Enemy Agents, page 18
“Supposed to be. They told me, back at the Academy, that the commands all came from a central command centre and that Jupiter used a special computer to hide his voice and his location so nobody could track him. But then they also told me that Jupiter was just one guy. But I thought about it and the central computer made sense. And since it’s CIB pulling my strings, it had to be here. And I was right. I found a file on there called ‘Io Contact Log.’ Except for some reason Boswell was having a sleep-over here and my tranquilizers did nothing to stop her.”
“She’s probably built up an immunity to that particular drug.”
“Didn’t know she would be here. I was just trying to lure in the science geek to open the door.”
“Just wait a second, OK?” Quarrel said, standing up. “I’m going to find that file.”
“It’s too late, I told you.”
“I’m checking it anyway.”
He was at the door when she spoke again, a little louder than before.
“Then I’d better tell you what to look for.”
Quarrel stopped and went back to listen as Swift became cooperative and functional for the first time since his arrival.
#
Quarrel barged out into the hallway, where Boswell, Milton and a dozen soldiers were waiting.
“You destroyed my recording equipment.” Said a stern Milton, pointing a finger like a second-grade teacher.
“Can we get this over with?” interrupted Boswell, cracking her knuckles.
“Not now,” said Quarrel. Then, turning to the same guard that he had spoken to before, he said, “I want to see the file she came here to steal.”
“It’s in my office,” said Milton. “I’ve got her data stick.”
“What about on the server itself? Has anyone been in there since the alarm?”
“Not in the room with it, we locked down after we dragged Swift out of there,” said the guard.
“But it’s still in use. People inside the office are accessing that server all the time?”
Milton answered: “Yes. But what she was after was highly encrypted. You’d have to be granted special access and I haven’t granted any.”
“I want to see both files.”
Three minutes later they were in the ice-cold server vault, with Quarrel reading the same document twice. One was a paper hard copy printed from Swift’s USB drive. The other was on the server console screen. They were identical.
Jupiter seemed to call on Io every few weeks. There was a pattern. The first message told her a place and a date. The next, delivered on the preset date, would give instructions. The third was a confirmation that the job was done. This cycle repeated for a few years. The most recent entry was a month prior, in Milan. No Zurich mission. Nothing since Matthew Crowe was murdered. Nothing in the days before Swift broke Saleb out of his private prison. Nothing about a safe deposit box, or the specific date Swift had told him to look for.
Quarrel stood alone near the console—nobody reading over his shoulder—but there were a dozen people gathered in the small server room. Their breath filled the cold air with a constant cloud.
“When was the last time anyone legally accessed this file?” Quarrel asked Milton; Milton looked to Kilo.
“Nobody as long as I can remember.”
“Is this where you’d need to be to become Jupiter?”
“No.”
“Then where is it? She said there’s a central hub that her orders come from.”
Boswell answered, in a surprisingly neutral voice. “Not true. You call in and the switchboard connects you. Then you chose which graduate from the Academy you want to use. It’s all automated. I’ve been Jupiter from three continents. We just tell them Jupiter’s some central figure to make them feel like they’re working for someone at the top.”
Quarrel compared the documents again, scanning the list of people who had used the Jupiter system. Boswell had indeed been Jupiter on many occasions, but there was no record of where the calls came from. But as Swift had pointed out, that was the point. Jupiter had no real face, no real location. He was untraceable by design. Hall had used Jupiter a few times. Milton took up the bulk of the list. Quarrel scanned both the screen and the paper. He could feel the eyes of ten onlookers waiting for him to explain himself. The problem was, he couldn’t explain. So he said nothing. Dropping the printout to the floor, he started to click through other records. He could feel the onlookers shifting their weight as he dropped the pages, but nobody tried to stop him. Quarrel was wearing his game face, and so far the real spies were buying it. He really was running the show, and everybody was waiting for him to act.
He locked himself in with Swift again. But this time, he untied her hands.
“I’m going to tell them not to charge you with anything.”
“You mean you found it?”
“No. There’s no record of a call sending you to Zurich. The last mission is Milan.”
“So why believe me?”
“Because whoever hacked this thing didn’t cover their tracks well enough.”
“What do you mean?”
“Read the list of names.”
He laid the printout in front of her and her eyes hungrily sized it up, flipping through the pages. “I don’t—”
“When we were at my briefing, and you asked the room about Jupiter, what did they say?”
“Most of them had been Jupiter. Milton, Hall, Boswell . . . ”
“And Smith. He told us outright.”
Swift scanned the pages again, and although she was too sullen to smile, her eyes smiled brightly.
“His name’s not on the list.”
“Almost like someone deleted him. Or he deleted himself.”
#
The next time Quarrel opened the door to the hallway, the crowd was smaller, but Boswell was still there. Her face twisted in frustration at the sight of Swift standing behind Quarrel.
“You let her out?”
“Agent Boswell, you did a great job tonight. But Swift had a damn good reason for wanting that file and it gave me a genuine suspect. So thanks for your help, and I’m taking it from here.”
“Like hell.”
Swift had not only regained her senses, she had also regrown her backbone. From behind Quarrel, she interjected, “No offense, lady, but we have work to do.”
“So you’re back to playing the tough chick after you had a good cry?”
Quarrel was getting impatient again. “Sam, go have a cupcake.”
He reached behind himself, and in a gesture he immediately realized was far too personal for the moment, he took Swift’s hand and led her past the guards.
“Shouldn’t we tell someone what we know?” she asked.
“Sure, just name someone we can trust.”
“Welcome to my world.”
They met no resistance on the way to the bank office elevator, which was currently just an empty shaft since the fake office was back at ground level. Once Quarrel hit the call button, Milton rounded the corner behind them. “That woman broke into my office, shot two people with a tranquilizer, and you’re making off with her?”
Quarrel let go of Swift’s hand as the elder walked past them, planting himself between Quarrel and the exit.
“I need her help right now. I can’t tell you about it until I know more but this girl came up with a genuine lead and I’m going to bring in a suspect right now.”
“Sure. Who?”
“You know I can’t tell you. You had access to that file. You could have altered it. Can’t trust anyone in this building right now.”
“But you’ll take the word of a street rat who we just caught stealing from the very server that contained Matt Crowe’s mission.”
“For now, yeah.”
Milton lingered between Quarrel and the elevator. The fake bank office lowered into view. Quarrel took a single step forward, never looking away from Milton’s eyes. The old man gave him a silent nod and stepped aside.
“I hope you realize,” he said as Quarrel and Swift stepped onto the carpet, “just how big the stakes are.”
Quarrel nodded in response and pressed the UP button. They watched Milton disappear beneath them
#
“We should call the CIA or somebody. Get a Navy SEAL team to take down Smith or something.” Swift was in the passenger seat of Quarrel’s rental, fixing her hair in the mirror.
“Can’t count on anyone else. Until we have some real intel on this Digamma thing we have to assume everyone’s a suspect.”
“So how do you get to Smith?”
“I’m running this operation, remember?”
Quarrel pulled out a cell phone and found Smith’s number. The phone automatically connected to the hands-free system in the car and the ring came through the car stereo. Smith answered on the first ring.
“Smith.”
“This is Chris Quarrel. I’d like a status update.”
“On what subject?”
“Everything. The mole, GX, anything you got.”
“Is this line secure?”
“We’re not talking on the phone. I’m coming to you, just tell me where you are.”
“At my apartment in Langley.”
“I have the address. Stay there until I arrive.”
“Understood.”
Smith disconnected.
Swift put her feet on the dash, reminding Quarrel of just how tiny she was. “He sounds friendly,” she said.
23
Jack Hall walking into the Pentagon was a fairly typical activity. The guards made sure to follow their basic entry procedures, but Hall was one of the few allowed to keep his sidearm as he entered. He nodded politely, yet brusquely, to a few familiar faces passing in the hallway. To the Pentagon Force Protection Agency agents who were monitoring the security camera footage, Jack Hall was his typical self: focused, calm, but impatient and in a hurry. He moved with purpose, never stopping to chit-chat or wavering from his path. The Pentagon has a number of fast-food offerings, but Jack Hall wasn’t interested in Subway or Starbucks. He headed straight for the elevators to the underground levels.
The CIA, DOD, and DHS agents who would later review the tapes saw him calmly swipe his ID in the elevator’s console and direct the lift to Level SB4—the fourth subbasement. He moved calmly and seemed perfectly at home, even as he entered the offices of Maj. Herman Slater, an Army officer who was also tasked with providing protection for nuclear decommission programs. Maj. Slater was the lowest-ranking person with intimate knowledge about which of America’s nukes were to be decommissioned, as well as when and where the dismantling would take place. Using Slater’s computer, and a sophisticated hacking program, Hall was able to access a server which provided this information.
A red flag went up at DOD when Hall opened a document pertaining to the recent decommission of several 1980s nuclear weapons. Part of the decommissioned bombs had been stolen recently, so the DOD was closely monitoring the flow of information. When Hall-as-Slater specifically sought out the location of the fissionable materials, official efforts were made to contact Slater and see why he needed this information.
Slater was three states to the south.
Hall left the Pentagon before the alert went up to stop him.
To the agents of the PFOA, CIA, DOD, and DHS, Jack Hall soon became a high priority target to track down before he could intercept any nuclear materials.
The CIB, whose job was to track down traitors in America’s covert agencies, were told that Hall had stolen information, but the exact nature of what he stole wasn’t revealed to Harry Milton, or anyone else at CIB. They were simply ordered to find Jack Hall and bring him in.
They knew Jack Hall had been America’s best agent in the 1990s. They knew his skill-set and his devotion to getting the job done, so they took precautions when preparing a team to arrest Hall. They could not have known, however, that every agent on the team sent to arrest him would end up dead.
#
While most of CIB turned its attention to hunting down Hall, William Thorpe was in the viewing room of Interrogation Room 3, staring through glass at Fatale. The assassin sat upright, her posture confident, hair draped over her shoulders. Even after a day locked in this room, she looked gorgeous.
Boswell had left shortly after Quarrel and Swift ran off, and Thorpe didn’t care where any of them went. Fatale was the story here, nothing else mattered. Fatale was the link to Mercier, and once he had something concrete on Mercier, something the Ringmaster would accept, Thorpe could finally bring Mercier to justice.
Fatale had resisted questioning at the hotel, and Thorpe’sfirst round of interrogation this morning. But it was late at night now, there had been some noisy commotion with Boswell and Swift, and Fatale looked tired. Thorpe was about to take his third crack at the freelancer. Picking up a bottle of water, he went inside.
He threw the water at her, and since her hands were cuffed in front of her body, she caught it. She drank about a third of the bottle and recapped it.
“Thank you,” she said. “I’ll have breakfast at eight. Pancakes would be nice.”
“You’ll have a bucket to piss in.”
Fatale smiled again. “It’s been a year since anyone tried to question me. I missed it. All that time in Canada was just so mundane, you know?”
“You were there for over six months. How’d you manage to get into such a secret agency?”
“I have very good people skills.”
Thorpe sat down across from her. “And this man Hershey, who you were so worried about? What’s his story?”
She looked away. “He did what most men do, which is whatever I ask.”
“Oh, I think he was more than that,” Thorpe said. “I think that particular honeypot got a little too sticky for you. You’d have saved him if you could. You would have blown your cover for him. And Mercier knew it, which is why he didn’t tell you they were going to bomb the building.”
“Who said anything about Mercier? I just texted an anonymous number. Who knows who it was . . . ” And then, looking confused, she asked, “Wha-why did I say that? What did you—”
“Just a small truth agent in the water.” Thorpe placed his hands open on the table, like he was laying out his cards. “I got sick of your games, so I changed the rules.”
Fatale was a little stoned now, swaying left and right in her chair. “That’s no fair.”
“What do you know about Julia?” he asked, knowing that the microphones were off and he could mention her safely.
“Your wife. You married her. She got shot and you blame Mercier.”
“What else?”
“She didn’t really die. You hid her somewhere, didn’t you?”
At least they didn’t know where Julia lived. Thorpe said a silent prayer of thanks for that.
“Who shot my wife?” he asked.
“You know who.”
“Martin Mercier.”
Fatale winked at him. “Mayyyybe.”
“How did you end up infiltrating CSIS-2?” he asked, still keeping his voice down.
“It was just a job he gave me.”
“Who? Mercier?”
She slumped her head forward, nodding limply.
“He gives you your orders directly?” Thorpe was getting excited now. He could feel his heart racing. “Can you set up a meeting with him? Perhaps you want to explain why you didn’t kill Quarrel?”
She shook her head. “He’d see through that. I don’t ask to meet. He calls me.”
Thorpe wondered aloud, “So, if he were to call your phone sometime soon, you might want to agree to meet with him . . . ”
“So you can trap him?” Fatale shook her head, blinking hard in an attempt to make her eyes focus. “I want immunity. For everything I’ve ever done. When you get Mercier, I walk out the door no questions asked, and my record is wiped out.”
Thorpe nodded. “I can’t guarantee that from the Americans, or the Canadians. But if you get me Mercier I’ll cut you loose on the spot. All I want is to get my hands on the bastard.”
Fatale was silent for a while, eyes closed, until suddenly she turned to face him and smiled.
“Go work it out with Harry. Then we have a deal.”
24
Mr. Smith lived in a tremendously ugly apartment complex in an unincorporated town called Tyson’s Corner, which is a little southwest of Langley; an area where frugal government employees live so they can commute to Washington or Langley or Pentagon City. Where Langley is tree-lined and largely suburban, Tyson’s Corner is paved over and filled with mid-rise buildings like the one where Smith passed his time. The building was one of a half-dozen identical buildings in the complex, each as bland as the next. It was a rectangle made of concrete, rising twelve stories. Each floor was the same as the one below. It had no penthouse, no balconies, no distinctive or memorable architectural features. Much like Smith himself, the building was boring, functional, and someone in the seventies had thought it was a good idea.
Inside, the lobby was just an empty square, where on both the right and left walls there were two elevators and a stairway door. Other hallways ran to first-floor apartments, and somewhere to the left there was a laundry room that could be heard but not seen from the lobby. The floors were an ugly laminate roll-on made to look like blond wood. There was no furniture in the lobby. No flowers. No art on the walls. Just elevator call buttons and the sound of an off-balance load in the dryer.
The front door had been propped open with a cinderblock, so Quarrel didn’t need to buzz Smith. Instead, he and Swift just walked in and he pressed for an elevator.
Inside the elevator, Quarrel started to say, “We should—”
And Swift finished, “—I bet he bugged the elevators.”
So they rode in silence.
Quarrel’s heart beat faster with every floor they passed. From the file he’d read, it seemed like Smith was some sort of perfect killing machine. Hall and Boswell had some impressive resumes, and people still whispered that Boswell had never fired a bullet that didn’t hurt someone, but Smith was something else. Boswell had kids, a husband, and bake sales to attend. Hall had a son somewhere and a heap of psychological evaluations indicating that the trauma of a life spent killing weighed on him. Thorpe had the bottle. Shark was a bitter loner who smoked like a chimney. But Smith had none of those; no telltale weakness, no relationships, no life beyond the job. No sign of any humanity beneath the career assassin. Smith was sent out to kill people, follow people, and extract information. He had no family, no personal history, and no crises of conscience. He just killed whoever needed killing, and then came back to the world’s blandest apartment complex to await further orders. And now Quarrel and Swift were going to . . . to what? Confront him? Arrest him? To discover the secrets that he’d kept buried inside that emotionless head for so long? This wouldn’t end well. And the fact that Swift was hard-wired against hurting anyone, even to defend herself, made her seem pretty useless as backup. It was great to have an ally, to finally have someone who Quarrel felt he could trust, but Swift would fall apart again if this went bad.
