“Pairing?” Reese asked.
“Look for who she has ever stood next to in pictures. Who are her friends? Who does she associate with? No one is anonymous. Not anymore.”
There was more keyboard clicking, and the trio of observers leaned back from Arvid’s computer as it searched. Hundreds of pictures seemed to scan by on his screens, there a moment and then gone, as the algorithm placed a photo next to others, saving the matches in thumbnail size on the side of the screen and then moving on to look for more matches.
Ellen Wiley wandered in and asked what they were doing and if she could help.
Reese, on her own phone, started typing in the name Sara Bernier. Brooks smiled at her and said, “Sam, don’t waste your time. Ellen should do it. She’s got more tools for that.”
Brooks gave Wiley the names, and Wiley began hunting for businesses associated with the woman in the picture—by all of her various names.
Lupsa was looking for people with whom the woman might have ever had her picture taken.
Rena had a pensive look. “What are you thinking?” Brooks asked him. “And why do I already not like it?”
He smiled vaguely.
“Let’s see what they come up with.”
It didn’t take more than a few minutes before Lupsa called for them to come back. They clustered around his monitors. There were several pictures of a middle-aged man standing next to the woman called Sara Bernier, though in two of the images she was tagged under the name Ella Bruener.
“Ari Belmondo,” Lupsa said of the man in the pictures. “Ellen, you got that?” he asked Wiley in a raised voice.
“Ari Belmondo,” Wiley called back happily. “Got it.”
Now there were pictures of another man on Lupsa’s screen, also in pictures with Sara Bernier, aka Ella Bruener, aka Suzanne Brenner.
“François Gui,” he called out to Wiley, adding “G-U-I” so Wiley had the spelling.
“François Gui,” Wiley repeated back.
A few moments later, she said, “Ooooooh. Yeahhhh.”
“What?” Lupsa demanded.
“François Gui, former French intelligence officer.”
“Ooh la la,” Lupsa said in a poor French accent.
Wiley called out, “Gray Circle Consultants.”
“Yes, yes!” answered Lupsa. “Gray Circle.”
Brooks, tired of their banter and stupid accents, said, “What is Gray Circle? And who the hell is Sara Bernier?”
Wiley walked over to Brooks, her old friend, holding a laptop. “Why don’t we all go down in your office,” she said to Brooks, “and Arvid and I can explain it to you?”
Thirty-Four
“Gray Circle is a French and Israeli security company,” Wiley said. “They have a couple of subsidiary companies. One is called Vigilas. Another is Canopy. They do slightly different things, but they’re all part of Gray Circle.”
“And what does Gray Circle do?” Brooks asked.
“That we can tell you up to a point,” Wiley said. “But I think you’ll find it a little different than what you were expecting.”
Wiley opened her computer to another window and showed them more. “Gray Circle is a consulting firm run by a group of former French, Israeli, and a couple of American intelligence officers who’ve moved into the private security business.” Wiley smiled. “And they even have a website, if you can believe it. I guess even former spies need to do some marketing.”
They stared at Wiley’s little screen. The Gray Circle website said the firm offered “seven dynamic kinds of service.” The first one was called “Creative Intelligence.”
Underneath that heading were the words: “Tailor-made solutions based on high-quality intelligence, cutting-edge technology, unique expertise and out-of-the-box thinking.”
Brooks offered a lawyer’s scowl. People trained in legal buzzwords have special radar for the bullshit of other professions.
The other headings were even more ominous sounding. HARVESTING IN THE CYBER WORLD. Under that heading were the words, “Innovative tools and methodologies to handle massive amounts of data, unearth useful information for clients, and map all potential sources of interest by traveling the deep parts of the online world, including typically inaccessible areas of the Dark Web.”
“Shit,” Brooks said.
“What?” Reese asked.
“These guys are promising to dig up shit on competitors, even going into the Dark Web to find it. These guys are no joke.”
The Dark Web was where you found illegal activity. There were two reasons to go there. Either to find out if someone you were investigating was dirty, or to find things that you could use to blackmail people.
The last of the seven “services” offered by Gray Circle, however, was the one that most caught Rena’s eye.
It was labeled PROACTIVE RESEARCH. Underneath those words it read:
“We overcome limited access sources with a can-do dynamic approach: We employ methodologies from the social engineering fields that allow us to move freely around limited access sources and extract valuable information, both in virtual and physical environments.”
Wiley met Rena’s eyes. “You understand, Peter?”
“I do indeed,” he said almost in a whisper, glancing at Brooks. Her expression had become grave.
“Well, I’m glad you all understand, because I don’t,” said Reese. “What the hell does that bullshit about proactive research mean?”
Reese was an expert in “physical” security, surveillance, and protection, so-called body work.
“It’s espionage language,” Rena said. “Code.”
“For what?”
“For spy methods. For setting people up. Sending people in undercover, having them pose as friends or business opportunities. And then either spying on your subject while pretending be their friend or putting them in compromising positions so they begin to work for you. In other words, setting them up to be double agents. The things spies do.”
They had talked about this, Rena, Brooks, and others at the firm. At some point in the near future, they figured, the business of private investigation and backgrounding would become so big and lucrative, it would begin to attract people from the clandestine world. Rather than being the province of former law enforcement professionals, who worked within the legal realm, it would begin to attract ex-spies who worked outside the parameters of the law. Intelligence services didn’t investigate crime. They were involved in something else, a form of warfare that was often illegal. They would create sting operations and entrapment methods so they could use and control those people.
“You mean this firm is engaged in setting people up so they can blackmail or extort or control them? Honey traps and all that?” Reese asked.
Rena nodded. The tools of covert intelligence included getting close to people and then putting them in compromising situations by offering them bribes, using sexual seductions called “honey traps,” involving them in crimes, or doing them illegal favors. Once you had wooed someone into doing something wrong, then you could control them with the threat of exposure. That was the code meaning of the term proactive. You didn’t have to find something wrong. You could create it and ensnare your target into it.
Wiley was laughing at the screen.
“Gray Circle even identifies some of its top people on its website.”
There were pictures there of François Gui and Ari Belmondo.
“Why the hell,” Reese asked, “would they do that?”
“Because some of these names have a lot of credibility in the spy world,” Rena answered.
“And they advertise?” Reese said. She was incredulous.
Lupsa said: “Not in the conventional sense. You’d never find this website unless you were looking for it. But if you were, it would be because you wanted to check these guys out, because you wanted to know if they were the real deal. So this site is marketing, just like any other company’s. Only most people would never go here, because they don
’t know it exists. You would only get here if you already knew about Gray Circle and wanted to verify some things. They probably have to give you their Web address.”
“Jesus,” murmured Reese.
Incredibly, Gray Circle even had a “Who We Are” page that listed the names and biographies of the firm’s principals and board of advisers, some of them former prominent figures in French and Israeli intelligence circles.
Reese pulled out her phone and began scanning the Gray Circle website for herself, up close. About twenty seconds later, to no one in particular, she said:
“And here in the background of one picture is our girl. She’s not named, but in the third row, you can make out her image.” She used her fingers to expand the image, which got blurrier.
“Let me check,” Lupsa said. He had brought his own laptop into Brooks’s office. “Wow, you’re right, Sam. And with the human eye, no less.”
“Why would they ever put her on their website?”
“I’m not sure anyone was looking for her picture there before,” said Wiley. “It didn’t come up when the algorithm was scouring pictures of her from the Web. But it’s not like this is a secret government agency. They want people to hire them. They need some presence.”
“I’ve seen this before,” Rena said, “former spies offering their services to large corporations. They do need some presence. They just don’t get too specific. And they use a lot of euphemisms.”
“And even aliases.”
“No, her real name is Sara Bernier, I think,” Lupsa said. He was still searching more deeply into the Web to find out about their mystery woman.
Wiley asked: “Why would she use a real name?”
“We don’t know that she did. But she probably would have in case someone ever checked the names of anyone meeting Upton more than casually. It’s better to use your real name. If you use a fake one, an alias that’s not real, you’re breaking the law, and it’s pretty easy to get found out.”
“So Gray Circle is looking into Upton,” Wiley said.
“Or a Gray Circle operative has befriended the senator,” Reese said, “and spent much of the last week with her, including overnight.”
So they had made a discovery. Gray Circle was all over Wendy Upton. Had that firm been hired, perhaps by Bakke or Traynor, to vet her? And then she and Sara Bernier had become friends? Or was this something else?
Brooks was shaking her head. “The real question is who hired Gray Circle.”
Rena was looking at Reese. “Sam, you said you still have eyes on Bernier and Upton, right?”
She nodded.
“Then let’s go.”
“Peter, don’t do anything rash,” Brooks said.
But he didn’t answer.
“Goddamn it,” she said raising her voice. “I don’t like it, whatever it is.”
By then, however, Rena was gone. Reese was hurrying after him.
Thirty-Five
They parked halfway down the block from the Sylvan Hotel, not far from Georgetown Law Center, Rena behind the wheel of Reese’s rented Ford, Reese in the passenger seat.
About twenty minutes passed before they saw someone who looked like Sara Bernier emerge from the hotel.
“On the move,” Reese heard one of her team confirm through her earbud.
Reese nodded to Rena, and they slipped out of the Ford and headed toward the hotel on opposite sides of the street.
Reese could see the tall, dark-haired woman from the photos moving toward her, glancing at her phone and swiveling her head looking for a car she’d ordered. A black Lincoln moved slowly up the street. Bernier looked in, but there were two people inside, not one. Two women, the second person sitting up front next to the driver.
Reese moved up close behind Bernier.
“Sara, my name is Samantha Reese.” She said it in a voice that was so gentle and familiar, it sounded almost intimate. “I work with Wendy Upton. She needs to see you. Would you get in the car?”
Bernier turned and Reese gently touched her elbow in the reassuring but authoritative way a doctor might guide a patient during a medical procedure in the office. The back door of the Lincoln opened.
“Please don’t worry, Sara. You’re in no danger. Wendy really needs to see you.”
The woman from the passenger seat was now outside the car standing next to Bernier. She placed a hand on Bernier’s back. Her touch was much less reassuring than Reese’s but just as insistent. Bernier tensed, then hesitated. She wasn’t a French government agent anymore, and she wasn’t in her own country. Slowly, surrendering, Bernier bent into the car. Reese slipped into the backseat beside her. The woman who had laid hands on Bernier returned to her seat up front.
And in the back, next to Bernier, having entered the Lincoln from the street side, sat Rena.
“Hello, Sara. My name is Peter Rena. I work for friends who are concerned about Wendy Upton.”
His voice was flat—not particularly friendly but not threatening.
Sandwiched between Rena and Reese, Bernier was afraid, but she had enough training not to panic.
Reese put a hand on Bernier’s bag. “I’m going to need to hold your phone, Sara. You’ll get it back.”
Now Bernier reacted: “What do you think you’re doing?” She tugged at the bag.
“You’re safe,” Reese said. “This is just so we can talk.” She placed her hand on Bernier’s. The Frenchwoman let go of the bag.
Then Reese put Bernier’s phone inside a black case, one that blocked any device potentially tracking Bernier’s location or movements. To anyone monitoring the phone, it would appear as if the device suddenly vanished.
Rena said: “Wendy’s not available this minute. So let’s talk awhile. We’re just going to drive around. Then see Wendy. Then we’ll drop you back right here.”
“Who the hell do you think you are?”
“I thought I told you. My name is Peter Rena. I do what you do—security and background work. We—all of us here, except you—have been hired by friends of Wendy Upton to find who’s threatening her.”
“This is a kidnapping” Bernier said. She was trying to sound outraged. “I’ll call the police. And I’ll sue.”
“By all means,” said Rena. “We’d welcome the police. That would mean news coverage. And a public record of what we want to ask you about. That would be excellent. So would a lawsuit.”
He paused for a moment to let that sink in. “We’d especially look forward to the disclosure phase. Maybe I don’t need to ask you anything at all here. We could call the police now, and you and your people could file the lawsuit against us today.”
Bernier was watching him.
“But I’d insist you make the call right now so we could be sure it actually happens. Maybe we should file the complaint against you. Or. . . .”
Bernier waited, but Rena didn’t finish.
“Or what?”
“Or we could just talk instead. You could answer a few questions. And when we’re done you get out and you’d be free to tell anyone you need to about this.”
Bernier looked somewhere between thirty-five and forty. Lupsa had unearthed what he could quickly about her and sent it in an encrypted file. But, she had three different birth years listed. The file said she was French but had studied in the United States. After traveling as an actress briefly and selling pharmaceuticals, she had joined the French security services. As a cover, she appeared to have worked as a consultant to a health care industry trade group and as a fund-raiser for a nonprofit. She had social media profiles under all three of her names, one featuring her life as a health care consultant, another as a fund-raiser, and a third under what appeared to be her real name, but that one was vague on detail.
She was, by anyone’s definition, a beautiful woman, her face angular and refined, her hair a dark chocolate brown, nearly the same color as her eyes. She could have been taken for French or perhaps Turkish or Iranian, Rena thought, and even now, trapped between Reese and him,
she had an elegance that her fear hadn’t entirely erased.
“What do you want to talk about?” Her English was fluent, with just a hint of a Parisian accent.
“Mostly, your time with Wendy.”
“What do you want to know?” She was calming now.
“Simple things. When did you meet? How long have you known each other? Who hired you? How did this all come about—at least as much as you know about it?”
Bernier was an operative, not a strategist, chosen most likely for her charm and some measure of being adaptive, Rena reasoned. But this—getting caught and put in the back of a car—was almost certainly beyond what she’d experienced, even if she’d had training for it. No matter what you see in movies, most spies are never grabbed. He was counting on Bernier, now that they had her, to be calculating how to minimize the damage.
“That is a lot of questions,” she said.
“We’ll go one at a time,” he told her.
Thirty-Six
Hallie Jobe found Randi Brooks at a table hovering over a computer with Ellen Wiley.
“I found something,” Jobe said. “A letter Wendy Upton wrote not long before she left the Judge Advocate General’s service to work for Congress.”
“What’s in it?”
“It’s long story,” Jobe said.
She sat down across from Brooks. “I had to do some digging to know what it meant. Good thing I did.”
Brooks was quiet as Jobe walked her through it. The letter Upton had written vouched for a Kuwaiti man who had been imprisoned in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, for eleven years. Upton’s letter argued the man be set free.
The man in question had been a member of the Kuwaiti elite. His father had been a fighter pilot and even flown in squadrons with Americans against Iraq in Desert Storm in 1991. The son had studied engineering in college and during his summers taught villagers in poor areas how to dig clean-water wells. He was spending the summer of 2001 teaching people in Afghanistan. When the Twin Towers came down and the Americans arrived in Afghanistan to root out the Taliban, the young man, like thousands of other non-Afghans, had tried to leave the country and get back home.
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