Clear Skies

  He asked her about the sealed envelope she’d left with the hotel receptionist and expected an evasive answer. Instead, a warm glow sped through his blood vessels when she described technical specifications and diagrams for a futuristic aircraft and explained how she came to be holding them.

  Not long before Isa’s train reached Nice, an agitated Hewitt had recognized her—no doubt from their New York encounter and his insider knowledge of the Clear Skies operation—when he’d strode past her seat. He had said two men were tailing him and that he feared for his life. Hewitt had handed her a folder containing the aeronautics documents and asked her to deliver it to Jane Upton at BFI. She had not seen him again.

  Before Slade left the May Fair, Isa gave him the copy she’d made. He did not tell her that Deacon’s team in Washington, DC was already analyzing the photos he’d taken earlier that afternoon in her room and felt a sting of guilt over his duplicitous behavior.

  They parted with a promise to meet back in Tokyo—Slade’s plans were unclear, but Isa would stay four more days in London with Ono to complete the London Fashion Week activities before returning to Tokyo with the designer’s entourage.

  The cab pulled up, jerking Slade back into the present. The Hoover Building, like most other Washington, DC facilities built fifty years ago, contrasted starkly with the pristine white structures further along Pennsylvania Avenue. To Slade’s jaded eyes, it looked more like an institution for mentally challenged criminals, which, given his instincts about a few operatives in the system, might not be far from the truth.

  He sauntered through the drab corridors toward Deacon’s section and recalled that when he’d worked here before transferring to the Tokyo CIB, he’d been driven, putting in fifty-hour weeks to the detriment of his personal life. In Tokyo, he still worked fifty-hour weeks with his career-tethered Japanese colleagues—no longer driven, but his personal life had not changed.

  Slade made up his mind. He’d revolutionize his attitude and lifestyle when he returned to Japan.

  He approached Deacon’s secretary and flashed his ID.

  “Dan Slade. I have an appointment.”

  She stood and put her head around the partly open door behind her.

  “Agent Slade is here to see you, sir.” She gestured for him to enter the room. “You’re expected.”

  Deacon stood up to greet him and shook Slade’s hand with his usual firm grasp that spoke volumes about his strength of purpose and presence in the FBI. His smile worked its way up his face and settled in eyes that looked like they’d seen failure, success, and everything between in his thirty years of service to the Bureau.

  Deacon strutted into rooms, snapped at anyone who argued with him, could be coldly dismissive, and had a reputation for strong language. At the same time, he was dedicated to his work, demanding the best of himself and those around him. But most of all, Deacon had won Slade’s trust years ago as a man with impeccable integrity and judgment. His reputation as a skilled field officer preceded him when he moved into a senior administrative position and had earned him respect and loyalty from the staff serving under him.

  Wasting no time on pleasantries, Deacon said, “I’ve read your reports, and Fontaine sent us a stream of information, so I’m up to speed on what’s happened since the first incident in Tokyo. What’s your take on all of this?”

  “Combining my sixth sense with what we’ve learned so far points me in the direction of Neil Ashton.” Slade braced himself for a vigorous denial from Deacon and a stiff reprimand for accusing a senior DIA official without a scintilla of unequivocal evidence to support his claim. “I suspect he’s at the crux of the entire sequence of events dating back to when the Clear Skies operation took shape.”

  There was a brief silence. When Deacon spoke, his words were measured and demeanor uncharacteristically diffident. “Just between you and me, I think you might be right.”

  Slade opened his mouth in surprise at the response, but before he could speak, Deacon held up his hand to signal a stop to further comment. Slade was gratified to know his instincts hadn’t failed after the lack of mental stimulation working on simple crimes in Tokyo for almost a year.

  Deacon got to his feet and bent over his computer to start up country music on high volume, walked around his desk, and stood close to Slade.

  An overreaction, even eccentric, Slade thought, but Deacon could never be accused of ignoring even the slightest concern.

  “I need to be careful. Ashton has allies in all the secret services,” Deacon said, his voice rising effortlessly to skim over the clamor. “We believed he was a shoo-in for the top DIA job next year. But a DIA restructuring scheme mooted eight years ago has morphed over the past three years into an actionable plan to be launched officially from next month. Back then, most of us believed the idea would just fade away like most impractical, high-flying schemes, but instead it grew legs. Many of the changes have been implemented already.”

  Slade’s slack-jawed-fool response evaporated, yet he felt an extreme sense of the absurd as he leaned toward Deacon, straining to hear his account of impending changes to the DIA with the dissonant keen of banjos and guitars blaring in the background.

  “The Pentagon plans a massive boost to its workforce of overseas-based clandestine case agents to assemble an espionage network rivaling the CIA,” Deacon said. “The organization will be transformed from an agency responding for more than ten years to the needs of wars in two major battlegrounds into a spy service, driven by a new generation of covert operatives focusing on intelligence gathering.”

  Deacon laughed. “It’s ironic. Over the past ten years, the CIA has changed direction and moved away from its roots as a source of intelligence and predictor of emerging threats. Now it wants to follow a paramilitary strategy with a focus on aggressive fighting tactics with drones and the like. Meanwhile, the Department of Defense is itching to downsize and run a traditional spy agency. New DIA case agents are being posted in the guise of academics and business executives to cooperating universities and companies overseas even as we speak.”

  “Is there a budget for this? I thought the government tightened its belt in the defense sector,” Slade said.

  “They’ll create new agent positions by cutting and converting existing jobs across the DIA and enforcing early retirements. The DIA will redefine itself, and the whole transformation will be affordable. A small number of new recruits will be drawn from experienced civilians.”

  “What does the CIA think about the DIA spreading its tentacles deeper into their territory?” asked Slade.

  “The only way the Pentagon could get White House and congressional approval was to align the restructured agency with the CIA, which will train their case agents and supervise them in the field, at least for the foreseeable future. And the DIA will have to accept an appointee from the CIA to head the agency.”

  “So there goes Ashton’s plum job and his chance of moving up even higher.”

  “Correct. And there’s more. He’s no longer just an egoistic, overreaching bureaucrat. He’s been proactively campaigning for an increase in military spending. He wants to quadruple our military strength so the US can forcibly secure more oil, food, and water at the expense of other nations. He believes the global population is set to explode out of control, and people will resort to genocide to survive. I heard him speak at a conference just a few days ago, and the bastard’s clearly unbalanced.”

  Deacon’s words seemed to hang in the room before he spoke again. “He wants the US to deploy servicemen across the globe so they’ll be well placed to seize resources before the US runs short. His rants have become increasingly fanatical. But his argument hasn’t gained any traction with the top Pentagon guys who want him out.”

  “And the White House too, I’d guess.” Slade shook his head in disbelief.

  “Correct again. They see Ashton’s skills as redundant under their new strategy, and his ideas are completely out of whack with their thinking. I’m sure they’re c
oncerned about his mental stability. So after a thirty-year career, he’s to be retired ten years sooner than he expected. And a forced early departure at his current level means a much smaller retirement nest egg,” Deacon said.

  “That’s a worst-case scenario for a senior bureaucrat as ambitious as Ashton,” Slade said. “He must have seen this coming and created the Clear Skies operation as payback. And there’s always the more prosaic explanation of simply wanting a truckload of money.” Slade stood straighter. The interest level of the story was approaching the stratosphere.

  “I agree. Let’s pay him a visit and see what he says.”

  Slade stood motionless while Deacon walked back to his computer. Mercifully, Deacon switched off the music, then crossed the room to open the door and instruct his secretary to arrange an immediate appointment with Ashton.

  As head of the FBI’s international operations, Deacon had access to the most senior personnel of the other clandestine services. He’d earned their respect and cooperation, gaining open-door entry to their departments.

  Less than five minutes later, Deacon’s secretary put her head around the door and said, “Mr. Ashton is not available. He’s overseas.”

  “When did he leave?” Deacon asked.

  “Three days ago. It’s personal leave.”

  “When will he be back in the office?”

  “His secretary doesn’t know. His personal effects have been removed from his desk, and she seemed a little concerned. But there’s been no official notification about him leaving the Agency yet, and she said he’s taken off frequently without any explanation over the past few years, so it’s not unusual.”

  Deacon looked at Slade and said, “This time could be different. I want to convene a meeting in thirty minutes with you and one of my researchers who’s following this case for me. He’s the best cyber-researcher we have here, so it won’t take his team long to uncover Ashton’s latest tracks before he joins us. I’ll also bring in an aeronautics engineer I’ve borrowed from another department to help out on this case. He’s studying your photos of the aircraft specifications.”

  A brief silence elapsed before he went on. “I’m not too concerned about the Japanese arm of their scheme. The intelligence we’ve received from Tokyo is that Japan’s Defense Ministry will award their contract to BFI for their current fighter. It’s a high-performance aircraft, possibly the best available right now. I believe what the government and defense industry guests saw at their persuasive dinner parties in Tokyo is what they’ll get. It’s an underhanded way to win a contract, but in this dog-eat-dog industry, it’s not going to shake the world, and the Japanese are allies, after all.”

  Deacon spread out his hands. “But I’m shitting bricks about the potential for fallout over what’s been sold to the Chinese and the way it’s been done. We don’t know yet exactly what situation we’re facing. What we do know is the US defense sector has been sold out, and we’ll lose our leverage in global affairs in the end unless we can turn this crisis around.”

  CHAPTER 39

  (Tuesday Morning— Washington, DC)

  Deacon’s researcher, Kevin Mason, shuffled two sheets of paper. The tall, prematurely balding man in his early thirties put on glasses to read from his notes.

  “Ashton left the US for Paris on his own passport three days ago and spent the best part of a day there before taking an evening flight to Nice.”

  The same day Isa spent in Paris before she left at night for London, Slade thought, reflecting on the irony of coincidence while Mason’s low-pitched voice droned on.

  “He registered at the Nice Boscolo Exedra hotel for one night but checked out before four the next morning and according to French immigration records, has not left the country.”

  “Not on his own passport, at least.” Deacon swiveled his chair and gazed out the window at the Washington skyline for a few moments before turning back to face Mason. “Check his credit card use, phone calls, and the usual over the last three days.”

  “We’ve done that already. Nothing showed up. It looks like he doesn’t want to be traced,” Mason said. He drew his lean frame up to full height from his usual stooped posture, no doubt caused by years of spending waking hours hunched over a keyboard. He raised the volume and pitch of his voice to match his confidence.

  “We looked for male passengers who flew yesterday morning from Nice to London and took a flight out of London later that day. We came up with three names, and the most promising was a person called Ray Short. This matches the name you sent over from London, Dan.”

  He glanced at Slade before continuing.

  “He traveled as Ray Short on what passed immigration inspection as a valid US passport, leaving London yesterday afternoon for Milan, where he seems to have disappeared. No Ray Short transferred to another flight, registered in any hotel, rented a car, or used his credit card in Milan.”

  “Another dead end?” asked Slade.

  “Not yet.” Mason looked at Slade and raised his eyebrows. “A couple, Mr. Richard Palmer—despite having died in London midday yesterday—and his wife, Mrs. Carol Palmer, left Milan’s Malpensa Airport for the British Virgin Islands. That was three hours after Ray Short arrived at the same airport and went through the immigration inspection as if exiting for the city. He must have checked in again using a passport under Richard Palmer’s name. Immigration authorities did not question the authenticity of either passport.”

  “This tells us where the fake Mrs. Palmer went from Marseille. And an examination of airport security photos will show that Ray Short and this reincarnated Richard Palmer are one and the same person,”

  Slade said.

  “BVI authorities are checking that right now.” Mason leaned back, his hands clasped behind his head.

  “And I’m sure we’ll find both of those identities are being used by Neil Ashton,” Deacon said. “With his connections and credibility, he’d have no trouble getting a bunch of false passports to cover his and the woman’s tracks.”

  Slade nodded. “That aligns with what we learned in Europe. Chloe Harris, posing as her sister, lied to us and said she would sail back to London, which gave her a weeklong unmonitored window to avoid our scrutiny and escape to a safe haven with the money.”

  “They won’t stay long in the BVI,” Deacon said. “We have an extradition treaty. They’ll move in and out pretty fast.”

  Slade slipped his hands into his pockets. “I think Ashton and Harris are close to their endgame. They’ve eliminated most people connected with the scheme in preparation for their exit to a hideaway with the money. They went to the BVI to shift the funds from there to a more secure location without an extradition treaty so they’ll be protected and settle down. It will be a haven where local officials can be bought for a moderate amount of money.”

  “And they have plenty,” Deacon said. “What about Isa Kato? Isn’t she still at risk? Ashton involved her in monitoring developments in the Japanese arm of his scheme and instructed his Japanese hitman to kill her, although Sakata failed and took out her sister instead.”

  Slade placed both hands flat on the table in front of him.

  “I’m inclined to think it was Chloe Harris who commissioned Isa’s hit,” he said. “She possibly regarded her as a formidable rival for the premier place in Ashton’s personal agenda. Even if Ashton does pose a risk, I’m reasonably confident Isa’s off his radar now. He’s closing out his plan for an obscenely wealthy life in a place we can’t easily find him. One of the two Aculeus meatheads he used in Europe is dead, and the other might still work for him as an enforcer. John Miller, Isa’s handler at Aculeus, is dead, no doubt conveniently helped over the side of his building because he knew too much. Any others involved at Aculeus have been conditioned to think they’ve worked in the country’s national interests, so they’re no real risk to Ashton and Harris. I’m sure they’ve been paid handsomely and assigned to another operation already.”

  Slade turned to Mason. “We need to know if
Ashton and Harris are still in the BVI.”

  Mason looked up from his cell phone. “This message, just in from the Criminal Investigations Department of the Royal Virgin Islands Police Force, confirms that Ashton entered the country. I sent them his file photo half an hour ago, and it’s a match with the passport he passed off as Richard Palmer’s. They forwarded Ashton’s picture to the Italian authorities in Milan, who found a match with Ray Short’s passport. So predictions confirmed.”

  “Will they detain him for questioning?” asked Slade.

  Mason took a moment to finish reading the message before he spoke.

  “They’d like to, but it’s too late. He left the BVI from Beef Island airport an hour ago on a private jet. He boarded the plane alone, and the pilot failed to register the jet’s destination. They still haven’t located the woman who entered as Mrs. Carol Palmer. A search is underway, and they’re checking to see if she left the country using another identity. To be thorough, I’ve asked them to check for any Jane Does who’ve turned up in the last twenty-four hours.”

  Mason paused and looked at Deacon. “I’ll head back to my desk to wait for their results.”

  Deacon nodded. Mason pulled himself out of the chair and almost collided with another man striding in.

  The contrast with Mason was remarkable. Short and fit, the man Deacon introduced as Martin Helde, his aeronautics engineering expert, had already reached middle age and carried an aura of assertion. His once red hair had faded, but a lack of gray hairs belied his age. A few fine lines bordered his sharp blue eyes, which gleamed with confidence and held the attention of everyone in the room. In keeping with his brusque manner, he wasted no time on small talk.

  “Well Gentlemen, if these plans have been sold to the Chinese, they’ve bought themselves a bag of faulty goods.” He paused, savoring their startled expressions. He went on just as Slade opened his mouth to speak. “The specifications and design are clever without doubt, and I’m sure the customers received plenty of additional and equally credible information. The problem is that this aircraft will never stay airborne for more than three hours. The Chinese won’t know this until they manufacture a prototype and test it, because, in theory, it works.”