Patriot Act

by James Phelan

  “Look, Lachlan, let’s start with your meeting the other night,” Hutchinson said. His eyes were blank, nothing to be read there. It’s like they were doing all the reading, taking in every move and mannerism of Fox.

  “What meeting?” Fox tried.

  “With a CIA agent,” Capel said.

  Fox looked at the agents, then over at the woman who had long ago turned her attention back to her single friends.

  “You look surprised, Lachlan,” Hutchinson said.

  “I’m a journalist,” Fox retorted, having a long sip of his beer, taking a moment to get a grip on the situation. “I don’t talk about my sources.”

  “Last I checked y’all don’t have permanent residency here,” Capel said, leaning in close. An Italian immigrant raised in Texas. By the look of him probably a hint of Kazakhstani in there somewhere too. “This isn’t fuck’n’ Deep Throat we’re talk’n’ about here. We can do this a number of ways…”

  Fox fought off a smile and stared at the guy, his eyes willing him to make a move so that he could defend himself. Hutchinson noticed the look, and Fox could sense that both these guys had done many hard yards on the beat.

  49

  THE WHITE HOUSE

  “How about the NSA Greenland station thing—do you think there is any cred in that?” Wallace asked over the phone.

  “I spoke to the NSA director, he’s had no warning come through,” McCorkell said. “I’ve got Vanzet down in the Sit Room scouring the North Atlantic Sea and airspace for a possible threat, and the Danish military base is on ready alert if we need them.”

  “What personnel have the NSA got there?”

  “Two computer technicians with a shotgun for polar bears, hunkered down in the middle of a four-month tour in a collection of snow-covered satellite radomes,” McCorkell said.

  “Is there anything there worth getting?” Wallace asked. “Sensitive info?”

  “Nothing that’s accessible,” McCorkell said. “It’s all encrypted data that transfers back through to NSA headquarters.”

  McCorkell’s internal line rang.

  “Hang on a sec, Tas,” McCorkell said as he picked up the headset.

  “McCorkell.”

  “It’s Vanzet. We got ourselves a French frigate in the North Atlantic, steaming at flank speed and headed for the Greenland coast.”

  McCorkell’s jaw dropped. It took him a few seconds to speak.

  “Say again, Admiral?”

  50

  GREENLAND

  “Ready?” Sefreid asked his team. They all nodded, Geiger waiting by the door, ready to open it to the freezing and windy elements.

  “Why we have to jump out of a perfectly good aeroplane…” Gammaldi said, white in the face.

  “Relax, the Falcon ’chute will dump you where you need to go,” Gibbs said, triple-checking her sniper rifle’s straps were secured across her chest.

  “Dump, yeah, that’s great,” Gammaldi said.

  Geiger hefted open the door, and Sefreid led the way towards the doorway into nothingness.

  “You’ll be landing on powder snow!” Sefreid yelled into Gammaldi’s ear as he launched through the open hatch.

  Powder fucking snow, Gammaldi thought as he managed to stop slipping about on the icy surface and find his footing.

  The Falcon had certainly done its job. The tri-layered honeycomb canopy was controlled the entire way down to terra firma by the GPS-guided motorised backpack. Thirty-six strands of Neolite cord were adjusted at up to six times per second. The result: a landing unaided by the user that a champion skydiver would have trouble matching.

  Sefreid came over on short cross-country skis, passing a set to Gammaldi. Unlike Sefreid’s and Gibbs’s sets, which clipped into their combat boots for a fast release into action, Gammaldi and Beasley had to don chunky commercial gear to go with their cover.

  “We’re heading three klicks east, let’s go,” Sefreid said. The team put their heads down and moved fast, heading towards the unknown.

  51

  FORT GAUCHER

  “That’s the best you can do?” Cassel said, her icy gaze piercing Danton over the video call. He knew she was capable of tearing shreds off the most seasoned of European parliamentarians. And he also knew she was a keen shot with a pistol, so thankfully she was hundreds of kilometres away.

  “The commandos are more than capable, they will get the job done,” Danton said. Then he remembered Secher. “And, as a safety net, I have sent an agent to a backup location. Christian Secher, he will make another connection for us.”

  “So long as it is more successful than his last one,” Cassel said. “It’s your operation. I expect no more failures.”

  The call ended and Danton was left watching the blank screen, his reflection staring back at him. Now he just had to get Secher’s twenty million Euros. From where?

  A smile crept over his lips as a plan formed. He could order the French bank to transfer the money back to him once he had the key. That way, he’d have the key and the money. But what of Secher? He was going to meet with a submarine … perhaps the skipper could be ordered to shoot him for treason … Yes, that would do nicely.

  52

  NEW YORK CITY

  “Capel, why don’t you wait back in the car for me, huh?” Hutchinson stared his colleague down, the agent shaking his head in annoyed compliance and heading off through the crowd.

  “All right, Fox, I’ll take you up on that offer of a beer,” Hutchinson said. He reached for his wallet but Fox waved him away.

  “I’ve got it,” Fox told him. He waved to Julian, who delivered a couple of fresh beers.

  “Cheers,” Hutchinson said, chinking bottles.

  “Cheers,” Fox concurred, weighing him up as he drank. He was clean-cut, a little shorter than himself, perhaps what he would have turned out like had he stayed in the office his entire working life.

  “I met that PI that was killed,” Fox said, presenting his bandaged forearm. “At La Guardia two nights ago. He gave me this, I gave him a broken nose.”

  “Yeah, I know,” Hutchinson said. “After running his mug in the Homeland Security database, the airport CCTV system picked up you guys leaving the terminal. He’d been tailing you and you made him?”

  Fox nodded.

  “You’re pretty alert for a journalist,” Hutchinson said. “But then you weren’t always filing news stories, were you?”

  Fox could see it was a rhetorical question, and that Hutchinson was planning on going on.

  “We picked up a couple of partial prints from the PI’s killer,” Hutchinson said. “He didn’t go quietly, strangled to death, garrotted from behind.”

  Fox took it in. Garrotted.

  “That mean something to you?” Hutchinson asked, reading Fox.

  “No, unusual method though,” Fox said, thinking back to the dead bodies in St Petersburg.

  “We’ll get him,” Hutchinson said. “In fact, we have a print match to a French national, we’re working through the diplomatic immunity crap right now, so we can pick him up for questioning.”

  Fox fought to not let anything show.

  “Look, what interests me more is the guy you met with at the Irish bar,” Hutchinson said. “Goes by a few known aliases. He give you a name?”

  “Nope.”

  “Well, at any rate, we can’t touch him—yet,” Hutchinson said, drinking his beer, looking around casually at the faces in the bar. “He started with the Agency doing straight spook work, couple of stints in Europe and drove a desk in Langley for a bit, then went off the radar about ten years ago. We think he’s a double agent.”

  53

  GREENLAND

  “I’m taking a leak,” the NSA technician said, walking out of the control room and taking a parka off the rack by the airlock exit. “You kill me while I’m gone, you’re a dead man in real life.”

  The other technician gave a gr
unt as he waited with the game paused on the computer screen.

  Through the first door, the technician zipped his parka and opened the next, dancing from foot to foot as he waited for the hydraulic steel door to open—

  He came face-to-face with the barrel of an M4 carbine. Designed to be a close-quarter assault rifle, it was much shorter than its M16 brother but lacked none of the lethality when up close.

  The technician pissed his pants as the eight soldiers in snow combat fatigues and full-faced helmets led him at gunpoint into the station.

  54

  NEW YORK CITY

  “A double agent for who?” Fox asked, putting his beer on the bar and leaning on a barstool.

  “Don’t know, it’s something that’s just come to our attention.” Hutchinson looked at the woman next to Fox and smiled. He leaned a little closer to Fox so as not to be overheard. “How was the meeting set up?”

  “That was our first and only meeting. He contacted me, and I have no way of contacting him,” Fox replied. “I received some printed material from him a few months ago, about a couple of murders in Europe that linked together. And for what it’s worth, I didn’t know he was CIA. He told me he was ex-NSA.”

  Fox could feel that Hutchinson believed him, could see he was street-smart enough to pick a lie. He gave Fox a satisfied grunt in reply.

  “What did you talk about?” Hutchinson asked.

  Fox frowned, biting his lip. Exchanging some information worked both ways, and this Hutchinson could be a good friend to have onside.

  “A couple of articles I wrote; he had some further background info for me to dig a little deeper,” Fox said, and could see Hutchinson wanted more. “It was about these murders, it ended up being several prominent Europeans over the past few months. Captains of industry, politicians. I ran a couple of pieces in the New York Times about a month back, and in a roundabout way I included some NSA intercept traffic he gave me.”

  Hutchinson nodded and wrote the information down on a small notepad.

  “That sort of thing happen much?”

  “People offering info? Yeah, occasionally. You have to be careful of who to trust, how good their info is,” Fox said. “Why’s the FBI investigating a CIA or NSA problem?”

  “Counter-intel is our turf,” Hutchinson said. He looked around the bar and saw a couple of guys on the other side, dressed casually and enjoying themselves. He gave them a wave, and they waved back.

  “They’re with me, couple of local boys,” Hutchinson said. “We’re gonna get this guy, Lachlan. I’ve got the will, and now, thanks to this PI turning up dead, the New York office has finally seen to it that I have the manpower. I just need a break.”

  “I know how you feel,” Fox said, finishing his second beer and banging the empty down on the bar. “So you think I’m your break? Gonna be watching every move I make in the hope this guy pops up again?”

  “Look, Capel is going to watch out for you, just in case,” Hutchinson said. He took a business card from his shirt pocket and passed it over. “I work between here and DC. Be sure to let me know if you are contacted again. I’m chasing this case to the bitter end, however long that may take.”

  “What do you think this is?” Fox asked, getting out a twenty and leaving it on the bar.

  “I’ve been a cop since I could walk,” Hutchinson said, turning to leave with him. “My hunch on this is that it started out as a turf war between the CIA and NSA. The CIA’s been itching for their technical capabilities since day one. And it’s getting out of hand.”

  “You seriously think the CIA would jeopardise national security to gain access to a sister agency’s assets?”

  “Yep,” Hutchinson replied.

  The DGSE agent stayed well out of sight of Fox as he emerged from the bar, and took his time in buying items he had no use for from a street vendor. He didn’t recognise the man with Fox, and with having no listening devices still active on Fox, all he could do was watch.

  The CIA agent posing as the burned-out NSA operative watched the scene with interest. He felt like a buzzard circling above prey, one that was being eaten by lions and about to be picked apart by hyenas. He didn’t have to nudge Fox any further, things were coming to a head, fast.

  He left the bar after them, no one noticing his disguise as just another lean guy in a thousand-dollar suit with a beautiful woman hanging off each arm. He had heard much of what Fox had said, reading his lips from where he was in the grill room. A useful skill that had taken him a career to perfect.

  On exiting the Four Seasons restaurant, the CIA agent watched Fox head back into the GSR headquarters, Hutchinson talking to another agent before getting into a cab. Then he saw another familiar face, walking away from a street vendor across the road, a figure watching the FBI agent and Fox while not drawing attention to himself.

  It was the face of the DGSE agent he had delivered information to almost a year ago. Information outlining the weakness of the NSA system.

  He smiled, passed his women a roll of hundreds and they peeled off onto Park Avenue. He fished into his pockets and pulled out his cell phone to place a call—and it rang in his hand. Unlisted number, but it was an unlisted cell phone that only a few senior agency staff had access to.

  “Hello?”

  “It’s me,” Boxcell said.

  “You can read minds, Director,” the agent replied. “I was about to call you.”

  “No need,” Boxcell told him, the smile evident in his enunciation. “I have good news. The mission will be successful, something has come up from the other end.”

  “Really?” the agent said, smiling to himself, relieved. “Talk about timing.”

  “You can head back to The Point to wait out the next few days, then we’ll debrief and organise your next role.”

  “Thanks,” the agent said, heading down Park Avenue. “But there’s one loose thread that I have to tie off.”

  55

  PUERTO RICO

  Secher walked for half an hour through thick jungle, the humidity almost unbearable by the time he came to the top of the hill. The thick canopy gave way to a clearing of wild grass, growing in patches between the dead remnants of what was poisoned jungle. Tall steel poles were concreted into the ground at irregular intervals, a helicopter landing obstacle. In the middle of the clearing, at the very top of the hill, was a fenced-in satellite dish atop a squat concrete-block structure.

  Taking in every detail with binoculars, Secher could clearly see the signage on the outer fence. Two warnings: MINEFIELD, and a warning of high-voltage current running through the outer fence. The minefield was a ten-metre moat of sand between the two fences, and contained ceramic anti-personnel mines. One gate led in and out, a caged-in walkway with heavy gauge steel doors. If his objective were to infiltrate at any cost, he’d blast his way through there. As his task was to enter and plant a device undetected, he had to take the discreet approach.

  Secher spent the next twenty minutes walking around the satellite relay station, staying within the cover of the jungle. He knew the station to be unmanned, but he had to be sure.

  In the six months of researching and reconnaissance trips to UKUSA bases across the world, this one had always ranked as a possible target. He knew that the response time to the station from the island’s US army base was over an hour.

  He walked up to the outer fence, taking a grappling hook and rope from his bag as he went. With the electric razor-wire topped fences, he’d have one shot at this for risk of the rope getting snared if he tried to pull it back.

  Secher faced towards where the dish was angling down, and began swinging the grapple around his head. Once the force was right, he released, the steel weight flying through the air up into the dish—and wrapping around the perforated steel bracing that angled within the dish, the grapple hooking back onto the rope. Secher walked backwards as it connected, pulling the rope taut and clear of the fences.

  Walking
backwards into the jungle, playing out the taut rope as he went, Secher climbed the nearest tall tree and tied it off, inserting a tensioner to wind the rope to its tightest.

  He now had a way in and out.

  Using a rope-scaling lock handle, he scaled the gradient of the rope while upside down, his legs crossed over the rope to hold his weight. In the heat the sixty metres he travelled had him dripping with sweat, but at least the slide back down the rope would be easy.

  Two hours later Secher sat in the rear of an open-top bus, heading back to San Juan.

  The locals were heading home, having finished their day at work, and their mood was all smiles. A kid sold bottled beer from an ice cooler and Secher settled into his second, giving his empty back to the kid.

  He looked out at the jungle rushing by but his mind was elsewhere. He might be able to get an earlier flight into the US than he’d thought. He wondered what kind of yacht he’d buy, and how much of his twenty million Euros he’d spend on it. Thought about what he’d end up doing, perhaps some exclusive private security consulting if he got bored. Yes, it was going to be good.

  56

  NEW YORK CITY

  The setting sun reflected off the glass buildings of Manhattan and shone down onto DUMBO. The Brooklyn area, Down Under Manhattan Bridge Overpass, was becoming more and more gentrified with each day, the docks and warehouses being developed intro trendy apartments and commercial precincts that spread west into the borough of Brooklyn. There was still very much a grittiness to the look and feel, with new graffiti adorning the walls every day, the locals a mix of artists and up-and-comers, everywhere a splash of colour decidedly more Little Italy and Chinatown rather than the lower East Side.