The Kill Order

by Robin Burcell

  The men in the store ran out, got into their car, and gave chase.

  He copied the plate down, asked the police to run it. They did. It came back as no record on file. He figured as much. At least he had the license of the truck Piper stole. But then, so did everyone else.

  With nothing left he could do there, he drove in the same direction he saw the vehicles take off. Not that he expected to find either. And after several unfruitful minutes, he returned to Lisette’s. “Good news and bad. She escaped and stole a truck.”

  “Any idea where she might have taken off to?”

  “As young and inexperienced as she is? I’d say California. Going back home, where she’s familiar.”

  That evening, after they’d exhausted all leads, Lisette posed the question that had been bothering Griffin the most. “How are we going to find her if we can’t use our normal contacts?”

  “The police will be searching,” Griffin said. “At least they have a physical description and the vehicle she stole.”

  “But they won’t have her name, since I doubt that her would-be kidnappers stopped to report it. What we need is a way to tap into the stolen vehicle database without anyone knowing it’s us. What if someone runs that license plate? How will we know where she is or where she abandoned the vehicle if we can’t run it ourselves if someone is monitoring our electronic moves?”

  She was right. Their best advantage was in letting the enemy think they were not aware of Piper’s connection to the stolen vehicle. “Sydney has contacts,” he said. “If anyone can get information from them on the QT, she can.”

  “This should be interesting, considering she won’t even return your calls.”

  “Any chance you can call?”

  “For Piper, yes. But at some point you’re going to have to man up and talk to her.”

  Lisette used the speakerphone feature so that Griffin could listen in. She did not, however, mention that Griffin was present, but judging from the tone of Sydney’s voice, there was no doubt in Griffin’s mind that she probably guessed.

  “What is it you want from me?”

  “Your contact at the local PD,” Lisette said. “If that vehicle’s recovered, and Piper’s in it, we need to know before it’s broadcast. Her only chance may be if we get to her first.”

  “I’ll phone Lieutenant Sanchez, then get back to you when I hear something,” she said.

  “Thanks. I appreciate it,” Lisette said. But by the time Lisette heard back from Sydney, then called Griffin to report it, it was three in the morning.

  “They found the car,” Lisette told him. “Dulles International.”

  It took a moment for him to wake up. He’d been searching for Piper straight through, and didn’t get home until a little after midnight. “Dulles?” he echoed, not quite taking it in.

  “The airport.”

  “I don’t suppose there was any indication on where she went from there?”

  “None,” Lisette replied. “But the moment her name pops up on any passenger list, they’ll find her.”

  “If we’re lucky, she hasn’t taken off yet.”

  “That long ago? She could very well be back in California by now. I have a contact at Homeland Security. He can run a check if we want to chance the electronic search.”

  “I don’t think we have a choice. Call him.”

  He leaned back against the pillows on his bed, closing his eyes, telling himself there was nothing they could do until they knew where Piper was. Even so, it did little to relax him. Surprisingly, he dozed off, though fitfully, waking again when Lisette called about a half hour later. “I just heard back from Homeland Security. The good news? There’s no record of Piper getting on any flights. The bad news? I am on my way to Italy. Apparently she put my passport to good use. She’ll be landing at Marco Polo around noon.”

  “Venice?” he asked, wondering if this operation could get any worse. “Why there?”

  “Maybe she likes spaghetti. Does it matter?”

  “How the hell could she fly there on your passport?”

  “Similar height, weight, and coloring. Slap a hat on her head to hide that god-awful hair, and shove that passport under some overworked, underpaid TSA agent?”

  “Good point. I’ll call McNiel and brief him.”

  McNiel was not happy to hear the news. “How did she get to Italy?”

  “She stole Lisette’s passport. If I had to guess, it was probably the most recent stamp.”

  McNiel gave a ragged sigh. “This couldn’t come at a worse time. They’re expecting me to give a full report in the morning on how it is we lost her to begin with.”

  “What do you want us to do?”

  “Have Lisette and Marc get on the very next flight out. If we found her this easy, then Kane will have no difficulty. In fact, we should assume he has somebody en route or will soon, and act accordingly.”

  “I’ll call Giustino to have her pulled from the flight the moment it lands.” Giustino, a carabinieri officer based out of Rome, also worked as an ATLAS agent. He would have the means to get aboard that flight before the passengers disembarked.

  “Good. But stress to Giustino that this girl needs to be off the grid. Tell him to hide her in the last place they’d look. I’m not sure how long we can protect her otherwise.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Just keep your eyes and ears open.”

  And what else could he do? Except hope that when Piper arrived in Venice, it was Giustino who met her and not someone else.

  21

  At one time Parker Bruxton Kane had been in line to run the U.S. arm of ATLAS. In fact, the idea for the organization came from him, from an elite unit he ran out of the Central Intelligence Agency. It wasn’t as broad as ATLAS, as far-reaching, because it did not have the oversight, something he’d hoped to change when he’d actually proposed the idea of ATLAS to the last president. But his smaller version was certainly efficient, and this room was the heart of his operation, the place where the most sensitive of cases took place, where the finest analysts and agents worked. The elite of the elite, they’d been with him for as long as he’d held the number two position, each one handpicked—loyal to the government, they would lie down their lives for their president—but more importantly, loyal to him. They didn’t question his needs. Every one of them had a military background, knew how to follow orders, and knew that sometimes for a job to be done right, one didn’t need to know why, only what to do.

  It was the perfect mix, and he hadn’t yet quite decided what to do with the team once he was appointed as the deputy national security adviser. Decisions on that, however, could wait. The more pressing matter was this Piper Lawrence.

  “Listen up,” he said, holding a copy of the report Ron McNiel had written for ATLAS. “This girl we are now searching for is a potential threat to national security. She was last seen at a convenience store here in D.C., and may have viewed a secure document. She may even have a copy. I want to know everything there is about her. Where she went to school. Who she hung out with. What car she drove. Everything. Understood?”

  They looked at him, and for a moment, their expressions were blank.

  “Get to it!” he yelled.

  They jumped to work, turning to their respective computers to search for the information needed.

  A half hour later, he walked in to see what progress they’d made.

  Her identification photo was on the computer screen and one of the analysts, Alan Madison, nodded toward it. “That’s her.”

  “And?”

  “Arrested on a felony grand theft charge, dropped to a misdemeanor, in addition to several misdemeanor convictions for petty theft. Aged out of the foster care system. Currently attends community college. License valid, but no vehicles. Known associates are . . .” He pressed another button, bringing up a different scre
en. “Bo Brewer, owner of the shop where the first number sighting turned up. And that’s about the extent of any official records.”

  Parker Kane walked up, eyed her photo, the dark makeup, facial piercings, and spiky black hair with pink . . . tufts? Whatever they were called, they’d sure as hell make her easy to spot, as he well knew. “Good start, but not enough. I want cell phone records, landline records. Every call she’s ever made. And once you have those numbers? I want them monitored to see what comes in or out. People do not just disappear, folks. They leave a trail, and you sure as hell better find it. This girl needs to be in a body bag before this thing turns into a national security nightmare.”

  He heard the clicking of keyboards as he started to walk out. He was late for a meeting with the president, and he was not going to let this thing ruin his appointment.

  Or the president’s campaign. Marginal presidents had a difficult enough time winning a second term. Any sort of scandal could ruin it, and there was a long year of campaigning to get through.

  He started to walk out when Madison said, “There is one other thing.”

  Kane stopped in his tracks. He hated when anyone said that. Something horrible inevitably followed. He turned, faced Madison. “I’m very late. What is it?”

  “The girl. Piper Lawrence. According to several social network pages, she seems to have a special talent. Big at parties, apparently. Kids, sex, you know how it is. We, uh, saw some videos on the Internet that backed it up.”

  “Videos? Tell me she’s giving head to some politician we don’t want elected or save it for the report.”

  “Sir. She, uh, has eidetic memory.”

  “Eidetic memory? Sex? What the hell are you talking about?”

  Madison shrugged, then moved his chair aside. “See for yourself.”

  A video of some party, the sort with kegs of beers and drunk college-age kids drinking out of red plastic cups. And there in the center of the group of drunk kids was Piper Lawrence with her black and pink hair, and someone shoving a book in front of her, while she protested. Then, under multiple drunkards chanting, “Do it! Do it!” he watched as she silently read the page of some book, handed it back, then recited the passage apparently word for word. Sex scenes from some vampire novel.

  He failed to see the importance. “So she’s read it so many times, she knows it by heart.”

  “Watch, sir.”

  He brought up another video, this one of the girl and several young men in a library. One of them pulled a book from the shelf, flashed the cover for the camera. Quantum Physics. Then he opened it to what appeared to be a random page, and handed it to her. She read it, then handed it back. This time, however, they blindfolded her before she recited what she’d read. And just in case the viewer thought it might be some joke, that it was faked, whoever put the video together had divided the frame in two, showing the page being recited so that the viewer could see.

  “Play that again.”

  Madison did.

  Kane watched the video, his thoughts racing. They’d struck out on finding the Devil’s Key in every place they possibly could have found it. South San Francisco, where that idiot’s laptop was wiped clean. They’d struck out with the FBI agents, and Mexico had been a bust.

  But as he watched this girl reciting something only a scientist could understand, he realized that there was a very real possibility that she had seen the document. She was a walking, living, breathing copy machine.

  And about to become the most hunted woman in America.

  22

  National Counterterrorism Center

  It was everything McNiel could do to keep his face neutral, his voice calm, while he was being grilled over the incident with Piper, and then, as he’d suspected and feared, about the viability of ATLAS as a working agency. The only positive sign at the moment was that Parker Kane was not present. More importantly, McNiel trusted everyone in this room. Not that it changed the seriousness of the matter.

  General Woodson shook his head. “Is there some reason we’re even discussing this like there’s some democratic vote to be taken? ATLAS has served its purpose. There’s no need to divide resources when money and manpower are already tight. This is no way to protect our national security.”

  “General Woodson is right,” Roy Santiago said. “I recommend we either dissolve it or absorb it. Or move it back to the CIA.” Had this come from anyone other than the assistant deputy director of national intelligence, McNiel might not have been as concerned. Santiago, however, was undoubtedly acting on the president’s orders.

  “ATLAS,” McNiel said, “is still a viable organization. But if you fall prey to the machinations of outside influences, then we’re all victims here.”

  “What outside influences?” Woodson asked, looking around the room. “The only fact I’m seeing is that ATLAS continues to make grave mistakes that have nearly cost this country its national security. How is it that the FBI had a copy of this thing to begin with? This girl—”

  “Has passed on no information and will not,” McNiel said. “Not as long as she is in our charge.”

  “The problem,” Woodson said, “is that you don’t have charge of her. We no longer have the luxury of hoping you can keep a tight rein on her. If she escapes again—”

  “I didn’t realize she was a prisoner,” McNiel told him.

  “She might as well be. And that’s assuming we even find her. It’s not like we can let her run around. If your operatives can’t keep her in control, what makes you think a program like witness protection can? There’s even less oversight there.”

  “Woodson is right,” Santiago said. “That is no longer a viable option.”

  “Then what do you suggest?” McNiel asked, wishing he could somehow slip his cell phone from his pocket and phone Griffin’s number, somehow warn him about what was about to occur. “That we take out a gun and put a bullet through her head?”

  “Obviously,” Woodson said, “that would be a last resort. Protective custody. Plain and simple. And under the guidance of someone who isn’t emotionally involved, because of past mistakes. The military is better equipped to handle a special case like this.”

  “Pissing match aside,” Santiago said, “the president has asked that I get to the bottom of what went wrong. How is it that one of your agents allowed her to be kidnapped? What sort of training or lack thereof is going on in your agency?”

  The beginning of the end, McNiel thought. They were going to attempt to use this case to shut down ATLAS. He only hoped they weren’t so blinded that they couldn’t see that someone on the inside was manipulating all of them. “The men who arrived showed Agent Perrault the proper identification. That tells me that we’re dealing with someone who has access to official federal documents and identification cards. She doesn’t believe they were forgeries.”

  “Are you saying two federal marshals kidnapped this girl?”

  “No, I’m saying two men with official marshal identification cards kidnapped her.”

  “And where is she now?”

  “She escaped. According to the police reports, she fled at a convenience store and then stole a car.”

  “And have you followed up on these leads? You know where she is?”

  “We have. At the moment, I can’t exactly say.”

  “But you have knowledge of where she might be?”

  “She’s safe. I can tell you that much.”

  “That’s not what I asked.”

  McNiel looked Santiago in the eye, suspecting that this line of questioning had originated from Kane. He didn’t suspect Santiago of working with him, but he was certainly being influenced by him. They all were. “Why do you want to know?”

  “In light of recent events, and those leading up to them, it’s my belief that you are no longer able to handle the duties to which you were assigned.”

 
“My unit is sound.”

  “Is it?” Santiago replied. “ATLAS is the reason this girl, or rather what she is carrying in her head, is now a national security threat. Your team had the opportunity to neutralize this threat before it even started by removing these numbers from circulation and eliminating the people responsible. Your men under your direction allowed the asset in Mexico to slip right beneath them. Then, when the code key was recovered last October, we discover a copy was made, one that you should have foreseen. And now you are telling us that you have a handle on this? That your operatives can be trusted, when they can’t even keep a twenty-year-old girl under their protection?”

  “The girl is not the threat. A mistake was made. It was corrected.”

  “However briefly,” Woodson said, “she was in custody of the enemy. We have no idea what she did or did not tell them.”

  “Enough!” Santiago said. “McNiel. If you have knowledge of this girl, I want to know now.”

  “With all due respect, sir, I can’t tell you.”

  “You’re forcing my hand, you realize that?” He took an exasperated breath, his expression one of frustration and regret. “You’ll report to General Woodson with the girl where she’ll be taken into protective custody, until such time as we deem it to be safe for her release. If you do not, then the president has ordered me to relieve you from duty.”

  McNiel had not anticipated things would happen this quickly. “My apologies, Mr. Santiago. Even so, I can’t do that. It’s a matter of safety.”

  “Then I have no choice. You will be escorted back to your building, where you will make arrangements to turn over your files on any active cases, including the current case in question.”

  McNiel knew better than to show any outward sign of anger. “So we are being shut down?”

  “Perhaps your agents will see reason if someone else is at the helm. The president needs some assurances that his trust is not misplaced.”

  “It isn’t,” McNiel said, his mind racing with how he was going to salvage this so his team could accomplish what they needed to do. He stood. “Will there be anything else?”