by AJ Tata
“They are for a project I’ve been working on, and I have a terrible deadline.”
“Got anything to do with all these terrorist bombings?”
Meredith paused.
“Sorry, sorry, I know I shouldn’t ask,” Jacob said. “But I was just kinda wondering, you know. They’ve hit everywhere but here. North Carolina, Washington, Georgia, Boston, even Minnesota, for crying out loud. Don’t you think they’d hit here, too?”
Meredith thought he sounded almost disappointed but knew it was just the way he framed his question.
“I doubt very seriously that they’re done,” she said.
“Really? You think they’ll strike again?”
She watched as he continued to push the film around and asked, “Why don’t you have one of those processors like they have at the one-hour places? Wouldn’t it help your business?”
“No way,” he said. “I would never let anything I take pass through one of those destruction machines. I’ve seen works of art destroyed because of a misfeed, and there’s no way to get it back. The picture, the moment, is lost forever.”
He looked at her solemnly and said, “And you know, that’s a long time.”
“Yes it is.” She nodded. Jacob was a bit odd, but right now she needed his help.
“It’ll be about thirty minutes if you want to go upstairs and have a soda or something,” he said.
“Sure, but do you have a computer I could borrow also? I’ve got my hard drive here and was curious if I could get at some information.” Meredith held up the hard drive, showing it to him.
Jacob looked at her, took the hard drive, and said, “Sure, I’ve got that capability, I think.”
“But let’s have that drink first.” Meredith playfully punched him on the shoulder.
She found Jacob cute in a nerdy sort of way. He was clearly smitten with her and proud to be showing off his work. She adored how nervous he seemed when he asked her upstairs for a Coke. Seeing how she had just slept with the vice president of the United States and then sprayed him with mace, she was having a hard time feeling anything but disgusted.
“Would you prefer some wine?” he said, his voice quivering again.
Meredith was also overcoming a champagne hangover but didn’t want to disappoint Jacob, so she agreed to a small glass of wine.
“Great,” Jacob said. “I’ll let you pick it out.”
She followed him out of the dark room, which led into the main portion of the basement. They walked directly across the basement into another small room, this one cooler and darker until Jacob turned on the lights.
Meredith gasped. There were at least two hundred bottles of wine sitting labels-up in a handmade oak wine rack that covered both walls from floor to ceiling. She saw that he had organized the wines, with whites such as Sauvignon blancs, Pinot grigios, Chardonnays, Chablis, and more on the right side. On the left were the reds—the Merlots, Pinot noirs, Cabernet Sauvignons, and so on.
“Jacob, I had no idea.”
“Yeah, most people just think I’m this little, geeky guy but . . .”
He didn’t finish the sentence, but she almost thought he was going to say, “But I’m really hung like a horse.” She chuckled. “This is fabulous.”
“Thank you. Take your pick.”
“Well, are you collecting, or do you drink it also?” She immediately knew this was a stupid question, one that brought him back to his point of everyone thinking he was a geek.
“I’m a connoisseur, Meredith. In addition to my photography, I like to travel to wine tastings all over the country and buy special wines. I’ve even cruised the Rhine during wine season and tasted all the different varieties from Frankfurt to Strasbourg.”
“That’s really something, Jacob,” she said, then pulled out a 1972 Pinot grigio from Vicenza, Italy. She looked at him and shrugged, “Is this okay?”
“Absolutely, an excellent choice. If you recall, in 1972 Italy experienced a winter with one of its heaviest snowfalls ever, and the vineyards were able to feed off the cool mountain waters trickling into the valley from the Alps for an extra month. The grapes are a perfect mixture of tart and dry, with a slight almond background that makes for the absolute best Pinot grigio I’ve ever tasted.”
They went upstairs and drank the wine. She had to admit that it was delicious. Before she knew it, they were back downstairs in the dark room, and the pictures were perfect, just like the wine.
“How can I ever repay you?” Meredith was pulling out her wallet as Jacob was holding up his hands, warding off her gesture.
“Please, this has been my pleasure, both to help you and to entertain you,” he said. “You owe me nothing other than, perhaps, another unexpected call in the future. That way it will give me something to look forward to every day until the next time.”
Meredith almost cried. Jacob was simple and sweet, but she had business to take care of, and she was ready to get to her house and review the pictures. Then it occurred to her that Hellerman would be sending the Secret Service after her, or something much worse, and the first place they would look would be her home.
On the other hand, they would never think to look here at Jacob’s place. She paused and then said, “You are so sweet, Jacob, and I do have one more favor.”
“Anything.”
“I’m working on a sensitive project.” She held up the manila envelope. “And there are some bad guys that are trying to find me.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, well, I’m afraid if I go back to my place . . .” Saying the words made Meredith realize how much danger she was facing.
“Meredith, I insist. Stay here. And I have a garage, so you can park your car in there.”
That was a good point, she thought. She had not considered that Hellerman would be putting the full-court press on to find her, which would include the police looking for her car.
“Jacob, I don’t know what to say, but thank you.”
“I have a very nice guest room with clean sheets on the bed. You can have all the privacy you need to work on your project.”
She went out and drove the car into the garage, Jacob standing at the garage door watching with his hands stuffed in his pockets. She followed him in, through the kitchen this time, and down a long hallway.
“This is your room,” he said. “You have your own bath, and there are some clean towels.”
“I don’t know what to say,” Meredith said, truly at a loss for words.
“Don’t say anything. I know you’ve got work to do, so I’ll get out of your way. If you need anything, I’ll be in my room,” he said, pointing across the hall at his bedroom. “And in the meantime, I’ll see if I can’t get that hard drive squared away for you.”
“Thank you,” she said, giving Jacob a quick peck on the cheek. She turned and entered her room, closing and locking the door behind her. She quickly dumped the pictures out on the bed, turning on the lamp sitting atop the nightstand. She did a quick once-over of the room. It was decorated with a country theme, including rustic oak bookshelves and a sleigh bed. There was a tan oak bureau along the wall opposite the bed. The comforter on the bed had a pattern that included men with beards wearing top hats riding in buggies pulled by high-stepping horses.
She turned to the contents of the envelope, holding each picture up one at a time, squinting to read the writing, which was surprisingly legible. The first few were routine notes and indiscernible scribbling, almost like scraps of paper from doodling on the phone. Like the RW RW she had seen earlier. Who or what was RW? She could see Hellerman there plotting with his co-conspirators, them boring the hell out of him while he scribbled nonsense on the paper.
The next picture was of a message over secret cable from China. Her heart froze. Was there a connection between China, Ballantine, and the missing Predator drones? And then there was the Colombia connection with the aborted Tallahassee bombing.
The message read: Must end all contact. Operation is ready. Glad to
help an old friend. Must depart for passageway that connects our worlds.
The message was dated just before the bombings began. Had Hellerman enlisted the aid of international terrorists to attack inside the United States?
She tucked her hair behind her ears and flipped through the pictures. She stopped at a picture of the wall with the calendar. She confirmed again that Tallahassee was marked and had a large question mark next to it. Her memory had been good. She next saw the pictures she had taken of the communications gear. Hellerman had a tactical satellite phone and radios with cables that ran out the back of the office. He had a satellite television installed and guessed he was using that satellite to also feed his telephone.
What did he need those communications platforms for? The long-distance equipment was state-of-the-art and would allow him to talk to anyone in the world who had a similar piece of equipment and the correct encryption technology.
The last two pictures were even stranger than the others. They were photos of a document written in Chinese and a sketch of a ship. She studied each photo, the Chinese characters unfamiliar to her.
She saw a single line of English letters which read Top Secret, Special Category on the very bottom of each page in fine print.
Flipping back to the sketch, she could see it was a cargo ship. But it had a long, narrow aisle drawn down the middle of its deck, almost like a road. Curious, she thought.
China, Iraq, Colombia? Huh, she moaned to herself. What could it mean? Why would Hellerman be at the center of this coalition? They had been seriously concentrating on the Rebuild America project. Could this be his way? Let an attack on American soil wipe out the apathy and reunite the country in popular defiance?
She lay on the bed, the men with top hats staring at her from the comforter. She was exhausted from all of the physical and mental activity of the last twenty-four hours and began to fade, her instincts trying to keep her awake. She had a firm grasp on some decisive information.
But perhaps it could wait.
It would have to.
Chapter 48
Northern Virginia
Vice President Hellerman struggled out of the bathroom. He had spent the last hour washing his face and cleaning the mace out of his eyes. He was slowly recovering from a drugged, drowsy feeling and could see, though his vision was a bit cloudy.
He had dressed in khakis and a sweatshirt with tennis shoes. He moved slowly but purposefully down the steps into the kitchen and through the door leading to the basement. Negotiating those steps, he was encouraged when he saw the lock on the hasp.
He pulled out his key and unlocked the door. Has she been down here? Everything appeared to be in order. He opened the file cabinet, and all of the files were where they belonged. In fact, there was nothing that seemed to be out of place.
Not a single item appeared to be amiss. Had she been telling the truth about changing in the kitchen? Perhaps he had been a bit scary the last few days, he figured. Maybe she did feel threatened by something he had done.
He looked at the televisions, the maps, the chart boards, and the computer. He leaned over and pressed the button to turn on his computer. He waited for it to boot up, which it usually did fairly quickly. He saw that the monitor screen was still blank, so he pressed the button again. Still nothing.
He lifted the laptop and immediately saw that the hard drive was missing. His heart sank. She had his hard drive. That was a big problem.
Everything he had done in the last fifteen years was recorded on that hard drive. He had scanned old notes and copied them in PDF format. Also, he had copied old floppy disks and CDs onto thumb drives and then had consolidated everything onto this one hard drive. After copying them, he had destroyed all of the notes, papers, disks, and drives. But having backup was not the issue.
He immediately grabbed his secure satellite phone and hit a memory button.
“Bandit, this is Rawlings,” he said, using his call sign that referred to the baseball maker.
“Rawlings, this is Bandit. How nice to hear from you.”
“I need you to track down Meredith Morris. You’ve got a file on her with her address, home phone, and cell phone numbers, as well as some of her closer friends. She has something of mine, a hard drive, which I need back.”
“Sounds simple enough. Do we need Miss Morris back?”
The voice was eerie and unnerving to Hellerman. He pictured the delight with which this particular individual enjoyed killing. He paused and thought of Meredith, then spoke. “No, Miss Morris’ presence is not required.”
“Fine and dandy. I’ll call you soon. I presume you need your computer up and running shortly?”
“Tonight. No later than tomorrow. Got a big project I’m working on.”
“Anything else?”
“Yes, if you have to find her using CallScan, then do it. It’s that important,” Hellerman said.
“My, that is important. Will do.”
Hellerman hung up the phone. Having just ordered Meredith’s death was enough to make his weakened body tremble. He felt like he might vomit, but then regained his composure.
What is one more death in this quest for national unification? he thought. Meredith had served her purpose as both a sexual diversion and someone to keep him company as he developed his plan. He picked up his cell phone and called Alvin Jessup, who he knew was probably sitting in a car at the end of the driveway.
“Alvin, I need you to find Miss Morris. She may be in a bit of trouble, and we need to get her back here on the compound.”
“Yes, sir. She left about an hour and a half ago. We’ll find her,” Alvin said.
“Thanks, appreciate it. It’s pretty urgent,” Hellerman said.
“Yes, sir. I’ll let you know when we’ve got her.”
Hellerman shut his phone and then double-checked to make sure that the hard drive really was missing. This time his stomach couldn’t hold back as he ran into the basement bathroom and unleashed the poison in his stomach into the toilet. He wiped his mouth, brushed his teeth, walked back into the command cell and opened the file-cabinet drawer.
Even though he believed that he honestly had nothing to hide, he pulled the files out and began running them through his crosscut shredder one at a time.
Next he called Zeke Jeremiah, the tall Naval Academy graduate, over to his residence.
Jeremiah stood before him in a blue suit, white cotton shirt, and light blue tie, all hanging loosely off his lanky frame.
“Zeke, I need to let you in on something,” Hellerman said. It had taken him only a few minutes to clean up the living room prior to Jeremiah’s arrival. He motioned Zeke onto the facing davenport.
“I’m listening, sir,” Zeke said, pulling out a small green notebook.
Hellerman coughed, leaned forward, and said, “I’ve intercepted the enemy’s plan. I have evidence of a conspiracy involving former CIA director Frank Lantini to aid terrorists in attacking the United States.”
Jeremiah put his pen in the crease of his notebook and looked at the vice president.
“You don’t want me writing any of this down, do you, sir?”
“That’s right. I’ve been holding onto this information until I was certain what it meant. After the Rolling Stones incident last year, I don’t trust too many of our agencies these days. Being a former intelligence officer, well, I’ve been doing the analysis down in my basement.”
Jeremiah nodded.
“You do look a bit . . . overtaxed, sir.”
“That’s why I’m calling you into this thing. I need a first-rate mind helping me here. I’m concerned that once this wave of attacks is done, something bigger is heading our way.”
“What could be bigger?”
“That’s what I need you to figure out. I need you to work in isolation to read through this file here and tell me what you think it means.” Hellerman pushed a manila folder across the table to Jeremiah, who reached out with his long, black fingers and pulled the file toward h
im. “Don’t take it to the ops center. Just need you over here, maybe down in the basement, studying all of this.”
“The basement?”
“Follow me,” Hellerman said. They stood and the vice president led him downstairs. He opened the door to his lair and showed Jeremiah the basic components. “Here’s the tracking chart. They were supposed to hit Florida, but never did. I think local law enforcement got in front of that one. But as you can see, the others have panned out.”
Jeremiah stood, awestruck, at the vice president’s research and his elaborate maps and matrix.
“How did you crack this code, sir?” Jeremiah asked, never removing his eyes from the data displayed on the wall. He took his right hand and touched each of the large squares with predicted attacks and then touched the map where the attacks had occurred, or not.
“Combination of signals intercepts and some tracking I’ve had some folks do to find Lantini. Pretty embarrassing, you know.”
Jeremiah finally broke away from the charts and looked at the folder in his hand.
“How can I help?”
“I need you to find the link. It’s in there somewhere, but I’m certain Lantini is behind this thing. He’s working Ballantine, you’ll see.”
Hellerman paused.
“But I also think Colonel Jack Rampert is connected to this thing. That’s what I need you to find out. Spend some time down here reading through those reports.
“And find me a link to Rampert.”
Chapter 49
Virginia Beach, Virginia
Matt Garrett pushed the Porsche to 100 mph down the long, straight stretch of Interstate 64 between Richmond and Williamsburg.
“Dial this number,” he said handing the cell phone and a slip of paper to Peyton, who was sitting in the passenger seat. He was wearing black dungarees and a dark navy button-down shirt with a black turtleneck underneath. She was wearing a similar outfit at his request, though she had a dark-blue denim jacket atop her black turtleneck.
