But today her meeting was not about Islamic State, nor anarchist groups scratching a meagre existence in the Nevada badlands, or biker gangs or drug lords. Today her meeting was about a former United States Marine, an ex–DC cop and a shadowy covert agent who was apparently both dead and very much alive. Hannah had found herself embroiled in a case so labyrinthine that she barely knew where to begin.
Hannah walked past an indoor gun range, the bullet proof window of the viewing platform frosted over to conceal the testing session ongoing within. Hannah could just make out the muffled pop pop of small arms fire as she passed by and then caught an elevator up to the fourth floor.
Despite having completed her training at Quantico almost ten years previously and having served loyally for a decade, Hannah had never met the Director of the FBI. In all fairness most agents didn’t get to meet the DFBI, scattered as they were in field offices and consulate buildings across the globe. Hannah slowed and checked her appearance in the reflection of a door window. Her gray suit contrasted with her long auburn hair and green eyes, but her jaw looked a little too tense, her mouth a thin hard line.
Lighten up, she told herself. They asked for the meeting, remember?
Hannah took a breath and walked the last few paces to the Director’s office before she knocked and entered. A receptionist looked up at her and without prompting keyed a microphone on her desk and spoke quickly and efficiently.
‘Special Agent Ford is here to see you sir.’
‘Send her in, Clara.’
Clara nodded at Hannah, who aimed for the next door, this one highly polished and bearing the name of Gordon LeMay. She opened the door and walked in to see LeMay sitting behind a large, polished desk. Two computer monitors adorned the desk along with pictures of LeMay’s family, and the desk itself was flanked by the Stars and Stripes and a second flag bearing the FBI’s seal.
LeMay got to his feet, surprisingly tall with heavy jowls and a belly that stretched his white shirt. His gray hair, eyes and suit gave Hannah the impression that LeMay was appearing before her in black and white. She shook his hand, firm and dry, saw him smile and was reminded of a great white shark.
‘Please, sit down Agent Ford.’
Not so much a request as a command, LeMay’s voice gravelly with age. Hannah sat down opposite the Director and waited patiently.
‘I appreciate you coming here at such short notice,’ LeMay began. ‘Agent Jenkins said that she could not spare you for this meeting on company time.’
Special Agent in Charge Jenkins, the head of Hannah’s Field Office in Virginia and a thorn in Hannah’s side for the past three years, had done everything that she could to prevent Hannah from making the meeting. Jealous, angry and petulant, Jenkins had developed a deep hatred for her ever since Hannah had successfully apprehended a number of high–profile fugitives and foiled a major attack on a solar plant outside of Las Vegas just months before.
‘Jenkins has her hands full,’ Hannah replied diplomatically, not wanting to vent on the Director until she understood what the meeting was about.
‘So I hear,’ LeMay murmured in reply. ‘The events at Crescent Dunes have propelled you into the Bureau’s star agent list, and I suspect that Jenkins dislikes being outshone.’
Hannah chose her words with care. ‘She has ambitions of her own.’
‘But she doesn’t have the results to back those ambitions,’ LeMay countered, and then pointed a hooked finger at her. ‘You do Hannah, which is why you’re here.’
Hannah waited dutifully for the Director to continue.
‘It’s come to my attention that in the aftermath of the Crescent Dunes arrests you’ve been conducting an investigation of your own, off–books.’
Hannah could not prevent herself from startling somewhat and she raised her eyebrows in surprise.
‘I didn’t know that anybody was watching me off hours, sir,’ she said with some resentment.
LeMay raised a hand to forestall her protest.
‘This is not a rebuke, Agent Ford. Your persistence in this matter is appreciated, not condemned. You have been pulling files on a number of former fugitives from this agency by the names of Warner, Lopez and Meyer?’
Hannah nodded, figuring that there was no point in hiding anything. LeMay probably knew it all anyway and was testing her honesty.
‘The Meyer family is clean and of no further interest to the Bureau but Ethan Warner and Nicola Lopez are something of an enigma. They were wanted by the Bureau and yet upon their capture, by me, they were promptly freed. I’ve dug as deep as I can in the official records and they’re featured all over the place, but every document is so heavily redacted that I can’t make head nor tail of who they’re working for. All I have is Warner’s assertion, in interview, that he works for the Defense Intelligence Agency. I checked him out and nobody at the DIA knew a damned thing about either Warner or Lopez, yet they’re facing twenty to life in a federal prison and they’re released? Last I looked, they were still working as bail bondsmen out of Chicago like nothing’s happened?’
Director LeMay leaned back in his seat and cradled his chin on the back of his interlocked fingers as he regarded her for a long moment.
‘Is that all?’
Hannah bit her lip for a moment before replying.
‘Warner made mention of a homicide scene we were investigating that was connected to the Meyers. He seemed to know that there was a third person present at the scene who may have been the killer, despite not having been present at the murder. I couldn’t figure out how he could have known that information, especially since he revealed the name of the individual: Aaron James Mitchell.’
Hannah was not attempting to analyze her own boss, but she saw the briefest of tremors in the old man’s eyes, a sign of recognition.
‘Did you pursue this matter further?’ LeMay asked, his tone guarded.
‘The FBI field team analyzed blood found at the murder scene that did not belong to the victim, and claimed that no matches were found in the system. Given all that was happening at the time, I decided to take a second sample off the books and had it DNA tested.’ Hannah thought that she heard LeMay sigh softly as she continued. ‘It matched Mitchell, whose official records at the Department of Defense state that he died some two decades ago.’
LeMay seemed to think for a moment before replying.
‘And you’ve been attempting to hunt this Mitchell down?’
‘No,’ Hannah replied. ‘I’ve simply been trying to figure out why he would have been at that homicide scene and why he would be listed as dead by the DoD and yet clearly still be very much alive and working for somebody. I’m assuming he faked his own passing and is now able to operate criminally with some level of impunity – it’s tough to get caught when nobody’s looking for you.’
LeMay nodded. ‘And what of Warner and Lopez?’
Hannah shrugged. ‘They’re pretty much untouchable. I spoke to the Chicago field office and they did some digging. Warner was in trouble with the law for a short while some years back but has been clean as a whistle since. Lopez used to wear the blues of the Metropolitan Police Department here in DC, no criminal record, no nothing. Seems like they teamed up a few years ago and there’s some anecdotal evidence that they’ve turned up at the scene of DIA investigations around the world, but again, everything’s redacted. About all I can say for sure is that they travel across the country pursuing bail jumpers but they only have jurisdiction in Illinois. It’s a thin cover, but for what I don’t know.’
‘Both Warner and Lopez were exonerated,’ LeMay pointed out. ‘Neither committed any crime and both were cleared of involvement.’
‘Yes, but by whom were they cleared?’ Hannah pressed. ‘Who the hell has the power to quash a homicide investigation and at the same time order the release of two known fugitives involved in that same crime and a lot more besides? This should have been a slam–dunk case, even if Warner and Lopez were innocent and it turned out Mitchell was the perp
’. Stanley Meyer was murdered, sir, and every suspect we have is suddenly untouchable? How does that figure?’
LeMay uncradled his chin and leaned forward on the desk, his big hands folded together and his eyes fixed upon Hannah’s as he replied.
‘There are forces at work here, Agent Ford, that extend far beyond the boundaries of the homicide in Virginia. I have been researching the same material as you, for some time in fact, and it has become clear to me that elements of the intelligence community have begun an initiative to subvert the authority of the FBI.’
Hannah stared blankly at LeMay. ‘How, and why?’
LeMay took a deep breath and replied in what sounded to Hannah like a resigned tone.
‘The FBI has long since ceased to be the most powerful of our country’s agencies. In the wake of nine–eleven precedence has been given to overseas intelligence gathering, the work of the CIA, the National Security Agency and the Defense Intelligence Agency.’
‘But the greatest problem for us is the homegrown terrorist,’ Hannah said, ‘the lone wolf nobody can see coming but us. Look at the attacks at the Boston marathon. The FBI’s role can’t be downgraded in favor of hunting down enemies of the state in countries thousands of miles away. If we’re not patrolling our own back yard then who’s going to stop the next bombing or another nine–eleven?’
‘My sentiments exactly,’ LeMay replied and slapped one open–palmed hand down on the desk between them in a display of satisfaction. ‘But Congress is still trying to bust us down along with the other agencies, especially after the Edward Snowden affair. We’ve all been up in front of the Special Committee and explained that we cannot protect this country with one hand tied behind our backs. Increasingly, terrorist activities are being conducted by people who otherwise look, sound and act like Americans. We have to listen in on them, we have to pry into their lives, but if they turn out to be innocent…’
‘Then they have nothing to fear,’ Hannah completed the sentence.
She knew well the furor created by human rights activists appalled at how agencies such as the super–secretive National Security Agency could listen in to any phone call or monitor any digital communication they chose, breaching any number of privacy laws under the protective veil of the Patriot Act. But she also knew that the agencies in question did so in order to seek out terrorists, not to find out if somebody’s aunty’s grandmother had steak for dinner. The NSA’s servers could monitor millions of communications every second, but it was a task far too gargantuan for human beings to pore over the immense reams of data the agency produced every day. Instead the data was scanned, analyzed and filtered by computers specifically programmed to hunt out only the kind of communications transmitted by those who might intend to cause harm to others. The human rights activists too often forgot that while fighting to protect the human rights of citizens, they could also inadvertently place them in harm’s way.
Gordon LeMay folded his hands once more as he spoke.
‘The Defense Intelligence Agency has seen fit to reactivate a covert intelligence operation that was shut down by the CIA and FBI some years ago. Warner and Lopez are a central part of that operation and have already escaped arrest on numerous occasions by operating beneath the protective umbrella of DIA undercover investigations. I want you to start monitoring what they’re up to and report to me directly.’
Hannah almost fell out of her chair.
‘What about the Virginia office?’ she asked without thinking. ‘Jenkins will do everything that she can to sabotage anything I do and…’
‘I wouldn’t worry about Jenkins,’ LeMay said. ‘I will ensure that she gives you all the support you require.’
Hannah composed herself, re–engaged her brain. ‘Sir, you’re effectively asking me to spy on a sister agency.’
‘I’m asking you to spy on its agents,’ LeMay corrected her. ‘I can reveal to you that Warner and Lopez received a full presidential pardon after what happened at Crescent Dunes and appear to have a close link to the incumbent president that I was not aware of. I’d like to know more about that, with the aim of bringing the pair of them to justice for their crimes. If they do anything illegal, anything at all, I want them brought in.’
Hannah thought hard for a moment.
‘What about Mitchell? He’s in the frame for the murder of Stanley Meyer.’
‘Use this operation to find out more about Mitchell,’ LeMay said. ‘I believe that the DIA are looking for him too. Two birds…’
Hannah nodded, not entirely sure of what she was getting in to.
‘Report to me alone,’ LeMay repeated as they stood. ‘Let’s bring this injustice to an end, and honor the values we swore to uphold when we joined the FBI.’
‘Yes sir,’ Hannah replied.
***
VII
DIAC Building,
Washington DC
‘We’ve got something.’
Ethan looked up from where he and Lopez were searching through traffic camera footage from around Fort Benning, hoping to detect vehicle movements that would coincide with General Thompson’s suicidal rampage.
‘What is it?’ Ethan asked Hellerman as he hurried over.
Hellerman was holding a flash–RAM drive that he plugged straight into a nearby laptop, accessing a series of files as he spoke.
‘Traffic camera footage from Columbus, Georgia. We managed to pick up General Thompson’s drive to Fort Benning on the morning of his death. He left real early out of Parkwood, his family home, so we spotted him easily.’
Ethan watched with Lopez as a series of stills appeared on the screen, each depicting the general’s champagne–colored sedan making its way south out of Parkwood toward Fort Benning. It didn’t take long for them to figure out what Hellerman had seen.
‘There’s a goods vehicle in all of the shots,’ Lopez identified it.
A white van, non–descript, travelling in the same direction as the general’s vehicle all the way to Fort Benning. Ethan leaned close to the screen, but the poor resolution prevented an identification of the license plates or the occupants.
‘We already found the vehicle though,’ Hellerman informed them. ‘Local law enforcement found it burned out near a town called Preston, fifty miles south of Fort Benning. The vehicle had been stolen forty eight hours before in Alabama.’
Ethan frowned thoughtfully.
‘That was a dumb move. The smart play is to simply abandon a vehicle, not burn it and advertise its presence to law enforcement. They could have driven it into deep woodland and it wouldn’t have been found for months.’
‘What’re you thinking?’ Lopez asked him.
‘Professional, high–tech equipment used to reprogram a senior soldier’s brain to commit an act of mass homicide, and yet the perps’ are too dumb to conceal their vehicle? That smacks to me of hired help of some kind. Either our perps are not real smart and got somebody else to do their technical work for them, or they’re very clever but are entrusting the actual trigger–pulling to local thugs.’
‘It figures,’ Hellerman said. ‘The labs still haven’t finished working on the implant device yet but they all agree that it’s state of the art, literally. They haven’t seen anything so advanced in their careers to date, and believe me they’ve seen some stuff you just wouldn’t believe.’
‘So have we,’ Lopez pointed out. ‘Project Watchman, for instance. Maybe we could use that to check these guys out and find out where they went after they dumped the van?’
Ethan looked at Hellerman expectantly. He and Lopez had learned of Project Watchman during a previous investigation into a man who had apparently been able to see into the future. Desperate to get ahead of their quarry, Jarvis had enlisted the help of NASA and revealed Watchman, a program that enlisted spy satellites to record events on the continental United States in unprecedented detail from multiple angles, and compile the resulting data into a virtual world through which investigators could walk. Despite its flaws, Watchman co
uld have revolutionized criminal investigations, but it was Jarvis who shattered the hope of using Watchman on the case.
‘Watchman was deactivated last year,’ he told them as he entered the room. ‘Too high a risk of congressional investigations of human rights breaches by the National Reconnaissance Office. The Director of the NRO didn’t want Congress knowing anything about our current spying capacity and seeing it spread across every news outlet in the western world.’
Ethan rubbed his temples.
‘So we’ve got the tech’ but we can’t use it?’
‘Afraid so,’ Jarvis confirmed, ‘welcome to a world where terrorist mass–murderers have human rights but their victims don’t.’
Ethan shook his head and stared at the laptop screen for a moment as he tried to think of some other way to pinpoint the perpetrator’s movements and pin them down.
‘What do we have in the arsenal already that uses a similar technology to what we’re seeing here? Is there anything that might point us toward a likely origin of this sort of technology?’
Hellerman gestured to the screen.
‘A white van doesn’t tell us anything about who’s behind this, but it’s fair to say that the technology has existed within the military for some time. Even today, you can go on–line and buy a brain–controlled toy helicopter that you fly with the power of your mind.’
‘Seriously?’ Lopez asked.
‘Sure, they’re not even that expensive,’ Hellerman explained. ‘The medical industry has spent decades developing prosthetics for amputees, but while legs have come on in leaps and bounds, pardon the pun, arms and grasping hands have been a major stumbling point.’
‘You’re a comic genius,’ Lopez smiled at Hellerman, ‘and you don’t even know it.’
The Identity Mine (Warner & Lopez Book 3) Page 4
