by Vicki Hinze
“Senator Marlowe disagrees.” Conlee frowned and leaned forward against the table. “I don’t claim to understand the logistics, but the statement from Lieutenant Gibson matches the senator’s statement. They both say Mendoza was at the station and at no time passed the senator, which he would have had to do to exit the inner hub. They say he just vanished.”
David stared at Conlee. “Mendoza could be our leak.”
“We have no evidence of that at this time, sir.”
“Keep looking.”
“Yes, sir.”
The surveillance camera in the inner hub was focused on the control desk, away from the door. If at the onset of the lockdown Mendoza had moved to the door and had stayed there, then he wouldn’t be visible on camera, but the heat sensors would detect his presence. “Have we run diagnostics?”
“Simple and complex, sir.”
So the heat sensors hadn’t located him either. “How long will it take our engineers to run a stand-down cycle?”
“They’re not sure yet. Apparently, whoever did this planted viral triggers throughout the system. To neutralize them, the engineers have to do a frame-by-frame cycle inspection. It could take days.”
“We don’t have days.”
“I’m aware of that, sir. We’re seeking alternatives.”
“Alternatives? Is that it?”
“It’s all we know at this time, sir.”
“I want hourly updates and all crisis reports personally.” David slapped his hands against the tabletop. “Anything else?”
“Yes, sir.” Barber leaned forward, laced his hands atop a yellow-lined pad. Nothing had been written on the page. “I would speak to you privately about this, but privacy is a moot point, since everyone here has heard about it already.”
“That includes the press, sir,” Winston added, looking pensive.
“It’s about Vice President Stone,” Barber said.
“What about her?” Had the media somehow learned they had released news of her death without confirmation?
“What she did with Peris and Abdan has raised serious concerns about her competence.”
David did his best to keep his temper in check. “Incompetent how?”
Barber’s face went red. “She’s having cookies and milk and a note delivered to their leaders every night to keep them in Geneva.”
“Cookies and milk.” Winston blew out a disgusted grunt. “In a single stroke, she’s set back diplomatic relations twenty years.”
David slid Winston a warning look to hold his tongue. “So I take it her strategy failed and the leaders have left Geneva.”
“Actually, it’s worked, sir.” That came from an amused Commander Conlee.
“Then her strategy, while unusual, has proven to be both effective and successful.” The president didn’t blink. “Let me remind you, we couldn’t get either of them to the negotiating table. She did.” He paused, but no one disputed him, so he went on. “As it happens, I’ve heard from both Peris and Abdan again today. They’re charmed by the vice president’s gesture and they’re mourning her death.” He slid forward on his chair in a deliberate attempt to intimidate both Barber and Winston. “Something is wrong when our vice president gets more concern and respect from foreigners than from her own people. Think about that.”
“There’s more, sir.” Barber glanced nervously at Winston, then back to the president. “If we want to avoid a political bloodbath, we need to address the matter quickly.”
Another Watergate or Whitewater, they did not need. David’s stomach soured. “What specifically is the matter?”
Barber’s lips flattened to a slash. “The ethics committee has received a violations complaint against the vice president, sir.”
Sam had been standing near the elevator for the past fifteen minutes, debating whether to ride up to Cap’s office and tell him what had been going on. He was tempted, but Conlee had made no bones about promising to kill Sam and anyone he told about the broadcasts. Putting your own head on the chopping block was one thing, but putting someone else’s there gave a man reason to pause.
He stared above the elevator at the lighted numbers, wondering what he was doing here. He had done fourteen broadcasts for Conlee now, and he’d talked with Karla about the Dean family half a dozen times, without hearing anything except “No sign of them yet. Frankly, we need a break.” The kidnappers hadn’t made contact, and Sniffer hadn’t found a clue. With each broadcast and each call from Karla, Sam had become more convinced the FBI, or whoever was working the case on the federal level, had squelched the local police investigation. Karla hadn’t said a word about input from the Deans’ extended families or friends, and Sniffer had determined on first-contact attempts that no family, friends, or neighbors—none of them—had any idea anything was amiss. Sam had debated and decided to keep his mouth shut and not risk approaching Conlee or Cap Marlowe with a thing. He saw no way around that now.
So what are you doing here?
Good question. The elevator moved down to the fourth floor. He hadn’t considered going to Cap’s office this time. But then he had run into President Lance, who hadn’t been exactly forthcoming with information about the Dean family, and it hadn’t escaped Sam’s notice that neither Barber, nor Winston, nor Lance had so much as hinted at the broadcasts. Not that the president would say anything outright, but typically Barber or Winston would. What really had bothered Sam was that the president had walked on as if everything were fine, and he had had the strongest feeling that Lance didn’t know about the broadcasts or that he was doing them.
What if Commander Conlee was working with Sybil Stone and this treason business was valid? What if they weren’t makeshift saviors but the most corrupt politicians on the Hill?
Yet treason didn’t fit with the content of the broadcasts. It didn’t fit her, either. Why feed her updates on the Peris and Abdan peace talks and on a terrorist-attack crisis that had happened only God knew where? Sam had watched every resource like a hawk, but he hadn’t seen anything about an attack. Or any reference whatsoever to A-267. What was it? Where was it that the country was being covertly attacked?
If Sybil Stone was alive, she was putting it all on the line, including her own backside, and she was doing it knowing that PUSH or Ballast meant for her to fail. If either of those groups was gunning for him, Sam would be scared stiff. So would anyone else who had a whiff of sense. Yet she hadn’t called Conlee and requested extraction. She was hanging tight and holding her silence.
In Sam’s book, that meant one of two things: She was already dead, or she didn’t know whom she could trust. If the latter proved true, then she had guts and grit.
Guts and grit? Sybil Stone?
A novel concept, admittedly, but one not easily dismissed. Not after partially decoding the broadcasts.
The elevator door opened.
Jean brushed his sleeve as she stepped into the lift. “Going up to see the senator, Sam?”
He couldn’t do it. Not until he knew which side of the fence Sybil Stone came down on, who stood with her, and who wanted her dead. “No.” Sam slid her a plastic smile and checked his watch. “No, I’m not.”
“Something come up?”
“Yeah, a sexy cop I’ve stood up one too many times.”
“Ouch.” Jean smiled easily. “Crossing a woman who’s armed and dangerous. You’re a brave man, Sam.”
“Not so brave. She’s sworn to shoot me if I do it again. I don’t think I’d better play the odds.”
“Have you heard anything new on Liberty?”
A warning alarm went off in his head. Think fast. Faster. Denial was his only safety measure. “I’m sorry, Jean. I didn’t hear you.”
What she’d said hit her and her jaw fell slack. “It was nothing. You okay?”
Sam struggled to show no outward reaction, but for the first time in the five years he had known Jean, he looked deeply into her eyes and the look she sent back to him had his instincts humming. Jean wasn’t the para
gon he had believed her to be. She was something else—maybe for someone else. Could she be an infiltrator for Ballast or PUSH?
Ballast maybe, but not PUSH. Jean stuck with “the best.” She’d never ally herself with anyone ranking even a close second any more than she’d fly coach on a commercial liner.
Ballast had a documented history of infiltrating, and Jean was certainly capable. It was possible. Actually, one slip of her tongue had made it probable and worth checking out.
Before the upheaval in the last election, Secret Service code names had been public information. But that policy had nearly cost the former veep his life. After his attempted assassination, the security procedure had been changed, and all code names for the brass and their families had become classified. These days those names were guarded like Fort Knox.
Have you heard anything new on Liberty?
Jean hadn’t asked him for the latest on Sybil Stone; she’d asked him for the latest on Liberty.
Yet Cap Marlowe trusted Jean implicitly, filtered all of his leaks to Sam through her. So did that mean she had played Cap or that Cap worked for the terrorists, too?
Chapter Fifteen
Friday, August 9 First-Strike Launch 32:39:26
They were going to kill her.
Buried up to her neck under a clump of thick bushes, Sybil stared out from between the leaves. The clouds overhead loomed dark and ominous, but for once she felt grateful for the long shadows obscuring the floor of the swamp. Croaking frogs, the rustling of small animals moving through the brush and in the trees, and an unseen owl’s soft hoots resonated through the woods, breaking the deafening silence. She didn’t dare to move, to breathe, to so much as blink for fear the three armed men after her and Westford would shoot.
“I’m picking up something here, ET,” one of the men said.
A broad shadow fell over a barrel-chested man with a white spot in his hair. “I see it.”
All three of them stared down at palm-size devices. Heat sensors, or some other locating device, she surmised, certain they could hear her heart banging against her ribs.
She cut her gaze left, to Westford. Swathed in mud, his head was concealed by the pungent leaves. If she hadn’t known he was there, she wouldn’t have seen him. That gave her hope that the three men wouldn’t see them. They clearly weren’t U.S. forces.
“Walk the grid,” ET said, his back to her.
The other two men walked farther away from Sybil. When they moved out of earshot, he turned and stared straight through the bushes into her eyes.
Sybil clenched her jaw to keep from gasping. She didn’t know what to do. Should she stay still? Move? Try to run and lead them away from Westford?
“This one is free, Lady Liberty” ET whispered, and dropped a penny inches from her nose. “For the kids and your milk and cookies.” His eyes glazed. “But next time I see you, you’re dead.”
Before she could respond, if she could have found enough voice to respond, ET turned and walked away.
“There’s no one here,” he told the others. “Something has the sensors malfunctioning. Operate on visual.” He led the men away from the bushes and soon they disappeared from sight.
“Don’t move yet.”
Sybil looked over at Westford.
“He just put his life on the line for you. Give him some space.”
“Why would he do that?” Sybil couldn’t imagine, but she was damn grateful for it.
“Could be anything,” Westford said. “My guess is respect.”
Sybil found that difficult to believe. “The man’s a terrorist, for God’s sake.”
“That doesn’t mean he’s without honor. Only that he sees certain issues from a different perspective. From his view, he’s justified. From ours, he’s twisted. Apparently, you’re not one of his twisted issues.”
“He wasn’t one of ours?”
“ET is Gregor Faust’s number-two man.”
Nothing in Westford’s tone or expression told her he was being evasive, but her instincts swore that’s exactly what he was doing. “Then why did he drop a U.S. penny in my face?”
“It’s a U.S. penny?” Westford asked, clearly intrigued.
“Yes. What does it mean?”
“I’m not at liberty to say”
Having been in that position too often herself, where she would have to break the law to disclose some tidbit of classified information restricted to a specific need-to-know loop, she didn’t push.
They stayed put until twilight gave way to darkness, moving as little as possible. The mud made her itch, and Sybil resisted scratching by craning her neck time and again to look longingly past a graceful willow to the water rushing in the creek.
Finally Westford gave her the signal. “Let’s go.”
They washed off in the creek. Allowing for the cumbersome briefcase, Sybil mimicked Westford, minimizing splashing, keeping all but his head under the surface of the water. Small targets, she supposed, were harder to hit.
A clopping noise sounded, echoed across the water, startling her. “Westford?”
“Helicopter. Three o’clock,” he whispered, scanning the sky. “Get out of the water.”
The helicopter put down in a clearing of thin grass. Sybil and Westford moved closer, staying crouched low to the ground, concealed by trees and brush and darkness. They took cover behind a line of catbrier near the edge of the clearing. The clawlike vine snagged Sybil’s right arm. She gritted her teeth to keep from crying out and untangled herself. Thin streaks of blood trickled down her arm.
“You okay?”
Her arm burned like fire. “Fine,” she grated out.
The chopper blades whipped the air, bending the grass. It was painted black and had no visible markings. Sybil nearly cried. “It’s not one of ours.”
Westford spared her a glance. “Not yet.”
Should that remark elate her or scare her to death? In truth, it did both.
Before dawn, she and Westford would be at war.
Weak and clammy, Cap leaned back on a brown vinyl sofa in the outer rim’s reception area, across from the security desk. Lieutenant Gibson sat behind it. He was on the phone again, this time with a flight surgeon.
“The inner doors are all sealed, sir,” Gibson said into the receiver. “The only things I can get to are the reception area and the coffee bay. Nothing else.”
Cap’s mind felt fuzzy, as if he were hearing and seeing through layers of gauze. In a cold sweat, fumble-fingered, he worked at loosening his tie. The effort drained his strength, and he slumped down to lie on the sofa, barely resisting the urge to curl his knees to his chest.
Gibson left the desk and disappeared into an alcove. When he returned, he was carrying a coffee cup with Mickey Mouse faces on it.
He held the cup to Cap’s mouth. “Doc Richardson says you need sugar, so you need to drink this. I mixed what I could find with a little water.”
“Thank you.” Cap clutched at the cup with both hands, drew it shakily to his mouth, depending on Gibson more than his ego would let him admit. “Is there any food here?” He swallowed the syrupy water. Refined sugar would elevate his blood-sugar level, but it wouldn’t sustain it. It was midnight, and he’d missed two meals, two snacks, and two injections. “I—I need protein.”
“No, sir. Nothing,” Gibson said, and then grunted. “Somebody ripped off all the sugar from the coffee bay. I found a packet shoved up under the coffeemaker to bring you what I did. How long will it last?”
“Not long.” Someone had removed all the sugar and locked Cap in the outer rim. Someone had been observing him, had known he hadn’t taken his shot and seized this opportunity. Someone wanted him dead. The question was, who? Only Jean had knowledge of his insulin injection … Jean? Could she be spying on him for Faust?
No. No, not Jean. She’d been his right and left hands for more than ten years. Hell, she knew more about him and his activities than his wife. “We have to get out of here, Gibson.”
“
We’re doing everything we can do to make that happen, sir. People are locked in offices all over the building. The security scanners have been corrupted. Until we figure out what to do and how to do it, we’re stuck.”
“Corrupted in what way?” Cap hoped to God he was wrong, yet it seemed logical that they would need the key he had put in the inner-hub mail chute and the key Sybil Stone was carrying to reverse the lockdown. But Conlee had questioned Cap personally about Mendoza leaving the inner hub. How the man had gotten past Cap, he didn’t know, but apparently he had, because now the inner hub was empty. That meant there was no one inside to retrieve Cap’s key, and Sybil Stone was purportedly dead.
What if that was true? What if she was dead?
Then you’ll die, too, Cap.
“We’re still determining that, sir. But the corruption appears to be pervasive.”
Cap drained the cup. “Thank you.”
Gibson nodded, and Cap relaxed back against the sofa cushions, dabbed a trembling finger to his damp chin, and then closed his eyes. Ironic. In the whole world, the one person he most hated was the very person he now depended on to save his country and his life.
If she’s not dead and she returns with the key, she could drag her feet long enough to let you die and still arrive in time to halt the launch.
Sobering thought, but true. Without an insulin injection, Cap would die long before the missile detonated. And honesty forced him to admit that, if he were in her shoes, letting him die is exactly what he would do. His nemesis would be off his back and out of his way forever. His main opposition would cease to exist, and he wouldn’t have to lift a finger to make it happen.
Even as he thought it, Cap instinctively knew Sybil Stone would not drag her feet. After all he had done to make her life difficult, she would not deliberately linger and watch him die. She would find the thought of doing that morally and ethically repugnant.
He found it repugnant, but he would do it anyway.
What kind of man did that make him?
And what kind of woman did that make her?