“Then we find ourselves a senator.”
Chapter 7
Mitch listened with rising frustration.
“Rayborne’s electronic diary has been erased,” Mouse reported via the London relay. “I tapped the local network his secretary’s computer is on. Emails, appointments, all that stuff is gone. Even the logs have been deleted. It was a very professional wipe.”
Mitch spoke to Mouse as he circled Capitol Hill in a hire car. “What about his secretary? Do we know who she is, how I can contact her?”
“Her name is Lucille Carmody. You can contact her at the morgue. She was killed last night in a drive by shooting.”
He winced, looking sideways at Christa. “They killed Rayborne’s secretary.”
She nodded, as if she expected it.
Mitch's attention returned to the cell phone. “What about Prescott’s movements?”
“No joy. Telephone records show he made no calls on either his home phone or his cell, not even the call he made to you.”
“Brick walls everywhere,” Mitch concluded.
“I tell you, Mitch, these are the same freaks hiding the alien technology down in area 51. They work the same way–”
“Later Mouse,” Mitch cut him off before he could dive into his alien conspiracy spiel. “How fast can you tell me if there’s an African diplomat visiting Washington.”
“Hold on,” Mouse fell silent for almost a minute. “The Foreign Minister of Angola is here looking for aid money to build a hydro electric power station on the Cuanza River. We’ll only give him the money if Angola closes a terrorist training base in their territory.”
Mitch looked impressed. “How’d you find all that so fast?”
“I just checked The Washington Post website. You want the name of the hotel he’s staying at?”
“Yeah, give me the lot.”
* * * *
A black van fitted with six aerials was parked across the street from the Angolan Foreign Minister’s hotel. Mitch and Christa studied it as they cruised slowly past in the car.
“You think they’d learn to hide the antennas,” Christa said dryly.
Mitch parked the car around the corner, then they walked back toward the van. He knocked loudly on the rear doors and waited. A moment later, a swarthy, pock marked man stuck his head out. When he saw Mitch, his face hardened.
“Mitchell! I Thought your ass would be in jail by now.”
“Still getting the shittiest jobs in town, I see!” Mitch snapped.
Special Agent Sivetta furrowed his brow. “What do you want, Mitchell?”
“I’m looking for Ventura.”
“He ain’t here.”
“When’s he coming back?”
“He's never been here. He’s riding a desk. Now beat it, I’m busy?”
“Isn’t Ventura Prescott’s partner?”
“Not since March. Why? Do you know where that goof off Prescott is?”
“In hospital. Gunshot wound.”
Sivetta’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “It better be serious! Leaving me stuck pulling double duty like this, he damn well better be on a respirator.”
“It’s serious enough,” Mitch said soberly. “Don’t expect to see him any time soon.”
Sivetta looked inside the van. “Call it in. Tell them we need a replacement.”
“Okay,” a woman’s voice sounded from inside.
“So who shot him?” Sivetta asked, annoyed that Prescott had a good reason for being absent.
“That’s what I’m trying to find out. Did you see him yesterday? Do you know where he went.”
Sivetta gave Mitch a distrustful look. “You're a civilian. What are you doing investigating a shooting?”
“Just looking out for a buddy.”
“I haven't seen him. Now get the hell away from my vehicle.” Sivetta slammed the door shut behind him.
Christa gave Mitch a perplexed look. “I thought you said these people were your friends?”
“Some of them are. Just not him.” Mitch banged on the van’s door again.
A moment later, Sivetta appeared again. “I won't tell you twice.”
“I’m not leaving until you answer my question,” Mitch said with a trace of menace in his voice.
“Is that right? I assume you know how much trouble you could get into, interfering with a Secret Service protection detail?”
The door opened wider, and a woman pushed past Sivetta and jumped down onto the road beside them.
“Hello Mitchell,” she said, looking Christa up and down, wondering if they were together.
“Hi Laurie. Must be tough, stuck in a van with him all day.”
“I've had worse. Prescott went to meet a senator, at his office yesterday morning. There was a message waiting for him when he got here. We haven’t seen him since.”
“Do you know the senator’s name?”
“Fraser, I think.”
“Never heard of him,” Mitch said. “Who is he?”
She shrugged. “A nobody from the mid west.”
“He’s on the Appropriations Committee,” Christa said. “Something of a hawk.”
“Any reason why he’d want to talk to Prescott?” Mitch asked.
“None I can think of. We’ve never covered him.”
“That’s enough,” Sivetta said irritably. “Mitchell, if I hear you've been bothering a United States senator, watch out. You got a lot of enemies around here. Don’t forget it!”
“I got a lot enemies everywhere.”
Sivetta nodded for Laurie to get back in the van, then he slammed the door shut again.
“He’s a charm school graduate,” Christa observed dryly.
“He’s a first class pain in the ass,” Mitch said, starting to walk back to the car.
As soon as they were out of ear shot of the van, he called Mouse and had him start checking on Senator Fraser.
* * * *
The hotel was suitably opulent in a way that would satisfy the rich and powerful and overawe visiting dignitaries from foreign countries. A red felt notice board, framed in gold, announced the luncheon’s guest speaker was one George Washington Fraser, senator from Kansas, just as Mouse had predicted. Mitch knew from the hotel plans he'd studied that the ballroom doors were to his right. They were closed and unattended.
“No guards on ballroom doors,” he whispered just loud enough for the small microphone in his lapel to pick up.
“Check,” Christa’s voice sounded from his earpiece.
It had cost him more than ten thousand dollars from the account EB had set up for him, but Mitch had acquired, under Mouse’s guidance, the equipment necessary to permit contact with the senator.
Just then, a hotel bell boy burst out of the ballroom doors and hurried across the lobby. For a moment, Mitch glimpsed the crowded ballroom beyond, filled with round tables covered with white tablecloths and surrounded by mostly men, sitting and listening to an unseen speaker.
“At least one security guard near the entrance,” he said.
Mitch saw the plain clothes guard for only an instant, but knew from the way he watched the room that he was security. He wasn’t sure if he was hotel security, or the senator’s own, but he had no doubt what he was there for.
“Where there’s one, there’s more,” Christa said from the car waiting in the hotel’s underground car park. She had dropped Mitch off a block away and let him walk in, while she drove in separately. They'd already decided that anyone watching would now be looking for a man and a woman together, so keeping apart was in itself some disguise.
Mitch went to the front desk and checked in.
“Will you be staying long, sir?” the receptionist asked.
“Just the one night. And I’d like a room on the top floor please.”
“Certainly, sir. And the name?”
“Mathew Prescott.”
Mitch watched her as she duly noted down his name.
“That’s Prescott with two T’s,” he correcte
d.
She smiled and fixed her spelling, then looked up. “Do you have a credit card, sir?”
“I’ll be paying cash, all in advance.” The girl’s eyes bulged when Mitch produced a wad of several thousand dollars and handed it to her to count.
Once she had put the money away, she handed him his room key. “Suite 1805, sir. The bellboy will show you to your room.”
“That’s not necessary, I know the way.” Mitch took the key, then leaned closer and nodded toward the ballroom. “The senator is a good friend of mine, I was wondering if I could leave a message for him? One you could have delivered to him.”
The young woman smiled. “Of course, sir.”
She passed him a pad of hotel stationery. Mitch wrote quickly:
Senator,
I’m waiting in room 1805.
Mathew Prescott
Mitch folded the paper and handed it to the receptionist, who placed it in an envelope and sealed it immediately without looking at it.
“I’ll have it delivered to him right away, sir.”
“Thank you.”
Mitch walked toward the elevators. “The bait is on the hook. Is Mouse ready?”
In the car, Christa picked up the cell phone, bouncing the signal through London as usual. “Ready?”
“All set,” Mouse replied from his computer screen in LA.
“He’s ready,” Christa relayed over the short range radio.
Mitch stepped into the elevator, in case the receptionist was watching. He rode up one floor, then immediately took the elevator back down to the ground floor. When he came out, the receptionist was busy with another guest, and didn’t see him walk toward the lounge chairs on the far side of the lobby. He settled into a high backed leather chair, picked up a copy of the Washington Post from a small table nearby and pretended to read. Within a minute, a bellboy carrying an envelope crossed from reception and entered the ballroom.
“The hook is in the water,” Mitch whispered, for Christa to relay to Mouse.
The bellboy came out and returned to reception, then several minutes later, four clean cut men in dark suits emerged from the ballroom and hurried towards the elevators. One of them was the man he'd seen at the ballroom doors before he'd checked in, while Mitch recognized several others from the photographs Prescott had given him of the Secondment 721 team. Mitch raised the paper a little higher to ensure it covered his face, then when the four guards stepped into the elevator, he said, “Four on the hook. Snag and bag them.”
Christa repeated the message to Mouse, who grabbed control of the hotel elevator system, simulating an electrical fault. All the elevators in the hotel stopped and a recorded message played in each elevator, apologizing for the short delay, which would be fixed immediately. Mouse was careful to ensure that anyone looking at the elevator control system would see the problem was a technical fault, not the work of a skilled hacker. He felt burned after losing the elevators in Mitch’s hotel, and was taking precautions against being caught out a second time.
“If I can’t beat you with brute force,” he said to his invisible enemy, “Maybe I can fool you.” Satisfied that no elevators were moving, Mouse spoke into his headset's mike. “The fish are high and dry.”
When Christa repeated the message, Mitch put the paper down. “Okay, I’m moving. Come up.”
He stood and headed for the ballroom door while Christa climbed out of the car and hurried up the ramp to the road, ignoring the elevators. She carried the cell phone that connected them to Mouse in one hand and her handbag in the other. Like Mitch, she had an ear piece, a tiny microphone in her lapel, and a small radio hidden in her clothes.
Mitch pushed the ballroom doors open and slid unobtrusively in. As he expected, the door was now unguarded, and there were no sleeve whispering spooks standing back watching the room.
Only four guards, he thought, realizing the senator had no reason to think he was a target.
Sitting at a table near the rostrum was the senator, a clean shaven man in his late fifties with distinguished gray hair and lines under his eyes disguised by metal frame glasses. According to Mouse’s research, the senator’s career had been long, if nondescript, characterized by an equal absence of scandal and policy. Mitch had a suspicion that anyone that clean, that inconspicuous, was that way by design. It made Fraser a potentially formidable enemy, who pulled strings and manipulated events from the shadows.
“I’m in position,” Christa reported as she slid into a chair opposite the elevators.
“Roger. I have the whale in sight.”
Waiters moved from table to table, serving coffee to the guests while the dessert plates were being cleared. On many tables, men were moving about, mingling with other rich and powerful people, making deals and contacts. A man sitting beside the senator rose, shook hands with him, then moved off to engage in other conversations.
“Making contact now,” Mitch whispered.
He straightened his tie, then strolled between the tables, casually looking left and right for any remaining guards. By the time he reached the table, he was sure the senator's guards were cooling their heels in a tin box above the tenth floor. He slipped into the vacant seat beside Fraser, who turned toward him with a practiced air of informality and a warm smile.
“Good afternoon, I’m George Fraser. I don’t believe we've met.” The senator said with polished congeniality, extending his hand to shake.
Mitch took his hand, looking Fraser squarely in the eye. “Mathew Prescott. Pleased to meet you, senator.” Fraser's smile wavered while Mitch gripped his hand firmly, not giving him a chance to pull away. Mitch slipped his left hand into his coat pocket meaningfully, ensuring with a look that the senator understood he was armed.
“Who are you?” Fraser asked in a low tone, unafraid.
“So, you did meet Mathew Prescott, because you know I’m not him.” Mitch tightened his grip on the older man's hand angrily.
“You’re making a very big mistake, son.”
“How about Lawrence Rayborne. Do you think I could be him?”
Fraser was silent, glancing at the ballroom doors uncertainly.
“Don’t expect those four over dressed apes to be coming back any time soon. I’ve got them on ice.”
The senator took the news in his stride, relaxing now that he understood the situation. “What do you want?”
“I want you to stand up, and walk calmly out those doors.” Mitch leaned closer. “Considering what you did to Prescott, I would consider it a pleasure to put a bullet in your brain, so if you even look like running, or calling for help, know that I won’t hesitate.”
“You’re going to live just long enough to regret this.”
Mitch released his hand, then they stood together. Fraser gave the others sitting at the table a curt nod, before starting to weave his way between the tables, toward the exit.
“On our way,” Mitch whispered.
“Mouse says the elevators are still jammed,” Christa reported.
Fraser reached the ballroom doors, after shaking hands and exchanging pleasantries with several people. Mitch moved in close behind him as he pushed one of the doors open and stepped through.
Outside, Mitch put his hand on the senator’s arm. “Go left.” They crossed the floor to where Christa sat, then Mitch guided Fraser into the seat opposite her. The senator studied Christa with interest, but clearly did not recognize her.
Christa relaxed, regulating her breathing and focusing her concentration. She reached into the senator's mind, psychically sifting through the patterns she sensed there.
“What is this?” Fraser asked uncertainly.
“Shut up, senator,” Mitch snapped.
Fraser fell silent, watching Christa uncertainly. After almost a minute, she turned to Mitch. “He’s not conditioned.”
The senator’s face showed instant realization. “So, it’s you!” He turned to Mitch with a knowing look. “Which means you must be Mitchell.”
“I alw
ays wanted to be famous.”
Christa heard Mouse’s voice on the cell phone. She picked it up. “Repeat.”
“They’ve figured it out. I’ve lost control of the elevator. It's climbing to eighteen now.”
Christa threw Mitch a warning look, keeping the cell phone close to her ear.
“What's your connection with the Siren Project?” Mitch asked.
“Is that a housing development?”
“Don’t screw with me, senator. You’re not conditioned, which means you’re near the top of the food chain. You know what it is.”
“Are you going to shoot me here, in the lobby, in front of all these witnesses?”
“I might!”
Christa relayed Mouse’s latest report. “The elevator's coming down.”
Fraser smiled. “Looks like you have about thirty seconds to decide. But killing me won’t change anything.”
“One day, you son of a bitch, you’re going to stand trial. For Prescott, for Rayborne,” Mitch glanced at Christa, “And the others.”
“You have no idea what you’re dealing with, son.”
“Eighth floor,” Christa repeated, the cell phone pressed to her ear.
“We know who you are. That’s a good start.” Mitch nodded for Christa to follow, then started for the main entrance. She passed him the cell phone as they hurried out onto the street and turned left, disappearing from the senator’s sight. Mitch spoke hurriedly to Mouse as they ran onto the ramp down to the car park. “Okay, we’re out. Buy us some time.”
“Affirmative.”
Behind them, the hotel’s fire alarm sounded. The elevators all stopped at the closest floor and opened, refusing to move. Warning messages sounded in every elevator, indicating that elevators could not be used during fire emergencies. The elevator carrying the four guards stopped on the second floor, forcing them to use the fire stairs.
Once in the car, Mitch drove up the ramp, turned onto the street and cruised away from the hotel at a sedate pace. He checked the rear vision mirror as they blended into the traffic, ensuring they were not being followed.
“Clean away,” Mitch said confidently.
The Siren Project Page 12
