Two beers, two entrees. Three condoms. Sam wondered whether a little pleasure might have found its way into Mark Severn’s business trip. He was single, employed, a musician, and attractive, after all, and Hungarian women were notoriously aggressive.
Maybe he died happy, she thought.
“This everything?” she asked, placing the belongings in a bag provided by the clerk.
He nodded. “Everything left,” he said.
Sam cocked her head. “Everything left?”
“Igen.” Yes. “Everything the other agent did not take.”
“Other agent?”
“Igen. From America Homelands Department. Just like you. Only man. Tall. Blue eyes. Very strong.” The clerk made fists and flexed his little clerk arms for emphasis.
Sam knew no one at Homeland matching that description. But Homeland was a giant organization. “Do you remember his name?”
“Nem.” No. “I ask don’t.” The clerk’s English wasn’t nearly as proficient as the desk sergeant’s, but Sam was following along okay.
“Did you get a look at his badge? Did it look like this one?” She flashed tin.
The clerk shrugged. “I don’t check badge. Door man check badge.”
Sam’s brow furrowed. She ran through the timeline. She was dispatched to Hungary within hours of Mark Severn’s death. By law and by convention, Homeland agents weren’t stationed abroad. And she was completely unaware of anyone else having been detached to clean up the paperwork. So it made no sense for another Homeland agent to have asked after Severn’s belongings.
And why the hell would they have flown her all the way to Hungary if there was already someone else available to take care of things? Homeland was big and slow and stupid, as far as bureaucracies went, but that would have been a new low.
She shook her head. There wasn’t any angle that made a great deal of sense to her.
She looked back at the clerk. “When was this man here?”
“Yesterday. Later. Almost dark.”
The same day Severn was killed.
“You said he took something when he left?”
“Backpack. It had papers. In a…” He searched for the English word. “File,” he said, a proud look on his face. “Big man take blue backpack with file.”
“Did he sign for it?” Sam made a writing motion with her hand.
“Of course.” The clerk produced the ledger. An unintelligible scrawl adorned the line beneath the clerk’s thumb.
“Did he say anything? Where he was going, who he was meeting?”
“Nem. He say no words. He make no smile.” The clerk donned a demonstrative scowl. “He just take backpack. He say someone else come for rest.”
Sam emerged from police headquarters into the sunlight, Mark Severn’s earthly possessions in a satchel under her arm, minus his hotel key, which she examined closely. Room 327 at the Hotel Danubius Gellért.
She hailed a cab, eyes darting behind dark sunglasses to check for any signs of a tail. Nothing out of the ordinary, but she gripped her Kimber inside her purse just the same.
The cabbie nodded wordlessly at her destination and pulled abruptly into the flow of traffic. A perfunctory honk expressed mild displeasure, and the cabbie waved a halfhearted apology.
Sam took a deep breath. She couldn’t put it off any longer. She called Tom Davenport.
It was one in the morning in DC, which explained Sam’s bleary-eyed exhaustion despite the brilliant midmorning sunshine, but Davenport sounded wide awake. “You need to get back on a plane, Sam,” Davenport said after muted pleasantries.
“I just got off a plane, Tom.”
“I’m sorry about that. This one is well above my pay grade.”
“Someone else was here already, Tom. Do you know who?”
“Someone from the US?”
“From Homeland.”
“Why would we send you to Hungary if there was already someone there?”
“The same question occurred to me. And why would he take a backpack full of files, and nothing else?”
Silence. “Sam, please come home. The deputy director was pretty adamant that you be the one to work this case.”
“What case?”
“I can’t tell you over an open line. You know that.”
“You don’t spend two thousand dollars to fly me over here just to fly me back again the same day. Tell me what’s going on, Tom.”
“You’ll get it all when you get home.”
“All of what?”
Silence.
“Why was I followed?”
Davenport was taken aback. “You think you were followed?”
“Yes. I think that because I was followed. Starting with my flight from Reagan.”
“Jesus, Sam, that sounds a little…”
“A little what, Tom?” Sam thought she might’ve sounded a bit truculent, but she didn’t care.
“I mean, are you sure you’re not overtired?”
Sam snorted. “I’m definitely overtired, Tom. But I know a goddamned tail team when I see one. Twice. This is not my first week on the job, remember.”
“So I’m told.”
“A few answers wouldn’t kill you. And they certainly wouldn’t kill me.”
“Listen, Sam, let me ask a few questions about what you just told me. Meantime, please go straight to the airport and buy a ticket home.”
“I’ve been up for two days, Tom. No chance I can get a hotel and take a nap?”
“I’m sorry, Sam. Eyes-only, priority one, credible threat, Deputy Director Farrar with his mouth and ass-cheeks clenched shut. I don’t have any latitude here.”
“Did you ask for any?”
Silence.
“Thought so.”
“You know how he is, Sam.”
“I know how you are.” Dickless yes-man, she didn’t say. She shook her head. “Can you at least tell me what case Severn was working when he died?”
“I can’t tell you over an open line.”
“No hints?”
“You know better.”
She shook her head, pursed her lips, thought a moment, looked at the hotel key.
“At least let me check out Severn’s hotel room.”
“I’m sorry, Sam.”
“Great, thanks, Tom. I’ll let you know what I find.”
“I said no, Sa—“
She hung up. “Up yours, Tom,” she said to no one as she threw her phone in her purse.
The Hotel Danubius Gellért sat on the west side of the river, the Buda side. The Szent Gellért Tér, a cobblestone lane barely wide enough for a car and a frightened bicyclist, sliced an arc around the hotel’s entrance lawn. A glassed portico, its lines reminiscent of the Roman arches that dotted the continent from a millennium before, shielded guests from frequent European rain showers.
Across the street and beyond a waist-high wall flowed the Danube, that dark, eternal, meandering causeway, witness to a million dreams, and maybe as many nightmares.
A slightly wider cobblestone lane led northwest, away from the river and up a gradually steepening hill. The buildings lining the street looked old, genteel, stately. Directly across the street from the hotel sat a street cafe with a view of the river.
Gorgeous. A universe away from DC. Sam felt an irresistible urge to stay.
“You will see the caves while you are here?” the taxi driver asked before pulling to a stop in front of the hotel portico.
“Caves?”
“Yes. Miles and miles. On the Buda side only. Hospitals, churches, bunkers, everything. All underground. Very interesting. Maybe you take a tour.”
“Maybe I’ll do that,” Sam said.
“I will drive you there,” the cabbie said.
Sam smiled at the enterprising driver. “That’s very generous of you,” she said. “But for now, would you mind waiting for me?”
The cabbie smiled and nodded. He gestured to the running meter. “Long as you like.”
Sam entered the hotel
lobby, smiled at the desk clerk, strode to the elevator, punched the up button, waited patiently, stepped in after the doors opened, pressed 3.
She disembarked on the third floor, which was nothing but guest rooms. The decor wasn’t new, but wasn’t quite overdue for an overhaul, either. The carpet featured a rich pattern in mostly burgundy, slightly faded. Wainscoting adorned the walls, dividing antiqued paint and tasteful wallpaper.
It was a nice hotel. It was probably above the government’s cost limit, which meant that Mark Severn was paying the difference out of pocket. He had probably wanted to make the most of the European trip, even if it bit into his personal budget a bit.
Sam found room 327.
Severn was ostensibly killed by a car. But the hair was standing up on the back of Sam’s neck, so she took no chances. She examined the door for signs of forced entry.
She checked the hallway for passersby, drew her weapon, and opened the door.
She charged in, gun leveled, knees flexed, covering and clearing each potential hiding spot in the small room.
Nobody home.
She repeated the procedure for the small, cramped bathroom. Same result.
The room was empty. The bed was made, ready for the next inhabitant. The linens smelled fresh.
It was as if Mark Severn had never been there.
Or the fixers had already done their business. If so, there wouldn’t be much point to what she was about to do, but she did it anyway.
Sam fished in her purse for her multi-spectral camera. It looked largely like any other digital camera, but it cost seventeen times as much, and it was bought by the government. She took a dozen photos of the empty room. Each time she snapped a photo, the camera captured visible, infrared, and ultraviolet information. The other spectra held information that visible light couldn’t communicate. The technology wasn’t without limitations, though. The information had to be processed by computer.
But she had a guy for that. She pulled the memory dongle out of the camera, clicked it into her phone, and emailed the photos to Dan Gable back at Homeland. She wasn’t expecting Dan to find much, but she felt she owed it to Mark Severn to do the job right.
Sam used the fisheye lens in the door to survey the hallway before exiting the room, then walked briskly to the stairwell entrance. She figured any surveillance team worth its salt would have someone posted in the stairwell.
She saw neither hide nor hair. The stairway was empty all the way to the ground floor, where she exited through the door and walked to the front desk.
It was manned by a middle-aged lady still hanging on to illusions of beauty. Sam asked whether she’d seen Severn recently.
“Mr. Severn,” the clerk said. “Very handsome. He was booked until Friday.” Booked came out boookt. “But the maid asked me today if he had checked out. All his belongings were gone this morning.”
“Everything?”
“Completely empty.”
“No personal effects whatsoever?”
“Nothing.”
“What time did the maid clean the room?”
The clerk shrugged. “Half eight, maybe?”
Sam nodded. “Guess his plans changed.”
She thanked the clerk and walked outside toward her waiting cab.
But she got that feeling again. The hair stood up on the back of her neck. Like she was being watched.
She looked around as she walked toward the cab.
She saw an elderly couple walking toward the sidewalk cafe, arm in arm.
There were a few people in the outdoor bistro, all of them ignoring her.
Further south were two teenage boys, laughing.
And an old man walking a ridiculously small dog.
And an operator.
Middle-aged man. Oversized suit jacket. Probably armed. Sunglasses. Tight jaw. Watching her. Evaluating her. Forced nonchalance as he glanced back at his newspaper. Made a show of looking at his watch, then turned away and began walking, as if it were time for an appointment. He walked northwest. Uphill, away from the river. Toward the metro station.
Decision time.
She was outmanned and outmaneuvered on someone else’s home turf. She had nothing going for her, and the conservative option would have been to retreat and regroup. No telling how many agents were on the surveillance team shadowing her, and no telling what they had in mind.
Sam didn’t take the conservative option.
She threw a wad of bills at the taxi driver and hustled on foot up the hill after the man in the oversized jacket.
9
David Swaringen took a deep breath. It was a big day.
His security clearance paperwork was finally finished. A messy divorce a few years back had ruined his credit. Bad credit meant you were potentially vulnerable to financial exploitation, which meant that you were a security risk. You could be tied over a barrel, forced to tell secrets. In theory, anyway, which was why it took nine months for some pencil-pusher in some dark cubicle in the guts of the National Security Agency to finally okay his clearance.
He’d just signed on the dotted line a few moments earlier. On pain of prison or death, I swear never to say anything to anyone. Ever. No matter what.
It took a lot of faith and confidence to sign a piece of paper like that. What if NSA were doing something untoward? What if they were crossing the line again? As an employee of the National Security Agency, who would he tell? Who could he tell?
Rhetorical questions, of course. There was nobody to tell, unless Swaringen wanted to go to prison. Sure, he could maybe voice concerns with his superiors. But they were all in on all the secrets. They were the foxes, charged with watching the hen house.
Was he the only one who felt nervous signing a piece of paper like that? Didn’t matter now. It was a done deal. He was fully authorized to view the details of the program to which he’d been assigned.
It was an unacknowledged program. Not even the program’s code name — Penumbra — could be spoken, except in highly secure spaces. Even mentioning the name in the wrong crowd could cause his security clearance to be revoked. They didn’t mess around, and Swaringen wasn’t sure he trusted himself not to screw something up. He hoped his paranoia would keep him out of trouble.
But there was no denying that the whole thing was über cool. It was Tom Clancy shit. Hollywood spy movies had nothing on the NSA. Electronic door locks, magnetic badges, seven-digit personal ID numbers typed into keypads on the wall. James Bond. Ethan Hunt. Jason Bourne. Just needed the exploding pen.
He was lucky, he knew, to have landed this kind of gig. He had no government service experience. He used to work in the electronics industry, on the sales team of a giant computer chip manufacturer, selling shiny objects to jaded executives. He got bored, got a Harvard MBA, met a few military officers in his public policy classes who were destined for bureaucratic greatness and were getting all of the damns and shits and hells buffed out of their vernacular before pinning on their stars.
One thing led to another. One of the military officers had experience working for the NSA. He knew of a vacancy in a fairly prime posting. Swaringen applied to be the executive assistant to Clark Barter, the NSA’s Deputy Director of Operations, and to no one’s surprise more than his own, Swaringen was offered the position.
He looked at his watch. Five a.m. Barter was an early riser, so everyone in Barter’s organization had to rise early, too.
Swaringen badged into the room. He stepped into a dark chamber full of computer monitors. Every monitor displayed a different video feed. Every video feed was an overhead view of the terrain beneath, obviously from several thousand feet up. Afghanistan? Iraq? Horn of Africa? Swaringen couldn’t make out where the footage was coming from. It seemed to cover the gamut — cities, deserts, forests, towns, mountain ranges, cars driving on highways, cars driving on dirt roads in the middle of nowhere.
“David!”
Swaringen’s back stiffened. Clark Barter’s was an intimidating presence. Swari
ngen turned to take Barter’s outstretched hand. More paw than hand. Big, rough, hirsute, with a grip like crocodile jaws. It was all Swaringen could do to keep from wincing. “Sir,” he said, with a short, respectful nod typical of subordinates greeting their betters in a military-type organization.
“Welcome to CC-Bravo,” Barter said. The CC stood for command center, Swaringen recalled.
“Honored to be here, sir,” Swaringen said.
“Cut the ass-kissing. You already got the job.”
Swaringen didn’t know how to respond.
And he wondered again what he might have gotten himself into. Maybe the NSA wasn’t the best move for a man of his temperament. He suddenly felt like the only child in a very adult world.
But it was one hell of a cool world.
Barter must have caught the look on his face. “You’ll be fine. Have a seat.” The big man motioned toward what must have been the only empty seat in the room, right next to the big executive chair that Barter himself occupied.
Swaringen sat. His body was tense. He felt self-conscious. Then he felt foolish for feeling self-conscious. He was a Harvard MBA, after all. Nothing he couldn’t handle.
“I know they read you the security riot act this morning,” Barter said in a low rumble, “but it bears repeating. You can’t breathe a word of this shit to anyone. Not your wife or your mother or your hooker or your gay lover or your dog or your goldfish. And the same goes for Congressional committees, nosy senators, staffers, journalists, and other dirtbags you’ll find poking around all the time. This program doesn’t exist.”
“Yes, sir,” Swaringen said.
“They ask you easy questions, you play dumb.”
Swaringen nodded.
“They ask you hard questions, you lie.”
Swaringen’s eyes widened involuntarily.
“I’m serious as a case of the clap,” Barter said. “Don’t say anything to anybody.”
Swaringen nodded again. “Yes, sir.”
“Good man. Welcome to the team. We’re doing God’s work. Days are long and hard, but we’re making a difference. Saving lives.”
“Yes, sir,” Swaringen said. “That’s what I signed up for.”
The Essential Sam Jameson / Peter Kittredge Box Set: SEVEN bestsellers from international sensation Lars Emmerich Page 59
