Rules of Engagement

by Ken Fite

  “We are a team,” I said.

  “You sure about that?” he asked and then shook his head slowly. “I’m not going to give up on you, man.”

  “Keep me updated,” I said as Chris shook his head again, slammed the door shut, and left.

  EIGHT

  MEG TAYLOR SAT alone in the press corps office inside the basement of the West Wing. At one in the afternoon, all of her colleagues had already left, some going out for a long lunch, others not planning on returning to the White House until Jeff Brewer’s next regularly scheduled briefing on Monday morning.

  Even though she was alone, Meg felt uneasy. Rows of desks lined the space like an old schoolroom in the cramped, windowless downstairs office. She leaned back in her chair and looked around the historic space that had been used in various ways over the years, from a flower shop to a presidential gym in the forties.

  She turned to look at her laptop, thinking about the ultimatum that she had been given by Robert King. Meg leaned back in her chair, took a deep breath, and let it out. Reaching up to grab a lock of her dirty-blonde hair, Taylor twirled it slowly as she kept her eyes glued to the laptop until they glossed over. Racking her mind, she turned over every rock imaginable, but still came up empty on the assignment.

  That was the problem with President Keller. A man known for having high moral standards. A man who had had every intention of stepping down from his position as Commander in Chief and allowing VP Mike Billings to take the reins after the first lady had taken a turn for the worse. And a man who had stayed in office to honor his wife when she insisted that he remain unwavering in his pursuit to lead his country.

  Taylor, like most in the press, didn’t exactly agree with Keller’s politics.

  But, looking over her shoulder and recognizing that she was sitting inside the White House, Meg knew one thing: she was lucky to have the opportunity to fill in for O’Malley and couldn’t blow the opportunity.

  This was her dream job. Sure, Meg was just a fill-in until O’Malley’s doctor cleared the newsman to return to his job at the Times following his heart attack. But if she could come up with something—anything—she’d make her boss happy and just might secure her spot as O’Malley’s regular backup whenever he traveled outside Washington or needed a few days away from the twenty-four-seven pressure of his job.

  Growing tired of waiting for the man she had called to get back to her, Meg decided to stretch her legs. She bumped into the chair of the AP guy who had sat directly behind O’Malley, and steadied herself as she removed her heels. Meg began to pace up and down the rows, thinking about King’s words. She felt her stomach growl and lowered her hand, resting it on her stomach, as she remembered that she hadn’t had anything to eat since breakfast. Knowing that the press corps kitchen was just down the hall from O’Malley’s desk, she went back to the desk and grabbed her cell phone before leaving to exit the room.

  But as she neared the exit to the old basement office, a messy desk to the left of Meg caught her attention. She slowed, then stopped as she looked over the reporter’s workspace overflowing with stacks of papers.

  Meg hesitated and briefly looked all around the room, checking for security cameras. She didn’t see any. She took a cautious step to her right and looked around the corner to make sure nobody was returning from lunch. It was all clear, so Meg walked to the cluttered desk and began sifting through the papers.

  She pushed aside a white mug with the red CNN logo on it that was halfway full of cold, stale coffee. Meg picked up another stack. It consisted of articles that the journalist had printed from a few different websites, with the related stories paper clipped together based on topic. She found handwritten notes that the guy had made to himself across some of the papers. They were in shorthand. Meg used a finger to pull back page after page and furrowed her brow as she tried to decipher the man’s awful handwriting.

  As she continued to sift through the stack, she noticed something fall out and land on the floor. Meg looked down and saw what appeared to be a five-by-seven photo turned upside down on the gray carpet.

  She bent down, picked it up, and noticed the same handwriting on the back of the photograph in blue ink. It had the words “who was in the room for the Syria briefing” written on it along with a dash and the date.

  “April seventh,” Meg whispered to herself as she turned the picture over. She remembered that during that same time frame earlier in the year, President Keller had ordered the controversial airstrike in Syria, which had drilled fifty-nine Tomahawk missiles into the Syrian government-controlled Shayrat air base. The picture had captured one of the administration’s key decision-making moments in Keller’s presidency.

  Meg stepped to the hallway and checked to make sure that nobody was coming. When she was sure that she had a little more time, Meg thought back to that night in April when she had been called to an urgent meeting at her old paper back home to discuss the Syrian attack. She remembered how Press Secretary Brewer had explained that the surprise attack was retaliation for the Syrian president’s supposed involvement in a chemical attack that had killed over seventy innocent people during the Syrian civil war.

  Shifting her attention back to the photo, Meg looked at the people huddled together in the situation room. Bringing the image closer to her eyes, she began to study the faces of those who were there that night.

  She counted fifteen government officials in the picture—fourteen men and one woman. Eight of the men were seated at a long table with President Keller in the center. The rest stood against the back wall. The president was looking straight ahead at what Meg decided must have been video footage of the airstrike, just outside the frame of the picture. Most of Keller’s team were present and watching with him.

  Meg started from the left of the photograph and began working her way slowly to the right of the image. She looked at the people standing against the wall, one by one, followed by those seated around the table, whispering to herself the names of anyone that she recognized from Keller’s inner team as she went along.

  There was the deputy chief of staff almost out of the frame of the image, standing in the direction of where everyone else in the situation room was looking, the senior advisor to the president next to him, followed by the secretary of the treasury along one side of the table. At the corner, next to Keller, was the secretary of commerce, and sitting off in the corner was Press Secretary Jeff Brewer. Directly behind the president, leaning against the door, was a man in a suit with what looked like a wired earpiece coming up through the back of his shirt and into his ear. “Secret Service,” Meg said in a soft voice as she kept scanning the image.

  To Keller’s left was the secretary of state, the national security advisor, and Chief of Staff Emma Ross.

  Meg’s eyes shifted to the right as she studied the faces of Keller’s chief strategist, two members of the National Security Council, the deputy national security advisor, and finally, a man she did not recognize.

  She noticed that the man had a name written above his face on the photograph. She brought it closer to her eyes and bent it for the light to catch the writing. Meg read the name and looked up, deciding if she recognized it. She studied the man and realized that he looked much different than everyone else at the table. He looked more like a Secret Service agent than a presidential aide. She found a pen and made a mark.

  Taylor checked her pockets, trying to locate her cell phone, but came up empty. She found it on the CNN correspondent’s desk. Positioning the picture at an angle to reduce the glare from the overhead lighting, she used her phone to snap an image of what she was looking at and typed the recipient’s name as she sent it via text message. When she was done, Meg redialed a number and walked back to O’Malley’s desk.

  “I told you already, I don’t have any more information on the White House leaks that you called about,” said the voice on the other end of the line. “And if that changes, I’ll be sure to give you a call. Okay?”

  “Forget the l
eaks,” said Taylor after sitting back down at the desk and holding the picture up to her face. “Check your phone.” She waited until her informant confirmed that he had received what she’d texted him. “I need to know more about the man I’ve circled in the image.” She paused. “His name is Blake Jordan.”

  NINE

  DIMITRI PACED AROUND the long steel table where Makar and Andrei were sitting, each with a laptop. Five sentries moved about the large long-abandoned building, keeping a close watch outside as the occasional car passed by. Two generators had been brought up on the roof, giving enough power to get the lights and electrical outlets working. Air cards connected the laptops to the internet, and if it weren’t for the doors taken off their hinges, the pictures removed from the walls, and the stench of mildew, it might have been a more ideal location to operate from. But Dimitri needed a place to hide in plain sight.

  And the location fit that requirement perfectly.

  The table had been removed from an adjacent area and centered in the middle of what had been called the Persian Room more than half a century earlier. A large Persian rug, twenty feet wide and fifty feet long, covered the floor of the enormous chamber that the men were working from. A high-domed, vaulted ceiling stretched over forty feet into the air, causing their voices to echo whenever they became raised.

  Dimitri continued to pace. “Andrei,” he said to the more aggressive of the two men, “when will we get an update from our two specialists on the road? As you know, they are both critical to our plan succeeding.”

  “Soon,” replied the man, leaning back in his chair, his eyes moving to the man circling him slowly. “As I’ve explained, we must keep contact to a minimum. The Americans are good at tracing communications. The last thing we want to do is open the door for them to stop us before we set everything in motion, correct?”

  “Fine. Tell me what is being reported with the ransomware attack that you initiated. How is the progress?”

  Andrei went to work, going to the usual news websites, and provided Dimitri an update as Makar sat quietly at the other end of the table, listening. “The Americans are working on a fix,” he said. “They’ve got their best people on it to come up with a solution.” Andrei paused for several seconds before adding, “The FBI released a statement saying that they’re working closely with Silicon Valley to create a patch for it.”

  “Any attribution?”

  Andrei looked across the table and saw that Makar looked like he wanted to speak, so he nodded to him.

  “Dimitri, they’re now blaming a hacking group.”

  “The Shadow Agents?”

  “Yes, Dimitri,” replied Makar, turning his gaze back to his screen as he continued to scroll through the news report in front of him. “They’re hesitant to blame any specific country for this yet. It’s too soon.”

  Dimitri nodded. “Excellent. How many casualties?”

  There was no reply.

  “Do we know anything yet?”

  Makar shot a look at Andrei as Dimitri walked around him. “There is no information on that as of yet,” answered Makar. “But as you have instructed, the malware was introduced into the specific hospital that you requested and has quickly intensified, growing at an exponential rate over the past three hours.” Makar paused and turned to Dimitri, who had stopped next to his chair and stood next to him. “The Americans are reporting that it has been distributed to virtually every state in the nation. It will continue to intensify. It will be pushed to government networks, then businesses. The Americans will not recognize any kind of pattern. By the time they realize what we’re really doing, it will be too late to do anything.”

  A devilish smile grew on Dimitri’s face. He set a hand on Makar’s shoulder, patted it once, and squeezed.

  “Good,” said Dimitri, keeping a hand on his shoulder. “They will be distracted when we hit them again.”

  On the table next to Andrei, a disposable burner phone began to ring. Dimitri glanced down at Makar, then to his right as Andrei grabbed the phone, held it up to his face, and moved his dark eyes to Dimitri.

  “Is it our man on the inside?” asked Dimitri as the phone rang a third time.

  “No,” replied Andrei as he answered the call. “Go ahead.”

  Dimitri asked Andrei to put the call on speakerphone. Andrei shook his head, knowing that he couldn’t with the cheap prepaid phone that he had purchased over a year ago and a thousand miles away from their current location. Andrei listened intently as Dimitri stared, listening to one side of the conversation.

  “Very well,” said Andrei. “We will contact you when we are ready.” The man stared across the large empty room as the sentries securing it came in and out of view while they moved about, changing their locations and vantage points to keep the other three men at the table safe. “Let me know if anything changes,” added Andrei. He disconnected the call, set the cell phone down in front of him, and turned his eyes up.

  “That was one of the two?” asked Dimitri, now standing over Andrei and folding his arms across his chest.

  “It was.”

  “And?” demanded the young man at least half the age of the one seated in front of him. “What did he say?”

  Andrei continued to glare up at Dimitri, his dark eyes set firmly on him. “He said that he is in position.”

  “So he is within range and ready to begin the next phase of the plan as soon as we give the order?”

  “Yes.”

  “How will we know when to act? Have we confirmed if there are cameras so we can hit our target?”

  “There are, but we do not have access to them. We confirmed that before you arrived,” answered Andrei.

  “Then I will ask you again—how will we know the precise moment that our man should act?”

  Andrei looked across the table at Makar, who was staring down at his screen, not wanting to have anything to do with the conversation taking place in front of him. Losing his patience, Dimitri reached behind his back and grabbed his weapon, bringing it in front of him and turning it slowly from one side to the other.

  “Think about it, Dimitri. The timing does not matter. We strike when we are ready. Our primary goal is to displace the agency, is it not? And with that goal in mind, we will succeed regardless of when we strike.”

  “And that is the best you can do!” yelled Dimitri, his voice echoing throughout the large empty building. “The woman must die, Andrei. That is part of the agreement that I made with our man on the inside.”

  Makar looked up and watched as the two men stared at each other. “Perhaps we should get the timing wrong,” said Makar, pulling down the lid to his laptop a few inches before he continued. The men turned to Makar, prompting him to explain his comment. “Why should we be so quick, Dimitri? Why not have some fun with our target?” He paused. “Have our man trigger the device early. We can still get the girl.”

  Dimitri smiled once more. “You are right, Makar.” He turned to Andrei. “Call your man back. Make it so.”

  TEN

  AFTER CHRIS REED left, I approached the front door to my apartment, locked it, and turned around. Leaning my back against the door, I thought about my next steps, knowing that if these guys Sammy warned me about were looking for me, I didn’t have much time. And I hoped they hadn’t followed Chris.

  I walked into the kitchen, unplugged my phone, and yanked the charger out of the outlet. I dialed a number and held the phone to my ear with a shoulder as I wrapped the long charger cord around its base and stepped into my room. Charlie answered right as I opened my closet door and grabbed my messenger bag.

  “It’s Blake,” I said as I set the bag on my bed, opened it, and looked around the room. “I need your help.”

  There was a pause on the other end of the line. “What’s wrong?” the man twenty years my senior asked.

  “Need a place to stay for a few days,” I replied as I placed the charger on the bed and went through my drawers and grabbed enough clothes to last me seventy-two hours
and tossed them onto the bed, followed by extra magazines and extra ammo for my Glock. I found my tactical flashlight and tossed that onto my bed along with my knife. I looked around the room, thinking of what else I might need to take with me.

  “How far out are you?”

  “Twenty minutes.”

  “I’ll be ready for you.”

  “Charlie,” I said before he could disconnect the line, “I could use your help with something else.”

  After another pause, shorter this time, Charlie said, “Sure—go ahead.”

  “Do you still know anyone that you used to work with who can get access to local CCTV footage?”

  “I do,” he replied. “Just need to know where and when, and the guy can pull the archive in an hour or two.”

  Walking to my bedroom window, I separated the blinds and looked outside to check the street again. I scanned the area and didn’t see anything that looked out of the ordinary.

  “You still there?” asked Charlie.

  “Yeah. Have your guy pull anything he can get from Madison here in Alexandria. Street view between Washington and Saint Asaph. There’s an awning in front of a business that closed down a while back. Directly next to that, I saw a camera. Not sure if it’s active or not, but see if your guy can pull anything.”

  “What’s he gonna be looking for?”

  “African American man, older, homeless. He was assaulted by two men. I need to know who they are.”

  “When?” asked Charlie.

  I shook my head, thinking about it. “Not sure. Happened a couple of nights ago. If he can get access to the feed, see if he can check seventy-two hours back. You have what we need to review anything he finds over there?” I asked as I strapped the messenger bag over my shoulder and looked over my room one last time.

  “Of course.”

  “Good,” I said, nodding to myself. “See you in twenty minutes.”

  I disconnected the line and was about to head out when my cell rang. Still holding onto my phone, I looked down and saw that it was the president’s chief of staff calling. I hesitated before answering the call.