by C. W. Saari
As soon as Ramirez finished filming, Bannister and the computer tech went to the den. Ramirez was assigned to search the living room, kitchen, and bathroom. Barnes took the bedroom. The entire apartment was orderly, clean, and lacked the normal clutter of magazines and stacks of CDs one usually saw.
“Ty, come in here,” Barnes yelled from the bedroom a couple minutes after they’d started. He pointed to the closet at an open wicker hamper. Piled in loose stacks were bundles of hundreds. It looked like they’d located Global’s money, or what remained of it.
“Mercedes, come back here and give Derek a hand in counting and logging this,” Bannister said.
“Sure.” Mercedes carried a half dozen large plastic evidence bags into the bedroom and joined Derek in processing the money.
“I can’t believe he’d leave all this money here,” Barnes said.
“I’m sure he had a plan. Just not enough time to execute it,” Bannister said.
The computer tech bypassed a couple of passwords and made a copy of Hines’s computer hard drive. He then packed up the PC, disks, and CDs. One of the two desk drawers contained a cell phone and a telephone voice changer. Bannister took both items.
In a faux wooden box on the closet shelf, Barnes located two men’s wigs and two pairs of eyeglasses with clear, non-prescriptive lenses. The box also had two unopened packets of latex gloves. A shirt, which resembled the one in Sean O’Brien’s driver’s license photo, was hanging in a dry cleaner’s bag and was tagged, as was a pair of white New Balance running shoes, size ten-and-a-half.
After ninety minutes, the search team was ready to leave.
“Our unofficial count of the money, by tabulating the stacks, comes to $4,947,600.00,” Barnes said. “Besides the pack with the sensor, which we recovered, it looks like only fifty thousand is missing. We’ll do a bill-by-bill count at the office.”
“That’s fine. I called the office to have a car with SWAT guys come here. When we leave, you’re going to follow the SWAT car back to the office. The tech guys will be following right behind you. Take the money straight to the valuable evidence vault and log it in. You can do the count later,” Bannister said.
“No problem,” said Mercedes. “I guess I’ll feel what it’s like to be an armored truck driver but without the armored truck.”
“I’ll make sure she doesn’t try and stop off at the mall on the way,” Barnes added.
After leaving a copy of the warrant and an inventory of everything they’d seized, the tech relocked the doors and they headed back to the office.
Bannister called Adam Kush and gave him the news. After listening to him whoop and utter a few excited expletives, Bannister asked him to tell only his company president and general counsel about the money’s recovery. Kush asked if Robin could be cut in; Bannister had no problem with that. But Hines wasn’t yet in custody, and they weren’t sure he was the only Global employee involved.
Hines’s computer was a prosecutor’s dream. Everything he’d done was recorded in files on his hard drive. He had separate files for setting up the alias of Sean O’Brien; for ordering castor beans to make ricin; for purchasing cloth to shield power line transmissions; and orders for the telephone voice changer and tunneling equipment. Numerous documents were printed out by the team, and Derek Barnes was tasked with checking out leads to verify Hines’s activities for the past year. They still needed to find out if anyone else was involved. Hines had a passport, but his only known foreign travel had been to Vienna last year. Barnes would try and learn if Hines had any contacts.
It was after nine o’clock when Bannister got home. He’d stopped at the supermarket to buy what he needed for Thanksgiving dinner with Robin. Tonight would be a microwave frozen dinner. But first things first. He opened the fridge and grabbed a cold bottle of Mexican beer. He’d only had a couple of pulls on it when his home phone rang.
It was Gina Williamson, Cal’s ex-wife. “I hope I’m not interrupting anything,” she said.
“Not at all. It’s good to hear your voice.”
“I wanted to talk with you. With someone that understands.”
Gina starting sobbing. Bannister waited, letting her cry.
“I’m sorry. I told myself when I called you I wouldn’t do this. Even though we’re divorced, Cal and I still love each other. I keep telling myself he’ll show up and there’ll be an explanation for all this. But inside I feel something terrible has happened to him.”
Bannister didn’t tell her he felt the same way.
“I don’t know who I can talk to. I don’t even know if I can trust the people he works with. Cal’s always gotten along with everyone, and he never mentioned having any enemies. But I’m not calling from my home or cell phone just in case my phones are bugged.”
“Where are you right now?” Bannister asked.
“In Leesburg, at a friend’s house. She invited me to spend Thanksgiving with her, and I needed to get away. Do you think there’s something wrong with me?”
“No, and I’m glad you called. Cal would want you to do that. What you’re going through is difficult. Have you been sleeping?”
“Not really. Not well.”
Cal said you’re a strong person. If you weren’t, he never would have married you.”
“Thank you for that. Are there any developments you can tell me about?”
“No. I wish I had some information, any information about Cal I could share with you. But I don’t. I’m totally in the dark, too. How’s Dawn handling all this?”
“As well as can be expected. She’s in her senior year of college. Even though she acts like a free spirit sometimes, I think she’s always found comfort in structure and tradition. In a way, I think she’s in denial.”
“Right now that may not be all that bad.”
“I think if someone told me Cal had been killed on a mission, I could handle it. He used to tell me his job was a lot safer than being in law enforcement, because people didn’t know what he did. Even so, we always took precautions when we were outside the country. Back here in the United States, you just don’t think something like this could happen. I never realized what people go through when someone they love is missing.”
“I know. This whole situation’s been eating away at me, too. I keep asking myself, what am I missing? Why Cal? What should I be doing to make sense of it?”
“Exactly. It’s so frustrating. It’s not something you can talk to your friends about.” Bannister could hear Gina taking a deep breath.
“Thanks, Ty, for being there.”
“Cal would do the same. I’ll let you know when I hear something, okay?”
ARLINGTON, VIRGINIA
Stacy DiMatteo couldn’t wait for Christmas. Not for the usual reasons, but because she was getting married that week. Everything she was doing was centered on December 30. She was thrilled to see the malls and shopping centers festooned with Christmas decorations, though Thanksgiving was still a week away. Several of Stacy’s friends who worked with her at the National Security Agency were having a bridal shower for her on Saturday. Even though she’d recently celebrated her twenty-eighth birthday, Stacy felt as giggly as a teenager. She had a whole new life in front of her.
Stacy was part of a new breed of intelligence analysts. A generation ago, when even the name of the NSA was restricted, an analyst would never have been at a nightclub Thursday evenings enjoying salsa dancing. So she never would have met her future husband, also a doctoral candidate at Georgetown University.
Stacy was careful never to divulge to outsiders that she worked for NSA. Besides her parents and fiancé, she told no one what she did for a living. She’d worked for NSA for five years and was extremely cautious about even giving her telephone number out to anyone. So when her cell phone rang, she was surprised she didn’t recognize the number on the caller ID.
“Hi, Stacy? This is John . . . John Parker, Janice’s brother?”
“Oh, hello . . .” Janice Parker was one of Stacy’s best frie
nds.
“She gave me your number. She said she was going to call you to let you know I was dropping off your shower gift—she couldn’t bring it herself because of her broken wrist. I drove around but couldn’t find your apartment. Right now I’m down in front of your clubhouse.”
“Oh, thanks. A lot of us have complained to management about not being able to see the apartment numbers in the dark. Pizza delivery guys can never find the right unit. But Janice must have forgotten to let me know you were coming. You know, even though she’s talked a lot about you, I don’t think we’ve ever met.”
“I’m in a blue Chevy parked in a space for new residents. I’m wearing a Redskins baseball cap. Do you mind coming down here?”
“Give me a couple of minutes. I’ll drive over.”
“Okay. I’ll wait.”
It was going as he’d planned. He’d backed his car into the parking space and left his parking lights on.
The SVR was the Russian Federation’s equivalent of the CIA. Most people were more familiar with its former name—the KGB. SVR officers assigned to Washington, DC, were some of Russia’s best intelligence operatives. One of them had developed a source inside US intelligence with access to identities, home addresses, and contact telephone numbers for over four hundred intelligence personnel, including some in a specific branch of NSA. One of those numbers was a cell phone subscribed to by Stacy DiMatteo.
DiMatteo’s phone number was programmed into an ES-Pro digital data intercept device. This let the SVR officer intercept signals from her phone. The ES-Pro could record any outgoing or incoming call, and there was no way for it to be discovered. The technology had been around for years. Presumably, it was used in 1998 when the former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich had private cell phone calls intercepted and published.
Two weeks of telephone calls for Stacy DiMatteo had been recorded and reviewed. The SVR officer got the information he needed. Janice Parker, one of Stacy’s best friends, called to tell her she’d broken her wrist riding her mountain bike. The good news was that her cast would be off before Christmas and Stacy wouldn’t have to worry about her maid of honor having a cast showing in wedding party photos. Janice and Stacy also talked about Janice’s older brother, John, who was still an eligible bachelor. Janice had jokingly mentioned it was too bad Stacy had never met him. She might have ended up with John instead of her fiancé.
Five minutes after she’d spoken to him on the phone, Stacy pulled her Nissan Altima into the space next to a blue Chevrolet and stepped out into the dimly lit parking lot.
“You must be John,” she said, extending her hand. He detected the fresh scent of jasmine as she leaned forward.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you. Janice thinks the world of you,” he said. “Her present is in the trunk. Can you give me a hand with it?”
“Sure,” she said as he pressed the trunk release button on her key chain. He had previously disconnected the trunk light.
“It’s kind of heavy and must have shifted to the back of the trunk,” he said.
“Wow, I wonder what it is. It’s really nice of you to bring it over.”
As Stacy peered into the trunk of the car, fifty thousand volts of electricity from a stun gun smacked into her through the down vest she was wearing. The intelligence officer simply rolled her into the trunk. From inside his jacket, he deftly removed a hypodermic needle and plunged it into her right arm. In less than two seconds, the drugs were fully injected. Her eyes were staring up at him as he slowly closed the trunk.
He opened the door to Stacy’s car and noticed she hadn’t bothered bringing her purse or cell phone with her. He removed her keys and locked the door. No one noticed as the Chevrolet slowly left the apartment complex.
This wasn’t an intelligence mission. It was an operation for himself alone—and his motivation was revenge. In 1987, his older brother, Dimitry “Dima” Kuznetsov, was one of the Soviet Union’s best helicopter pilots. On the last day of that year, Dimitry was in Afghanistan piloting their newest version of the feared Hind Mi-24 helicopter. A Stinger missile, supplied to the mujahedeen by the CIA, found its target and sent Dimitry to a fiery death.
There was no military funeral for his brother because the war in Afghanistan was a war the Politburo never admitted was being fought. Andre stood there in freezing rain at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport when his brother’s tin coffin was unloaded. It was taken to a simple cemetery, and along with several others, quickly buried. Mothers cried and asked questions, but received no answers. Friends whispered and under their breath swore at the Communist officials. No one came forward to acknowledge Dima’s sacrifice, his heroism, and his love of the Motherland. Andre swore his brother’s death would not be forgotten, and that someday he would get revenge against the Americans.
Andre didn’t drive directly to the large storage locker he had rented in Springfield, Virginia. Instead, he took a circuitous route, all the while employing counter surveillance techniques or “dry cleaning,” as intelligence officers called it. He only pulled in when he was sure he wasn’t being followed.
The diplomatic license plates for his car were stashed in his briefcase. He knew seventeen US states issued and required only one license plate for their cars. For that reason, he had stolen the front license plate from a car with Maryland tags. With luck, the owner wouldn’t even know it was missing for a few days. It really didn’t matter, since the tag would be on the back of his Chevrolet for only two more hours.
Rolling the window halfway down to feel the cleansing breath of the cold night air on his face, he thought about how Stacy was different from his first two victims. Unlike the others, she was a complete stranger. He’d never seen her before. But she worked for US intelligence and that was enough. She fit nicely into his developing plan.
The other female victim, Lillian Wells, was a nice person. He hadn’t lied to her eight months ago when he’d driven her to this same locker. He did have something to show her, as he had promised, something that had belonged to his brother. It was the second of two fifteenth-century Russian icons by Andrei Rublev. The two icons were supposed to have been retirement insurance for Andre and his brother. No one outside of his family was aware of their existence. The icons were believed lost for centuries until Andre’s great-grandfather had helped one of the Romanovs when the Bolsheviks assassinated Czar Nicholas II and his family in 1918. In gratitude for saving his life, the man had given the icons to Andre’s great-grandfather. They had remained a family secret since the revolution.
While assigned to Austria, Andre had made arrangements through a Swiss lawyer for one of the icons to be sold anonymously at auction. After fees and commissions, he still had $610,000.00 in a numbered account. He dedicated the use of that money to avenge Dima’s death.
He turned his mind back to his last hours with Lillian Wells. He had driven her from Starbucks to the storage facility. No other cars were on the premises. He used his key to unlock the case hardened padlock and lifted up the rolling steel door. The locker was almost empty. Cardboard boxes were stacked alongside the corrugated steel walls. Resting on top of one of the boxes was a black artist’s carrying case which held the icon.
Andre led Lillian a few steps to the rear of the fifteen by twenty foot locker. He slowly removed the Rublev icon from its case. In a voice revealing little emotion, he told her of its history. Lillian expressed her admiration for the object, but Andre guessed she was feigning interest. She’d been too quiet on the drive over. Something was bothering her.
A storage locker was an awkward place to talk about art and history. It was an even more unusual place to hear someone’s confession, but when he asked Lillian if she had something she wanted to tell him, she’d burst into tears.
He remembered looking into her face, a pale portrait of sorrow and fear. In between biting her lip and sniffling, she managed to tell him she was HIV positive and begged him to be tested. As he carefully replaced the icon in its case, he smiled. “I’ve been tested,
” he said.
She seemed confused, but before she could say anything, he’d asked her if she’d thought about dying.
She didn’t respond. But then, she didn’t need to, because Andre had already thought about her death. As she reached into her purse for a tissue, Andre calmly removed from his coat what looked like a large black cell phone. He aimed it at her. In an instant, the stun gun’s darts penetrated her skin, and her slightly vibrating body thudded to the concrete floor.
One Percocet pill, combined with other depressants, could lower one’s respiratory system enough to be fatal. The amount he injected into Lillian was more than enough. Within a minute, she lost consciousness. She would then lapse into a coma and, perhaps six hours later, suffer complete circulatory collapse and cardiac arrest.
Her death had been quiet and painless.
He relived every detail of that day in February. He’d driven back to Springfield Mall where he moved Lillian’s car from the coffee shop to the main shopping center parking lot. Later that same night, he drove back to the locker and checked Lillian for a pulse. It was barely detectable. He stripped all clothes from her body and placed her in the trunk of his car on top of a plastic drop cloth. Her clothes, purse, and cell phone, with battery removed, went into a double-wrapped plastic trash bag. He left her wristwatch, necklace, and earrings on her body to confuse the investigators who would eventually find her. Killing Lillian didn’t cause him any excitement or remorse. He knew he’d think about her again, but right now he only felt relief she would no longer be in his life.
Weeks earlier, while rehearsing one of his operational missions, he had discovered several “official vehicles only” turnarounds off Interstate 95 north of the Marine Corps base in Virginia. He had previously checked out the turnaround at mile marker 141 after making sure no vehicles were following him. It was secluded enough so a car wouldn’t be seen by any vehicle traveling in either the north or southbound lanes of the highway. He had stopped his car halfway through the turnaround. He opened the trunk and carried Lillian’s body, wrapped in plastic, about five yards into the brush. He dropped it to the ground and unrolled her corpse from its plastic shroud.