by Randy Singer
“I love you, too,” said Landon.
Three minutes later, Kerri was back for her cell phone. Her footsteps fell heavy when she was frustrated with herself, and it woke Simba up. He barked wildly until Landon shut him up with puppy food. By then Maddie was up and claimed to have a tummyache and didn’t want to go to day care.
“We’ll see how you feel when we get there,” Landon said. Maddie pouted, her bottom lip sticking out in a look that usually melted Landon’s heart, but this morning he didn’t have time for it. Simba seemed to realize that something strange was up, so he protested by relieving himself at the front door while Landon was trying to fix Maddie’s hair. It was enough to make the pope cuss. But Landon bit his tongue—little ears were listening.
An hour later, the first stop of the morning was the doggy day care Kerri had chosen the previous day. Simba, normally rambunctious and playful, suddenly turned shy and fearful. He dug in his heels while Landon pulled him forward on the leash, sliding the little dog along on the tile. Landon finally gave up and carried Simba to the large warehouse where about thirty other dogs were already milling around. The girls taking care of the dogs were nice enough and acted happy to see Simba. But when he went through the gates and into the play area, the other dogs barked and sniffed him and generally mauled the new kid on the block. Simba tucked his tail, and it all reminded Landon too much of his first few days in jail, just trying to figure out how to survive.
“He’s scared,” Maddie said. She had begged to come with Landon and watch as they dropped Simba off.
“He’ll be okay,” Landon said cheerfully. He snatched Maddie into his arms. “Simba’s going to make all kinds of new friends.”
The second stop didn’t go much better. Maddie got real quiet and big tears formed in her eyes. Her tummyache came back with a vengeance, but Landon took her inside anyway to meet the friendly day-care workers. They showed her some of the games in a corner of the room and introduced her to a few other little girls.
“This might be a good time for you to slip out, Mr. Reed,” one of the aides suggested.
By the time Landon hit the law firm parking lot at eight thirty, he was already exhausted. The forecast called for scattered showers throughout the day, but the rain was already heavy, and the wind was whipping it sideways. The wind chill was probably below freezing. Landon parked in an out-of-the-way spot and grabbed his overcoat from the backseat. He hopped out of the car with Elias King’s briefcase, threw the overcoat on over his suit, then half jogged to the building. Though he hadn’t seen Harry McNaughten’s car in the parking lot, he was hoping for the best.
He tried the door on the right that led upstairs, but it was locked. He walked through the double glass doors of the main entrance, and a grinning Janaya greeted him.
“I see you don’t take no for an answer,” she said.
Landon wiped his feet on the welcome mat. “I worked with Mr. McNaughten last night. He told me to come in today and go upstairs, but the door is locked. He said you could unlock it for me.”
“Why don’t you have a seat and I’ll let Mr. Benedict know you’re here,” Janaya said, using her pleasant receptionist voice. She twisted her face and then flashed some dimples. “I’d love to let you upstairs, but I like my job. I’m sure Mr. Benedict will say it’s okay.”
“How about I just wait in the parking lot until Mr. McNaughten gets here,” Landon suggested. “I don’t have the same confidence in Mr. Benedict that you do.”
But Janaya was already out of her seat and heading back to the managing partner’s office. “I’m sure it will be no problem.”
Two minutes later she came back with a dour look. “I don’t think Mr. McNaughten has spoken to Mr. Benedict,” she explained. “Why don’t you have a seat and I’ll give Mr. McNaughten a call.”
Landon was beyond frustrated. Somehow, he had known this was the way it would come down. He sighed and plopped himself in a chair located against one of the lobby walls. He was no more than eight feet away from Janaya and listened as she left a message on McNaughten’s voice mail.
“I’m really sorry, but he didn’t answer. I’m sure he’ll be here soon.”
Landon stood. He felt like an idiot. “Tell you what—I’ll just wait out in the parking lot. I’ve got some things I can work on until Mr. McNaughten shows up.”
“Are you sure you don’t want something to drink?” Janaya asked. “It’s cold outside.”
“It’s cold in here.”
Half an hour later, it was raining even harder, and Harry McNaughten was still nowhere to be found. Must be nice to show up for work at nine, Landon thought, checking the clock on the dashboard.
While he was waiting, the main doors of the building opened, and a nice-looking blonde whom Landon recognized as Rachel Strach emerged with an umbrella. She had on heels, tight black pants, and an equally tight turquoise sweater with the top two buttons strategically unfastened. She held her umbrella at an angle, pushing against the wind, and scrambled to Landon’s car. He rolled down his window and the rain started blowing in.
“Hi. I’m Rachel Strach,” she said. “Mr. McNaughten called Janaya back, but she’s helping on an appellate brief right now. If you’ll follow me, I can get you settled in upstairs.”
When Landon had first seen Rachel’s glamour shot on the Internet, he had assumed that she wouldn’t look as good in real life. In his experience, women with beautiful hair, who posed for their head shots with an over-the-shoulder look and a sultry smile, were not above a little airbrushing as well. It was, he had assumed, a picture from five or ten years ago, and the real-life Rachel would not be half as stunning.
He was wrong. The picture didn’t do her justice. She had a glowing white smile, a soft Southern accent, and eyes that lit up when she talked. She immediately exuded an air of trustworthiness. Landon put himself on guard.
“Thanks,” he said. He rolled up his window and grabbed the briefcase. They shared the umbrella as they hustled back across the parking lot, though it didn’t keep either of them very dry.
Once inside, Rachel shook out the umbrella and climbed the steps in front of Landon. He kept his eyes down as he followed.
The space upstairs was nothing like he had imagined. There were offices on both sides with glass windows separating them from the large middle area. That space contained a few workstations separated by movable dividers, along with three or four filing cabinets and a few card tables with files strewn everywhere. Each of the offices and the small conference room, all visible through the glass windows, seemed to be overflowing with documents, folders, legal pads, notebooks, and law books.
“How many lawyers work up here?” he asked, looking around.
“Just Harry.”
Rachel gave Landon a quick tour, which lasted about five minutes. The last office on the left was Harry’s. The second room on the right was the conference room, which had a round table in the middle and built-in bookshelves lined with a uniform set of tan law books and a smaller set of black code books. Landon recognized them, like relics from some museum, as the Virginia Case Reporters and a hard copy of the Virginia Code. Who uses law books anymore?
“Harry doesn’t use Westlaw?” Landon asked, referring to a computer program that provided cases and statutes from all fifty states.
Rachel chuckled at the thought. “Computers are just a fad,” she said. “There’s nothing like the smell of mildew from a dusty law book.”
“Is the whole firm that way?”
“Downstairs, we’re virtually paperless,” Rachel said. “It’s like another world.”
“Yeah, they call it civilization.”
Rachel circled back past Landon to the office at the top of the steps. “Harry said you could use this office. I’ll help you clean it out.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
Rachel gave him a look. “Things are crazy downstairs right now. I could use a break.”
The pair spent the next thirty minutes moving file
s and papers and black binders and two stray sets of reading glasses out of the office. They dusted off an old desk with ink stains and water marks marring the wood and adjusted the desk chair, which squeaked when Landon sat in it. They pushed a filing cabinet into one corner and cleared off a small round table in the other. The back windows overlooked a wooded area and a pond. For a first-year associate, the space actually had some potential. Landon felt a small stab of pride. He wasn’t a lawyer just yet, but he was getting there.
By the time they had finished clearing the office, Landon had started to relax around Rachel. She liked to talk. She had a great sense of humor and didn’t take herself too seriously. She asked about Landon and his family, and Landon told her about the traumatic day-care gauntlet he had run that morning. She touched him on the arm a few times when they were talking, a natural gesture in the flow of things, nothing overly flirtatious. She didn’t seem to have any idea about Landon’s past.
“You like sports?” he asked.
“Not really,” Rachel said. “I do a little running and Pilates, but that’s about it.”
By ten o’clock, when Harry finally arrived, Rachel had gone back downstairs.
“Like what you did to the office,” Harry grunted. “You might want to put something on the walls.”
“I was hoping to have a bar license to put there soon,” Landon said. It was a hint to see if Harry had any inside information, but Harry ignored it.
“Give me a minute to settle in, and then we’ll talk about the King matter,” Harry said.
Landon’s first day at work flew by. The best part was when Harry explained that after his consultant downloaded the data from Elias’s phone and computers, they would turn the devices over to the Commonwealth’s Attorney. Landon breathed a huge sigh of relief.
“In case you didn’t notice, I don’t trust the cops,” Harry explained. “I didn’t have any intention of holding on to these things. I just wanted to make sure we got the data before the cops messed with it.”
The worst part of Landon’s day was when he and Harry went downstairs to process Landon’s paperwork. Landon waited in the reception area while Harry and Brent Benedict argued behind the two smoked-glass doors separating the reception area from the conference room. They emerged grim-faced, but apparently Harry had succeeded.
“Brent will sit down with you and go over the terms of your employment,” Harry said. “Meet me back upstairs when you’re done.”
Benedict wasn’t much for chitchat. He offered Landon a salary of $60,000. The firm would pay half of Landon’s health insurance. The idea of working off Harry’s legal fee was apparently no longer on the table—Landon was becoming a full-time employee!
“Your continuing employment is contingent on getting licensed to practice law,” Benedict said. “And even if you get your license, you’re still an at-will employee, meaning we can fire you at any time for any reason.”
“I understand,” Landon said.
The firm wasn’t exactly big on warm fuzzies, but Landon had been a football player. Freshman players at Southeastern had been required to stand on the table and sing the school fight song. They got razzed and chewed out all through camp. This was nothing by comparison.
“Brent is actually a pretty nice guy,” Rachel explained when Landon ran into her that afternoon. “But he’s military. And he tries to come across as tough the first time you meet him.”
“Mission accomplished,” Landon said.
17
BEFORE LEAVING WORK THAT DAY, Kerri Reed dialed the number for the Cipher Inc. executive offices. Through persistence and frequent references to Harry McNaughten and “my husband’s law firm, McNaughten and Clay,” she was eventually patched through directly to Sean Phoenix.
This was her moment, and she swallowed the lump in her throat. Phoenix was notoriously enigmatic. He had never granted a media interview.
“Mr. Phoenix, my name is Kerri Reed. My husband works at McNaughten and Clay, and I work for an NBC affiliate in the Norfolk market. I’m intrigued by what your company does, and I think it’s unfair that you get all this bad press. I’d like to help you tell your story. I’d like a sit-down interview. You can trust me to be fair and do my best to explain Cipher’s side of things.”
When she finished her pitch, there was an uncomfortable silence.
“You want a sit-down interview?” Sean Phoenix eventually asked.
“Yes. I know it’s your policy not to do them. But I think people need to hear from you.”
“Do you have a doctor, Ms. Reed? An ob-gyn, for example?”
The question caught Kerri off guard. “Yes,” she said tentatively.
“How would you feel if he or she decided to sit down with a reporter and talk about your intimate medical issues?”
Kerri didn’t answer. This was different, but she didn’t want to argue with the man.
“That’s what I thought,” Sean said. “Our clients would feel the same way.”
Kerri knew her request was a long shot, but the answer was still deflating. It was also patronizing, which made her even more determined.
“I wouldn’t ask about specific clients,” Kerri promised. “I just think people need to understand that Cipher Inc. plays a legitimate and critical role in the geopolitics of our day.”
“Look,” Sean said. “I appreciate your husband’s firm. They do very good work. And whether it’s genuine or not, I appreciate your concern about our company’s public image. But I don’t do interviews.”
“Okay. But if you ever change your mind, you can reach me at this number.”
///
Sean Phoenix put his headset in its cradle next to the phone and stared at the number on the screen for a few seconds. Kerri Reed was actually right. Cipher Inc. got slammed in the press on a weekly basis because people had no idea what the company did. For the first ten years of Cipher’s existence, Sean had just assumed this came with the territory. When your product is intel, you don’t do public interviews.
But lately, he had started to change his thinking. Why not apply the same tactics to his firm’s public relations that he did to its intelligence operations? The key was having the right people in the right places—people who appeared to work for someone else but whose allegiances actually ran to Cipher.
He could personally make or break the career of any journalist. If Cipher Inc. had anything, it had exposé stories about certain companies it could feed to a journalist—stories that would reveal the dark secrets of the competitors of Cipher’s clients. You want reliable anonymous sources? Cipher Inc. had them in spades.
He looked up Kerri Reed on the Web and was intrigued. He watched one of her news segments. She was good-looking and articulate. She had the “it” factor. He did a quick background search. The woman had waited two years for her boyfriend to get out of jail. Loyalty. It was a valued strand of Cipher DNA.
He had his team run a more thorough background check. Two hours later, he reviewed the complete dossier, which contained more information about Kerri Reed than even her husband knew. Sean liked the woman. She had potential.
He called her on her cell phone, a number she had not given him.
“How does this Friday sound?” he asked.
18
TWELVE YEARS EARLIER
DAMASCUS, SYRIA
SEAN PHOENIX HAD PLANNED this moment for three years. He had lived it in his mind, over and over again, carefully dissecting every detail. It was like a movie he had watched multiple times, noticing something different with every viewing.
They were celebrating the culmination of an arms deal. He had already shown his counterpart the cache of weapons, the warehouse full of AK-47s, the surface-to-air missiles, and the most sophisticated new explosives.
Like a good actor, Sean had become his character. He had grown out his hair and beard, an unkempt snarl of black that he had neither combed nor trimmed in two months. A good makeup job had changed his nose—broadened it and darkened the color, the nose
of a chronic drinker. He wore camouflage and Army boots, and his band of men all did the same, giving them the look of hard-core mercenaries. Still ugly Americans, to be sure. But they would not be recognized.
The transaction was going down in Damascus, and so the deal itself would have to wait. First they were required to gorge themselves on Mediterranean cuisine at a private meal. Falafel. Tabbouleh. Hummus. Shawarma. And always, copious amounts of arrack, a translucent, milky-white alcoholic drink as strong as whiskey.
Sean’s guest had not changed much in the past three years. He was a hairy man, loud and obnoxious. He had the same rotten teeth and stumpy neck. The same wiry beard and sunken, probing eyes. When he laughed, his features remained dark and his expression quickly returned to a scowl. He even smelled the same—the foul odor of a man who devoured garlic and spices and never bothered to shower.
And of course, he still smoked. Four cigarettes before they started dessert.
They talked through an interpreter, also a member of Sean’s team. There were four Syrians and four Americans. After attempting to talk with each other at the beginning of the meal, the dialogue quickly devolved into two separate conversations—the Syrians talking to each other in Arabic, the Americans speaking in English. The Syrians were louder, more animated, and on a few occasions erupted into intense arguments.
Sean waited until the meal was over and there was a lull in the two circles of conversation. He slid closer to his Syrian counterpart and looked at the interpreter across the table.
“Ask him if he remembers Fatinah Najar,” Sean said to the interpreter. Under the table, the Americans all placed hands on their pistols.
Even before the translation, the mention of Fatinah’s name caused a dark storm to cross the Syrian’s face. His neck tightened, and his head swiveled toward Sean, as if he were seeing him for the first time.
