The Eyes of Others

by Mikael Carlson

  I look back at the agents searching the car. My old partner Remsen walks to within twenty feet, holding a cell phone and pointing to it. I gesture for him to wait a moment.

  “I have to get that. Is there anything else?” I ask Garrett as he drops the cigarette and crushes it with his foot.

  “Nope. Just keep me informed of any developments.”

  Garrett puts on some sunglasses and starts the car. After executing a k-turn in the street, he peels away like the pompous ass he is. I can only shake my head.

  “What was that all about?” Remsen asks.

  “Don’t worry about it. Who’s on the line?”

  “Grimman. He got tired of waiting and hung up.”

  I look up at the gathering clouds. It looks like the hunt for the mole and the chase for Hollinger aren’t the only storms brewing in this town tonight.

  “We have agents watching video from the Metro station. Nothing yet, but I don’t think they’re going to find anything,” Remsen surmises.

  “I don’t either. Have the agents canvassing the area come up with anything?”

  “Nothing. No cars seem to be missing from area … residences.” He uses the term loosely in this neighborhood. “Do you think someone picked him up? His fiancée, maybe?”

  “Possibly, but I don’t think they would take the risk. No, I’m betting a car is missing from somewhere around here. Have the police keep checking.”

  “Will do. It’s good to have you back, Zach.” I give him a weak smile. I don’t have the heart to tell him that part of me wishes I was still drunk at that bar.

  “Let’s wrap it up here. There’s some stuff I need to check at the office.”

  .

  ~ chapter 44 ~

  director colby washington

  Upper Senate Park is located to the north of the U.S. Capitol Building at New Jersey and Constitution Avenues and is just to the west of the Russell Senate Office building. Like the adjacent Lower Senate Park I’m standing on the corner of, it’s a popular spot for protests, rallies, and for Congressional staffers to gather on nice days. Looking up at the ominous skies, it’s no wonder why the paved walkways are completely empty.

  I’ve been here almost a half hour when I see him walking down the middle of Delaware Avenue which runs along the west side of the Russell Building and is closed to vehicular traffic. Trying to get the timing just right, I head in his direction and come up alongside him just as he passes C Street at the northwest corner of the building. My sudden appearance may have startled him had he not been expecting me.

  “It’s turning into an ugly day for a stroll in the park, Senator.”

  “That’s why I carry this,” he explains, holding up his umbrella. “Keep walking with me, Colby. I told the staff I was on the way to Ebenezer’s Coffee Shop across from Union Station, so I’d best return with one of their cups.”

  “Whatever you say.”

  “No suit today? I don’t think I’ve ever seen you dressed down,” the senator observes, taking in my manner of dress.

  “There was no point in wearing a suit just to clean out my office.”

  “I’m sorry about your dismissal. You’re not the only casualty of this disaster we’re facing, unfortunately.” I’m not entirely sure what he means by that, but I ignore it.

  “I expected a return call from you after our first conversation,” I inform him blandly.

  “That was no reason to break the very protocol we’ve had in place for years. What the hell were you thinking reaching out to Gina Attison?”

  Years ago, the senator and I agreed to purchase and maintain a pair of untraceable prepaid cell phones. We only shared the numbers with each other to ensure privacy. The devices were paid for in cash, and since there is no contract on these “disposable” phones, they could never be linked to either one of us. The protocol was that we would use these phones to contact each other, and that we would check for messages at least daily from the other party and be diligent about reaching out to the other when requested. The senator was a bit lax in his obligation to me.

  “I was desperate for you to get back to me, and I knew she could get you a message.”

  “She did get it to me. Right before I fired her.”

  “You fired her? Why?” I ask as we transition onto a walkway that cuts diagonally through the park toward the east side of Columbus Circle.

  “Why? Are you serious? Her fiancé made quite the spectacle in Adams Morgan last night. The media are already on the scent, and there won’t be much time between the name of the suspect in the explosion being released and when they show up to my office to question his future wife. What do you expect me to say to them when they ask why she’s still a member of my staff?”

  “It doesn’t matter. I called because―”

  “You expect me to find a way to save your job,” the senator correctly surmises.

  “You owe me that much.”

  “I owe you nothing, Colby.”

  “We have been through this once already. You’re going to turn your back on me after everything I have done for you?” I ask, grabbing his arm and stopping him under a large tree overhanging the sidewalk. “You wouldn’t be the chairman of the intelligence committee without me. I think you are forgetting that.”

  The country lost its mind following the terrorist attacks on 9/11. Coupled with the mourning for the lost and hatred towards our enemies were the endless questions about how we could have experienced such a catastrophic intelligence failure. As a member of the intelligence committee, Senator Ludwick was one of countless politicians running for cover when the 9/11 Commission convened.

  Everybody was looking for scapegoats, and I helped him navigate the dangerous political waters. Since then, I’ve used our special phones to provide him with information he has used during hearings to make himself a rock star on the committee and an easy choice to assume the chairmanship when his party ascended to power following the last election. I have never asked for reciprocation until now.

  “I don’t respond well to extortion, Colby.”

  “I’m not doing any such thing. I am asking you to return all the favors I have done for you, nothing more.”

  “There’s just too much heat on all this. The political and media pressure surrounding the leak is making rational people do irrational things.”

  “That is exactly the argument I want you to make. I need my job back. You’re in a position to exert the influence I need to make it happen. You and Troxsell go way back. He’ll listen to you.”

  Like Senator Ludwick, Vice-Admiral Troxsell is a native Missourian. It may be the only common thread that runs between the two men. Despite their differences, the senator took a shine to him following a brief encounter at the Pentagon when Troxsell was a lowly lieutenant commander. They have stayed in touch ever since, and when the admiral’s name made the shortlist for head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, the senator saw fit to grease a few wheels to ensure he got it.

  “I can’t tell him to reinstate you, Colby. It doesn’t work that way. Garrett has to be out of the equation first.”

  “I am working on that as we speak. All I need for you to do is call him when the time is right,” I tell him as we continue walking.

  “How do you plan on getting rid of Turner?”

  “I have my methods,” I say with a smirk. He gives me a look of warning. “Turner has been spreading lies all around town about this mole hunt. It’s just a matter of making sure those lies catch up to him. The moment he’s gone, do I have your word you will make the call?”

  “I said I would and I will. Understand, Colby, this wipes the slate clean with us.” Ludwick has always been good at setting terms that leave little room for misunderstanding. He must have been a great lawyer back in St. Louis.

  “We’re even only when I get my position back,” I clarify before turning and starting to walk away from the looming hulk of Union Station, towards the National Mall.

  “Colby? You’ve got to be getting clos
e to retirement. You have already dedicated and sacrificed so much in service to your country. Why do you want it back so badly?”

  I don’t expect him to understand. Every six years, he gets reelected to serve the residents of his state in the Senate, or he doesn’t. Political office is a temp job. A career in federal service is just that―a career. When he loses his seat, he can go back to being a lawyer. When a man like me loses his position, there is nothing else to fall back on.

  “Just make it happen, Senator,” I tell him over my shoulder.

  .

  ~ chapter 45 ~

  Eugene “boston” hollinger

  It’s dark and there are no people visible. The scene has its usual fuzziness, only it’s worse this time. I am scanning the area. I see a building … a lit sign … I can’t read it. My eyes settle on something. I can only make out … a line of cars.

  I’m running … or at least walking very fast. I stop and feel myself drop something. I reach down to pick it up with my left hand as my right retrieves something bulky from my pocket.

  My eyes move quickly to the object and then away. I can’t tell what it is. It looks like something is attached. A phone? My arm extends under the rear bumper of a red car. The object is gone when my hand returns from underneath. What did I just do? Is it a tracking device?

  I feel myself stand back up and walk back the way I came. I see another car. I can’t make it out …

  I wake up staring at the far wall of the strange room. I immediately try to recount the dream, but it was short and there isn’t much to remember. It was darker than normal and everything was far less clear. I have a vague idea of what was happening but no context to help understand it. Frustrated, I throw off the covers and head downstairs to the living room.

  Louisiana has made himself comfortable in an overstuffed chair as he sips a beer and flips through channels on the television. Tara is on the far couch, reading over the notes from the stolen file that Gina gave to me last night in the mall parking lot. That seems like it was days ago.

  “Sleeping Beauty! Did you have a nice nap?” Louisiana announces after noticing me come into the room.

  “Seven hours isn’t a nap, it’s a coma,” Tara chimes in with a big smile on her face.

  “I must have needed it, but I’m surprised I actually slept, under the circumstances.” I check the clock on the wall and notice that it’s almost a quarter to eight. No wonder it was darker in my room than I remember when I crashed out up there. Days are longer in June, but the dark gray overcast skies make it feel much later than it is.

  “Ditto, bro. I only woke up a couple of hours ago.”

  “And you?” I ask Tara.

  “I slept with one eye open in case Pepé Le Pew over here decided to get grabby while I slept.”

  “Hey, now …” Louisiana objects playfully.

  “Is there anything good on the news?” I ask, taking a seat on the sofa next to Tara.

  “Is there ever? It’s the same crap about the intelligence leaks they have been running since I got to this paradise. How do you people watch this crap all day? They say the same things over and over and never add anything new. Even when they change talking heads, the morons they bring on all say the same stuff.”

  “Welcome to the twenty-four-hour news cycle,” I bemoan.

  “It sucks, bro. I feel like I’m in prison here.”

  “That feeling is going to become a reality if we don’t actually find a way out of the mess we’re in. We’re public enemy number one and can’t hide here forever.”

  “That’s up to you, dream machine,” Louisiana jests.

  “He’s right, Boston. Did you have any memories during your slumber?” Tara asks eagerly.

  “Yeah, and I think it was about Louisiana.”

  “Not that I’m enthused about being the man of your dreams or anything, but you saw through the eyes of a devilishly handsome and charming Cajun?”

  “Oh, please.” Tara rewards his comment with a roll of her eyes and a sarcastic snicker.

  “Not exactly. I can’t remember much of it, but it looked like someone was bugging a car.”

  “Bugging it?”

  “Or placing a tracker on … actually, it might have been explosives. I don’t know.”

  “Explosives?” Louisiana asks with a raised eyebrow.

  “Yeah … It was a device of some sort. The whole thing didn’t make sense.”

  “Are you sure it was a memory?”

  “It had the same feel to it,” I explain, “but it was fuzzier and darker than usual.”

  “Was it nighttime?”

  “No, I don’t think so. Not quite that dark.”

  “Like it is outside right now?”Louisiana offers, trying to be helpful.

  “I don’t know, maybe.”

  “I wonder how recent this memory you accessed is. Let’s go through it and see if I can help you recover lost details,” Tara offers.

  For the next couple of minutes I work with her, but nothing is helping. Everything was too distant, too fuzzy, and too random. I think I know what I saw, but I can’t even be sure of that. The whole thing might have had nothing to do with the mole and everything to do with us. There’s no way to be sure.

  “What color was the car?” she asks.

  “Red. I think it was red.”

  “Don’t think. See it in your mind and answer. Don’t rationalize it. You said there was a hand. Describe it.”

  “It had a glove on.”

  “What color?”

  “Dark.”

  “Dark isn’t a color, Boston.”

  “I don’t know. Black, brown, gray … I didn’t see it clear enough.”

  I’m frustrated. The answers just aren’t coming. I hop off the sofa and begin pacing around the living room. It doesn’t help.

  “Forget it, guys, this isn’t helping.”

  “I talked to that friend of mine, Boston. He’s willing to help us out with trying to make these memories clearer. We can go there tomorrow if you guys think it’s safe to venture out.”

  “He? Don’t tell me you have a boyfriend, sweetie,” Louisiana pleads in a near panic.

  “He wishes.”

  “We shouldn’t be going out, but I’m not sure we have a cho―”

  “Wait a second, bro. Something just occurred to me. You said you saw a red car in that dream of yours?”

  “Yeah. I think so. Like I said, I don’t remember much.”

  “And you saw a small device attached under the bumper?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Were you at the back of the car or the front?”

  “I saw taillights, I think, so the back.”

  “What are you getting at, Louisiana?” Tara questions.

  “It’s exactly how I took out the car that belonged to the guy who was watching us. I placed a small block of homemade plastic explosive with a cell phone detonator right next to the gas tank.”

  “His car wasn’t red,” I explain.

  “Exactly, bro. Tara, you said that these dreams are only based on recent events, right?”

  “That’s right,” she affirms.

  “Well, bro, I didn’t place explosives on any red car. Someone you apparently know is out there doing the same thing I did. Now why would they be doing that unless …”

  “Someone is trying to set us up.”

  .

  ~ CHAPTER 46 ~

  FBI AGENT zach BRUHTE

  “This is Turner.”

  “It’s Zach. Where are you?” I bark into my cell phone as Remsen drives.

  “I’m in the car about to leave Ferrandino’s restaurant.”

  “Ferrandino’s? Where is that?”

  “A mile or two from Bolling-Anacostia, I guess. Why?”

  “Good. I’m in the area. I have some news for you and need to meet,” I explain without going into detail.

  “Just tell me,” Garrett commands.

  “Not over a cell. It needs to be in person.”

  “Okay, wel
l, I’m about to head north on Minnesota Avenue. There’s a service station on the corner at Pennsylvania. Let’s meet there.”

  “I’ll be there in five minutes,” I say, ending the call. “The corner of Minnesota and Penn.”

  “We don’t have anything that important, Zach. Why do you want to see him in person?” Remsen asks as he makes a left to head toward Pennsylvania Avenue.

  “Because it’s much harder to lie to someone face-to-face than it is over the phone.”

  “Do you think he’s going to lie?”

  “I don’t think he’s told me the truth yet,” I explain to my partner, causing him to let out a little laugh. “What’s so funny about that?”

  “To think you were drunk at a bar almost a week ago.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Nothing more than you must have one hell of a guardian angel, my friend. You had a foot out the door, and now you’re running lead on one of the most visible FBI investigation in years.”

  “What’s your point?”

  “You’ve been given a second chance. Don’t blow it by pissing in the wrong guy’s Cheerios. Turner might be a bureaucratic hack, but he’s shrewd and will stop at nothing to rise to the top, including finding ways to eliminate anyone in his way.”

  I understand exactly what he’s talking about. Garrett Turner has done nothing but manipulate me since the moment he walked into that bar. He made good on his pledge to me, though. He’s given me my shot at redemption, and that leads to another problem. There’s nothing more dangerous than a manipulator who can deliver on his promises.

  Three minutes later, Remsen pulls the car into the service station and parks along the small retaining wall next to the snack shop. My partner takes his seat belt off and his eyes scope the inside of the store. Despite being only eight o’clock in the evening alongside a busy thoroughfare, we’re the gas station’s only potential patrons. Garrett is nowhere to be found yet.

  “I’m going to get a coffee. You want one?”