“Duke, it’s me again, Meg Tolman. Don’t trace the money yet. I have something more important for you to do.”
“More important than the money?”
“A hundred times more important, and I need a serious hacker for this. I’m going to send you a zip file. It’s encrypted with an AES. I need you to find the key and open it.”
“Cool,” Duke said. “I love cracking AES.”
“Okay, I’m sending you the file now. This is totally confidential. Don’t talk to anyone but me, Duke. Only me. If anyone else calls you and says they’re from, say, the White House, don’t believe them. You understand?”
“Yeah, I understand. I’ll get this for you.”
“I believe you.”
“The White House. Man, I was sitting here watching the TV and all those buildings that were blown up and I wondered if the president was going to talk—”
“Didn’t he make a speech earlier? I’ve been a little busy today.”
“No, I mean the new buildings.”
“What do you mean, ‘new’ buildings?”
“Oh, didn’t you hear? Those wacky antigovernment guys blew up six more buildings in different cities tonight. It’s really bad, worse than the ones on Friday.”
“Oh, Jesus,” Tolman said, grabbing the TV remote. “I have to go.”
“What?” Journey said as the TV came on.
Tolman pointed. The TV was on ABC News, and the video was of buildings burning, firefighters, stretchers with bodies covered. A graphic in one corner of the screen showed the number of fatalities combined from the six locations: thirty-four confirmed so far.
“They did it again,” Journey said, and his voice was very quiet.
Tolman couldn’t speak. She turned up the volume when she heard the anchors say something about Oklahoma City. She went to the edge of the bed and leaned forward.
“… the members of April 19,” said the anchor. “Of course, the first time the world heard of this group was last spring, when four of its members murdered one employee and wounded another at the Government Accountability Office in Rockville, Maryland. Those four are in the process of being moved from the federal prison in Hazelton, West Virginia, to a high-security facility in Atwater, California. Currently housed at the Federal Transfer Center in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, they are scheduled to be transported to California tomorrow. It seems quite ironic that the members of a group calling itself April 19 are being housed in the very same city where the original April 19 bombing took place. Security will be high for the transport at noon tomorrow.”
“I don’t want to see more bloodshed in Oklahoma,” Ann Gray had said on the phone.
“You should know that April 19 will free its brothers.”
At the time, on the phone early this morning, it had been so much double-talk.
“Bloodshed in Oklahoma” … “April 19 will free its brothers.”
The members of April 19 were in Oklahoma City right now, awaiting transfer to California. April 19 had just blown up another set of buildings.
Tolman turned to Sharp. “Go get the pilot. He’s two rooms down. We have to get to Oklahoma City. She’s going to try to break out the other members of April 19 tomorrow.”
“What are you talking about?” Journey said.
“We have to get there. They need to double the security detail for the prisoner transfer. Something’s going to happen. Gray’s going to—”
“Gray runs the Silver Cross mine, but blows up buildings in her spare time?” Sandra said.
“You said she was an assassin,” Tolman said. “You were right.”
“Meg,” Sharp said.
Tolman was packing her laptop and stuffing clothes into her travel bag. She didn’t speak.
“Meg!” Sharp said. It was the first time Journey had heard the man raise his voice.
Tolman jumped. “What? For God’s sake, what, Darrell?”
“Can we do anything tonight? Really?”
“What?”
“They’re not going to transfer them in the middle of the night,” Sharp said. The words came slowly, as if he weren’t accustomed to stringing that many of them together. “Won’t go until noon, the TV said. What could we do?”
“I don’t fucking know, Darrell, but”—she stabbed a hand at the TV screen—“look at that! Look at what’s happening!”
“Meg,” Sharp said, and inclined his head toward Andrew. “I think the little boy’s tired. Been through a lot today.”
“He has,” Journey said, his voice low. “This is a lot of stimulation for him.”
Tolman slumped her shoulders. They were right. She couldn’t do anything overnight. She would call and mobilize a larger security detail, see if she could arrange a few minutes with the prisoners before they were put on the plane for California. Gray was trying to tell her something. Why else would she have said “April 19 will free its brothers”? Why tell her in advance? She wanted them to see something, to know something.
They blew up the buildings, and the prisoners were being transported tomorrow.…
Tolman felt herself bending into the exhaustion, the mental overload, the emotional strain. She was bending, much like those trees bent in the face of the brutal Texas wind.
“You’re right,” she said. “We need some rest. We’ll leave at first light.”
CHAPTER
32
Tolman slept beside Sharp, her SIG and his Glock on their respective sides of the bed. Their relationship hadn’t been sexual since a handful of times in their Academy days, but it seemed perfectly natural that they would sleep in the same bed. Tolman slept lightly, and Sharp muttered in his sleep, indistinct sounds of pain. At one point Tolman awoke with her arm thrown over him, her hand on the edge of the scar tissue that ran the length of his stomach, a grim reminder of the slaughter that had ended his law enforcement career before the age of thirty.
She woke up for good at 3:45, put her bare feet on the floor, sat in the motel armchair, and opened her laptop. Her RACER search for “Ann Gray” and “assassin” had finished.
There were three hits.
Tolman rubbed her eyes to be sure of what she was seeing.
All of the documents were highly classified, and all were found in the network of the CIA.
“Jesus,” she whispered.
Sharp came awake and sat up, reaching instantly for his pistol. “It’s okay, Darrell,” Tolman said. “I just woke up.” She turned around and looked at him, saw the scar across his belly. “I’m sorry I woke you. Go back to sleep.”
He grunted but didn’t lie down, and Tolman knew he wouldn’t go back to sleep. “The CIA,” she said. “Gray has CIA files.” Tolman couldn’t open the files—RIO was strictly a domestic agency, and CIA was, at least in theory, only authorized for international operations, so her clearance didn’t get her into the classified material.
But on each of the files was the name of a control officer: B. Denison. She wrote down the name and the phone number beside it, then picked up the phone. It was a little before 5:00 A.M. in the D.C. area—if B. Denison wasn’t up yet, it was high time he was. The number given was at Langley, but Tolman was willing to bet that most operations officers at the Agency had their phones roll over to a cell after a certain number of rings.
On the sixth ring, a deep male voice said, “Denison.”
“This is Meg Tolman from RIO,” she said. “Do you know an Ann Gray?”
Silence.
“I know I woke you up,” Tolman said. “So I’ll say it again—”
“Don’t say it again,” Denison said.
“Do you know her?”
“How did you happen to come by that name?”
“I’ve seen her. I’ve talked to her. Tall, middle-aged, brown hair, nondescript. I’m in your database. She has three files. Three operations. She’s a contract assassin. Don’t bullshit me. I’m really tired of bullshit.”
“We should meet,” Denison said.
Tolman laughed. “Nice
to see I have your attention, Mr. Denison. But I’m in a motel in Memphis, Texas, right now.”
“Last I checked, Memphis was in Tennessee, not Texas.”
“Not this one. In a couple of hours I’ll be flying out to Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. So you see, I’m nowhere near D.C. right now.”
“Oklahoma City,” Denison said. “I can get there. I’m getting dressed now.”
“You’ll fly all the way to Oklahoma because I dropped this name?”
“Yes.”
Tolman waited, but Denison said nothing else.
“You Agency guys don’t talk much,” she finally said.
“Name a place in Oklahoma City. Where can we meet?”
“I have a meeting at the Federal Transfer Center. It’s at the airport. I should be there by eight o’clock.”
“I can’t get there that soon. Make it ten o’clock.”
“Deal. Is Ann Gray a dirty little Agency secret?”
Denison’s tone didn’t change. “Ms. Tolman, there are days when I wish RIO had never been created.”
Tolman laughed. “I feel the same way sometimes, Mr. Denison. See you at ten o’clock.”
* * *
Seventy-seven miles from the Travelodge in Memphis, Texas, Ann Gray stepped off the plane at Rick Husband Amarillo International Airport from her early flight. She’d flown from Washington to Chicago last night, slept in a hotel, picked up Barrientos, and flew on to Amarillo, changing planes in Dallas.
As soon as they landed, Barrientos had his phone to his ear. He spoke in quiet tones. “Final death toll at thirty-eight. They don’t think they’re going to find any more. What do you think Zale is doing right now?”
“Wondering how I got the best of him,” Gray said, but she didn’t smile. She would rather not have been put in this position. But Zale had forced her to take drastic actions. With any luck, Victor Zale and The Associates would be ruined soon. She looked at her watch. Delmas Mercer’s news conference had probably happened while she was in transit. She wanted to get to a television and see how the gentleman from Louisiana looked on camera beside the French ambassador. That thought almost did make her smile, as she imagined twisting the knife a bit more in the back of Victor Zale.
There were televisions in the Amarillo terminal, and they stopped to watch. NBC’s screaming graphic read: AMERICA UNDER SIEGE. Another TV was tuned to CBS: ANTIGOVERNMENT VIOLENCE … FRENCH DIPLOMATIC CRISIS … CONFEDERATE SOVEREIGNTY RESOLUTION. A little further on, Fox News: TIME OF CRISIS: SILVER, THE CIVIL WAR, THE SOUTH … AND TERROR AS DEATH TOLL MOUNTS FROM FEDERAL BOMBINGS.
Gray stopped to watch the last one, as it was running video of Representative Delmas Mercer and the press conference he’d held that morning with the French ambassador, a dour man named Daquin. Mercer waved his papers and pounded the podium. Daquin took over and spoke about violation of French sovereignty and relations chilling between the two countries if the United States Congress didn’t act on Mercer’s resolution immediately—a resolution Gray had written, and paid the congressman three hundred thousand dollars to introduce in the House and promote in front of the TV cameras.
“Is it what you wanted?” Barrientos asked quietly as they collected their bags.
“What I want is beside the point,” Gray said. “None of this has anything to do with what I want. I have no agenda, I never have. You know that. I have no allegiance to political borders. I am a professional, and The Associates—and by extension, the United States—have disrespected my professional services.” She glanced at her young associate. “And Mark, why do you think we set the explosions for late at night? If these had been done on a weekday, say, at noon, the death toll would probably exceed what New York saw on September 11. I didn’t see Victor Zale for what he was until he started ordering the killings of people who were no threat to the project.”
“But, Ann…” Barrientos seemed to be struggling for the words. “All this seems like … too much. You’re going to have Congress screaming over Mercer’s resolution. It’s going to open up a lot of emotions. You always told me there’s no room for emotions in this business. When you get emotional, you lose your effectiveness. You taught me that.”
“I’ve sent a very important message. Zale is twisting in the wind now.”
“It’s a hell of an expensive message.”
“Mark, that’s enough. Your opinion is noted. Leave it alone.”
“Kids were killed, Ann. Last night. There were kids.”
Gray stopped in her tracks and grabbed Barrientos’s arm. “The targets were supposed to be in areas where no children would be around at that time of night. What happened? How could that happen?”
“In Nashua, a guy who worked for the Department of Energy office had taken his kids, boy and a girl, seven and nine, to a baseball game. On the way home he stopped by his office for a few minutes. The kids went in with him. They—”
Gray raised her hand and silenced him. “No more. They shouldn’t have been there.”
“Ann, I think you should—”
“I don’t want to know what you think. No more, I said.”
They walked toward the National car rental counter. “So why are we here? What’s the point of being here? They shut it down. All the real employees at the mine were let go, the accounts are all closed. It’s done.”
“I ran this from the beginning, Mark. From before the beginning. I hired the engineers, the managers. I made Panhandle Mining a part of its community. They can’t shut it down without me.”
“They did, Ann. It is finished.”
“Not quite,” Gray said.
* * *
Wade Roader had not slept, and as his driver took him toward the Washington Monument, he thought of the horrific pictures from Oregon to Florida to New Hampshire. He had excused himself several times during the night, and he went to his office’s personal bathroom and vomited until he could barely stand. But he could not leave and he could not sleep. All through the long night, he stayed close to his boss, President Robert Mendoza, who thought his chief of staff was simply upset—as all Americans were—at what was unfolding on their television screens.
If only the president knew, Roader thought.
But Mendoza could never know that Roader wasn’t just sick because of what had happened in six American cities, but because Roader had indirectly caused it. All of it.
It was out of control. Zale and Landon and their “manager,” the mysterious Ann Gray. The Associates.
And Meg Tolman and Kerry Voss. Roader almost became ill again when he thought of the two RIO employees. Meg Tolman had an infuriating habit of not going away, and Voss was just as tenacious. He’d been monitoring RIO’s networks remotely, had been notified by secure e-mail when the financial analyst logged in and found the account reference numbers. She couldn’t see all of it, thank God, but it added one more layer to the mess. He’d immediately dispatched men to get Voss. Zale’s response would have been kill, kill, kill. But Roader only wanted her out of the way while the rest of the situation resolved itself. So he sent his own men—a personal crew, not associated with the White House—to take Voss. She was in a safe house in Fairfax County. Roughed up a bit, according to the troops, but alive.
“Don’t touch her again,” Roader warned them. “Extend her every courtesy.”
Courtesy? Roader thought. I kidnapped one of my own employees. Courtesy!
And Tolman … he’d gone along with Zale’s order to have RIO’s deputy director killed. Dear God, what have I become?
More and more these days, he wished he were still teaching colonial history at Yale. But that had been a long, long time ago. Before he rode into politics with his old friend, James Harwell, who had been president until his death of a heart attack last September. But Roader had kept his job. Robert Mendoza was a thoughtful and capable man—though an unknown quantity. He even seemed honest, whatever that meant in American politics today.
More honest than I am, Roader thought.
He arrived
at the Washington Monument and found Zale and Landon in the same place as the last meeting, two mornings ago. When Roader spoke, his voice was a rasp, raw from all the retching he had done. He’d told the president he was going home to sleep for a couple of hours, and would return in time for Mendoza to make his statement to the nation.
“If this is your idea of tying it off,” Roader said, “I think we’re in pretty piss-poor shape here.”
“I had no idea she would—,” Zale said.
Roader stopped him with a look. “I don’t want to hear it. I want it to go … away. Permanently. The information I gave you on that USB drive was supposed to help you finish it.”
“We got the other professor, Lashley,” Zale said.
“Yes, as usual, you killed the person on the periphery, and the ones causing the problems are still out there. And I had to rescue your man ‘Jackson’ from the hospital in Oklahoma. But Meg Tolman will not quit until she has all of it. With what I had to do to get Jackson away from her, she’s already going to be questioning how far up this goes. I may have been able to slow them down a bit—”
“What else did you do?”
“Never mind,” Roader said, thinking of Kerry Voss and her computer. “But you will stop this. Now. The president will not stand—”
“Don’t tell me about the president,” Zale said. “Now you’re getting on your moral high horse. That’s what Gray did, and she’s going to get her ass killed because of it.”
“You think so? Looks like she and her funny little band of terrorists have been doing all the killing.”
“She’s doing that to get at me,” Zale said, “doing this and claiming it’s April 19. It’s a dig.”
“Goddammit, Victor, I don’t care what it is! She’s killing innocent Americans.”
“Innocent,” Zale snorted. “That’s a laugh. When have any of us ever been innocent? When we’re born, maybe, then we spend the rest of our lives getting corrupted. There is no such thing as innocent.”
Landon was looking at his partner with something like horror. “Good God, Victor. Why did those people in Minnesota and Florida and all those places have to pay? They were innocent. All these people, all this blood…”
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