The Enraged jqt-7

by Brett Battles

  “You’re sure it was them.”

  “Have them on a traffic camera. The Asian guy was driving. The woman was in the backseat, but I couldn’t see the other man.”

  “Where were they headed?” he asked.

  “Toward Arlington.”

  “That opens a lot of possibilities. Tell me you were able to narrow it down more than that.”

  “I was. I used our access to the Virginia Department of Transportation’s traffic-cam system, and tracked them east on I-66. When they reached I-81, they went south for a few miles before exiting. I followed them to a block away from the off-ramp, but there were no more cameras after that.”

  “Where did they exit?”

  “A place called Trevor Hollow.”

  CHAPTER 27

  ISLA DE CERVANTES

  As soon as the Mole hung up, Quinn called Daeng.

  “We just received a call from a source,” he said. “Someone’s trying to track you down.”

  “I assume the same people as before, right?”

  “I’m not so sure about that. Apparently this is a single operative. I think he could be the client Witten mentioned. I’m going to do some digging and see what I can find out. The thing to worry about right now is that he might be able to figure out where you all are.”

  “I’ll keep an eye out.”

  “Okay. Let me know if anything happens.”

  “Wait,” Daeng said before Quinn hung up. “I called you because I found something.”

  “You called? I called you.”

  “And I called you a few minutes ago.”

  It took Quinn a second before he realized it must have been Daeng calling the first time his phone vibrated. It hadn’t been the Mole.

  “What is it?”

  “I was looking inside the box the microfilm was in. Under the packing foam I found several photographs.”

  “Of what?” Quinn asked.

  “Not what, who. Miranda, Peter’s wife. Misty says these were the ones in that other file he kept.”

  “Miranda?”

  “It seemed odd to me that he would keep them with the microfilm.”

  It seemed odd to Quinn also.

  “I asked Misty what she thought,” Daeng went on. “And, well, maybe I should let her tell you.” There was a click, then a more distant Daeng said, “Can you hear me?”

  “Yeah, hold on. I’m putting you on speaker here, too.”

  Quinn switched over and placed his phone back on the bed as he shared with the others in the room what Daeng had found.

  “Okay, Misty,” he said. “Go ahead.”

  “Well, I was thinking the thing Peter said he’d been poking around in might have something to do with a project his wife could have been working on.”

  “She was in the business, too?” Quinn asked.

  “No. She worked for the State Department.”

  “In what capacity?”

  “Her specialty was eastern Europe, but she was rising fast and becoming one of the go-to people for difficult negotiations, no matter who was involved. You’ve probably heard of her.”

  “I told you, Peter never mentioned her.”

  “Not through Peter,” Misty said. “On the news when she died. Miranda Keyes. Does that help?”

  It took Quinn only a second or two to remember why the name sounded so familiar. “She was Peter’s wife?”

  “Yes.”

  “I had no idea.”

  “Few did. They kept their marriage quiet for obvious reasons.”

  Quinn nodded to himself. Peter was in the intelligence business, often spying on the very nations his wife was negotiating with. Best to keep their union private. In the end it didn’t matter. An accident had ripped them apart.

  The crash had been all over the news. It had occurred in Turkey, and because it involved Miranda and three other “rising stars” of the American diplomatic corps, at first it had been speculated that it wasn’t an accident at all, but an act of terror. The news ran with that for several days, making Miranda Keyes, the lead negotiator in the group, a household name. But it was soon revealed the crash had been caused by an unexpected mechanical issue — a tire blowout, failed brakes, something like that. He couldn’t remember the exact details. Whatever the cause, the result had been the deaths of everyone in the car.

  “Nate,” Orlando said. “Give me the laptop.”

  Nate shot a look at Quinn, who frowned but nodded his consent.

  “Do you know what she might have worked on that Peter would be looking into?”

  He could almost hear Misty shaking her head across the line. “No, I’m sorry. And I might be completely wrong. It was just the first thought that came to mind.”

  “All right. Thanks, Misty. We’ll touch base with you guys later.” Once the call was disconnected, he said to Orlando, “Did you find the image files?”

  “You didn’t exactly hide them,” she said.

  “Will you be able to decrypt them?”

  “We’ll know in…”—she looked at the screen—“a tad under seven minutes.”

  “Now you’re just showing off,” he said.

  Though she looked tired, her eyes sparkled as she grinned at him. If it weren’t for the hospital bed and the monitoring equipment, she almost looked like her old self again.

  Thirty seconds short of the seven-minute mark, she said, “Here we go.”

  They crowded around the side of her bed so they could all see the laptop’s screen. Centered on it was a document, and to the side a vertical column of the other files.

  “That’s not English,” Nate said.

  “I believe it’s Turkish,” Quinn said. Though he didn’t speak the language, he’d seen enough of it in his travels to recognize it.

  “There’s a date in the upper right,” Orlando said.

  It was written European-style — day first, month second, year last — and was over a decade old.

  “Miranda Keyes,” Liz said, pointing at the screen.

  Typed on a line that ran the width of the paper was not only Miranda’s name but three other names — Morris Tate, Gerald Yamada, and Brenda Samson.

  “It’s the accident report,” Quinn said. “Those are the people who died with Miranda. I remember the names.”

  “So Peter was looking into his wife’s death?” Liz asked.

  “Let’s see what else is here first.” He nodded to Orlando. “Next page.”

  Documents two and three were the rest of the report, while four and five were condensed English translations. According to these last two, the four passengers had been on a break from the international conference they were attending in Bursa, and had taken a drive into the national park toward Mount Uludag. While there, on a windy mountain road, the driver — Morris Tate — lost control of their car, drove off the side, and their vehicle tumbled down a slope approximately one hundred fifteen meters long. No other cars had been involved, and the cause was determined to be a combination of high speed and brake malfunction. Pretty much like Quinn remembered.

  When Orlando moved on to file six, they were all surprised to see that it looked to be a copy of the very first file — page one of the Turkish report.

  Orlando flicked back and forth between the two. Same dates, same names, same ink marks in the margins. She moved on to document seven. A copy of the second page of the Turkish report. Only…

  “The last two paragraphs,” Nate said. “Look.”

  As Orlando toggled between documents seven and two, it became clear that while most of the information in each document was identical, the last two typed paragraphs were completely different.

  Moving on to document eight, they could see that the five signatures at the bottom were the exact size and in the exact same position as those on doc three. The paragraphs above them, however, did not match.

  Files nine and ten were the English version again, but they looked nothing like the previous translations. Just from the format, it was obvious they’d been prepared by someone
else entirely.

  The new version did not tell the story of a driver who’d lost control of his car, but rather of a driver who’d been shot in the head and died before the car even reached the edge of the pavement, leaving the passengers unable to prevent the crash. An investigator found the bullet lodged in the backseat of the car. Given the angle it would have had to travel from the man’s head into the cushion, the investigator was able to determine the likely spot the gunman had fired from. A search of the area revealed only ground that had been brushed clean.

  “Dear God,” Liz said. “Is this the correct report? Or is it the other one?”

  “Depends on what you mean by correct,” Quinn said. “Official? That would be the first one.” He left the rest unsaid and told Orlando to keep going.

  Files eleven and twelve were typed notes — addresses, names, thoughts — ending with a list:

  N. Lionel

  Kablukov

  BJD

  Mossad

  Jude Eisner

  Lon/Tec

  Darvot

  SVGX

  Klaus Pounder

  Herman Raver

  P12

  Most of the names were familiar to Quinn. Many referred to intelligence agencies, some associated with a specific country and some not, while the individuals he recognized also played in their world. So what was this? Peter’s suspect list? That was the first thing that came to Quinn’s mind.

  They could come back to it later, though, so he nodded to Orlando that he was ready to move on.

  File thirteen was the beginning of the pictures. The first five had an embossed stamp in the lower right corner that Quinn guessed meant they were official. Each was a different shot of the crash, victims and all. Miranda had apparently been sitting in the backseat on the passenger side, which was probably the only reason she remained recognizable. In contrast, the face of the woman who had been sitting in front of her was a bloody and unrecognizable pulp, most likely because it had been bashed repeatedly against the dash and windshield.

  Not surprisingly, the picture featuring the driver avoided any angles that would reveal his fatal wound, and instead concentrated on his crumpled form.

  File eighteen was another crime scene photo, only this one was missing the official seal. It showed the center section of the backseat cushion, complete with bullet hole. To either side of the picture, you could see a portion of Miranda and the woman who’d been sitting beside her, leaving no doubt the picture was from their accident. The next two photos were of the driver, each showing the entry wound above his right eye, and confirming what Quinn had already suspected — the second report was the accurate one.

  Next came a map with a circle around the area where the accident had occurred, while the final two files were pictures again. The first was a wide shot of the crash scene, also without a seal. Several people were looking through the car, while more huddled in smaller groups, talking. The last image was a close-up of the group that had been farthest from the camera. It wasn’t a new shot, but a blowup of the previous one, which, because of the magnification, meant the subjects were blurry. The main focus seemed to be on the man in the center. He had short brown hair and appeared to be more Caucasian than Turkish, but that was pretty much all Quinn could make out.

  “Go back,” he said.

  Orlando clicked back to the group image. Though the area blown up in the final image was considerably smaller now, it was actually easier to make out some details. No, the man was definitely not Turkish. He was talking to an official-looking man in a suit. Perhaps the lead investigator?

  “Anybody recognize him?” he asked.

  “I don’t,” Orlando said.

  Nate shook his head. “Me, neither.”

  “Who do you think he is?” Liz asked.

  “Someone Peter was interested in, I guess,” Quinn replied. “But other than that, I don’t know.”

  “Maybe he was from the US delegation, there to ID the bodies,” his sister suggested.

  “That would be done in a morgue, not while the bodies were still in the car. Besides, I doubt they would leave the bodies there very long anyway, so the pictures had to have been taken shortly after the police arrived on scene.”

  “Maybe he’s with the police,” she said.

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Because he’s white? I’m sure there’s some fair-skinned Turks.”

  “I’m sure there are. But look at his haircut. Look at what he’s wearing.” The man was dressed in khaki pants and a black polo golf shirt. “If he’s not American, then he’s pretending to be one.”

  “Then he could be from the delegation,” Liz argued.

  Quinn shook his head. “If he were, Peter would have known, and wouldn’t have blown this picture up. Whoever this guy is, I’d bet he’s tied to what happened to Miranda and her friends.”

  “I might be able to clean the picture up some,” Orlando said. “Then maybe…send it around. See if anyone recognizes…him.”

  “Yeah, maybe after you take a twelve-hour nap,” Quinn said.

  “I’m okay. Just need to rest for a minute.”

  “I’ll help her,” Liz said. “She can tell me what to do.”

  Quinn disliked that idea only slightly less than having Orlando do it on her own, but the truth was, getting that picture would help. He nodded. “E-mail me copies of all the decrypted files first, then see what you can do.”

  He motioned for Nate to follow him, and left.

  In the corridor, he said, “Peter said it in the video I saw. Whoever’s responsible for killing him killed Miranda, too.”

  “It would be a hell of a coincidence otherwise.”

  “Exactly. You saw the list in Peter’s notes, right?”

  Nate nodded.

  “I’d bet everything that the person or group we’re looking for is on there. We need to pull the pieces together, and figure out which one it is.”

  “And how are we going to do that?”

  To answer, Quinn pulled out his phone and called Daeng.

  “News?” Daeng said.

  “Nothing yet,” Quinn replied. “I need to talk to Misty.”

  “Sure. Hold on.”

  A short pause, then Misty said, “Hello?”

  “How you holding up?”

  “Well, you know. Okay, I guess.”

  “I have a question for you. Peter once mentioned there was an organization that took over for the Office. I’m pretty sure he knew the person in charge.”

  “Yes, he did.”

  “I had the impression Peter trusted him.”

  “Very much. But it’s not a him. It’s a her.”

  CHAPTER 28

  SAN FRANCISCO

  Helen Cho grabbed the pot of coffee off her credenza and filled her cup.

  When she was settled behind her desk, she pushed the intercom button and said, “Send in Director Stone.”

  Across the room the door to her office opened, and Gregory Stone, current director of O & O, stepped in.

  “Good to see you, Helen,” he said as he walked up to her desk and extended his hand.

  “Sit,” she said, not taking it.

  “All right.” He pulled his hand back and sat down. “Now what’s so important we couldn’t have dealt with it over the phone?”

  “First off, you’re fired.”

  He leaned forward. “Excuse me?”

  “I don’t see a need to repeat myself.”

  “You can’t fire me. You don’t have the authority.”

  “You mean even though your organization now falls under me?”

  “Yes. Check my job description. You may be able to order O & O around, but I can only be removed from office by the secretary of Homeland Security or someone above him. Which, I believe, is only one person.”

  “Two if you count the vice president.”

  “No one counts the vice president,” Stone said.

  “Fair enough. I’ve read the details of your employment parameters. Nee
dless to say, they will be removed before your successor takes office.”

  Stone snorted a laugh, leaned back against his chair, and crossed his legs. “Dream on.”

  She held his gaze for a moment before she reached over and tapped one of the buttons on her phone. “Are you still there, sir?”

  “I am,” the secretary of Homeland Security said.

  “And I trust you heard everything.”

  “I did indeed.”

  The blood drained from Stone’s face. “I, um, wasn’t aware someone was listening in. I should have been informed.”

  “Does it matter?” Helen asked.

  “Yes, former Director Stone, that’s a good question,” the secretary said.

  “It’s not fair, sir. This is an ambush.”

  “What this is,” Helen said, “is an overdue spring cleaning.”

  “You cannot—”

  “Stop right there,” the secretary said. “I would think very long and hard before you open your mouth again, Mr. Stone. You’ve made a mess at O & O. Helen is only doing what needs to be done.”

  “Sir, I don’t know what stories you may have heard, or what Director Cho had chosen to tell you, but—”

  “Director Cho has chosen to tell me nothing. She merely asked that I look into O & O for myself, which I have.” He paused. “I am embarrassed that this agency exists under my umbrella. Who knows how long it’s going to take us to unravel everything you’ve done there? Starting right now, you will answer everything Director Cho asks you. You will answer truthfully without hesitation. But it doesn’t end when you walk out of the room. Consider the rest of your life one gigantic exit interview. If and when Director Cho has questions for you in the future, you will answer those immediately. You will also answer any questions your successor has, if we decide it’s worth keeping O & O going. Lie one time, put off one answer, and you might as well kiss your life good-bye, because I can assure you, where you’ll be taken, you will not see the light of day for quite some time. If I’m particularly annoyed, like I am right now, I’ll arrange it so you never see it again. Am I understood?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Are there any questions?”

  “No, sir.”