Rules of Engagement

by Ken Fite

  FORTY-ONE

  SIMON HARRIS WAS at his desk in the cluster of cubicles that he and the rest of the visiting DDC team had been working from, sipping a third can of soda and trying to fight off the drowsiness that was trying to overtake him. Simon kept watch over Agent Davis’s loaner vehicle that he had been tracking and watched it come to a stop and tried to figure out what Jami was doing. Pulling up DDC’s proprietary Maps application, he began to check each of the addresses of the nearby houses one by one to understand who she was meeting with in the Forest Hills neighborhood, when an instant message popped up on his screen.

  It was Morgan Lennox. ‘Simon, please call me,’ the message read along with the number to his direct line.

  Reaching for the landline, Harris lifted the receiver, punched in the number, and heard it ring once before Morgan answered. “It’s me,” said Harris, still upset with his counterpart for his earlier accusation.

  “Simon, is Lynne May back yet? She’s still showing as being away on Messenger.”

  Looking over his shoulder, Harris moved the phone to his other ear and looked at the desk May had been working from since arriving at the Hoover Building. “She’s still in the privacy room, resting,” he replied.

  “I need you to go in there and get her for me right now.”

  Harris turned back around to face his screen and stared at the dot on Maps that represented Jami’s SUV. “Sure, after you tell me where Agent Davis went,” he said. “I think you’re the one that’s hiding something.”

  “Simon, please.”

  “First tell me what’s going on,” demanded Harris. “May asked me to track her. Well, now I’m tracking her. Now you tell me what she’s doing up in Forest Hills because that’s the first thing May’s going to ask me.”

  “She’s running down a lead, Simon. Jami found an address and she’s checking it out. Now go get May.”

  Simon stood and looked beyond the cubicles to the dark corridor that led to Landry’s and Mulvaney’s offices. At the end, close to the cubicles, were the Bureau’s restrooms. From Simon’s desk, he could see the women’s restroom clearly and watched as a woman approached, opened the door, and disappeared inside.

  Simon shrank back into his seat, rested an elbow on the desk and rubbed his forehead with his hand. “Morgan, I don’t know if I can go in there. What’s so urgent that you need me to go get her right now?”

  Lennox sighed. “I’m going to take control of one of the Bureau’s Predator drones. I don’t have time to do the paperwork. I need May to know what I’m doing so she doesn’t get blindsided with Bill Landry, okay?”

  “You mean so that you don’t get in trouble, right?”

  Morgan sighed. “It’s not just the drone. Something’s about to go down, and I need to get her up to speed.”

  Harris thought about it. Earlier, after finishing his first soda, he had gone into the men’s room and saw a door with the words PRIVACY ROOM on it at the opposite end of the room. As he approached, he saw that there was a horizontal slider sign, much like the kind of sign that he had seen outside countless conference rooms. The slider had been pushed to the left, showing the word VACANT on the right. Simon had opened the door and flipped on the light to understand what the inside of the small room looked like. He stood again and stared at the women’s restroom across the floor, imagining an identical room inside.

  “Simon?” asked Morgan, growing impatient.

  “Okay,” replied Harris as he looked down at the desk and noticed a wireless headset attached to the landline. Simon pulled it off the charger, pressed the green button on the landline marked “headset,” and slid it over his ear. “Can you hear me?” he asked. Morgan said that he could, so he set the receiver down.

  Stepping out of the cubicle, Simon approached the restroom. As he did, he saw the woman who had entered two minutes earlier exit the room and walk past him down to the other end of the floor where she and a team of Bureau analysts were working. Simon stopped when he got to the entrance.

  He looked up and down the corridor, both ways, and saw that it was clear. “This is embarrassing,” he said, and stepped forward, pushing open the door to the women’s restroom, and stepped inside.

  He saw a row of sinks on his left and three stalls on the opposite side of the room. They were all empty. Simon looked straight ahead and saw what he was looking for. Harris moved quickly toward the privacy room, trying to get the task over with as fast as he could, but stopped when he reached the door. He saw the same kind of slider that he had seen in the men’s room. Only this time, the slider was on the right side, revealing the words IN USE on the left. Simon lifted his hand, hesitated for a moment, then knocked.

  “Mrs. May, it’s Simon Harris. I’m sorry to bother you, ma’am, but we need you out on the floor, please.” He lowered his hand and waited for a response, but there was no reply. He raised his hand to knock again.

  “Oh, for the love of Pete, just go in there, Simon,” yelled Lennox from the headset, growing impatient.

  Harris reached for the handle and tried to turn it, but it wouldn’t budge. He began to twist the handle up and down quickly, thinking maybe it was just stuck, but realized that it wasn’t. He knocked again, harder this time. “Mrs. May, please wake up, ma’am.” There was still no response, and Simon stepped backward. “Morgan, I don’t know what to do,” he said, still staring at the door. “She’s not answering the door.”

  “Does it take a key?” asked Lennox.

  Harris looked down at the door handle. “Yeah,” he replied. “I think so. I see an opening on the handle.”

  “Simon, go into the men’s room and check the handle. See if you can lock it from the inside for me.”

  Turning to leave, Simon walked to the end of the women’s restroom, pulled open the door, and lowered his head in embarrassment as he walked past two female analysts who noticed what he had done. Entering the men’s room on the other side of the corridor, Simon walked to the privacy room door, pulled it open, and flicked on the light. “Okay, I’m in,” he said. “Looks like it does lock from the inside, Morgan.”

  “Bloody hell.” Morgan sighed. “Something’s wrong if she’s not answering. Can you go get Bill Landry?”

  “No, he’s not here. I just looked for him a little while ago, Morgan. Can’t find him. These people show up and disappear whenever they want,” he said, frustrated. “Mulvaney’s here, but he’s on a conference call.”

  “Then go get Mulvaney, Simon. Tell him what’s going on. You might have to break that handle to get in.”

  Simon stepped out of the men’s room and turned toward Mulvaney’s office. He was breathing hard. “Morgan, both of them are gone. Landry and Mulvaney,” he said after checking both offices, and he stood in the corridor, thinking. “I’ll call security and tell them what’s going on, and I’ll call you right back, okay?”

  “Good. I’ll go reposition that drone, mate. You get security to open that door and make sure she’s okay.” He paused and heard Simon still breathing hard as he went back to his desk and disconnected the call.

  FORTY-TWO

  SIMON TAPPED THE switch hook on the landline and heard a dial tone in his wireless headset. He dialed security, who answered immediately. “This is Simon Harris,” he began. “I need help on the third floor.”

  “What’s the problem?” asked the woman on the other end of the line.

  “I think someone may be trapped in the privacy room. She’s not answering the door and it’s locked.”

  “Are you sure someone’s in there?”

  “Yes,” he replied. “Lynne May from DDC. She wasn’t feeling well, and now she’s not answering the door.”

  There was a pause. “Okay, privacy room in the women’s restroom,” she said curiously. “We’ll be right up.”

  Simon started to call Morgan back, but decided to give him a few minutes so he could focus on the drone. Instead, he walked back to the corridor and stood in front of the restrooms and waited. Three minutes later,
he heard movement from the adjacent corridor and looked around the corner, where he saw two members of the security team—a man and a woman—approaching. They were dressed in white shirts and black slacks. The man held a large silver toolbox. Simon stepped into the corridor to wave them down.

  “Harris?” the woman asked.

  “Yes. Please hurry,” he replied.

  The man gestured to his counterpart. She knocked on the door twice, announced for anyone inside that security was entering, and pushed the door open. The man followed, bringing the toolbox inside with him. Simon watched as some of the workers heard the commotion and stood to peer over their cubicle walls at what was going on. A few of them stepped out from their desks and stared at Simon as he stood alone.

  Following them inside, Simon watched as the woman approached the privacy room door and knocked on it. There was no response. She tried the handle and confirmed that it was locked. Turning back, she nodded to the man, who set the toolbox on the tile floor, opened it, and fished around inside for a tool that looked like a screwdriver but was much skinnier. He grabbed a hammer, approached the door, and inserted the tool through the small hole and twisted it for several seconds, but couldn’t get the door open.

  Frustrated, the man stepped back, dropped the tool into the toolbox, and grabbed a hammer. He stepped back to the door, rested the end of the hammer on the base of the handle, and lifted it to eye level. The man brought it down hard twice. On the third strike, the handle broke off and he pushed the door open. It was dark inside the room. The man flipped on the light and stepped inside, followed by the woman officer.

  “It’s empty,” the man said after taking a look inside and stepping back out, followed by the other officer.

  The man looked at Simon, shrugged, and pointed at a sign inside the door. “Unlock the door before you leave,” the officer read aloud and shook his head. “Happens sometimes, never had anyone locked inside, though. Always had time to pick it.” He paused. “Maybe now they’ll finally change the damn doorknobs.”

  “We still have a problem,” said Simon. “I was told that Lynne May was here resting. Now she’s missing.”

  The woman gestured toward the exit and followed Simon out. “You called earlier,” she said from behind him. “I told you Mrs. May has not left the building. If she did, we would know about it. Visitors must sign out.”

  When he had exited, Simon turned back around to speak to the woman. “Don’t you have cameras here?”

  “Of course,” she replied as her counterpart exited the restroom and stood next to the woman.

  “Can you check them? See where she may have gone?”

  She put her hands on her hips. “What exactly is the concern, Mr. Harris?”

  Simon didn’t respond, just looked out at the Bureau employees as they continued to stare in their direction from their cubicles.

  The officer took in a deep breath and sighed. “Have you checked the cafeteria? Looked inside any of the conference rooms that are up here?”

  Simon shook his head.

  “Then I suggest you start there, Mr. Harris.”

  “Irene,” said the man, still holding onto the toolbox, “it wouldn’t hurt to take a look and see what we find.” He looked at his watch. “My shift is ending, but I’ll stay a little longer so I can check the tape.” The man turned to Simon. “Where are you sitting?”

  Simon pointed to the cluster of cubicles against the wall.

  The security guard nodded. “Alright. I have a few things I need to wrap up; then I’ll take a look for you. Okay?”

  Simon nodded and turned to the woman, who had an annoyed expression on her face.

  “Check the areas I suggested,” she said. “Call us back when you find her so we don’t waste our time.”

  Simon turned back to the cubicles and noticed that the onlookers had already sat down and went back to focusing on their work. Simon thanked the officers and headed back to his desk, pulled out his chair, and took a seat. He leaned back and just sat there, silent, listening to the sound of the people working around him for several seconds before turning back to his laptop. “Something’s not right,” he whispered to himself and unlocked his laptop. The screen illuminated, and his eyes grew wide at what he was seeing.

  The mouse was moving. A command line prompt appeared. A command was entered into the window. There was more typing, more movement, and Simon couldn’t stop it. Every time he moved his mouse and tried to take back control of his system, the mouse would move back and the typing would continue. Someone was controlling his system. Harris pressed a button on the landline and heard a dial tone. Lennox answered immediately. “Morgan, I stepped away to talk to security, and when I came back, my—”

  “What happened?” interrupted Lennox. “Did they get in the room?”

  Simon kept his eyes on his screen. “Um—” Simon paused “—she wasn’t in there.”

  “Good instincts, mate. Now we just need to figure out what happened to her.”

  Simon continued to stare at his screen. “Morgan, someone’s taken control of my system, and I can’t—”

  “It’s me, Simon.”

  Harris grew silent. He narrowed his eyes and shook his head. “Morgan, what the hell are you doing?”

  “I got the drone circling over Bolling. Now I’m trying to access the database archive for the Hoover Building’s security camera footage.” There was silence on Harris’s end of the line, so Morgan elaborated. “I can’t access anything directly from here, so I established a direct connection with your system through our DDC VPN. And since you’re in the Hoover Building and on their network already…” He paused briefly so he could focus on what he was doing. “Done. I think we’re in. Now we just need to find the archive.”

  “You repositioned the drone already?”

  Morgan grunted affirmatively.

  “Um, what do you need me to do?”

  Morgan paused as he continued his search for the location of the archive. “Just watch and learn, Simon.”

  FORTY-THREE

  MEG TAYLOR HELD the front page of the New York Times to her eyes and shook her head from side to side in a small quick motion as she tried to process what she was looking at. “Where did you get this?” she asked as Jami checked her phone and set it on top of the kitchen counter and turned to the woman.

  “Early edition of the paper that’s being delivered—” she pulled back her sleeve to check the time “—right about now.” Jami maintained her gaze on the woman, who was visibly shaken to see the story printed. “Why do you seem so surprised?” she asked, furrowing her brow. “You are Meg Taylor, aren’t you?”

  The woman nodded, slowly at first, then decisively as she folded the newspaper in half and set it down. “Just didn’t expect to ever see this in print,” said Taylor, still looking confused about the whole thing.

  “Why not?”

  Taylor crossed her arms and looked away briefly. “That’s really none of your business.”

  Jami narrowed her eyes. “Ms. Taylor, I don’t know what your angle is on all of this or why you’re trying to damage the president by exposing matters of national security, but the man you wrote about—” Jami paused to make sure she phrased what she wanted to say the right way “—you shouldn’t have done this.”

  “Is that why you’re here? Because of the man I wrote about?” Taylor paused. “Are you part of his team?”

  Jami stepped closer. “I’m here, Ms. Taylor, because I want to know who your informant is.”

  Taylor shook her head quickly. “Not gonna happen. I never reveal my sources, Agent Davis.”

  Jami pointed at the paper. “You can’t just publish libelous statements. Do you realize what you’ve done?”

  Meg looked down her nose at Jami. “It’s not libel if it’s true. If Mr. Jordan wants to take me to court, he—”

  “Ms. Taylor, you haven’t just ruined a career or damaged the president because of this.” Jami grabbed the newspaper from the kitchen counter and held i
t up to her face. “This is a death sentence. You crossed a line the media should never cross.” Jami lowered her voice. “This man is a hero and doesn’t deserve this.”

  Meg was silent for several seconds. She reached up and ran her fingers through her blonde hair, thinking. “The story wasn’t supposed to run,” she finally said and turned, pacing back and forth nervously in the large kitchen area. “My boss wanted me to find dirt on Keller. I noticed Jordan in a picture. He looked out of place. Something didn’t seem right. I knew someone and called him up and got what I was looking for.”

  “Robert King,” said Jami softly. “So he’s behind this?”

  “No,” answered Meg. “That’s just it. I showed up at his house last night and handed him the story I wrote.”

  Jami watched Taylor as she paced around the kitchen, arms crossed, thinking hard. “What happened?”

  “He said the same things that you’re saying now, how the guy was a hero. Said he couldn’t run the story.” Taylor paused a beat before turning back to look at Jami. “He fired me,” she said and furrowed her brow.

  Jami narrowed her eyes again. “I don’t understand. He fired you because of the story you wrote?”

  “No, he fired me because I didn’t get him the kind of dirt he wanted. That’s what he told me, anyway.” Taylor stopped pacing and kept her gaze on the ground. “I should have taken the story back from him. Instead, I just let him walk away with it.” She took a deep breath and let it out fast. “I think he set me up.”

  Jami took a step closer to the woman. “After you left King’s place, what did you do?” she asked gently.

  Taylor thought about it. “I went home. Tried to sleep, but couldn’t. Called a friend about what happened. Didn’t want to be alone, you know? Only person I really know in this city. Just met him a few weeks ago.”