Primary Threat

by Jack Mars

  Jepsum smiled and shook his head. “Are you kidding? I’m just going out to catch a little fresh air and grab a snack out of my car. I’ll be back before you blink.”

  “That’s the spirit, kid.”

  Jepsum walked across the grounds to the parking lot. He reached his car, a late-model Toyota Camry, slid inside, pulled the door shut, and took a deep breath.

  Okay. This was the best he was going to do.

  He wasn’t going to drive off the grounds, make this phone call, and then come right back again. That would raise more suspicions than if he just sat here, and appeared to eat a candy bar while chatting with someone from his personal life.

  He opened the last call he had received and pressed SEND.

  The man answered right away. “Hello, my friend.”

  Jepsum shook his head. “Talk, but make it quick.”

  “A man is missing,” the voice said. “We cannot find him. He was crucial to the effort, and now he is gone. We don’t think we are going to find him. Another man is also missing. He was involved as well. In a certain sense, he was even more important. We may find him, we may not. We are still hopeful at this moment, but…”

  As far as Jepsum was concerned, that was just Russia. These people killed each other all the time.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “What does this have to do with…”

  “Everything. Concern is starting to rise. If someone took these men, it is not a coincidence. It would have to be someone…”

  “Who knows,” Jepsum said.

  “Yes,” the voice said. “Someone who knows. Can you think of anyone like that?”

  “On my side?”

  “Of course,” the voice said. “Do you suppose we would ask you about this side?”

  No. They wouldn’t do that.

  Jepsum thought about it. There was one thing about all this that had quietly eaten at him. During the raid on the oil rig, a man had taken a laptop used by the Serbs. That was widely known. Several Navy SEALs had seen it happen. Heck, it was captured on video.

  The man was Luke Stone, the lead agent for the FBI Special Response Team, the one who had been suspended afterwards. As far as Jepsum knew, the SRT still had the laptop, and no one else had gotten a peek at it.

  Jepsum was walking on eggshells right now, but he couldn’t think of a way to ask the right question in code. Could White House security pull these cell phone signals out of the air? Of course they could. But why would they? No one had any reason to suspect him.

  He plunged ahead.

  “Just speaking hypothetically here. Theories, you understand? Guessing about how things work. If someone discovered a laptop that had once been used to send pictures somewhere, or maybe a home movie from years ago, or grandma’s recipes from the old country, could things be traced from there? Could secrets be revealed?”

  The voice was silent for a long moment.

  “Possible.”

  “Well,” Jepsum said. “In that case, I guess we better find out.”

  “Good idea,” the voice said. “Update me on the progress.”

  The phone went dead. Jepsum stared at it.

  He was all the way in now.

  How it had come to this? People on the outside would be baffled if it ever came out. Why would a guy risk his job, his freedom, his very life? Why would he betray his country and the things he claimed to believe in?

  For the money? No. Money was nice, but Jepsum had never wanted for anything, not in his entire life.

  For the ego? For the excitement?

  For the camaraderie? Definitely not that. He didn’t even like these people.

  If he was honest with himself, it was because at first, it made him feel like he was finally on the inside. He had been on the outside his entire life, trying hard to fit in, trying hard to be as good as other people, working his butt off to achieve things.

  A lot of people didn’t have to try—it all just came to them. But not Jepsum. He was constantly spinning his wheels, getting somewhere, yes, but not nearly as fast as the others. Tall people, good-looking people, people from rich families. It was like they knew something he didn’t know. They just showed up and it all happened for them.

  When this started, it had seemed like he knew something they didn’t know.

  Of course, it was an illusion. The Russians played him for a fool, and now it was too late to stop. There was no way out. The only way was forward. At this point, the Russians had so much compromising material on him—they called it kompromat—they could pull the plug on his entire life at any moment they chose.

  Jepsum walked back to the West Wing main entrance, went through security, and walked straight to the Oval Office. The door was open. The Secret Service men at the door let him in without bothering to check him. They knew him well enough.

  President Clement Dixon was in the sitting area with the Vice President. A handful of aides and assistants orbited nearby. Dixon looked old and unkempt. He had a bushy mustache and untamed white hair that looked like a stormy sea. He reminded Jepsum of a cartoon version of Mark Twain.

  But his eyes were sharp and aware.

  “Hello, Jepsum,” he said. “What can we do for you?”

  He remembered my name this time.

  God. If Jepsum had any future to speak of, that would be a beautiful thing. This new President had already remembered his name. That meant Jepsum was making himself useful. The things he said were worth hearing.

  Well, he had no future, so it didn’t matter. His career, his freedom, his escapade as a double agent, possibly his very life—the clock was winding down on all of it. So he might as well forget about the future, and throw caution to the winds.

  Jepsum’s grandmother used to have a saying:

  In for a penny, in for a pound.

  “Sir, Mr. President, I’m sorry to bother you. But as I think you might be aware, during the raid… the rescue attempt… on the Martin Frobisher oil rig, the FBI Special Response Team confiscated a laptop used by the terrorists. I don’t believe anyone outside of the Special Response Team has seen the contents of that laptop. Not the CIA, not the NSA, not us, and maybe not even the FBI proper. Frankly, my office has made three requests through channels to inspect the laptop, and we’ve been stonewalled so far. I suspect the contents might be important, though I can’t say that for sure. I’m a little concerned that this late in the game…”

  Dixon held up his hand in a STOP gesture.

  Jepsum stopped speaking immediately.

  Dixon looked at the small crowd of people.

  “Get Jepsum the laptop, somebody. Please? Even if we need to seize it from our own people. No more requests. We’ve asked for it, and they’ve dragged their feet. So just go in and take it. Now. Tonight. While we’re waiting for the Pentagon to pull their heads from their collective fundaments, maybe we can come up with some answers around here ourselves.”

  Instantly, two aides moved to the corner of the room and were on their phones.

  Dixon looked at Jepsum and smiled. “Satisfied, Jepsum?”

  Jepsum returned the smile.

  “Very much so, sir. Thank you.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT

  8:01 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time (4:01 a.m. Moscow Daylight Time)

  Headquarters of the Special Response Team

  McLean, Virginia

  “Yes, sweetheart,” Don Morris said. “Yep. Got it.”

  Don sat behind the wide expanse of his desk, talking with his wife, Margaret. His blue dress shirt was open at the collar, and his sleeves were rolled to three-quarters length on his forearms. He was leaning back, one hand on the desk, scribbling the items from his wife’s “honey-do” list on a small notepad.

  Nearly touching the notepad was the Serbian laptop Stone had brought back from the Alaska operation. It was closed. Mark Swann thought he had obtained everything from it that he was going to get. Now came the decision about what to do with the infernal thing. NSA had requested it, CIA had requested it, and some kid from
the White House had called about it three times. Don was toying with the idea of destroying it, and claiming that it had never been worth a damn to begin with.

  That laptop had sent Stone and Newsam to Moscow. Stone was supposed to be suspended, pending an investigation. If the bureaucrats and desk jockeys found out about the little mission he was currently…

  “Don, are you listening?”

  “Of course I am.”

  He smiled, putting the computer out of his mind, and tuning back in to Margaret. They’d been together over thirty years now, and she’d put up with a lot of his shenanigans over the years—the long deployments, the classified operations where he basically disappeared for periods of time, the combat missions, the night drops into hostile territory, the early mornings and the late nights, along with the boys-will-be-boys dalliances that she might not know about, but probably suspected.

  She was a good woman, a great partner, and the love of his life. The least he could do is pick up some groceries on his way home.

  “I love you, too,” he said and hung up the phone.

  Trudy Wellington stood there in the doorway to his office. Her big eyes stared at Don. Trudy should be a poker player on the professional tour. Few people were harder to read. If she had thoughts about the conversation Don was just having with his wife, those thoughts weren’t apparent on her face.

  She glanced down at the notebook in her hand, all business. Don wanted to go to her then, take her beautiful face in his hands, and talk to her, and tell her everything. But this was the office, and some things were not appropriate here.

  He sighed. Growing old was a funny thing, and not in a good way. He still felt like a young man. Hell, he felt like a bull in a field. Even so, Trudy was younger than both of his daughters. It was a melancholy thought. She had her life ahead of her, and he…

  …did not.

  “Don,” she said. “Stone and Newsam are on the State Department plane in Moscow. They are safe and sound, uninjured, a little tired, but none the worse for wear. There don’t seem to be any red flags about their presence, and the plane is scheduled for takeoff in the next few minutes.”

  He nodded. “Okay. Good. Did they get anything?”

  “They have a computer hard drive with them. Luke isn’t saying much about where it came from. Swann thinks he wants to get off the ground and out of Russian airspace before he reveals anything. There’s a tech guy on the plane who’s going to break the encryption, copy the whole thing to another computer, and send it here during the flight.”

  Don raised a hand. “That’s fine, but as soon as he’s done, we want the hard drive back, and we want the computer he used to transmit the information. Whatever Stone has, if it’s important, we don’t want every Tom, Dick, and Harry making copies of it. Make sure people know that. That comes straight from me. All right?”

  Trudy nodded. “Okay. I’ll do that. Now the flight is going to Athens. If we’re keeping up the fiction that Luke and Ed are music producers as long as possible, then we need to make it look real. So I’ve booked them both suites at the…”

  Suddenly Swann was standing behind Trudy. He was easily a foot taller than her. He was scrawny in his black t-shirt, yellow aviator glasses, and hair pulled back into a ponytail. He didn’t even look real.

  “We’ve got a problem,” he said.

  Don raised his hands. “What?”

  “We’re being raided.”

  Don’s shoulders slumped. “Raided? Who’s raiding us?”

  “The FBI.”

  “Son, we are the FBI.”

  Swann shrugged. “Tell that to them. In the meantime, I have some things to take care of.” A second later, he had disappeared down the hall.

  For a moment, Don and Trudy were alone again. Their eyes met.

  “Lose your cell phone for the time being,” he said in a low voice. “If anyone asks, you’re not sure where you left it. Then break it into pieces and dump it. Down the toilet, into the river, anywhere. If no one asks, fine. Keep it. But we need to think about all these text messages going forward.”

  She nodded. She looked like she was about to say something.

  A man tall man appeared behind her. Unlike Swann, this one had short hair and the generic, chiseled, clean-shaven face of a federal agent. He wore a suit. His hair was dark and short, and swept back from his forehead. His eyes were hard, like the eyes of a man on a hunt.

  “Excuse me,” he said to Trudy.

  Behind him, another man just like him appeared.

  Don looked at Trudy again. “Ms. Wellington, if you’ll give me a moment with these gentlemen.”

  Trudy nodded. “Of course.” Then she was gone like Swann before her.

  Don looked at the men.

  “Director Morris?”

  Don rubbed his face. He nearly laughed. “Yeah.”

  He had seen combat, or been on clandestine black operations, in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, the Caribbean, Central America, and Eastern Europe. He had parachuted blind into the central African jungle under cover of darkness and landed smack in the Congo River. He had ridden horseback into battle with Afghan tribesmen, and had the horse shot out from under him. He once saw a jihadi running with an AK-47, lose a sandal, trip over his own two feet, and somehow manage to shoot himself under the jaw, blowing his own brains out the top of his head. Don had seen a lot of circle jerks in his time, but this one surely took the cake.

  “How can I help you fellows?”

  Both men already had their badges out. Behind them more G-men went by in the hallway.

  “Sir, I’m Agent Randolph from Bureau headquarters.”

  “Sir, I’m Agent Garrett with the Secret Service.”

  Don shrugged. “Terrific. And as I guess you know, I’m Don Morris of the Special Response Team. Now that we’ve made our introductions…”

  “Sir,” Agent Randolph said, “we’re here to acquire a laptop computer that Agent Stone confiscated from the Serbians during your recent Alaska operation. We understand that the White House intelligence office has repeatedly requested…”

  Don gestured at the laptop. He supposed he wouldn’t be destroying it after all.

  “It’s right there. You can have it. I was about to have it couriered up to the White House before I left for the night.”

  “This?” the agent said. He touched the laptop. It was a bit of an unsightly thing, that computer. Bulky, battered, gray in color. It looked like it had been to hell and back. Everything about it screamed Iron Curtain. It was nothing like the pretty, fragile, streamlined little slivers of plastic they kept around the office here.

  Don nodded. “Yeah. Take it.”

  “Sir,” the agent said. “You should know that we’re mandated to collect any other technology, weaponry, or evidence that your team seized or amassed during that raid. We also need any correspondence related to the mission, including emails, voicemails, text messages, memos or other printed material. And we need an account of any further plans or actions your team has either developed or carried out as a result of…”

  Don shook his head. “Take the laptop, son. That’s all you’re getting from us. That’s all we have.”

  This was not good. Someone had gotten wind of… something. Now was not the time for Don to rack his brains, looking for the leak. It could be anywhere.

  It could be the fact that Stone and Newsam had just boarded a State Department plane. It could be they had stepped on some toes over in Russia, and it had gotten back to the White House. It could be Big Daddy Bill Cronin was being surveilled, and someone saw him with Stone and Newsam in Rome. It could be Big Bill turned them in himself, for his own reasons. There were any number of possibilities here.

  “I’m sorry to hear you say that,” Agent Randolph said. “In that case, it looks like we’re going to be here awhile.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY NINE

  7:05 a.m. Moscow Daylight Time (11:05 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time)

  The “Aquarium”

  Headquarters of
the Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU)

  Khodynka Airfield

  Moscow, Russia

  “Tell me everything,” Marmilov said. “Leave nothing out.”

  He sat at his desk in a windowless basement office, smoking his first cigarette of the morning. The ceramic ashtray was in its customary place on the green steel desk in front of him. It was clean and empty, waiting to receive its first dead soldier. His first cup of coffee (with two shots of whiskey this morning) was also on the desk.

  Marmilov was tired. It should be a triumphant morning, a heroic morning, but it did not feel that way. Putin’s location had been pinpointed to his Black Sea dacha, yes, and he was there with his wife and a handful of advisors, in seclusion and isolation.

  Perhaps he was plotting his next political move, and his return to the Kremlin. Perhaps he was plotting to flee the country—he could be in Turkey by helicopter in thirty minutes. But it didn’t matter what Putin was doing at this moment. Marmilov would move against him—maybe with an indictment, maybe with a bullet—as soon as it made sense to do so.

  But there were more pressing matters to worry about.

  The young man stood in front of Marmilov, his back straight, his thick legs planted, his chin high, his hands folded in front of him. He wore another cheap suit, but he could be at parade rest on a military proving ground.

  “Yes, sir. Is it wise to speak here?”

  Marmilov’s office was soundproof. It was swept for listening devices every other day. There were better times and places to speak, but those were not available at this moment.

  Marmilov nodded. “Speak.”

  “There is unfortunate news,” the young man said.

  Marmilov waited, and said nothing.

  “The engineer has not been found. His office was entered last night, his computer was broken open, and the hard drive was stolen.”

  “How was his office entered?” Marmilov said. The question alone gave him a sinking feeling.

  “Two men entered the Breadbox through a side entrance using the engineer’s digital key card. Security cameras at the Breadbox captured them on the third floor of the building, trying to enter the office with no success. One of them was wearing the engineer’s signature long coat and hat. They must not have known that the engineer’s office door required a code be entered from his telephone in addition to the use of the card. The night watchman on duty noticed the men on video, and went to investigate. They subdued him and used his access card to enter the office.”