by Mike Lawson
Bradford was silent as he thought all this over. “Okay, John, but you have to find out what DeMarco knows and if anyone’s helping him.”
“Yes, sir.”
32
Claire and Alice were already in the briefing room when the three men entered. The men were all in their late twenties, with short hair and flat bellies, and were harder than slabs of granite—and Claire noticed the look Alice gave them as they took seats facing the projection screens at the front of the room. Claire rarely thought about the sex lives of her personnel, but she’d always suspected that Alice was a lesbian. Apparently not.
As soon as the men were seated, Claire tapped a keyboard and two photographs of DeMarco appeared on the screen. One photo was his driver’s license photo. The other was the one on his Congressional ID badge.
“Your job tonight,” Claire said, “will be to protect this man. For this op, his code name is White, as in white knight. White is meeting a man tonight and we believe this man will have a team with him and they may try to kill White or snatch him during the meeting. We don’t know for sure, but that’s a possibility we have to be prepared for.”
A photo of Special Agent David Hopper appeared on the screen. “This is the man White is meeting. His code name is Black.”
Most of Claire’s agents specialized in surveillance and intelligence acquisition. The three agents she was speaking to performed those functions, too, but they had been picked for this mission because they were all ex-military and all had recent combat experience—meaning killing experience. Because Claire suspected that Russo and Hansen had been killed by soldiers from Fort Myer, she had to be prepared for something similar tonight and therefore she needed comparable talent—talent just as lethal as the tomb guards.
“Gentlemen,” Claire said, “this meeting tonight is tied to an operation that is classified so far over your heads that I can’t give you even an inkling as to what’s involved. All you need to know is that this op is so sensitive and so vital to national security that we can’t involve the FBI or any other law enforcement agency. We can’t afford any leaks, so this op is being handled totally in house. Do you understand?”
“Yes, ma’am,” the agents said in unison.
“Alice,” Claire said, “will have tactical control of the op in the field. I’ll be here at Fort Meade providing technical support.” Claire paused then and looked each man in the eyes. “Now listen closely. Even though Alice will be in charge, you’ll be allowed to use your discretion regarding actions necessary to protect White. The problem, obviously, is if the opposition plans to kill White there may not be time for you to get permission from Alice to take them out. What this means is that you are authorized to remove any deadly threat to White without obtaining Alice’s prior approval. Are we clear?”
“Yes, ma’am,” the agents said, realizing they’d just been told that they had license to kill, just like James-effing-Bond.
“Okay,” Claire said. “Alice, it’s all yours.”
As Alice walked to the front of the briefing room, a map appeared on one screen and a satellite surveillance photo of the rendezvous site appeared on another screen.
“The meeting between Black and White,” Alice said, “will take place at midnight on a baseball field at Tuckahoe Park in Falls Church, Virginia.”
When DeMarco spoke to Hopper, Hopper had tried to delay giving DeMarco a time and a place for their meeting. Hopper’s excuse was that he couldn’t be sure when he’d be available and would call DeMarco later—at the last moment—to identify the meeting place. But DeMarco, following instructions he’d been given by Dillon, refused to go along with that and insisted that Hopper identify the rendezvous spot in advance.
Alice shined a laser point at the map. “Tuckahoe Park is enclosed by the Lee Highway on the south, Sycamore Street on the east, 26th Street on the north, and Tuckahoe Elementary School on the west. The baseball field is here, adjacent to the park, and the location was most likely chosen by Black because a hit team can hide in these woods, on top of these buildings at the elementary school, or across 26th Street at the Bishop Connelly School behind this long hedge. The ball field cannot be seen by vehicles traveling on the Lee Highway because of the woods, and the field is in a slight depression and therefore cannot be easily seen from Sycamore Street. You can, however, see the field from 26th Street, but this street is not heavily traveled at night because its primary purpose is to provide access to the elementary school. Any questions on the geography?”
The agents shook their heads.
“We expect,” Alice said, “that opposition will most likely be using weapons with sound suppressors and night-vision scopes. You will be similarly equipped.”
Pointing at the three agents in turn, Alice said, “You’re Alpha. You’re Bravo. You’re Charlie. Alpha, you’ll be going to the rendezvous site as soon as this briefing is concluded. Your primary job is to protect White from Black and you’ll take up a position near these bleachers. There’s a mound of sod there—they’re resodding the outfield—and the mound will make it more difficult for someone to see you from the woods, which is the most likely position for a sniper.
“Bravo and Charlie, at the start of the operation you’ll be with me. I already have people watching the park. I assigned them as soon as Black identified the rendezvous site. We expect that the opposition will move in some time before the meeting, most likely two or three hours before. My spotters are located here, here, here, and here,” Alice said, using the laser pointer again. “I will be stationed here. My spotters and I will have night-vision binoculars and thermal imaging equipment and we’ll see the opposition when they arrive. As soon as they take up their positions, you will move in behind them, close enough to take them out if necessary. Do you understand?”
Bravo and Charlie nodded.
“Gentlemen,” Claire said, “there’s something you need to understand. The opposition will have men just as capable as you are. Do not underestimate them in any way.”
Claire couldn’t tell the agents that they were going up against the sentinels from the Third Infantry Regiment. That was information that Dillon didn’t want anyone else to know. But it was important for these agents to understand how lethal their opponents were. This was going to be like pitting two boxers against each other that were perfectly matched in every way: size, reach, conditioning, and experience. The advantage Claire had was that the other side didn’t know the NSA was involved.
At least she hoped they didn’t.
“This vest,” Alice said, “will stop anything smaller than a fifty-caliber round.”
DeMarco didn’t know what to say to that. Gee, thanks didn’t seem right. He just tugged on the straps to tighten the vest.
“And you’ll be wired and you’ll have an ear bud,” Alice said.
“A what?”
“You’ll be wired so we’ll be able to hear whatever you and Hopper say to each other, and you’ll have a nearly invisible communication device in your ear so you’ll be able to take orders.”
“Who’ll be giving the orders?” DeMarco said.
“It doesn’t matter. You just need to know that whoever’s talking to you is a person you better obey. If you want to live.”
Alice was a bundle of joy.
She turned to leave the room, but before she did she said, “Wait here. Someone will be here in a minute to hook up the com gear. And then Dillon wants to talk to you.”
Dillon?
Alice, DeMarco thought, you just fucked up. Dillon had to be Richard Burton, the white-haired man with the expensive clothes. Yeah, the slick son of a bitch looked like a Dillon.
A young guy who could have worked for the Geek Squad at Best Buy came into the room next. He told DeMarco to remove his belt and gave him another belt; then he stuck an American flag lapel pin onto DeMarco’s jacket. Lastly, he jammed a little clear plastic thing-amajig into DeMarco’s left ear and made sure all the stuff worked.
Two minutes after the geek finis
hed, the old man walked into the room. Once again he was dressed immaculately and, just as he’d been the first time DeMarco had seen him, he seemed completely relaxed and appeared to be enjoying himself tremendously.
“Are you all set, Joe?” Dillon asked.
“Yeah.”
“Good.” Dillon handed a piece of paper to DeMarco. “Here’s what you’ll say when you meet Hopper. You don’t have to say all that verbatim, just use it for guidance.”
DeMarco looked at what was written on the paper. “I’m not saying this,” he said.
“You’re not saying what?”
“I’m not going to say I want money from these guys to stay quiet.”
“Why not? You need to give Hopper some reason why you’re pursuing the case and why you haven’t talked to the authorities about what you know. A payoff is a plausible reason.”
“Yeah, well, you think of another plausible reason,” DeMarco said, “because I’m not gonna let you assholes record me asking for a bribe. All the rest of this stuff, I’ll say, but not that.”
Dillon nodded his head as if DeMarco’s demand was reasonable but then he said, “The phone call you received from Afghanistan the other night. We analyzed the transmission again, and it appears the person who called you was a CIA agent named Angela DeCapria—your girlfriend, like you said.”
“So what?” DeMarco said, not liking where this conversation was going.
“Well, Joe, I don’t know if you know this but Ms. DeCapria’s in an extremely vulnerable position right now. She’s on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border near Kandahar posing as an aide worker for an NGO.”
“How the hell do you know where she is and what she’s doing?” DeMarco said.
“I think you’ll agree that’s a rather silly question, Joe, when you think about what the NSA does.”
“Then what’s your point? Are you threatening to reveal what she’s doing over there if I don’t do what you say?”
“Of course not, Joe. I’d never do that. But as I told you, Charles Bradford is chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and he could find her just as easily as I did. And then, if Bradford so desired, a mistake could be made; someone might tell the wrong person that Ms. DeCapria isn’t who she claims to be.”
Bullshit. He was threatening Angela.
“Listen to me, Dillon,” DeMarco said, and Dillon’s right eyebrow elevated in surprise.
“How do you know my name?” Dillon said.
DeMarco saw no reason to tell him that Alice had let it slip. Instead he said, “You’re not the only guy who can find things out. I know your name and I know where you live. And if anything happens to Angela DeCapria, I’ll kill you, Dillon, and that’s a promise.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Dillon said, but there was a smile tugging at the corner of his lips. DeMarco could tell Dillon considered it more likely he’d be struck by a meteorite than killed by DeMarco.
“Now back to the script,” Dillon said. “Are you clear on what you need to say?”
“Yeah,” DeMarco said. “I’m clear.”
33
Dillon was worried.
He was sitting with Claire in the operations room at Fort Meade. Four of Claire’s technicians were in the room as well, poised in front of monitors, wearing headsets. There was a satellite image of the rendezvous site on one large plasma screen. On another screen was a computer-generated map of the rendezvous site, and data from the satellite and information provided by Alice’s spotters were being continuously added to the map so that Dillon would have real-time information regarding the locations of all the players. Blinking green lights on the map showed the location of Alice and her spotters; red lights showed the location of the three agents assigned to protect DeMarco; yellow lights were being reserved for the opposition. A solitary blinking blue light was DeMarco.
Although he was thirty-five miles from Tuckahoe Park in Falls Church, Dillon was the wizard behind the curtain. He could control the satellite overhead; he could direct the actions of all his people. He could hear everything Alice said to her team and everything they said to her, and he would be able to hear everything Hopper said to DeMarco. Yet in spite of all the marvelous technology at his fingertips and all the clever people helping him, Dillon was worried.
Dillon dealt in worst-case scenarios. One such scenario was that the man who had directed the operation that killed Paul Russo would bring in a team—probably more sentinels from Fort Myer—and his team would either kill or kidnap DeMarco during his meeting with Hopper. But no team had shown up and the meeting was scheduled to begin in fifteen minutes. Which brought Dillon to the most worrisome worst-case scenario: maybe the opposition team had shown up. Maybe they had infiltrated the rendezvous site and Alice’s people hadn’t seen them. That seemed impossible, but …
“Alice,” Dillon said into his mike, “tell DeMarco to go stand on the pitcher’s mound.”
Roger that.
Dillon was hoping that when DeMarco took up his position on the pitcher’s mound that the opposition team would give themselves away—assuming there was an opposition team. Alice immediately transmitted his order.
DeMarco, go to the pitcher’s mound. Alpha, White is moving into position.
Alpha was the agent hidden near the bleachers at the ball field, the man assigned to protect DeMarco from Hopper if necessary. He and the other two agents could only hear Alice; they were not able to hear Dillon nor would they be able to hear DeMarco talking to Hopper. The original plan had been to wait until the opposition team was in place, and then send Bravo and Charlie into the woods, placing them in positions where they could neutralize the opposition if needed—but again, there appeared to be no opposition.
“Alice,” Dillon said, “send Bravo and Charlie into the woods now. Have them search for intruders.”
Roger that.
“There are no intruders,” Claire said.
Dillon ignored Claire’s comment. “Alice, if they find no intruders, position Bravo and Charlie where they have the widest field of vision.”
Roger that.
Dillon watched as two red lights and a single blue light changed position on the electronic map. Via the satellite, he could also see DeMarco walking slowly across the ball field but, because it was night and the ball field was only dimly lit from nearby streetlights, DeMarco was just a dark moving form.
Thirty minutes passed. Hopper was now fifteen minutes late. Bravo and Charlie had found no intruders in the woods. Dillon was beginning to think that Hopper had decided not to make the meeting.
A Mercedes sedan has just parked on Sycamore Street.
That had been one of Alice’s spotters speaking.
A man is exiting the Mercedes. It’s Black.
Hopper had arrived.
Black is approaching White.
Dillon glanced at the satellite image and watched a dark image of Hopper striding across the baseball field toward DeMarco.
Thirty seconds later: A Cadillac SUV has pulled into the parking lot of the Bishop Connelly School.
Dillon looked at the map. DeMarco wouldn’t be able to see the SUV. It was hidden by the long hedge running along the perimeter of the Bishop Connelly School.
The man in the Cadillac SUV just put on a headset.
The man in the Cadillac had to be with Hopper but Dillon wouldn’t know if he was the one who had directed Russo’s execution until he heard the man’s voice.
All personnel, listen up.
It was Alice speaking.
The man in the SUV is opposition. His code name is Cadillac. Bravo, Charlie? Can you see Cadillac’s vehicle? It’s behind the hedge on 26th Street.
This is Bravo. Negative.
This is Charlie. Negative.
Even though the agents had night vision equipment, the hedge was apparently blocking their view of the Cadillac SUV. This wasn’t good. Alice had expected the opposition to use the woods on the south side of the ball field for cover and not the hedge across the street from the field, and s
he’d positioned Bravo and Charlie in the woods. Alice had guessed wrong.
One of Alice’s spotters said: Cadillac is exiting his vehicle. He’s removing something from the rear seat of his vehicle.
Alice immediately asked, What did he take from the vehicle? Cannot identify. Cadillac is on the ground. Cadillac is belly-crawling toward the hedge. Cadillac is taking up a position at the east end of the hedge.
The satellite image of Cadillac crawling was barely visible. It looked like a shadow slithering across the ground. Then suddenly the plasma screen showing the satellite image went completely black.
“What the hell’s going on?” Claire said.
“We’ve lost the satellite,” one of the techs said.
“Why? What happened?”
“I think it’s because …”
Claire didn’t need to hear geek babble. “Get it back! Now! We’re blind!”
Bravo, Charlie. Can you see Cadillac? He’s in a prone position at the east end of the hedge.
It was Alice speaking.
This is Bravo. I can see his head.
This is Charlie. I have him too.
Thank God for night-vision goggles, Dillon thought.
“The satellite’s down hard,” Claire’s tech said.
DeMarco watched as Hopper approached. He was a good-looking guy, a couple inches taller than DeMarco. He was dressed casually in a lightweight jacket over a T-shirt, jeans, and running shoes—he was dressed like a man ready for action. The way he was dressed also matched the story he’d given DeMarco, which DeMarco suspected was pure bullshit.
“You’re late,” DeMarco said, when Hopper reached the pitcher’s mound.
“Kiss my ass,” Hopper said.
“And I still don’t understand why we had to meet out here in the middle of the damn night.”
DeMarco said that because he figured the complaint would be expected, but Hopper had already told him why they were meeting at this time of night. Hopper’s lie was that he was part of an FBI surveillance team watching some bad guy around the clock, and this was the only time he could break away. The park had been chosen for the rendezvous because it was close to the location of Hopper’s fictitious surveillance team. DeMarco suspected the real reason Hopper wanted to meet at midnight was that there would be less chance of anyone seeing Hopper kill him, particularly if Hopper took him into the woods near the ball field.
