by Brandt Legg
“I don’t know. They just want you dead. Apparently you ticked off the wrong somebody.”
“Now the cartel finds out you talked to us . . . ”
He glanced back into the trees. “They’ll put me on the same list with you and Grimes.”
“Are you expecting someone?”
He stared into Wen’s eyes. “Haven’t you learned anything? They know everything. When the cartel is after you, you always have to be expecting someone. They keep coming.”
Fifty-Two
Washington, DC – April 3rd – 12:34 pm
Chase looked around at the trees, at the steady traffic and the Bureau of Printing and Engraving across the street. It didn’t feel right. “Something’s off,” he said. “I don’t believe him. I think it’s another trap.”
The man didn’t take his eyes off Wen. “You know I’m telling you the truth. Wen Sung, former MSS agent trained under Rong Lo, parents deceased. Sister terminated by MSS. You both regularly work with the secret CIA division known as CISS.” He quickly rattled off additional facts about her—preferred weapons, language skills, martial arts proficiencies, number of suspected kills, affiliations—and then started on Chase before Wen cut him off.
“How do you know all this?”
“I told you, they know everything.”
Chase tapped her. “We have to go, remember?”
“What’s the message?” Wen growled.
“Grimes is on your side.”
Chase laughed. “So Grimes wanted you to tell us he’s our friend now? Why? Just so we wouldn’t think he’s a jerk? Because it’s too late for that. You don’t get to try to kill us for years and then say, Time out, let’s be friends.”
“Grimes is crazy,” the man said. “And angry—”
“Bad mix,” Wen said.
“Maybe, but in his case, it works in his favor. He is also patient, and should not be underestimated.” The man stopped talking for a few moments, as if listening for something, then continued. “He wants to take down the cartel. And he needs your help to do it.”
“Why would we do that?” Chase asked.
“Because you also want to take down the cartel. And you need his help to do it.”
“Keep talking,” Wen said.
“You want the shadow people gone from your life. So does Grimes. In spite of his history with you, he’s a good man.”
“Really?” Chase scoffed.
“Grimes simply took the wrong assignment. He had no idea in the beginning. It was supposed to just be a big payday. But you can trust him.”
“And I’m supposed to take your word for it?”
“Yeah.”
“Why?” Chase asked.
“Because you could kill me, and maybe I could’ve killed you. We’re both just standing here because Wen has already decided that I’m telling the truth.”
“How do you know that?” Chase asked.
“She hasn’t killed me yet.”
“Seems a big risk to just tell us Grimes is a nice guy,” Chase said.
“It’s not just about you anymore. You have to think about the little boy, Tu. It’s not just the MSS after him. Belfort has made deals . . . there’s a lot of big stuff going on. The cartel is out of control. Grimes can help you get to them.”
“And what about you?”
“I’m hoping they won’t find me out. Grimes couldn’t find another way to get word to you. It had to be in person. He asked me to do it. I owe my life to Grimes, so . . .”
“And if they come for you?” Wen asked.
“I’ll go underground.”
“Not a fun life,” Chase said. “We’ve been on the run a few years. You won’t like it.”
“That’s because you’ve been doing it wrong. You keep getting mixed up in trouble. I’m going to just disappear. There are any number of tropical paradises scattered around the globe for a guy like me. I’ve got a little cash stashed. I’ll just blend in and have a little too much tequila every now and then. I’ve seen enough action in my life, I don’t mind sleeping the rest of it away.”
Chase nodded, thinking, I know exactly what he means.
“I assume Grimes wants to try again? Set another meeting?”
“Yeah, but first there’s one more thing, the most important part of the message—”
Wen saw the red laser dot on the man’s forehead an instant before his head exploded.
Wen crawled to the man’s body. She knew he was dead, but had to see if he had a wallet or phone. “Nothing.” She wasn’t surprised. His car must be nearby, but there would be no way to find it, even if they had time.
She and Chase moved through the trees until they reached Maine Avenue. They dashed across, dodging an ice cream truck and a tour bus. Safely in the grassy median, they stopped behind a lone tree surrounded by shrubs. “See anything?” Chase asked.
“I saw the laser sight on him, but my brain couldn’t send the words of warning out to him or get my nerves in action before it was too late.”
“I mean the sniper, the shadow people, anyone still on us?”
“They’re going to have to find us again,” Wen said. “Later.” She pointed to three Metropolitan Police cruisers racing up Wallenberg Place.
“That was fast,” Chase said, surprised they had anyone to spare after the war at Air and Space.
Chase and Wen fled across the other lanes of traffic, through more trees, and were suddenly jogging along the Tidal Basin, a hundred and seven acre body of ten-foot deep water created to harness the tides of the Potomac River to clear silt and sediment from the Washington channel. The two mile trail was flanked by Cherry blossoms. The floral scent would have calmed most people—or at least those who weren’t running for their lives.
Fifty-Three
Vienna, Virginia - April 3rd - 12:40 pm - 16 hours 4 minutes until 4:44AM on 4/4
Tess looked at the large screen inside Mission Control. “Zoom that one,” she said. The satellite image showing real-time footage of Washington grew larger. She studied the rutted face of the man.
“Who is he?” Tess asked, feeling fortunate to have a lead on the space weapons fiasco.
“Spinx is the only name we have,” an analyst replied. “Obviously Caucasian, no data base match.”
“Nothing?”
“No. We picked him up on footage outside Columbia, and he matched footage from Cornell yesterday.”
“Show me,” she said, having already reviewed data from the deaths other prominent scientists at the top universities.
They replayed the footage for her. At the same time, IT-Squad operatives reported in from the field.
“Eyes on,” one of the operatives reported.
“At 4th and C Street, have visual on him,” another announced.
“Where’d we get the name?” Tess asked.
“We had brief audio when he made a call,” the analyst explained. “Identified himself to the person on the other end as ‘Spinx.’”
“Who was on the other end?”
“We’re working on it. Archive feed review at NSA found where Spinx is staying. A team is there now.” Another screen showed the crew inside his hotel room.
“Shootout at the Smithsonian,” another analyst reported.
“Which one?” Tess asked.
“Air and Space. Spinx was involved.”
Tess watched the footage obtained minutes before as Anatoly and three others left the museum. “Why there?”
“There’s nothing in here,” the lead operative on site at the hotel reported. “He seems to have scrubbed or taken anything from the bathroom that might’ve given us DNA samples.”
Then Tess saw earlier frames from Air and Space. “Chase and Wen,” she whispered, astounded, but not surprised.
“We have a name on who Spinx called,” an analyst said. “Tolstoy.”
“Confirmation on what we already suspected,” Tess said. “Tolstoy is having the scientists killed. Who the hell is Tolstoy?”
“Should we
grab him?” the IT-Squad leader asked.
Spinx worried Tess. He was too careful, too mysterious. “Not yet.”
“Reports of several Metropolitan Police and Park Service Police killed at Air and Space,” the man said. “Let’s get the bastard.”
Tess shook her head. As much as she wanted to arrest and interrogate Anatoly, she needed to know where he was going.
“Why not?” the man asked, frustrated.
“Torture takes too long. What he’s done is of no consequence compared to what’s going to happen in sixteen hours.”
She called Chase. No answer. “Find Chase Malone,” she said. “He was at Air and Space. He and Wen left there alive. Most likely they’re the reason Anatoly was there. Tell me where they are this moment.”
Tess again stared at the footage of Hayward Hughes’ murder. “It’s Spinx,” she said, seeing Anatoly fire the fatal shot at Hayward and then check The Astronaut’s body. She questioned her decision not to grab him.
As if reading her mind, Linda asked, “Why is he going to all that trouble to hide his identity?”
“Spinx isn’t the mastermind. He’s not even the trader of information and secrets. He’s simply a killer.”
“You think he’ll lead us to Tolstoy?”
“Eventually.”
Linda looked at the clock. “We don’t have eventually.”
“The more dots we connect and the more people within his orbit we identify, the closer we get to solving this.”
“The audio came in from Air and Space,” an analyst said. “Spinx is speaking Russian. The others are, too. Someone called him Anatoly.”
“Feed that in,” Tess said. “Tell me who he is.”
“Already on it.”
“It’s all about his trail and his network, that’s what we need from him.”
“It just seems we could learn a lot more by questioning him directly,” Linda said.
“A guy like this, someone who cleans up their DNA, the only kind of question he’s going to answer is via enhanced interrogation techniques,” Tess said, utilizing the preferred euphemism for torture.
Linda raised her eyebrows as if to say maybe that’s what was needed.
“We’ll see,” Tess said. “Right now he’s more important to me out in the world making and answering calls.”
“Are we doing the plant?” one of the Squad members in the hotel room asked for confirmation. Tess considered the options. A man who knew enough to scrub his DNA would be able to locate listening devices inside the room. “Negative,” she said. “Do joiners and surrounds instead.” It was a much more complex process, particularly for a room the man could vacate at any time, but it was the prudent approach. “I just don’t want to do anything to spook this guy, especially when we don’t know what city they’re targeting.”
Joiners and surrounds required the installation of high-powered listening devices in the adjoining rooms, including the ones above and below. Video would also be acquired in the same level insertions. Quality wasn’t quite as good as doing in-room surveillance, but it was almost impossible for a target to detect them.
“How much time do we have?” the man asked. His workload had just tripled. One benefit of joiners and surrounds meant getting caught during installation would be far less likely.
“Looks like he’s getting on the subway,” another agent reported.
“That’s odd,” Tess commented. “Why? I thought they had vehicles. Why is he on the subway?”
“Maybe he’s meeting somebody,” Linda said.
“Stay alert everyone!”
Fifty-Four
Washington, DC – April 3rd – 12:47 pm
After a sprint, Chase and Wen made it to the Jefferson Memorial, only two minutes late. The imposing monument, rising up out of granite and marble steps, forced an onlooker to pause.
The circular, open-air structure, constructed of white Imperial Danby marble, featured a shallow dome supported by a circular colonnade composed of twenty-six Ionic columns. “Kind of invokes the Parthenon,” Chase said breathlessly. Even with the danger they had just escaped, the picturesque monument was especially beautiful now, with the cherry trees ringing the Tidal Basin in bloom. The Memorial and trees all reflected in the water like a painting, or at least a postcard.
“That’s her,” Wen said, seeing a nervous lady standing at the base of the bronze Thomas Jefferson statue towering twenty-five feet above her.
After quick introductions, the three of them walked out, descending the steps. They found a private sitting area by the trees. The no-nonsense professor, Joan Osborne, pulled out a tablet and began her lessons.
“Here’s what they’re doing,” Professor Osborne said. “It’s both brilliant and frightening, and it changes the world forever.” She drew a black line on the screen. “This is a city—doesn’t matter which one, doesn’t even matter how big. Now, this appears as a satellite. Once the satellite is in position, it shoots a laser straight down to the center of the city.”
“But you said there can’t be enough power on a satellite to do any real damage,” Chase argued.
“That is correct. With currently known technologies, no significant damage can be done to a large earth-based target by a space-based weapon. Significant being the key word. Keep in mind there can be surgical strikes, certain assets that could be affected by something from space. That capability already exists. For instance, if you wanted to damage an aircraft carrier, or a specific building on a military base, even a vehicle driving on the road, that is all possible. But what I’m talking about is large-scale damage,”
“Killing a million people, taking out a city,” Wen said.
“Exactly,” Osborne agreed, this time making a red line on the image. She drew it coming up from the ground at an angle. “That single laser from the satellite in space is not meant to be the entire weapon. It is more akin to the laser sights that the military uses on munitions. But it’s a little more complex than that.”
Wen involuntarily thought of the laser dot that appeared on the shadow person only minutes earlier.
Osborne drew three more red lines radiating up from different points around the city to form a pyramid, the black line from space now piercing the top center of the apex. “These four beams come from power plants located outside of the target city. The closer the better, but ultimately distance is not a major factor. They are carrying the load. If they have the right facility, the beams form the pyramid. They are filled with intense energy. With the right power and settings, the city underneath will get so hot . . . it literally melts the city and everyone in it.”
“That’s frightening,” Chase said, looking up and reading the inscription below the dome, I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.
“Would Russia really do this?” Wen asked.
“Do you know it’s the Russians?” Osborne asked in reply.
“They’re the ones running around killing everyone.”
“It’s their chance to finally win the cold war,” Chase said.
“I thought the cold war was long over,” Osborne said.
“Tell that to the Russians,” Chase replied. “Can you imagine that kind of destruction? What happens if we lose a city and a million people in an instant?”
“Ask Japan,” the professor said.
“Right, but this is so much worse.”
“You want to talk about worse?” Osborne continued. “The power demands for a weapon such as this are so great, that it would effectively drain the power grid to the point of total collapse.”
“Meaning?” Wen asked.
“We are talking about complete failure. No power on the entire East Coast. I’m no expert on the grid, but I would imagine we would lose most of the Midwest, and possibly Texas as well, if it was an East Coast city. If they hit somewhere in the middle of the country, we could lose it all. The West Coast, same scenario as the East.”
“That will cause a
whole other disaster,” Chase said. “More deaths and massive economic destruction, especially depending on how long it takes to get the grid back up.”
She looked at him as if his assessment was too simplistic. “The grid within a five hundred mile radius of impact might require massive repairs, or even need to be completely rebuilt.”
Fifty-Five
Washington, DC
Osborne told Chase and Wen she was leaving town. “Washington is not the likely target, but I am a target now because of my knowledge.” She closed her eyes, as if absorbing the dire news again for the first time. “An old friend of mine has a place in Luray, Virginia. I’ll be safe there until this blows over.”
They escorted the professor to her car, then hailed a cab back to their own. After the short taxi ride, Wen called The Astronaut.
“There is another scientist in Washington,” Nash told them. “He is one of the world’s experts on lasers.”
“Will he meet with us?”
“I haven’t been able to reach him, he didn’t show up for work today. One of the government’s secret labs. But I have a home address.”
“He could already be dead,” Wen said.
“Or in hiding,” Chase said, thinking of Osborne.
The Astronaut gave them the address. Chase plugged it into the navigation system. “Not far,” he said. “Let’s hope we’re in time.”
Vienna, Virginia
Tess watched a series of screens in CISS Mission Control as facial recognition programs sorted and identified everyone in the subway station.
“Look who we have here,” an analyst said, reading from his monitor as a match came in from the man Spinx was speaking with. “Eddie Lukeman.”
“Who’s Eddie Lukeman?” Tess asked, sure she’d never heard of him before.
“He works for Belfort.”
“Shadow people Belfort?” Tess asked. CISS had been trying to crack the mystery of Chase and Wen’s secretive pursuers for nearly two years.
