by A S Bond
Despite being five foot nine, Brooke was slightly built. But her delicate frame and slender legs belied a level of fitness - and toughness - that made her an accomplished canoeist, skier and outdoorswoman. Her deep green eyes did little to mask a striking intelligence and more than a dash of single-mindedness.
Brooke Kinley worked as a staff reporter on the Daily Post. None too exalted a position, particularly given her education - a straight GPA of 4.0 followed her right through her own days at GWU - but she had carved something of a comfortable niche out for herself at the Post, her second newspaper since her graduation some twelve years ago. Brooke took on whatever story was available, like the other reporters, but Denzel Hudson, her editor, was sometimes happy to let her take a few left-field, longer-range investigations too, which usually paid off. She had a feeling this might be one of them.
What could Scott want? He could give her enough stories to keep her busy for a year. But he didn’t, despite their history. Sighing, Brooke put down the coffee and switched on the computer to check the day’s headlines, and maybe get some hint as to what Scott wanted to discuss.
Ninety minutes later, Brooke stepped off the Blue Line train at Foggy Bottom. It was ten before ten, and for a Sunday morning, it was pretty busy. The chess players were already hard at work at the outdoor boards in the small park around the station, and she walked briskly along I street and turned left down New Hampshire Avenue. Even most of the homeless had woken up and made it to the nearby soup kitchen for their hot meal of the day.
Leaving behind the colonial clapboard homes with their Union flags fluttering in the morning breeze, Brooke passed the concrete curves of the Watergate Building, and the Kennedy Center came into view, its glass iridescent against the sparkling river beyond. Most of the tourists were still easing into their day, so when she stepped off the elevator onto the top floor, she soon saw Scott sitting in a far corner. He was drinking what looked like a Bloody Mary.
“Kinda early for that, isn’t it?” She kissed him on the check as he stood up to greet her. “Or has it been that sort of week?”
“You could say that.”
“How’s life on the greasy pole?” she said, ordering a coffee and eggs Benedict with a smile for the waiter.
“Tiring.” Scott glanced up. “I’ll have the same.” The waiter nodded. “And another Bloody Mary.”
“It’s been a while, Scott. How have you been? Really, I mean.” The concern in Brooke’s eyes was genuine, but detached. It was ten years or more since they were involved, but even back then, it had never felt very substantial. And so it had proved; when she went to work in New York and Scott got his first staffer job, things had quietly, but permanently, fizzled out. Still, he was a nice guy, if a little too focused on his ambition. Cute, too. Brooke had forgotten how his blue eyes were fringed by such long black lashes. She closed her eyes for second. He’s a great contact, and that’s all, she reminded herself. It’s what it takes to get ahead in this town.
Scott, who had been staring distractedly out of the windows across the terrace to the river, seemed to focus on her for the first time.
“Busy. I’m in the - “ The waiter appeared with their drinks and Scott waited until the man was back behind the bar before he continued. “- I’m on the Network Warfare Ops now.”
Brooke opened her mouth to ask. “And you know I can’t elaborate on that.”
“Okay.” Brooke smiled and took a sip of her coffee. Let him call the shots, since that’s what he wants, she thought. The waiter reappeared with their food and there was a pause as they both began to eat.
“I guess you saw the footage of the attack on U.S. forces in Afghanistan,” Scott said.
Brooke looked up from her eggs, food balanced on her fork.
“Who didn’t? It’s been all over the news, a patrol wiped out, air support brought down. It’s a disaster and everyone wants to know where they - Al Qaeda, the Taliban, whichever bunch of crazies it was - got the weapons.”
“I thought it might ring a bell.” Scott half smiled.
“Oh God, are you telling me you know?” Brooke almost knocked a glass of water over as she grabbed Scott’s arm. “This could be the story of the decade!”
“Keep your voice down!” hissed Scott, glancing around the bar, which was now filling up nicely with tourists in loud shirts, carrying camcorders and maps. Brooke leaned back, her eyes narrowed, waiting for Scott to speak.
“I’m not sure, but - and this isn’t known outside security circles - some of the weaponry they used against us was captured.”
Brooke nodded. “Go on.”
“Over in intelligence, we took that stuff apart, and there was one thing that caught our attention. A microchip in the positioning program software.”
“Yes?”
“We think it was made in the Middle East, but it was invented here in the US. “
“Okay...and?”
“Well, the technology was sold, to a prominent American businessman.”
Brooke’s mouth formed a question, but he continued.
“Now, he’s using it for a totally different purpose: precision drilling.” Scott described the mining technology. “But looking further into this sort of thing is our job - my job, so I’m thinking maybe it’s the inventor with something to hide? Or an employee with an agenda? But it’s all just a little odd.”
“Odd?”
“Well, perhaps not odd, exactly. It doesn’t fit, you know? The guy who invented it - a researcher at MIT - died unexpectedly, in a car crash, and shortly afterward, his company sold the technology. Then, somehow, it turns up in a captured weapon on a Taliban fighter in Afghanistan. I’d call that odd.”
“Me too.”
“What’s even weirder is I tried to get an official investigation going, and apparently the CIA is all over it, but I don’t buy it.”
“Why not?”
“For a start, CIA can’t look at anything domestic, we both know that.” Scott paused.
“What about the NCIX or you guys in DOD counterintelligence? “
“Exactly. But I got shut down.”
“Shut down?”
“Yeah, orders from the White House, no less.”
Brooke sat back and looked at him thoughtfully. “Decisions of this significance are often taken at NSA level, joint chiefs or whatever, and they don’t always make sense from the outside. So why are you so interested in this one?”
“The prominent U.S. businessman who currently owns the technology is Jean Maynard.”
“The friend of the President?”
“The very same.”
Brooke paused as the significance of this sank in. “I think the Post even carried a photo of the two of them together, out in the country shooting ducks or something.”
“I know.”
“But this makes no sense. The Apache incident is bad news for the President. It makes us look bad; it makes him look bad. We’re not winning. That won’t help with his re-election next year.”
“I know.”
“Why would a friend of President Campbell work against his interests? Against his own country, for that matter?”
“I have no idea.”
“Why are you telling me?”
The hubbub in the bar was reaching levels where they needed to speak loudly just to hear each other, so Scott stood up and, throwing some bills on the table, nodded toward the door.
“Let’s go for a walk.”
Brooke’s mind was busy trying to dredge up everything she knew about Maynard, which was why she wasn’t concentrating on the crowd in the lobby. She tried to catch herself, but her foot hit the man crouching in front of her, tying a shoelace, and her own forward motion propelled her over him. She would have landed in a heap on the floor, if Scott hadn’t caught her.
“Oh, I’m so sorry...” she began to say, but the man was already walking away.
“No problem.” The voice floated over the shoulder of a navy overcoat as the man disappeared into the c
rowd.
“Let’s get out of here.” Scott put her unceremoniously back on her feet and he too, was already walking away, but in the opposite direction, towards the main doors. Out in the clear September light, they both turned instinctively towards the river, joining the Rock Creek Trail past the embassies, towards Georgetown. A number of small yachts skimmed up the river, the occasional puff of breeze making the dark water foam briefly at their bows.
Brooke stopped walking suddenly and turned to face Scott, oblivious to the escaped tendrils of long hair blowing across her face. She stared at him.
“I never figured you for some kind of whistleblower. Why are you leaking this? It’s massive. You stand to lose your job, maybe even go to jail.”
Scott thought for a moment.
“This is more than just a hunch, Brooke. There’s hard evidence here, and someone is keeping me from investigating it. I’d like to know who, and why. Plus, I didn’t choose this career because I like crappy coffee, long hours and paperwork. It’s something I believe in. It needs to be done right.”
“Why come to me with this? There are plenty of reporters in town and well, it’s not like we’ve been close lately.”
Scott regarded her seriously. “You care about the truth.”
“You might not like what I find.”
“I know, but that’s doesn’t matter. It’s also partly because I know I can trust you - trust you not to print anything before we’re certain, trust you not to let this get out. But mainly because I know you’re ambitious; you’ll get to the bottom of this and you won’t stop until you do. That’s something I can’t do. I’d be out before you can say ‘security threat.’“
“I think you mean I’m stubborn.”
Scott ignored the jibe. “And, because of Jaime, you have a personal reason to care what happens to those guys fighting out there -”
Brooke cut him off. “I know.” She didn’t want to dwell on her family history.
“How is he? I did check the names, when the news came out about the attack...I always do check.”
“Fine, last time I heard...he’s in a different part of Afghanistan from this mess.”
She looked away and Scott took the hint.
“And I want us to keep it that way,” he said. “Like you said, this could be massive, or it could be simple incompetence, the usual bureaucratic screwup. But I don’t want to think more guys like Jaime are getting killed because I just did what I was told, no questions asked.”
“I know.” Brooke stared across the river to the far bank, where the overhanging trees dripped burnished leaves into the water. There was a beat, then:
“I may have to tell some people about this. I don’t work in a vacuum, you know.”
“Can they be trusted?”
“Yes, but I’ll keep the bigger picture to myself and my editor. Where do you want me to start digging?”
“Look at Maynard’s companies, his business interests,” Scott said. “There will be a trail. Try starting with the patent and its now strangely deceased inventor.”
There was a moment of awkwardness before Brooke quickly kissed Scott on the cheek and walked back towards the Metro. She passed a man taking photos of the river scenery, but she was deep in thought and paid no attention to him. If she had, she would simply have thought he was just another tourist in a navy overcoat enjoying a quiet Sunday by the river.
Chapter 4
Brooke looked at her watch. It was after 12pm, and Denzel, her editor, would be in the office by now. She jumped back on the Metro, riding it a few stops east, and entered the huge, open newsroom at the Post within minutes.
The place thrummed with its own energy. Not just the dozens of flickering computer monitors and TV screens, but the people, some motionless, focused on their computers, others rushing around, calling out half-coherent phrases across the cubicles. If you could plug us into the grid, Brooke had often said, we could power half of D.C.
“And let the windbags on Capitol Hill power the other half,” Denzel would add. It was the closest he ever came to making a joke.
“Alice,” Brooke said, grabbing the intern’s arm as she rushed past. “I’m going to need your help this afternoon.”
“I can’t -” The young woman glanced over towards a fat man in a striped shirt, surrounded by three screens of scrolling numbers. “I’m -”
“And I promise it’ll be more interesting that whatever Fergus in finance has you running around doing for him.”
With a smile, Alice nodded and kept on moving. “I’ll be there in ten minutes.”
“Okay now,” Brooke said to herself, as she switched on her computer. “Let’s start with what we do know about Mr. Maynard.” It didn’t take long for her to find a list of publicly traded companies connected to Maynard, and the newspaper’s own archives yielded the photo she remembered, of Maynard and the senator for New York - now president. The photo had been taken some years ago, judging by the youthful smile on the president’s face as he held up a huge fish to the camera, an arm slung around Maynard’s shoulders.
The caption said, “Senator Campbell enjoying the season with Jean Maynard at Maynard’s fishing cabin near Nutak, NL”
“Hey, what do you need?” Alice was suddenly there at Brooke’s desk, her dark red hair swinging forward as she looked at the notes spread across it.
“Can you find out what you can about this patent?” Brooke said, scribbling the details Scott had given her about the chip. “I’m pretty sure a company called Okak Mining bought it around five years ago, but I want to know more about where it came from.”
“Sure. “ Keeping her eyes on the screen, she said “What is this about? “
Brooke smiled.
“I got a tip, but I need to do a lot of digging if anything is going to come of it. She turned back to her computer. “How did the midterms go?”
“Okay, I guess. The grades aren’t all in yet. I should get all my credits for graduation by next semester, though. Then I guess I have to start making some decisions, talk Denzel into giving me a job here, or go for law at GW.”
“What do you want to do?” Brooke listened with half an ear as she checked out the companies Maynard was involved in, but only one was a mine: the Okak Mining Corporation.
“I’d like to stay here, but...hey, here’s that patent application! It was filed by an American company called Excelsior just over five years ago. The director is named as Marcel Canning. “
“Does it name the inventor?”
“No...” Alice frowned as she scanned the information. “It just gives the company as the inventor, but the patent was never granted because the application wasn’t completed, so it’s never been published.”
“So it doesn’t have any legal protection anymore.”
“And if Okak - or anyone else - bought it, there would be no legal record of the technology transfer?” Alice said.
“Right, only of the financial transaction, not the patent itself. But...the timing’s right.” Brooke spun back to her computer, following the scent now.
“Can you see what background you can dig up on Maynard from the files? Look at campaign contributions and anything we’ve got on him as an individual.” Alice, sensing that chatter would not be welcome, settled down to her task.
Several strong coffees from the cart outside the building later:
“Gottcha!” Brooke said to her screen.
“What have you found?” Alice leaned across to look.
“Yes, see? Excelsior files tax returns as a private company. It has existed for six years, with no trading, except for a one-time payment to it from the Okak Mining Corporation, a Canadian company, five years ago.” Brooke kept herself from saying more, remembering that Alice didn’t know the reason for her interest. “Can you check out this Okak Mining? They’re private, so you’ll have to go through the Canadian registrations province by province.” Brooke said. “I’ll see if I can get more information straight from the horse’s mouth.”
&n
bsp; “Brooke,” Alice said, gently taking the phone from Brooke’s hand and replacing in the cradle. “It’s Sunday. No, it’s Sunday evening. No one will be in the office now. Why don’t you go home and we’ll pick this up in the morning?”
Brooke looked at her watch.
“Jeez, it’s eight o’clock! Okay, let’s call it a night. You’re here tomorrow?”
“Yes, after my morning class. Here,” she handed Brooke a flash drive. “This is what I found on Maynard this afternoon. Makes for pretty interesting reading.” With a wink and a flash of her auburn hair, she was gone.
Later that evening, after three hours of reading through Alice’s research, Brooke went to bed. But she barely slept. Phrases kept popping back into her mind: “child prodigy...modest family business... Yale scholarship... millionaire by 23. ...It was a model American life. Despite his widely known friendship with the President, there was little that was concrete connecting them, apart from that fishing photo and, it was strange, but there were no registered campaign contributions from Maynard’s public company, CorpTech Holdings. A vast conglomerate, its interests included paper, oil, and manufacturing. No clues there, then.
Brooke rubbed her eyes and sat up. The clock by her bed told the horrible truth: 3:30 am. She shivered as her feet touched the cold tiles in her kitchenette. A woman who could bear the chore of cooking only if it was over an open fire, Brooke’s refrigerator rarely did anything more strenuous than keep leftover Chinese food fresh for the next morning.
Tonight, though, she was in luck. Milk. It usually worked. The microwave pinged and Brooke sipped, cradling the warm mug in her hands as she gazed out at the lights along the river. A plan began to form in her mind. With a smile, Brooke climbed back into bed and fell instantly into a deep sleep.
At eleven the next morning, Alice arrived in the newsroom, her eyes bright as she hurried to Brooke’s desk.