Skill Set

by Vernon Rush

  Isaac flicked through the pages, his eyes scanning from left to right, as he tried to take in the information as quickly as possible. He could grasp the gist of the folder’s contents. “Any closer to finding the ‘who’?” he asks.

  “Well, I can’t be absolutely sure,” he hesitated. “But it looks as though that stuff was downloaded by a computer in the Kremlin. My associate, Franklin, might have more of a firm take on it, by tomorrow. . .”

  Rose stared at the young man, waiting for him to announce that was a joke. However, Daniel remained silent and stone-faced. “What are they trying to do, ignite the Cold War again?”

  “Or start World War Three,” Daniel suggested. He examined the toes of his shoes, before the ringing of his cell phone drew his attention. He slid the cell out, and tapped the screen. “Hello ? Umm...yeah, he’s right here.” He extended the phone to Rose. “It’s for you. Some guy you asked to do some digging,” he mumbled, with a confused shrug of one shoulder.

  Isaac spoke into the phone. “Hello?” tapped“It’s just as I thought,” the voice on the other end of the line responded. “A very complete and thorough background check was carried out on Emma Soto before she was given her current post.”

  “I don’t care about that,” Isaac sighs. “I told you I want you to do it again.”

  “It’s waste of time!”

  “You don’t know that,” Rose replied. “You don’t know a Goddamned thing. And I’m telling you, something could have been missed. So dig into her life again; her family, friends, pets, where she went to pre-K. Everything you can find, understand?”

  A quiet curse word is muttered as the other end of the line goes dead. Isaac allowed himself a brief grin.

  “So, err...what are we going to do now?” Daniel wondered, as he pocketed the phone.

  “Stay here and wait for Secretary Soto to get back,” he urged. “I’m going to report back to my boss. This is all more involved than I think we imagined it would be.”

  “What about the President?” Daniel added. “Shouldn’t we tell him what’s going on?” “We’ll tell him soon enough, or someone will at any rate,” he finished with a mumble. “I don’t particularly want to be in the room when that happens.” Isaac left the office.

  It took him half an hour to get across town and back to the Tracker offices. Jennifer was surprised to see him, but buzzed him up to Foxhound’s office without question.

  Foxhound had lots of questions. “Have you been pissing of the CIA again?”

  “I’m just trying to get some help from a colleague who’d rather chase tail than do his job,” Isaac report. “How do you know about that anyway?” “I could see it coming a mile away,” Foxhound stated. “And the young agent’s superior contacted me ten minutes ago… So what have you unearthed so far?”

  Isaac recounted the events of the last two days, focusing predominantly on the previous couple of hours. As he concluded, he noticed Foxhound sitting in the same relaxed state in which he had been when the story began.

  “So you think she might be the leak?” he asked.

  “It looks that way,but we don’t have any proof.”

  “Nor do you have a motive,” Foxhound reminded him. “Short of a confession from her own mouth, I don’t see how you can categorically pin this on Emma Soto.”

  Isaac shook his head. “I’m not looking to ‘pin it’ on anyone, at least not right now. We’ve got bigger problems. Like, what’s the Russian government doing with data about the movement of our troops in the Middle East?”

  “Let me worry about that for now,” Foxhound states, suddenly sitting upright in his chair and reaching for the phone. “I’ll get someone else to investigate that end of things,” he added, pushing a button on the intercom. “Jennifer, get me Persephone.” Not waiting for a reply, he released the button. “You’ve got a good rapport with some of the people in the office and Soto knows you, maybe she’ll let her guard down.”

  “I haven’t exactly been on a charm offensive,” Isaac announced. “The woman thinks I’m a menace and can’t wait to get me out of her department.”

  “Oh,” Foxhound sighs with a dismissive wave of his hand. “That’s how I felt about you when I first met you, too.” “Funny,” Rose deadpans.

  “Keep on her,” Foxhound insisted. “She might reveal something that could help us get to the bottom of this thing.”

  CHAPTER

  7

  By the time Isaac Rose left the Trackers HQ, it was a little after seven in the evening. Heading to his car, he made a quick call to Daniel and discovered Emma Soto had not returned to the office. Apparently, she’d been asked to give a press conference the next morning. The rumors milling around the office were that the president had ‘requested’ she make a statement, taking the blame for the failings in security - although she was under strict orders to remain sketchy over what those failings entailed. And then, she was expected to fall on her sword.

  No doubt the president hoped Emma Soto carrying the can would leave his hands clean in the affair. He can deny all knowledge and make it clear as soon as he was made aware, Soto had to go.

  All of that may have the President’s problems tied up, but it made Rose’s more difficult to untangle. With Soto out of the office, he won’t be able to ‘keep on her’ like Foxhound wants.

  “How about that prick with the CIA? Has he come up with anything else?” Rose opened the driver’s door and lowered himself into the seat, speaking into his phone at the same time.

  “ I haven’t heard from him,” Daniel replied. “Someone mentioned he might have gone home.”

  “What a dick,” Isaac muttered. “All right, dude,” he said. “I don’t suppose there’s much more you can do there, so get yourself home, too.”

  “What about the press conference tomorrow? Surely, we don’t want to hand this over to the press.”

  “They’re going to get hold of it one way or another,” Rose shrugged. He placed his key in the ignition and started the engine. “Maybe they’ve already got it. If the President’s been given a heads-up, he might think it’s best to make a preemptive strike. That way, he doesn’t look like he was trying to cover something up.”

  Daniel mumbled an understanding, “Right, right,” on the other end of the line. “Still makes this whole thing much messier, though,” he pointed out.

  “Ain’t that the truth,” Rose agreed. “Listen, if you do think of anything, give me a call. Or have Frankie buzz me if you can’t take the time. But get some rest and I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “Okay,” the young computer expert responded wearily.

  Rose tossed the phone into his lap. Grabbing the steering wheel, with both hands, he backed out of his parking space before joining the busy Washington traffic.

  It was early fall and the some of the huge trees that lines the road were turning shades of amber and russet. The sun was also hanging low in the sky, prompting Rose to grab his sunglasses from the glove compartment.

  Throughout the journey home, he mulled over Daniel’s concern. He was right, blowing this thing wide open; exposing the secret to the American people and the world at large, would make it incredibly difficult to track down who is responsible. However, he knew from experience, there’s little point in trying to interfere with political decisions of this nature. If the President has decided the time is right to speak to the press, then speak to the press he will. Or rather, he’ll make Emma Soto do it.

  The drive home was uneventful and his arrival at the house uneventful. The doors were all securely locked, with no sign of anyone having been in the house and all was dark and quietHe pulled off his tie before collapsing on the couch. But he didn’t turn on the TV. In fact, he didn’t even switch on any lights. Instead, Isaac Rose simply sat in the darkness of his living room, contemplating the situation.

  Emma Soto would not be the first corrupt government official; nor would she be the first person to betray her country. Her reasons for d
oing so remained murky, though. And Rose was curious as to whether she’d planned to insert herself in the position of secretary or if she’d been approached by the would-be hackers after being appointed to the position. If it had all been preplanned, she was an extremely clever woman, because there had been no suggestion she would be given the job; it was a surprise to almost everybody and Rose guessed that included Soto herself. She may have felt more confident in her abilities than most, but she cannot have expected the President suddenly to place her in the defense department.

  The more Rose thought, the more muddle-headed he became. So far, he had a million questions and almost no answers. It was not a situation he was comfortable with. He was the kind of person who liked order, logic and sense. His black and white thinking wouldn’t allow for mysteries. And if Emma Soto was guilty of leaking information to the Kremlin, she must have a reason – and it was this, the elusive motive, that was driving Rose the most insane. As the minutes ticked past and turned into hours, exhaustion began to take hold and, eventually, Isaac’s eyes started to close.

  The next thing he was aware of is the sharp ring of his cell phone and early morning sunlight creeping through his patio doors and hitting him in the face. With a muffled groan, he instantly covered his eyes with the back of his hand while using the other to push himself from the couch. This action prompted another moan caused by the crick in his neck and back. “Damn it,” he whispered, both hands searching the pockets of his pants and jacket, before finally finding his phone.

  With a sigh of relief when he finally silenced the piercing ring, he held the cell to his ear. “Hello?” he said, his voice thick with sleep.

  “Chaos?” It was the unmistakable sound of Foxhound’s voice.

  Clearing his throat, Rose mumbled , “Yes.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Home,” Isaac replied, rubbing his eyes with the back of his free hand. “What is it, what’s the problem?”

  “I need you to get down to 20th Street Northwest,” he stated, his tone giving nothing away.

  “What? Why?”

  “Emma Soto’s apartment,” Foxhound replies. “She was found by her maid an hour ago.”

  “Found?” Isaac muttered, still not able to put two and two together in his semi-conscious state.

  “She’s dead.”

  ***

  Rose didn’t bother to shower or change his clothes before sprinting out of the house and diving into his car. Therefore, when he arrived at the Dupont Apartments building, he was still dressed in the suit he wore the day before. Except now it is tieless and wrinkled from having slept in an awkward position on his couch. The apartment block was an Edwardian-style conversion, with massive, seven foot high windows on each floor. Parked outside is a CSI van and one police patrol car. As Isaac’s car pulled to a stop, he leaped out of the vehicle, and was approached by Foxhound.

  “Took your time,” he grumbled, heading toward the heavy double doors of the building, walking ahead of Isaac.

  Rose slammed his car door and glanced at his watch, noting it had taken him less than fifteen minutes to get across town. However, he ignored the comment and focused on the matter at hand. “You’ve already been up there?”

  “Yep,” he stated, taking the three steps of the stoop at a jog and nodding at the police officer who was guarding the door.

  Rose followed behind, leaping up two of the steps in one bound. He entered the lobby, which had a wall lined with mailboxes and a desk that presumably belonged to a doorman or security guard. At the moment, it was empty.

  Stepping aside to allow two coverall-wearing investigators to pass, he noticed the high vaulted ceilings.

  “This way,” Foxhound insisted, heading for the elevators.

  Isaac slid into the modernized car by his boss’ side. “What have we got?” “Suicide,” Foxhound replied.

  “What?” Isaac blurts.

  “Yeah,” he nods. “I guess she gave us that confession after all,” he added, as the elevator doors opened.

  The front door of Emma Soto’s apartment was directly in front of them, open and had a yellow police cordon stretched out across it. Foxhound grips the flimsy plastic in his right hand and lifts it. Isaac bent at the waist, ducking beneath the cordon and entered the apartment’s living room.

  The place was a mess, couch cushions tossed onto the floor, magazines on the coffee table strewn everywhere and a decanter of Scotch smashed on the hardwood floor near the window. “Someone was looking for something,” Rose noted.

  “Or she just trashed the place in a hysterical rage,” Foxhound commented. “The rest of the apartment is pretty clean, drawers don’t look disturbed. If she was looking for something, she gave up the hunt pretty quickly.”

  “Or whoever was doing the looking found whatever it was they wanted,” Rose added. “She’s in the bedroom,” Foxhound replied, making his cautious way to a corridor.

  Isaac followed, his eyes constantly scanning in search of something else that didn’t make sense about the scene. He knew Soto was in an emotional state when she left her office, but that didn’t account for the mess in her living room. And even if she had been of a mind to trash her own home, why hadn’t she done exactly that? The place was pretty neat other than the slightly disheveled living space. If she’d been in a whirlwind of rage and frustration moving throughout the apartment, why was the destruction, such as it was, confined to just that one room? No, he was sure there was more to it than the simplistic view Foxhound had offered.

  The bedroom was pristine, too. Cream carpet without a mark on it, dresser with a clean surface, wardrobe doors closed, one bedside table with nothing but a lamp and an alarm clock, the opposite side table had a glass of water and a medicine bottle neatly standing in the center of the top.

  The bed itself was an antique four-poster with white sheets and a duvet. On top of the covers was the fully clothed, motionless figure of Emma Soto. She’s was partly on her side, her right leg fully extended top while her left leg was bent at a right angle. topOne arm was resting slackly over her abdomen, the other hand was against her cheek. Her face was turned to the left, her eyes closed and just a few strands of hair covering her face. She looked like a women who had simply climbed into bed and succumbed to Morpheus as soon as her head touched the pillow.

  Isaac turns his face to Foxhound, who was standing on one side of the bed, his back near another large window covered with a sheer drape offering some privacy. However, the thicker dark brown drapes that framed the window were still wide open.

  “We need to start looking elsewhere,” Foxhound sighed, rubbing his forehead with the tips of his fingers. “If we’re going to find out who she was working with, it’s not going to be from here.”

  “Maybe,” Rose replied. “Maybe not.”

  “Huh?”

  “Did she leave a note?” Isaac asked.

  Foxhound shook his head. “No.” “Unusual,” he mumbled in reply, his gaze returning to the lifeless figure on the bed.

  “But not unheard of,” Foxhound interjected. “She probably doesn’t want to announce to the world what she did.”

  Isaac Rose was in deep thought. “All she had to say was ‘sorry’,” he pointed out. “And if she felt that bad about what she’d done, you’d think she’d want to say that much at least.”

  “Who said she was sorry?” Foxhound asked. “Likely she just knew the shit’s about to hit the fan; her political career was trashed; she was going to jail for the rest of her life, so she was looking for a better way out.”

  Isaac offered his superior a conceding shrug. “Perhaps.” Taking a step forward, he approached the bedside table . “She didn’t drink much of this,” he said, mostly to himself, noting that no more than a mouthful or two could have been drunk from the almost-full glass.

  “You think there’s more to this?” Foxhound sighed wearily, finally relenting in his attempt to fight for the obvious explanation of the scene.

>   With a shrug, Isaac turned to face his boss. “There’s just a lot that doesn’t add up.”

  “So, you think she had some help?” Foxhound suggested.

  “I don’t know,” Rose admitted. “But my instinct says we’re not looking at the whole picture here.”

  “Okay,” Foxhound nodded. “Check it out, but don’t get in the way of the cops’ investigation.”

  “Wouldn’t dream of it,” Isaac replied. “The coroner’s ready to pick her up, so we need to clear out,” Foxhound continued, stepping toward the door.

  Isaac looked around the room, before following his boss to the door. “Can you get access to pictures from the scene?” he asked, as they both entered the hallway.

  “Sure,” Foxhound nods. “Expect them on your desk ASAP,” he added. “Oh, and in the meantime, go home and take a shower. . .”

  “Huh?” Isaac mumbled, confused.

  “You look a mess,” his superior explained. “Wash and change, and I’ll meet you back at headquarters.”

  CHAPTER

  8

  An hour later, Rose was in his small office. He was freshly showered and wearing his trusty combination of jeans and a T-shirt. The initial police report was on his desk, complete with photographs from the scene and he was flicking through them. As he examined the pictures and reads the text from the maid’s statement, he makes notes on a small pad to his right. The maid, had received a call from Emma Soto at around eight in the evening, shortly after the defense secretary got home. She had asked the maid to arrive a little earlier the next morning, to prepare breakfast. “Why would she do that?” Rose wondered. “If you’re planning to take your own life, why would she be worried about breakfast?” Was it possible the urge to kill herself came on suddenly? It was possible, but didn’t seem plausible. The other fact the maid revealed was Soto had been raised a Catholic and, apparently, still followed the faith. If that was the case, would her religious conviction have allowed her to consider taking her own life?