The Kill Order

by Robin Burcell

  “Unless you plan on changing your mind and bringing her in?”

  “I do not. Now if you’ll excuse me, gentlemen. I have to break it to my men that they’re no longer working for me. I’d like to tell them personally.” He walked out, and the moment he cleared the door, he called Griffin, and, unfortunately, got his voice mail. “That tenuous thread we’re operating on just broke.” He was just about to disconnect, when he heard footsteps behind him. He turned to see Curt Ellis, the federal police officer, approaching, and knew right away that this couldn’t be good news.

  “Director McNiel?”

  “Yes,” he said, holding the phone in hopes it would pick up Ellis’s statement. He waited.

  Ellis had the grace to look embarrassed. “I apologize, but Mr. Santiago has asked that I accompany you back to your office to stand by.”

  “Stand by for what?”

  “They, uh, intend to meet us there once they finish, to have you brief them on any open cases. I know you wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize their trust, but . . .”

  The stranglehold they now had him in was official. The way he saw it, Parker Kane was running scared, desperate to get his hands on their investigation of W2 as well as the code key Piper had seen. “Let me finish this call,” he said. “And you can follow me there.”

  “I appreciate your understanding.”

  “I’m on my way to the office,” McNiel said into the phone. “Apparently they’re going to be going through the cases now, not later. I need to make sure they have access to everything.”

  He disconnected, then holding his phone so that Ellis couldn’t see the screen, texted the combination to his safe, hoping like hell Griffin checked his voice mail and got there before he did.

  If that sketch got out, more than the girl’s life was at risk. His whole team and anyone who had knowledge of it were in danger.

  The federal police officer was behind McNiel as they pulled out of the parking garage. This was going to take some finesse. At least they hadn’t insisted on taking him into custody for contempt—probably an oversight, he thought, calling his secretary.

  No answer.

  Great. Last thing he wanted was for Parker to get his hands on the notes he’d compiled on the W2 case. Nothing like telling the enemy exactly what you knew about them, he thought, calling the reception area downstairs, and asking them to page her. Which was when he found out she had a doctor’s appointment, but was due back any moment.

  What a time for people to have a real life. When his world was falling apart. How the hell was he going to get that sketch and those files out of his safe to keep Parker from seeing it? The light at the intersection turned yellow, and as he slowed for the impending red light, he realized in that one moment, he had a choice. Change to the right lane, which was open and go through it, and hope his escort wasn’t brazen enough to follow, or be the dutiful director and do as was expected, which was let Ellis accompany him into the building. Choice? No choice. He palmed the wheel, moved to the outside lane, and without accelerating, glided through the intersection, the light turning red as he passed beneath it.

  He kept his car at a steady speed, exactly with the traffic, so as not to spook Ellis into chasing after him.

  It worked.

  If he was lucky, that bought him three minutes, he thought, making the right turn toward his office. The moment he was out of sight, he hit the gas, hoping to squeeze a few more precious seconds that might allow him to get into his safe before the federal police officer arrived to put a halt to all activities.

  He had to make some quick decisions. Griffin and Donovan were more than capable of handling matters without his leadership, he thought, surveying the parking lot of the Washington Recorder, the cover paper for ATLAS operations, noting the usual cars parked within. It would be empty soon, everyone dismissed to go home, because once he was relieved of duty, all operations would freeze. That was ATLAS protocol, a necessary one due to the sensitive nature of their business, and it would be followed. No one would be allowed in the building, but more importantly, nothing could be removed, including the sketch and files.

  It never occurred to him when the protocol was put in place that he’d be the focus of it.

  He pulled into his slot, got out, and strode into the building, running into his secretary in the lobby.

  “I just heard you called,” she said, removing her gloves as she walked with him to the elevator.

  “We have an issue,” he said, pressing the up button. The door opened, and he punched in his code to access the secure floors. “In about three to five minutes, I’m going to be relieved of duty by the Senate’s federal police officer.”

  “What do you need me to do?”

  “What you’re supposed to do. Inform the staff to follow protocol procedures. Then stall him.”

  She nodded, then stayed in the lobby, while he went up to his office. The staff on the lower floors, who wrote for the Recorder, would not be affected as much as the upper secure floors, since no one on the ground floor had access to classified material. Nor were they privy to the sensitive investigations McNiel’s team conducted, although they were more than aware of the nature of said investigations. They were, after all, his employees. But the upper floors were different. McNiel’s team and IT above him were very much involved in their casework. Should anyone try to access those computers without the proper password, it would automatically initiate a program that would wipe the hard drives. Any classified documents were cross-shredded before they ever left the floor.

  In fact, the only thing of a sensitive nature readily available was sitting in McNiel’s safe, which was against the wall behind his desk. He entered the combination, placed his finger on the print reader, then opened it. Inside was the sketch as well as several file folders. He emptied the safe, putting everything on the desk so that he could sort through it. In his mind, there were no secure computers, no matter how many safeguards one built into them. These files were the bones of cases that he’d ensured remained off any electronic database.

  As he flipped through the folders, he had to make quick decisions.

  W2 . . .

  Kane would be expecting to find something on it. Everyone knew they’d been looking into it, even though technically not since last October, after Sydney had recovered the list during her father’s murder investigation in Mexico. And then again when the numbers surfaced on that copy machine found in South San Francisco.

  And now, suddenly, Kane was hell-bent on shutting down ATLAS, or at the very least hobbling it so that it was virtually useless.

  This would be one file Kane would expect to find. So what in it, besides the sketch, would he not want Kane to see?

  He quickly scanned through the pages, pulling out all he thought he could get away with and leaving only a shell of the case behind.

  Throwing everything including Sydney’s sketch into a slim accordion folder, then securing it closed with the string tie, he shoved the remaining files back into the safe, locked it, then walked out, intending to give the packet to his secretary to shred. He hadn’t taken two steps when he realized that the biggest threat might not be the handful of files after all. He stopped, turned, stared at the copy machine down at the end of the hall.

  Every copy they’d ever made the last few years was on that machine. ATLAS ran covert ops, and more often than not, unsanctioned black ops. Every one of those cases could be turned against them, not only to shut down ATLAS, but to prosecute each and every one of them. And the sad thing was that prosecution was the lesser of the evils. If what was on that machine got into the hands of Kane or the Network . . .

  Hell . . .

  He set the files on top of the machine and opened the side panel, wondering how difficult it would be to remove the hard drive. He stared at the plate covering it. His kingdom for a screwdriver . . .

  The elevator dinged.<
br />
  “I’m sure Director McNiel is up here,” he heard his secretary say in a louder than normal voice when the elevator doors opened.

  He eyed the folder, then the open panel of the copy machine. He was trapped, with nowhere to go as he heard their footsteps behind him.

  Sliding the folder toward the back of the machine, he pushed it between the wall and heard it drop to the floor. Then he kicked the access door shut with his foot, hiding the cover of the hard drive, then opened one of the drawers with paper.

  He turned around, held up his hands. “Sorry,” he said as she and Ellis walked down the hallway toward him. “I thought I could fix it for you. I have no idea what’s wrong with the thing. How long has it been acting up?”

  She glanced at the copy machine, then him. “Since this morning,” she said. “And I have all those time sheets due tomorrow.”

  He pushed the paper drawer shut, hoping that Ellis wasn’t aware the time sheets were all computerized. “They can wait. As you can see,” he said, nodding to the man standing next to her, “we have company. Put in a work order tomorrow.” He gave her a neutral smile. “Weren’t you on your way to the doctor’s?”

  “Uh, I—”

  “Since I won’t be here, you should follow protocol. Go take care of it. Your health is more important.”

  “I’ll just get my keys from my office and be on my way.”

  The moment she left, the federal police officer said, “Director McNiel, I’m sorry to inform you of this, but my orders have changed. They’ve asked that I relieve you of duty immediately. And, uh, not allow you to access your office. You’re to report to the Senate Intelligence Committee at once.”

  He wasn’t surprised. At least now, if they were inclined to go through his safe, he could live with what they found.

  As long as they didn’t look too closely at the copy machine before he could get someone in there to retrieve what was left behind.

  23

  Capitol Building

  Washington, D.C.

  McNiel leaned his head back against the wall, listening to the footsteps echoing down the hallway outside the room he was sitting in, while he waited to hear what the outcome of the hearing would be. No wonder Parker Kane hadn’t been at the earlier meeting. He’d been here, pleading his case to absorb ATLAS into his domain. And what was McNiel supposed to do? Show his hand too soon, by announcing that he suspected Kane of espionage? That the entire government was being set up? He’d look like a fool making a desperate bid to save his place in the kingdom. They’d castrate him.

  Hell, they’d already castrated him. He was now without a job. The only reason he was here was because they wanted to find the girl.

  What he needed to do was bide his time. McNiel had faith that his team could survive without him temporarily or otherwise. Still, it was damned unnerving.

  There had been warning signs, of course. He should have seen them. Hell, he had seen them. Like a goddamned avalanche sliding down the mountain, bringing ATLAS with it, starting with the debacle in Mexico last October. And as much as he wanted to blame Sydney Fitzpatrick for starting that avalanche, he couldn’t. He’d have done the same thing if he were she. Everyone on his team would have. They were not automatons. They were human, and that was why he’d handpicked each one of them. The human element might get in the way at times, but it was the very thing that kept them centered, and he wouldn’t have it any other way.

  The difference between him and Sydney was that he wouldn’t have gotten caught. The advantage of being better trained in countersurveillance.

  In a way he should probably be grateful for her sticking her nose where it didn’t belong. She’d turned up a couple of choice items that had been missing from his investigation all these years. Like Parker Kane. And the location of the damned Devil’s Key that was now sitting in some poor college kid’s head, turning her into the most wanted woman in America.

  Who could have foreseen that lapse in security?

  “Hindsight,” he whispered, as he heard the footsteps of someone walking down the corridor outside his room. When he’d sent a team to the San Francisco FBI office to recover the bank bag Sydney had found in Mexico, it never occurred to any of them that she’d have made a copy.

  And that was their downfall.

  A simple oversight in allowing that copy machine out of the building without removing the hard drive had turned into the pebble that started the avalanche.

  The footsteps stopped and he realized someone was standing outside the door. Waiting.

  Several thoughts went through his head. He didn’t think anyone would be brazen enough to kill him in here. That would raise too many questions. Not when there were so many better ways to do it. Suicide—the covert favorite assassination method—only worked when there were no witnesses to discover it wasn’t suicide at all. He glanced up at the lens that was focused on him at the moment, thinking that even if it did stop working due to a malfunction, manmade or otherwise, his team would raise too many questions. As long as they were around to do so, that was.

  That ATLAS had been effectively disenfranchised made things a bit . . . trickier.

  The lock to his door clicked open, and he tensed.

  A guard entered. Different from the last one.

  “Your attorney’s here to see you,” the guard said.

  “I didn’t call him.”

  “Regardless. He’s here. Take it or leave it.”

  McNiel focused on the man’s posture, the expression on his face. Relaxed. Unconcerned.

  “Where is he?” he asked, that suspicion rising to the forefront again.

  “They’re bringing him up now.”

  McNiel nodded, then took a seat at the table so that it was between him and the closed door. And anyone who might walk through it.

  A few minutes later, it opened.

  Zachary Griffin stood there. A sight for sore eyes.

  “Heard you could use some legal advice?”

  McNiel smiled, waited for the guard to close the door. “How’s my case looking?”

  “Might take a little work, but nothing’s insurmountable.” He put what looked like a small digital recorder on the table, then clicked the button. It was not recording. It was a pocket-sized jammer that would mask any listening devices in the area. “I don’t have long,” Griffin said. “We’ve got a lot on our plate. Tex is still in Mexico. He’s called Carillo in to help. I haven’t yet heard back from him.”

  “What about Piper?”

  “There’s actually some good news on that front.” He leaned forward and lowered his voice. “I just got off the phone with Giustino. I suppose you could say it’s one of the more unusual witness protection programs. A convent in Venice.”

  “Come again?”

  “I know it’s unorthodox, but it can work.”

  “A convent? When I said the last place they’d look, that wasn’t exactly what I had in mind.”

  “I’m not sure he had a lot of choices. Once they left the airport, he was informed by one of his men that inquiries were being made about the passenger Lisette Perrault. He’s also worried someone’s monitoring any electronic movement. On the positive side, she won’t have access to computers, credit cards, or stolen vehicles. And as long as everyone follows protocol, it is as secure as any safe house we have used.”

  “You’re sure about this?”

  “He’s used this particular location before. Dumas made the arrangements, and Lisette and Marc should be there by morning.”

  Father Emile Dumas was what could be described as a covert operative for the Vatican, if one could get past the notion that the Vatican could even have spies. He didn’t carry a weapon, but he did investigate matters of security and terrorism against the church, and there were times when his cases and those of ATLAS overlapped.

  While Griffin and Dumas did not
always see eye to eye, there was no doubt in McNiel’s mind that Dumas would do everything in his power to protect the girl. And really, could it be any worse than keeping her here in a military facility against her will? “At least that’s one less thing to worry about. What about ATLAS?”

  “We’re locked from the building. Guard posted inside and out.”

  “Anyone else being questioned?”

  “Not sure. I didn’t get close enough to see. It looked pretty empty, though, so I’d guess everyone was following protocol.”

  Apparently his secretary was able to get out the word, which meant the entire staff would shut everything down, wipe computers, then make themselves scarce, until they were notified otherwise.

  The fewer people around for questioning, the better. “Good. Next step, I want Parker’s head before he gets mine.”

  “Except you’re here under surveillance. That makes him one up on you.”

  “And if you’re not careful, you’re going to be joining me. I cleared the safe, but there was a slight glitch on my way out the door. The sketch and my files got stuffed behind the copy machine. I definitely don’t want that sketch getting out. The files are on the W2 case. You’re going to have to break in to get them.”

  “Just out of curiosity, how’d they get behind the copy machine?”

  “I wanted to recover the machine’s hard drive before they took over the building.”

  Griffin let out a breath. “I hate to think what’s on there.”

  McNiel felt the same. Between their various investigations into the Black Network’s activities to the detailed op plans of missions that wouldn’t pass muster should they be put in front of the wrong people, anyone who worked for ATLAS was in a world of hurt if that hard drive was looked at. “The short time I’ve been confined to this room is enough to convince me I don’t want to be here any longer than I have to. And if I’m not careful, they’re likely to take me into custody for contempt.”

  “When have they ever done that?”