The Aegis Solution (5 page)

"I'm honored," Elias uttered sardonically. "I assumed you'd send a driver."

Faulk tried to overlook the barb and reached out for a handshake. "It's good to see you, Elias."

Elias fleetingly considered ignoring the outstretched hand, then thought better of it. The handshake
was brief and perfunctory.

"What is this about, Richard?"

Faulk's irritation with the cold greeting poorly concealed, he snapped, "We'll talk during the drive,"
and turned toward the exit.

They walked without sharing another word. Outside the station, a black Escalade with government
plates was idling by the curb directly in front of a "no parking" sign. A uniformed officer from the
Metropolitan Police stood by, ensuring that it was not towed away. Faulk gave a curt nod to the cop,
then entered with Elias into the warm interior.

Elias, again surprised that there was no driver, waited patiently as Faulk negotiated the traffic in
front of the station. He did not have long to wait.

"We all know how you feel about Aegis."

Faulk paused and waited for a response. Getting none, he continued, "Do you think you can be
objective?"

Instead of answering the question, Elias asked, "Why would I need to be objective?"

Glancing over at Elias for a moment, Faulk tried to read his expression. Failing that, he said, "We
need you to investigate it."

The comment grabbing his attention, Elias blurted impulsively, "Investigate it! How? Peek over the
wall?"

Faulk calmed a bit, knowing that he had piqued Charon's interest. "No, the old-fashioned way. By
going in."

Twisting around in his seat as far as the seat belt would allow, Elias faced his former friend and
remarked, "Now that's a clever way to get rid of me."

A brief, mirthless laugh burst from Faulk. "Elias, we're not trying to get rid of you." The SUV
stopped for a red light.

Richard Faulk took a deep breath, looked at his passenger, and explained, "You would be an
envoy…a representative of the White House. You would be the first person allowed to enter and, after
your job is done, leave Aegis."

This stopped Elias dead in his tracks. It was not the answer he had expected, and the implications
of what Faulk was saying to him tumbled through his mind in a kaleidoscope of thoughts and images.

The traffic light changed to green, and Richard accelerated.

Finally breaking the silence, Elias asked, "What is the job? Specifically."

Keeping his eyes on the traffic, Faulk began to fill him in. "There would be two separate and
distinct assignments. We need to know what is going on inside Aegis. Some of the intel we've received
has the administration concerned."

"I've seen enough of it on the news."

Shaking his head, Faulk continued, "That's only the tip of the iceberg. We'll show you the rest when
we get to my office. But there is one element which never hit the media."

"What is it?"

"Rudy Kreitzmann went in."

A sudden shiver crawled up Elias' back at the sound of the name. "Kreitzmann! How did he ever
get back into the country?"

"We don't know. The FBI tried to figure that out but failed."

"How do you know he went in?"

With a heavy sigh, Faulk said, "This isn't public knowledge, but we've had a camera at the entrance
since the day Aegis opened. Facial-recognition software flagged him as he entered. It has been
validated."

"A camera at the entrance? Kind of a violation of the privacy everyone was promised, isn't it?"

"Yes," Faulk answered casually, "I suppose it is. But we wanted to know if any of the people we
were looking for waltzed into Aegis; then we could, at least, stop looking for them. The names of the
individuals we spot have always been kept classified."

Elias again fell into silence. Faulk left him to his thoughts for the rest of the drive. They parked
in the underground garage and rode the elevator up to the top floor. They continued to not speak to
each other as they approached the corner office.

"E.C.! How are you?"

The greeting came from Marilyn, Faulk's aide. She had been a fixture there for years and had
worked in the same position for Elias at the time he had occupied the office.

"Hi, Marilyn. I'm okay."

She stood and came around her desk to give him a hug and a brief kiss on the cheek. As she did,
she whispered in his ear, "You look like hell."

Elias allowed himself a brief chuckle and replied, "So do you."

She did not, of course.

As they separated, over her shoulder Elias caught a brief glimpse of irritation on Faulk's face.
Although he had become something of a hermit since his abrupt departure, there had been enough
communication between Elias and Marilyn to know how she felt about her new boss, her dislike
amplified, no doubt, by her very detailed inside knowledge of the incident leading up to Elias' abrupt
exit.

"I hate to break up this reunion," Faulk interjected, using words perfectly consistent with a friendly
jab at the two of them, his tone conveying the opposite. "But we've got quite a bit to do, Elias."

Her back still turned to her boss, Marilyn rolled her eyes, a sour smirk curling her lips. Elias had
to struggle to suppress a smile at her as he said, "Let's go."

"Marilyn, we're going to need some coffee, and maybe some muffins."

"Yes, sir." She looked at Elias and asked, "Your usual?"

This time he did allow himself a smile as he answered, "That would be great. Thanks."

The two men entered the large office. Instead of moving toward the desk, Faulk sat at the
medium-sized conference table positioned adjacent to the windows. Taking the seat at the head of the
table not only placed Faulk in the natural power-position, but also gave him access to a keyboard and
control panel. Elias followed and dropped heavily into one of the side chairs.

Mounted on the closest wall to the table, a flat-screen came to life, instantly displaying the agency
logo. With a few keystrokes, Faulk summoned up the video he had described to Elias during the drive.

"There he is," he indicated unnecessarily, the camera clearly capturing one of the most notorious
faces on Earth, as the man emerged from the inside of the last turnstile.

Faulk had already paused the image when Elias suddenly urged, "Keep rolling."

"What is it?" Faulk asked as he resumed the video.

Rather than explaining, Elias questioned him. "Who are those two?"

Leaning forward in his chair, Faulk stared at the two men who had entered Aegis behind
Kreitzmann.

"I don't know. I would guess they are just two more new entrants. Why?"

"Pause it."

Faulk froze the motion on the screen.

"Look at Kreitzmann. Look at the body language. It looks as though he's waiting for them, as
though they're together."

Faulk noticed that Kreitzmann was still in the frame. After entering, he had turned to wait for the
others.

"Do we have any video of them farther in?"

"No. No interior cameras. Only the entry."

"Don't snow me, Richard. This camera was there while I ran this agency, and I didn't know about
it. What else do we have?"

Sighing, Faulk said, "Elias, I didn't know about the camera until Ft. Detrick was ordered by the
White House to bring this to me. If there are any other cameras, they haven't told me about them,
either."

"Play it again."

With a few clicks on the keyboard, Faulk re-cued the video and started it. This time both of them
stared silently. As it finished, Elias inquired, "Did facial-recognition come up with anything on either
of them?"

Faulk shrugged. "It wasn't in my briefing. I'll check. But as far as those two guys, they could have
merely arrived at the same time as Kreitzmann and, you know, struck up a conversation on the outside.
It could be nothing."

"I don't think so."

"Why not? Simply because Kreitzmann turned to wait for them?"

"No. There's something else. Something in the way those two move."

"What do you mean?"

"Not sure. But it doesn't look right."

"I'll double-check with Detrick to find out if they ran any recognition on their faces. But, in the
meantime, there's one more thing I want to show you."

"What's that?"

Rather than immediately starting another video, Faulk explained, "Kreitzmann checked in three
months ago."

"Three months ago! And you're just now asking me to go in? That's a slow response, even for you.
Why did you sit on it so long?"

Without a touch of defensiveness in his voice, Faulk answered, "We didn't."

Understanding instantly, Elias snorted. "Who have you already sent in?"

"Stone. He went in two weeks after Kreitzmann."

"You sent Eric in? What happened?"

Faulk's voice was subdued. "We don't know."

It was obvious that Faulk expected a string of questions. Instead, Elias sat back in his chair and
stared at him, waiting.

Stammering slightly, he continued, "We had two elements in place, communication and extraction.
The first was a method the tech department came up with so that we could communicate with Stone
once he was inside. Every twenty-four hours at a prearranged time, the black-out shield, which prevents
anything electronic from entering or leaving Aegis, would blink off for a moment, allowing him to send
a flash transmission."

"Like the subs."

"Exactly. We didn't want to take down the curtain for a period long enough to allow anyone else
access. Eric was supposed to record his report each day. He carried a device, no bigger than a
smartphone, which would encrypt and compress the report. It was synchronized with the blink-off to
automatically upload whatever was in his queue and download any information we might want him to
have, all in less than a second. No others could use the interruption unless they were perfectly synched,
also."

"What did he report?"

At that point, Faulk hesitated for a moment. "We never got a single report."

Faulk watched as Elias' jaw muscles tightened. He expected an outburst. None came. Slowly, Elias
clamped down his emotions until he was able to say, "I repeat, why the time lag? Especially since you
now had a missing agent."

Speaking quickly, Faulk explained, "We still had our extraction date. That was two weeks ago."

Faulk let his breath out slowly and finished, "Stone was a no-show."

Elias turned away from Faulk and stared at the image on the screen of the two men and Rudy
Kreitzmann. Faulk did not interrupt his thoughts. After a full minute, Elias turned back and said, "I'll
leave today."

Not surprised by his decision, Faulk added, "As I said, there's one more thing I want to show you."

"There's more?"

"Yes."

His fingers again touched the keyboard, and the image on the screen changed. Whatever Faulk
wanted Elias to see was from the same camera inside Aegis, because it seemed as if the three men
suddenly disappeared.

"What is this?"

"Watch."

Elias stared impatiently at the flat-screen – when, suddenly, something black and completely opaque
rose from beneath the camera lens, fully obscuring the view.

"What happened?"

"Not any sort of a malfunction. According to the technicians, someone covered the lense with a
black object."

"Who could do that? Did anyone inside know about the camera?"

"Supposedly not. Micro-lens integrated into the mechanical systems at the entrance. Essentially
impossible to spot."

"When did this happen?"

"Two days ago."

"So it could have been Eric. He knew about the camera, didn't he?"

"Yes. At the time I briefed him, he saw the same video of Kreitzmann that you just saw. But I don't
think it was Stone."

"Why not?"

"Keep watching."

Minutes passed with no change to the picture. Abruptly, whatever was blocking the camera was
removed. Directly lined up with the camera angle, affixed with duct tape to the inside of the turnstile,
was a large cardboard square.

Someone with a heavy felt-tip marker had created a sign. Scrawled on the cardboard in large, jagged
lettering were two words:

    
HELP US!

CHAPTER TWO

Elias sipped his vodka tonic and watched the lush countryside slide gracefully past the window of
the Crescent, a wry grin on his face as he recalled the tail end of the conversation between himself and
Faulk. After Faulk showed him the cardboard sign, the briefing continued for another hour, as they
discussed the details of what was expected of him and the logistics of the operation. He had, of course,
accepted the assignment, and Faulk obtained the approvals, if any were actually necessary, within
minutes. Predictably, Faulk asked Elias which agent he wanted as a partner. The conversation descended
quickly into an argument when Elias told him he was going in alone. Elias had prevailed.