K Street

by M. A. Lawson

  “I won’t be part of that,” Grayson said. “We formed the Callahan Group to deal with enemies of the United States. Kay Hamilton is not an enemy. Find some other way to get this back in the box, Olivia.”

  Prescott didn’t respond—and neither did Lincoln—but Prescott was thinking that it was easy for Grayson to be sanctimonious. Hamilton didn’t have his name.

  • • •

  AFTER LINCOLN AND GRAYSON LEFT, Prescott changed her mind about having a drink, removed a small bottle of Glenlivet from the minibar, and poured the liquor into a glass. She opened the blinds so she could see the Lincoln Memorial and stood there, sipping the Scotch.

  They formed the Callahan Group about eighteen months after 9/11. Around that time, the 9/11 Commission was trying to understand how the intelligence agencies had failed so badly, and the agencies, in turn, were doing their best to understand what had gone wrong—while trying to avoid being blamed for incompetence.

  One night, after a long, frustrating joint intelligence group meeting to brief the president on Iraq, Callahan, Grayson, Lincoln, and Prescott retired to the bar of the Hay-Adams Hotel, which was opposite the White House. After twenty years at the CIA, Callahan was now working for Bush’s national security advisor. Prescott, Grayson, and Lincoln held senior positions at the NSA, the Pentagon, and the CIA respectively. They’d all known one another for years, and although they never socialized together, they respected one another and worked surprisingly well together. Their views about how the United States should respond to threats were virtually identical.

  The four of them were all frustrated that it took weeks to make decisions because the president felt he needed to analyze everything: the potential downsides, the reaction of the American public, the reactions of countries who were supposedly our allies, and the reactions of countries who were definitely not our allies. Nothing happened quickly, and they had all seen, far too many times, opportunities for dealing with the country’s enemies slip away.

  It was Callahan—drinking heavily as usual—who essentially came up with the idea of the Callahan Group. He said, “Maybe we should be the ones who ought to decide what should be done.”

  Now, if this had been any other group of people sitting in a hotel bar, someone would have laughed at Callahan’s outrageous statement. But this wasn’t just any group. These were four people who had spent their entire careers dealing with threats to national security, four people who had engaged in numerous dangerous, top secret operations. So no one laughed.

  Instead, Grayson said, “Exactly what do you mean, Callahan?”

  “I mean, if we see a problem, we deal with it ourselves, quickly and quietly.”

  “But how?” Prescott asked.

  And from that simple beginning, the Callahan Group came to be.

  Callahan set up what appeared to be a legitimate company that would have logical reasons for sending its employees to various parts of the world. He recruited operatives who could be trusted and could execute covert operations. Prescott, Grayson, and Lincoln would analyze the information collected by their agencies, decide if action should be taken, and secretly assist Callahan in any way they could. Most important, they would provide the funding Callahan needed. Each of their agencies—particularly the Pentagon and NSA—had so damn much money at their disposal it was almost impossible for the bean counters to keep track of it all. Then came the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and money flowed like a water main had burst.

  They soon found that their worldviews were so similar that they had no trouble isolating threats and deciding on an appropriate course of action. And the beauty of the Callahan Group was that if Callahan was ever caught, only Callahan would be blamed. The United States government couldn’t be held responsible for the actions of a private corporation, nor could the agencies that Lincoln, Prescott, and Grayson worked for.

  Many times over the years they had discussed what might happen if they were ever found out and exposed to the world. They all agreed that if that day ever came, they would stand proud and take whatever punishment was dished out to them. They believed that they had done the right thing, had acted in the country’s best interest, and they wouldn’t apologize. But now the possibility of being exposed was real—thanks to Hamilton—and the one who would be forced to swallow the castor oil would be Olivia Prescott.

  Prescott had always envisioned retiring in about ten years. Callahan, Lincoln, and Grayson would retire at the same time and the Callahan Group would be dissolved. Then Prescott, like General MacArthur’s old soldier, would simply fade away. But she was not going to end a brilliant career in a federal penitentiary, being pilloried by the media and useless politicians. That was not going to happen. And not because of Kay Hamilton.

  18

  DAY 3—7 P.M.

  Prescott returned to her office at Fort Meade, still preoccupied by her meeting with Grayson and Lincoln. She glanced over at the leather couch in her office, thinking she’d probably be sleeping on it tonight. She couldn’t afford to leave with Hamilton running around, doing God knows what. Then she smiled slightly when she realized that that wasn’t really true: God may not have known what Hamilton was doing, but the NSA certainly did.

  She called Brookes. “Where is she now?”

  “She’s in Fairfax. She’s stationary, near the home of a man named Dylan Otis. I sent you two recordings of her talking to a cop named Eagleton, and apparently Otis is some kind of thief, like a bank robber.”

  “And Hamilton is watching his house?” Prescott said.

  “Yeah, it looks that way. She’s been there since about four.”

  “Okay,” Prescott said. “Stay awake and stay on her.”

  She didn’t know why she’d said that. Brookes was too afraid of her not to stay awake.

  • • •

  PRESCOTT LISTENED TO the recordings of Eagleton talking to Hamilton and came to the same conclusion Hamilton had: that Otis was most likely the ringleader of the group that attacked Callahan. As she was still mulling this over, the large, gross form of Ackerman filled her office door.

  “Got him,” Ackerman said.

  He dropped down into the chair in front of Prescott’s desk, again without being invited to sit, and Prescott was surprised the chair didn’t collapse under his weight. She noticed his pupils were dilated, and she wondered if he was using amphetamines to stay alert.

  Ackerman said, “The e-mail went from a bozo named Kenneth Winston at Zytek to a gal named Jane Moore, who is actually a gal named Lin Mai, who works for our friends in the Chinese Trade Association on New York Avenue. Lin Mai, by the way, got on a plane to Beijing today. She checked four suitcases, so I think she may be gone for good. You see, what I did was write a subroutine that—”

  “I’m sure you did something brilliant, Ackerman, but tell me how you did it later. Right now, just give me the e-mail, then go home and get some sleep.”

  After Ackerman left—disappointed that he hadn’t been able to tell her exactly how he’d found Winston and Lin Mai and the e-mail that Parker had intercepted—she thought about the current state of play. She had confirmed that James Parker had been working for Danzinger; she had found the spy at Zytek and had proof that he worked for the Chinese; and, thanks to Hamilton, she knew Dylan Otis led the people who stole the safe. She didn’t know if Lin Mai had ordered Otis to steal the safe or if some other Chinese operative was behind the break-in, but she didn’t see that that really mattered. All that mattered was that Kenneth Winston was a Chinese spy and she’d caught him.

  Prescott decided that she’d let Hamilton pursue things a bit longer and she’d continue to have Brookes monitor her. It would be good to know if another Chinese operative had been involved in the attack and to learn who else was working with Otis. It also occurred to her that if she ordered Hamilton to stop, she probably wouldn’t.

  But right now her problem wasn’t Hamilton. She neede
d to focus on arresting and interrogating Winston. He had to be dealt with immediately.

  • • •

  PRESCOTT CALLED HER BOSS, the director of the NSA, a four-star army general, and filled him in on Winston, saying only that they’d intercepted an e-mail from Winston to a suspected Chinese intelligence officer and the e-mail contained information related to American submarine sonar systems. She didn’t mention Danzinger, Callahan, or Parker. From this point forward, Parker would be remembered as a sad, depressed analyst who’d committed suicide. The general didn’t ask if the e-mail had been legally intercepted. He was smart enough to know that he didn’t want to know the answer to that question.

  When the general asked Prescott what she planned to do, she said, “I’ll coordinate with the FBI and Naval Intelligence, of course.”

  The general concluded with, “Good work. Keep me informed.”

  “Yes, sir,” she said.

  Prescott looked at her watch—it was almost eight p.m.—and then realized she didn’t care what time it was. She called the appropriate people at the FBI and the Pentagon and suggested they all meet at the Pentagon in one hour.

  Before she left the building, she stopped by Brookes’s office for an update.

  “Where’s Hamilton now?”

  “She’s still sitting near Otis’s house.”

  “Huh,” Prescott said. What the hell was Hamilton planning?

  • • •

  PRESCOTT WAS THE LAST to arrive at the meeting, which was being held on the C ring of the Pentagon in a conference room with a table large enough to seat thirty people. There were two FBI agents, a three-star navy admiral, a two-star admiral, two captains, and two commanders. Prescott was the only woman present. She assumed the navy folks were either Naval Intelligence or technical types who understood sonar systems. She knew only one of the men—the three-star admiral—and she only knew him by reputation.

  The man’s name was Kincaid. While he wasn’t physically impressive—he was about five-foot-nine, slim, thinning gray hair, pale blue eyes—what was impressive about Kincaid was his mind. He was a genius, possibly the smartest man to wear a navy uniform since Hyman Rickover, the man who had developed the first nuclear submarine. Kincaid had actually worked for Rickover when he was an ensign, and even Rickover had been impressed by Kincaid’s intellect.

  Prescott had always been worried that Kincaid might one day be appointed director of the NSA; she was worried because he was bright enough that he might be able to figure out she was funneling money to the Callahan Group. At the moment, Kincaid managed the Naval Sea Systems Command, the organization responsible for ship construction and modernization. The navy was about to start building a new class of nuclear aircraft carriers that would need fewer men to operate and would carry more planes and weapons. They would also be cheaper to construct and maintain than earlier models—and Kincaid was the person most responsible for the ground-breaking design. The Naval Sea Systems Command was also the organization that managed contractors who developed new technologies for submarines, such as sonar systems.

  Prescott told the group what she knew about Winston and passed out three copies of the e-mail and its attachment. Kincaid just glanced at the attachment, then passed it to one of the commanders.

  “How much damage has this guy done?” the senior FBI man asked.

  Kincaid looked at the FBI agent like he was a fool, but didn’t say anything. Prescott said, “We have no idea. Like I said, we intercepted just the one e-mail.”

  Kincaid turned to one of the captains and asked, “Do you know Winston?”

  “Yes, sir,” the captain said. “He’s been at Zytek a long time and he’s one of the main guys working on the sonar upgrade. He knows everything about the new system and could have given the Chinese everything.”

  “Well, we need to arrest him before he can do any more damage,” the FBI man said.

  Kincaid shook his head but didn’t address the FBI man. “Did you intercept the e-mail from Winston to the Chinese legally?” he asked Prescott.

  “It’s a gray area,” Prescott said.

  Kincaid smiled slightly. “Yeah, that’s what I thought.”

  “I can get a team in place by tomorrow to start tearing this guy’s life apart,” the FBI agent said. “And I know we can get a FISA warrant to start monitoring his communications. I suggest we watch him for a couple of weeks while we do the background work, then arrest him. Then we’ll break him. Believe me, he’ll tell us everything.”

  The senior FBI agent was a beefy, red-faced man who looked like he might have been a lineman on his college football team. He was a take-charge, full-speed-ahead type—even when he didn’t know where he was headed.

  Kincaid shook his head again. The FBI man was too busy talking to notice the gesture, but Prescott did.

  “Do you disagree, Admiral?” Prescott asked.

  Kincaid said, “Yes. I want everyone out of the room except the senior FBI agent and Ms. Prescott.”

  The room cleared—the two-star admiral miffed that he’d been booted out with men he outranked.

  “This situation provides us a great opportunity,” Kincaid said. “We shouldn’t arrest Winston. We should leave him in place and let him keep feeding information to the Chinese.”

  “What?” the FBI man said.

  Kincaid ignored him, speaking directly to Prescott. “I need to do an in-depth technical analysis for confirmation, but we may be able to use Winston to provide the Chinese information that will allow us to detect their submarines. We can turn their sonar systems into broadcasting stations and they won’t even know it. Or we might be able to disable their systems remotely any time we choose. So, the NSA will get the proper FISA warrant to monitor all of Winston’s communications, the FBI will begin watching him, and I’ll complete the technical review. Then, at some point, we’ll very quietly drag Winston into a room and tell him that he’s become a double agent.”

  Prescott smiled. As far as she was concerned, everything regarding Danzinger and Winston had been brought to a successful conclusion. The only thing left was to get Hamilton under control.

  19

  DAY 3—8:30 P.M.

  Kay had been watching Dylan Otis’s house for four and a half hours, and it was starting to grow dark outside. She’d been hoping that Otis would leave so she could question him—and she wouldn’t be gentle. If Otis lived alone, she would have simply knocked on his door and pointed Eloise Voss’s Beretta at his face and talked to him inside his house. But Otis was married and Kay had seen two boys who looked like they were about eight and ten.

  At that moment, the door on the two-car garage attached to Otis’s house rolled up and a black Toyota Tundra pickup with a crew cab backed out. Otis was driving. Kay smiled; this was the opportunity that she’d been waiting for.

  She needed to be careful. Following the drunk, distraught Shirley Brown had been easy, but Dylan Otis was a different sort of animal. The good news was that it was almost dark and getting darker and Kay’s car would just be a pair of headlights in Otis’s rearview mirror. Twenty minutes later, Otis pulled into the empty parking lot of a high school in Falls Church. What the hell was he doing there?

  Kay drove past the parking lot entrance, then made a U-turn and drove up the street and parked. There was a ball field on one side of the parking lot and the high school was on the other side. She put on a baseball cap and a jacket she kept in her car, tucked her hair up under the cap, and walked past the parking lot. It was still empty except for Otis’s pickup.

  This was the perfect place to grab Otis, but she figured he had to be waiting for someone. What other reason would he have for just sitting there? She crossed the street, walked back in the direction she’d come from, and continued until she found a gate to enter the ball field. It was elevated above the parking lot and she couldn’t see Otis’s pickup from where she was standing. She ran
quickly across the field, then dropped to the ground onto her belly, crawled the final thirty yards to the edge of the field, and looked down at the parking lot. Otis was still alone, sitting in his pickup.

  Five minutes later, a sedan arrived and a man got out. Otis left his vehicle and joined the man. There was only a single light near a walkway that led to the school, but it was too far away to illuminate the new man’s face. All she could see was that he was slim and about an inch taller than Otis. Damn it. She needed to see his face.

  • • •

  FANG PARKED HIS CAR in the high school parking lot and got out carrying a gym bag that contained the remainder of Otis’s fee.

  As he had done on previous jobs, Otis had insisted on getting half of the money upfront. The only way Fang had been able to pay the first part of Otis’s fee was in gold bars that the embassy had available; there hadn’t been time to round up a million dollars in cash before the attack on Callahan’s office. Tonight, however, Otis would receive the other million Fang had promised him, and it would be in good old-fashioned American greenbacks.

  Fang walked up to Otis, who was standing next to his pickup truck. Fang would never understand why anyone would want to drive a vehicle like that. It was so . . . pedestrian. “I’m disappointed you failed to kill Callahan, Mr. Otis.”

  “I can’t believe the guy didn’t die. He had two bullets in him.” Then Otis frowned. “Are you saying you’re not paying me because of that? You gave me no time to plan the job and two of my people were killed. You oughta be fuckin’ grateful I was able to get the safe at all.”

  “Calm down, Mr. Otis. And I am grateful. You did an excellent job. I’m just disappointed that you didn’t do everything I asked.”

  “So what are you saying? You want me to go after Callahan in the hospital?”

  “No. There were complications following Callahan’s surgery and he may yet die. And if he does need to be killed, I have someone else who can do the job.”