by Richard Fox
Zike nodded. Erasing the Iranian and the two men he’d trained from every computer system and database in the US government had been time consuming and costly, but it would be worth it in the end.
“Keep him in play. It will make phase two that much more successful,” the Iranian said.
“The other prospect is a loose end,” Zike said.
“He is irrelevant, provided you did your job,” the Iranian said. “Now I have to finalize the arrival of the rest of my team and set up our workplace. Will you take care of the rest of the list?”
Zike cast a sideways glance at the Iranian. “We can keep one name in play. That might draw our nut job out. Two birds with one stone.”
The Iranian grabbed the door handle. “You will deliver the device once phase two is complete. That is our bargain.”
Zike’s face contorted into a grin. The Iranians would get their nuclear warhead, which the Caliban Program had captured from that mess on Socotra Island, just not the way they’d envisioned.
“You and your team have to make Jefferson’s mess look like a spring picnic,” Zike said.
“Have faith, Mr. Zike. We have something special planned.”
****
An FBI badge and an unpleasant demeanor opened a lot of door. Ritter strolled down the intensive care ward of Reston Hospital Center well beyond the established visiting hours. He’d slipped Shelton an hour ago; he didn’t need an actual FBI officer with him for what he had to do next.
Ritter flashed his badge at a pair of nurses, who showed an interest in his presence as he passed their station. His subject was two doors down.
Maggie Bendis was in her hospital bed, and the mattress had been elevated to allow her to sit up without any real effort. Her light-gray curls were wilting, and her pallor nearly matched her hair. The woman, in her mid-sixties, looked frail as if all of her were evaporating in the glow of the cable news show on her TV.
Ritter knocked on her door frame. Maggie looked up, jostled out of whatever reverie had kept her attention from the food in front of her. Ritter didn’t wait for an invitation before closing the door behind them.
“Ma’am, I’m FBI Special Agent Eric—”
“Don’t bullshit me, kid. I was married to a spy for four decades. I can smell your type a mile away,” she said, her voice tinged in sorrow. “You move like a killer, not a cop.”
Ritter sat next to her and looked at her uneaten meal. There was no need to confirm her suspicion; she would understand what could, and couldn’t, be said in an insecure environment like a hospital room.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” he said.
“Heh, I always knew the risks. Just thought he was out of any real danger once he retired from anything overseas. All the months apart, the long silences during missions, the unexplained cuts and bruises…You’d think I’d be ready for this. For him to be gone.” She looked away from Ritter and wiped away a tear.
Since joining the Caliban Program, Ritter had kept important people in his life at arm’s length. Spy work was inherently dangerous, even more so than his brief time in uniform and in a war zone. He could disappear on a mission and spend decades in a foreign prison under a false name—or find his way into a shallow grave. The reality of his profession had been evident to him on his first day in Caliban, when he’d killed an al-Qaeda terrorist on the streets of a Pakistani city and narrowly escaped arrest by the local police.
Ritter hadn’t allowed any close relationships—not because the job had demanded that he be cold and heartless but because he hadn’t wanted anyone to suffer from his loss, just as Maggie was suffering the loss of her husband. He’d have to discuss this lifestyle with Cindy when she returned from her mission in the Ukraine. He had strong feelings for her, but…
“Did your husband say anything? Mention anything dangerous?” Ritter asked.
“Michael was a damn steel trap when it came to anything work related. I had to pretend he was a telecommunications executive during our entire marriage. What’re you? Dry goods? Derivatives?” she asked.
“Shipping,” Ritter said with slight smile. His last cover had been with Eisen Meer, an import/export company operating out of Vienna, Austria.
“Shipping…Michael came home a few weeks ago, livid that their shipping arm had lost a package. He’d never give me specifics, just polite, meaningless terms so we could pretend to talk like normal people.”
The timing and doublespeak around what Maggie was talking about could have been about the nuclear warhead Ritter had procured for the Caliban Program. There was no way Maggie could confirm his suspicion, but maybe Shannon could.
“He was distracted ever since that happened. Lots more ‘business lunches,’ time away from me. Maybe that’s why he was killed,” she said.
She reached out and grabbed Ritter’s hand. Her touch was hot and dry, like wind off a desert.
“I’m alone now. No children. No real friends from our time together. Michael was all I had. Promise me you’ll find them and make them pay,” she said. Her blue eyes, wrapped in tears, pleaded with Ritter.
“I will,” Ritter said. He stood up and gave her hand a reassuring squeeze. It was unprofessional to let personal feelings intrude on his mission, but Maggie earned an exception.
“One thing. All those years, and I never knew who he really worked for. Can you tell me?” she asked.
The answer was a single word, Caliban, but he’d vowed never to repeat it. The word could be given only to one who would safeguard it forever.
Ritter shook his head slightly and left the widow with her question unanswered.
****
Shelton closed his front door as quietly as he could; the warped wood on the door frame had a nasty habit of sticking in the winter air. The landlord still hadn’t fixed it. He slipped off his shoes and crept into his kitchen. His three daughters shared the same room, and if one errant noise woke one, then he’d have to put three girls back to sleep.
He got a beer from the fridge and tossed the cap into the garbage. There were few things more satisfying than a cold Canadian beer after a long day in the field. Shelton turned around and nearly gagged on his drink.
His wife, Mary, stood in the doorway, clad in her bathrobe, her blonde hair a frizzy mess. Dark bags hung under her eyes.
“Hey, honey,” Shelton said. He drew up a mental list of things he’d probably have to start apologizing for. “You’re not going to believe who I ran into today.”
She looked at him with stony indifference.
“Four hours. It took four hours to get from Kayla’s soccer game in Fairfax to here,” she said. “Four hours of full bladders, dead iPad batteries, and road rage. By the time we got home, I had to placate them with SpongeBob, ice cream, and wine. For me—the wine was for me. You mind explaining what the hell is going on out there, and why we’ve got a modern-day exodus from DC?”
“There was a bombing on the Beltway and another bombing earlier in the day out in Ashburn. Naturally, everyone wants to panic,” he said. Shelton led his wife by the hand to their dinner table, sat her down, and started rubbing her shoulders.
“Is it one guy or a whole team of terrorists out there?” she asked.
Shelton felt her shoulders bunch in tension under his touch.
“We think it’s just one guy, and he’s still out there,” Shelton said.
“The girls aren’t going to school tomorrow—that’s for damn sure. And…Wait, are you on this case?” she asked.
Shelton shifted an elbow onto her trapezius and started to work it.
“Yes, and you won’t believe who’s on the case with me. Eric Ritter,” he said.
Mary didn’t reply. She knew the entire history between her husband and the CIA spy she’d known as a run-of-the-mill army intelligence officer. She knew about Ritter’s bargain with Shelton, his silence about Ritter’s war crimes in Iraq in exchange for a career beyond the army. He’d never withheld anything from his wife, a rule that had kept their marriage strong
through deployments and long hours as an FBI agent.
“What does that mean?” she asked.
“It means there’s more to this case than what I can see. I’ll play along with him until I can nail him on something—murder, extortion—something he or whoever he works for won’t be able to weasel out of. Then we won’t owe him a goddamn thing.”
Their last meeting, in which Ritter had admitted to deceiving Shelton and murdering an Iraqi, had been vital to recovering two soldiers al-Qaeda had kidnapped. Humiliation because of the betrayal had gnawed at Shelton’s heart. There’d never been a chance to get even, until now.
“Greg, I don’t want…This guy is dangerous, right? Maybe you should step away from this,” she said.
“Ritter or the bomber?”
“Yes.”
Shelton leaned over and kissed his wife on the cheek. “Don’t worry, baby. I’ve got this. We have a piece of evidence at the forensics lab right now. We should have a good lead by morning.” The air-conditioning kicked on, and a curl of hot air stroked Shelton’s face.
“They finally fixed that vent?” Shelton asked. The lousy HVAC system was on the long list of repairs for their town house.
“Yeah, guy showed up today out of the blue.”
“Daddy?” a squeaky voice said from behind them.
Their youngest, Caroline, stood in the doorway, a limp, gray stuffed rabbit in the crook of her arm. Caroline rubbed her eyes, a pout on her lips.
“Hey, sweetie.” Shelton swept up his daughter and carried her back to her room.
“Mr. Bubbles is scared,” Caroline said.
“Daddy’s home. No reason to be scared anymore. Right, Mr. Bubbles?” Shelton said. He pushed the door open to his girls’ room. The other two girls were still asleep under their blankets. A lambent glow from the dark stickers of stars and planets illuminated Caroline’s empty bed.
“Now, we have to be very quiet,” Shelton whispered.
“Why, Daddy?” Caroline said in a normal volume.
The other two girls, Kayla and Sarah, stirred awake, pushing their bed heads of straw-colored hair away from their eyes.
“Daddy!” they squealed.
Shelton dropped to a knee and was swarmed with hugs. Pecks on his face came next, along with an immediate retelling, in no particular order, of their ordeal in traffic.
Maybe I should drop the case, Shelton thought. He could turn his back on Ritter, take his chances in the free market. No, there’s a dangerous man out there, and I can get him off the streets…and protect them.
****
In the air conditioner vents throughout the house, microphones collected every spoken word. The recordings were transformed into a wireless signal and sent to a small, windowless vault in the Pentagon with no room number.
An analyst listened to the conversation between Shelton and Mary, and picked up a phone.
CHAPTER 5
Shelton arrived at Ritter’s meeting place, a confluence of fast-food restaurants in Reston just north of the Washington Old Dominion trail. Colloquially, the trio of restaurants was known as McTaco Hut. Shelton parked in front of the Mexican restaurant; the parking lot was empty this early in the morning. There were rumors that the chain would serve some manner of breakfast in the near future. Shelton shook his head at the thought; some sort of waffle/breakfast taco abomination would mean the terrorists won.
Ritter exited the McDonald’s with a greasy bag in one hand, a half-wrapped sausage muffin in the other. Ritter motioned for Shelton to leave his car as he walked through the empty parking lot. Shelton felt for his pistol under his coat and caught up to Ritter.
Ritter took a bite of his breakfast, bliss on his face.
“Fascinating, isn’t it, Greg? I’ve traveled over the whole world, had everything from Thai patongo to labaneh in Haifa for breakfast, but every time I’m back in the States, this is what I want in the morning.”
“The word I would use is sad. Are you going to eat that whole bag?” Shelton asked. The bag in Ritter’s hand, grease spots weeping through the paper, looked like it had another dozen Egg McMuffin sandwiches.
“These aren’t for me,” Ritter said.
Behind the Mexican restaurant was a small office park. Instead of walking under the subdued logo of an intelligence-contracting firm looming over the main entrance, Ritter led Shelton around the side to an emergency exit with no door handle.
Ritter sighed heavily, then held the sack of food out to his side.
“Did you get the onions?” a voice said from an unseen speaker.
“Tony, how many times do I have to tell you that they don’t have onions anywhere on their breakfast menu?” Ritter replied.
“Then go get some,” came the voice from the speaker. Shelton looked around but couldn’t find the camera Tony was using to see them.
“Tony!” Ritter said.
There was a buzz and a metal clank as the emergency exit shifted on its hinges. Inside was a dark hallway; the glow of computer monitors and track lighting came from an open office halfway down the hall. Shelton did a quick comparison of the area and the office building it seemed to be part of. There was no way the volume of that building matched what he saw here.
“What is this place? It’s walled off from the main building?” Shelton asked.
“Well done, Greg. This is our own self-contained facility, a bit of deception to hoodwink the too curious. We keep the facility manager and the building owner on stipend to keep up the Sergeant Schultz routine,” Ritter said.
“You bribe them,” Shelton said.
“Semantics,” Ritter said. They passed open offices, iron cages on wheels against the walls. Each cage was the size of a wall locker. Firearms, body armor, suits of clothes, satellite radios, and a wooden board with straps on it were in the lockers.
“You planning a bank heist?” Shelton asked.
“If we need to, we could certainly pull that off. We prefer to be prepared for a wide variety of contingencies. We only had hammers in the army, and every problem looked like a nail. Now, I have a tool chest,” Ritter said.
Ritter stopped in front of the open doorway and put his hands on his hips. The office was a mess of empty Mountain Dew bottles and loose papers; the smell of body odor and stale pizza crept into Shelton’s nose. An obese man, a virtual bare-skin muffin top lopped over his pants, sat in front of a quad bank of computer screens.
“Tony, you knew we had a guest coming. You couldn’t straighten up? Or shower?” Ritter asked.
“I was on a roll. I figured you could have some actionable intelligence, or I could freshen up. Now give me my food.” Tony spun around on his chair; he wore sweatpants and an XXL T-shirt with a logo of some metal band Shelton had never heard of. He held out his hand.
“You have something for us?” Ritter said, tendering the food like an offering.
Tony shoved most of a McMuffin into his mouth, spun back to his keyboard, and started tapping.
Shelton looked around. Sheets of paper had been haphazardly tacked to boards; yellow sticky notes with incomprehensible script were stuck on top of each. Shelton saw an FD-302, an FBI interview report form, mixed into a loose pile on a desktop. He reached for the report, but Ritter wrapped an iron grip around Shelton’s wrist before he could get too close.
“No touching,” Ritter said in a low voice.
“Those FBI bubbas at TEDAC pulled fingerprints off the shell casings. Partials, two sets, and no DNA. Irene sent it over with some other goodies,” Tony said. “That other bombing on the Beltway? The bomb went off on a guy named Max McBride, a policy wonk and lobbyist. Real mover and shaker with the neocons during the lead up to the Iraq War. He practically put together the narrative for the war when he was with the administration. Naturally, he got nailed for using faulty intel during the senate inquiry after all those weapons of mass destruction weren’t found. Failure was no obstacle for him. He was a conservative thought leader until the explosion.”
“Any connection betwee
n him and our first bombing victim?” Shelton asked.
“Zero, and I looked,” Tony said. “Anyway, we got a hit on one of the partials, and here’s where it gets weird.” A mug shot popped up on one of the screens; it was a Hispanic man, his face slack and eyes unfocused. The gloved hand of a police officer had to hold his chin up for the photo. The man’s teeth, what few remained, were blackened posts jutting from his gums.
“What a winner, right? This is Aaron Garcia, arrested two weeks ago in DC for methamphetamine possession and disturbing the peace. It was his first arrest,” Tony said. He unwrapped another sandwich and started eating.
“There’s no way that’s his first arrest. Someone that deep into a meth addiction like that has to have priors,” Shelton said. The FBI Academy made it a point to show cadets the progressive damage methamphetamine did to its users. The drug ground hale and hearty men and women down into wretches within a few years, ravaging skin and mouths.
“Your beard is pretty smart,” Tony said to Ritter. “Garcia does have priors but not in the system we use every day. Someone erased his entire record but didn’t bother to do the same favor after his last bust.” The fat man pointed to a screen, where a rap sheet popped up with dozens of entries.
“Maybe he gave a fake name,” Shelton said. Ritter winced at Shelton’s statement.
“What?” Tony spun around, crumbs stuck in his three-day stubble. “I spent eight hours in the repository gathering everything from his high school transcripts to his birth certificate and bouncing his banking record off of every place he used a credit card. Until he decided his meth addiction was worth his full attention and maxed out all his cards. All his records still exist, just not in the aboveground system.” Tony’s pale skin slowly flushed red as an inner rage fought its way to the surface.
“Tell us about the deletions,” Ritter said.
Tony pushed himself to his feet and waddled around the room. He grabbed seemingly random sheets of paper and waved them over his head.
“All done at one time. Someone at the Justice Department, by the IP they used, scrubbed him out of the federal database. Same thing at the same time for the system in Virginia and Maryland.” Tony handed the papers to Shelton, printouts of raw computer code with a few lines highlighted in yellow.
