by J C Ryan
The four of them carefully stepped through Dylan’s plan a few times and gave him the nod. It was not the ideal plan, but they were running against the clock.
When Dylan headed for the door, Irene stopped him and smiled, “Please be careful Dylan.”
Dylan waved his hand, smiled, and disappeared down the hallway.
James returned to the interrogation room with two Styrofoam cups filled with black coffee. He sat down and pushed one of the cups over to Miller.
“Now let’s get back to Nate Gordon.”
Irene’s voice came over his earpiece, “Carter is here.” James nodded his head slightly in acknowledgment.
Miller took a sip of the coffee, cleared his throat, and waited for James to ask his question.
“What other Saudi contacts does Gordon have?”
“There is only one other man I’m aware of, his name is Dr. Daiyan Nasser; he is the Director of a research institute, but I don’t know where the institute is.”
James nodded. I might have an idea where that Institute is. But I think Nate Gordon will be able to confirm it.
“Good let’s talk about the Sirralnnudam.”
Miller nodded.
“CRS was involved in that botched up operation in Armenia where they lost the book. Is that right?”
“We were involved to the extent that we provided Dr. Mackenzie Devereux’s travel arrangements and research to Nate, who passed it on to NTC. I have no idea who NTC would have given that information to, nor how the operation was executed.”
“You hired your brother, who hired a Greek Professor, Anatolio Kakos to publish an article in an archeological magazine in an attempt to get a copy of the book.”
Miller nodded, “Yes.”
“Who wants that book so desperately?”
“Ibrahimi El Fadl contacted Nate and asked him to try and get the book.”
“How much?”
“$25 million.”
James had a hard time trying not to explode. “They are desperate to get that book.”
Miller didn’t reply.
“What was your involvement in the bomb explosion in Jerusalem?”
Miller started shaking irrepressibly and buried his face in his hands. “Oh my God! It was never meant to be like that!” He began sobbing.
James looked at him, his gaze filled with revulsion. “Miller, save your regrets for later. What was CRS’ role in that?”
“Same as before; we provided NTC with all the information via Nate.”
“How and where exactly did you get that information?”
“NTC got it and gave it to Nate.”
James loathed his next question, but he knew Carter was watching and listening, and he would want to know. “Are Dr. Devereux and her son still alive?”
Carter had stopped breathing. Irene could feel his hope.
Miller looked up at James with tear-filled eyes and nodded. “Yes, they are,” He sighed.
Carter fell to his knees; he looked up and breathed, “Thank you, God.”
Irene put her hand on his shoulder and whispered, “I’m so grateful, Carter.”
Sean got up and slapped him on the back, “We are going to get them out, Carter. I promise you; we are going to get them out.”
James continued the questioning for another hour before Irene told him it was time for Miller to call Gordon.
James pulled Miller’s cellphone out and told him what he had to do.
Miller followed his instructions to a T. It was clear that Miller’s reflection on his personal work history, spanning the past seven years as CEO of CRS, had given him enough to be very anxious. He feigned his urgent need to see Nate Gordon so well that the latter dropped everything he was working on and hurried over to Miller’s house.
When James got back to the observation room, he shook Carter’s hand. “Mackie and Liam are alive son, and we’re going to get them out.”
Irene asked James to take a seat. “Jim, I now know why the mole we thought operated inside A-Echelon never triggered Rick Winslow’s traps. There is no mole inside A-Echelon.”
James stared at her. “How did you get to that?”
“If the mole operated from inside A-Echelon, he or she would have triggered Ricks traps. The mole is one of the people who have access to the information which you and Hunter presented at the monthly meeting with the President.”
“So you’re saying, in effect, Hunter and I have been carrying the information to the mole all this time?”
Irene slowly nodded.
“Oh-my-God! What a glorious cluster-fu…” He stopped and shook his head in disbelief. “A traitor in the highest halls of power in the country.”
Chapter 54 -
The third link in the chain
On the way to Miller’s house Dylan stopped at Executive Advantage’s offices to meet with and brief Rachel, one of their female operators as well as John and Sam, who were part of the team that helped capture Miller earlier.
When everyone was in place at Miller’s house as planned, Dylan notified Sean. A few minutes later, Sean called back and told him that Gordon was on his way. Rick had a GPS track on him and kept them posted as Gordon approached the house.
Gordon had his hand out to ring the bell when the door opened suddenly revealing a stunning, six-foot-tall, blonde woman, in her thirties. She wore a very short skirt, exposing bare legs that went on forever, and she smiled at him.
“Hi! You must be Mr. Gordon. I’m Lucinda, Dwayne’s half-sister. Please come in, he’s waiting for you,” She turned around and took a few steps away.
Despite Nate Gordon’s fifty-seven years and the inevitable decline in libido that comes with age, he felt a rush of testosterone when he looked at Lucinda’s legs as she walked away. His brain and senses had moved south as he started to follow the woman to wherever she was taking him. His eyes were 100% focused on those legs and hips, and he didn’t see the man behind him. He felt a sharp sting on his neck, which shocked him out of his erotic fantasy, and gave him just enough time to grab at his neck before everything went dark around him.
Gordon squinted at the bright light and closed his eyes again. A throbbing headache made him feel nauseous; he became aware of the cold concrete floor beneath him, and he tried to look again. He was in a small room, with white walls, no windows, a small table, two chairs, and a single light high up on the ceiling. A steel door guarded the only entrance. What? Where am I? How - His memory came back. Miller’s house, the blonde girl, stinging pain in the neck, darkness.
The steel door swung open, and he looked at a man he had seen before but could not remember from where or what his name was. The man walked up to him, pulled him up off the floor, pushed him into one of the chairs and took the seat on the opposite side of the table.
James Rhodes! Director of A-Echelon; I saw his face on photos.
“My name is James Rhodes; I work for the CIA.”
“Don’t try and bullshit me. I know who you are, and you don’t work for the CIA; you’re the director of A-Echelon,” Gordon growled.
“Good. No further introductions necessary then,” James replied impassively. “There are a few questions I’m going to ask you and I trust you will answer them quickly, as I’m in a bit of a hurry.”
“Listen, Rhodes, go fuck yourself!” Gordon yelled. “You don’t have a clue what you’ve gotten yourself into. You are going to be very, very sorry about this very soon.”
“Really? Why is that?” James laughed.
Gordon glowered at him. “Do you have any idea who I am and who my friends are?”
James kept his smile. “No, clearly I don’t. Those were exactly what I was going to ask you about. Do you care to tell me then?”
“What?”
“Who you and your friends are.”
Gordon grinned, “You’ll find out soon enough asshole. I’m not telling you anything.”
James nodded slowly while he kept his gaze on Gordon. “I see. Well, that’s exactly what Dwayne Miller
said earlier when I spoke to him. He didn’t want to tell me anything either. I sketched a scenario for him, gave him a few minutes to think about it, and when I came back, he was very keen to talk to me. He told me everything about CRS, the projects, your involvement, he even told me about your dealings with certain influential Saudi’s - names, titles, the work you are doing for them, you know, that sort of thing.”
The sudden twitching of Gordon’s lower lip was not lost on James.
“You see Gordon, the way I understand the laws of our country; you are looking at treason, espionage, murder, and a whole truckload of other criminal charges. Now I won’t tell you how much jail time you are facing, that’s irrelevant because you are looking at the death penalty.”
Gordon stared at James in defiance. He had his lips pressed together and it was evident he was not going to say another word.
“Gordon, I will extend you the same latitude as Miller. I’m going to grab myself a coffee and give you a few minutes to think carefully about your future,” James stood and walked out.
“Jim, this one is going to be a hard nut to crack,” Sean said when James walked into the observation room.
Carter was sitting quietly in a recliner chair in the corner of the room, staring at nothing. He didn’t know what to feel; he was filled with joy after finally getting confirmation that Mackenzie and Liam were still alive. However, the hate he felt towards Nate Gordon was threatening to overpower him as he looked at the image of the man responsible for the abduction of his family and killing and maiming many others. Gordon probably knew where his family was but was refusing to cooperate. At times, Carter felt he could take Sean or Dylan’s gun and go down to the interrogation room for a one-on-one chat with that psychopath.
James finished his coffee and returned to the interrogation room.
“Okay, Gordon. I hope you have reconsidered?”
“Listen, Rhodes, I’m getting fed-up with this shit of yours. I told you I’ve got nothing to say to you,” Gordon snarled. “Do whatever you want to do, but just remember what I stated in the beginning; you have no idea what a tornado of shit you have gotten yourself into.”
James was contemplating his options. Waterboarding, sleep deprivation, physical pain, all of those would work; no human being had ever not talked. Everyone cracks eventually; some just take longer than others, but the end result is always the same.
Although James was highly motivated to apply those methods, he also knew the shortcomings of those procedures. Most important was the fact that it was a time-consuming process and time was a luxury they didn’t have. Not with seven people in their custody in Canada, New York, DC and Virginia. It was only going to be a matter of twenty-four hours or less before the family and friends of the captives would become worried, and the police would be out looking for them.
Gordon had to talk, and it had to happen quickly.
Rick walked into the observation room and handed Gordon’s cell phone to Sean. “I’ve removed the password and copied everything off his phone. There are a few video and audio files which I think you might find enlightening.”
“I’ll look at it later; in the meantime, just give me the highlights,” Sean replied.
“Well, it seems Gordon has a habit of recording some conversations on his phone. I guess it’s some sort of insurance policy for him if things went tits up in the future. I suspect he copies and stores the information on a computer somewhere which is why the current recordings go back only two months. I’ll -”
Sean held his hand up. “Okay, skip the details for now, what’s on those recordings you have listened to?”
“Business conversations. I did voice matches. Of the six conversations stored on the phone, I could discern three different people, other than Gordon. All of them were business dealings. Three of the calls contain discussions about Carter’s case. I -”
“Put that thing on speaker, get the volume up and play it,” Irene interrupted.
Rick started fiddling with the phone, and Irene told James in his earpiece to take a break and come up to the observation room.
By the time James arrived Rick was ready and he pushed the play button.
The room went quiet as they all listened.
For many months, they had been hunting information about the location of Mackenzie and Liam. Events of the past few weeks had brought them closer to the answer. But for the past twenty-four hours, the information had been snowballing at a rapid pace, and they all sensed the periphery of the breakthrough they so desperately wanted; Carter, of course, was more anxious than anyone else.
Nevertheless, when they set out in pursuit of the information they wanted, there was nothing that could prepare them for what they would uncover along the way. Dwayne Miller’s revelations that started pouring at 8:30 that morning almost knocked them off their feet. They had no idea what they were about to hear when Miller had changed his mind and started speaking.
Now, after listening to ninety minutes of the most damning of evidence they could ever have imagined, they looked at each other utterly thunderstruck. The absolute corruption and delinquency extending right up into the highest strata of the political hierarchy in America was redoubtable, nauseating, and shattering.
James spoke softly, “I think we have heard the voice of the mysterious NTC.”
“Rick, please tell me you are already running your voice recognition algorithms on all those voices?” Dylan asked.
“Already in progress boss,” Rick smiled, “but be aware it can take weeks, if we are very lucky, maybe four or five days.”
“Mhh, not what I was hoping for; I had something like a couple of hours in mind,” Dylan mumbled.
Sean Walker’s face was pale with rage. When he spoke his voice was hoarse. “Okay, listen to me. I’m not asking you; I’m telling you. All of you, except Dylan, get out of this room. Now. Go and wait in the games room down the road.”
“What the hell…?” James started.
“No arguments, Jim. Take everyone and leave. I’ll call for you when I need you.”
James suddenly realized what was going to happen. He quickly glanced at Carter, Irene, and Rick and saw they didn’t know what was going on. That was good. He was not going to tell them. The less they saw and knew of what was about to happen the better.
“Come on,” James said and spread his arms as if he wanted to herd them all through the door.
Outside Carter looked at James, “What just happened in there, Jim?”
“We got sent out of the room,” James replied without meeting Carter’s gaze.
“Why? For what purpose? We need to kick Gordon’s…” Carter stopped as the realization dawned on him.
James nodded. “You don’t want to know.”
Irene just shook her head, remained quiet, and kept on walking. She also knew.
Sean opened the door to the interrogation room, pulled the .45 Glock 21 out of his shoulder holster, and closed the door behind him.
“Now looky here!” Gordon grinned smugly relaxing arrogantly back in his chair. “Who do we have here? Let me guess. Sean Walker, CEO of Executive Advantage. I take it you are going to play the role of the bad cop.”
Sean didn’t say a word. He walked up to Gordon and shot him in the left knee.
Gordon tumbled to the ground and two seconds later, when the pain had registered in his brain, a scream exploded from his throat.
“Are you fuckin crazy!? Shiiiiiit!” Gordon was curled into a bundle on the floor, both hands squeezing his knee while the blood started seeping through his fingers. The inestimable pain radiating from his knee was threatening to plunge him into unconsciousness. “Fuck you to hell!”
Sean stood silently, the gun trained on Gordon, waiting for him to reach a point where he would pay attention.
Gordon stopped swearing for a moment and glimpsed at Sean.
“Who is NTC?”
“Fuck…” Gordon swallowed the rest of the sentence when he saw Sean pointing the gun at his right
knee.
“Sean, please stop it,” Gordon begged. “Give me some morphine; I’ll tell you everything.”
“You can tell me everything later. Last chance. Who is NTC?”
“George Robertson... the Vice President,” He stuttered.
Sean felt how the hair on the back of his neck rose. He didn’t show any emotion, he just nodded and started for the door.
“Wait! Hang on; you can’t leave me like this. I’m in pain... I’m -”
Sean stopped and slowly turned around. “Gordon, sooner or later in life, we all sit down to a banquet of consequences. This is yours.” He walked out and closed the door amid Gordon’s shocked curses and wailing.
Back in the observation room, Dylan stared at Sean when he entered. “The Vice President? How the - what else - I mean - Sean, you and I have seen and done some pretty nasty shit… but -”
Sean nodded slowly. “Dylan Buddy, this is the grandmaster of all fuckups. The Veep is untouchable; we won’t get within two miles of him. And even if we could get to him, what are we going to do? I can’t just shoot him in the knee or the head can I?”
Dylan stared at the floor. “Okay here’s what I suggest we do right now. Get Rick to hack into Gordon’s computers and if he can’t get in, we send a team to go and collect the damn machines. We send a team to the CRS offices tonight and clear everything out before the sun comes up. It’s 10:00 pm we have to get moving.”
Sean nodded. “I’ll call James and the rest to come back so we can share the delightful news.”
When they’d all returned, James eyed the computer screen, and he sighed. Gordon was still alive although squirming on the cold and bloodied concrete floor of the interrogation room. He could see Gordon’s mouth moving but couldn’t hear anything; Sean or Dylan must have muted the sound.
“Sit down,” Sean said. “Believe me; you will want to be seated when you hear this.”
They all took their seats, their eyes moving between Sean and the computer screen showing the writhing Gordon on the concrete.
Sean cleared his throat. “Nate Gordon’s top contact aka NTC is George Robertson our Vice President.”
