guys?”
“We’ll take care of them, just like we did the last time.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning they’ll be set up with new identities and jobs.”
“Like witness protection?”
“Yeah. Something along those lines.”
“And if any of them object to the new routines?”
Levell’s eyes flashed again. “Dammit, stop with all these questions. The boys really don’t have much say in the matter. They’ll take what we offer or take their chances on their own. That would be a very bad decision if they value survival.”
A smile curled the corners of Whelan’s mouth, but it didn’t spread to his icy blue eyes. “One more question,” he said.
Levell sighed deeply and shook his head. “What is it?”
“That Bureau agent, Christie, what was the real reason you wanted us to protect his wife and children?”
“I told you before, it was to keep the other side from kidnapping them and using that as pressure on her husband. As Supervisory Special Agent of the Harold Case situation, it could have drawn more unwanted attention to that investigation.”
“Okay, that’s the official version. But it has a slight odor. For instance, Howard Morris has been keeping the news media buzzing with information about us. What’s the real reason?”
Levell gazed at Whelan with a look that might have cowed a lesser man. “Sometimes you’re too fucking smart for your own good. Deborah Christie, the agent’s wife, is the daughter of a dear friend, a man who saved my life during the Tet Offensive in sixty-eight.”
“I remember; you were a Marine before you joined the Agency.”
“Damn right I was. Anyway, we were counterattacking north of the Perfume River in Hue. Charlie was dug in tight. It was house-to-house combat. I took a sniper round and was bleeding out when her dad stepped up and plugged the hole, tossed me over a shoulder and carried me back to a med post. Otherwise, I would have died on that filthy fucking street. God knows, enough of us did.”
For just a moment, Whelan thought he detected a trace of softness in Levell’s tone.
“Years later, on his deathbed – cancer was eating him up, I promised him I would look after Debbie.”
“You’re a good man, Cliff.”
“Aw, dammit, don’t go getting all sentimental on me.” Levell seemed genuinely embarrassed by the compliment.
The door to the reception area opened again and Larsen, Thomas, Kirkland, Stensen and Almeida entered the room. Almeida was carrying a six-pack of beer in each hand. Placing one in the middle of each table, he started pulling bottles out and handed one to each of the other men. Although they were not twist-off cap
s, none of them had any trouble popping them off their respective bottles. Whelan easily pulled the caps off two bottles and handed one to Levell.
“Go easy, boys,” Levell said. “There’ll be wet work tonight.”
PART FIVE:
DEAD DOGS
67 J Edgar Hoover Building
In his career with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Mitch Christie had endured countless meetings. Some were better than others. This one clearly wasn’t one of those. He had joined the Bureau fresh out of Georgetown law school at age twenty-four and had moved steadily up the career ladder. Before the Harold Case affair had been assigned to him, he had expected an imminent promotion to Special Agent in Charge of one of the Bureau’s smaller Field Offices, or perhaps Assistant Special Agent in Charge in one of the larger ones. He might even have made it to Division Chief and eventually been able to retire on a comfortable pension.
Now, the Case investigation looked more and more like his career Waterloo. He had been heading it up for nine months and progress had slowed to a trickle. Despite his own agency shackling his efforts, he had continued quietly to follow up on everything he knew, or thought might, pertain to the Case investigation. There had been a flurry of leads and investigative activities in the weeks following Case’s murder. Since then, other than the kidnapping of his family, there had been only the incident in the hillbilly bar in western Carolina, the brutal killing of a Ukrainian thug at a nightclub near Georgetown. So far, that had led nowhere. And the Irishman always managed to stay a step ahead of him. Worst of all the man had even made a fool of him by abducting his own family. That crossed the threshold. That had made it personal.
Debbie and the children had returned home last night. While the Bureau had expressed relief for him, no one—not Antonelli, not anyone—was following up with has family members while their memories of details were fresh. The assassination attempt trumped everything. Even his investigation of the Levell abduction had been tabled by his boss, the EAD of the Criminal, Cyber, Response, and Services Branch. Christie had seen the DEA report that Levell had been found during a routine bust on a warehouse in Richmond. Levell claimed to have been drugged the entire time, and couldn’t recall anyone or anything relating to his captivity.
Now, when Christie wanted to devote every second of each day and every ounce of his energy to finding Whelan, this new situation had developed. He and every other federal law enforcement officer, and a lot of civilian ones, were being mobilized in response to the attempt on the life of the president earlier that day. His boss’s boss, the Chief of the Criminal Investigative Division had called this meeting at Bureau HQ. The auditorium was packed, standing room only, and it was being streamed live to all FBI field offices and installations around the country and abroad.
The chief rambled on about the horror, the ignominy, the shame that such an event could occur and not have been foiled by the Bureau. Worse yet, he reminded his audience, their ultimate boss, the attorney general, had been killed. He did take pains to point out that the ultimate responsibility for security had been with the Secret Service, and to a lesser extent the Capitol Police. It was a statement that was lost on few of those listening.
Christie glanced around and noted that most of the other agents seemed to be dutifully listening to the chief. But he was too distracted. The only thing he could think about was his wife. While he truly was relieved to have his family back safe and sound, something was different. The kids seemed disappointed by their old, familiar surroundings. They talked about living in a mansion, being waited on by servants, enjoying gourmet meals at every sitting. And they spoke with what amounted to hero worship about the men who had “saved them from bad people”. His daughter had a crush on several of the men. Brett, his son, held them in the same high esteem he usually reserved for soccer superstars.
What ate at him the most, however, was the change that had come over his wife. She seemed distant where he was concerned. While he knew she had grown unhappy with the demands of his career, this was something more. It was as if her experience with the abduction had driven her to an unspoken ultimatum: either we make radical changes in our life together or I move on without you.
Christie was unnerved by this change in his wife and afraid he might be losing her. He also was seething with anger. He was angry at his wife’s family friend, Cliff Levell. That Cliff Levell. On returning home, Debbie had told him about the pledge Levell had made to her father. He was especially enraged at Whelan. When Debbie spoke about Whelan, it was clear to him from her words and body language that she had special feelings for the man. Clearly, she was comparing her husband to Whelan, and Whelan was winning. That Irish bastard.
His wife was an attractive woman, trim and graceful. She had always drawn appraising looks from other men. Had Whelan been attracted to her? Had he seduced her? Had she actually been unfaithful to him? Did she want to leave him for Whelan? God, he hated Whelan.
An acute pain like a slash from a white-hot scalpel shot through his stomach. Even Christie’s own digestive organ had no love or respect for him. All this personal trauma caused the Mount St. Helens that his stomach had become to erupt in all its fury. Continuously. He was going through two large bottles of antacid per day and it seemed to make little difference.
He was convinced his wife was experiencing Stockholm syndrome. He had explained to her that it was a psychological phenomenon where captives begin to express empathy and have positive feelings for their captors. The victims mistake a lack of abuse from their captors as an act of kindness. Christie knew the Bureau’s Hostage Barricade Database System indicated that 27% of victims in situations similar to the one she had experienced show evidence of Stockholm syndrome.
He seemed alone in that regard. Debbie clearly rejected the theory and became incensed when he tried to bring it up. He felt he was losing her. She was talking about a trial separation. The thought sent an icy chill through his chest. He didn’t know what to do. If he acquiesced to her wishes and left the Bureau, his pension would not be sufficient to support them in later years. She insisted he could find a better job with normal working hours in the private sector. He wasn’t so sure.
The economy was weak and many well-qualified people were out of work and had been for a long time. Companies were cutting back, not expanding. Most of the issues could be laid at the feet of the current administration. But, he thought, even if this morning’s would-be assassin had succeeded in killing the president, it would have created a greater disaster. The vice president was a certifiable idiot who often came close to needing surgery to have his foot removed from his mouth. Although Christie was no supporter of this president, it was better to have sacrificed a highly expendable and equally incompetent AG.
The chief was droning on about the assassination attempt. Efforts were afoot to trace the sources of the weapon and ammunition used in the attempt. Forensics had all but disassembled the hotel room. The deaths of the two men found in the room appeared to be the result of a murder-suicide. The hotel staff had said that the men had been in residence for three weeks. Reportedly they both spoke with heavy Eastern European accents, but had been traveling with identification indicating they were British tourists.
This last bit of information troubled Christie. He remembered his phone conversations with the man who called himself Maksym. He’d had a slight trace of an Eastern European accent. And what was it Maksym had told him? Something about evil men going to do a bad thing. Assassinating the president was a bad thing. Could he have been talking about this morning’s attempt? Maksym had said he would tell Christie when and where to find these evil men. Yet he had heard nothing from him.
Right now, he didn’t want to hear from anyone. He just wanted to save his marriage. And, if there was a God, get his hands around the throat of Brendan Whelan.
68 Potomac, Maryland
It was a few minutes after nine o’clock on Labor Day evening. Petro Petrovich had just finished a quick meal and returned to his shift on guard
duty. He and three others had been patrolling the grounds of Chaim Laski’s estate. They had been at this for more than ten hours and were tired and bored. Yet, they had been instructed by Maksym to continue through the night. As much as they might hate it, no one refused Maksym. Someone had done that once, a few years ago. Maksym, using his bare hands, had beaten the man to death. The message had been clear and unmistakable: do not argue with Maksym.
The men on external guard duty had not been told why the usual two patrols had been increased to four. Petrovich did not complain. Now he was responsible for patrolling only a quarter of the estate’s grounds, not half. Nor did any of the men know why they were working double shifts without relief. Only Maksym knew the answers, and no one was fool enough to question him.
Each of the four patrolling guards was teamed with a large, ill-tempered Boerboel. Originally from South Africa, it was the only breed of dog bred solely to defend specific territory, such as a homestead. As a result, they were extremely brave and protective, with a high degree of intelligence and resistance to pain. All of the Boerboels at Laski’s estate were males. Each stood twenty-eight inches at the shoulder and weighed close to two hundred pounds. No human being could survive an encounter with an angry Boerboel.
Petrovich and the other men were armed with the HK UMP45, a submachine gun chambering a .45 ACP cartridge from a straight, polymer magazine holding thirty rounds of Federal Premium 230 grain hollow-point ammunition. They were supposed to be accessible only to the military and law enforcement agencies. Maksym, however, had been able to acquire them. It had only been a matter of money. Each weapon had been fitted with Advanced Armament’s Defender sound suppressor to which five cubic centimeters of water had been added. Firing the weapon with the wet suppressor reduced the noise level thirty-nine additional decibels over firing with a dry one. As a result, the noise factor upon discharging the weapon was similar to that of an air pistol. Audible, to be sure, but not sufficient to attract the interest or concern of neighbors in their own walled, multi-acre estates.
Sleeping Dogs: The Awakening Page 36