Dark Heart

by James Phelan

  “That’s what we figured,” Overton said. “And there’s less onerous TSA screening here than in JFK.”

  “And here could be closer to his US contact,” Walker said.

  Overton nodded; she’d had plenty of time to think about it all and clearly had come to the same conclusions.

  “So, what happened from here?” Walker asked.

  “That’s when we were shut down,” Overton said. “Two hours after they’d landed in DC.”

  Muertos said, “But surely you can somehow get back into the tracking system and—”

  “Rach, I’m sorry, but there’s really no way to access it,” Overton said. “Homeland wiped the track. There’s no way to re-run the trace, because the nano-trace puts out a one-time code, designed so that we can track thousands—and one day potentially millions—of targets at once. Homeland ordered it wiped, and we had to comply. So it’s gone. Irretrievable. Believe me, I tried to get it back up and running—it’s gone.”

  Walker saw hope fade from Muertos. She remained silent. The French fries arrived, and the waiter topped off the wine glasses and departed again. Walker watched Overton closely. She was holding back on something. And it was beyond disappointing a friend. There was hurt there. Real pain. Something personal, and the stress of it was writ large in her mannerisms.

  “Sally . . .” Walker said. “What is it?”

  Overton looked at him over the rim of her glass.

  “Tell us,” Muertos said.

  “We had an agent ghost him from the airport for the rest of the day,” Overton said. She took a gulp of her wine. “Secret Service. A favor. That I cashed in—I asked her to do it. Off the books. It was her day off. I was going to take over the shift today. She was my subordinate—she felt she had to do it.”

  “And?” Walker asked, but he could see the answer in Overton’s demeanor: she’d lost an agent.

  “She followed Almasi and his bodyguard from their pick-up to their hotel, then to a lunch meeting, and dinner.” Overton paused, looking down at her wine glass in her hands, and said, “By the end of the night we’d lost contact. That was last night. She was due to call me every three hours at the most, and change over surveillance at five am. She hasn’t checked in for about twenty hours. She’s gone.”

  23

  “These are the latest photos of Tareq Almasi, and his bodyguard, Abu Bahar.” Overton passed Walker her phone, and there was a slight shake to her hands. “And this is Clair Hayes, my missing agent.”

  Walker swiped through the three images on her phone, back and forth and back again. Memorized the faces. Almasi was all angles, sharp nose and squinty eyes, square jaw and chin, closer to fifty than forty—he looked aristocratic, not a street thug. His muscle guy was the opposite. The camera’s watermark told Walker it was from the Homeland Security TSA automated entry point from Dulles airport in DC. It was taken front on, from the top of the shoulders up, looking directly at the camera as instructed. Bahar was an imposing brute. Flat face. Broad features. Neck thick with veins and muscle that came with steroids and heavy weightlifting. His trapezius, the muscles from his neck to his shoulder, were triangles the size of dinner plates. Buzz-cut head with a pale scar cut through the black stubble where a part might otherwise be. Dark shadow of a beard that looked like it could sand down hardwood. The final image was the official United States Secret Service photo of Agent Clair Hayes. She was young; mid-twenties. Blue eyes and blonde hair. A junior agent at the Secret Service, not long into the job and asked to do a favor on an off-books op by a senior agent to score some points. Now missing near-on twenty-four hours. Walker felt a twist in his gut. He’d been in Overton’s shoes, plenty of times. Being on the outside of it did not make it any easier. An agent was out there, either dead or detained by those two guys.

  Walker said, “Any way of tracking her?”

  “Her phone is off the grid,” Overton said. Her neck was flushed red.

  “Destroyed?” Walker asked.

  “Must be, there’s no tracking it,” Overton said. “It’s as dead as it can be.”

  “How about tracking her vehicle?”

  “She was using her personal car, which Virginia State troopers found parked under an underpass in Stafford County this afternoon.”

  “Where’s that?” Walker asked.

  “Forty-odd miles south, maybe fifteen miles beyond Quantico.”

  “What’s there?”

  “Nothing much.”

  “Any connection to your guys?”

  “Nothing we’re aware of,” Overton said. “We’ve examined the car and the scene, but there was nothing. It didn’t break down. It had plenty of gas. The tires were fine. There was no sign of an accident or struggle.”

  “Set perimeters,” Walker said. “Door-knock. Talk to potential witnesses.”

  “This is all on the way, way down-low,” Overton said. “I’ve been forced to run an off-books missing-persons case with people I know I can trust—people who are putting in their own time, and their own careers on the line if this comes out a bust. I started with three agents. Now it’s two. And me.”

  Muertos asked, “Who are the other two?”

  “Two Secret Service guys who are out there now, shaking trees, looking for their missing colleague.”

  “Names?” Walker asked.

  “Why?” Overton replied, her tone harsh, defensive.

  “In case we cross paths,” Walker said. “A name and a photo of each would be good, so I know who’s on whose side, if it comes to it.”

  Overton unclipped a cell phone from her belt, a Blackberry, her official government-issue piece rather than the prepaid generic brand she’d passed over a moment before. An off-books op that went south, fast. He pictured the possibility of Hayes tailing the Syrians, then being pulled over by a black SUV containing a couple of bent Homeland agents. They would ask her to get out of the car, and she would, exasperated about losing her quarry and too preoccupied with thoughts of disappointing her boss to notice that the two Homeland agents had a complete disregard for her ID or explanations—until it was too late, when they would subdue her and take her some place remote. Walker watched as Overton tapped and scrolled and came up with a Facebook post, which she held out so Walker and Muertos could see.

  “This is Assistant Special Agent in Charge Blake Acton.” Overton then tapped and scrolled again and held her phone out. “And this is Agent Jim Bennet.”

  Walker nodded, satisfied. “How about checking cameras leading out on the highway?”

  “We found two separate sightings from traffic cameras, neither good because we’re talking late at night, and they’re just regular digital cameras designed for traffic management, not identifying occupants of vehicles,” Overton said, putting her official phone away. “They showed Hayes following a black Lexus SUV, which she’d already called in; she called in the license plates as soon as she started the tail, plates that were stolen yesterday from a white SUV from Connecticut. So, their black SUV is probably stolen too.”

  Muertos asked, “Any idea where they got the car?”

  “We’ve got security footage that shows the black Lexus at a car park near an airport hotel, where they got the shuttle to.”

  “So, they have help on the ground,” Walker said. “Someone here knew they were coming and set it up for them. Probably some accommodation too.”

  Overton nodded. “The last image of Hayes we have was just ten miles out of town, to the south, on the second traffic camera. That’s the last known sighting, at around one am. Thirty miles later they found her car on the I-95, in Stafford County, Virginia.”

  Walker said, “A lot can happen in thirty miles of darkness.”

  Overton was silent. Muertos too. Whether they were thinking optimistic thoughts about what could happen in thirty miles of dark highway, Walker was unsure.

  “Now’s the time to put this out there,” Walker said. “Missing person. Get the media to help spread the word.”

  “I’m . . .” Overton
looked at her near-empty wine glass and fell silent.

  “You’ve long passed the point where you can protect your career,” Walker said. “If there’s any hope of finding your agent alive, you have to act fast, and be as loud and vocal about finding her as you can. You need to bring all your resources to bear. You have to own this, while there’s still something of a trail.”

  Overton nodded. She couldn’t look at Walker.

  “I’ve been in your shoes, plenty of times,” Walker said. “Running agents in foreign countries. Some of them for years, and they became friends. I’d met their families, broke bread with them, had their kids jumping all over me. And too many of them fell off the grid, at some point. Sometimes it had a happy ending. They’d show up after being taken in and questioned—and being questioned in places like Afghanistan or Libya isn’t fun for anyone—but they’d be back, and move on. Sometimes it didn’t end so well.” Walker paused, seeing Overton take it in, and then he said, “So, suck it up, Overton, and prepare for the worst—but right now, and all the way to the end, you need to do your best. Right? You have to stay on mission, all the way, and see it through to get the bad guys.”

  Overton was silent.

  “This was your call,” Walker said. “You sent Agent Hayes out on this off-books surveillance, with your prepaid phones. You planned it and executed it. It’s on you. Own it. That’s the responsibility that comes with being in a position of command.”

  Overton nodded. “Okay.”

  Walker said, “I’m not saying it’s easy.”

  “I know.”

  “But you have to stay functional, and do all you can to get your agent back.”

  “I know. I know.” Overton looked down at her clasped hands and closed her eyes and said, “Shit, I know.”

  “So,” Walker sipped at his wine. “That’s it? All you’ve got on Almasi?”

  Overton composed herself. “Yes.”

  “Okay. We’ll see where it goes overnight. You’ve got a lot of work to do to get this out there.”

  Overton nodded. “You think we can find her safe?”

  “She’s worth something to them alive; insurance. And you’re still inside the first day,” Walker said. “And that big friend of Almasi’s, Bahar? He’s hard to miss. Once you run this through the media, get Hayes’ picture out there, along with those of your two suspects? Think about it. A couple of Middle Eastern suspects listed as persons of interest in the disappearance of your all-American sweetheart Secret Service agent, that’s going to make a lot of noise. I think they’ll be forced to make a mistake, or they might reach out to make a deal. Hell, they’ve probably already made mistakes, like checking into a hotel. Night clerks usually have a TV running in the background. You might get a call straightaway from a hotel worker some place in Virginia telling you that they checked in, that they’re sleeping like babies.” Walker leaned forward and said, “You get this out there tonight, and by morning you might just have your agent back, a couple of arrests, and we all get answers.”

  24

  “You really think that?” Muertos asked Walker as they climbed into the Beetle.

  “Think what?” Walker asked. He kept his door open, pushing the car from the curb, and built up momentum along the street, about five miles per hour, then he jumped in, put the car in gear, dropped the clutch and the engine turned over.

  “That they will quickly find Almasi and Sally’s undercover agent?”

  “It’s possible.” Walker looked around the old neighborhood as he drove. “I doubt they’re far away, and the eastern seaboard is full of surveillance and police and security networks—it’s not a great place to hide.”

  “Unless you’ve got friends at Homeland who are planting fake biometrics to match fake IDs when you’re entering the country.”

  “True.”

  They drove on in silence for a few minutes, Walker working the gears and brakes as they wound out of the neighborhood.

  “Sally’s career will be over,” Muertos said, her voice heavy, as though she was just comprehending the gravity of it. “It’s all she ever wanted to do.”

  “Could be worse.”

  “Yeah, you’re right.” Muertos paused for a long beat. Thinking. Weighing up. “I think I’m less optimistic than you when it comes to finding someone who’s missing.”

  “These guys . . . If they’re in a hotel, law enforcement will catch up with them overnight. But I’m a realist. They’ll be off the grid, hunkered in a private house, or if they are in a motel or hotel it’ll be under a whole new identity, and maybe they had the keys picked up from reception by a third party so they could avoid being seen.”

  “You think they’re that paranoid.”

  “Maybe. Careful, not paranoid.”

  “Why didn’t you tell Sally that?”

  “She’d know it already.” He entered the tunnel of the I-395, headed south. Still well inside the Beltway. Fourth gear and the engine topped out doing sixty-five. The carburetor in the little air-cooled engine was designed as a governor, favoring longevity over engine speed. “But it’ll go a long way to getting to them—forcing them to panic. Maybe the Homeland contact too. Someone will make a mistake. And until we have other leads, we need to watch how much noise the media and police and federal agencies will make to find Hayes—and then we look for the mistakes.”

  “I imagine Fox News will have a field day with this.”

  “Because the suspects are Middle Eastern?”

  “Can’t you picture it? They’ll go nuts for it.”

  “Well, that certainly won’t hinder things. A Secret Service agent vanishes, abducted while working on a secret op inside the US. The airplay will be constant. No matter how high up the contact is at Homeland, it’s gonna go stratospheric.”

  “So, what do we do now?”

  “We sleep.” He kept on the I-395 heading southwest, toward Arlington.

  “Where?”

  “Hotels are generally a pretty good option when looking for a bed for the night.”

  “What if they’re looking for us—those cops from Annapolis, or the Homeland guys?”

  “They probably are.”

  “So, doesn’t that exclude hotels? You said night clerks keep TVs on . . .”

  “We’ll be smart about it. Find a motel, not a hotel. Something off the interstate. Somewhere busy but not booked out. A non-chain, where we can pay cash and not show ID. You stay in the car, I’ll get the rooms. It’ll be fine. There’s wanted, and there’s wanted. So far, we’re the former. We won’t be on any TV screens.”

  “You sound like you’ve done this plenty of times before.”

  “That I have, Muertos,” Walker said, checking his rearview mirror. “That I have.”

  25

  The motel was in Huntington, Virginia, south of DC and just outside the Capital Beltway, as though the I-495 represented a big physical ring around DC and that while outside of that, Walker felt like they were less likely to be seen. In practical terms it meant that they had a little more room to maneuver; they could get on the Beltway inside a minute and be headed any which way, including further south, to check out the last known location of Agent Hayes. He pulled up the Beetle in the car park, shielded from view of the reception office by a van. Walker left Muertos in the car with the engine running and headed for the dimly lit reception.

  The motel was made of orange brick and had a dark tiled roof, single story, twenty-eight rooms arranged in an L-shape with a car park in the negative space. Walker booked two rooms, paid a hundred and forty cash, which he figured was cheap for DC, but also covered a decent tip for the night clerk who didn’t record their details and didn’t put the cash in the drawer. The clerk gave him two keys, rooms 13 and 14, and two photocopied discount vouchers for breakfast at a diner down the road. Walker parked the car in front of room 13, stalled the engine and passed Muertos a room key.

  Muertos said, “So . . .”

  “Meet here at seven am,” Walker said.

  �
�Okay. Then?”

  “Then we grab breakfast, check in with Overton and see where we’re at. Maybe grab some new clothes.”

  “New . . . Oh, right. Shit, our bags . . .”

  “Are back in the rental, in Annapolis.”

  “Okay. Seven am.”

  He waited for Muertos to enter and close her door, then he headed for room 14. The bright white energy-saving bulbs overhead threw stark shadows. Brick walls and built-in timber furniture from the seventies reminded Walker of many other such owner-operated motels across the United States. The double mattress was covered in a pastel quilt. Two flimsy timber chairs were arranged around a small table. Walker set the shower on and while he waited for it to steam he checked his phone and emails. Nothing. Before placing a call, he put the television on to block out any chance of his words traveling through to Muertos next door.

  It was just after ten pm. He called Somerville’s cell number, and the call was answered almost straightaway.

  “Walker, I see you’ve entered another shit storm,” Somerville said by way of greeting.

  “Who’s saying what?”

  “Homeland reached out to us two hours ago, asking questions about you,” Somerville said. “They’re looking for you. They’ve got you ID’d at a house in Annapolis, where apparently you spooked and shot at a CIA agent. That sound familiar?”

  “He pulled the gun; them’s the rules.”

  “You know I really don’t care about what they have to say,” Somerville said. “Thing is, they want to question you—and I have to report any contact you make.”

  “But you really don’t care about what they have to say.”

  “Not in the least,” Somerville said. “But this is Homeland, right? This cell phone I’m on is encrypted, so they can’t listen in, but they can get the metadata from it.”

  “I’ll trash this phone and call you on a new one tomorrow.”

  “Right. So, where are things at?”

  Walker gave her a rundown of the conversation with the Secret Service agent, and the APB that would be going out any moment on the missing agent. And then he shared his observations of Muertos.