C. Arthur Beeman
DataHelix
[email protected]
There was no street address or phone.
“Why holy shit?” Sand asked.
“DataHelix? That sounds like a private web host,” Jensen observed.
“It isn’t,” Brecht said softly. “It’s a weapons lab. Highly advanced biological warfare research and development for the DOD. They have a massive underground lab, right here in Denver.”
“You just happen to know that?” Janet asked.
Brecht shrugged. An old man who knew more than he could explain.
“Perhaps we should see whether we can find C. Arthur Beeman at the DataHelix corporation,” Jensen suggested.
Takaki punched several more keys. “These files are locked. I mean locked. Even I can’t open them, at least not without a lot more work.” A hint of bruised ego.
Thomas took a seat at a separate terminal. “I’ll see what else we can find about DataHelix and Mr. Beeman in other databases.”
Jensen tried his own search on Spokeo. “He’s in the phone book. 1120 Vine Street, Denver.”
Takaki ripped her keyboard at light speed. “He also has a place at 44 Mountain Top Road, Steamboat Springs, Colorado.”
She brought up satellite photos of his houses in Denver and Steamboat.
“Time to mobilize,” Thomas said. “I’ll alert the chopper crew.”
“We ride again,” Sand whispered, with a faint smile.
Chapter 37
An unseen figure came up behind Beeman and took his knife hand in a vice-like grip, skillfully stripping the weapon from him in an instant. As Antonio turned, the muffled pop of a silenced automatic echoed through the kitchen. His right shoulder fired a jet of pink mist into the air behind him, spraying Beeman’s face with blood. Antonio’s body jerked, twisting, snapping him back to face Beeman once again with wide eyes before dropping to the floor in shock.
Kim stepped into view.
Beeman breathed a sigh of relief.
“Thought it was the police?” Kim asked.
“Yes.” Beeman saw no point in prevarication.
“What were you going to do with the knife?”
Beeman shrugged. “You have the women?”
Kim nodded. “Time to set aside distractions. Concentrate your attention on the task at hand.”
Beeman scowled. “So I gather. What do you plan to do with them?”
“You want us to save them for you?”
Beeman smiled. “Of course.”
Antonio lay groaning on the floor. Kim pointed the pistol at his forehead. “And him?”
“Him as well, if you would be so generous.”
“Much easier to kill him.”
“Do you really plan to honor our agreement?”
“You’ll return to the city, secure the virus and the data.” Kim tucked his pistol into his waistband, and Antonio resumed his labored breathing once again. “The women are my safeguard against any treason on your part. They can be your toys or witnesses for the prosecution. You’ll return here with what we need, and from here we will take you and your pets to your new home.”
Chapter 38
“You’ve got to back off. If you need to hear it from higher up, I can arrange that,” said Nathan Fitch, director of the NSA to Albert Brecht.
Brecht gripped the telephone so tightly in his gnarled, aging fingers that his hand trembled. His mind was racing. New pieces of the puzzle were fluttering down around him. He was scrambling for a sense of what the picture was, how the pieces fit together. So much had happened during the last twenty-four hours. The situation was now completely fluid and morphing rapidly.
In his youth, he’d have a plan. But what now?
He was too old.
Last night, Kenehan’s team had taken the Black Hawk to a pasture a few miles from Beeman’s mountain cabin and approached on foot. Their night vision goggles had specialized infrared optics that could literally see through walls to see the heat signatures of occupants within buildings. Kenehan had spotted distinctive thermal tracks and disturbed vegetation on the forest floor, concluding that the cabin had very recently been under close surveillance.
Kenehan’s team had made entry—the cabin was unoccupied.
On the main floor, they’d found blood on the kitchen floor consistent with a gunshot wound. No shell casings, but they’d dug a nine-millimeter slug out of the drywall—a hollow-point; they’d taken blood and tissue samples from it for analysis.
Searching the basement, they’d found nothing of interest until Kenehan had noticed a cement panel that was out of plumb with the rest of the wall—a faux cement slab on hinges. Pushing it open, the team had discovered the chain-link cage, exactly matching the dimensions shown on Pessoa’s computerized plan.
A broken padlock had lain on the floor just outside the cage door, its shank split by bolt cutters. The team had taken hundreds of photos, collected hair samples from inside the cage and swabbed blood samples from the kitchen floor for comparison with the blood and tissue from the bullet they’d recovered and with samples of the girls’ DNA. The lab tests were underway now, using blood analyzers aboard the second motor coach.
After a thorough search of the cabin, Kenehan and his team had retreated into the forest, scouting for the watchers whose signs they had spotted earlier. Finding no one, they’d settled into their own carefully prepared sniper hide, thirty yards farther back from the cabin than the abandoned hide they’d found, and more effectively concealed. Two of Kenehan’s men would remain there, living on field rations and refilling their Nalgene water bottles from a nearby stream.
Jennifer Takaki’s unsuccessful effort to locate Beeman through DataHelix had evidently tripped an alarm somewhere within the US government. Because of this, Brecht was now on the phone with his old acquaintance Nathan Fitch, who had risen through the ranks to become director of the NSA.
“Nathan,” Brecht said placatingly, “we’re old friends. This is a purely private matter. We’re not under your chain of command, but we’ve always cooperated with you.”
“And we’ve helped your boys out more than a few times,” Fitch responded, his voice softening. “It’s been a good relationship. But this current issue, well, it’s not what it looks like. Albert, you’ve stepped in something—the sort of mistake you’ve masterfully avoided over the years.”
“And the director of the NSA is calling to waive us off.”
“That’s about the size of it,” Fitch confirmed. “We want you to stand down.”
Brecht remained silent for several seconds. He needed more information, but he had to tread softly. “That hot, huh?”
Fitch snorted. “Hotter. You boys have earned your spurs. There’s good will here—you know that—but this is just short of an executive order. We know exactly what you’re trying to do, and under different circumstances, we’d cheer you on. But what you’re working on now is a small part of a much larger picture. You’ve strayed into terra incognito.”
“Here in my own backyard?”
“Domestic soil isn’t your backyard, Albert. It’s mine.”
Brecht fumed. “You’re asking a lot, but you’re not giving me anything.”
Now it was Fitch’s turn to let silence hang, so Brecht kept on. “I have ethical and contractual obligations.” He intentionally left out that the obligation was purely personal. “If you want me to disregard those, I need more than you’re giving me. Lives are at stake, Nathan.”
The NSA charter was not domestic crime. If the federal government was interested in this particular kidnapping—which would depend upon whether the abductors took the girls across state lines—then by rights this call should have come from the FBI. The fact Fitch was making the pitch signaled an issue of national security was implicated.
Domestic terrorism?
Brecht now knew that, regardless of the cost or risk, he had to learn more about Arthur Beeman and Antonio Pessoa. Conrad’s granddaughter was caught u
p in something far more ominous than a mere kidnapping. She and her friend were evidently expendable pieces on a global chessboard.
He reached up and touched the scar behind his ear, and he thought of his own precious grandchildren. He’d not have had them but for Conrad. He pictured the joy on his son’s face as he’d held the first of Brecht’s grandchildren in his arms, looking at Brecht with tears in his eyes—he’d taken over the mantle of fatherhood. The gleeful laughter of his grandkids opening Christmas presents echoed in his mind. He saw his granddaughter as she rode, wobbling precariously, on her first bicycle after the training wheels had come off. He saw her again, years later, gliding through a forest on horseback, looking at him with loving eyes as he rode beside her. What a magical moment! Then he thought of the darkness that had enveloped him in Moscow and how—when it lifted for a moment that was mercifully brief—he had lain in agony on a basement floor before Conrad had dug the bullets out. Another image flashed before him: the relief on his wife’s face when she’d seen him for the first time in a military hospital in Germany. She’d been with him all through his recovery. They’d argued about his return to work in espionage and intelligence. How much he had loved her! How much he missed her.
He would be with her soon.
The life Conrad had given him had been so full, so rich, and now it was nearing the end. He had his regrets—all men do—but one regret he would never bear: he would not abandon Christie Jensen. Nathan Fitch could go to hell.
He heard Fitch sigh. “Albert, you’ve never betrayed my trust when it comes to keeping secrets safe.” The way he said it told Brecht that Fitch was about to lay an egg.
“And I won’t now.” Brecht waited. “What is it?” He could practically hear Fitch reminding himself that the line was secure.
“Albert, your subjects are alive. They’re likely to stay that way, at least for a while. We know where they are—don’t ask—and if we can get them out, we will. But believe me when I tell you that what is at stake here is much greater than two civilian lives or your contract.”
“Can I tell my clients that?”
“Of course not. As far as they’re concerned, you’re doing your best but running into one dead end after another. Beyond your control. If we can get them out, you can claim the credit with your clients.”
Brecht knew that Fitch didn’t expect that to happen. “What kind of time frame are you looking at?”
Fitch hedged. “Could be a while. The girls have been in the same location since they were snatched, and it looks like they’ll be there a while. They’ll go through some rough times, but we don’t believe there is any immediate threat to their lives.”
Brecht tensed. Was Fitch lying to him? Did he really not know the cabin was empty? “Do you have them under surveillance?”
“Not directly. The situation is too delicate for direct real-time observation. If we’re detected, very bad things will happen. So, we monitor from a distance.”
“Where are they?”
“I told you not to ask.”
The fact that Fitch wouldn’t disclose the location told Brecht that he didn’t yet know that Brecht’s team had already been there and found the place empty. This meant that he probably didn’t yet know that someone in Beeman’s cabin had been shot. It also meant that the situation was not under Fitch’s control and Fitch didn’t know that yet.
Fitch was bullshitting, saying his team might rescue the girls. They were as good as dead to Fitch—worse than being acceptable casualties. Fitch more likely viewed them as inconvenient witnesses—their safe extraction wouldn’t even be on the bottom of the priority list.
“How rough will it be for them? Can you at least give me something to prepare my client?”
“Shouldn’t be that bad,” Fitch said, much too quickly. “But even if I’m wrong, you’re still a patriot. If this operation goes south, the cost to the nation will make the loss of those two ladies seem like nothing. That I can absolutely guarantee.”
“Will you keep me advised?”
“To the extent I can.”
The line went dead.
Brecht leaned forward in his chair and rested his arms on the table, his mind whirling. Kenehan had been certain someone in the woods nearby had the cabin under surveillance, yet Fitch claimed not to have the place under direct observation and seemed not to know the cabin was empty.
It made sense that Fitch had to keep his men clear because a hostile force was closely observing the cabin, so Fitch had to keep his team well clear of both the watchers and the occupants of the cabin—distance was necessary. Surely Fitch had drones in the sky above the cabin during the past twenty-four hours; how could Fitch not know that the cabin was empty?
At least now, for the first time, the malaise of the Denver police made sense; the feds had suppressed their investigation. The FBI was involved, not to help, but to make local cops stand down, to keep them from interfering with the NSA’s operation. The National Secrets Act conferred power over state law enforcement agencies in all matters of national security, defined in terms more elastic than a wad of warm bubblegum.
Fitch’s words rang in his ears. If this operation goes south, the cost to the nation will make the loss of those two ladies seem like nothing, How could they possibly have gotten caught up in something that sensitive?
Brecht’s powerful strategic mind began to clear and went into overdrive, churning the data to find patterns and reach tentative conclusions.
Who had been in the forest watching Beeman’s cabin?
Pessoa and Beeman abducted two ordinary girls, likely while two separate groups of observers were watching them, one serving the interests of national security and the other likely hostile to those interests.
Fitch was watching the watchers who were watching the kidnappers.
Who was the target of the surveillance?
Pessoa was a nobody. The girls were civilian bystanders. Beeman, on the other hand, was a strategic asset. But working with a kidnapper? Was he one himself? Was Beeman the second figure in the background on the enhanced composite video? Who else could it have been? Fitch’s people may have actually seen the kidnapping take place. If so, that they let it play out confirmed there had to be a massive national security interest at stake—something more important than preventing a dual kidnapping.
The scenario fit everything Fitch had said, and that Brecht already knew. Enemy operatives were watching Beeman while they were themselves under observation by FBI, NSA or DOD specialists. They chose not to interfere with the abduction so they could continue to follow Beeman’s watchers, perhaps to find out who they were or whom they were working with, or to prevent an attack of some kind.
It had to be something like that, didn’t it? But something felt out of place.
I’m missing something. Consider every piece.
DataHelix. A private research-and-development contractor to USAMRIID, the US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases. Biological weapons. Beeman was a researcher, a developer of new microbial strains.
What else? Go through it again.
The split lock; the bloodstains, likely caused by gunfire; the heat signatures Kenehan’s team had seen with infrared NVGs in the woods. Someone wanted something Beeman had, and if they succeeded in getting it, America’s national security would be badly damaged.
What did Beeman have, and who wanted it? Access to a bioweapon a foreign power hoped to obtain? But how would the kidnapping fit in to such a scenario?
Was someone blackmailing Beeman with evidence he’d been culpable in a kidnapping?
It was possible if not plausible.
Was Beeman himself a sexual predator, or had someone set him up for a blackmail operation? Did it matter which? No. All that mattered was that Brecht was forming a faint picture of who the players were, and the NSA apparently had miscalculated and may already have blown their own operation.
So, reconsider the nature of Beeman’s motivation.
If Beeman was
actively working with a foreign power, and if blackmail was not the motivation for his doing so, the kidnapping could have served a different purpose than fodder to set up a blackmail scheme.
Had Beeman actually been the primary perpetrator of the abduction?
A bad thought: might Beeman have wanted human subjects for testing one of his experimental bioweapons—perhaps to prove the lethality of the weapon quickly? Someone had relocated the girls recently. Unless Fitch had them and was keeping a lid on that fact to keep the situation from going public, the enemy operators had likely moved them. And if Fitch had them, it was highly unlikely Brecht could find them. They might have moved them to a quarantine facility. On the other hand, whoever had been observing Beeman’s cabin could have taken the women, which led back to the likelihood of blackmail.
Not enough data.
To find the girls, Brecht had to find Beeman, or Pessoa. It was the only thread available. Finding Beeman could be easier than finding Pessoa, for the man was the holder of a very high security clearance and would not stray far from his established behavior patterns until he was either killed or fled the country once and for all.
What else? Keep asking questions.
If Beeman had kidnapped the women for his own purposes, a foreign power was likely blackmailing him. But how plausible was it that Beeman wanted human test subjects? And why would he be working with Pessoa?
It had to be blackmail. What seemed most likely to Brecht was that the kidnapping had been unrelated to the espionage operation, and there was a good chance Beeman hadn’t even known of the operation until after he and Pessoa had taken the women. That scenario made a better fit, but Brecht knew the danger of getting married to a single hypothesis too early in an investigation, which would lead to selective vision and limited thinking.
Either way, Beeman may or may not yet have handed over any classified biotechnology. He could be in the wind, or dead, but something delicate was still underway; at least Fitch thought so. In Fitch’s mind, the situation was still fluid, which would imply Beeman was not yet in the wind; he could return to DataHelix at least one more time to steal samples of a dangerous pathogen or classified data, or both. If he hadn’t already removed samples or data from the lab, it could make sense that he hadn’t been aware of the blackmail and espionage operation until after the kidnapping. So Beeman was likely to return. Fitch must be counting on it. Might Beeman also make at least one more stop at his home in Denver? Perhaps to collect a few key belongings or for the sake of appearances before returning to the lab? Perhaps to buy time to plan a way to get the classified material out of the restricted facility? How long could Beeman be absent from his work without triggering alarms?
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