PointOfHonor

by Susan Glinert Stevens

  The driver drew his own weapon and ran towards Margaret. It was a Colt Mustang .380. He ran towards Margaret and fired twice at her head. Adrenaline was surging through his limbs and his hands quivered. It was not the practiced and smooth aim of his partner in which he delivered these last two shots, and both miraculously missed their intended target—Margaret’s head.

  The first shattered her collarbone and exited into the pavement. The other hit the pavement first and ricocheted into her cheekbone. However the New Jersey Turnpike absorbed most of the bullet’s energy. Margaret suffered a broken cheekbone and all the other damage, but she would live.

  The two Chinese agents turned and ran for their car. They left the trooper for dead and continued their road trip towards the United Nations Chinese Consulate. A pool of blood was forming under Margaret’s head; the live feed from the cruiser’s camera caused the machinery of the New Jersey State Police to swing into action. The words “Officer down” rolled over the State Police Net, and a response back to the FBI’s Federal Fugitive Warrant indicated the men they were chasing were armed and dangerous. The hunt began in earnest.

  * * * *

  In the basement of the Odricks Corner house, Harvey examined the growing inventory of weapons, explosives, and electronic gadgets. It looked like they had taken down a survivalist group from atop an Idaho mountain.

  Harvey examined the Remington 700 chambered in a .300 Winchester with an obscenely long forty-power scope. It had been packed in an aluminum foam padded case. Nestled next to the power rifle were a flash deflector and a sound suppressor. He seriously doubted they were going prairie dog hunting. It looked more like a sniper outfit modeled around a perfectly legal weapon. The owner could practice at a public or private range possibly without arousing suspicion.

  A pair of Mossberg 590 shotguns with pistol grips and mounted laser sites leaned against the wall. There were several boxes of 00 buckshot, number 4 buckshot, and rifled slug; the kind of ammunition used for self-defense and not for hunting waterfowl or blasting sporting clays.

  An impressive array of Colt, Glock, and Ruger handguns lay on the table—mostly in 9 mm, .40 S&W and .45 ACP for the autoloaders, and .357 magnum for the revolvers. It was a liberal assortment of weapons chambered in .22 rimfire or .32 ACP—pocket pistols for close-in work and the heavy stuff to make sure people once hit stayed down.

  Harvey sat on a stool in the basement as the evidence team continued to catalog, tag, and photograph everything that was found. He drank the last of his coffee.

  Larry tossed an empty Diet Coke can into the garbage. It had been a long day, and the various exertions were beginning to tell. “Well, what’s our next move?”

  Harvey let a smile grace his features and stretched. “I don’t think Assistant Director Feldman wants us walking up to the White House tomorrow, do you?” Lou Feldman was the Assistant Director in charge of Domestic Terrorism, and the word had arrived the that White House was no longer on Harvey’s list.

  Larry shrugged. “They’ll get over it. We took down an illegal intelligence operation. We have a lot of evidence, and we kicked some bad guys out of town. Not too bad for a day’s work if you ask me.”

  Harvey nodded. “Yeah, but you know how it is. Every time we come close to the Chinese thing, someone from the White House calls somebody at the JEH building and we get our butts chewed.”

  “Goes with the territory,” replied Larry, “but we need to decide what to do about tomorrow. Do we press it and show up at the West Wing?”

  “The Secret Service isn’t going to like it,” continued Harvey. Not that he cared very much what the Secret Service liked or disliked.

  “They’re supposed to be cops like us. We all work for Uncle. We are supposed to be tracking down the bad guys.”

  Harvey looked around the basement and said quietly, “Even when the bad guys are running the country.” He raised an eyebrow. “Even when we report to the bad guys eventually. We take down one of the biggest Chinese agents in the country, and the NSA calls the Director. The Director calls the ADIC, and someone calls CNN to watch us make a war zone out of a neighborhood.”

  “It happens.”

  Harvey nodded again. “Okay, it happens. We know something rotten has been going down between the administration and Chinese government. Every so often, something pops up on the news like Chinese fundraisers or Buddhist monks or gardeners with big contributions.

  “Now, yesterday someone pops open one of their dead letter drops and it brings the man himself out into the open. He’s got four body guards, at least two safe houses, and weapons.” He looked at the two tables full of guns and explosives. “Lots of weapons. You ever wonder what they were going to do with forty pounds of Semtex? Or those cute little mercury fuses?

  “We wander into a middle class neighborhood and find a couple of true believers who want to shoot it out with the Hostage Rescue Team. On top of that, the Chinese Ambassador drops by for a chat at the White House and we get yelled at for doing our jobs.” He shook his head. “I don’t exactly like what’s happening.”

  “Perhaps I could suggest another alternative.”

  Both men looked up to find the ubiquitous Louis Edwards standing on the stair steps, the top of half of his face covered with shadows. In his hands, he held a large Domino pizza.

  “Pepperoni okay?” He tossed Larry a six-pack of Diet Cokes and came down the rest of the steps.

  Larry pulled one of the cans free and said, “Yeah, it sounds real good.”

  “How long have you been standing there?”

  Louis pulled up a stool. “Long enough to understand your frustration. Really, Agent Randall, you should put a little more trust in your fellow man.” He held up a hand, “Not much mind you, but a little more. For this moment, we are on the same side.”

  “Meaning?” growled Harvey.

  Louis shrugged as he flipped open the box and grabbed a pizza slice. “Meaning we might not always have the same objectives. Please have a slice before it gets cold.” He pushed the pizza box towards Harvey.

  “All right, I take it you have another brainstorm.”

  Louis smiled. “You two are after a Chinese agent inside the White House. Let’s suppose for the moment that I’m after the same fellow. At least, let’s suppose that I believe there is some sort of problem coming out of the White House.”

  They both nodded.

  “I heard you say your superiors are displeased by the progress you’ve made today.” Louis swallowed another bite and continued. “Everywhere I turn I seem to run into a Chinese connection. You chase spies inside our government, I chase something deadly in Iraq, and we come up with a Chinese connection.”

  Louis pulled an envelope from his suit coat and dropped it on the counter between them.

  “What’s that?” asked Larry.

  “A bank account number.”

  Harvey opened the envelope and read the bank name and address. “This is in the Cayman Islands.”

  Louis nodded.

  “So what?” said Larry.

  Louis smiled. “So—even the Chinese have accountants and paymasters. An intelligence resource sitting inside the administration is not a cheap commodity, and perhaps this one is smarter than Aldrich Ames. This one won’t be stupid enough to spend his money conspicuously.”

  Neither Harvey nor Larry needed to be reminded of who Aldrich Ames was—the CIA mole that sold his country out for one and half million dollars to the old KGB. How many people ended up in damp, cold cellars waiting for a bullet in the back of the head, because Ames wanted to drive a Mercedes instead of a Chevy? No one knew the count. Ames’ motivating factor had been greed, not ideology. The KGB worked off that greed to learn intelligence and cipher secrets that still haunt the halls in Langley.

  It appeared greed was working again for the Chinese. However, for greed to be a motivating factor, payment needed to come with very immediate and certain results. In an era of offshore banks, wire transfers, and Internet web sites, the pay
masters could handle transactions at the blink of an eye, sending money around the world half a dozen times before finally landing in the correct spot.

  Harvey perused the piece of paper. “I need more than a vague spook reference.”

  Louis smiled. “Of course, Agent Randall. I would never expect you to take my word on anything. That particular bank is used byGoldenrod for certain types of transactions. Payments to people.” He chuckled. “You see, even the brightest and most agile scoundrels slip up eventually. Well, he’s slipped up now. It’s a pattern we’ve observed over the years.”

  They both stared at him.

  “I see you haven’t quite made the connection.”

  “We’re not as twisted as all that,” replied Larry.

  “Of course. Well, it really is a rather trivial thing to do. We monitored the transfer of funds from a bank in Little Rock, Arkansas, to this one in the Cayman Islands. This being a weekend, the money transfers would be rather light in that direction.”

  “Why Little Rock, Arkansas?”

  Louis smiled. “Because the Indonesians own one of the banks in Little Rock. They bought it to handle large wire transfers into the United States without having to comply with all those troublesome banking regulations. And the Indonesians are owned by the Chinese Central Committee.”

  “You can prove this?” asked Harvey.

  “It depends on what you mean byprove. Would this stand up in a Federal Court with jurors and defense lawyers?” He shook his head. “No, because the means used to find this information are not—shall we say—kosher with the Bill of Rights. However, if you’re asking whether this is an accurate portrayal of the facts? Well then, yes, I can prove what I am saying.”

  “So are you saying a wire transfer came from a bank in Little Rock to a bank in the Cayman Islands?” Larry asked.

  “Last night,” answered Louis, “sometime after your encounter withGoldenrod and sometime before you found him. In fact,Goldenrod must have been immensely pleased with the information. They wired one hundred thousand dollars.”

  Louis finished his pizza. “I might add that the Chinese are not in the habit of spending one hundred thousand dollars on mediocre product. This is grade A material, which means they must be absolutely confident of the source and veracity.”

  “Okay. I have an account. I can’t do anything with it. The Caymans aren’t going to cough up information on an account because the FBI says ‘pretty please,’” Harvey snapped.

  Louis nodded.

  “And unless I have a body in hand, I can’t prove anything happened in that park last night,” continued Harvey.

  Louis nodded again.

  “But you have something else up your sleeve,” suggested Larry.

  Louis nodded a third time. He pulled a second envelope from his suit coat and dropped it on the table.

  “More riddles?” demanded Harvey.

  “Those are the phone records for this address over the last ten days. You’ll notice the highlighted entry for last night.”

  There in pale green highlighter was a phone number.

  “It connects to an ISP.”

  “I-S- what?” asked Larry.

  “Internet Service Provider,” said Harvey quickly as he stared at the phone records and the Cayman bank number.

  “Precisely. They sent the information out of the country last night. It’s really painfully simple to burgle the West these days. All you need is a PC, a scanner, and a web browser. After that, you connect to an ISP and send whatever you wish to wherever you need to. By the time you capturedGoldenrod , he’d already processed and transferred the data. Granted, it may have been encrypted and that might have taken an extra minute or so, but the point is they did it from this house last night.”

  He pointed across the room to the PC sitting with its skins pulled off. The small IDE drive was missing. Something the size of an oversized videotape cassette could be secreted in a number of places.

  “Find the hard disk and your wizards at the JEH building can tell you what was sent. If it is what I suspect, then I think I can tell you who dropped if off forGoldenrod .”

  Larry coughed on his Diet Coke. “You’ve got a suspect?”

  “I have three. You see gentlemen, it is in my interests to figure this out before Jim Harper gets back.” He kept to himself the fact that Jim Harper might have a great deal of difficulty returning from Iraq. A cancelled mission and loss of support would probably stretch young Jonas beyond certain limits. He would need to tend to that matter before the night was over.

  “What do you want in return?” asked Harvey.

  “Ah, Agent Randall, always the perceptive one.”

  Harvey grunted.

  “I wish to handle this traitor out of the glare and noise of news cameras. I prefer to handle this quietly.”

  “How quietly?” pressed Harvey.

  “I don’t think you want to know,” replied Louis.

  “We have something called the rule of law in this country,” snapped Harvey.

  “Indeed we do,” responded Louis, and then he leaned forward. “A rule of law and due process for ordinary criminals. But what about due process for all those people Aldrich Ames got killed?” he spat. “Ever think about that? He turned over every network we had in Eastern Europe. People just disappeared, and not only the people working for us, they took wives and husbands, and sons and daughters, and parents and grandparents. They took them out to fields and shot them. Or, they tortured them ’til you couldn't recognize them from hamburger.

  “I know—I watched it happen.” He paused and gathered himself. “Now, I’ve got a team in the field, and I think you’re going to find the entire classified file on the hard disk. I think you’re going to find encryption software and few other goodies. I made Harper into what he is. I made the final selections on the team. I’m not going to sit here and let somebody end up in the bottom of an Iraqi torture chamber because we have the rule of law. If I’m right, then I want him. That’s my objective.”

  “And after you’re done?” asked Larry.

  “Let that rest on my shoulders and not yours.”

  Harvey stared at the floor. It was his cell phone that interrupted his concentration. He stood up and walked to a corner. When he came back, his face was somewhat paler than before.

  “What is it?” asked Larry, sensing something was terribly wrong.

  Harvey shook his head, wishing for the nightmares to go away. “You know the Federal Fugitive Warrant we issued?”

  “On the two Chinese guys?”

  Harvey nodded. He screwed his eyes shut and said quietly, “They shot a State Trooper on the New Jersey Turnpike.”

  The air seemed to whistle through Larry’s lips as he said, “Oh, no.”

  Harvey snapped his eyes open. “Edwards.”

  Louis turned to contemplate the FBI agent. “Yes.”

  “If you’re right, you get him. But on one condition.”

  Louis waited.

  “Larry never was part of this conversation. If something goes wrong, it was between you and me.”

  Louis nodded.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  East Of Nukhayb, Iraqi Data Center

  Monday, November 17, 1997

  4:00 P.M. (+3.00 GMT)

  Harper looked over his shoulder and felt the hollowness that comes after action. Instead of the smug satisfaction in the knowledge he had devastated the Iraqi asset, he felt regret for killing and maiming so many people. He found the faces of the men cut down in the firefight on the lower level lingering on his conscience. Their surprise, then shock as Harper and company had mercilessly fired into their massed bodies. The impact of bullets on flesh, metal, and bone played tunelessly in his ears. The savage wounds inflicted by the shotgun slugs, explosives, grenades, and 5.56mm military rounds churned people into human hamburger.

  What stuck with him, though, were the three technicians. He had asked his questions about the computer systems and passwords. There had been no respon
se. They were being patriots to their country, or perhaps more frightened of the soldiers coming to rescue them. Harper revealed true terror as he dispassionately blasted two men’s kneecaps into oblivion. It had worked. Harper had attained a result necessary to complete the mission. But they were technicians—computer geeks that he could readily identify in a hundred jobs he had worked in the civilian sector. They were noncombatants. He had crossed the line again. A line he would never reveal to Lynn or his daughters. A line where the very nature of war stomped out everything he believed.

  Stillwell had expressed shock and anger at his actions. His actions were shocking. He had taken a .45 ACP Glock, held it two feet above their kneecaps, and fired a 230-grain hollow point round into their flesh. The round’s diameter doubled to almost an inch. Blood and bone splattered into the air, covering both Harper and his victims with gore. At the time, Harper had felt nothing. Instead, he was the coldly, calculated warrior dealing with a quickly deteriorating situation.

  Maybe Stillwell was right. Maybe he was a monster. The mission was coming apart with the arrival of the Iraqis. Had he placed them in harm’s way? No, the Iraqis arrived via helicopter, not truck. They came by air and through the southern no-fly zone. That took planning and preparation. The trickle of fear dripped down the back of his neck. Had they been expected? Were his worst fears true?

  Behind them, the smoke from the Data Center rose like an angry fist into the air. It was still boiling black smoke, which meant the plastic and silicone parts were starting to burn hard. The fumes were probably not toxic, but they could make the toughest soldier look for his barf bag.

  They were some four hundred meters on the other side of the Data Center, away from the Iraqi go team. The communication links, machines, technicians, and power supplies were all out of commission. The data tapes were sitting in a canvas sack next to Hayes’s feet. He had the information. All he needed were some HP-9000s on which to bring it up.

  He took a drink from his canteen. The sweat was stinging his eyes, and his uniform clung to his body. Darkness would come in about four hours. There was too much time for the bad guys to get their act together and begin a systematic search, besides, Anderson was still sitting under his camouflage blanket at ground zero.