Covert One 2 - The Cassandra Compact

Covert One 2 - The Cassandra Compact

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The caretaker stirred when he heard the crunch of tires on gravel. There was barely any light left in the sky, and he had just made coffee and was reluctant to get up. But his curiosity got the better of him. Visitors to Alexandria seldom ventured into the cemetery at Ivy Hill; the historic town on the Potomac had a brace of other, more colorful attractions and amusements to offer the living. As for the locals, not many came out on a weekday; fewer still on a late afternoon when the April rains lashed the sky.

Peering through his gatehouse window, the caretaker saw a man get out of an ordinary-looking sedan. Government? He guessed that his visitor was in his early forties, tall and very fit. Dressed for the weather, he had on a waterproof jacket, dark pants, and workman's boots.

The caretaker watched the way the man stepped away from the car and looked around, taking in his surroundings. Not government--- military. He opened the door and came out under the overhang, observing how his visitor stood there, gazing through the gates of the cemetery, oblivious to the rain matting his dark hair.

Maybe this is his first trip back here, the caretaker thought. They were all hesitant their first time, loath to enter a place associated with pain, grief, and loss. He looked at the man's left hand and saw no ring. A widower? He tried to remember if a young woman had been interred recently.

“Hello.”

The voice startled the caretaker. It was gentle for such a big man, and soft, as if he'd thrown the salutation like a ventriloquist.

“Howdy. If you're fixin' to visit, I got an umbrella I can let you have.”

“I'd appreciate that, thank you,” the man said, but he didn't move.

The caretaker reached around the corner into a stand made from an old watering can. He gripped the handle of the umbrella and stepped toward the man, taking in his visitor's high-planed face and startling navy blue eyes.

“Name's Barnes. I'm the caretaker. If you tell me who you're visiting, I can save you wandering around in this mess.”

“Sophia Russell.”

“Russell, you say? Doesn't ring a bell. Let me look it up. Won't take but a minute.”

“Don't bother. I can find my way.”

“I still gotta have you sign the visitors' book.”

The man unfurled the umbrella. “Jon Smith. Dr. Jon Smith. I know where to find her. Thank you.”

The caretaker thought he detected a break in the man's voice. He raised his arm, about to call after him, but the man was already walking away, his strides long and smooth, like a soldier's, until he disappeared into the gray sheets of rain.

The caretaker stared after him. Something cold and sharp danced along his spine, made him shudder. Stepping back into the gatehouse, he closed the door and bolted it firmly.

From his desk, he removed the visitors' ledger, opened it to today's date, and carefully entered both the man's name and the time he had arrived. Then, on impulse, he turned to the back of the ledger, where the interred were listed in alphabetical order.

Russell. . . Sophia Russell. Here she is: row 17, plot 12. Put into the ground . . . exactly one year ago!

Among the three mourners who'd signed the register was Jon Smith, M.D.

So why didn't you bring flowers?

__________

Smith was grateful for the rain as he walked along the road that wended its way through Ivy Hill. It was like a shroud, strung across memories that still had the power to cut and burn, memories that had been his omnipresent companions this past year, whispering to him in the night, mocking his tears, forcing him to relive that terrible moment over and over again.

He sees the cold white room in the hospital at the United States Army Medical Research Institute for Infectious Diseases in Frederick, Maryland. He is watching Sophia, his love, his wife-to-be, writhing under the oxygen tent, gasping for breath. He stands, only inches away, yet powerless to held her. His screams at the medical staff echo off the walls and return to mock him. They don't know what's wrong with her. They, too, are powerless.

Suddenly she cries out--- a sound Smith still hears in his nightmares, and prays never to hear again. Her spine, bent like a bow, arches to an impossible angle; sweat fours off her as if to rid her body of the toxin. Her face is bright with fever. For an instant she is frozen like that. Then she collapses. Blood pours out of her nose and throat. From deep within comes the death rattle, followed by a gentle sigh, as her soul, free at last, escapes its tortured confines....

Smith shivered and looked around quickly. He didn't realize that he had stopped walking. The rain continued to drum on the umbrella, but it seemed to fall in slow motion. He thought he could hear every drop as it spattered off the nylon.

He wasn't sure how long he stood there, like an abandoned, forgotten statue, or what finally made him take a step. He didn't know how he came to be on the path that led to her grave or how he found himself standing in front of it.

SOPHIA RUSSELL

NOW IN THE SHELTER OF THE LORD

Smith leaned forward and ran his fingertips across the smooth top of the pink-and-white granite headstone.

“I should have come more often, I know,” he whispered. "But I couldn't bring myself to do it. I thought that if I came here, I would have to admit that I've lost you forever. I couldn't do that... until now.

" 'The Hades Project.' That's what they called it, Sophia, the terror that took you away from me. You never saw the faces of the men who were involved; God spared you that. But I want you to know that they have paid for their crimes.

“I had my taste of revenge, my darling, and I believed that it would bring me peace. But it did not. For months I have been asking myself how I might earn that serenity; in the end, the answer was always the same.”

From his jacket pocket, Smith took out a small jeweler's box. Opening the lid, he stared at a six-carat, marquis-cut diamond in a platinum setting that he had picked out at Van Cleef & Arpel in London. It was the wedding ring he had intended to slip on the finger of the woman who would have become his wife.

Smith crouched and pushed the ring into the soft earth at the base of the headstone.

“I love you, Sophia. I will always love you. Your heart is still the light of my life. But it is time for me to move on. I don't know where I'll go or how I'll get there. But I must go.”

Smith brought his fingertips to his lips, then touched the cold stone.

“May God bless you and look after you always.”

He picked up the umbrella and took a step back, staring at the headstone as though imprinting its image in his mind for all time. Then he heard the soft footfall behind him and turned around fast.

The woman holding the black umbrella was in her mid-thirties, tall, with brilliant red hair pulled back in a ponytail. A spray of freckles dotted her nose and high cheekbones. Her eyes, green like reef waters, widened when she saw Smith.

“Jon? Jon Smith?”

“Megan...?”

Megan Olson walked up quickly, took Smith's arm and squeezed it.

“Is it really you? My God, it's been...”

“A long time.”

Megan looked past him at Sophia's grave. “I'm so sorry, Jon. I didn't know that anyone would be here. I didn't mean to intrude.”

“It's all right. I did what I came to do.”

“I guess we're both here for the same reason,” she said softly.

She drew him under the shelter of a massive oak and looked at him keenly. The lines and creases on his face were deeper than she remembered, and there was a host of new ones. She could only imagine the kind of year Jon Smith had endured.

“I'm sorry for your loss, Jon,” she said. “I wish I could have told you that sooner.” She hesitated. “I wish I had been here when you needed someone.”

“I tried calling but you were away,” he replied. “The job...”

Megan nodded ruefully. “I was away,” she said vaguely.

Sophia Russell and Megan Olson had both grown up in Santa Barbara, had gone to school there, then on to UCLA. After college, their paths had diverged. Sophia had gone to complete her Ph.D. in cell and molecular biology and had joined USAMRIID. After receiving her master's in biochemistry, Megan had accepted a position at the National Institutes of Health. But after only a three-year tenure she had switched to the medical research division of the World Health Organization. Sophia had received postcards from all over the world and had pasted them in a scrapbook as a way to keep track of her globe-trotting friend. Now, without warning, Megan was back.

“NASA,” Megan said, answering Smith's unspoken question. “I got tired of the Gypsy life, applied to the space-shuttle candidate school, and was accepted. Now I'm first alternate on the next space mission.”

Smith couldn't hide his amazement. “Sophia always said she never knew what to expect from you. Congratulations.”

Megan smiled wanly. “Thanks. I guess none of us knows what we can expect. Are you still with the army, at USAMRIID?”

“I'm at loose ends,” Smith replied. It wasn't the whole truth but close enough. He changed the subject. “Are you going to be in Washington for a while? Might give us a chance to catch up.”

Megan shook her head. “I'd love to. But I have to go back to ouston tonight. But I don't want to lose touch with you, Jon. Are you still living out in Thurmont?”

“No, I sold the place. Too many memories.”

On the back of a card he jotted down his address in Bethesda, along with a phone number that he was actually listed under.

Handing her the card, he said, “Don't be a stranger.”

“I won't,” Megan replied. “Look after yourself, Jon.”

“You too. It was good to see you, Megan. Good luck on the mission.”

She watched him walk out of the overhang and disappear into the drizzle.

“I'm at loose ends....”

Megan had never thought of Smith as a man without purpose or direction. She was still wondering about his cryptic comment as she walked over to Sophia's grave, the rain drumming on her umbrella.

___________________

CHAPTER

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The Pentagon employs over twenty-three thousand workers--- military and civilian--- housing them in a unique structure that covers almost four million square feet. Anyone looking for security, anonymity, and access to both the world's most sophisticated communications plus the power centers of Washington could not ask for a more perfect venue.

The Leased Facilities Division occupies a tiny portion of the offices in the Pentagon's E block. As its name implies, Leased Facilities oversees the procurement, management, and security of buildings and land for the military, everything from storage warehouses in St. Louis to vast tracts of Nevada desert for an air force testing ground. Given the decidedly unglamorous nature of its work, the men and women in the division are more civilian than military in character. They arrive at the offices at nine o'clock in the morning, put in a dutiful day's work, and leave at five. World events that might keep their colleagues at their desks for days on end have no impact on them. Most of them like it that way.

Nathaniel Fredrick Klein liked it too--- but for altogether different reasons. Klein's office was at the very end of a hall, tucked between doors that were marked ELECTRICAL ROOM and MAINTENANCE. Except there were no such service rooms behind those doors and their locks could not be opened even with the most sophisticated key card. That space was part of Klein's secret suite.

There was no nameplate on Klein's door, only an internal Pentagon designation: 2E377. If asked, the few coworkers who'd actually seen him would describe a man in his early sixties, medium height, unprepossessing except for his rather long nose and wireframed glasses. They might recall his conservative and somewhat rumpled suits, perhaps the way he would smile briefly when passed in the hall. They might have heard that Klein was sometimes called before the joint chiefs or a congressional committee. But that would be in keeping with his seniority. They might also know that he was vested with the responsibility of checking the properties the Pentagon leased or had an interest in throughout the world. That would account for the fact that one seldom saw him at all. In fact it was sometimes difficult to say who or what Nathaniel Klein really was.

At eight o'clock in the evening, Klein was still behind his desk in the modest office that was identical to all the others in the wing. He had added a few personal touches: framed prints depicting the world as imagined by sixteenth-century cartographers; an old-fashioned pedestal-mounted globe; and a large, framed photograph of the earth taken from the space shuttle.

Although very few people were aware of it, Klein's affinity for things global was a direct reflection of his real mandate: to serve as the eyes and ears of the president. From this nondescript office Klein ran a loosely knit organization known as Covert-One. Conceived by the president after the horror known as the Hades Project, Covert-One was designed to be the chief executive's early warning system and secret response option.

Because Covert-One worked outside the usual military-intelligence bureaucracy and well away from the scrutiny of Congress, it had no formal organization or headquarters. Instead of accredited operatives, Klein recruited men and women whom he called “mobile ciphers”--- individuals who were acknowledged experts in their fields yet who, through circumstances or dispositions, found themselves outside the mainstream of society. Most--- but certainly not all--- had some military background, were holders of numerous citations and awards, but had chafed under structured command, and so had elected to leave their respective services. Others came from the civilian world: former investigators--- state and federal; linguists who were fluent in a dozen languages; doctors who had traveled the world and were accustomed to the harshest conditions. The very best, like Colonel Jon Smith, bridged the two worlds.

They also possessed one factor that disqualified so many Klein looked at: their lives were strictly their own. They had little or no family, few encumbrances, and a professional reputation that would stand up to the closest scrutiny. These were invaluable assets for an individual sent in harm's way thousands of miles from home.

Klein closed the folder on the report he had been reading, removed his glasses, and rubbed his weary eyes. He was looking forward to going home, being greeted by his cocker spaniel, Buck, and enjoying a finger of single-malt scotch followed by whatever dinner his housekeeper had left in the oven. He was about to get up when the connecting door to the next room opened.

“Nathaniel?”

The speaker was a trim woman a few years younger than Klein, with bright robin's eyes and graying blond hair done in a French twist. She wore a conservative blue business suit accented by a string of pearls and a filigree gold bracelet.

“I thought you'd gone home, Maggie.”

Maggie Templeton, who'd been Klein's assistant for the ten years he had worked at the National Security Agency, arched her neatly sculptured brows.

“When was the last time I left before you did? Good thing I didn't, too. You'd better have a look at this.”

Klein followed Maggie into the next room, which was really one large computer station. Three monitors were lined up side by side, along with a host of servers and storage units, all driven by the government's most advanced software. Klein stood back and admired the dexterity and proficiency with which Maggie worked her keyboard. It was like watching a virtuoso performance by a concert pianist.

Besides the president, Maggie Templeton was the only person familiar with the entire workings of Covert-One. Knowing he would need a skilled and trusted right hand, Klein had insisted on Maggie's being involved from the get-go. Besides having worked for him at the NSA, she had better than twenty years experience as a senior CIA administrator. But most important to Klein, she was family. Maggie's sister, Judith, had been Klein's wife, taken by cancer years ago. Maggie too had had her share of tragedy: her husband, a CIA covert operative, had never returned from a mission abroad. As fate would have it, Maggie and Klein were the only family each had.

Finished on the keyboard, Maggie tapped on the screen with an elegantly manicured fingernail.

VECTOR SIX.

The two words pulsed in the center of the screen like a blinking traffic light at an empty intersection in a country town. Klein felt the hairs on his forearms push against his shirtsleeves. He knew exactly who Vector Six was; he could see his face as clearly as if the man were standing next to him. Vector Six: the code name, if it ever appeared, was to be construed by Mein as a panic signal.

“Shall I pull up the message?” Maggie asked quietly.

“Please....”

She touched a series of keys and the encrypted message of letters, symbols, and numbers shot up on the screen. She then repeated the process with different keys to activate the decryption software. Seconds later, the message appeared in clear text:

Dîner--- prix fixe--- 8 euro

Spécialité: Fruits de mer

Spécialité du bar: Bellini

Fermé entre 14-16 heures

Even if a third party somehow managed to decode the message, this menu of a nameless French restaurant was both innocuous and misleading. Klein had set up the simple code the last time he had met Vector Six face to face. Its meaning had nothing to do with Gallic cuisine. It was the call of last resort, a plea for immediate extraction.

Klein didn't hesitate. “Please reply as follows: Reservations pour deux.”

Maggie's fingers flew over the keys, tapping out the secure response. The single sentence bounced off two military satellites before being sent back to earth. Klein didn't know where Vector Six was at that moment, but as long as he had access to the laptop Klein had given him, he could download and decrypt the reply.

Come on! Talk to me!

Klein checked the time stamp on the message: The message was less than two minutes old.

A reply flashed across the screen: Reservations confirmées.

Klein exhaled as the screen faded to black. Vector Six would not stay on-line any longer than was absolutely necessary. Contact had been established, an itinerary proposed, accepted, and verified. Vector Six would not use this channel of communications again.

As Maggie shut down the link, Klein sat down in the only other chair in the room, wondering what extraordinary circumstances had prompted Vector Six to contact him.

Unlike the CIA and other intelligence agencies, Covert-One did not run a string of foreign agents. Nonetheless, Klein had a handful of contacts abroad. Some had been cultivated during his days at the NSA; others were the results of chance meetings that had blossomed into a relationship based on both trust and mutual self-interest.

They were a diverse group: a doctor in Egypt whose patients included most of the country's ruling elite; a computer entrepreneur in New Delhi who provided his skills and equipment to his government; a banker in Malaysia adept at moving, hiding, or ferreting out offshore funds anywhere in the world. None of these people knew each other. They had nothing in common beyond their friendship with Klein and the computer notebook he had given each one of them. They accepted Klein as a midlevel bureaucrat but knew that secretly he was much more than that. And they agreed to serve as his eyes and ears not only out of friendship and belief in what he represented, but because they trusted him to help them if, for any reason, their respective homelands suddenly became a dangerous place for them.

Vector Six was one of the handful.

“Nate?”

Klein, glanced at Maggie.

“Who gets the call?” she asked.

Good question....

Klein always used his Pentagon ID when traveling abroad. If he was going to meet a contact, he made sure it would be in a public place, at a secure location. Official functions at a U.S. embassy were the best choices. But Vector Six was nowhere near an embassy. He was on the run.

“Smith,” Klein said at last. “Get him on the line, please, Maggie.”

__________

Smith was dreaming of Sophia when the insistent beep of the telephone intruded. He was watching the two of them sitting on a riverbank, in the shadows of immense triangular structures. In the distance was a great city. The air was hot, filled with the attar of roses and of Sophia. Cairo... They were at the pyramids of Giza, outside Cairo.

The secure line...

Smith sat up fast on the couch where he had fallen asleep, fully dressed, after coming home from the cemetery. Beyond the windows streaked with rain, the wind moaned as it drove heavy clouds across the sky. A former combat internist and battlefield surgeon, Smith had developed the gift of waking up fully alert. That ability had served him well during his time at USAMRIID, where sleep was often snatched between long, grueling hours of work. It served him well now.

Smith checked the time at the bottom right-hand corner of the monitor: almost nine o'clock. He had been asleep for two hours. Emotionally spent, his mind still filled with images of Sophia, he had driven himself home, heated up some soup, then stretched out on the couch and listened to the rain churn overhead. He had not intended to fall asleep, but was grateful that he done so. Only one man could call him on that particular line. Whatever message he had could signal the beginning of a day of infinite hours.

“Good evening, Mr. Klein.”

“Good evening to you too, Jon. I hope I'm not disturbing your dinner.”

“No, sir. I ate earlier on.”

“In that case, how soon can you get out to Andrews Air Force base?”

Smith took a deep breath. Klein usually had a calm, businesslike demeanor. Smith had seldom found him curt or abrupt.

Which means there's trouble--- and it's closing fast.

“About forty-five minutes, sir.”

“Good. And Jon? Pack for a few days.”

Smith stared at the dead phone in his hand. “Yes, sir.”

Smith's drill was so ingrained that he was hardly aware of going through the motions. Three minutes for a shower and shave; two minutes to dress; two more to double-check and add a few things to the ready bag in the walk-in closet. On his way out, he set the security system for the house; once he had the sedan out in the driveway, he armed the garage using the remote.

The rain made the ride to Andrews Air Force base longer than usual. Smith avoided the main entry and turned in at the supply gate. A poncho-covered guard examined his laminated ID, checked his name against those on the list of approved personnel, and waved him through.

Smith had flown out of Andrews often enough to know his way around. He had no trouble finding the hangar housing the fleet of executive jets that, most times, ferried around the brass. He parked in a designated area well away from the aircraft taxi lanes, grabbed his ready bag from the trunk, and splashed his way into the immense hangar.

“Good evening, Jon,” Klein said. “Crappy night. It'll probably get worse.”

Smith set down his bag. “Yes, sir. But only for the navy.”

The age-old joke didn't get a grin out of Klein this time.

“I'm sorry to have dragged you out on a night like this. Something's come up. Walk with me.”

Smith looked around as he followed Klein to the coffee station. There were four Gulfstream jets in the hangar, but no maintenance personnel. Smith guessed that Klein had ordered them out to ensure privacy.