Smokescreen, page 17
“Yeah, in the west lot.” Vanessa nodded. “I’ll give you a ride over there. I’m parked over here.”
Quinn turned to look at Taylor. “I’m trying to decide which is scarier, trying to find our way back to our car by ourselves or driving with Vanessa.”
“If you want your weapons back, you’re stuck with me,” Vanessa told him, not the least bit offended. “Besides, the cops on the compound here are stricter than any others I’ve ever seen. The last thing I need is another speeding ticket.”
“Another?”
“I got one here my second week working.” Vanessa nodded. “You would have thought that someone would have warned me.”
Quinn chuckled as he opened the door for Taylor and then climbed into the backseat. A minute later, they were pulling out of the parking lot next to the front of the CIA headquarters building, and Vanessa turned to the right, taking them the opposite way from where they had come.
“We’ll take you on the scenic route,” Vanessa told them before they could ask why she had turned in the opposite direction.
Taylor looked at the side of the headquarters building, at the grassy area and the mature trees that created a peaceful setting in what was certainly a very stressful place. She wished she could stand right there on the edge of the grass and just stare for a few hours, ideally with her paints and a canvas to keep her company.
Taylor motioned to the picturesque setting. “Is there any way I could get a picture of that building?”
“I could probably get you one. Why?”
“I just think it would make a really cool painting, with all of the leaves turning in the background,” Taylor told her. “And I doubt the CIA is going to let me set up an easel here in the middle of their compound.”
“Not likely,” Vanessa agreed with a smile. “But I know one of the agency photographers. I’ll ask him if he’ll snap a photo for you and get it cleared.”
“That would be great.”
“We’re in that section over there,” Quinn interrupted, pointing to where he had parked.
“I never realized how big this place is,” Taylor commented as Vanessa turned where Quinn indicated and drove slowly until they reached their car. “It’s a lot more intimidating in person.”
“Especially when your first time here is with Quinn while he’s armed.”
“So are you going to give me my weapons back now?”
“I’ll follow you out. I can’t give them to you until then.”
“Vanessa, it’s not like I’m going to shoot anyone.”
“I know, but this isn’t the kind of place where we want to bend any rules,” Vanessa insisted. “Where are you going next?”
“Actually, I promised to take Taylor to Red Hot & Blue for lunch. Do you want to join us?”
She smiled. “I could take a lunch break.”
“In that case, we’ll meet you over there,” Quinn said. “Unless you want to drive with us.”
“I’ll meet you there,” Vanessa told him. “It’s easier than dealing with the security trying to get back in.”
Quinn let out a short laugh. “Isn’t that the truth.”
* * *
“Would you mind if we stopped by an art store on our way back?” Taylor asked as they walked toward their car in Rosslyn. “The place I was telling you about should have the size of canvases I like.”
“I thought one canvas was pretty much the same as another,” Quinn said.
Taylor shook her head. “There are a couple of sizes that aren’t easy to find, and I’m getting anxious to start painting again.”
“Just point me in the right direction.” Quinn unlocked the car and opened her door.
Taylor shifted in her seat to try to get her bearings. As soon as Quinn started the car, she said, “Turn left on Wilson Boulevard.”
“Okay.” Quinn weaved his way through the traffic and followed her directions until he came to a specialty art supply store.
“It shouldn’t take me long to get what I need.”
Quinn climbed out of the car and looked at her over the top as she got out on the other side. “I’ll believe that when I see it.”
Taylor blinked at him in mock surprise. “Don’t you trust me?”
He reached for the door, his eyebrows raised. “In an art store? Not a chance.”
“I always knew you were smart.” Taylor grinned at him. She walked into the store, her eyes brightening the moment she saw the racks of paints and stacks of canvases.
“Can I help you?” the tall, thin man behind the counter asked.
Taylor turned to look at him, the grin still on her face. “Absolutely.”
The store clerk immediately returned her smile. “Do you need help picking out supplies, or do you know your way around?”
Taylor shot an amused look at Quinn before looking back at the clerk. “I want to do a little browsing, but I have a list that you can help me with.” She dug a piece of paper out of her bag and handed it to him.
“Let’s see what we have here.” He read down the handwritten list, nodding to himself until he reached the bottom. “I should be able to help you with most of this, but I’m not sure if we have all of the canvases that you want.” He tapped a finger on the list. “These were discontinued quite a while ago.”
Taylor leaned closer and then shook her head in frustration. “If I had realized how hard those would be to get, I would have stocked up while I was in Paris.”
“I’m surprised you found a place that carries them,” the clerk told her. “A lot of people who want the custom sizes are starting to make their own.”
“I’d rather spend my time painting than pulling splinters out of my fingers trying to make my own canvases,” Taylor said.
“I might have one or two canvases back in the storage room that are similar in size,” the clerk told her. “Let me go check for you and see. I assume you want professional quality.”
“Yeah, thanks.” Taylor gravitated toward a display of paints, considering what colors she might want to pick up while she was here. Within a minute, she had three in her hand and was contemplating buying a new palette.
“Do you already know what you want to paint next?” Quinn asked her.
“I have a few ideas,” Taylor nodded. “What I really want to do is camp out on Virginia Beach for a few weeks and do some work there, but I’ve been too paranoid to sit outside for that long, especially using an easel.”
“If Vanessa comes through with that photo of CIA headquarters you’ll have a project you can work on.”
“Yeah.” Taylor continued to select supplies.
“I still can’t believe how many paintings you did last year.”
“It’s not that surprising when you consider that I was in an art program that forced me to come up with at least one a week. Besides, I usually work on more than one at a time.”
“Really?”
She nodded. “I can only paint for so long without the changing light messing me up, so I typically have one I work on in the morning and a different one for the afternoons.”
Quinn’s eyebrows lifted as she moved from the paints to look at charcoal. “Why do I get the feeling that you could spend all day in here and never get bored?”
Taylor glanced over her shoulder and grinned. “Because you’re very perceptive.”
When the clerk reemerged from the back room holding two canvases, Taylor carried her selections to the counter. After she finished paying, Quinn picked up the canvases and led the way out to the car.
“Were you afraid you would never get me out of there?” Taylor asked.
“I was starting to wonder.” Quinn unlocked the car and put the canvases in the backseat. “Are you ready to go back now?”
Taylor nodded just as Quinn’s phone rang.
Quinn pulled his phone from his pocket, glancing at the caller ID long enough to see that the number wasn’t identified. He pressed the talk button. “Lambert.”
“Quinn, we’ve got a problem.” Vanessa’s voice came over the line, tension vibrating through it.
“What?”
“I can’t say over the phone. I need you to get back in here,” Vanessa told him. “I’ll meet you at the front gate.”
Quinn looked at Taylor, saw the concerned look on her face, and then immediately took another look around them to make sure they were really alone. “We’ll be right there.”
27
Taylor looked at the photos in front of her, trying to remember if she had ever seen these men before. Her heart was still racing and had been ever since Quinn had answered his phone. At first she had thought he was being called out on assignment, but when he said they were going back to CIA headquarters, her concerns had expanded beyond just worrying about Quinn’s safety and the fear of being left alone.
Vanessa had met them at the front gate, and they had been rushed through the security checkpoints. This time, however, Vanessa had led Taylor to a conference room where two women were waiting for her with a stack of photos. After dropping her off, Vanessa had taken Quinn with her to meet with someone else.
“This one looks familiar.” Taylor pointed to a photo of a bald man who appeared to be in his fifties. She leaned closer and nodded as she tapped a finger on an arc-shaped scar that was visible on the man’s chin. “I remember wondering how he got that scar.”
“Can you remember where you saw him?”
Taylor closed her eyes, trying to bring him into focus in the right setting. Her mind flipped through several scenarios, and then finally she opened her eyes and nodded slowly. “I’m pretty sure it was in Paris.” She picked up the photo and studied it more closely. “Yeah, I remember now. I saw him when I was painting a sidewalk café.”
“When?”
“It would have been about a month ago. That was one of the last places I went before coming back home,” Taylor told her. “Graham has all of the dates of where I was and when.”
The woman picked up a paper from the file in front of her. “Here it is. You were in Paris from August 20 to September 6.” She looked up at Taylor with intensity. “Can you remember how close to the end of your trip it was?”
Taylor thought a moment longer. “Yeah. It was the painting I finished the day my hotel room was broken into. It’s the last one I did before I left.”
The woman looked at Taylor and then turned to look at the other woman in the room. A silent message passed between them, but Taylor didn’t understand the meaning. All she knew was that the tension had increased tenfold.
“Do you remember if he was with anyone?”
Taylor let out a frustrated sigh. “I saw thousands of people in cafés and walking along the street while I was in Europe.”
“But you remember him.” The older woman pointed to the photo she had identified. “Why?”
“I don’t know.” Taylor thought back, trying to figure out why he had stood out in her mind. She closed her eyes, replaying that day. “It had been raining. I remember I had to set up farther away from the street than I normally would because I was worried the cars would splash water up on my canvas.”
“And the man in the picture. When did you first notice him?”
“That morning when I first set up.” Taylor looked over at her, the image beginning to clear in her head. “That’s right. I remember seeing him first thing in the morning, maybe five minutes after I set up my easel. He had sat down at one of the tables outside, but almost everyone else was eating inside. Then I think he left, but I saw him again around lunchtime. He walked over and asked to look at what I was painting. I had the canvas so far back that no one could walk behind me.”
“Was that it?” she asked. “Was he alone?”
“He was alone when I first saw him that morning and when he talked to me,” Taylor nodded. “A little while later he met someone for lunch.”
“Man or woman?”
“Man, forty-ish, probably Italian. He was wearing Armani, expensive shoes and watch . . .” Taylor trailed off. “And the painting I was working on was one that was stolen from New Jersey.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m positive,” Taylor nodded. “Quinn and I just finished identifying the missing paintings yesterday.”
“Thank you for your help,” the woman said now, her tension increasing yet again.
Taylor pointed at the photo. “Who is he? And what does all of this have to do with me?”
The woman ignored Taylor’s question. Instead, she said, “Please stay here with Ellen. Your friends should be done in a few minutes.”
“Okay,” Taylor said, sinking back down into the padded conference chair. As the woman left the room, Taylor could only wonder what in the world she could have said to cause so much tension.
* * *
“We found our asset this morning,” Graham said the minute Quinn walked through the door with Vanessa.
“Where?”
“His body was found in an abandoned farmhouse an hour outside of Paris.”
“He’s dead?” Quinn’s jaw clenched.
“I’m afraid so.” He dragged a hand over his face, but Quinn couldn’t tell if it was in frustration or if he was attempting to hide his reaction to the news.
“What happened?”
“He was shot execution style. Single bullet to the head.” Graham took a deep breath as though settling his emotions. “I’m sure in your line of work you realize that this raises the stakes for your friend. If whoever killed our asset is the same person following Taylor Palmetta around, we’re dealing with a lot more than just some petty crimes.”
Quinn’s stomach twisted uncomfortably. “What was the last intel you got from your asset?”
“That’s need to know.”
“And I need to know.” Quinn’s voice was low but firm. “Taylor and I have given you everything we know, but it’s me and my family who are the ones sitting around wondering when someone’s going to come at Taylor next.”
“Graham, you need to read him in,” Vanessa said, compassion in her voice. “And we need him and the rest of his squad involved. They may be our best shot at finding out who did this.”
Graham was silent for several seconds, and then he took another shaky breath. “We may already know who did this.”
Quinn straightened. “Who?”
“Vernon Riesenour, a computer scientist living in Marseille. His wife was Iraqi. She and their two sons were killed in a skirmish when one of our patrols was ambushed,” Graham told him.
“And you think he’s looking for payback against the US?”
Graham nodded. “The last time we heard from our asset, he was concerned about the possibility of an attack on the financial systems in the United States.”
“How?”
“Did you hear about the incident in London last month?” Graham asked.
Quinn shook his head.
“Three banks, all located on the same street, had mysterious computer crashes,” he told him. “All three had their ATMs crash completely. When they went to look at the machines, the surveillance cameras were blank, all of the money was gone, and the banks’ computer systems were compromised.”
“The surveillance cameras were blank?”
“These two photos are all we have to go on. This one is from a secondary surveillance camera at one of the banks.” Graham pulled out a photo and passed it to Quinn. “We believed this system had to be plugged into one of the banking computers, but from what we know now, whoever uses it could access it anywhere, even through an ATM machine.”
“Which means we have no defense against it unless we keep the device from making it into the country.” Quinn shook his head. “What about the other photo?”
“It was uncovered yesterday in Paris. Apparently our asset had hidden it in an encrypted file on his computer. He must have been killed before he got the chance to send it.”
“But what makes you think this thing is going to be used in the US instead of Europe? Why go to all of the trouble to smuggle it into the US?”
“We now think the robberies in London were just a test run,” Graham told him. “There’s been chatter about extremists in Abolstan planning an attack on the US. We think this may be it.”
“You think Riesenour has teamed up with Abolstani extremists?” Vanessa’s eyebrows lifted. “If they hit one of the major banking centers, they would not only manage to walk away with several hundred thousand dollars in a relatively short period of time, but by crippling the financial systems, we could end up with anything from confusion to absolute chaos. Just imagine what would happen if millions of people suddenly couldn’t access their money or use a debit or credit card.”
“This would make the LA riots look like a peace treaty.” Graham nodded. “Not only that, but in the encrypted file we uncovered today, our asset noted the possibility of a doomsday sequence in the gate crasher’s programming.”
“What kind of doomsday sequence?”
“Basically, whoever is using it could plug into various financial and military computers, but nothing would happen until a designated time. When that time arrives, the systems would crash simultaneously.”
“That would be devastating,” Vanessa managed.
“Do we know how it’s being smuggled into the US?” Quinn asked, focusing on the practical.
“That’s what we’re still trying to find out,” Graham said. “We also haven’t managed to uncover any kind of money trail.”
“If he’s out for revenge, you aren’t going to find one,” Vanessa said.
“He doesn’t have the resources to pull this off by himself.” Graham shook his head. “We’re sure that someone provided him with the money and resources he needed to develop this technology on his own. But as we already told you, if he succeeds, he could seriously cripple the entire financial industry in this country and send us backward a hundred years. We could literally be thrust back into a bartering system overnight. And the ramifications of a breach in our military systems would be disastrous.”
“Why haven’t you taken this guy out?” Quinn asked impatiently.
