Rogue Empire (Blake Carver Series)

by William Tyree

  The red dot entered Section 404 and turned into one of the upper rows. Carver moved into position at the bottom of the section. He watched the Pink Dragon sit, rest her elbows on her knees and with her left hand, reach underneath the seat and retrieve the key. She balled up the packing tape that had attached it to the seat and dropped it to the floor. Then she dropped the key into her clutch. Now she flattened her right palm and patted the top of her head twice.

  “Did you see that?” Carver said.

  “Yeah. She flashed some sort of hand signal. She’s working with a partner. Maybe she’s going to pass the key to a contact here at the game.”

  “Then we need to take her now.”

  “Agreed.”

  The arena was suddenly plummeted into near darkness. The Wizard faithful that had been milling about the stadium suddenly scrambled for their seats. Thunderous music played as the jumbotron near the ceiling began flashing a highlight reel of gravity-defying dunks. The crowd sighed. Ahhhhhhhhh.

  A voice boomed over the PA system. Introducing your Washington Wizards. Starting at point guard, in his second year from the University of North Carolina, Demetrius Ferrera.

  Carver traversed the stairs two at a time now, squeezing past fans going this way and that. He was closing in. She was up in front of him, no more than 30 feet away. He glanced down at the tracking app. The red dot showed the Pink Dragon moving straight up the stairs.

  At shooting guard, Matt Wessel.

  As Carver neared the concourse, he stepped on something. He nearly slipped. The texture of the fabric - nylon shell - resonated, and he picked it up. It was the Pink Dragon’s jacket.

  At power forward, Jacob Longley.

  “We lost tracking,” Carver said as he leapt up the final series of stairs. There in the silhouette of the lit corridor that led out to the concourse, he spotted the figure slumped over the landing. The Pink Dragon was down.

  Starting at small forward, DeShawn Turner.

  He approached with caution. Out of instinct, his hand reached inside his jacket for his SIG. Not here, he thought, realizing that no matter how much he wanted the Pink Dragon, there would be no forgiveness for shooting her before 18,000 witnesses. That wasn’t how the spy game was played. If brute force was necessary, it would be done quietly and swiftly, with his bare hands, here in the dark.

  At center, Derek Wiggins.

  He saw the gemstone earrings now. He was close enough to touch her. She was shaking. A sudden surge of vomit flooded from her mouth. And he knew from the telltale odor of the vomit - burnt almonds - that there would be no saving her.

  And your coach, Jake McCall.

  “Target is down,” Carver said. “At the top of the stairs.”

  “Copy that. Heading your way.”

  The crowd cheered one last time before the house lights popped on and the announcer’s voice suddenly broke into a different tone entirely.

  Ladies and gentlemen, due to a security issue, we ask that you proceed in an orderly fashion toward the nearest exit. Again, please proceed in an orderly fashion toward the nearest exit. Do not run.

  The energy in the arena abruptly shifted. Eighteen thousand people seemed to say, what? Did he just say what I think he said? Words on the jumbotron confirmed it: PLEASE PROCEED CALMLY TOWARD THE EXITS.

  This was the last thing Carver needed. He hailed Ellis. “Did you inform security?”

  “Negative. I’m as surprised as you are.”

  A bomb threat, Carver deduced as the crowds snaked around him. Whatever organization had conspired to kill the Pink Dragon had played this just right. Thousands of people rushing for the exits would make finding the perpetrators impossible.

  The crowd did not proceed calmly. As thousands swarmed the aisles - shouting, elbowing and stepping past one another - the Pink Dragon’s body went still. Carver’s eyes searched the floor around her for an instant before it was covered in foot traffic. The clutch she had slipped the key into had disappeared.

  He pulled the Pink Dragon’s body into the aisle seat to keep it from being trampled by the mob making their way to the top of the concourse. A woman in heels stepped and slid in the puddle of vomit, but the throngs behind her kept her from falling.

  Carver refocused his attention back to the Pink Dragon. Something sticky in the wispy ends of her hair. He brushed it away, revealing a small puncture wound in the neck. The spot where they had injected the poisonous solution.

  There was very little time now. Arena security would be here within seconds. He quickly searched the pockets of the Pink Dragon’s jeans. They were empty.

  Ellis was suddenly next to him, ready to apply CPR.

  “Don’t,” Carver said, holding her back before she could perform mouth to mouth with the poisoned spy. He pointed to a tiny injection mark that bled from her neck, then to the white substance foaming around her lips. “It’s cyanide, Ellis.”

  National Counterterrorism Center

  McLean, Virginia

  The insulin pump that Jack Brenner had been wearing at the time of his death sat on a white table in the middle of the lab. Carver and Ellis watched as Arunus Roth, one of the Guardian’s top geeks, powered up his laptop at the end of the table and connected to the pump wirelessly. The 22-year-old Roth had been expelled from a community college in Albuquerque for infiltrating and modifying the school’s vocational aptitude software.

  “I think this is how they snuffed him,” Roth said. “I’ve never even seen one of these pumps before, and it took me all of five minutes to hack into it.”

  Ellis crossed her arms. “The ER doctor’s preliminary diagnosis was a massive heart attack.”

  Carver snickered derisively. “At 31 years old?” He put on a pair of latex gloves and picked up the pump, examining it at different angles. Carver had read all about insulin pumps in a magazine while visiting his general doctor more than four years ago. A Tuesday. He had been there to get a physical, and he had been cranky because he had been fasting for 12 hours. At least he had apparently learned something useful while he waited.

  “Brenner was poisoned,” Carver said, “just like the Pink Dragon. The only difference was the method.” He pointed to the device. “This tiny tube is called a cannula, and that’s what connects the device to the body. It automatically detects how much insulin to put into the body at regular intervals throughout the day. The thing it’s absolutely not supposed to do is shoot its entire load into you all at once.”

  Roth took the pump from him. “I think that’s right. This pump is dry as a bone. When the tox report comes back, they’re going to find that Jack Brenner has enough insulin in him to kill an elephant.”

  Ellis rested her face in her hands for a moment before coming up for air. “Okay, so who killed him? And were they planning to kill Brenner all along to tie up loose ends, or did they only kill him when they knew he was going to be caught? And how did they know he was going to be caught?”

  “All the right questions,” Carver said. “A minute before you walked into the pub, he said he thought they were listening. Apparently they were, somehow.”

  Roth shuddered. “That’s spooky, bro.”

  Ellis shook her head. “The FBI interviewed the six other customers at the roadhouse at the time of Brenner’s death, plus the kitchen staff. We can rule them out as suspects.”

  Roth bit his lower lip. “Yeah, but Brenner just takes a dirt nap right before he’s taken into custody? Whoever hacked into his insulin pump could have just as easily hacked into his phone and used the mic to listen to every single word of your conversation.”

  “Brenner was using a burner phone.”

  “So? The Pink Dragon had the number. And she had just received the location of the last drop from Brenner.”

  The three of them exited the lab and went down the hallway to the National Counterterrorism Center. Carver loved standing at the second floor landing and looking out at the massive screens tracking enemy movements and operations in theaters across the world. So much
data. So much brilliant technology with which to parse it.

  He turned to Roth. “What are the odds of finding a digital breadcrumb linking the insulin pump to the hacker?”

  Roth’s answer came quickly. “About the same as capturing Bigfoot.”

  “So let’s focus on finding the person that killed the Pink Dragon at the game.”

  “Already on it. We have people going through the footage in the arena surveillance cameras, matching the crowds against profiles in our database. Just to set expectations, the cameras aren’t great quality. We might get nothing.”

  “That won’t work. We need an answer by noon.”

  “If you’ve got a better way, I’d like to hear it.”

  “Sure. We are probably looking for a relatively fit man between the age of 25 and 55. Odds are he’ll be foreign-born.”

  “This is D.C., bro. You’re describing a huge portion of the population.”

  “For the thousandth time, don’t call me bro.”

  “Sorry, Agent Carver.”

  “Blake will do. Now let’s assume that the person who killed the Pink Dragon did not sneak into the arena. That would have introduced unnecessary risk.”

  “Agreed. So he paid to get into the game, just like 18,000 other people. And there are a ton of ticketing outlets. No way to segment the ticket buyers by age, ethnicity or nationality.”

  Carver walked to a whiteboard. Ellis and Roth followed. He picked up a purple marker. “So let’s narrow further.” He wrote the word TIMING in caps. “The suspect couldn’t have bought his tickets until Jack Brenner told the Pink Dragon that was where he was making the drop, which was just two hours before the game.” Carver wrote 120 MINUTES on the board. Then he wrote RESALE TICKET OUTLETS ONLY. “Besides, the Wizards are actually good this year, so the game was likely sold out well ahead of time. That means that the number of last-minute ticket sales within the final three days will likely be confined to resale ticket sale sites.”

  Roth brightened. “Hey, that’s good!”

  Carver wrote SINGLE BUYER. “And how many of those last-minute ticket buyers would purchase just a single seat?”

  “Right! Loners go to the movies, not NBA games.”

  Next, Carver wrote PAYMENT TYPE. “And the person buying the ticket likely paid with a stolen credit card.”

  Ellis nodded wearily. “So we’re looking for a single buyer who purchased within 120 minutes of the game.”

  “Scalper?” Roth said.

  She frowned. “No. Too risky. The killer would have purchased online to make sure of getting in on time.”

  Carver agreed. He checked his watch. It was 3:35 a.m. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve been asked to explain this mess at the White House.”

  With that, Ellis’s entire demeanor flipped. “You’ve been asked to explain? This is my op!”

  Carver paused and turned. Due to the rigors of the past 48 hours, he found himself emotionally threadbare, unable to mask his frustration. He took a deep breath. “You’re right, Haley. It is your op. I’ll make sure to remind the president.”

  “Good luck. She tends to shoot the messenger.”

  The White House

  Washington D.C.

  Speers sat in a burgundy chair outside the Oval Office, hands folded in his lap like a choirboy who had been told to stop fidgeting. The president had summoned him for a sidebar prior to the daily intelligence briefing, which was scheduled for 6:30 a.m. The meeting request had elevated his already sky-high anxiety levels. As presidents went, Eva was a famously late riser. She needed seven to eight hours of sleep per night, and she often ran late to early morning meetings, keeping the agency heads waiting. And yet, Eva needed to speak with him before the daily briefing. No reason had been given.

  Did she want his resignation? To fortify himself, he had forced himself to consider the possibility. He imagined the words coming from her lips. A major international incident happened on your watch, Julian. It’s nothing personal. I’m sure you understand. Someone’s head has to roll.

  He had never been fired from a job in his life. Nor had he ever seriously pursued one. He had been lucky, he supposed, having simply fallen into one thing after another, the steps of his career appearing before him like a magic staircase. But unlike most of Washington politicos, Speers was far from wealthy. He had been raised by a single mother in Washington who lived check to check. Speers had taken out loans to go to law school. What little net worth he had now was tied up in his mortgage, and if he was fired, it wasn’t like he could just take some time off to spend with his family. He would have to hustle for his next meal ticket.

  Sometimes, Speers fantasized about landing on the board of some private intelligence firm that would pay him handsomely for his connections. But I would hate that. They would want me to lobby the Hill for them. And I hate lobbyists.

  The door to the Oval Office flew open. “Morning, Julian,” Eva said without slowing her forward momentum. “Walk with me.”

  For a big man, Speers got to his feet quickly. He noticed that Eva was fully dressed for battle this morning in a black power suit with rounded shoulders that looked, to Speers’ eye, like the armored fenders of the Batmobile. The attire did nothing to soothe Speers’ worries. On the day Eva had canned the directors of 14 intelligence agencies all at once, she had worn a similarly severe black outfit. As if mourning the executions she had herself carried out.

  “I was shocked to hear Blake Carver will deliver the briefing.”

  Speers had expected to be on the defensive, but not about this. “Well considering that Carver was on the front lines both in Tripoli and Verizon Center, it seemed like a natural choice. He’s also in the best possible position to answer our questions.”

  The president picked up speed as she rounded the corner. “You didn’t read it, did you?”

  “Read what?”

  The president stopped. She pulled a memo from a leather folder with the presidential seal and handed it to Speers. “I always assumed you approved these memos before they reached my desk.”

  It appeared to be a simple operational brief. Authored by Haley Ellis. And no, Speers had not read it. He surrounded himself with people he trusted so that he didn’t have to read everything.

  According to the time stamp on the document, Ellis had submitted it at 4:53 a.m. That was just seven minutes prior to the deadline, making it impossible to be screened in time for inclusion in the Morning Book.

  Speers blushed as his pupils danced over the incendiary text, all of which was directed at Blake Carver. Speers struggled to remember his conversation with Ellis at the diner. The look on her face when told that she would have to team up with Carver again. Hadn’t she called him toxic?

  “I need a moment to digest this,” Speers said.

  “Read and walk.” The president resumed her march to the Situation Room. Speers did his best to keep up.

  OPERATIONAL BRIEF 26A-47

  AUTHOR: Haley Ellis, Sr. Counterterrorism Analyst

  After analyzing Agent Carver’s behavior over the past 48 hours, I recommend a full investigation into his activities, with the goal of identifying any possible leaks or compromises as they pertain to Operation Trojan Horse. In general, Carver’s actions have become increasingly erratic and counterproductive to agency policies and procedures. There is sufficient reason to believe that he may be obstructing the investigation or even involved in sabotage. Examples:

  9/23: Carver disobeyed a direct order and entered Tripoli alone, purportedly to extract the operative in question, Kyra Javan. Carver claims that he killed Allied Jihad soldier Mohy Osman, but no proof exists. In her initial debriefing, Ms. Javan has no recollection of Carver’s entering the Osman residence where she was purportedly rescued. It should be noted that the drone target objective coordinates were verified by the NCC just prior to the time that Carver entered the city, and mysteriously changed during his time in the city itself, when he was unobserved. More needs to be discovered about Carver’s activities w
ithin the hour before the drone strike hit the embassy.

  9/24 (a): Carver insisted on meeting suspect, Jack Brenner, one-on-one, instructing the team to delay its entry into the pub where he was drinking. While we have audio of the exchange, we have no direct visual knowledge of the encounter. Brenner died suddenly after consuming alcohol with Carver. Afterwards, Carver was oddly quick to cite the cause of Brenner’s sudden death as an insulin pump hack (many hours before it was confirmed by lab analysis). We need to learn more about why he was so certain about Brenner’s cause of death. In addition, Carver failed to protect the crime scene. The suspect’s glass and utensils were promptly washed by the restaurant’s dishwasher, making additional analysis impossible.

  This was all nonsense. Carver was one of the few people brilliant enough to make such a keen observation on the spot, and he had no doubt that the toxicology report would confirm Carver’s suspicions about Brenner’s cause of death. Speers flipped to the second page, where Ellis’s attack continued:

  9/24 (b): At Verizon Center, Carver was alone with Jessica Wu [AKA The Pink Dragon] for between 30 and 60 seconds under low-light conditions. He radioed that she was down almost immediately. When I arrived on the scene, Carver blocked my attempts to perform CPR. He pulled me away from the scene, proclaiming that the suspect’s death was due to cyanide poisoning by injection, despite having no actual evidence.

  The president’s voice interrupted his focus. “Julian, we’re here.”

  Speers looked up. He and the president stood just outside the Situation Room. He realized that in addition to the president having read Ellis’s memo, the morning briefing had also been distributed to the heads of all the federal intelligence agencies. And now Carver was waiting to present to them in the Situation Room. And whether he knew it or not, there was a huge knife stuck in his back.

  “Julian?”

  “Madam President, I strongly disagree with the way Carver has been characterized here. I think this may be a straight up case of professional jealousy. The warning signs were there. I should have –“