Sleeping Dogs: The Awakening

by John Wayne Falbey

  He looked out at the midmorning bleakness of a cold, wet, January day in Washington and thought about the Case murder. Was it a terrorist act? Was it simply a random act of violence? That wouldn’t be unusual for the nation’s capitol. Or was it something else entirely? The person who drove the Jeep knew the answer, but who was he and where was he?

  He shook the bottle of antacid in his right hand, and then slowly unscrewed the cap. Raising it to his lips, he emptied the contents in a single gulp. Hurry, he thought, trying to speed the relief. Subconsciously, his left hand rubbed at his abdomen as if trying to reach the pain and pull it from his body.

  A soft knock came from his open door and he turned to see Jim Franconia, the CIA’s liaison to the Bureau, standing in the doorway. “You wanted to see me?” Franconia said.

  “Yeah, Jim. Come in, please. Have a seat.” Christie nodded toward the two chairs in front of his desk.

  “Does this have something to do with Harold Case’s death?” Franconia dropped into the chair. He was a shade less than six feet with close-cropped brown hair and a long, angular face. Christie had known him for several years and had worked with him in the past. He knew him to be competent, and instinctively liked the man.

  Franconia spotted the empty antacid bottle in Christie’s hand. “Things that bad?”

  Christie shook his head wearily. “It’s a long story, and not worth the telling. My wife says I’m not spending enough time with her and the kids. Says I’m ruining my health. She wants me to resign. Maybe get some cushy office job with a security company in the private sector.” He paused pensively. “She’s probably right.”

  He lowered his lanky frame into his desk chair and tossed the empty antacid bottle into the trash basket beneath his desk. “What can you tell me about Case?” he said.

  “He was considered something of a pain in the ass at the Agency, a lifer who rose to mid-senior level by convincing anyone who would listen that he was the best thing since sliced bread.”

  “Was he?”

  “Not as far as I can tell, but in the government, ass-kissing and non-stop self-promotion can do wonders for a career. You’ve seen that at the Bureau.”

  “Man, have I,” Christie said. “So what was Case doing in a limo in Georgetown at three o’clock this morning escorted by three illegals with lengthy Interpol rap sheets?”

  “You do know he was working for that dick-head senator from New York?”

  “Yeah. Nice to know his subcommittee has taxpayer money to burn.”

  “We both know that their budgets aren’t a matter of public record,” Franconia said. “Maybe you should take your wife’s advice and resign. Run for the senate. Get the cushiest office job on the planet and throw away the antacid for good.”

  “Christ! I couldn’t stand it,” said Christie. “I’d end up strangling one or more of my posturing, self-important, overpaid, underachieving fellow senators.”

  “That would be the patriotic thing,” Franconia said.

  Christie could feel his stomach beginning to burn again. He took a long, deep breath. “What was Case doing for this special subcommittee?”

  “Why? You think maybe there’s a tie between that and his murder?”

  “Hell, I don’t know, but I’m willing to look at any angle at this point.”

  Franconia leaned back in his chair and stretched his legs out in front of him, crossing his ankles. He admired the shine on his wingtips, then said, “Case had authorization to review certain records at Langley because the subcommittee’s chair is that asshole from New York, who also happens to chair the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.”

  “Any idea what was in those records?”

  “We’re looking into it now. Should know something pretty quick.”

  “You’ll let me know as soon as you learn anything?” Christie said.

  “Bank on it. In the meantime, what do you have that you can share with me?”

  Christie looked at his desktop for a long minute, then, in a tired voice, related the facts of the case that would be new to Franconia, mentioning the blood samples last.

  “Shit, Mitch, without prints, reliable eye witnesses, or any other traceable evidence, the blood work is all you’ve got. What’s the lab status on the DNA analysis?”

  “Lab is still working on it, but the report’s overdue.” Christie reached for the phone on his desk and punched a couple of buttons. His assistant answered. “Charlotte,” he said, “see if you can get the forensics lab for me. I want to talk to whoever is doing the DNA analysis from this morning’s event in Georgetown.”

  While he waited on the line, Franconia’s cell phone rang. The Agency man fished the phone out of a trouser pocket. “Franconia.” He paused to listen. “Yeah, I’m here now.”

  As Franconia was speaking to his contact, Charlotte came back on the line and connected Christie to the lab.

  “This is Christie,” he said when the call clicked through.

  The voice on the other end had a definite nasal twang. “Special Agent Christie, this is John Deutch in the forensics lab. Tom Billingsley, who works for me, spoke to you earlier this morning.”

  “Right. Whatcha got for me, John?”

  Deutch hesitated. “Well…the metabolites in the samples taken from the decedents’ wrists were badly contaminated by microorganisms in the oils and perspiration on the decedents’ skin. Basically, they’re useless.”

  “Dammit,” Christie said. “You’re telling me we’re at a dead end?”

  “Ah…not exactly…I think.”

  “Well, what then?” Christie said.

  Deutch hesitated again. “We found an additional blood spot on the jacket sleeve of one of the decedents. It’s in much better shape than the others.”

  “And it tells us what?”

  “It’s undergoing analysis right now.”

  “Estimated turnaround time?” Christie said.

  “The FRV we’re using from our LIMS gives pretty rapid profile results. The system amplifies the CODIS 13 core loci. It’s the latest iteration of PCR analysis using STRs.”

  Christie felt his blood pressure rising. “I don’t give a big rat’s ass how the fuckin’ process works, just tell me when I can expect results.”

  “A couple of hours…I think.”

  “You think? Look, it’s about ten now. I’ll expect to hear from you by noon. One o’clock at the latest.”

  He hung up, looked at Franconia, who had ended his own call, and shook his head. “Fuckin’ scientists, they’re so over-educated they can’t speak a recognizable language. How do they place orders at Starbucks?”

  Franconia smiled. “Dunno, but I just learned something that could brighten up your morning.”

  Christie leaned forward with his elbows on his desk and said, “I’m all ears.”

  8 Tysons Corner

  The brown delivery truck rolled down Wisconsin Avenue, turned west onto M Street and exited Georgetown by way of the Francis Scott Key Bridge into Arlington, Virginia. It merged with the traffic on Interstate 66, the Custis Memorial Parkway, and proceeded west. Eventually, it exited on the Leesburg Pike and drove into the commercial heart of Tysons Corner. It was a trip of about eleven miles, and took twenty-three minutes.

  The driver pulled into the vast parking area of a regional mall and found a place to stop in a mostly empty part of the lot. The other deliveryman climbed out of the cab and hurried to the back of the truck. He rolled up the tailgate, climbed in, and closed the tailgate behind him. Using a flashlight, he quickly located the deep freeze, which was in an upright position. He unhooked the straps securing it to the wall behind the cab, and opened the door to the freezer. A heavily perspiring Brendan Whelan stepped out.

  He took a deep breath and said, “Good timing. It was getting a little close in there.”

  The deliveryman walked to a corner of the truck, picked up a small suitcase and handed it to Whelan. “Clothes,” he said.

  Whelan set about changing into the contents
from the suitcase. He donned a white, long-sleeve dress shirt, solid color tie, a dark suit, and black lace-ups. As he finished dressing, there was a knock on the rear of the truck. The deliveryman rolled up the tailgate. The driver stood there, looking up at Whelan. He said, “Your ride’s here,” and tilted his head toward a black Cadillac Escalade parked behind the truck. A column of vapor from its tailpipe rose into the chilly air.

  Whelan watched as the driver’s window on the Escalade slid smoothly down. Rhee stuck an arm out and motioned for him to get in the car.

  Once he’d slid into the passenger seat and buckled his seatbelt, Rhee pointed to a small briefcase on the backseat. “You open.”

  Whelan reached over and pulled the briefcase onto his lap. Inside were several items, including an airline ticket to Tampa, Florida, with a preprinted boarding pass. Also included were a scuffed black leather wallet with two thousand dollars cash in fifty- and hundred-dollar bills and his new identification. He now was Michael F. Murkowski, a pharmaceutical rep from suburban Chicago. His ID materials included a driver’s license, credit cards, some business cards, an ATM card, and a photo of a bogus wife and two children, a boy about six and a girl about four. He stared at the photo for a long time and thought about his own Caitlin and their two boys back in Dingle, Ireland. Although he had left them little more than a day ago, thoughts of them caused a deep aching in his chest. When would he see them again? Was the mission Levell and the Society needed him for worth this disruption of the life he had built over the past twenty years?

  He replaced the photo in the wallet and pulled a short bio from the briefcase. Murkowski was a 1994 graduate of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, a Rotarian, a former member of the Illinois National Guard with service in Operation Desert Storm, and member of the parish of St. Agnes Catholic Church. The last item in the briefcase appeared to be a photocopy of a magazine article on a new drug being developed by his company. It actually was a message in a code. Whelan easily deciphered it despite the fact that he hadn’t used it in almost twenty years. It identified the remaining members of his old unit, the Sleeping Dogs, and where he could find them.

  Whelan smiled in appreciation. Levell’s people had moved very quickly. From what Levell had told him, the Society of Adam Smith was more than a group of men and women dedicated to reversing the course of America’s drift into socialism. It was a shadow organization within the government, and as such had access to virtually unlimited resources and information.

  As he sorted through the contents of the briefcase, he also found a pair of full frame, black nylon eyeglasses. The lenses had no correction. There also was a neatly trimmed fake mustache, a pair of thin leather gloves, and sunglasses. Finally, there was a phone card as well as a new smartphone.

  Levell had told him that the Society—disaffected military brass, senior members of the intelligence community and certain very wealthy individuals with strong conservative leanings—had spent years and huge sums of money developing a Voice over Internet Protocol or VoIP communications system that was untraceable and untappable, even with today’s NSA capabilities. It utilized enhanced versions of the Diffie-Hellman algorithm, which made it virtually impossible for a third party to decipher. That would require nearly infinite computing resources and an eternity of time to develop. The intelligence and law enforcement communities called such communications “going dark” in reference to the all but immeasurable space of the Internet where activity defied monitoring.

  He flashed the phone card at Rhee, who nodded. “Not use phone to call Mr. Levell. You want him, you use pay phone. Call this number.” He held up a small card with a telephone number written on it. Whelan read it and committed it to memory. Rhee then placed the card in his own mouth, chewed it up and swallowed it. “You call number, let ring three times. Hang up. He call back soon. Question?”

  Whelan, bemused, shook his head. “No.”

  He placed the cash in the wallet with the driver’s license and cards, slipping it into the front pocket of his trousers. He’d stopped carrying a wallet in a rear pocket years ago after an orthopedic physician had told him that doing so could eventually cause spinal issues. His survival—as it always had—depended on his being in the best physical shape possible. He slid the airline ticket into an inside pocket of his jacket. Using the makeup mirror on the back of the passenger side sun visor, he applied the self-adhesive moustache and adjusted the eyeglasses on his face.

  Rhee looked at him closely and nodded his approval. It was the only break in his impassivity Whelan had seen. Then Rhee shifted into drive and the Cadillac began pulling away. The truck had already left, making a U-turn and returning in the direction from which it had come.

  Rhee exited the parking area on International Drive and took it to the on-ramp for Route 267, which he followed to the entrance to Dulles International Airport. At the departure drop-off, he pulled to the curb in front of the Delta sign. “Plane leave one hour,” he said. There was no expression on his face.

  Whelan got out with his briefcase and closed the door behind him. Immediately the Cadillac pulled away. He entered the terminal and bought a Wall Street Journal. He checked his flight’s status on the bank of monitors and found his gate. A few minutes later he took the shuttle to the departure terminal.

  Once aboard the plane, he settled into his business class seat, on the aisle, as he preferred. On the long flight from Ireland, he had sat in a window seat to better shield his face from other passengers, but it had been uncomfortable for him. If necessary, it was much easier to take action from an aisle seat. And the views from 30,000-plus feet didn’t interest him.

  He politely declined the comely flight attendant’s offer of a beverage and opened his paper. Levell had trained him to focus on details in all situations. Whelan took note of her well-coifed blonde hair, excessive eye makeup and lip-gloss. Her deep cleavage was well displayed in a too-tight blouse. She wore an equally tight-fitting skirt. He wondered if she’d had cosmetic augmentation after buying the clothes or purposely bought them a size or two too small. To anyone who noticed, his attention seemed focused on the Wall Street Journal. The reality was the opposite. Whelan had scanned the currently open cockpit and cabin area when he boarded, looking for any anomalies. Now, he carefully, but quickly, sized up each of the economy class passengers who were trudging slowly past him down the aisle—height, weight, appearance, clothing, and carry-ons. It was an indelible legacy of his training and almost twenty years of living life on the run.

  Eventually, the plane filled to capacity and was cleared for departure. It began taxiing toward the runway. Whelan reflected on the cramped cargo of passengers and wondered what it was like today to fly crammed into the economy class section of a plane. He hadn’t had reason to fly much in recent years. After going to ground in Ireland, he preferred to stay there.

  The plane roared down the runway and soared easily into the cold, dry wintry air. He stared unseeingly at the newspaper and thought about the destination ahead. It had been almost two decades since he’d seen his closest friend, the Man With No Neck.

  9 J. Edgar Hoover Building

  Mitch Christie had patched MPD District Commander Williams in on the speakerphone in his office. He looked across his desk at Jim Franconia while saying, “Steve, you know this is a Bureau affair even though the incident occurred in your district. As a courtesy, though, we’ve kept you in the loop as things develop.”

  “Yeah, I ‘preciate that,” Williams said. His deep, rumbling voice was laced with sarcasm.

  “We’ll continue to keep you in the loop as long as this doesn’t escalate to a higher level of confidentiality. I trust you understand that.”

  “Yeah.”

  He looked at Franconia. “For Steve’s benefit, Jim, repeat what you just told me.”

  The Agency liaison cleared his throat and leaned forward toward the speakerphone on Christie’s desk. “We’ve got a lead on what Harold Case was working on.”

  “Let’s he
ar it,” Williams said.

  “Turns out he had one of our people in the Archives section helping him locate some old files.”

  “Let me guess,” Williams said. “This Agency person was a broad and decent looking.”

  Franconia looked at Christie and shrugged. “Yeah, right on both counts.”

  “Figures. Once he retired from the Agency, Case became one of the more infamous skirt-chasers in this town, even at his age. Go on.”

  “We’re still digging through the details, but it seems old Harold was compiling information on a project that was terminated almost two decades ago.”

  “What kind of project?” Williams said.

  Franconia hesitated for a moment and glanced at Christie, then said, “From what we’ve been able to gather so far, it looks like it was a very sensitive black ops situation. All materials relating to it were supposed to have been destroyed.”

  “Supposed to have been destroyed?” Williams said.

  “Apparently they weren’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “Either some bureaucrat balked at the idea of destroying government records—which, incidentally, may constitute a crime under certain circumstances—”

  “Hell, I know that,” Williams interrupted. “So what. You telling me that kind of shit doesn’t happen?”

  “Sure it does. The other possibility is that whoever was charged with destroying the files didn’t understand the order or was incompetent.”

  “Yeah? If so, I’m glad it was your guys and not mine.” Williams said. “So you’re telling me a gang of murderers who waylaid and assassinated three men and left another one with a permanent drool is connected to one of your black ops projects that got shit-canned twenty years ago?”

  “Maybe Case woke a sleeping dog,” Franconia said.

  “What?” Williams sounded impatient.

  “It’s an old expression,” Franconia said. “I think it’s from Chaucer—it is not good to wake a sleeping dog.”