“Better put it in my name,” Vikki said.
He gave her a steely look of rebuke and slowly shook his head. “You know I’m breaking about a dozen laws, don’t you?”
“With your sterling reputation?”
He grumbled something irascible. She placed a hand on his shoulder and kneaded it. He shook his head again, but the minutest smile rose on his otherwise frowning lips even as he swore something foul under his breath.
They left the room. The lights went out. Jack heard them talking downstairs. A few minutes later, the doctor left.
He slept.
The smell of breakfast on the stove and percolating coffee roused him from bad dreams. He was hungry but the thought of food made his stomach turn. Vikki didn’t give a damn. She banged into the bedroom, propped him up with extra pillows, set a tray on his lap, and handed him a fork. “The car outside? Yours?”
He hesitated before saying, “Borrowed.”
“I don’t want it sitting outside my house.”
“She probably won’t call the cops.”
“Whose is it?”
He told her and gave her Liz’s address. “My gear’s inside.”
“We’ll take care of everything,” she said, glancing over at Alex.
They both left him as they would leave a child tucked into bed, the door closing on a whisper but left slightly ajar.
Jack filled his belly, awkward given the restraints of his left hand. Eventually he set the tray aside and sank under the covers, there to dream disturbing dreams. Of a woman praying on her knees and offering her last supplication to an uncaring god. Of another woman thrown into the path of a commuter train. Of a third woman tortured on a bed of injustice and left like trash beside her one-time lover. Of a killer speaking in accented English: “There-there, you will soon go to a better place.” Of an exotic woman holding out the slim fingers of her elegant hand and saying, “It’s candy. Candy for the soul. Eat, and you will soon see God.”
He jerked awake to see Vikki’s worried face hovering above. She had changed into shorts and a sleeveless top, looking very suburban but with urbane style. “Bad dream?” When he nodded, she took his hand into hers and felt his forehead with the back of her hand. “Go back to sleep.” It took all of ten seconds for him to doze off. This time, he did not dream.
The doctor returned in the evening, checked vitals, poked and prodded, left the drain inside the wound but changed the dressing. A hospital was not necessary for now, but he would return tomorrow. Vikki owed him big time. She certainly did, he said. They kissed each other farewell, on the lips, brusque and impersonal, a long-standing habit that couldn’t be broken.
She saw him out and returned, poking her head through the doorway. “Do you like chicken pot pie?”
“Only if accompanied by a dram of Scotch.”
“You’re in luck.” She flung a robe onto the bed and nudged her head.
After eating her home-cooked version of chicken pot pie, he went straight back to bed and slept solidly until morning. If he dreamt any bad dreams, he didn’t remember them.
26
Severn County Sheriff’s Office, Maryland
Tuesday, July 29
DETECTIVE JAIME BENEDICTO scanned the newspaper broadsheet spread out on his stationhouse desk, focusing on a single article below the fold on page three.
Ever since Coyote skipped, he had been combing local news reports and police bulletins for unusual incidents. After finding the prisoner’s electronic bracelet hidden in the trunk of a returned car rental and a hand-scribbled note daring Jaime to come after him, he was fixated on hauling Coyote back to jail if it was the last thing he did. It was hyperbole. It was obsession. Hell, it was goddamn personal.
After considering the offender’s occupation, the multimillion-dollar wire transfers he embezzled from stateside brokerage accounts and deposited in offshore tax havens, and the possible … no, make that probable … international implications, the Coyote case went much deeper than a crime of passion. He was obsessed with the man, mostly because he made Jaime look like a fool, but also for the secretive and highly classified agency he worked for.
The Homeland Intelligence Division had an innocuous enough name, one that suggested a vague and low-profile operation. The detective called around to find out more. What he learned was illuminating. Also chilling. As a shadow agency, it officially operated under the purview of the State Department but unofficially reported to the Vice President. HID could get away with just about anything, and usually did. Initially set up as a thinktank to uncover worldwide events detrimental to national interests, the agency’s prime directive evolved into thwarting subversive activities, incursions, invasions, coup d’états, and acts of terrorism. The warrantless collection of electronic communications eventually came into its scope, a clear violation of several laws and Supreme Court decisions. Several criminal organizations, drug cartels, terrorist organizations, and white supremacist groups had been infiltrated under its auspices. Militias, money launderers, conspiracy rings, sleeper cells, and lone wolves had been put out of business. Collaborators, sympathizers, and accomplices were arrested, charged, tried, and incarcerated. Other troublemakers for whom there was no rehabilitation were summarily renditioned, tortured, eliminated, or neutralized. Closely cooperating with the FBI, CIA, and NSA, the division engaged in special operations, assassinations, kidnappings, and cyberhacking. They used outside contractors to do the dirty work on their behalf, which kept everyone’s hands clean from the President on down.
To Jaime, it didn’t seem possible for an agency like this to exist in America. Then again, it did.
Seeing that the wanton killing of a woman at the Chinatown Metro Station happened within minutes of losing his prisoner, Jaime followed up on the incident. The public relations office of the Metropolitan Police Department refused to confirm or deny the existence of a surveillance video. He called in favors. The video arrived as an attachment in an anonymous email. Jaime played and replayed it. Though grainy, it clearly captured two men squaring off against each other with the victim used as both bait and shield. The perpetrator was a whack job. There was no mistaking the other man. Eventually Jack Coyote would be positively identified and the manhunt resumed as a joint effort between cooperating departments, this time for two murderers.
Today’s article on page three of the Washington Guardian recounted yet another female victim, this one found dead in her Virginia home, a delivery driver having happened upon the gruesome scene yesterday morning. He picked up the phone, called the Somerset County Sheriff’s Office, and asked to speak to the detective in charge.
“I’m surprised Maryland law enforcement is interested in a Virginia homicide,” Al Hammond said.
“It’s like this, Detective,” Jaime said. “The Brodey incident may be related to a murder investigation I’m working on. I’m fielding every lead.”
“Been there, done that.” Hammond didn’t have to refer to his notes to give him a rundown. “The husband was reported missing off Virginia Beach earlier in the month, presumably drowned. Maybe you read about it.” Jaime hadn’t. Hammond filled him in. On the Fourth of July, the victim’s husband waded into the ocean, slipped beneath the waves, and disappeared. Even though the incident took place on a remote stretch of beach, two eyewitnesses called it in. When lifeguards arrived on the scene, there was no sign of the victim. Coast Guard and local authorities combed beaches up and down the shore. To date, the body hasn’t been recovered. The drowning victim left behind his shirt, slacks, shoes, wallet, and car keys. His van was parked on a nearby street and returned to the grieving and now-deceased widow. “Her murder scene was a bloody mess. Mrs. Brodey put up a fight, no doubt about it, but since the family lived on a two-acre lot, no one saw or heard anything. We’re thinking the husband did it since their eight-year-old daughter is also missing.”
“There’s another possibility,” Jaime said. “Could be someone came looking for the husband and had a little fun with his wif
e to pass the time.”
“Meaning the child could be a material witness? Already thought about that. Swept the radius with cadaver dogs and came up empty.”
“She could’ve been kidnapped.”
“Maybe. But there’s been no ransom note. I’ll tell you this, though. Whatever happened in that house, there’d been one hell of a fight. We found a bullet lodged in the ceiling and a casing. Brodey owned an arsenal of guns. Some registered. Others not. We’re running forensics on everything, including the victim’s rape kit. Coroner says she was messed with, so maybe we’ll find a match there. We already have an alert out for the child, but like you said, maybe she’s―” He didn’t finish the thought since it was too unthinkable to contemplate.
“When you get anything interesting, could you run it by me?” Jaime asked. “We can compare notes.”
“Sure thing. What’s your case about, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“A domestic break-in,” he said, avoiding his real reason for the call. When Jaime hung up, he swore under his breath and intoned a single word like a curse. “Coyote.”
27
Chevy Chase, Maryland
Tuesday, July 29
DOCTOR SMITH DROPPED by early, examined Jack, removed the drain from his wound, and pronounced he would live but had no guess as to how long that would be. The way he was going, could be seventy years or seventy minutes. He advised his patient to reform his way of life or suffer the consequences. The patient chuckled wryly.
After the doctor left, Jack showered and dressed, and found Vikki upstairs in her office. Occupying the full length of the attic dormer, the sunlit room resembled its occupant, slightly disheveled but full of Southern charm and intelligent disorder. Here could be found the rhyme of her passion and the center of her being. The clutter was real. L-shaped desk, credenza, bookcases, filing cabinets, computer monitors, stacks of documents, piles of newspapers, bronze plaques, crystal accolades, and along with it all, the stale smell of cigarette smoke, the sweet pervasiveness of patchouli incense, and the strong aroma of coffee. He cleared off a section of the worn leather couch and sat with care, crutching his bad arm and looking at her with directness.
Taking note of his serious expression, she swiveled around her chair to face him. “What’s up?”
She gave him her undivided attention as he recounted everything about the Frenchman and the macabre scene he left behind in Virginia, not once questioning him or seeming to doubt anything he told her.
“It’s been all over the news,” she said after he finished. A woman comfortable inside her skin, cool and thoughtful, mildly speculative, and avidly interested, she exuded earthiness and sensuality without trying. “The reports are vague. Your name wasn’t mentioned.”
“It will be.” He probably left some valuable blood at the crime scene along with several fingerprints. Eventually Benedicto would know he had been there. Eventually Jack would be implicated in Mrs. Brodey’s murder. Eventually the manhunt would be relaunched, and with hasty vigor. Eventually he would be caught and put away in an eight-by-twelve-foot cell, there to rot for eternity. “I’m pretty sure her husband is one of the operatives who set me up. Thing is, I can’t prove it. He staged his own drowning. Who knows where he is by now.” He paused before going on. “There’s something else.”
She waited patiently.
“You probably heard about the woman in the Metro station. The jumper. Well, she wasn’t a jumper.”
After looking at him askance, she said, “The Frenchman again.”
“He pushed her. Right in front of me.”
“And you think he killed your friend Milly.”
Picturing a trio of ghosts, he acknowledged the obvious with a dispirited nod.
She rummaged in a desk drawer, pulled out a cigarette pack, and slid out the last remaining cigarette. She didn’t light up. Instead, she drank in the aroma and experienced the tactile feel between her fingertips. Then, with a determined pursing of her lips, she broke it in half and dropped it into the wastepaper basket sitting beneath her desk along with the crushed pack.
“I saw the surveillance tape,” she finally admitted. “The good detective arranged a private viewing. Of that one and another taken from outside Club Seven. You’re very photogenic. As is your mystery lady. The videos rather corroborate everything you told me, even if Benedicto doesn’t seem to think so. He has it in for you.”
“It’s personal with him.”
“It’s personal for everyone.”
He hesitated before saying, “There’s more. More that I know. More that I haven’t told you or anybody. About HID. And why I’ve been targeted.”
“To be candid, Mr. Enigma, you haven’t told me anything.”
Vikki was dazzling without being self-conscious. Slightly unkempt yet unruffled. Dispassionate but thoughtful. Inquisitive though private. She was also a woman he could confide in, making it easy to bare his soul like an onion and unravel layer after layer until nothing was left but the core. Done with his story, he told her there were certain facts he couldn’t talk about and people involved he couldn’t mention.
“Why tell me all of this?”
“Because I think I can trust you. And because you can do something no one else can.”
When he arrived at HID, the agency was already a well-oiled machine, its mission having grown into a behemoth, enlarging and expanding simply because it could; because it had been following an unwritten directive without interference for almost a decade; and because its activities were supported and encouraged by powerful individuals. Its mission had been passed down from team to team like an heirloom to be handled with care, turning the Firm into an insider cartel whose members had a common cause dependent on secrecy.
“Within a few months of coming onboard, I found proof that we’re under siege. All of us.”
She turned her head slightly askew while keeping her eyes pinned on him. “By whom?”
“Who do you think?”
“Our own government.” She said the words without emotion, merely a statement of fact. “What else is new?”
“This time it’s different.”
She blinked before asking, “How exactly?”
“Those who control the minds of the people control everything. George Orwell didn’t say it, but he could have.”
They both became quiet, Jack gauging her reaction and Vikki wondering whether she should believe him. “I’m still listening,” she said.
“I think they found out why I was there and what I was doing.”
“Why were you there? Exactly?”
“Officially? To investigate security breaches and plug any leaks.”
“And unofficially?”
“To look into HID’s operations and report back my findings.”
“And then?”
“To provide proof.”
“Then you were planted there. As a mole. A spy.”
“Those are loaded words.”
“Not as loaded as what you’ve just told me.” Her expression changed from indifference to keenness. “Allow me to summarize. Someone was worried about what they were up to and decided to do something about it.”
He didn’t respond to her précis, even if it was obvious.
“When did HID find out what you were up to?”
“Maybe from the start.”
“How long were you under their employ?”
“Ten months.”
“But they still kept you on.”
“They wanted to find out what I was doing. Why I was doing what I was doing. Who was directing me to do it. And how vulnerable they really were.”
“Which means the conspiracy goes to the highest levels of government, barring a few patriotic outliers.” She thought over everything he had told her, mentally sketched in some finer points, and pieced everything together while emotions flashed across her face like a marquee of coming attractions. “As if you didn’t already know, HID is the biggest open secret in Washington, suspected of bein
g the shadow government everyone fears but no one dares talk about. Or shut down. It has too much power. The President backs HID, as did her predecessor, as will her preemptive successor two years from now.”
“Wallace Reed?”
“Or someone else. One puppet is like another. HID’s directive has been supported by almost everyone in Washington, but only behind closed doors. Those who question its activities are quickly silence. The rest fall in line. Desperate men who have something to hide take desperate measures, no?”
They became silent for a while, thinking over the consequences of an agency gone rogue and the power-hungry political system that allowed it to happen. “You’ve been targeted. But I don’t think they want you dead. They just want you silenced.”
“For something I really don’t know that much about?”
“Give me a break, sonny,” she said, putting on a thick Southern twang. “You know everything, even if you haven’t connected all the dots. Or maybe you have. Now don’t take offense. If I were you, I wouldn’t lay all my cards on the table, either.”
Everything she said fit, of course. He had been set up for the fall. Worse, he only had himself to blame. He had sprinkled himself with hubris, self-importance, and some fairy dust thrown in for good measure, believing the combination could keep him from being found out. He was marked a traitor, not only for what he had done but for what he might do, and most importantly, those he would tell. They wanted to put him out of commission, lock him up in a cage, turn him into a misfit unfit to walk the streets, and erase him from public memory. “I have to clear my name.”
“How do you propose to do that?” She spoke to him as if speaking to her son or daughter, her tone gentle and caring.
Cyber Warfare (INTERCEPT: A Jack Coyote Thriller Book 2) Page 18