by James Phelan
“Okay, I’ll ditch it when I hang up.”
“Ain’t tech grand?” Paul said. “They know who you talk to the most. They know when you talk to them. They know when you’re awake. They know when you’re sleeping. They know when you’re working. They know how you get to work. They know where you shop. Your pattern of life. Oh, and your new burner? Avoid using it to make calls. Download apps for your phone. Use something like WhatsApp, which isn’t perfect but it does encrypt your communications end-to-end, so it’s much more difficult for the Feds to crack. Keep front of mind where you might be exposed, protect yourself where possible.”
“Right.” Walker slowed a little to match the speed of the Homeland vehicle, two cars ahead. “Can they track you?”
“Please. I’ve lasted this long in this business by outsmarting those fools. But like I said, new phones at both ends, encrypted comms if it’s keyword sensitive. Let’s reconvene in an hour, I’ll have your guys made by then.”
“Okay. And Paul? Thanks.”
“You owe me a lot of beer.”
The line went dead. Ahead, the traffic lights changed to red. The Homeland Security SUV stopped. The van between them stopped. Walker put the driver’s-side sun visor down and pulled up close behind, hoping the van would keep him out of view. While he waited he pulled the cell phone apart and cracked the sim card in half, then he opened his door an inch and tossed it all onto the road under the car. There was little other traffic. None coming the other way through the intersection. Then, suddenly, the Homeland SUV took off through the red light. The van rolled forward and stopped.
Walker watched, knowing there was little he could do. If he ran the light after them, they’d see it in their rearview mirrors. He couldn’t afford to have them make him, but he couldn’t lose them either. He watched them run the red light at the next intersection, in a similar move. They then hit their brakes, indicated a right turn. The traffic lights Walker was stopped at were still red as, two blocks ahead, the agents turned. Out of sight.
Walker hit the gas and turned the wheel. He went around the van and kept his foot planted as he ran the red, the little Ford’s engine buzzing with the strain. Through the next intersection, where he braked hard and took the right. The SUV was nowhere to be seen. He kept to the speed limit as he checked right and left at every intersection. Nothing. Up ahead was a feeder road leading to I-495 the Capital Beltway. Decision time. They’d either headed northeast toward the capital, or southwest—where they had come from earlier that day, the farmhouse in Virginia.
Walker made his decision. Instinct guided him into the city, not out of it. There were plenty of federal government installations on the other side of the Potomac, and these two had the air of those headed back to base. Within a mile, as he neared the Woodrow Wilson Memorial Bridge, slipping between cars to make up some distance, Walker reacquired his target. He slowed, let a few cars in and out of the gap ahead, always keeping the top of the Homeland SUV in sight. The Capital Beltway was thick with traffic but it was flowing and he kept the tail going around the turnpike and headed north on the 295. They drove past the sprawling campus of Joint Base Anacostia–Bolling, close on a thousand acres of military land along the Potomac, the result of base realignments during the belt-tightening years of the Iraq and Afghan wars. The Defense Intelligence Agency building was to his left, then to the right the newly completed headquarters that was the grass-roofed command of the Coast Guard. Beyond the trees was a taller, black-green glass structure—and Walker knew then where they were headed even before they took the exit.
Home. The black-green glass building was the newly developed Homeland Security Headquarters, known as St. Elizabeths Campus. Formerly a massive psychiatric hospital operated by the federal government since the 1850s, which had over the years been reorganized and rationalized down to the point where the empty grounds could be repurposed by branches and departments and functionaries of federal government.
Commercial aircraft flew in low from the Atlantic on landing approach at the Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. Walker kept an eye on the black SUV ahead while rounding the exit and taking in the expanse of the project to the west. The St. Elizabeths site was by far the largest construction project in Washington since the Pentagon, and easily the largest excavation project the city had ever seen—hinting at what was unseen, being built underground, secrets and archives and Big Data all buried away from prying eyes and ears. The old brick buildings of the campus were kept intact, giving the new inhabitants a sense of history. Walker didn’t miss the irony of the paranoia-driven Department of Homeland Security and its twenty agencies assimilating a psychiatric ward in an attempt to have some kind of cohesive corporate and sharing culture.
This place presented a big problem for Walker. He could follow these guys on the open road, but not into St. Elizabeths. He tailed the Homeland agents’ vehicle, with two cars between them. Heading here meant any number of things. Was this where they were stationed, and they were coming home to report in after a mission completed, now that, in their minds, the morning’s little clean-up operation was all taken care of? Or were they headed here for a meeting or some other, unrelated assignment? Maybe it was part of an alibi, should it ever be brought to them by an investigative party. Where were you when Bahar died in hospital? Who’s Bahar? We were here all along . . .
He wondered about how many Homeland Security Special Agents there were, and what kind of oversight they had, and how closely they were supervised. Surely they had all kinds of watch commanders and Special Agents in Charge, and Deputy Directors and so on, making their time accountable. Which made him wonder further. Were these two, and those in San Francisco, just moonlighting as contract muscle and killers on the side, unknown to anyone else in there? Or did the corruption go up the food chain, their butts covered by someone higher up the command structure who was tasked with keeping track of their performance and whereabouts? In the days of tight budgets and accountability, metadata was a two-way street: the government could track the bad guys, and their own. For performance-enhancement purposes, on the face of it. And to keep tabs.
Walker pulled to a stop and waited. He was on the shoulder of the road just before Gate One, a walled-in entry point fortified with concrete bollards and blast screens. Not a great place to stop, and he knew as soon as he hit the brakes that he should keep driving on. There would be security cameras he couldn’t see, tracked on him, watching him, and questions would be asked as to why there was a car parked out there by the gate, and maybe they’d think he’d broken down but it’d be a long shot because it was too much of a coincidence for a lone man of military age to break down so close to one of the nation’s most security-conscious places. He imagined the security force would come out with hands on their side-arms, or armed with sub-machineguns, if he hung around any longer than it’d take for him to get out and walk around the car and kick the tires as though checking for a flat. Then he thought about them using the camera feed to check his registration, which on the face of it wasn’t bad because who’d think of a high school teacher as a threat to national security, but then there was the chance the car was already reported as stolen.
Time to move.
Walker waited for a gap in the traffic so he could merge.
Then, two things happened at once.
The first thing was two security guards emerging from the guardhouse and standing clear of the blast wall, where they stood and eyeballed him. One had his hand on a radio that was clipped to his chest, with a cord to the main unit on his utility belt, and he was talking down into it, like he was reading out Walker’s license plate and relaying the information. The other had his hand on the butt of his holstered automatic and stood, waiting, watching. Not as a threat, but ready to draw down if the need arose.
The other thing was a car pulling out of the gate. It wasn’t the car that was unusual, nor was it the way it was being driven. It was who was doing the driving.
Walker saw a dead man.
> 49
The man driving the car was Blake Acton. No doubt. He’d seen the picture of the Secret Service agent on Overton’s phone, and now here he was. Which meant that Bahar hadn’t killed him between Overton and Bennet, nor any other time, because he was alive and well, driving a car, and Walker had never been one to believe in reincarnation, nor in zombies.
Walker had to act fast, because Acton was driving his vehicle like it was a government car and it was his last day on the job before handing in the keys. Walker dropped the gear selector into drive and merged with the traffic, then pulled a U-turn as soon as he could, and was in pursuit. As he passed the guardhouse he saw the two security guards saunter back to their post, as though they’d called in the plate and been told that it belonged to a law-abiding teacher from Virginia, and that was that.
The little Ford’s engine whined as he pushed it to catch up with Acton’s Chevy Caprice. The other traffic was rolling slowly as Acton overtook two cars then ducked back into the lane and took the on-ramp onto the Beltway. Walker eased off the gas, not only because he knew where Acton would be—on the I-495, and there Walker would put his foot to the floor and wind out the car’s little engine—but something else caught his attention.
A big black SUV, in his rearview mirror. Growing bigger by the second. The two Homeland guys, the one with the bad back, and his friend, sitting inside it. Closing in fast, and Walker didn’t know if they were after him or Acton.
•
“Where’s Walker?” Muertos asked, sitting down opposite Hayes and resting her plastered arm on the table.
Hayes was nursing her fourth coffee, and had read the USA Today cover to cover. She folded the paper and said, “He had to split.”
Muertos did a double-take, and looked around in a slight panic, then said, “He left?”
Hayes nodded and said, “He went back to DC. He said for us to catch the next bus in, once you got back.” Hayes looked at the old clock above the kitchen pass. “It leaves in fifteen minutes.”
The waitress came and refilled Hayes’ coffee, then poured a new cup for Muertos and left a menu. When she left, Hayes asked, “What’s your connection to this?”
“This?” Muertos used her one good hand to pour sugar into her cup, then stirred it, put the spoon down and picked up the steaming cup. Her hand shook as she sipped. Nerves, adrenaline, and a degree of anger directed at Walker.
“So,” Hayes said, “you’re State Department. Walker’s ex-CIA. Overton is—was—an old BFF of yours. How does it all fit together?”
“Does it seem like it fits neatly together?” Muertos tried to smile.
“Right.” Hayes crossed her arms, leaned forward a little. “I mean, did you bring this to Overton in the first place? Or did she involve you?”
Muertos said, over the top of her steaming cup, “How about we finish this coffee and I’ll tell you on the bus ride.”
“Okay. The bus stop’s right outside.” Hayes watched her. “I didn’t mean to sound like I’m looking to pass on the blame or anything like that. I’m just trying to understand the fuller picture.”
“Secret Service is going to put you under the griller, aren’t they?”
Hayes nodded.
“Well, Walker and I will back you, every step of the way.” Muertos looked around. “Did Walker say why he was leaving?”
“He wanted to try to get to Bahar in hospital, before those two Homeland guys who blew up the farmhouse got to him.”
Muertos nodded. Drained her coffee. Put her empty cup down. “Let’s go wait for that bus.”
“There’s no hurry. We’ll see it arrive.”
“I need some air,” Muertos said, standing. “Did Walker say where to meet him in DC?”
“He said you’d find him.”
“How am I supposed to do that?”
“He said you’d done it before.”
•
Walker was struggling to keep up the chase and remain inconspicuous. As were the two Homeland guys in their SUV, who were now in front of him—the guy with the bad back, and his pal, keeping a tail on Acton out in the lead, none the wiser that Walker was there. Their little speeding convoy took the Georgetown exit, Acton at a far-out lead.
Walker knew the Georgetown area well—it was where his father had kept an apartment, near where he’d worked for the better part of three decades. Walker had stalked the streets on long weekends and school holidays, taking the Amtrak or Greyhound from Philly. He’d imagined that he was a junior spy, and practiced tailing “suspects,” and making dead-drops in conspicuous places; he’d write out passages from his favorite books and fold up the pieces of paper and put them in mailboxes before surreptitiously marking the side with chalk to symbolize that the drop had been made, and that it was to be collected by an imaginary contact or handler. When he told his father about it, it soon became a game, and David Walker would come home after work and hand in all the notes he’d found on the neighborhood walk back from the bus stop. All that play, all that time, Walker had never known that his father, a career academic, was truly part of the nation’s Intelligence apparatus, working for the CIA, a path that he would one day follow. Nor could he have imagined that he was playing around those very streets at the very time that Rick Ames, the CIA’s worst traitor, was doing it for real, making dead-drops of US Intelligence to the Russians. He later wondered if there were Russian agents out there with obscure passages from Huckleberry Finn and Moby Dick and Catcher in the Rye and To Kill a Mockingbird, scratching their heads trying to unpack cryptic messages from classic American literature.
Off the Beltway, the three-vehicle convoy was halted at traffic lights. The Homeland SUV was four vehicles ahead, Acton a couple of cars ahead of that, and Walker two cars behind them.
The lights changed, and the traffic flowed. Their convoy was constrained by the small streets and other cars, but Walker kept both vehicles in sight. A couple of miles later, Acton took a right. The SUV followed Acton. Walker followed the SUV. Three more intersections straight ahead, and the traffic gods seemed pissed because they got red lights at every intersection.
When they reached the next suburb over from Bennet’s apartment, Walker remembered Bennet saying that Acton lived in a house here.
Acton was headed home.
50
Walker watched the Chevy Caprice take a side street lined with 200-year-old oaks that were budding heavily with spring, the branches touching above the street to form a leafy tunnel. Walker slowed at the turn, and saw Acton’s tail-lights flare as he brought his high-powered sedan to a stop outside a house. The black SUV drove by Acton and took the next turn, disappearing from sight. Walker knew the play—the Homeland guys would circle the block to get a good vantage spot to keep an eye on Acton’s car. That’s if this was just about surveillance. But the very real possibility was that this was something else—that they were casing the scene before going in and taking care of a final loose end, a loose end that Bahar had failed to tie up this morning; maybe Acton had been out, or Bahar had not got an opportunity to get here because Walker had got to him first, at Bennet’s apartment. Whatever the case, Acton seemed oblivious to the danger he was now in.
Walker slowed along Acton’s street in time to see him walk up the stairs of his house and be greeted at the front door by a woman and two children who’d been waiting, expectantly. They embraced and entered their home. That moment, and the fact that Acton had not made the Homeland tail, said to Walker that, wary as the agent may be, he’d likely not heard the worst of the news yet—that two of his colleagues were dead. Walker parked the Ford a few houses short and exited, moving fast, making the stairs just as the door clicked shut. He knocked. There was a pause. Down the street Walker saw the nose of the black SUV round the corner. The Homeland guys had U-turned on the side street and were coming back, for surveillance, or an assault. The front door half opened and Acton looked Walker up and down then went to speak—
Walker pushed open the door and stepped into
the house.
Acton shuffled back and drew his side-arm and pointed it at Walker—who had his hands up to show that he was unarmed and not a threat. With his foot he closed the door behind him. Behind Acton was his wife, holding two children close, one crooked under each arm. The little boy was about four, the girl maybe six. Acton and his wife looked mid-forties, nearly half a decade older than Overton, which Walker thought odd, given she had been the one calling the shots to her little rag-tag off-books team.
“Agent Acton, listen to me: Clair Hayes is alive,” Walker said.
Acton, eyes wide and a two-handed grip on his pistol steadily pointed at Walker’s center mass, asked, “Who are you?”
“My name’s Walker, and last night I met with Sally Overton,” Walker replied. “I know about your off-books op, with Bennet too. I know about the burner phones, the three-hour check-ins, about Hayes going missing and her car being found on the I-95. I’m here to warn you, and help you.”
Acton didn’t move. His side-arm still ready. His family still behind him.
“Check out the peep hole.” Walker tilted his head toward the door. “A Black SUV doing a drive-by. Two guys inside. They’re the bad guys here. They followed you all the way from St. Elizabeths. You need to get your family to safety.”
Acton paused. “That’s crap. That car? Those guys? I was just on the phone to them. They’re Homeland, and were assigned as close personal protection to me and my family.” He got a little more comfortable in his double-handed grip, the business-end of the weapon directed at Walker’s heart. “So, the question remains: who are you?”
“Those two guys?” Walker said, his voice low and calm. “They rolled into St. Elizabeths moments before being assigned to protect you—literally no more than a couple of minutes. Let me guess—it was them who rang you?”
Acton was silent.