The End Game

46

PAWN TAKES B6

Mike said in a friendly voice to Craig Swanson, “You move one step and I’ll flatten you.”

“I’m not budging,” Swanson said. “Hey, maybe you want to talk about this, maybe—”

Mike turned her back to him, said to Ben, “Whatever Adam’s telling Nicholas, it’s making him glow, so that means we’re getting some needed answers.” She shot a look at Swanson, who was very gently wiping the blood off his teeth, pushing them to see if they were loose. “And now we’ve got the CIA involved. I’ve got to call Mr. Zachery, see if he knows what this is all about.”

Ben looked over at Swanson. “Seems to me you’re safe from the CIA bozo, so I’ll head back to the office and see what’s happening. Work with Gray. The code he and Nicholas wrote to stop the cyber-attack last night was impressive. Gray’s got his team following up on it, patching all the remaining holes and working with the IT guys at the companies hit to get them back up and ru

Once Ben had climbed into the elevator and was off, Mike looked over at Swanson again. He was sitting on the ground next to his Suburban, his arms clasped around his knees. He looked up. “Can I have my cell? I need to call Melody.”

“No. Well, maybe, if you tell me why you were pla

“No. I was going to unload shortly. I came to say hello to Melody.”

“Love life before work, then?”

Swanson shook his head at her. “You Feebs are so uptight. Surely you think those Doc Martens of hers are hot.”

“If I were your boss, Mr. Swanson, I’d pound your head with those Doc Martens.”

“Can I use my cell now?”

“No. Tell me how well you know Vanessa Grace?”

Swanson shrugged. “Like I told you, she’s the boss’s niece. I’ve met her a couple of times, but I don’t know her all that well. It’s not like we have asset undercover mixers. CIA’s not a sorority.”

“According to a witness, she was injured last night. What happened? Why were you sent in to retrieve her?”

“My boss called and asked me to grab her up. I did as he requested.”

“But you didn’t take her to the hospital, and she was badly injured. Why?”

“I follow orders even when I don’t agree. I was a combat medic in a past life. She was hurt bad, a bullet to her chest, broken bones, but Grace wanted her back in D.C. So I patched her up and put her on a CIA medevac chopper home. Did she make it? I don’t know.”

Mike gave him the fish eye. “Of course you’re lying.”

He had the gall to grin. “Nah, not about this. Far as I know, this ain’t classified. Can I have my cell now, to call Melody? No one else, I promise.”

Mike said, “No,” and she turned away and called Zachery.

“Agent Caine, is everything all right? Ben went tearing out of here, his hair on fire. And Louisa told me Nicholas has a bullet hole in his jacket sleeve.”

“We’re fine, sir,” she said, and she briefed him on the situation. “Did you agree that Nicholas and I should leave immediately for Langley to meet with a CIA agent named Carl Grace?”

“Yes. You and Agent Drummond have been asked to make an appearance at Langley to get a full debrief on COE and the Bayway bombing. I assume Dillon Savich has already called you, told you of our new interface with D.C.?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Speaking of Bayway, we’ve got the analysis of the bomb. It’s not exactly what we were expecting.”

“Tell me.”

“Problem was, there wasn’t much to find, which means it was small, Mike, very small.”

“But the load was huge.”

“Yes. We’ve got very small pieces of carbon-fiber casing, but the internal mechanism was blown to smithereens. It seems there was some sort of timer inside we haven’t seen before. Putting together what we found, I’d say the whole bomb was no bigger than a watch battery.”

This wasn’t good. But then again, after actually being in the middle of the havoc that bomb had created, she wasn’t all that surprised. “So we’re talking some sort of advanced technology?”

“Very advanced nanotechnology, and that word gives us all chills after Manfred Havelock and his micro-nukes.

“It’s a very different bomb from the others COE have used—plain old Semtex. So what’s this all about? Where did COE get this marvel? And what are their plans now? That’s what the CIA better tell us.

“Oh, yes,” Zachery continued, “we finally identified a badly burned body in the blast center—it’s your drunk barfly, Larry Reeves.”

“I guess I’m not surprised. The man made a very poor decision.”

“Ben’s been taking apart his financials. We’ll find the thread.”

“Sir, there’s something else. This meeting with the CIA—they’re going to tell us about how they had an undercover agent in the group. Her name is Vanessa Grace, she’s the redheaded woman, and her uncle is her handler. He’s the one who wants to meet with us.”

Silence, then, “Her uncle? When Carl Grace called me, needless to say, he didn’t tell me about his niece. Talk about tough—can you imagine? Well, now, this meeting with Grace at Langley, I imagine the CIA finally understands they can’t keep us in the dark any longer spouting their party line—protect state secrets, jeopardize national security, blah, blah, blah.”

“Sir, I know her, I know Vanessa Grace, or I did. We were at Yale together, in the same undergrad psych program.”

Zachery whistled. “Tell me about her.”

“I remember she was smart, very steady, capable, but it’s been eight years since I saw her last. It looks like she was the female victim from the Brooklyn fire, and also we’ll find her on the videotapes from Bayway. I saw her this morning on one of the feeds before we left for Brooklyn. I didn’t recognize her then, but I knew the woman seemed familiar. Ben was ru

“No idea if she’s still alive?”

“No, sir. But you know what this means—the CIA had an agent operating undercover on American soil. Big no-no.”

“Indeed,” Zachery said, and she could practically hear him mentally sorting through everything.

She said, “Is there anything new on the Hodges crime scene in Bayo

“Nothing good, Mike. Ballistics are back. Our three agents were shot with a nine-millimeter. The bullet fragments were recovered, but the rifling hasn’t matched anything in our databases. All we know is the gun wasn’t used in any other crimes. There aren’t any extraneous latent fingerprints, no DNA to speak of outside our agents’ and Mr. Hodges’s. Whoever did this was clean and thorough, and we have very little to go on. The families, Mike, the notifications, some of the toughest I’ve ever had to do.” He was silent for a moment, then, “You and Drummond get down to Langley, have this meeting, find out how this is all going to work with Savich, and brief me immediately on what’s happening. There’s a chopper waiting for you at the heliport. I’ve sent an agent with your go-bags.”

“Thank you, sir, I appreciate knowing I’ll have my toothbrush, although I don’t think those sharks at the CIA deserve a nice fresh breath.”

“Stay in touch, Mike. And be careful. There are still too many unknowns, too many secrets. You know as well as I do there’s something a lot bigger going down. I’ll do my best to find out what’s happening from my end, too.” He hung up.

Nicholas joined her. “Adam Pearce is a miracle worker.”

“A miracle hacker, you mean. What’d he find for us?”

“Maybe a trail of bread crumbs leading to the money. We need to have a talk with a Wall Street broker named Porter Wallace. Though by the look on your face I assume we have new marching orders yet again.”